Texas might make it easier to build smaller homes. Tarrant leaders are speaking out
Staring down a historic, statewide housing affordability crisis, Texas legislators could force certain municipalities to drastically reduce minimum lot size requirements for new homes in some neighborhoods.
The bipartisan cohort of lawmakers behind Senate Bill 15 contends that making it easier for developers to build small will enable them to churn out more homes at lower price points. Some Tarrant County mayors have denounced the proposal as a threat to neighborhood character and the ability of municipal governments to dictate how they can use their land.
“Backed by 8 bipartisan co-authors, SB 15 removes municipal minimum lot size regulations in fast-growing cities, allowing developers to build more affordable homes without compromising neighborhood character,” Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, one of the bill’s lead authors, said in a statement posted to X Mar. 4. The tweaked version of the proposal cleared the senate 28 votes to 3 on Mar. 19.
The latest iteration of the bill, if passed, would outlaw minimum lot size requirements larger than 1,400 square feet (or plots with fewer than 31.1 dwelling units per acre) in some areas.
It also takes aim at a litany of other building design rules, forbidding municipal statutes that require homes on “small lots” (those smaller than 4,000 square feet) to have covered parking, setbacks larger than 5 feet, or fewer than three stories, among other features.
The bans would affect specific neighborhoods in specific cities. Only municipal areas with at least 150,000 residents in counties with at least 300,000 — like Fort Worth — would be subject to the law as written (an earlier version of SB 15 set the population floor at 90,000). The bill’s density cap would apply only to unplatted single-family divisions of at least 5 acres in size, a measure designed to preserve “existing communities,” according to Bettencourt’s statement on X.
SB 15, despite its caveats, has drawn the ire of some mayors in Tarrant County.
Municipal leaders “should have the say, by and through the residents who elected them, on how the city should be planned out and built out,” Southlake Mayor Shawn McCaskill told the Star-Telegram.
McCaskill and his peers in Keller and Colleyville on March 12 sent a letter to state legislators representing their areas urging them to fight the bill.
The three cities, lodged beside one another in a pocket of Northeast Tarrant County, are landscapes of large-lot homes. Around 93% of Southlake residents are homeowners, according to city data. Much of the city is zoned for single family lots at least one acre in size. The less dense single family neighborhoods require lots of at least 20,000 square feet; the city’s residential “planned unit development districts,” intended to encourage “a more creative, efficient and aesthetically desirable design and placement of buildings, open spaces, circulation patterns,” cap building density at 1.8 dwellings per acre.
“The bill, should it become law, would change the character of Texas communities and would decimate land use and zoning authority at the local level,” the mayors wrote.
SB 15, as written, wouldn’t apply to any of their localities — neither Keller, Southlake or Colleyville have populations above 50,000.
“Until the bill is signed and approved, those numbers can change,” McCaskill said.
An earlier version of the bill pitched in 2023 would have undone lot size requirements in any Texas city in a county of 300,000 or more people; it also lacked the provision confining density rules to new subdivisions. The legislation cleared the Senate after a split vote before stalling in the House.
Fort Worth’s Development Services Department has also voiced concerns with the bill’s most recent form.
“Our historic single-family neighborhoods have zoning design rules meant to preserve their unique characteristics and value while allowing for new construction,” a department spokesperson wrote to the Star-Telegram. “The bill, as proposed, would dramatically weaken these zoning rules, undermining the diligent work of property owners and the careful public process that established them.”
Just under half of Fort Worth’s zoned land, as of 2022, is set aside for single-family homes, according to city land use analysis; the city’s smallest minimum lot size for detached single family homes is 3,000 square feet. About 37% of Fort Worth’s territory is vacant, undeveloped, or used for agriculture.
Affordable housing crisis in Texas
“Since 2008, Texas has been the No. 1 state for new building permits for privately owned housing units,” the Texas comptroller noted in a 2024 analysis of housing affordability in the state. “However, the state’s population, particularly in the major metropolitan areas, is growing at a quicker pace than housing is being built.”
The mismatch has produced an estimated shortfall of at least 300,000 homes statewide. The shortage is especially acute for middle-income families, for whom the median priced home is floating further and further out of reach, according to the comptroller.
Prospective homebuyers in the Metroplex are feeling the burn.
North Texas had long been a haven of home affordability, thanks in large part to its cheap and ample land. Breakneck growth — paired with spikes in property, construction and loan costs — has pierced that bubble. In 2011, 83% of homes in Fort Worth were priced below $200,000, according to a city analysis. That share had shrunk to just 12% by 2021, homes in the $300,000-$400,000 range taking their place.
Some researchers and urban planners slam government-mandated minimum lot sizes as an artificial barrier to more and less costly home construction. Requiring larger residences on larger parcels, they argue, yields pricier homes (and less land leftover to build others).
McCaskill believes municipalities should be able to decide what kind of housing their need without Austin sticking its nose in.
“They can change their zoning ordinances or change their land use plans or change their residential development standards in accordance with the wishes of their current residents to fit what they think is best for their community,” he said.
This story was originally published March 20, 2025 at 2:24 PM.
