Reducing Minimum Lot Size: Neighborhood Nightmare or Affordable Housing Dream Come True?

The Austin City Council took a bold leap last week, agreeing to allow builders to develop up to three housing units on almost any lot in the city where single-family homes are allowed, thereby reducing the minimum lot size necessary for dwellings. Dallas housing advocates, elected officials, and Not In My Backyard homeowners were watching, and everyone has an opinion. 

Good arguments exist on both sides. It could be a way to provide more housing and tackle Dallas’ affordability crisis. It could also change single-family neighborhoods in a way that some just flat don’t want and create a slew of new problems related to environmental justice, drainage, sanitation, and parking. 

Austinites Voice Opposition to Minimum Lot Size Reduction

The City of Austin heard from more than 500 residents at its Dec. 7 meeting, and about 300 opposed the idea of allowing more homes on single-family lots, according to Joshua Fechter of the Texas Tribune. 

The Austin City Council voted 9-2 to “allow homebuilders to put up to three housing units, such as duplexes and triplexes, on almost any lot in the city where single-family homes are currently allowed, a move aimed at juicing the city’s supply of homes affordable to middle-income households,” Fechter reported. 

Dallas Could Follow Austin in Reducing Minimum Lot Size to Accommodate More Housing

Dallas City Councilman Chad West filed a memo on Nov. 8 asking that the matter of minimum lot size be discussed and debated locally. Mayor Eric Johnson kicked it to the council’s Housing and Homelessness Solutions Committee, chaired by District 2 Councilman Jesse Moreno. 

Moreno announced by memorandum Tuesday that HHS would take up “discussion of expanding housing development options with potential regulations for two- to four-unit housing and minimum residential lot size” at a special-called meeting at 9 a.m. Dec. 19. 

The Argument Against Reduced Minimum Lot Size

A dramatized video detailing the potential negative impacts of Austin’s decision to reduce minimum lot sizes was circulated last week, drawing attention to environmental and property rights concerns raised by longtime Austin residents.

Shortly after District 12 Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn shared the link in a newsletter to her constituents, the video received more than 4,000 views and was set to private and unavailable. However, it was later republished with some information redacted:

“I support reduced lot sizes for new developments, but not changing the development rules in existing neighborhoods,” Mendelsohn told CandysDirt.com. “People who want to add an [accessory dwelling unit] or other structure on their property already have a means to do so, through the Board of Adjustment.” 

Mendelsohn further told residents in her D12 newsletter that the Dallas discussion on minimum lot size is a “scheme to remove single-family zoning, opening the issue of short-term rentals to all areas, along with the right to build accessory dwelling units and turn properties in neighborhoods into multifamily or several smaller homes.”

The process of going through the Board of Adjustment to permit smaller units in single-family areas does not harm adjacent neighbors, Mendelsohn said. 

“To allow it by right would essentially eliminate single-family zoning and bring a series of issues that haven’t been explored or evaluated, including lot coverage issues, drainage issues, on-street parking problems, water delivery issues, sanitation challenges, boarding home/group home challenges, and more,” she said. 

Reducing Minimum Lot Size For Affordable Housing 

District 1 Councilman Chad West filed a five-signature memo last month requesting a staff briefing on the subject. 

“Housing in the City of Dallas is becoming unaffordable for many would-be residents due to a lack of available housing units,” West said in an email to CandysDirt.com. “Reducing minimum lot sizes and increasing the number of residential dwelling units allowed on a lot will allow for the development of additional dwelling units in residentially zoned areas. The purpose of the briefing is to see what the process would be for amending the construction codes and the Dallas Development Code to allow for the construction of additional dwelling units.”

Housing advocates rejoiced, pointing to a Child Poverty Action Lab report that shows a housing gap of more than 33,600 units exists between what is available to renters and what already is available, Additionally, the city has a 16,000-home deficit of affordable single-family homes, according to Lisa Neergaard, assistant director of builidingcommunityWORKSHOP. 

CPAL Senior Director Ashley Flores, however, acknowledged during a November meeting that plenty of housing exists in Dallas; it’s just not affordable. 

Study Shows That Dallas Has a Lot of Housing, But it Also Has a Lot of Poverty

Members of the Dallas Housing Coalition and Dallas Neighbors for Housing have pushed the idea that more housing is needed and took their concerns to City Hall last week to fight for $200 million in housing dollars in the 2024 bond election. 

Adam Lamont, a local teacher and leader in the advocacy group Dallas Neighbors for Housing said he hears often from City Council members that they want diverse, liveable, mixed-income communities. 

“Those communities do not just happen,” he said. “There has to be a real, intentional investment. I’m not sure where in North Dallas my students could live without affordable housing.” 

In response to a Dallas Morning News column by Dallas Cothrum posing the question, “Is Dallas ready for multifamily everywhere,” Zoning Ordinance Advisory Committee member Nathaniel Barrett responded, “The short answer is Dallas was ready 100 years ago but we’ll settle for today.” 

“The long answer is that this cynical piece fails to conduct any cost/benefit analysis, identify useful alternatives, or consider anything but gut feelings on the politics of housing reform,” Barrett added. 

West said it’s clear the status quo in Dallas is not working “when too many of our hardest-working residents are priced out of the American dream of homeownership.” 

“Simply put, this policy would make it easier to build housing that meets the needs and incomes of middle-class Dallasites,” West told CandysDirt.com on Tuesday. “Just last week Austin took a major step forward in implementing lot size reform through the HOME initiative, a policy that has worked in cities like Houston and Minneapolis in taming their affordability crisis. If Dallas cares about tackling gentrification and displacement, we must open up the opportunity for more moderate-sized lots.”

Does Dallas Want to Be Like Austin?

Earlier this year and separate from the action taken last week, the City of Austin approved a measure that reduces the residential minimum lot size to 2,500 square feet, making way for smaller units and greater density. 

The minimum lot size in Dallas for residential use is, on average, about 5,000 to 7,500 square feet, depending on where the base zoning was established.

West has said he wants to consider Austin’s code as a model, but he doesn’t like every aspect of it for Dallas. 

Austin’s resolution also legalized homes on every lot by right and exempted duplexes up to quadplexes from submitting costly and burdensome site plans. 

“At its core, this allows for the construction of ‘missing middle housing,’ or accessory dwelling units, duplexes, quadplexes, and row houses,” West wrote in an op-ed column published in the Dallas Morning News in July. “I would like Dallas to begin the process of doing this in our city with two major amendments to Austin’s plan. The first is technical: adjusting the minimum lot size to 1,500 square feet, as it is in Houston.”

The other amendment West proposes to Austin’s plan is “values-based” — only allowing construction of missing middle housing on infill plots where a house does not currently exist. 

Mendelsohn, however, points out that Dallas is in a different situation than Austin. 

“Unlike Austin, Dallas has 40 percent of its land undeveloped, which is roughly the size of Atlanta, Georgia,” she said. “We don’t need to start stacking people on top of others to grow the city.” 

Mendelsohn’s solution to address affordable housing, as presented in a newsletter to constituents, is: 

• Focus on a master plan to develop Southern Dallas which will give certainty to developers and focused strategic investment of city resources.
• Lower property taxes.
• Provide incentives and partnership in the development we want to see.
• Fix our zoning and permitting offices to make it easier and more attractive to build in Dallas.

An agenda has not yet been posted for the Dec. 19 meeting of the Housing and Homelessness Solutions.