Adieu to the housing filibuster?
And the Austin Monitor has a new owner.
The valid petition, the process by which a small group of property owners can block land use regulations that have majority support, appears to be on its deathbed.
The Texas House voted Monday for a bill that will essentially end the valid petition. Property owners will still be able to gather signatures to protest a proposed rezoning, but the petition will no longer trigger a requirement that the rezoning be approved by a 3/4 majority. So it no longer has any power.
Previously all you needed to demand a super-majority was signatures from the owners of 20% of the adjacent land –– which often just meant one neighbor.
Valid petitions have long been a major barrier to new housing in Austin. Just the threat of a valid petition deterred developers from rezoning properties to build more housing, particularly in affluent areas where neighbors are more likely to raise hell about development.
Over the past five years, however, a series of court rulings expanded the power of the valid petition far beyond its previously understood limitations. Opponents of zoning reform in Austin have gotten courts to agree that just about any change in land use regulation is subject to the valid petition. That was what brought down the land development code rewrite in 2020.
