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Tyler Cobb

Tyler Cobb

Public finance partner at Taft Law in Phoenix, Arizona, and principal architect of Arizona's HB 2999 (State Affordability Infrastructure District) legislation.

Sep 17, 2026

15:16
Yeah.
15:17
Yes, so really that's where it begins.
15:20
I mean, it's not a city veto right of the application and the petition, and it's not the city weighing in on whether they think this project is warranted or the developer is worthy of receiving these tools.
15:37
But we wanted to make sure that we are respecting and acknowledging their development planning specification zoning entitlement rights.
15:46
And so the developer is required to include a certification in that petition.
15:53
um that the formation of a district would not impact any reported entitlement document development specification document or local ordinance uh relating to that land and then they were required to include as an attachment to their petition a copy of any such agreements and then they're also required to include a certification and evidence that they have notified on the same day that they submit this petition to the AFA that they have notified the local governments and municipalities of their intent to form one of these.
16:31
We want to make sure that the local governments are informed of what's going on in their backyard to the extent that we're forming another little municipal government there.

6 MINS LATER

22:34
Who is the board, Mr. Cobb, in this instance?
8:50
Tyler, would you like to add more color to that? And then we'll get to what that's setting the stage for the new legislation.
8:59
No, absolutely.
9:00
I think that's a great place to start, Carter.
9:03
When we were sort of teeing this up over a year ago, it became clear that we were getting lapped by these states that we consider our competitor growth states on a per capita basis.
9:20
Colorado and Utah over the course of the past six years have financed 40 X, four zero X, the infrastructure that the state of Arizona has through these tools.
9:33
And Texas is much larger, larger on an aggregate basis, but it's over 10 X on a per capita basis.
9:40
And when you look at how these deals price in Colorado, Utah, and Texas, they get tremendous pricing results.

6 MINS LATER

15:36
And then how did the parties come together? Was it the governor's office or was the HBACA, the builders, the stakeholders coming together? Was it a joint effort?
10:27
Yeah
10:27
... "Okay, I'll trust you." And good thing I did because, uh, I mean, years later I...
10:33
So I bought it for 360.
10:34
I got all of my closing costs paid for, so it was like net 345, I think, of what I paid.
10:40
Um, two years later, obviously this was before COVID, and then two years later ob- uh, COVID kind of like boomed the real estate market.
10:48
Um, rates were so low you could buy anything, it would make sense, and I sold that building for 475.
10:54
So which doesn't seem like huge, crazy numbers, um, when we're, when you, you, you look at like people who are buying these multi-million dollar apartment complexes.
13:19
So, like, I, I'd be curious to know your thoughts on that.

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