Affordable housing is an issue facing communities across Arizona, including in Tempe, where leaders are exploring innovative ways to address housing affordability and supply.
Local leaders from government, construction and education discussed a wide range of issues and potential solutions, such as 3D printing and zoning laws.
The Tempe Chamber of Commerce and Rio Salado Community College hosted a conference Thursday on Innovating the Future of Affordable Housing. The conference had a panel of four speakers, including Tempe Mayor Corey Woods.
Woods is concerned Tempe residents are being priced out of the city.
“Tempe specifically is getting so expensive that it's becoming very hard to recruit and retain teachers in the city,” Woods said. “You've got people who are now teaching in Tempe schools, but they're living way off in the West Valley.”
Woods says educators who work in Tempe should not have to spend hours idling in traffic to afford to live.
Eric Cylwik, with Sundt Construction, says labor shortages are the biggest contributor to rising housing costs.
“If I'm a developer and I'm going to build affordable housing or housing in general, I can either pay an electrician the same amount to build something that's considered affordable, which a lot of people just equate to inexpensive,” Cylwik said. “Or I can pay the same wage to that electrician and build something that's higher income.”
Cylwik says misaligned incentives toward profit interferes with community housing development.
One solution the panel discussed was 3D-printed houses.
Zachary Mannheimer is the founder of Alquist 3D, a company that prints concrete structures.
“When you look at 3D concrete printing, the only thing that you're actually printing of the house are the walls currently really just the exterior walls," Mannheimer said. “You can do the interior, but most of the time those are stick built still. That'll change over time. The rest of the house we still need our electricians, our plumbers, our HVAC workers, our carpenters, our roofers, etc. all of those people still need to be involved.”
Mannheimer said one solution they are currently working on is moving away from concrete to locally sourced materials. He said concrete is major contributor to greenhouse gasses.
“Can you print the walls of your home using literally the earth in your backyard today? Not yet, but we're working towards that,” Mannheimer said. “We need the material to be carbon neutral, at the very least working towards carbon negative.”
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