"Yes in God's backyard": Arizona bill would fast-track housing on church land

• The Valley Interfaith Project hopes to offer a solution and a valuable asset: vacant land.

How it works: HB2815, which supporters have dubbed "Yes in God's backyard," would effectively exempt housing development on land owned by religious groups from zoning reviews.

• This would circumvent the increasingly common pushback in metro Phoenix against new multifamily housing.

Zoom out: Churches nationwide are getting into real estate to expand affordable housing options, the New York Times reports.

• Yes, but: Many still encounter the strict zoning laws and neighborhood opposition that the Arizona proposal would alleviate.

By the numbers: There are at least 6,400 Arizona properties owned by religious institutions, according to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a national think tank.

What they're saying: "None of our churches have the resources to solve the crisis of affordable housing and homelessness. … But what we do have in many cases is property," Bishop Jennifer Reddall of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona said at a press conference last week.

The latest: The bill cleared its first hurdle Monday with bipartisan support from the House Appropriations Committee.

• Committee chair David Livingston said he would work with the bill's sponsor to address some lawmaker concerns in the hopes of passing the bill into law.