Ninety percent of Texans agree that housing affordability is a problem in their part of the state. Looking at the numbers, it’s easy to see why.
According to Comptroller Hegar, Texas is more than 300,000 housing units short of addressing the last decade’s massive population growth. This shortage has been exacerbated by policies that restrict the supply of housing, prompting high prices that have reached a point where 74% of Texans cannot afford a median-priced newly constructed home.
This housing affordability issue is a compound problem for many other issues affecting the lives of people living in the Dallas area. While testifying before the Senate Local Government committee on housing affordability, many of those giving testimony drew a relationship between access to housing and homelessness.
At 3,718, the Dallas area has the highest overall homeless population in the state. The number of those experiencing homelessness itself is a tragedy, but with this large of a homeless population it was inevitable that they would intersect with property owners outside of asking for change.
In a report from the National Rental Home Council, there have been 475 instances of squatting in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. As Terri Boyette from Mesquite can attest to, once a squatter digs in removing them is a lengthy, costly, and aggravating process.
Dallas’s restrictive regulatory environment has made the city one of the least affordable places to live in Texas. These regulations range from prohibiting homes from being built on lots smaller than 5,000 square feet to restricting mixed-use commercial and residential zoning to allowing for a minority of landowners to reject zoning reform.
These local regulations have kept the free-marketfrom responding to consumer demands.
As Lt. Governor Dan Patrick pointed out in an interview regarding the current legislative session:
“we have to get cities to allow us to build more affordable housing by looking at lot sizes, what we can do with multiple housing in an area…right now in some of our bigger cities, our school teachers and policemen and firemen who work in those cities can’t even afford to live there.”
Luckily there are many opportunities to address housing affordability in the 89th legislative session. Among the bills proposed to address housing affordability are SB 840 and SB 844. SB 840 and SB 844 offer market-driven solutions by allowing mixed-use residential and commercial zoning by right while curbing bureaucratic overreach that stifles development.
As economist Thomas Sowell aptly noted, “The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.” These bills put that power back into the hands of property owners and developers rather than government entities that have exacerbated the housing shortage.
SB 840 would help address the housing deficit by allowing mixed-use residential and commercial zoning by right. Allowing mixed-use zoning by right creates many more opportunities to convert empty office space into housing units utilizing in place infrastructure developing creating more house accessibility in urban core areas.
Currently, Dallas reports office vacancy rates between 20 – 30%, presenting a significant opportunity for office-to-residential conversions. SB 840 would streamline these conversions without requiring cumbersome zoning changes, allowing developers to swiftly repurpose unused commercial space into housing.
SB 844 helps address the housing deficit by preventing a small minority of landowners from blocking zoning reforms in an action known as the Tyrant’s Veto. Currently owners of 20% of the land around an area that has been rezoned can protest the zoning change and require a 3/4s vote from the city council for the zoning change to take place. This bill would not eliminate landowner’s opportunity to protest zoning changes, but it makes the process more aligned with our republican form of government by increasing the threshold of land owned from 20% to 60% and only requiring a simple majority of the city council to overturn the petition.
SB 844 prevents unelected bureaucrats from arbitrarily blocking much-needed development projects, ensuring that housing policy is driven by market needs rather than government interference.
By passing these bills, Texas has the opportunity to lead the nation in tackling the housing crisis through free-market principles rather than worsening the issue like California and Chicago, where overregulation has driven home prices and homelessness to unsustainable levels. We want Texas to remain the state where homeownership remains the American Dream—not just for us, but for our children and our children’s children.
As Sowell reminds us, “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.” The trade-off here is clear: embrace SB 840 and SB 844 to create a thriving, equitable housing market or allow excessive regulation to push Texas down the same failed path as other states. The choice should be an easy one.
John Bonura and Elle Cole are writing on behalf of the Texas Public Policy Foundation.