Zoning & Planning Is Getting Really, Really Wild, Ya’ll

Why So Little Community Input? Askin for a Friend

HOME is supposed to stand for “Home Options for Mobility and Equity” and now people gotta be asking FOR WHO?

Leigh Budlong — May 13, 2026

How did the Quintessential Single Family Neighborhood turn into such a target?

Don’t ask why just let this sink in: City of Austin has up and just pointed all major residential districts to HOME. Timing details to be determined as this heads into City Managers + staff’s hands.

The real story is just starting and it don’t take no PhD or extra smarts to know people feel things about these changes just being pulled out of thin air and put into action with essentially zero notice. This video is a resident explaining exactly how he feels about this lack of transparency and what is really at stake. View.

The feeling is that it is a rushed decision using one report to make the call “it works” using an “all or nothing” proposition. The pressure valve is gonna need to get released as this works its way through town as the impact so far in many cases is an “all house, no yard” feeling.

Where are the trees and the garden? How about that space to just be? Well, HOME is being marketed as the answer to all the problems, just make 3 lots out of one wherever you can and it is bound to “solve” the housing price issues.

As far as getting used to the new neighbors, well that is gonna be something given their homes loft above those that were there. It is the opposite of what was supposed to be the look and feel of Austin just a few decades ago when people fought the McMansions.

Lots of tension around even the concept of a single family neighborhood. It is as if they, the actual neighborhoods, are just causing all the problems. What is that all about?

The ruckus is here folks. That meeting last week was just teeming with folks wanting to speak up - some for it (lots of builders praising the current HOME stuff is working just fine as a “product fit” gets undersized lots fitted with a gleaming new home) and plenty against it (downgrading families, schools closing, expensive stuff).

Example - Demolish House for Homes

During the meeting, here’s an example of a HOME approved project. What used to a single family house with about 1,000 sf “main living area” house and a gross building size of just over 2,000 (with garage) on about 10,000 square feet of land sold to a developer.

Now, it has 3 brand new and large luxury homes. Let’s do the same breakdown: just over 6,000 sf of “main living area” house (in 3 separate houses) and a gross building size (for all 3) totally approximately 13,600 square feet.

So from 1,000 sf to 6,000 sf (main living area) is a 6x and from 2,000 to 13,600 is about a 7x difference. All on the same 10,000 square foot lot. And guess what? The price is not for the teacher or service worker who can afford around just $400,000. No sir, no way, these little towers built as a house of sorts fetch 2-3x or more that amount making the question real obvious: I thought this was supposed to help make the darn houses MORE affordable, what gives?

Additionally, I feel for folks with the ability to see what this is doing. People moving out, homes being demolished to “make way for” and the fabric of places long known for its quirks is being dismantled. Folks, these are sweeping changes with potential to do what no other policy has been able to do: alter the established neighborhoods forever. Yep, I said it.

Ane once these places that have such intrinsic value are gone, they are gone. People buy a place, a block known for its pecan trees, a neighborhood that knows what it means to offer a sense of community without it feeling fake or forced. People save and scrimp to buy a home and when they do, they don’t just “buy a house.” They are buying into a whole place, block and community. You can’t act as though the rest don’t matter which is what I heard when some claimed “we aren’t taking away someone’s right to build just a house.” Well, that’s a fine point but you are taking away their peace of mind to know they have other similar homes nearby instead of these mini towers with tons of building and no land or setbacks to speak of. Am I right?

I’m usually writing about the state stuff like SB840 but the Austin meeting just had that tone, y’all know what I mean. The tone that says “we’re coming, hell or high water” for making these little homes into big sized things all in the name of affordability by adding supply and all the while saying we want to build small, really we do but the market just is keen on big. Wonder why? The big make more money for those that build.

Folks, this supply side stuff didn’t work in Seattle as this video shows plainly from 10 years ago: see it.

Bright Light Rep Duchen

During this Austin city council, one member was out there on the range so to speak, alone. No one else dared come to support, it was as if they’d already made up their minds. Not one did the job to second a motion for any of his 3 proposed amendments which had some brass tacks common sense to them.

Guess, the others just wanted to end the meeting quick. Fact is, Rep Duchen, the one member out there on the range, was the one to say “pull it” for the item on the agenda. It was suppose to just get tucked right in with the consent agenda, you know the part of the meeting when a bucket of items all costing you get approved without a lick of discussion, just vooooommmmm and the money is obligated, a commitment is made.

Now, this time Rep Duchen, the lone council member, made the effort and my hat goes off to him for not just letting it slide on by. Plus he was the ONLY voice to say the most obvious: all this density is gonna cost the homeowner, the one that may just feel the need to sell for “land value” to a developer as the block the house is sitting on starts to look and feel like the very thing the McMansion Ordinance was to protect against. Or the Stealth Dorm stuff.

Mighty fine work from Rep Duchen, District 10, on getting his points out there about these changes are not insignificant and such. Plus, he even had the courage to say the changes impact the people’s “chief assets.” Whoa, that almost sounded as if the property rights were on his mind as he uttered those words.

As we close for today, remember cowboys and cowgirls to think about what it means to have a home, a place you call home and one you might have been working most of your adult life paying for. Do you have protection? Do you have historic status on your home or in your immediate area? Is there a private deed (or covenant in a homeowners association) saying “no splitting the lot” for you and your nearest neighbors? That may be all that stands between your “chief asset” and the ruckus which I tell ya will cost the incumbent homeowner by and bye

I guess when I was writing about the proponent for the first wave of HOME from the likes of Texans for Responsible I was weary. I looked at the Board and thought “shucks, how can someone with that kind of billion dollar bank really know what it feels like to have to work to pay for all the things it takes to own a home: from mortgage to insurance to property taxes to updates. It’s a real commitment. And now “poof” the social compact is gone.

Posted on the TXzoning youtube are three new shorts taken from the meeting:

Austin Not a Place for Families

$1.7 Million, Not for Me

People’s Chief Asset

Hostile TakeOver

Next, I sure think this kind of maneuvering is going to send ripples through the heart of Texas as other cities, backed with loyal American Planning Association (APA) professionals, jump this into motion using HB24.

That bill allows for the HOME type of move to happen in any city in Texas, don’t matter your size or your county size. If you’re standing in an incorporated place, watch out. The years of having 5,000 square foot lots is coming to a halt with this kind of vigor for “small” which now, we can call “luxe” short for super fancy. Oh, and I almost forgot, the counter to the real expensive new builds is this: these expensive new builds will be affordable to the coming generations. Yep, that’s what was said. Just have to wait a few decades.

Next Up: Manufactured Housing

I’m fixin to get the new rules that go into place this summer on manufactured housing. Funny how that was approved by the same Legislators as SB840 but its starting date is different.

I don’t know how the new luxe will like being next to manufactured but I think that might be part of the way things might just go. A little this and little that without much in-the-middle for those “site built” types of homes. Whoops, maybe that missing middle is set to find their match in manufactured housing. Maybe that was the plan all along.

If you or your client is feeling that zoning stuck feeling, holler and I'll see what I can do (contact me).

Know someone who needs to hear this? Forward this newsletter to every homeowner you know. This fight gets easier when more folks understand what's at stake.

Keep your ears to the ground at TXZoning.com

See Tracy in Denton Talking from the Heart (this has gotten more views than any other video and I think I know why…the “services” we think are being provided are not. Houston - and beyond, we have a problem!)

For all our videos, ride over to our YouTube Channel

Happy trails until we meet again…

View original post