Texas House revives zoning reform bill to lower minimum lot sizes
AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Senate Bill 15 — which prevents larger cities from imposing minimum residential lot sizes of 3,000 square feet or larger — appeared to be dead on Sunday.
State Rep. Ramon Romero Jr., D-Fort Worth, had called a point of order on the bill, claiming a population bracket improperly restricted a political subdivision. He was correct.
“The bill as reported from committee exempted from its application a location that is, among other things, within ‘one mile of a campus of the perimeter of a law enforcement training center in a county that has a population of 2,600,000 or more but less than 2,700,000,’ the House journal from Sunday reads. “The chair notes that the rule permits the use of minimum or maximum population in a bill to limit its application, but not both. Here, the bracket includes only Dallas County. The chair would be required to find a reasonable relationship between the location of a law enforcement training center in Dallas County and the bill’s purpose of increasing the housing supply…The chair can find no such relationship.”
When a point of order is sustained, the bill must go back to committee to fix the error before going back through the process to reach the House floor. That presented a problem for SB 15, as the bill had to be voted on by Tuesday at midnight, and the bills to be brought up on deadline day had to be cemented on Sunday night.
Quickly, legislators got to work to fix the bill in time. At 2:50 p.m., SB 15 was sent back to committee, and by 6:52 p.m. it was in the hands of the calendars committee, who controls the docket of bills for each day.
The calendars committee earmarked SB 15 for Tuesday’s major state calendar that night, pushing it to the top of docket. Another lawmaker tried to get the bill killed again, saying it was expedited improperly.
“I respectfully raise a point-of-order against further consideration of Senate Bill 15 on the grounds the bill was improperly placed on the major state calendar,” State Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, D-San Antonio, said.
Items placed on the major state calendar must be of importance to the entire state. Gervin-Hawkins argued this bill shouldn’t qualify, because it’s application is limited to municipalities with over 150,000 people. After a lengthy delay, her point of order was overruled.
“The bill is a major reform of state land use law and will have major implications for housing and economic activity throughout the state,” State Rep. Brooks Landgraf, R-Odessa, said as he presided over the Speaker’s desk. “Additionally, rule 6, section 25, gives the committee on calendars wide discretion over which calendar it will place a bill on. The point of order is respectfully overruled.”
After a pair of amendments, the bill passed a third reading with a 87-48 vote.
‘We’re looking down a very bleak future’: The need for new housing
SB 15 aims to reduce housing prices by improving housing availability. Austin recently changed their minimum lot size for single-family homes from 5,750 square feet to 1,800 square feet. Houston changed their to 1,400 square feet for certain residences within the city center in 1998, expanding it to the whole city in 2013. A Pew study claims this allowed single-family homes to be replaced with townhouses, opening up more affordable housing options.
“We’re looking down a very bleak future [if we don’t take action],” Nicole Nosek, founder of Texans for Reasonable Solutions, said. “We’re looking at a situation where not only are we not going to be able to have our kids and our grandkids live in the same city that they grew up in, but on top of that — all this flourishing economic activity that we’re seeing move to Texas, we jeopardize that by not allowing the middle class to own a piece of the American dream of home ownership.”
SB 15 aims to mandate the changes Austin and Houston voluntarily went through. The bill prevents a municipality with over 150,000 people from imposing a minimum lot size less than 3,000 square feet (changed from 1,500 square feet with a floor amendment). While the idea sailed through both the Senate and House committees unanimously, and passed the Senate floor 29-2, there was pushback in the House, particularly from those representing the Dallas-Fort-Worth area.
“I don’t want to take away the ability for my city and the people of my city to be able to control the size of the lots and the homes that are put there,” State Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, said. “I own a security company, and I’ll tell you that these high-density locations cost hundred of thousands and sometimes a couple million of dollars a year to secure after they’ve been there 10-20 years because they become crime-ridden.”
The opposition was bipartisan.
“Do you believe that residents should be silenced when it comes to your law that is affecting someone’s neighborhood? When they bought their home, they moved into a single-family residential area,” Romero said. “You don’t believe that people should have their voice heard?”
SB 15 will be heard for a third reading on Wednesday.
