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Austin is copying Houston's playbook for making housing more affordable
(www.businessinsider.com)
The Austin city council last month approved a resolution that cuts the minimum lot size for a single-family home from 5,750 square feet to 2,500 square feet and allows at least three homes on a single lot.
Austin's upzoning measures are designed to incentivize "gentle density" — also known as infill housing or missing-middle housing. They would allow townhomes, duplexes, and triplexes to be built on single-family lots, offering denser, more diverse housing options.
Reducing minimum lot sizes has worked elsewhere in Texas to boost housing construction. Houston has significantly increased its housing supply since cutting its minimum home lot size from 5,000 to 1,400 square feet in 1998. The policy change has allowed almost 80,000 new homes to be built on these smaller lots.