TNC 2025 Petition:

Protect Texas Neighborhoods
from Preemption Bills

 

To: All Members of the Texas Legislature

 

From: Texas Neighborhood Coalition

 

The Texas Neighborhood Coalition (TNC) represents thousands of citizens in 19 chapters across Texas. We have attached a petition, with hundreds of signatories from multiple cities around the state. We urge you to REJECT "preemption" bills that negatively impact residential neighborhoods, including those forcing neighborhoods to accept short-term rentals (STRs) and upzoning, e.g., ADUs and mini-lots. Such pre-emption bills weaken the power of cities to protect the quality of family life in established residential neighborhoods.

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• STRs are incompatible with and damaging to residential neighborhoods, introducing a revolving door of strangers into communities where residents once knew and trusted one another, while reducing available housing stock. Deep-pocketed companies have attempted STR preemption bills in 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2023 – all failed after significant outcries from residents and neighborhoods.
   

• Upzoning advocates promote ADUs and mini-lots, even though independent studies show that "upzoning" fails to reduce housing costs and actually drives prices higher due to speculative development, displacing families and eroding neighborhood stability. HB 878, pre-filed on Nov 13, 2024, would literally kill single-family zoning across the state by forcing all cities to accept multiple housing units on every lot and mini-lots on single-family lots in targeted large cities - overloading local infrastructure, including traffic, parking, water, sewage, and schools.

 

Imagine the voter backlash if the Texas legislature adopts such bills – stripping local governments of zoning authority to protect existing residential neighborhoods and nullifying the single-family zoning on which voters and their families relied when they made what is often the largest purchase of their lives.

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We urge you to defend our families and the quality of life in established residential neighborhoods.

 

Sincerely,

 

Texas Neighborhood Coalition

www.txneighborhoodcoalition.com

 

Contact:

Dave Schwarte at davidaschwarte@gmail.com

Jessica Black at jjsheedy@gmail.com

Andrew Muras at amuras66@gmail.com