Senate Bill 840, which was preliminarily approved by the state House, would allow residential construction in areas previously zoned for offices and commercial uses.
A proposed Texas state bill, Senate Bill 840, would allow housing construction along retail and commercial corridors. The bill would let property owners build residential units on land previously zoned for commercial or office uses without rezoning.
“There’s broad support among Texas voters for allowing more homes in business and shopping districts and vacant office and commercial buildings to become homes, a recent poll conducted by YouGov and Texans for Housing found.”
According to reporting by Joshua Fechter in The Texas Tribune, “The bill would only apply to Texas’ largest cities. It’s limited to cities that have a population greater than 150,000 people that sit in a county with at least 300,000 residents.”
Housing experts estimate Texas’s need for new housing at roughly 320,000 units. Lawmakers have also introduced bills that would allow smaller lots and ADUs and streamline permitting.
FULL STORY: Vacant offices, strip malls may get new life as housing in Texas’ largest cities
Midtown Manhattan Rezoning Proposal Could Yield Almost 10,000 Housing Units
A plan to alter zoning for parts of Midtown would permit new housing and make it easier to convert office buildings to residential units.
Office Conversion Sees No Sign of Slowing
The adaptive reuse of office buildings for residential and other uses will grow by as much as 63 percent in 2024 over last year.
Office conversion is picking up steam in San Francisco
The city spent five years streamlining approval processes and reducing fees to encourage more adaptive reuse of vacant office buildings.
The state-sanctioned urbicide of Austin
People don’t kill cities. Freeways do.
US to reduce Colorado River water deliveries to Mexico
A new Colorado Treaty amendment reduces Mexico’s Colorado River water allocation by 250,000 acre feet.
New Jersey’s second-largest city bans standalone data centers
Jersey City will continue to allow co-location facilities, such as those meant for research institutions that store their own data.
Amtrak not solely to blame for New Jersey commuter rail's unreliability, report finds
A new study from the Garden State Initiative found that NJ Transit’s budget grew 20% across a 4 year period, but reliability declined significantly over the same period.
EPA erases limits on planet-warming pollution from power plants
Under Monday’s plan, power plants would still have some limits on how much mercury, arsenic and other contaminants they can emit.
Phoenix announces new on-demand transit service, more frequent RAPID buses
Both new services will launch in October, and are part of Phoenix's Project Effective Access Solutions for Easing Congestion.
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
Eagle County Government
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Nashville Planning Department
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
The Pocatello Development Authority
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Pocatello
Journal of the American Planning Association