Last week, a Travis County District Court judge voided two Austin City Council votes to rewrite the city’s land-use regulations. The ruling found that city council had not provided adequate notice of public hearings to property owners impacted by the new regulations. In doing so, the judge found that owner’s “property protest rights” were not recognized by the city.
It is good that property owners will have a chance to protest the new land-use ordinance. It is one thing to protest a violation of one’s right to property. It is another thing for one’s right to property to be protected. And this ruling does nothing to protect property rights.
Public hearings give property owners a voice in land-use regulations. But at the end of the day, their voice is meaningless. City officials will have the final say so.
More significantly, nobody but the owner should have a voice in the use of a parcel of property. The right to property means the freedom to create, attain, use, keep, trade, and dispose of material values. But when city officials can dictate how others use their land, the right to property has been annihilated.
In her ruling, the judge declared that if an owner protests a rezoning of his property, that property cannot be rezoned without a three-fourths vote of city council. This may slow city council’s insatiable lust to control all land use in Austin, but immense power is still vest in the city government.
Property owners in Austin need more than “property protest rights.” They need their right to property to be defended and protected.