The median price of a home in Houston is at an all-time high. This is a familiar if not unfortunate refrain that you have likely seen in the media over the past several years (if not decades). Of course, there are several reasons for these price increases, inflation (i.e. cost of materials and cost of labor) being a major one, but another less talked about but nonetheless important one is the regulatory framework that developers must comply with.
At EHRA Engineering we prioritize understanding the world as best as possible and the varying ways we can make it better. Moreover, we believe that the American Dream of owning a home is a powerful sentiment that is still shared by millions of people in and around the communities of which we live. That means a number of things, but specific to the EHRA Planning and Visioning Team, it means assisting residential land developers with coordination of initial development plans through governmental agencies.
Often, the first hurdles to a possible development project are local subdivision and zoning regulations. Written and adopted with the best intentions, these rules and regulations are unfortunately not nimble enough to keep up with real life economic conditions. According to an article from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, “The rise in home prices plays a central role in the growth of price-to-income ratios as incomes simply do not increase at the same rate. Nationally, home prices grew by 43 percent between 2019 and 2022, while incomes grew by just seven percent in that same period.”
With rising interest rates, first time homebuyers are simply being priced out of the market. This is detrimental to both individuals and communities. From an individual perspective, home ownership can be an important way to build financial prosperity and social bonds. At a community and regional level, improved individual financial health allows more dollars to be spent on local businesses. Increased levels of home ownership also strengthen the fabric of a community by giving people a place to put down roots. People are much more likely to invest their time and social capital in a community in which they are firmly established in. Our developer clients and EHRA recognize the need for more housing and are ready to meet this need.
Thus, there are two ways forward: 1) agree to develop and construct a project based on potentially dated regulations that perpetuate the increasingly difficult proposition of homeownership, or 2) negotiate with governmental agencies to provide workable solutions whereby the interests of both the governmental agency and developer are satisfied. Of the two options mentioned above, only negotiating with cities and counties to find a win-win solution will help break down the barrier to home ownership. In our role as Planners at EHRA, we are able to help this process.
A well-designed community with a mix of smaller and more traditional lot sizes (along with ample parks and open space) can retain the property values and neighborhood safety that homebuyers want yet opens the door to homeownership to more people. However, the aspect of appropriate lot size is becoming increasingly difficult to deal with. As developers move farther out from the urban core of Harris County and into adjoining and nearby counties, they are confronted with minimum lot sizes that almost immediately eliminate the ability of first-time homebuyers to come to their jurisdiction.
Our team provides expert design services and can also effectively communicate the benefits of changes to certain subdivision and zoning regulations (i.e. lot width, right-of-way width, building setbacks, etc.). By fostering agreements between jurisdictions and developers and helping write special development criteria, we are essentially able to create the very regulations that a developer must follow to build a new community. Through our insight, professional experience and collaboration with the team of engineers that we work with, we are also able to suggest effective ways to mitigate the inevitable stresses caused to a community by growth.
We firmly believe that communities that provide housing for all stages and styles of life help more citizens to achieve the American Dream, and the EHRA Planning and Visioning Team is an important partner in that endeavor.
