Dallas can increase housing supply by reducing the minimum lot size

A newly constructed home photographed next to a single-story home in Old East Dallas on Friday, March 8, 2024, in Dallas. According to an analysis by the real estate and rental platform Zillow Group Inc, the income needed to comfortably afford a home in Dallas is up by $53,679 since January 2020.

There are a lot of ideas being discussed now to help address the problem of home affordability in Dallas.The idea isn’t uncontroversial. In its early years of development, Dallas and surrounding cities had such abundant land that larger lots were much easier to afford. Now, the cost of land is a key driver in rising prices. Residents in many established neighborhoods worry that lowering lot sizes could lead to dramatic changes in the places they call home.

The discussions predictably devolved into chaos because complicated and potentially disruptive solutions were all lumped together. Different zoning and land use changes need to be considered separately. The idea to allow duplexes by right should be put on hold for now, but city officials should seriously explore the pragmatic solution of reducing the minimum lot size.a resolution to reduce minimum lot size from 5,750 to 2,500 square feet.

The move would introduce more housing while still incentivizing home ownership over renting. Lowering the minimum lot size does not mean that larger lots would be taken away; it just means that families who can only afford smaller homes would have options beyond renting. Reducing minimum lot sizes has been embraced across the political aisle as commonsense policy. The Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank, recently published athat found that less restrictive municipal regulations around lot sizes would allow the market to work better to close the housing affordability gap. At the state level, Sen. Paul Bettencourt had introduced athat would prohibit big Texas cities from mandating lots larger than 1,400 square feet.

Source: Real Estate Daily Report (realestatedailyreport.net)

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