AUSTIN (KXAN) — In a speech before local policy makers Monday, Vice President JD Vance urged leaders at the National League of Cities to prioritize housing reform. During that speech, he pointed to efforts in Austin.
“We want Americans to be able to afford the American dream of home ownership, because we know that when people own their homes, it makes them a stakeholder. It makes them a stakeholder in their neighborhoods, in their cities, and ultimately, of course, in this country,” Vance said.
Vance talked about the challenges people are facing now to buy or even rent a home. He pointed to inflation and then pivoted to zoning.
“The reality you all know is that zoning is an area where federal authority is actually quite limited, and I’m sure none of you want the federal government in the business of mandating how cities and towns handle local laws, and that’s certainly not what we want to do either,” Vance said.
That’s where the vice president used the city of Austin as an example. Our city has implemented several zoning changes with the goal of increasing housing supply over the past few years. Those changes include:
- Three units: Bumping the number of units “by right” allowed on a single-family lot to three
- Tiny homes: Patching loopholes in Austin’s land development code to more easily allow for tiny homes to be considered a unit on a lot zoned as single-family
- House size limits: Setting “size constraints” to force smaller units
- Minimum lot size: Dropping minimum lot size requirements from 5,750 square feet to 1,800 square feet
You may know those changes better as HOME phase one and HOME phase two. Austin has also made zoning changes like eliminating parking requirements.
“We’ve got to actually make it easier to build homes, and in particular, I think the city of Austin has done a pretty interesting job, because in Austin, you saw this massive increase of people moving in, the cost of housing skyrocketed, but then Austin implemented some pretty smart policies and brought down the cost of housing, and it’s one of the few major American cities where you see the cost of housing leveling off or even coming down,” Vance said.
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