Speaker 1: This week's episode of the trip Cast is sponsored by
Speaker 1: the Austin Board of Realtors, Unlock MLS, and the Texas
Speaker 1: Tribune Membership Program. Hello and welcome to the Texas Tribune
Speaker 1: trip Cast for May thirteenth, twenty twenty five. We are here.
Speaker 1: We are in the stretch run of the legislative session.
Speaker 1: I am joined as usual by co host Eleanor Klibanoff. Hello, Eleanor,
Speaker 1: Hey Matthew, how are you. I'm doing well. We had
Speaker 1: some fun on slack at eleven o'clock on Friday night
Speaker 1: as you were hanging out in the House chamber. How
Speaker 1: is your session going so far?
Speaker 2: You know, I'll be honest, the last four days last
Speaker 2: from Friday on have been a little rough. I cover
Speaker 2: as we've discussed women's health. I also cover you know,
Speaker 2: LGBT issues, and there has been.
Speaker 1: A couple of bills.
Speaker 2: I was following that we're supposed to come up Friday night,
Speaker 2: so I stayed till midnight waiting for them to come up.
Speaker 2: They did not come up, which meant that not only
Speaker 2: was my Friday night somewhat ruined, but then my Saturday
Speaker 2: was also ruined because that's when they came up. So
Speaker 2: you know, got to watch Friday night, got to watch Saturday.
Speaker 2: Then they came up for third reading yesterday, so what
Speaker 2: a what a fun stretch.
Speaker 1: Eleanor was really enjoying my running commentary on random bills
Speaker 1: that I found interesting at eleven o'clock Friday. Human composting Bill,
Speaker 1: look it up HB twenty two hundred.
Speaker 2: Matthew is like just walking around the office, walking into
Speaker 2: people's offices, being like human composting Bill.
Speaker 3: Let's discuss he's.
Speaker 2: Really desperately fighting the urge to assign someone a story
Speaker 2: on the human composting bill.
Speaker 1: For those wondering at home, as I'm sure many are,
Speaker 1: human composting is the idea of when you die, being
Speaker 1: allowed to just like throw your body into the woods
Speaker 1: so you can sort of return to the earth. And yeah,
Speaker 1: they want to legalize it in the house, or at
Speaker 1: least someone does I care ever the author.
Speaker 2: Is, which, as I said, I've just been doing that.
Speaker 2: Didn't realize that was a crime, you know, but now
Speaker 2: apparently it is. It has been illegal to just fling
Speaker 2: bodies into the woods.
Speaker 1: The other fun thing about the legislative sub session right now,
Speaker 1: as we have reached the time where it is like
Speaker 1: truly painful to walk the two and a half blocks
Speaker 1: to the Capitol because it is now one hundred and
Speaker 1: five degrees outside.
Speaker 2: Yes, and then also it is still arctic chill inside
Speaker 2: the chamber.
Speaker 1: Somehow.
Speaker 2: Yesterday on the House floor, Chairman Garan, Charlie Garran was
Speaker 2: handing out heated blankets too, because we're like all the members,
Speaker 2: particularly the women, have their space heaters going, and so
Speaker 2: he was handing out heated blankets to try to, you know,
Speaker 2: lift the pressure on the grid a little bit from
Speaker 2: the chamber itself.
Speaker 1: So they weren't electric blankets or were they electric.
Speaker 2: Blankets, They definitely were heated.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I started to throw you this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm benest. I didn't look at that closely. He
Speaker 3: had like a whole cart.
Speaker 2: He was like handing them out, especially to the women,
Speaker 2: which you know, as we know, buildings do tend to
Speaker 2: be sort of air conditioned to the level of men
Speaker 2: in full suits, and so the women tend to have
Speaker 2: their blankets and stuff. So now they've upgraded to some
Speaker 2: blankets that are heated somehow.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, okay, very good. Well we are not talking anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't think about human composting or blankets this session. Instead,
Speaker 1: this week's episode, we are talking about housing. When people
Speaker 1: talk about Texas's staggering growth in the past generation, they
Speaker 1: bring up, you know, low regulation, the job incentives and
Speaker 1: everything like that, but almost always the conversation turns quickly
Speaker 1: to housing and the affordable affordability of housing in Texas.
Speaker 1: I remember living in Dallas more than a decade ago.
Speaker 1: The person who I who's cubicle was next to me
Speaker 1: was British and she had like moved from this like
Speaker 1: tiny flat in London to this like four thousand square
Speaker 1: foot house in the suburbs of Dallas and was like,
Speaker 1: Texas is the most amazing place. Yeah, but these days
Speaker 1: maybe not as amazing at least from the affordability standpoint.
Speaker 1: Places like Austin you can just not no longer legitimately
Speaker 1: claim for them to be legit inexpensive anymore. Big cities
Speaker 1: and small towns have seen prices skyrocket. The medium sale
Speaker 1: median sales price for a home in Texas is three
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty nine thousand dollars, which you know, sounds
Speaker 1: somewhat affordable, but that's forty four percent higher than what
Speaker 1: it was in March of twenty nineteen, when it was
Speaker 1: two hundred and thirty five thousand dollars. This is an
Speaker 1: issue that's gotten the attention of state lawmakers. Dan Patrick,
Speaker 1: the Lieutenant Governor, Dustin Burrows, the House Speaker, have been
Speaker 1: listing housing prices as a priority this session. And so
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about this today, and we are
Speaker 1: joined by two experts on the topic. First off, Josh Fector,
Speaker 1: urban affairs reporter for the Texas Tribune. Hello, Josh, Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: thank you for being here, Thank you for sitting through
Speaker 1: all that random stuff going on here. And then we
Speaker 1: have Emily brisilera dove who's a policy advisor for the
Speaker 1: think tank Texas twenty thirty six.
