This is a preliminary agenda for wider review. We welcome thoughts and idea (you can send an email here). It’s important to note that affordability requirements can end up being a practical disincentive. Yet, often, when part of a well balanced incentive program, affordability can deliver both financially feasible projects and preservation and creation of affordable housing.
Tax Incentives
A Multifamily Property Tax Incentive – Senate Bill 186 was a good bill motivated by the idea that currently, property taxes on new multifamily housing are having a dampening effect on the production of new apartments. Tax relief would spark more development, increase supply, and keep prices stable. The idea should be brought back, but with more give from the private sector: a sunset period and a set-aside of affordable units. The model for a revised Senate Bill 186 could be the Multifamily Tax Exemption (MFTE) program in Seattle. That program has created thousands of affordable units with a 12-to-15-year exemption on property taxes in exchange for setting aside 20 percent of the new units for rent at up to 80 percent of Area Median Income (AMI)
Abandoned Building Revitalization Tax Credit – Representatives Dow and Henry sponsored House Bill 472 , which would have allowed a taxpayer to claim a portion of the costs of the rehabilitation of an abandoned building as a credit applied to their New Mexico tax bill. This bill should get a hearing but it should also be amended to explicitly include housing, a portion of which should be affordable up to 80 percent of local AMI. Work during the interim should be done to refine the amount of the credit and the affordability requirement to ensure feasibility.
Credit for Cost Burden – New Mexico residents of multifamily or rental housing who earn 50 percent or less of AMI should be able to claim each dollar they pay above 30 percent of their pre-tax, gross monthly income as a credit against their New Mexico tax liability. The credit should be transferable to allow a third party to make these credits available in the form of cash on a monthly basis. This could be a time limited program for a set number of taxpayers. A strong evaluation component should be included.
Extend Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority (MRA) Tax Abatement Period from 7 to 20 years – Right now the length of time local MRAs are allowed to grant tax relief to new development in exchange for public benefit is 7 years; this should be expanded to a longer period to allow for smaller projects that would benefit from longer financing periods. The extension could be conditioned to include some affordable housing. All projects should be required to submit a pro forma for review.
Require Affordable Housing for Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority Projects – We need legislation that either requires or closely studies the feasibility of boosting requirements and incentives for including rent restricted (affordable) units in new, MRA developments. As mentioned above, these kinds of tradeoffs can be both profitable and create lots of new, lower-cost housing in desirable areas. We’ve suggested in the past, for example, that Albuquerque give 100 points for projects that creatively and efficiently address the need for housing at lower cost.
Planning and Zoning
Preemption for heights, appeals, and parking requirements – Senator Antonio Maestas’ bills, Senate Bill 310 preempting local limits on height under certain conditions and Senate Bill 312 limiting appeals on local land use decisions, need to be heard in committee and perhaps improved with amendments. Perhaps these bills should be combined and include parking minimums as well in a single preemption bill combined with incentives for local governments.
Preempt Local Codes in a Shelter Emergency (California’s Appendix P) – Local zoning and building codes, especially in Albuquerque, are too restrictive on improvised shelter solutions for housing. California allows for swift and sure preemption of local building and zoning codes during a declared shelter emergency through Appendix P of its state building code. New Mexico needs the same, especially for Albuquerque. A three-member panel should be appointed and when some objective measures are reached (e.g., an extended period of extreme heat or cold), the panel could declare an emergency that would allow the use of minimally compliant structures on private land for shelter. These declarations would have no appeal and would be irreversible for the course of the emergency.
Rental Assistance
Deposit Assistance Fund – A $500,000 revolving fund, administered by local lenders, would allow qualifying households to finance their deposit for up to 12 months. The State would cover the cost of the deposit and other qualifying move-in costs. The household could pay those costs back over the course of the first year of their lease and the housing provider would receive them up front. As funds returned to the account, they could be redistributed to qualifying households. Criteria could include households fleeing domestic violence.
