From Yavapai to Maricopa to Pinal counties, freestanding houses in planned communities are going up by the hundreds.
But many are not for sale. They are for rent.
It's a model that has only developed in the last few years across Arizona.
In Arizona's six Active Management Areas (AMA), including Maricopa, Pinal, Pima, Prescott, Santa Cruz and Douglas counties, developers must demonstrate they have a 100-year assured water supply in order to build on six or more subdivided lots.
Some will receive their water from what the state calls a designated water provider, which is a city, town, or private water company in an AMA that has elected to go through the statutory process of determining that it has that 100-year supply.
If the development is outside of a designated water provider, state law requires a developer to go through the process of obtaining a Certificate of Assured Water Supply from the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR).
"It is a consumer protection program so that people who buy homes will know that their taps are not going to run dry," according to Kathleen Ferris, who was an architect of Arizona's 1980 Groundwater Management law and is a current senior research fellow at Arizona State University's Kyl Center for Water Policy.
But there is a catch: neither of those rules applies if the houses are offered for lease for a period of less than one year.
"It gets around the law because you don't have to demonstrate a 100-year water supply for that development," Ferris said.
Her fear is that as water becomes more scarce, new builds across the state would not show there's enough water for them simply because they are being rented and not sold.
"This is a potential problem because what we've been trying to do over the last 40 years is ensure (that) people who live in homes and AMAs have a secure water supply," Ferris said.
State Representative Selina Bliss (R-Prescott) is sponsoring HB 2048 in an effort to curb the practice.
"It's not fair, that one developer (is) held to one standard and another to another," she told ABC15. "This bill is meant to close that outdated loophole."
The change would require proof of 100-year assured water supply for developers subdividing land into six lots or more, regardless of the terms of a lease.
"We want to see that it's assured that water is going to be there for future growth," Bliss said.
The bill is still awaiting assignment to a committee.
In its current form, the legislation would only apply to unincorporated areas and would not address freestanding or single-family homes being built on plots of land that have not been subdivided.
While the bill would not close all the loopholes, Ferris, who has been sounding the alarm about the need to update the state's water laws, said it is a start.
"It's like peeling an onion, there's all these loose ends that are developing, because of this practice," she said.