Speaker 3: Hello Emily, Hello, Thank y'all for having me.
Speaker 1: All Right, Emily, I'm going to start with you, and
Speaker 1: it's going to be a very simple and also a
Speaker 1: very complicated question, which is how have we gotten here?
Speaker 1: What has caused Texas to become so much more significantly
Speaker 1: unaffordable in the last five years or so.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the struggles that Texas is having with housing
Speaker 3: affordability are not unique to the state. You know, the
Speaker 3: pandemic caused some pretty crazy swings and prices that we
Speaker 3: saw all across the country. But you know, our affordability issue,
Speaker 3: it is, in some ways, it's a great problem to have.
Speaker 3: It's indicative that people are coming here that we are
Speaker 3: a very business friendly state. But what we need to
Speaker 3: do is ensure that families are as welcome here and
Speaker 3: as able to thrive as our businesses are. Josh has
Speaker 3: heard all of my one liners before, so some of
Speaker 3: this is going to be to us, I know. So
Speaker 3: he put, you know.
Speaker 4: Feel afraid to recycle?
Speaker 3: Okay, great, that's good to hear, you know, posting today,
Speaker 3: And I want to come back to that because I'm
Speaker 3: pretty sure I've been to one of those graveyards and
Speaker 3: now I want to know where the heck I was.
Speaker 2: Okay, they were just throwing bodies into the woods.
Speaker 3: It was my yes, and like they put a tree
Speaker 3: on top of you.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're changing the subject of this, Like did you
Speaker 1: go for a funeral?
Speaker 3: It was like and to be clear, we didn't get
Speaker 3: out and walk around, but it was my best friend.
Speaker 3: She was like, hey, here is this innovative graveyard and
Speaker 3: it was out east and we just kind of drove
Speaker 3: by and and they just yeah, but now I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to look at the first story.
Speaker 2: Maybe they're trying to fan it. I don't know anything
Speaker 2: about human composting. That's next week's episode. Tune in.
Speaker 3: Yes, Yes, for those of us that are still alive, Yes,
Speaker 3: we need houses. Housing. Housing affordability is fundamentally a supply
Speaker 3: of supply problem, you know. The Controller. The Controller last
Speaker 3: summer put out this great report about housing affordability, and
Speaker 3: there is just a really wonderful housing coalition that is
Speaker 3: united around kind of working on this issue. And the
Speaker 3: kind of stat that we like to use is Texas
Speaker 3: needs about three hundred, three hundred and six thousand homes
Speaker 3: to adequately house its population. That's a big barrier, but
Speaker 3: we are making strides towards accomplishing it.
Speaker 1: Josh. What Emily is talking about here is is a
Speaker 1: supply issue. Right When a lot of people talk about
Speaker 1: the housing problems, not just in Texas as you described,
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of all over the place. What they're
Speaker 1: talking about is just there's not enough homes to meet
Speaker 1: the demand.
Speaker 5: Right, right, So Texas it should be not builds a
Speaker 5: ton of housing. We build way more housing than a
Speaker 5: lot of our peers, we build more per capita. Our
Speaker 5: metro areas tend to build more. And that's really what,
Speaker 5: you know, a big source of like why we've been
Speaker 5: able to keep housing prices as low as they are,
Speaker 5: but they are, you know, we're just simply.
Speaker 4: Not building enough to meet demand.
Speaker 5: And there are a couple of reasons for that that
Speaker 5: we can get into that Texas lawmakers are trying to solve.
Speaker 5: But basically it just boils down to, you know, when
Speaker 5: people come here, you know, they're competing with folks who
Speaker 5: are already here for housing, right and so you know,
Speaker 5: if you don't have a place for that demand to go,
Speaker 5: you're going to see rice prices rise as rapidly as
Speaker 5: they did in say like Austin Round Rock, or as
Speaker 5: long as much as they have in DFW or Houston.
Speaker 1: How much of this is a city problem, how much
Speaker 1: of this is an Austin problem, or how much your
Speaker 1: people feeling this in the other parts of the state.
Speaker 5: So there are few places in Texas where you know,
Speaker 5: that have been untouched by the housing affordability crisis.
Speaker 4: Prices have risen pretty much everywhere.
Speaker 5: A lot of this can stem from what lawmakers have
Speaker 5: basically identified and what is kind of acting policy du
Speaker 5: jour the really sort of attract thing to housing policy
Speaker 5: advocates that sounds very dry and boring to everybody else,
Speaker 5: which is basically that there are local regulations that get
Speaker 5: in the way of building enough housing.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: There are regulations that say that single family homes have
Speaker 5: to go on a certain amount of land. Right, So
Speaker 5: that means that there's a bare minimum that you're going
Speaker 5: to have to shell out for land if you want
Speaker 5: to buy a home, right, and as prices grow, you
Speaker 5: it's tougher to afford, you know, a new home that's
Speaker 5: built on that. Right, So lawmakers are looking at ways
Speaker 5: to basically reduce how much land cities require to be
Speaker 5: built on. You know, how much land cities require single
Speaker 5: family homes to be built on, for example, Right, then
Speaker 5: there are bills that would make it easier to build
Speaker 5: accessory dwelling units, additional dwelling units in the backyards, or
Speaker 5: single family homes. These are you know, things that used
Speaker 5: to be sort of common in the early twentieth century
Speaker 5: but slowly got sort of phased out in cities. A
Speaker 5: lot of Texas cities technically do allow those kinds of
Speaker 5: homes to be built, but there are rules that sort
Speaker 5: of discouraged them from being built, or you know, processes
Speaker 5: that are difficult to navigate. Then there are bills that
Speaker 5: are basically, you know, trying to allow say like more
Speaker 5: mixed use development in places that don't already allow it.
