Texans have no intention of taking after California, but they might be learning from its mistakes.
Nicole Nosek, a former YIMBY organizer from California, has become a central force behind the movement that aims to ease housing costs by encouraging development in Texas. Nosek was instrumental in orchestrating a bipartisan coalition that pushed the state legislature this year to pass laws aimed at loosening zoning rules and encouraging denser housing, the Texas Tribune reported.
The laws, signed by Gov. Greg Abbott, make it harder for neighboring homeowners to block development and easier to build townhomes and apartments in commercial corridors, vacant lots and underused parcels, stopping short of touching existing neighborhoods.
The reforms are designed to boost supply before Texas inherits the affordability crises seen in California and New York.
“All of a sudden things started getting a little bit expensive in Texas, and they just brought the hammer down,” said Alex Armlovich of the Niskanen Center.
Nosek, the 35-year-old founder and chair of Texans for Reasonable Solutions, and her husband, PayPal co-founder and SpaceX board member Luke Nosek, moved to the Austin area from the Bay Area in 2019. She soon launched Texans for Reasonable Solutions after noticing Texas cities were adopting many of the same restrictive policies that hindered California’s housing markets.
Framing reforms in free-market terms to court Republicans while rallying urbanist and equity groups on the left paid off.
Texans for Reasonable Solutions worked with everyone from the Texas Public Policy Foundation to Texas Appleseed and Americans for Prosperity. By this year, the group had built enough political capital to push through a housing slate that had previously stalled, even overcoming attempts to derail bills on procedural grounds late in session.
Not all of the group’s priorities made it into law. Proposals to allow accessory dwelling units and housing on church-owned land failed to pass. But several key bills did, including one legalizing smaller-lot homes in cities.
Nosek is now focused on monitoring implementation, but Republican backers say they plan to revisit the ADU and parking reform bills in 2027, the next time the legislature meets in regular session.
— Judah Duke
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