UPDATED 4/3/23 8:29am
When Richard Mays put a “For Sale” sign in the yard of his Lakeway, Texas, home, he hoped to get a few calls — but instead of hearing from prospective buyers, the town’s code compliance officers came calling.
The Travis County town of about 19,000 bans property owners from placing “For Sale” signs in their yards, requiring sellers to instead advertise their homes with brochure boxes. Mays is now suing the city, arguing the ban violates his First Amendment rights.
“They’ve got some crazy laws up there,” Mays said. “They really think they’re a homeowners association with a police department.”
The story started in October, when Mays placed the sign on the yard of his house at 413 Dasher Drive, which sits next to the Lakeway Airpark runway. Mays, a pilot, had purchased the home for easy access to the airport.
Within a month of posting the sign, Mays received a voicemail from Lakeway’s code compliance officer informing him that the advertisement violated city rules. Mays sent the officer a copy of “Linmark v. Willingboro,” a 1977 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled Willingboro, New Jersey, could not stop its residents from posting “For Sale” signs. The town had enacted the ordinance to stem the flow of white families out of its neighborhoods.
Mays argues that Lakeway’s anti-sign rule is a remnant of the same racist practices. “What was going on in Lakeway, too, was ‘How do you keep the Blacks out?’” Mays said. “This is a vestige of blockbusting.” “Linmark” now forms the basis of his case.
While Mays and code compliance officers initially reached an agreement not to issue a citation for the sign, the peace didn’t last long. In February, Mays was surprised to receive a notice from state authorities saying that his driver’s license would not be renewed because he had failed to appear in municipal court.
Out in Arkansas, he had not noticed a citation from city officers that had been placed in the hangar home’s mailbox in November. Apparently without Mays’ knowledge, the case came before the Lakeway City Municipal Court that December, and when he did not appear, the court issued a warrant.
In “Linmark,” the court specifically found that a municipality could not limit the flow of commercial information, in this case a property owner’s desire to sell. Yet, Mays says, since removing the sign, he has received just one inquiry about the home. He argues that the ordinance benefits local agents by making it harder for homeowners to sell their homes themselves.
“I have begged the board of Realtors for years to do something about this, and they won’t, because there’s a benefit for Realtors,” he said. “If I put up a for sale by owner sign, that’s a listing someone’s not getting”
When agents in New Canaan, Connecticut, tried to ban “For Sale” signs for aesthetic purposes, the Connecticut and National Association of Realtors moved in to persuade the local board to back off of the proposal, likely for the same First Amendment reasons Mays cites.
Lakeway Mayor Tom Kilgore and a representative for the Lakeway code compliance department did not immediately respond to request for comment.
“What Lakeway is doing is just so outside the box, I don’t know how I’m gonna lose,” Mays said. “But I probably will.”
Correction: A previous version of this article said Willingboro’s sign ban was meant to stop blockbusting, when in fact it was implemented to stem white flight. Due to an editorial error, the article also referred to Mays as Lakeway’s mayor, not Tom Kilgore.
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