“Clarity, consistency, and affordability, that’s what this item is about,” City Council Member Krista Laine said last week, as Council approved a resolution laying the groundwork for an expansion of the HOME initiative. “Our code in Austin is an incredibly complex document that needs to be cleaned up. We must make it quicker and less expensive to get housing built at small scale.”
HOME is the enduringly controversial change to the city’s Land Development Code, the huge book of rules that controls what can be built in Austin. HOME’s two iterations, passed in 2023 and 2024, are designed to create more affordable housing. HOME 1 does so by letting developers build up to three housing units on a single residential lot. HOME 2 allows them to build on smaller lots.
The changes in HOME 1 and HOME 2 do not apply to certain neighborhoods with different zoning rules, however, particularly older, historic areas like Hyde Park and North University that have what are called “neighborhood conservation combining districts.” These NCCDs and other zoning designations have kept older development rules in place that supersede the rules in HOME.
Council’s May 7 vote instructs City Manager T.C. Broadnax to propose amendments to the Land Development Code that would make HOME’s rules apply to all of the city’s neighborhoods. It also directs him to propose a slew of specific changes to the code: allowing two housing units on lots between 3,600 and 5,750 square feet; reducing the time and cost required to subdivide lots; allowing porches to extend within 7.5 feet from the front line of a lot; and making it easier to build garages, among other things.
HOME 1 and 2 were extremely contentious. Austin residents spoke for and against the proposals at Council for over 12 hours before each vote. They spoke for just two hours last week, making starkly different claims about what HOME has accomplished. Those supporting the changes repeatedly referred to a report from the Austin Board of Realtors that they said shows that HOME is bringing down house prices. The report compares residential construction completed in 2024 under the HOME rules with residences built under the traditional LDC rules, estimating that the average price of units built under HOME was about $750,000, half of the $1.58 million for the other units.
Taylor Smith of ABoR told Council the data shows HOME needs to be expanded. “We know that $750,000 is still not attainable for most Austinites,” Smith said. “A typical household, like two AISD teachers or two EMS workers, can realistically afford a home price closer to $370,000 to $380,000.” David Whitworth, a builder of infill housing, said HOME should apply to neighborhoods with NCCDs. He said that Hyde Park, Austin’s first planned development and still one of its most beautiful neighborhoods, has many types of housing that HOME is trying to encourage – duplexes and small apartment complexes – but that its NCCD has locked in rules preventing more of the housing from being built. “To freeze that in place really doesn’t allow us to improve, and grow, and bring on the housing that we would like,” Whitworth said.
Other speakers sharply questioned whether HOME is actually creating more small, affordable housing or if its primary effect is allowing builders to make money by constructing inappropriately large projects next to traditional single-family homes. Resident Chris Page said that in his neighborhood, HOME is encouraging developers to tear down existing houses and replace them with huge, expensive structures. “This is not trickle-down housing,” he said. “This is trickle-out housing.”
Legendary activist Susana Almanza of the Montopolis neighborhood asked her Council member, José Velásquez, to withdraw his support of HOME. “This is gentrification,” Almanza said. “Really, it’s colonization in Montopolis.”
Jeffery Bowen, chair of the Austin Neighborhoods Council, presented a slideshow with eight examples of properties built under the HOME initiative, each of which filled lots with houses costing between $1 million and $5 million. “Have we got problems?” Bowen asked. “You bet we got problems. We’re not building the smaller stuff that these people are talking about that they want, but the builders are building what they’re gonna make money at and make a profit at.”
When public comment ended, Council Member Marc Duchen took up Bowen’s argument, saying the process to consider expanding HOME had been marked by vague language, limited evidence, and insufficient public engagement. Duchen said there is some proof that HOME is helping to create smaller, more affordable units but that it’s also doing the opposite, citing an example in the Cherrywood neighborhood where a home valued at $550,000 was scraped off the lot and replaced by three homes selling for around $1,000,000 each.
“What was a modest, market-rate home has become three large luxury units,” Duchen said. “Is this the progress we want from this policy?”
Duchen went on to sponsor three amendments to Laine’s resolution that would have softened some of its language and required the city manager to collaborate with neighborhood groups in proposing amendments to the LDC, among other things. Duchen’s amendments were laid before Council, one after the other. In each case, there was no second and the amendments died. Council then voted 9-1 to approve the HOME resolution, with Duchen voting no and Council Member Vanessa Fuentes absent on maternity leave.
This article appears in May 15 • 2026.
