{"id":138977,"date":"2025-08-12T06:30:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T06:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/138977\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T06:30:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T06:30:15","slug":"phoenix-historic-neighborhood-fights-new-housing-law-to-preserve-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/138977\/","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix historic neighborhood fights new housing law to preserve the past"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX (AZFamily)<\/b> \u2014 It\u2019s a fight to protect the Willo Historic District\u2019s <\/a>historic fabric.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of people from the neighborhood attended a Monday night community meeting hosted by the city of Phoenix at the Burton Barr Central Library<\/a>. They packed up the meeting room and even spilled out into the hallway.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re mostly concerned about losing that historic character, the things that make the community unique,\u201d said Michelle Kopp, a Willo resident.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get these rare gems that are nowhere else in Phoenix, let alone Arizona, because they\u2019re all gone,\u201d said another neighbor, Courtney Sutherland.<\/p>\n

Gov. Katie Hobbs signed a bill in 2024<\/a> called the Middle Housing Bill that requires cities and towns to allow \u201cmiddle housing\u201d such as duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes and townhomes to move into neighborhoods for single-family homes. The goal is to help address the housing shortage.<\/p>\n

The law would go into effect in January.<\/p>\n

In Phoenix, neighborhoods within a 1-mile radius of downtown are fair game. Only one area on the map is exempt due to heavy flight patterns.<\/p>\n

Willo residents thought their historic 100-year-old homes would get them an exemption too, but they were wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would you designate historic neighborhoods and then override that?\u201d said Kopp.<\/p>\n

Willo has a conservation plan with the city of Phoenix, but it doesn\u2019t trump state law.<\/p>\n

City of Phoenix officials told the crowd that they asked state lawmakers to exempt historic neighborhoods, but it didn\u2019t go anywhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re mandated by the state to allow middle housing, and we have to allow it in certain areas,\u201d said Tricia Gomes, the director<\/a> of the city\u2019s Planning and Development Department<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A city official said that if they don\u2019t follow the law, the state would have fewer restrictions for multi-family homes.<\/p>\n

Willo residents said they hired a lobbyist to challenge lawmakers<\/a> during the next state Legislature, which starts in January, to exempt all historic districts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty special, and these homes are homes that once they\u2019re gone, they\u2019re gone. You can\u2019t remake them,\u201d said Sutherland.<\/p>\n

The Willo neighborhood is one of the largest historic neighborhoods in Phoenix, with over 700 homes that were constructed beginning in 1878.<\/p>\n

To take a look at the upcoming meetings, click\/tap here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here<\/a> with a brief description.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 KTVK\/KPHO. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX (AZFamily) \u2014 It\u2019s a fight to protect the Willo Historic District\u2019s historic fabric. Hundreds of people from…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":138978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,7182,83175,83177,83179,11194,46805,83180,20038,1589,7183,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,83178,83176],"class_list":{"0":"post-138977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-azfamily","12":"tag-burton-barr-library","13":"tag-charm","14":"tag-historic-fabric","15":"tag-homeowners","16":"tag-katie-hobbs","17":"tag-middle-housing","18":"tag-neighborhood","19":"tag-phoenix","20":"tag-phoenix-news","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa","27":"tag-vibes","28":"tag-willo-historic-district"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115014390727052272","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}