Austin, really?
Vice President J.D. Vance delivered remarks to the National League of Cities’ Congressional City Conference in Washington on Monday. During the gathering of around 2,000 government officials and lobbyists from around the nation, Vance urged those present to prioritize housing reform — glowingly referencing recent policy shifts in Austin, Texas.
Wait a minute: the city which recently voted out its only Republican city council member? The blueberry in the proverbial tomato soup of Texas? A large city that, despite it being the capital of the Lone Star State, is run by the same liberal special interests you’ll see in most of them across the nation?
Apparently so, according to Austin’s KXAN-TV. Vance discussed the challenges renters and buyers are facing, blaming inflation as a primary driver. He then turned to zoning, which in most urban locations in Texas is controlled at the municipal level and requires public hearings.
“The reality, you all know, is that zoning is an area where federal authority is actually quite limited, and I’m sure none of you want the federal government in the business of mandating how cities and towns handle local laws, and that’s certainly not what we want to do either,” Vance said, via the KXAN report. “… We’ve got to actually make it easier to build homes, and in particular, I think the city of Austin has done a pretty interesting job, because in Austin, you saw this massive increase of people moving in, the cost of housing skyrocketed, but then Austin implemented some pretty smart policies and brought down the cost of housing, and it’s one of the few major American cities where you see the cost of housing leveling off or even coming down.”
Vance was likely referring to Austin’s recently passed HOME Initiative. HOME (Home Options for Middle-Income Empowerment) was a sweeping set of ordinances which, in phases 1 and 2 of the plan, increases the number of housing units allowed on a single-family lot from one to three, paves the way for tiny home construction in numerous residential areas, drops minimum lot size requirements from 5,750 sq. ft. to 1,800 sq. ft., and implements other changes to the local land development code.
Density, in other words. Although Austin is not a landlocked city, with plenty of agricultural and scrub land to the southeast and west to develop, city planners are eager to make “the Little City” look more like a major metropolis, especially with a controversial light rail plan that has far-exceeded budgetary projections.
The usual suspects on the Left have been quiet about the crossover support, including former Council member Leslie Pool who authored the HOME Initiative. Conservatives have apparently been cautious to criticize Vance’s speech. Team Trump is still very much in honeymoon mode with supporters. But local talk radio show KLBJ-AM nonetheless had criticism for the VP’s remarks.
“Whoever wrote this speech for J.D. Vance did not do their homework,” said Mark Cesar, program director for the station on their afternoon program.
Cesar pointed out that HOME is not even two years old in terms of its implementation, which is hardly enough time to measure the results. Not enough backyard dwellings have been built since HOME’s phase 2 went into effect, and data has been difficult to come by, he noted.
Host Ed Clements, himself a middle-of-the-road commentator, called the allowance for three houses on a single-family lot “asinine, which goes against the covenants of our neighborhoods.”
The HOME Initiative, according to an op-ed from a 2022 candidate for Travis County Judge, represents a violation of the “social contract” many residents agreed to when moving to their neighborhoods. In other words …
“Unlike with other changes to zoning, homeowners cannot be compensated or “grandfathered” from up to four new housing units being built to the left and right of their property, let alone across the street. Homeowners are stuck with the results of this law should it pass in its current form, as drafted by [Democratic Party affiliated] Council member Leslie Pool.
“Even though Austin is far from landlocked, the overall vision of HOME is to make Austin proper more like its fellow ten-most-populated-cities. Jamming in as many people into the urban core, the thinking goes, will feed demand for public transit, walkable business districts, and turning streets into bike paths – an urban planners’ idea of utopia. […]
“We were already growing and becoming denser by our previous reputation alone! Let’s focus on rebuilding that before we cram in more residents to our neighborhoods.”
KLBJ-AM hosts pointed out that there are other reasons why Austin’s real estate market and rental prices have leveled off, as Vance alluded to. Austin’s population has dropped in recent years — going from (briefly) the No. 10 most-populated city in America to No. 11. Austin continues to bleed families and jobs, with schools closing campuses and office real estate sitting empty. Non-Austin areas of Travis, Williamson, and Hays counties are booming at disproportionate rates. The city continues to refuse to enforce Proposition B, which would regulate a recent swelling of homeless camping and help combat urban crime, as well as grant some relief to overworked police officers following a massive budget cut in 2020.
But one thing Vance and Austin’s HOME critics can agree to is that home ownership is falling out of the grasp of the average American worker.
“The average income it takes to buy a new house is nearly two-times the average salary of your typical American family …” Vance said, according to a video he reposted on X (see below). “That’s just not acceptable or sustainable in the United States of America. We want Americans to be able to afford the American Dream of homeownership.”
.@VP: "The average income it takes to buy a new house is nearly 2x the average salary of your typical American family… That’s just not acceptable or sustainable in the United States of America. We want Americans to be a will to afford the American Dream of homeownership." pic.twitter.com/EL8MPbo9Qe
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 10, 2025
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