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Texans have faced rising home prices and rents amid the state’s economic boom — and housing experts say the state needs to build a lot more housing to bring those costs under control.

The Texas Tribune published two articles this week examining the state’s housing affordability crisis, the role local rules may play in exacerbating that crisis, the options officials have to curb the surge in property prices and political obstacles that make it difficult to resolve the crisis. issue.

Here are five key points from these stories:

Texas needs hundreds of thousands more housing units

Texas builds more homes than any other state. But residential construction lagged after the Great Recession that began in 2007. It didn’t keep pace as the state’s economy took off and Texas welcomed millions of new residents.

The state needs 306,000 more housing units than currently, according to an estimate from the housing policy organization Up For Growth. This shortage has fueled competition for a limited supply of housing, particularly in the state’s major metropolitan areas, leading to rising housing prices and rents.

New research shows that building more housing lowers housing prices and rents. For example, when apartment construction dramatically accelerated in the Austin area in response to staggering demand during the pandemic, the addition of tens of thousands of new apartments drove down rents — even though they remain above pre-pandemic levels.

Texas cities limit how many homes can be built

Local restrictions on what types of housing can be built and where, known as zoning regulations, limit the overall housing supply in cities and contribute to higher costs, research shows.

Rules in place in many Texas cities make it difficult to add enough housing to meet demand, according to a Tribune analysis.

Cities are allowing the construction of stand-alone single-family homes with front and rear yards – long the model of American homeownership – in almost all areas intended for residential use. But it is generally illegal to build denser, less expensive housing — like townhouses, duplexes and smaller apartment buildings — in many of those locations, according to the Tribune’s analysis. Cities don’t leave as much room elsewhere to build these kinds of houses or larger apartment buildings.

These restrictions effectively limit the amount of housing that can ultimately be built, driving up housing prices and rents as Texans compete for a limited supply of housing.

Relaxing zoning regulations can help cities add more housing and contain housing costs, a study suggests.

Places that relaxed zoning restrictions saw housing costs fall

When Minneapolis officials relaxed some of their zoning rules in 2018, allowing duplexes and triplexes to be built among single-family homes and encouraging apartment construction along transit and commercial corridors, the effort appeared to have helped to contain the rise in rents. The city also removed the requirement that new developments provide a certain number of parking spaces, encouraging builders to build housing where previously they were required to build parking.

The reforms did not produce a boom in homes like duplexes and triplexes, but Minneapolis saw a wave of construction of larger apartment buildings that helped control the city’s rents, according to a recent analysis by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

In Houston, thousands of new homes have been built on smaller lots in the decades since officials reduced the amount of land on which the city required a single-family home. That boom has helped Houston keep its housing prices low compared to other major U.S. cities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, housing advocates and experts say.

Officials are exploring ways to allow more housing

City and state policymakers across Texas are increasingly considering ways to relax zoning restrictions and allow more housing — supported by an emerging movement of “yes in my backyard” activists, often called YIMBYs , who pushed for such changes.

Officials in Austin, a symbol of the state’s housing affordability crisis, have adopted several reforms over the past two years to try to rein in the city’s housing costs.

The City Council has allowed up to three housing units in many neighborhoods that previously only allowed detached single-family homes — and reduced the amount of land on which the city requires single-family homes. They also allowed the construction of apartment buildings closer to existing single-family homes as well as along the city’s proposed light rail line. Austin also became the largest city in the country to remove minimum parking requirements for new residences.

Policymakers in other cities like Dallas, El Paso, Fort Worth and San Antonio are also looking for ways to boost housing construction to curb housing prices and rents.

Texas lawmakers could also tackle the state’s housing affordability crisis when they convene in Austin next year. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan have charged lawmakers with finding ways to resolve the crisis — and signaled that state-mandated reforms to cities’ zoning restrictions could be on the way. the table.

Zoning reform is not a silver bullet – and it still faces resistance

Proposals to build more apartments or other types of housing in or near existing neighborhoods may face stiff resistance from landlords and neighborhood groups, who have long wielded enormous influence in ballot boxes. But there appears to be common ground between supporters of zoning reform and its opponents on certain ideas. For example, both appear to support allowing homes to be built on land zoned for commercial development, a practice that Texas’ largest cities do not allow.

Changing cities’ zoning rules isn’t a panacea for the state’s housing woes, housing advocates and experts warn.

Other factors such as interest rates, the pool of available construction workers and the cost of building materials can also determine whether housing ultimately gets built — even if cities relax their zoning restrictions.

Texas also spends little on housing for low-income families, who face the most severe shortage of housing they can afford. Supporters say the state should increase that spending.