Latest news with #HB24
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Austin families are getting priced out. These state laws could help them stay
Austin's soul has always been its people, from the chefs preparing fantastic food to the musicians who make us the live music capital of the world. But as the city grows, we face a hard truth: Many of our people, including artists, teachers, nurses, service workers and young families, can no longer afford to live here. At Austin Habitat, we hear it daily: Families with steady jobs and deep roots are being priced out of the neighborhoods they helped shape. While demand has increased home prices, so has the lack of diverse housing options. Smaller, modest homes, backyard cottages, and condos — once common in Austin — have become rare. Austin school district teacher Steven Caplan does yard work in October 2023 in front of his Austin Habitat for Humanity home. Teachers, nurses and service workers are having difficulty finding housing they can afford in Austin. To preserve Austin's identity, it's imperative we make room for everyone who gives this city its character and charm. That's exactly what we're doing through a powerful new partnership in Northeast Austin. In collaboration with Travis County, Austin Habitat is building 48 affordable homes in Whisper Valley, a sustainable, mixed-income community. It's a bold step toward restoring balance in our housing system. Already, momentum is building — proof that local leadership matched by statewide support drives real change. This fall, we'll host the Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project and build 25 of those 48 affordable homes in one week with volunteers and future homeowners. It's community in action, proof that partnerships can be compassionate, creative and focused on the shared belief that everyone deserves a home. Adrianne Todman, then serving as acting secretary of Housing and Urban Development, participates in January at an Austin Habitat for Humanity wall-raising ceremony in Prospect Heights. Austin Habitat will hold an event this fall to build 25 homes in another community called Whisper Valley. And we can do more. By embracing common-sense solutions such as allowing homeowners to build backyard homes, converting vacant offices into housing, or empowering faith-based groups to build on their land, we can open doors for more families while preserving the character that makes our neighborhoods special. This session, the Texas Legislature has a chance to act on four bills that would give cities the tools to create homes while preserving character and meeting local needs: • Senate Bill 673/HB 1779 to legalize backyard homes • SB 844/HB 24 to end landowner vetoes in housing decisions • SB 840/HB 3404 to enable housing near offices and shopping centers, and • SB 854/HB 3172 to empower faith groups to build housing Polling by Texans for Housing shows most Texans support these exact solutions — including 61% who favor allowing backyard homes, strong majorities backing housing near businesses and empowering churches and nonprofits to build homes and a majority against landowner vetoes. These ideas aren't controversial. They're practical. What they require is the willingness to imagine an Austin where opportunity is shared and neighbors are welcomed, not pushed away. Because at the end of the day, this isn't just about housing. It's about community. It's about ensuring our kids can grow up and stay here, that our teachers and nurses aren't forced to move away. The choice is ours. We can cling to outdated policies that exclude, or we can lean into a future where Austin thrives because everyone has a place here. Preserving Austin doesn't mean freezing it in time. It means ensuring the people who make it vibrant, diverse, and resilient can keep calling it home. I urge lawmakers to act. Austinites should contact their representatives and say clearly: We need these housing bills passed now. Because the future of our city depends on it. Michele Anderson is the CEO of Austin Habitat for Humanity. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: We can't preserve Austin without building for its people | Opinion
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Texas House approves bill to help increase state's housing supply
AUSTIN (Nexstar) — The Texas House of Representatives passed a bill Tuesday that will make it harder for homeowners to block projects to build new homes near their neighborhood. House Bill 24 — introduced by State Rep. Angelia Orr, R – Angelina — will weaken a 100-year-old law to help increase the amount of high-density housing, a Republican initiative to address skyrocketing house prices in Texas. Since the 2020 pandemic, housing prices in Texas have gone up about 40% across the state, said Emily Brizzolara-Dove, policy advisor for Texas 2036, which is a nonpartisan public policy research group. Brizzolara-Dove attributes some of the pricing issues with a lack of housing supply. 'We've got a big mismatch in supply and demand,' Brizzolara-Dove said. 'So, efforts to reform land use — to infuse neighborhoods with more housing, more diverse housing — are going to be critical to Texas' success going forward.' Local governments can change the zoning code for residential areas to allow for multi-family housing, like duplexes or apartment complexes. The city of Austin instituted major land code changes in 2024 to allow for up to three housing units on a property zoned for single-family use. However, under current law Texas property owners have been able to block zoning changes that could create more housing. The law said if 20% of property owners within 200 feet of a proposed zoning change sign a petition it forces a governing body, like a city council, to approve that zoning change by a supermajority, instead of the standard simple majority. 'It is very, very good at killing housing and it is ripe for reform,' Brizzolara-Dove said. HB 24 amends those petition requirements to 60% of the property owners within the 200 foot threshold, and even if that number of signatures is met, it allows a governing body to still be able to pass a zoning change with a simple majority. For property owners whose property is within the zoning change proposal, the 20% petition and supermajority rules still apply. The bill passed 83-56 after many delays. The Texas Senate passed similar legislation – Senate Bill 844 – in April. State Rep. John Bryant, D – Dallas, did raise concerns with Orr during floor debate this week. Bryant argues it will make it harder for property owners to block commercial and industrial developments from being built near their homes. 'A simple majority vote could take away the zoning that they relied on when they made their biggest investment in their home, and suddenly they have an industrial or commercial use right next door,' Bryant said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KXAN Austin.