Speaker 5: So think of you know, those mixed use developments you
Speaker 5: see on South Congress and First and where shops in
Speaker 5: the bottom, you know, apartments on top. And basically the
Speaker 5: name of the game here is like they're just trying
Speaker 5: to open the spigot, right, They're trying to make it
Speaker 5: easier to build homes and basically lessen the guardrails to
Speaker 5: or the hurdles to building homes. And I rattled off
Speaker 5: a couple but I'm trying not to monologue.
Speaker 4: I swear.
Speaker 1: Excellent. Okay. So I want to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about just like the political moment we're in right now,
Speaker 1: because it's an interesting situation. Right. Housing seems to be
Speaker 1: one of those areas where it sort of crosses partisan
Speaker 1: lines in an interesting and unusual way. Right, we mentioned
Speaker 1: one of the bills that recently just passed, I believe
Speaker 1: SB twenty three or is it three, the the UH
Speaker 1: hold HB twenty four excuse me, that would allow, you know,
Speaker 1: take away some of the kind of make it easier
Speaker 1: to pass certain zoning changes and things like that. When
Speaker 1: that one bill came up, you know, it was made
Speaker 1: a priority by the House leadership. It it passed, I believe, Josh,
Speaker 1: your story said with majorities by with a majority of
Speaker 1: Republicans and Democrats. But you had, you know, John Bryant,
Speaker 1: a Democrat, speaking up against it. You had some Republicans
Speaker 1: speaking up against it too, And you know, this idea
Speaker 1: of sort of melding sort of free market capitalists with
Speaker 1: people you know who live in cities and are concerned
Speaker 1: about affordability that more frequently align with Democrats, sometimes going
Speaker 1: against you know, neighborhood groups that are you know, supported
Speaker 1: by Democrats or or environmentalist groups and things like that
Speaker 1: that are opposing it. I mean, can you just talk
Speaker 1: a little bit, Josh about kind of the interesting alliances
Speaker 1: that have popped up around this issue.
Speaker 5: Yeah, everybody has reasons to like these bills, and everybody
Speaker 5: else that has reasons to hate them. Democrats, you know,
Speaker 5: have traditionally sort of been sort of like the Party
Speaker 5: of Local Control.
Speaker 4: For example, there's.
Speaker 1: Been a big.
Speaker 5: You know, if you've been paying attention to the legislature
Speaker 5: for the past decade, Republicans have really tried to sort
Speaker 5: of like sap authority away from like the blue or
Speaker 5: urban areas, right, And you know, Democrats traditionally have been
Speaker 5: on the side of basically trying to play defense against
Speaker 5: any kinds of measures like that. And you know, on
Speaker 5: some of these land use bills, at least in the Senate,
Speaker 5: we haven't seen a lot of these bills go through
Speaker 5: the House yet. On some of that, you know, like
Speaker 5: that local control divide is being sort of tested in
Speaker 5: the legislature, right, So Democrats, who sometimes would be you know,
Speaker 5: very wary of like GOP attempts to like curtail cities authority,
Speaker 5: are kind of embracing some of these some of these proposals, right.
Speaker 5: And in the House, on that bill that you just
Speaker 5: mentioned should be twenty four, that's a bill that housing
Speaker 5: advocates of pretty much billed as being something that would
Speaker 5: enhance local control, but you also had Democrats who were
Speaker 5: voting against it. And so, like, I find some of
Speaker 5: the the crosswinds they're kind of fascinating. But you zooming
Speaker 5: out from that, you know, Republicans like the stuff because
Speaker 5: you know, it is an unleash the free market sort
Speaker 5: of move, it's a deregulatory move. Democrats like these things
Speaker 5: because you know, they're trying to enhance cities, they're trying
Speaker 5: to make those cities more affordable and you know, just
Speaker 5: make it easier to live there, and there are environmental
Speaker 5: reasons that you might want to do it. But then
Speaker 5: you also have you know, Republicans and Democrats who don't
Speaker 5: want their neighborhoods, you know, being messed with, don't want
Speaker 5: new housing near their neighborhoods, which is kind of an
Speaker 5: omnipartisan and it's not These things don't break cleanly along
Speaker 5: partisan lines. So that's been sort of refreshing to cover,
Speaker 5: honestly in the legislature, where so many things boil down
Speaker 5: to just pure partisanship.
Speaker 2: Emily, what's that like for you? I mean, navigating these
Speaker 2: like you're sort of moving between different factions even within
Speaker 2: each of the parties on this issue.
