A version of this written comment was submitted to the Texas Committee on Land and Resource Management on March 25, 2025.
Texas House Bill 24 would strengthen property rights and improve housing affordability.
Exclusionary zoning partitions land by use to avoid incompatible uses next to each other. Some of that is certainly necessary to prevent all manner of clashes and harmful spillovers between neighboring properties. However, zoning also does far more than that. It often serves as the primary tool of local planners who want to substitute their vision of how land should be used for the vision of the property owners and suborn individual property rights to achieve their own plans.
This doesn’t just rip away property rights. It worsens housing affordability by restricting supply and hampering workforce mobility, making it harder for people to relocate for better jobs and better housing, which stifles innovation and adaptability. It even affects environmental sustainability by pushing housing further from city centers, leading to more sprawl, car dependence, and pollution. If we want a thriving economy that truly supports people from all walks of life, we need to rethink zoning policies that limit new business growth and affordable housing options and restrict who gets access to opportunity.
A better approach would be to establish clearer property rights and limit the scope of local government intervention in routine housing decisions. HB 24 takes important steps in that direction.
The bill would limit the ability of neighbors and NIMBY (not in my backyard) activist groups to file protests against zoning changes initiated by a property owner or when local governments choose to make zoning rules less restrictive. It would not prevent protests, still allowing them when a proposed change creates major opposition. However, it would prevent small but active groups from stopping changes. This would allow property owners to exercise their property rights without arbitrary protest from a handful of people. It would also do the same for local governments who want to deregulate land use a bit to encourage housing growth and affordability.
The bill would also allow individuals or organizations to take civil action against local governments that do not enact requested less restrictive zoning changes and are not effectively protested. This would avoid the all-too-common “death by inaction” for zoning reforms that strengthen property rights.
At the same time, HB 24 would not affect deed-restricted or homeowner association restrictions on land use. Those restrictions are agreed upon in the contract when buying properties and are effectively part of the property rights arrangements owners choose to buy. They provide an option for those who want to avoid neighbors changing how they use their property rather than calling for local governments to use zoning to do so.
HB 24 would improve property rights in Texas and allow for greater housing supply and affordability without taking away any power of local governments to prevent incompatible uses or of homeowners to choose restricted communities if they want those types of restrictions.