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Amid housing affordability crisis, Texas House votes to take some power from NIMBYs
As Texas faces a housing affordability crunch, state lawmakers sent a signal Monday to residents who try to stop new homes from being built near them: It may get a lot harder to do so. The Texas House voted Monday to advance a bill that defangs an obscure state law that property owners use to stop new homes from going up near them. House members gave preliminary approval to House Bill 24, a key priority of House Speaker Dustin Burrows. The bill, which must clear a final vote, is part of a Republican slate of bills aimed at tackling the state's high housing costs — chiefly by making it easier to build homes. Texas needs about 320,000 more homes than it has, according to one estimate. That shortage of homes, housing advocates and experts say, has played a key role in driving up home prices and rents amid the state's economic boom. Burrows and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have made tackling the state's affordability crunch among their top priorities this legislative session. Lawmakers have advanced bills to relax local restrictions on what kinds of homes can be built and where and make it easier for housing developers to obtain city building permits. HB 24 — authored by state Rep. Angelia Orr, R-Angelina — tackles a Jim Crow-era state law that makes it more difficult for cities to allow new development if enough neighbors object. If a builder seeks to rezone a property and 20% of neighboring landowners object, the city council needs a supermajority to approve the zoning change. A group of Austin homeowners used the law a few years ago to convince a judge to kill a citywide zoning plan intended to allow more homes to be built. The law drew renewed ire this year when neighbors near a proposed affordable housing development in San Antonio — a development touted by Gov. Greg Abbott — used the law to help stop the development. The project then failed to get enough votes on the City Council to move forward. Critics of the law have argued the law deters developers from building much needed housing for fear that pushback from neighbors will kill their projects. Opposition to the law has created unlikely alliances with the Texas Municipal League, a lobbying group that represents more than 1,200 cities, and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the influential conservative think tank, as each call for the law to be changed. HB 24 would raise the petition threshold for objecting property owners to 60%. Even then, it would only take a simple majority of city council members to approve the rezoning. The bill also prevents property owners from using the law to block citywide zoning changes. For example, if a city council sought to change zoning rules to allow more homes in existing single-family neighborhoods, opponents couldn't use state law to stop the change. State Rep. John Bryant, a Dallas Democrat, argued the bill would eliminate homeowners' ability to stop commercial and industrial uses from going up next door to their homes. 'A simple majority vote could take away the zoning that they relied on when they made their biggest investment in their home,' Bryant said Monday. 'Suddenly, they have an industrial or commercial use right next door.' Orr said she thinks it's highly unlikely that cities will enact citywide zoning plans that put industrial uses next to neighborhoods as a result of the bill — which is intended to allow more affordable housing and multifamily housing development. A city council, she noted, 'already makes a multitude of decisions based on a simple majority.' Monday's vote was a crucial test of how the broader Texas House would approach the housing affordability crisis this session. House members last week approved a bill — House Bill 23, another Burrows priority — that intends to make it easier for developers to secure building permits if cities don't approve them quickly enough. It's unclear how House members will handle a slate of potentially more controversial bills that would relax local zoning rules to allow more homes to be built. The Texas Senate has advanced bills to allow smaller homes on smaller lots, additional dwelling units in the backyards of single-family homes and homes and apartments in places they aren't currently allowed. Those bills haven't come up for a vote on the House floor yet, and similar proposals died in the House two years ago. Tickets are on sale now for the 15th annual Texas Tribune Festival, Texas' breakout ideas and politics event happening Nov. 13–15 in downtown Austin. TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.