Speaker 3: Yeah, housing policy is I think foundational for pretty much
Speaker 3: every other area of policy that Texas twenty thirty six
Speaker 3: in particular works on, and so for that reason it is,
Speaker 3: it's incredibly important and I think the understanding of that
Speaker 3: importance is increasing in the legislature. But it's also really
Speaker 3: a fun area to work on. It's a very optimistic
Speaker 3: area of policy. You know, fundamentally, you know, what we're
Speaker 3: trying to do at TEX twenty thirty six is increase
Speaker 3: opportunities for homeownership. Some of the ways you can do that,
Speaker 3: as Josh said, Josh said, we're you know, getting some
Speaker 3: of this like extraneous regulation out of the way, improving
Speaker 3: the diversity of the housing stack and that kind of thing,
Speaker 3: and the inevitable I believe result of these bills is
Speaker 3: cities that are more beautiful, more walkable, better for people,
Speaker 3: more efficient, allows people to work closer, to live closer
Speaker 3: to where they work, which is good for cities. And so,
Speaker 3: you know, do messages need to be tailored depending on
Speaker 3: who you're in front of. Yes, but that's pretty much
Speaker 3: the case for any any area of policy. And yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, there are a couple of leaders in the
Speaker 3: Capitol who are have just done a tremendous job at
Speaker 3: getting this stuff start, you know, shifted forward, and so
Speaker 3: it's kind of like following their lead.
Speaker 1: And who would those leaders be? Who do you point
Speaker 1: to is really taking charge.
Speaker 3: On this, Yeah, I would say, and Josh, you can
Speaker 3: chime into. I think Senator Paul Bettencourt, who's the chairman
Speaker 3: of the Local Government Committee, has done a tremendous job
Speaker 3: of embracing the approach of reforming land use, which you
Speaker 3: know last session was kind of the first attempt to
Speaker 3: do this on any kind of comprehensive level. So really
Speaker 3: look to him for for a lot of leadership there.
Speaker 3: Senator Brian Hughes, he's the one that has the companion
Speaker 3: to HB twenty four, which I think is the most
Speaker 3: important thing that we'll do for housing affordability of this session.
Speaker 3: Chairman Gary Gates in the House, I think he's I
Speaker 3: think he's a first time chairman for he's a first
Speaker 3: time chairman for the Land and Resource Management Committee and
Speaker 3: has also just done a great job at shepherding this
Speaker 3: stuff too. And those are you know, they're Republicans.
Speaker 1: So, Josh, I was not going to make it through
Speaker 1: this podcast without bringing up our favorite topic of conversation
Speaker 1: these days, which is Abundance, the book by Ezra Right,
Speaker 1: that book which which we both read. You know, I
Speaker 1: know a lot of people have been reading right. It
Speaker 1: sort of makes the case of like really kind of
Speaker 1: redirecting particularly. You know, these are two liberal authors, more
Speaker 1: closely ideologically aligned with the Democratic Party, but really trying
Speaker 1: to push them toward a more like agenda, toward building
Speaker 1: and producing more and everything like that. And in that
Speaker 1: book they point to Texas a lot, and in interviews
Speaker 1: after that book they point to Texas a lot and say,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, look at Texas. Look at what
Speaker 1: Texas is doing. Texas has state leaders who are vocally
Speaker 1: and openly at times opposed to different types of green energy,
Speaker 1: but they are Texas is producing more new green energy
Speaker 1: by far than California, where you know, leaders are falling
Speaker 1: all over themselves to talk about how much they support it.
Speaker 1: They point to housing in the same way. Look at
Speaker 1: how much easier it is to build a house or
Speaker 1: an apartment complex in Texas than it is in California,
Speaker 1: where things are so much more expensive. It's interesting, though,
Speaker 1: to be seeing that national discourse, Josh, while we are
Speaker 1: also seeing Texas sort of be like, we really need
Speaker 1: to address this problem.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and some of the.
Speaker 5: I think it was Jerusalem Denzlis said something recently where
Speaker 5: it's like what the Median sales price gets that three
Speaker 5: hundred and thirty k, and Texas leaders declare that like
Speaker 5: a crisis. Right, It's like it's we are we're really
Speaker 5: far ahead of the rest of the country on those
Speaker 5: like things look expensive here to to folks who live
Speaker 5: here and they are renters are spending a lot more
Speaker 5: on housing than they were, you know, even five years ago.
Speaker 5: It's harder to buy a house here, but like we're
Speaker 5: doing better than a lot, you know, most of the nation,
Speaker 5: certainly our peers in California and New York and Florida,
Speaker 5: and you know, it's been really interesting to see kind
Speaker 5: of where Republican lawmakers have have kind of gotten out
Speaker 5: ahead of this, right, they don't want to wind up
Speaker 5: in a place where they are and the median sales
Speaker 5: price is seven hundred k in California and where people
Speaker 5: are fleeing the state and where you know, their their
Speaker 5: economic miracle is you know, jeopardized. So they're really trying
Speaker 5: to you know, get out ahead of that. And because
Speaker 5: once you get there, as California has found and have
Speaker 5: New York has found, it's a lot it's very difficult
Speaker 5: to unwind.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: I feel like housing is kind of like it's like traffic.
Speaker 2: It's like wherever you live, you feel like this is
Speaker 2: the worst it could be, right, Like this is so expensive,
Speaker 2: like I used to live, as I've talked a lot
Speaker 2: on this podcast about I used to live in Louisville, Kentucky,
Speaker 2: where you know, you could buy like a nice house
Speaker 2: for maybe you know, two hundred and fifteen thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: But even then, like we talked a lot about, like
Speaker 2: housing prices are increasing, right, and now it's like people
Speaker 2: are spending almost three hundred thousand dollars on like and
Speaker 2: it's like it there is always a pressure to like
Speaker 2: bring that number down or it feels very like heavy
Speaker 2: no matter likes as long as it's increasing, I think
Speaker 2: people are sort of discontented with that.
