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This is a free issue of the No Bull newsletter, which covers urbanism in and around Houston, TX. If you enjoy it, please think about subscribing.
Brandon Griggs
I am a proud advocate of the “Yes in My Backyard” (YIMBY) movement. YIMBYs believe in building abundant, affordable housing where people genuinely want to live. This means more housing in the areas of the city where events are held or employers are, like The Post or the energy corridor. We can mostly do this by legalizing housing developments, funding affordable housing projects, making housing more stable by protecting tenants, streamlining the permitting process, and fixing incentives, primarily with the tax structure. Legalizing housing and permit streamlining kind of go hand in hand. In many cities across the country, including Houston, cities present many barriers for housing developers who just want to build. In Houston, the state of Texas, and the country, we do not supply enough housing. We do not allow developers to build in appropriate quantities to meet demand, and that leaves tons of people without appropriate housing, homeless, or paying too much for too little. Through advocacy and with the help of policymakers, we can build an even better, more diverse, and more inclusive community here in Houston.
Our city holds a special place in my heart. I can imagine a time when we all don't have to worry about housing costs, a future where our communities come together and share each other’s diversity and culture with ease. That is what Houston is all about. We are a truly global city, comprised of cultures and people from all over the world. All it takes is us saying yes—yes to more neighbors, yes to more people, yes to walkable communities, yes to shorter commutes, yes to housing, and most importantly, yes to more Houston!
Most of a community's environment is shaped by what the federal, state, and local governments do. Investment in a community and the desire to build there reflect both private decisions made by developers looking to make money and governmental policy decisions made at all levels. For more on why our neighborhoods matter, and how they can significantly alter people’s lives, I suggest reading “Why Neighborhoods—and the Policies that Shape Them—Matter” by Dolores Acevedo-Garcia.
In Houston, we are quite a bit better off than many other parts of the country in terms of housing development and supply, but there is still significant progress to be made.
During the pandemic, there was less inventory because many new homes weren't being built, and builders were having a hard time financially. In the past few months, there has been a steady rise in demand, and as a result, inventory has started to pick up again. Prices have continued to go through the roof, making it impossible for nearly anyone in the city to buy a home.
Texas Real Estate Research Center (TRERC) at Texas A&M University (TAMU)
With year-over-year price increases nearing the 17% mark, we have to look for ways to bring them down. One such way is to legalize building! Seriously, if we want developers to build, we should get rid of the things that make it hard for them to do so, like parking minimums and deed restrictions. These things act almost like zoning rules and stunt our community's growth.
If you have a baseline understanding of economics, you know that well-regulated, competitive markets can provide optimal outcomes for society at large. The market for housing in much of the US, including Houston, is overregulated, which discourages competition and leads to inefficiency. According to Sabo Custom Builders of Houston, permitting costs for single-family constructions start at $4,500 and go up from there. I can only imagine how high permitting costs could get for multifamily developments. Considering that our country was built on the fruits of capitalism, our housing market is very flawed.
…mostly, the thing I want to sell people on is freedom. It should be legal to build a detached single-family home on any parcel of residentially zoned land in America. But it should also be legal to build a duplex or some rowhouses there. The point of making it legal to build mid-rise apartments isn’t that there’s something incredibly awesome about living in a mid-rise apartment. It’s that in a world of tradeoffs, you might prefer it to an alternative living situation where you have a longer commute or higher expenses.
What type of YIMBY are you?
I’m “grew up poor, saw my family and friends struggle with housing costs their entire lives, studied the research extensively, and realized that fighting for working class people meant fighting for housing”
— Armand Domalewski (@ArmandDoma)
Feb 3, 2023
Cities have always been places where people go to chase opportunities and grow as people. Urban centers have been the places where people, like immigrants in New York City, have all gone to find success. It's not fair to keep the next generation of entrepreneurs, innovators, builders, and business owners from experiencing the Houston that we all know and love due to exclusionary housing policies. Consider subscribing to No Bull as we seek to define what it means to be a Houston YIMBY. I’ll be back on Wednesday with more about our great city.
If you want to learn more about the YIMBY movement, check out YIMBY Action.
I’ve made a Discord server for No Bull readers! If you’d like to chat with me and other readers join here!
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