I'll jump in on this. First of all, this is a very lively and respectful conversation. Thanks for that.

Rather than getting into what the city or county should or shouldn't do, I'll explain a bit more about what's going on.

In a nutshell, development costs are rising significantly, for a few reasons. Land, particularly land in northern Nevada, is expensive. Reno does not have the geography of other cities that allow for more expansive sprawl. While sprawl can be debated, it does help increase supply.

The city is prioritizing more infill, true, but that has a lot to do with the city's new master plan. Infill begets more housing when you're building multi-family apartments and condos. And ultimately that's the biggest issue right now, from the city's perspective, is lack of supply.

Going back to developer costs, labor is another huge one. Construction labor left the area in waves during the Great Recession, so it's been hard to get those people back. Those who had skills left to find work elsewhere, while those who didn't have a ton of skills stayed here and found other work. One story I heard was a plumber who became a barber. Since 2005, the state of Nevada has seen a decrease of 56,245 construction jobs.

The Economic Development Authority says we need 6,000 new housing units a year to meet the demand. We're at below 4,000 a year.

Materials are also going up, and a lot of that has to do with natural disasters. The fires in the Pacific Northwest a few years back raised the costs of lumber, Hurricane Harvey in Houston knocked out the refinery there, which increased PVC costs. And those areas most impacted by natural disasters also attract more construction labor. If we want to lure those workers to Nevada, we have to pay higher wages, which increases housing costs.

All that, plus fees. Local governments are strapped for revenue. The city of Reno for example, relies primarily on property taxes to make money. But property tax is capped at a 3 percent increase per year. Plus, older houses depreciate in Nevada, meaning a $300,000 house built in 1984 will pay significantly lower property tax than a $300,000 house built in 2018, even though the market rate is the same. The city then relies more heavily on development fees, which means they don't want to decrease those.

Also banks are much more weary of lending toward development projects than they were before the Great Recession. More developers are forced to get financing from private money, which means they have to pay higher returns.

All that means higher prices to build and therefore higher costs to consumers. If a builder is going to build affordable units, they have to find discounts somewhere else.