Speaker 3: And you know, to be clear, like these bills fundamentally,
Speaker 3: they're just attempting to allow market forces to work on land.
Speaker 3: And if you love your small town and don't want
Speaker 3: it to change, then like let's make sure that people
Speaker 3: can live where they want to live and that they're
Speaker 3: not spreading out trying to find cheaper housing. So you know,
Speaker 3: I think that there has been some pretty successful fear
Speaker 3: mongering over what the effects of these bills will be
Speaker 3: and you know, if you live in a town or
Speaker 3: a city that does not have a six story apartment building,
Speaker 3: one is not going to pop up as a result
Speaker 3: of these bills. It's going to be gradual. As land
Speaker 3: prices increase, we should ensure that the most appropriate housing
Speaker 3: for that land is legal. And you know, these don't
Speaker 3: they're pretty I mean, I kind of think they're almost
Speaker 3: light touch bills. They're just removing barriers and we're going
Speaker 3: to see what the market produces.
Speaker 1: I want to get into the weeds here about what
Speaker 1: those bills are. But first let's pause and hear from
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Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, please yes.
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Speaker 1: Learn more at Texas real estate dot com. Okay, Emily,
Speaker 1: you said, I believe, if I heard you right, that
Speaker 1: you think HB twenty four is perhaps the most important
Speaker 1: of these housing bills.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do.
Speaker 1: Do tell us what this bill does.
Speaker 3: Great, So, HB twenty four reforms a one hundred year
Speaker 3: old statute. It's in the local government code, and it
Speaker 3: says that if you want to change, if you want
Speaker 3: to build more housing on your property, and you need
Speaker 3: to seek a zoning change to do so, then owners
Speaker 3: of twenty percent of the land that surrounds your property
Speaker 3: within two hundred feet can sign a petition saying we
Speaker 3: don't want that to happen, and then your zoning change
Speaker 3: has to be approved by three quarters majority of the
Speaker 3: city council. This provision of state law is very very
Speaker 3: good at killing housing. One of the most recent kind
Speaker 3: of prevalent examples was last summer there was an eighty
Speaker 3: four unit apartment complex in San Antonio City Council had
Speaker 3: approved it once they had gotten some tax credits for it,
Speaker 3: neighbors protested it, and the zoning change was lost on
Speaker 3: a vote of seven city councilmen in favor and four
Speaker 3: a posts Beyond just the concrete examples, we know that
Speaker 3: and kind of the term we're using is the tyrants
Speaker 3: veto has a pretty significant chilling effect on new development.
Speaker 3: Builders are not going to build somewhere if the neighbors
Speaker 3: are going to cause them a lot of heartburn about it.
Speaker 3: You know, this, this provision of statue was kind of
Speaker 3: based in some of the more unsavory aspects of our
Speaker 3: nation's history, following you know, the end of racially based
Speaker 3: zoning in nineteen seventeen. It was right in there, and
Speaker 3: so it is it desperately needs to be reformed. What
Speaker 3: HB twenty four does is it says, instead of twenty
Speaker 3: percent of land ownership, it raises that threshold to sixty percent.
Speaker 3: That's that's kind of like the most salient point of
Speaker 3: the bill. And it also says that this provision of
Speaker 3: law does not apply to like a blanket zoning. So
Speaker 3: this this portion of statute is ultimately what killed the
Speaker 3: code next in Austin. It was not intended to apply
Speaker 3: to a huge blanket rezoning like that, so it changes
Speaker 3: that as well.
Speaker 2: Josh, what's kind of the argument that you're hearing from
Speaker 2: folks about, you know, why we don't want to get
Speaker 2: rid of this what they're calling like the tyrants veto.
Speaker 5: So this was something that the Democrats on the House
Speaker 5: floor were kind of bringing up, right, which is that
Speaker 5: if you because this this statute isn't limited limited to housing,
Speaker 5: it applies to all kinds of development. Is so John Bryant,
Speaker 5: who you know, a Dallas Democrat, was you know, basically saying,
Speaker 5: look like this isn't going to stop uh. You know
Speaker 5: if you if let's say, like a concrete match plant
Speaker 5: wants to get rezoned or wants to go up next
Speaker 5: with single family neighborhood, basically like you wouldn't be able
Speaker 5: to stop that under under this law. That's kind of
Speaker 5: like the most extreme example of that, right, and you
Speaker 5: know people have sort of countered, you know, I've heard
Speaker 5: criticisms of that basically being like, look like there's all
Speaker 5: kinds of things that would go into building up a
Speaker 5: concrete batch plant that wouldn't just pop up overnight. Right, So, uh,
Speaker 5: you know, there's there's a lot of rhetoric like that
Speaker 5: sort of flying around. But as far as I know,
Speaker 5: and Emily you can, you can correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 4: The the times.
Speaker 5: That like these, that these valid petition requests have been used,
Speaker 5: and I'm sorry to get some walking about it, but
Speaker 5: the ways that these that these the state law has
Speaker 5: been used has mostly been on housing projects.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: It's not on kind of like these large scale sort
Speaker 5: of industrial sort of things, other kinds of development. It's
Speaker 5: mostly been on housing. I know, there's like examples around,
Speaker 5: like there was a there was a Dallas hospital expansion
Speaker 5: that that got uh mixed because somebody used the law.
