Note: this article was updated to correct a mistake. Courtney LeVinus is the president of the Arizona Multihousing Association, not the Arizona Multifamily Association.
The city of Tucson’s latest list of requests for the Arizona State Legislature, known as a legislative agenda, calls for things ranging from a Phoenix-Tucson Amtrak line to new heat safety standards for outdoor workers.
The document approved this week by council members also includes a request not found in previous years’ agendas: repealing an Arizona law that prohibits cities from creating rent control policies.
Democrats in the state legislature have tried, and failed, several times to repeal that law. Lobbyists and a state legislator who spoke with AZPM News describe an uphill battle to change it. But of all the items in the city’s legislative agenda, Tucson Mayor Regina Romero highlighted the rent control request.
“We need the state legislature to step up and repeal harmful preemption laws that will allow Tucson to be able to create rent control,” Romero said in a social media video this week.
The state legislature can preempt, or bar, the exercise of certain powers by local governments. One of those is rent control. Specifically, the state law deprives cities and towns the “power to control rents on private residential property.”
Romero said rent control would “allow more families in Tucson to stay housed while we continue to build affordable housing units.”
According to data from the Tucson Pima Collaboration to End Homelessness, unsheltered homelessness in Pima County in 2025 has decreased by about 23% since a sharp high in 2022 that followed relatively low pre-pandemic counts. Since 2021, Tucson has prioritized getting homeless people into stable housing before serving other needs, an approach known as Housing First that has led to the establishement of tent shelters and transitional housing in rehabbed motels. Still, construction of affordable housing that offers longer-term relief lags behind projections of demand.
Meanwhile, average apartment rents in Tucson grew by about 45% between 2019 and 2024, according to data from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.
In that same five-year time period, average hourly pay in Tucson grew by only 27%, according to data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Pay gains were even lower in some sectors, like educational instruction and personal care.
As of late 2024, however, HUD data reveals that average apartment rents in Tucson decreased by 1% between 2023 and 2024 while vacancy rates increased, a common indicator of a cooling rental market. HUD has not yet released its 2025 Tucson analysis.
Repealing rent control law is a tall order at the state legislature, sources say##
Democrats have introduced bills repealing the state’s rent control preemption law in the Republican-controlled legislature every year since at least 2022. State Sen. Priya Sundareshan, D-Tucson, took part in one such unsuccessful effort this year.
“I think the main thing that we could do differently is be in the majority,” Sundareshan told AZPM.
She said casting the state law as a limit on local autonomy could be more effective in convincing Republicans to support it.
“What this conversation should be about is that there’s a state preemption on the freedom of cities to be able to take policy steps that they feel are appropriate for their cities,” she said.
Nicole Newhouse, Executive Director the Arizona Housing Coalition, a pro-affordable housing lobbying group, said the success of Tucson’s new request depends on branding.
“If they use the term rent control, it is likely not going to go anywhere. If they sell it as mitigating rent increases, it could,” she said.
No matter the branding, any new attempt to repeal the state rent control law would likely face strong opposition from Arizona’s largest apartment industry trade group.
“Should legislation like that gain any traction, we will have a full grassroots effort to oppose it,” said Courtney LeVinus, president of the Arizona Multihousing Association.
She said that opposition would include members of her association — landlords, management companies and developers — lobbying legislators against such legislation. She said her organization firmly opposes any “patchwork” of local rent control systems in Arizona, preferring the statewide preemption.
“Rent control is trying to address a symptom of the bigger issue, and our industry prefers to try to get to the root cause, which is lack of housing,” LeVinus said. “We need to build more housing.”
She said her group supports reinstating Arizona’s low-income housing tax credits, which are set to expire next month. The credits give developers a tax break if they set aside slices of newly built apartment buildings for people with incomes under certain thresholds.
The city of Tucson also supports preserving the tax credit program as part of its 2026 State Legislative Agenda.
