We’re seeing it in every city: housing prices going up, up, up. It’s increasingly evident that Texas’ housing market can’t keep up with the soaring demand.
Almost every Texan feels the squeeze. A recent survey from the University of Houston and Texas Southern University indicates that 9 out of 10 Texans say that the cost of housing in their area makes owning a home unattainable. Out of the many contributing factors, the dearth of supply appears to be the main culprit. Basic economics tells us that low supply means prices rise—so you’d think that local governments would be keen on making it easier to build houses to increase supply and drive prices down.
And yet, constant interference by local governments in the housing market has produced a difficult environment. Texas has experienced such dramatic growth over the last ten years the Comptroller’s report on housing indicates that we are more than 300,000 housing units short of meeting demand.
Luckily for Texans, the Texas Legislature is working on the problem. HB 24 and its Senate companion SB 844 are aimed at making it easier to implement zoning changes, which would create opportunities for more housing.
These bills take aim at what is known as the “Tyrant’s Veto.” The Tyrant’s Veto allows a small number of property owners (20%) around a possible improvement to block development through petition unless three quarters of the city council votes to overturn the petition.
While some claim that there have been no instances in which the use of the Tyrant’s Veto has stopped zoning reform, in 2019, 19 Austin citizens used protests to delay zoning reform in Austing by roughly four years. However, eventually the zoning reforms took effect, and the price of housing began to fall—which helps to prove that zoning reform works, and that the Tyrant’s Veto can hold up positive changes for cities and their citizens.
Supporters of the Tyrant’s Veto mislead the public by claiming that the bills would “repeal protest rights for adjoining property owners and nearby neighbors against inappropriate residential, commercial or industrial zoning.”
However, the bills don’t do that. In the very first section labeled “definitions,” zoning changes are defined as changes that “will have the effect of allowing more residential development than allowed without the overlay” and has nothing to do with being able to protest industrial or commercial development.
The policy adjustments proposed by HB 24 and SB 844 are entirely consistent with principle and past views of property rights. In Spann vs. City of Dallas, the Texas Supreme Court described the proper relationship between neighborhood preference and property rights as one in which:
Use cannot be prohibited to satisfy a mere aesthetic sentiment or the taste of other property owners. Spann v. City of Dallas, 111 Tex. 350, (Tex. 1921).
These bills leave the ability to protest a zoning change intact, so claims of lost power or the law being gutted are inaccurate at best.
Texans are looking for answers to the housing affordability crisis. More government is not the answer. It’s time to cut back on the local governments’ ability to intrude on property rights by regulating the housing market because all that does is slow or stymie development. HB 24 and SB 844 are strong steps forward in that regard, and while the ideal would be to eliminate the Tyrant’s Veto entirely and truly honor property rights, these bills reasonably raise the threshold of property owners that may protest change from 20% to 60% and lower the threshold for a city council to overcome that petition from three quarters to a simple majority.
Texans want solutions that respect property rights, not empty misleading criticism.