Speaker 5: But mostly, as far as I know it's been, it's
Speaker 5: been used for housing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree with that. And you know, I
Speaker 3: think fundamentally the bill asks how much control should your
Speaker 3: neighbors have over your property? And I think raising that
Speaker 3: threshold to sixty percent of land ownership is a totally
Speaker 3: reasonable threshold. Again, if you know the concrete batch plant example,
Speaker 3: it's uh, it was, it's effective, but again that's not
Speaker 3: that's not how these are used. And there are also
Speaker 3: there are several other safeguards in place to prevent something
Speaker 3: like that from from popping up.
Speaker 5: Uh, and something else I want to chime in on
Speaker 5: on this bill. You hear a lot about you know,
Speaker 5: cities retaining you know, local control over you know, sort
Speaker 5: of their housing policies. A lot of arguments against these
Speaker 5: these this round of bills have been look like, you know,
Speaker 5: cities should have the say so when it comes to
Speaker 5: saying how their land gets used, what kind of housing
Speaker 5: goes where, And you know, it'll be really interesting to see,
Speaker 5: like if this bill passes, you know, whether you know,
Speaker 5: cities basically take up the mantle that the that the
Speaker 5: legislature is kind of throwing down here.
Speaker 4: I'm mixing metaphors.
Speaker 5: Probably, but like, if you know this this bill is
Speaker 5: basically a local control bill to some extent, right, it
Speaker 5: unlocks cities abilities to you know, allow the kinds of
Speaker 5: housing that the ledge is trying to allow, and possibly
Speaker 5: go further right, And so it'll be sort of interesting
Speaker 5: to see if cities actually go through with how they
Speaker 5: use the law, if they take them up on that.
Speaker 1: All right, Josh, So now you get to pick to
Speaker 1: tell us one big bill that has your attention that
Speaker 1: you think will make a big difference in this issue.
Speaker 5: So HB twenty four, I'm very curious to see where
Speaker 5: it goes. But the other one, and I'm going to
Speaker 5: botch the bill number I did send it earlier in
Speaker 5: the chat. I've got a bill, Senate Bill eight forty
Speaker 5: has that so Cenate Bill eight forty, which is a
Speaker 5: bill by Brian Hughes, manial Republican, that would.
Speaker 1: Basically that's right, that's right, so.
Speaker 4: And so his bill would make it so you were.
Speaker 5: So let's say that I own a strip mall that's
Speaker 5: seen you know better days. Right, I'm seeing retail vacancy.
Speaker 5: You know, my property taxes are going up, and I'm
Speaker 5: just like not bringing up in enough income as I want.
Speaker 4: I could, under this bill, redevelop that.
Speaker 5: That strip mall into a mixed use development that allows
Speaker 5: you know, apartments and shops, right, Or I could build housing,
Speaker 5: you know somewhere on that property.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: And I find that bill really interesting because it does
Speaker 5: a couple of things.
Speaker 4: One, it allows.
Speaker 5: You know, basically homes to be built in commercial areas.
Speaker 5: It allows them in places that currently allow warehouse development,
Speaker 5: that allow office development. And you know basically says hey,
Speaker 5: if you want to turn that area into housing, go
Speaker 5: for it. And you know that I think is going
Speaker 5: to be a really interesting way to see like what
Speaker 5: the demand.
Speaker 4: Is for for new housing.
Speaker 5: Is the spait going to be unlocked? Are you going
Speaker 5: to see you know a lot of sort of conversions.
Speaker 5: Are you going to see them over time? And like
Speaker 5: cities will just look.
Speaker 4: Different if that's the case.
Speaker 5: Right, Like we have mixed use development now, but often
Speaker 5: it has to go through sort of like a rezoning
Speaker 5: process and everything under this you could just do it right.
Speaker 5: And it's also trying to tackle this notion of like
Speaker 5: vacant offices. Right, we have a lot of vacant office
Speaker 5: space in Texas and you know, this is kind of
Speaker 5: also trying to address that as well.
Speaker 4: So like that's one where I think if.
Speaker 5: That goes through, you might really see like cities take
Speaker 5: a different form.
Speaker 1: It'll be interesting. I did not know that much about
Speaker 1: that bill. It'll be interesting to see whether that changes
Speaker 1: the market for those types of buildings. Right, If you're
Speaker 1: a residential developer you want to build somewhere, is that
Speaker 1: going to be a more attractive purchase because you have
Speaker 1: less red tape to cut through. Kind of an interesting
Speaker 1: to watch, a thing to watch if that goes through.
Speaker 1: I mean, the other thing that I want to sort
Speaker 1: of bring up is this idea of two separate bills
Speaker 1: SB fifteen sbix seventy three. Fifteen deals with minimum lot sizes,
Speaker 1: SB six seventy three deals with accessory dwelling units, both
Speaker 1: issues that have been talked a lot about on in
Speaker 1: individual cities in Texas, but an effort to maybe do
Speaker 1: somethings statewide there tell us a little bit about those measures.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the minimum lot size bill, it's a refile
Speaker 3: from last session. Last session it was significantly broader. The
Speaker 3: bill authors the session have taken like a really narrow
Speaker 3: tailored approach with the idea of being, you know, we
Speaker 3: should not force Texas families to buy more dirt than
Speaker 3: they need to put a house on. And so the
Speaker 3: bill in ten big cities in green fill development. So
Speaker 3: that's neighbor This is not like redevelopment of neighborhoods. This
Speaker 3: is new neighborhoods. We'll say that the minimum lot size
Speaker 3: is going to be like fourteen hundred square feet. What
Speaker 3: this minimum lot size proliferates is those tall, skinny Houston
Speaker 3: town home that that's the kind of typology that works here.
