Jack Turek

Austin may be the most peculiar large city in Texas. One one hand, it’s the capitol of Texas, where Republicans have dominated state politics for the better part of 3 decades and have legislated some very conservative laws. On the other, more colorful hand, Austin is a city offering tons of live music, a hoppin’ bar scene, plenty of delicious food, and a general “weird” vibe.

But does Austin’s reputation for weirdness extend to its zoning code, or does the city suffer from the same restrictive zoning ordinances that plague many American cities?

Austin is growing rapidly, several tech companies have their headquarters in the city, a large university pumps out thousands of graduates a year, there’s tons of music and food venues, and apparently, everyone from California is moving to Austin in what is known as the ‘Texodus’!

Not every Texan is thrilled at the prospect of all these Californians moving to the Lone Star State. Many Cali transplants are attracted by the relatively low cost of living in Texas, though the result of this influx of high-income earners has actually driven cost of living through the roof, especially in a place like Austin. What was once a laid-back “weird” town is now being called the Silicon Valley of Texas thanks in part to Austin’s tech company ecosystem and the legions of highly educated, highly-paid people that work for them.

On the surface, the housing market seems relatively simple – as demand for housing increases without a corresponding increase in housing supply, prices rise. If the housing supply increases, prices will drop. The influx of new Austinites has resulted in a significant demand for housing, increasing home prices and rents, making it more difficult for lower-income residents to stay in their homes.

But a significant factor in housing dynamics is how a city decides to zone the land available for housing. Zoning determines what kind of housing can go where and is often the fuel that fires neighborhood associations’ protests and complaints about zoning changes that would allow for denser development.

So in a city that prides itself on being “weird”, does Austin’s zoning code live up to that label, or is it just as restrictive as many other, less “weird” cities?

How Weird is Weird?

Austin’s Open Data portal has a couple excellent zoning datasets that I used – Zoning by Address and Zoning by Neighborhood. The Zoning by Address dataset contains a list of addresses in Austin and their zoning code and the Zoning by Neighborhood dataset shows the acreage and zoning categories of each neighborhood reporting area.

Looking at the proportion of each kind of zoning category in the Zoning by Address dataset, it seems to me that Austin isn’t so weird in this department after all. Single family residences and single family standard lots make up the majority of zoning in Austin, followed by Planned Unit Developments (PUDs), single family small lots, and finally general commercial services.

PUDs looked interesting to me and not something that I saw in San Antonio’s zoning data. Here’s how Austin’s Environmental Officer and Planning & Zoning Department define a PUD:

• A large or complex single or multi-use development that is planned as a single project and that is under unified control.
• Purpose of PUD zoning is to preserve the natural environment, encourage high quality development and innovative design, and ensure adequate public facilities and services.
• A PUD provides greater design flexibility by permitting modifications of site development regulations. Development under PUD zoning must be superior to the development that would occur under conventional zoning and subdivision regulations.
• A PUD must include at least 10 acres of land, unless the property is characterized by special circumstances.

Almost 11% of Austin’s addresses are zoned as a PUD. My first reaction to the above description is that it sounds like a fancy way of creating some sort of mixed use development similar to San Antonio’s Pearl, with market-rate or higher apartments, numerous food and beverage options, and lots of parking spaces.

A quick Google Maps search of some of the addresses listed as PUDs revealed a situation worse than I imagined… suburban developments….lots and lots of suburban developments and undeveloped land just waiting for those cookie-cutter homes. In addition to these types of extremely car-dependent developments, many other PUDs I looked up were 4-5 bedroom McMansions, with the occasional single-family town-home/condominium development thrown in. I was discussing these with my wife and she had what I think is a spot-on observation: “So, this is zoning specifically for rich people”. Hard to argue with that!

Granted, I only looked up 10 of the 28,000+ addresses zoned as a PUD, so if any reader lives in a PUD that isn’t a single-family McMansion or only accessible by car, let me know!

Austin’s zoning gets even less weird when only residential zoning codes are examined. Over 90% of residential addresses in Austin are zoned for single family residences, just 2% higher than San Antonio’s proportion of single-family zoning. Just over 2% are for rural residences, which is even higher than any high density, multi-family zoning in Austin.

