North Texas Suburbs Test YIMBY Law WIth Zoning Restrictions

North Texas suburbs are testing the limits of a new state law aimed at making multifamily development easier.

Senate Bill 840, signed by Gov. Greg Abbott in June, went into effect Sept. 1. The law overrides local zoning rules and allows developers to build apartments in more commercial districts, as part of an effort to spur more development and cool soaring housing costs.

The law applies to cities with populations over 150,000, a list that includes eight DFW cities: Arlington, Plano, Irving, Garland, Frisco, McKinney, Grand Prairie and Denton.

“Many local governments make it too slow and too expensive to build more housing,” Abbott said at the signing.

Irving, Arlington, Plano and Frisco have responded with measures that do just that. They’ve tacked height mandates, stricter design standards and hefty amenity requirements to multifamily development, which critics say make many projects financially unworkable, the Texas Tribune reported.

In Irving, a basic three-story walkup is no longer legal. Developers must now build eight-story complexes with a pool, gym, coworking space and dog park, plus at least one extra perk like a yoga studio or bike-repair station. Arlington is requiring six stories for some projects and mandating EV chargers in 15 percent of parking spaces. Plano added height minimums in commercial zones and new rules for energy efficiency. Frisco took the most creative approach, tweaking its zoning to pair apartments with heavy industrial use — a technicality that effectively blocks projects.

Local leaders argue the restrictions are about quality control and infrastructure strain, not obstruction.

Plano Mayor John Muns told the outlet that, while he’s always supported more housing in the city, taking away local authority prevents local communities from guiding projects in the way they see fit. In Plano, denser single-family housing types such as townhomes are now legal in some of the zoning locations that state law now encourages mixed-use and apartment developments.

But housing advocates say the rules gut the intent of the state law and risk worsening the shortage of an estimated 320,000 homes across Texas. Nicole Nosek, who chairs Texans for Reasonable Solutions, said her group is weighing lawsuits to force compliance.

Developers, meanwhile, are sitting tight, waiting to see how the legal and political fight plays out before committing to new projects. Multifamily construction could accelerate in Austin and Dallas, where officials appear more welcoming of the law, but in some cases, city leaders still want to have some say.

In August, Dallas City Council approved a contentious rezoning plan for 35 acres in West Oak Cliff, a largely Hispanic neighborhood west of downtown, which calls for a ban on fast food drive-thrus and caps on building heights at 45 feet, enacting the ordinance just before the new state law took effect.

But in the suburbs that have long thrived on single-family sprawl, the standoff highlights how deeply entrenched the anti-apartment mindset remains — even as housing costs keep climbing.

— Eric Weilbacher