Speaker 3: We'll see, how, you know, we'll see what pops out.
Speaker 3: That's kind of the whole the whole thing about this
Speaker 3: package of bills is we're just going to kind of
Speaker 3: see what the market produces. Six seventy three eighty US
Speaker 3: is again a refile from last session. As you all remember,
Speaker 3: that was probably the most dramatic housing bill of last session,
Speaker 3: went down on the House floor by I think two votes.
Speaker 3: That is a Senator Hughes bill this session, no population
Speaker 3: bracket on that would allow homeowners to build you know,
Speaker 3: grainy flats casitas on their property by right. That that
Speaker 3: one's really great for kind of the you know, new
Speaker 3: wave of multi generational living. Also, one of the stats
Speaker 3: I like to use is that half of parents of
Speaker 3: adult children are now supporting those adult children financially to
Speaker 3: the tune of like fourteen hundred dollars a month. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I am not getting that calling my parents, ye, but
Speaker 3: that's I told my mom that she's really mean. So
Speaker 3: the you know, the ADU works great for grandparents. It's
Speaker 3: a great idea for you know, the young fresh out
Speaker 3: of college kid trying to get on their feet fourteen
Speaker 3: dollars a month, fourteen hundred dollars a month. I'm so
Speaker 3: hung up on that. We'll keep like, we'll come back
Speaker 3: to that one. I know, I know, yeah, I'm getting
Speaker 3: zero dollars.
Speaker 2: Also explains a lot about help, and that's everyone's going
Speaker 2: to Europe every summer. I know, now I get it.
Speaker 3: You Actually, if if I can diverge a little bit
Speaker 3: on this kind of on this idea of like the
Speaker 3: really intense financial support that people feel that they need
Speaker 3: to give their kids. You know, when when when my
Speaker 3: husband and I bought our house in twenty twenty one
Speaker 3: in May in Austin, you know, we talk about that
Speaker 3: is one of our like crowning achievements in life is
Speaker 3: being able to do that by ourselves. And it's just
Speaker 3: that's a crazy thing something that has you know, for decades,
Speaker 3: all of our parents were probably able to purchase homes
Speaker 3: for a marker of adulthood. Yeah, and like a step.
Speaker 3: It's just like part of like yeah, and now it's
Speaker 3: like yeah, so out of reach for so many people. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and so you know, you're lucky if you can like
Speaker 3: do it without help. And I've got friends now that
Speaker 3: they're buying homes and they just have to have this
Speaker 3: significant help for mom and dad. Can I mention a
Speaker 3: couple of other bills?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 3: Okay? SB seven eighty five is a bill that kind
Speaker 3: of reforms how municipalities look at manufactured housing. Like I said,
Speaker 3: we want to increase the diversity of housing. Manufactured homes
Speaker 3: work for many families, but some cities, you know, they
Speaker 3: like relegate them to a teeny tiny zone or they
Speaker 3: prohibit them altogether. This bill says you got to find
Speaker 3: somewhere to put them. My favorite bill, not the most
Speaker 3: important bill that still goes to HB twenty four, SB
Speaker 3: twenty eight thirty five. I don't know if you've got
Speaker 3: that one on your list.
Speaker 1: No, I do you do?
Speaker 3: Okay, SP twenty eight thirty five, and it's companion HB
Speaker 3: fifty eight. Those create pathways for cities to build single
Speaker 3: stare building. I was hoping we could talk about, ok stairs, Okay, yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: do you have? Like should I kick it over to you?
Speaker 1: Do you have?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, I like suddenly, and I
Speaker 2: think because it's been been debating, I'm like suddenly, it's
Speaker 2: like all over my Twitter feed and yeah, yes, okay,
Speaker 2: I'm single stair pilled.
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, yeah, so this is and you you know,
Speaker 3: I'm sure that this is an Emily in Paris loving
Speaker 3: crowd up here. Yes. So uh I pointed both of
Speaker 3: us on that. Yeah, so it's this is how the
Speaker 3: rest of the world builds apartment buildings. If you've seen
Speaker 3: Emily in Paris, you know, she lives here and then
Speaker 3: there's a staircase, and then like the cute boy lives
Speaker 3: up here, yes, the chef. Yes, okay, great, So you've
Speaker 3: seen a single stair building and we don't build them
Speaker 3: here because there's this entity called the International Code Council.
Speaker 3: They put out something called the International Building Code. The
Speaker 3: legislature didn't create it, nobody voted on it, but it
Speaker 3: is the building code of record for the state, and
Speaker 3: for a long time it's prohibited those single story buildings
Speaker 3: from getting built. So instead what you see are those massive,
Speaker 3: gargantuan apartment complexes. That's what that's what's pop up all
Speaker 3: over you know, our city and others.
Speaker 4: They call them the Texas donut.
Speaker 3: The Texas donut. Yeah, and they they have to be
Speaker 3: that big because it costs a lot more to build
Speaker 3: a second stairway and the corridor in the middle to
Speaker 3: connect all of the apartments. It raises the cost of
Speaker 3: building by like nine to thirteen percent. So the single
Speaker 3: stair buildings are you know, they're twenty four unit complexes.
