Kuhneena Sanko, 30, and Jessica Cordova, 29, waited for hours in an overheated hallway at the Roundhouse on Friday afternoon to testify in support of House Bill 661, which would provide tax relief for people who bought their homes under affordable housing programs.

Cordova's 2-year-old daughter, Raquel — a saucy tyke in pigtails and sparkly pink shoes — kept her mother busy, spilling snacks on the carpet, climbing on furniture and playing with Sanko's 5-year-old daughter, Triana. Sanko nursed her infant son, Tristan, while the women waited, and waited and waited. Finally, they left.

Hours later, the bill they had come to support was passed unanimously by a bleary-eyed Senate Corporations and Transportation Committee.

Cordova and Sanko are two of approximately 2,000 Santa Fe-area homeowners who have bought homes through affordable housing programs such as Homewise and the Santa Fe Community Housing Trust.

Like most people who buy homes through such programs, Sanko and Cordova have houses that are worth considerably more than they paid for them.

Sanko said she paid $135,000 for her two-bedroom, which was appraised at $360,000. Cordova said she paid $142,000 for her three-bedroom, which was valued at $330,000.

But under the terms of the affordable housing programs, which were designed to keep speculators from buying up affordable housing and reselling it at a profit, each owns only about 50 percent of the equity in her home, with the city or the county owning the other half.

Santa Fe County's previous assessor, Benito Martinez, let people like Sanko and Cordova pay taxes on only the price they actually paid for their homes. But when current assessor Domingo Martinez took office in January 2007, he stopped that practice, which he said didn't comply with state law.

As a result, people who had bought homes through affordable housing programs were recently sent tax bills calculated using the market value of their homes, which resulted in significantly heftier mortgage payments for some.

Sanko, a flight attendant, said her monthly payment went from $800 to $1,000.

The bill would legalize the tax break previously given to people who bought houses through affordable housing programs by letting assessors consider housing subsidies when assessing homes for tax purposes.

"These houses aren't fully owned by these people," said the bill's sponsor, House Speaker Ben Luján, D-Nambé. "Why should they have to pay 100 percent of the taxes? They wouldn't be able to afford to live there. Any help they are trying to get would be negated."

The bill, which the House already has passed, must be approved by the full Senate and signed by Gov. Bill Richardson before it can become law.

Contact Phaedra Haywood at 986-3068 or phaywood@sfnewmexican.com.