Business leaders petition lawmakers to address housing issues as North Texas looms in ‘crisis mode’

With the 88th legislative session set to wrap up this month, the plea, drafted by Texans for Reasonable Solutions, asked lawmakers to hear legislation that would lead to more housing being built.

Among the bills named in the letter are House Bill 2789 and Senate Bill 1412, which would simplify the building of accessory dwelling units or “granny flats,” and House Bill 14 and Senate Bill 1786, which would expedite the review and issuance of building plans by opening the market to third-party reviewers.

A 2019 estimate predicted Texas was in need of an additional 330,000 homes, a need that has intensified as more people have flocked to the state. Dallas-Fort Worth’s housing production lags demand by 85,000 units, and rents in Denton have increased nearly 27% over pre-pandemic levels. In Arlington, Dallas, Fort Worth and Irving, around 40% of annual household income is spent on homeownership costs.

Ashley Brundage, executive director of housing stability and senior vice president of community impact at United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, has witnessed the phenomenon firsthand. United Way Dallas, which serves southern Denton County as well as Collin, Dallas and Rockwall counties, administered emergency rent-relief funds for the city of Dallas. Last May, the program had 10,000 applicants. Since then, rents have continued to increase alongside the cost of living, with Texans paying more to remain housed as COVID-era eviction moratoriums and funding dwindle.

Local initiatives aimed at giving people a chance to catch up on back rent before eviction — known as “right to cure” ordinances, common in many states outside Texas — are also under threat from two companion bills making their way through the House and Senate this session.

“A multitude of factors kind of pushed us into crisis mode at this point,” Brundage said.

Texas has long been known for its affordability — it’s what has attracted many residents from states with a higher cost of living like California. But business leaders fear that as the state loses its edge in the housing sector, residents and potential migrants will begin looking to settle elsewhere, harming the state’s economy and the strength of its workforce.

“Every legislative session that passes without addressing the increasing shortage of safe, affordable, attainable housing in Texas, our workforce risks leaving our job centers, or our great state entirely,” the letter to legislators reads.

Meeting the diverse housing needs of most communities requires a mix of housing types and price points, Brundage said, but restrictive zoning laws prohibit more than one type of dwelling in an area. Efforts to increase mixed-use spaces popular in urban centers — which could include businesses and dwellings or a few different types of housing, such as apartments and town homes — are often met with pushback from neighborhood groups and residents who think allowing multifamily spaces near their neighborhoods will decrease property values, despite data showing that is not the case.

More than 100 Corinth residents protested a 215-unit “high-end” town home development being built near their Oakmont neighborhood in June 2021, expressing fear that the community, which the developer said was aimed at attracting retirees and young professionals making at least $80,000 per year, would bring crime to the area and drag down property values.

Attempts to further restrict who can live in a neighborhood, such as those by Providence Homeowners Association last year to ban Section 8 residents, compound issues of equitable access, Brundage said.

A push over the past several decades toward larger lot sizes, which translate to more expensive homes, has also contributed to less density and fewer dwellings. That’s not just a market trend, according to Lauren Fischer, a professor of urban planning and policy at the University of North Texas.

“Communities can put forward large-lot zoning that leads to larger homes that provide more tax base or a higher sort of tax return, and maybe attract people who are of a higher income status,” Fischer said. “That’s what communities have been doing, is using zoning to shape the demographics, to a certain extent, as the community starts to grow.”

That means many local governments are not incentivized to prioritize housing for middle- and low-income residents so, as housing becomes more expensive, those who work lower-income jobs in a community cannot afford to live in it. Those tensions have accelerated in North Texas in particular as the area has grown.

“One of the things we know when we look at history is that the most resilient and sustainable communities have a range of incomes that are available for people — so that someone who works in your local Starbucks can live in the community, maybe in an apartment or a smaller home, just as well as the CEO who runs a big company,” Fischer said.

“But we’re encouraging the sorting of residential communities to an extreme through our zoning principles.”

Separate land uses also limit alternative transportation options, since segregated use means traveling farther to reach things like retail and grocery stores, making public transit less practical.

While tackling macro issues like transportation infrastructure is beyond the scope of regional and local efforts, incremental approaches to addressing the housing shortage — made easier through the statewide easing of land-use restrictions — could help close the gap for Texans who are struggling to afford housing costs, advocates say.

“I really think the way forward is at a regional level to have conversations about what the DFW area needs, and how we can all sort of do our fair share to accommodate the housing needs if we want to stay viable as a larger region, and it could be that the state bills are going to prompt some more of that conversation,” Fischer said. “More of that dialogue and more agreement and more collaboration is really what it takes to move forward.”

HB 14 passed the House and has been referred to a Senate committee, while SB 1412 has passed the Senate and has been sent to the House for consideration. SB 1786 was left in committee by the Senate’s deadline, while HB 2789 was sent to calendars but had not been scheduled for a vote as of Monday.

Although the legislative session is slated to end May 29, Gov. Greg Abbott could call special sessions after that date to address specific issues.