For the past five years, the city of Austin has been working on a revised land-use ordinance called CodeNext. The ordinance has grown to 1,500 pages and is attracting a great deal of controversy. Opponents have organized a petition drive to submit the plan to voters.
One group opposed to the the new ordinance, Community Not Commodity (CNC), claims that CodeNext was
not devised or driven by our community, but instead by land developers and their lobbyists—and with profit in mind, not the needs of our local residents. As a result, CodeNEXT fails to effectively address Austin’s most pressing problems, including the consequences of historic, institutional racism and the massive displacement of people of color that continues to this day. Our mayor and city council have publicly admitted, for example, that CodeNEXT will do nothing to make housing more affordable for low-income Austinites.
The group wants stronger provisions for preservation and neighborhood protection, and more affordable housing. And as icing the cake, they apparently want land-use regulations to end racism. To say that CNC is a confused group would be putting it mildly.
As one example, current regulations stipulate a minimum lot size of 7,000 square feet in some areas. This means that the cost of land is allocated to a single home. But, if a developer could build four homes on that lot, the land cost is allocated between four homes. That can have a substantial impact on the cost of a new home.
But this is only one regulation that impacts the cost of building a home. The plethora of regulations imposed on builders in Austin adds nearly 40 percent to the cost of a new home. It is simply impossible for builders to construct less expensive homes and remain in business. (See our policy paper “The Affordable Housing Crisis: Causes and Cures” for more details.) But CNC wants to continue these egregious land-use regulations and have more affordable housing. That isn’t possible. But as we will see in the next post, CNC isn’t concerned with what is possible. They are concerned with their wishes being fulfilled.
I certainly won’t defend CodeNext. But many of the opponents have contradictory goals. They believe that government can magically make housing more affordable. In truth, government can only make housing more expensive.