Speaker 3: They're oriented for families because you've got light on multiple
Speaker 3: sides in the buildings. This is how we do lifelong neighborhoods.
Speaker 3: They fit on property that would otherwise not be viable
Speaker 3: for multi family development. And you know, I think like
Speaker 3: if you could have a single story, a single stair building,
Speaker 3: like you know, in your neighborhood, and that's where you
Speaker 3: get your start, and then your kids get a little
Speaker 3: older and you move down the block to the single
Speaker 3: family home, and then kids move out, mom and dad
Speaker 3: get older and they can move right back in, but
Speaker 3: stay in that community. So I'm I'm really pumped about
Speaker 3: that bill.
Speaker 2: So I feel like single stair buildings, like in Emily
Speaker 2: in pairs, facilitate love. Because if I live in an
Speaker 2: apartment building and if I see a neighbor anyone is
Speaker 2: in the other stairwell, I go to the other stairwell
Speaker 2: because I I don't want to talk to someone right now.
Speaker 3: We have not considered the romance implication.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, some really rough things happened in that Emily in
Speaker 1: Paris relationship.
Speaker 3: Maybe I have avoided.
Speaker 2: Maybe double stairs allows you to remain in your same
Speaker 2: apartment building after having a bad breakup in that same
Speaker 2: building because you can use the other stairs an argument
Speaker 2: against single stairs.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's true. That's true. Yes, And I thank
Speaker 3: you for that, for a truly balanced approach. But you know,
Speaker 3: these are just all approaches to like finding places where
Speaker 3: we can ease the pressure. You know, nobody is trying
Speaker 3: to take away the ability to build the big single
Speaker 3: family homes on the big lots. Nobody's trying to take
Speaker 3: away the ability to build the big apartment complexes also
Speaker 3: on the big lots. But there is a lot of
Speaker 3: space in the middle where we can kind of you
Speaker 3: know again, just like see what the market creates, see
Speaker 3: what demand is there.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, I have some late breaking news. I looked
Speaker 1: up the HB twenty two hundred human composting Billy. Yes,
Speaker 1: I would like to apologize to the people who dump
Speaker 1: the bodies in the woods. Actually does not have anything
Speaker 1: to do with that. I will read to you. It
Speaker 1: is to allow for natural organic reduction process in which
Speaker 1: the human body is placed into a controlled vessel mixed
Speaker 1: with other natural materials, and over an approximately forty five
Speaker 1: day process, is converted into a soil like material. Families
Speaker 1: can choose to keep the soil of their level ones
Speaker 1: or donate it for land conservation. This bill, I'm reading
Speaker 1: from the analysis right here of the bill. The bill
Speaker 1: author has informed the committee that while this option may
Speaker 1: not be for everyone, Texans deserve to have the choice.
Speaker 1: So there it is. Hernandez, Representative Hernandez.
Speaker 2: Okay, So to be clear, we still do not know
Speaker 2: what the legality is of just throwing a body in
Speaker 2: the woods.
Speaker 1: I think actually that is legal. I think there was
Speaker 1: a bill about that a few sessions ago.
Speaker 2: Okay, so already legal throw a body in the woods.
Speaker 2: This is if you want to turn the body formally
Speaker 2: into soil versus just throw the body walk away.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to report that this bill was voted down
Speaker 1: now on the twelfth.
Speaker 2: So we can't put our body into a controlled setting
Speaker 2: and turn it into soil that we can use for
Speaker 2: natural conservation.
Speaker 3: You will have to grow your tomatoes with non decomposing exactly.
Speaker 2: I do want to be clear, absolutely there are bodies
Speaker 2: decomposing in all of our soil. But you just can't
Speaker 2: be the body of a loved one.
Speaker 1: You can't grotimatos with Grandma.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm sure this is an issue that's very important
Speaker 2: to someone, but off the top it does sound a
Speaker 2: little bit crazy.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I thought Texas was the land of freedom.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the land of It's not the land of Grandma.
Speaker 1: We know, all right, Well, we I think have broken
Speaker 1: a new record for most diversions in the podcasts. So
Speaker 1: thank you to Josh, Thank you to Emily, both Brisillia
Speaker 1: and in Paris. Yes, thank you to our producers Robin Chris,
Speaker 1: and thank you to our sponsors Unlock MLS, Austin Reealtors,
Speaker 1: and the Texas Tribune Membership program. And I have one
Speaker 1: more thing to announce, which is that the Trip Cast
Speaker 1: at the end of the legislative session will be having
Speaker 1: a live recording at the Austin Central Library. The twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five legislative session has been one of the most
Speaker 1: consequential for Texas schools and libraries and recent memory. If
Speaker 1: you love the Trip Cast, join us on Wednesday, June
Speaker 1: eleventh at the Downtown Austin Central Library or online when
Speaker 1: we're joined by Education reporter Jaden Edison and other special
Speaker 1: guests to discuss what happened and look ahead toward the
Speaker 1: impact on Texas schools and libraries. We'll also take questions
Speaker 1: on the human compost seating.
Speaker 2: We will get very up to speed on it by then.
Speaker 2: Please come meet us in person, come to the trip cast,
Speaker 2: be part of the mania, and yeah, we look forward
Speaker 2: to seeing you there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's at seven pm. Texastribune dot org slash events
Speaker 1: to get more information. Thanks everyone,