Cash for Cost Burden – A pilot program providing simple, fast, cash assistance for households with extreme cost burden, 25 percent or above, should be piloted and evaluated. The fund would cover the difference between the rent and household’s income.
Fast Eviction Prevention – Often, when facing possible eviction, households simply need fast cash. Current programs should be fully funded, evaluated, and when successful, duplicated.
Financing Acquisition and Ownership
Financing for Tenant Acquisition of Affordable Housing – House Bill 426 provided notice and opportunity for purchase of mobile home parks by those living in them. But, while well-intentioned, the legislation didn’t have financing options for the tenants, causing the bill to receive less support than it otherwise may have. The idea of allowing mobile home tenants or any households renting to buy their homes is a good one, but they need a path to paying for it. Using industrial or other revenue bonds, on cannabis taxes for example, would create a path for residents to use their housing payments to pay down publicly issued debt over time and end up owning the whole property.
Establish Multifamily Housing Acquisition Fund – Often investors buy older, down-market homes/buildings that have subsidized, lower rents with deferred maintenance. The issue is that the new owners have to make improvements that existing tenants can’t afford. When rents go up, tenants have to move out or get evicted. Buying these older homes/buildings, making the improvements, keeping rents low, and creating opportunities for residents to purchase the home/building as a cooperative is a viable strategy to avert the loss of naturally occurring affordable housing.
Low Interest Loan Program for Maintenance – Residents of multifamily buildings and their advocates often express concerns about the maintenance of apartment buildings and other rental properties. Often, repairs don’t happen in order to keep rents stable, essentially subsidizing lower rents with deferred maintenance. This isn’t sustainable, and when older buildings are sold, rents can rise to make improvements. The legislature should create a $1,000,000 pilot revolving fund for building owners to keep up with maintenance in exchange for keeping their rents at current levels.
Better Data and Improved Policy Making
LEDA / TIDD Housing Demand Study and Community Benefits – The Local Economic Development Act (LEDA) and the Tax Increment Development District (TIDD) Act provide powerful tools for economic development, but they must account for how new jobs and growth will affect housing demand. House Bill 135 and Senate Bill 293 created a requirement to have a multivariable economic study to measure potential impacts on development. These bills deserve another chance in some form, perhaps as part of a community benefit rubric that could be applied to all state economic incentive programs.
Study Residual Income Cost Burden – A memorial instructing the Legislative Finance Committee to study alternatives to housing affordability measures, especially the housing cost income ratio (the arbitrary 30 percent rule) and cost burden, should be passed. We need better local measures not just of housing cost burdens but all the burdens that accumulate and weigh down working families and keep them in poverty.
Pass a Memorial Directing the Formation of a Senate and House Committee on Housing – It is time that the New Mexico State legislature have a housing committee in the Senate and the House that can generate, review, and pass housing policy and funding measures.
Other Issues Affecting Housing
The Anti-Donation Clause – In the 2025 session there was an effort to address the problems created by the state’s constitutional anti-donation clause. This was a laudable effort, but affordable housing is already exempted from the anti-donation clause, and any effort to address the real issues created for nonprofits by the clause must keep the anti-donation exemption for housing and its enabling measure, the Affordable Housing Act (AHA) intact.
Creating a New Mexico Measure of Poverty – As of 2023, New Mexico had a poverty rate of 17.8% – the third-highest in the nation, while the nationwide numbers were at only 12.5%. Like all states, New Mexico uses the Federally Established Poverty Level. With uncertainty at the federal level, the legislature will have to rely more on local funding. But rather than staying inured to the current system, this creates the opportunity to establish our own measure of poverty (see cost burden above). The median income in New Mexico is $60,980.00 (2023) and a family of four is in poverty if it earns $32,150; yet, the average income in the United States is $80,610.00.
While these ideas build on some policy concepts that didn’t quite make it last session, others are based on ideas tried elsewhere, and some are new. Our hope and intention is that discussion will improve and refine this list as we move through the interim and into the next session.