Here’s how the rest of the residential zoning in Austin shakes out:

This isn’t weird. I’d actually say that this staggeringly normal for an American city. At least Austin has addresses zoned for multi-family density and transit-oriented development. I didn’t see any TOD zoned areas in San Antonio, but one is supposed to go into development in the next few years.

One thing that I like about Austin’s neighborhood zoning data is that shows how each neighborhood reporting area is zoned and how large each zoning category is. Neighborhood reporting areas are a combination of official and unofficial neighborhood boundaries that Austin uses to collect data. According to the neighborhood zoning data I found, Austin has 103 specifically designated neighborhood reporting areas.

The largest neighborhood reporting area in Austin is named Mansfield-River Place at 9,909 acres or around 15 square miles. Mansfield-River Place is just northwest of downtown Austin and abuts Lake Travis, a popular spot for swimming and other recreational activities. Below is a screenshot from Redfin showing what’s for sale in this neighborhood:

Lots of condos, including one going for almost $1.2 million, which is actually the low end of the price scale here. If you care to see the incredible expense of living in Mansfield-River Place, you can view the properties here.

Not all of these neighborhood reporting areas are zoned for only one use. Mansfield-River Place, for example, has 10 different zoning categories. Its top 3 are Rural, Lake Austin Residence (3,949 acres), Agriculture, Development Reserve (2,711 acres), and Single Family (1,286 acres). Another sizable neighborhood reporting area, Robinson Ranch, has Planned Unit Development (6,011 acres) as its largest zoning category out of 8 other types of zoning.

Out of 16 general neighborhood zoning categories, single-family zoning reigns supreme, taking up 52,127 total acres of planned zoning. Single family zoning is followed by PUDs (27,526 acres), Rural-Lake Austin Residences (21,433), Public (19,577), and Industrial (12,309). Mixed Use (3,883) and Multi-Family (8,489) zoning types are in the top 10 but are significantly less than the top zoning categories in Austin. While it seems that PUDs should allow for higher density homes to be built, those higher density units appear to be luxury condos going for millions of dollars. Similar to San Antonio, single-family zoning reigns supreme.

What’s being built and how much does it cost?

Using issued permits data from Austin’s Open Data portal, we can see what types of housing has been built in the city since 2006. We’ll be focusing primarily on new types of housing being built unless other permit types stand out as being worthy of investigation.

49,512 R-101 Single Family Houses permits have been issued since 2006, averaging out to nearly 3,000 new single family home permits per year (2006-2023). If we include the C-101 Single Family Houses zoning category, then over 50,000 permits for single family homes were issued over the same time period. Overall, single family home permits make up 80% of all residential permits issued in Austin for the last 17 years.

Single family home permits in Austin peaked in 2006 at 3,843 and steadily declined in the subsequent years before climbing again in 2012, right after the Great Recession. There was some decline in 2020 and 2021 before a significant drop off in permits issued in 2022. After the great rush on homes because of low interest rates in 2021, home building decreased as rates increased and many people were priced out of the housing market.

Speaking of the housing market, let’s see the median home value for Travis County, of which Austin makes up a major part. After some stagnation in the years around the Great Recession, home values skyrocketed in Travis County. As home values increased in the county, the amount of permits issued for single-family homes also increased. Like I touched on when looking at San Antonio’s zoning issues, single-family homes are cheaper to build for the developer but more expensive for the buyer. And since the Austin area is zoned primarily for single-family dwellings, single-family homes are what will be built.

I’m not surprised by what I found in Austin’s zoning data. In 2021, the New York Times ran a piece that called Austin the least affordable city in the United States. City and state leadership have gone to great lengths to encourage tech businesses to relocate their headquarters to Austin, touting a business-friendly economic environment and a world-class university ready to supply educated tech workers every year.

What has happened in Austin, and what is happening in San Antonio on some level, is that new residents are arriving in Austin, looking for ‘culture’, things to do, high-paying jobs, and cheap living, but pushing out long-time residents who can’t afford to keep up with the pace of growth. This is a direct result of Austin leadership’s short-sightedness. It’s clear that the question of where will the new people who work for these tech companies will live was never seriously considered. If it was actually considered, and the answer leadership settled on was to continue building single-family homes and keep zoning for PUDs, then it’s a massive housing policy failure that is hurting vulnerable Austin residents and exacerbating Austin’s housing crisis.