Book Description

Austin has seen rapid population, job, and economic growth in the past two decades. An increase in the cost of housing and a lack of affordable housing options accompanies these forces. In recent years, Austinites have sought to come to terms with their new status as a large and still-growing city by changing land use regulations to allow for more density and a greater diversity of housing types across the city—in some cases, allowing multifamily housing where only detached single-family housing has historically existed. These attempts to allow for more dense housing development, in particular the 2012-2016 attempted land use code rewrite CodeNEXT, have been met with forceful opposition from many of Austin’s powerful neighborhood organizations. Among their concerns over increased building and development is a fear that new dense housing developments in their communities will further escalate their ever-rising property taxes. Instead of new housing supply alleviating some of the pressure of the housing market by meeting Austin’s housing demands, many argue that new housing only exacerbates rising housing costs through induced demand. This report examines the causal relationship between new multifamily housing development in Austin and the property taxes paid by nearby single-family homeowners. Analysis of three cases of multifamily development in different single-family Austin neighborhoods suggests that the relationship between new development and property taxes is inconsistent, but that correlation, rather than causation, is a more likely explanation for any rising property taxes near new development. The opacity of the Travis Central Appraisal District’s home appraisal process and Texas’s non-disclosure laws make it difficult to untangle the various factors impacting property taxes and contribute to frustration around property taxes in Austin. This research suggests that any induced demand as it relates to property taxes does not offset the affordability benefits of building new, denser housing in Austin