Why we need to build more reasonably-priced housing in Las Cruces:
According to the 2020 New Mexico Affordable Housing Needs Assessment, Doña Ana county is tied for fourth for the highest poverty rate across New Mexico counties.
Finding shelter, a basic human right, is increasingly out of reach for many Las Crucens whether you are looking to buy or rent a home.
The cost of buying a house has risen due to mortgage interest rates, higher costs for construction, fewer homes being built, and increased demand.
Typical home values in Las Cruces increased by 23% between 2019 and 2022. According to Redfin, the median sale price of a Las Cruces home in November 2024 was $310,000, an 8.8% increase over last year.
A shortage in homes leads higher-income individuals to buy median-income properties making it even more difficult to buy a home if you earn the median area income (AMI) of $65,800 for a family of four or a fraction of the AMI. In 2021, Las Cruces households earning 80% of the AMI had a gap of $50,000 between what they could afford and home values.
There is also a shortage in rental units and rental prices have surged. Las Cruces has a higher than average number of renters because we are a college town and close to a military base. In Doña Ana County, 60% of housing units are single-family, with only 20% of total housing units townhomes, or multifamily.
More than 60% of Las Cruces residential zoning districts allow only single-family homes.
Restrictive land use regulations and zoning laws have been linked to higher housing prices, reduced construction activity, and a decrease in the elasticity of housing supply. In the most recent decade, 2010-2020, the City issued only 36 building permits for “missing-middle” rental housing like duplex, triplexes, fourplexes, courtyard buildings and multifamily compared to 3300 building permits issued for single family homes.
More than 50% of Doña Ana County renters are cost burdened meaning they spend more than 30% of their household expenses on housing leaving less money for basic expenses like food, medicine, childcare, education, healthcare and transportation.
According to a 2023 publication by the NM Legislation Finance Council, preliminary estimates for 2023 indicate a significant uptick of about 48 percent in homelessness, and available data suggest an increasing need for affordable housing.
New Mexico has consistently had a higher rate of homeless students than the nation, with an estimated 3 percent of students facing housing insecurity during the 2022 school year (or 10.6 thousand students).
What Realize Las Cruces proposed changes to land use and zoning codes do about our housing shortage:
- It reduces the regulatory burden and increases creativity and innovation in development regulations so reasonably priced housing is financially feasible for developers.
- It allows the development of “missing-middle” housing along a spectrum of affordability that includes accessory dwelling units, duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, courtyard buildings, and multi-family housing in a greater variety of neighborhoods.
- It encourages innovations in land development and redevelopment creating mixed-use corridors such as street-level retail with residential units above or neighborhood centers with co-location of residential, commercial, and civic spaces. These innovations promote walkability and livability.