{"id":277952,"date":"2026-05-04T09:48:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T09:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/277952\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T09:48:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T09:48:13","slug":"dallas-got-it-right-with-market-driven-affordable-housing-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/277952\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas got it right with market-driven affordable housing rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

The best housing policy the city of Dallas can embrace is one that reduces bureaucratic barriers as much as possible while still protecting residents\u2019 interests. That\u2019s why the City Council made the right decision last month when it approved a policy\u00a0allowing low-income housing to continue being built<\/a>\u00a0in low-income areas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That decision reversed a policy proposal city staff had presented that would have\u00a0attempted\u00a0to encourage low-income housing development in higher-income neighborhoods, our newsroom reported.<\/p>\n

The motivation behind this sort of policy intended to drive economic diversity in communities is a good one. But this was not a realistic way to get to that outcome.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s\u00a0important to remember that affordable housing\u00a0usually\u00a0requires subsidies \u2014\u00a0often\u00a0in the form of tax incentives\u00a0and credits.\u00a0Development tends to\u00a0cost\u00a0more in higher-income\u00a0areas\u00a0that\u00a0command higher land prices.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0hard to imagine these subsidy strategies could\u00a0be successful\u00a0or sustainable in\u00a0more affluent areas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The city should instead allow affordable and low-income housing developments to go wherever a free and open market is best suited to supporting it.\u00a0That means fewer restrictions and less\u00a0bureaucracy,\u00a0not\u00a0unnecessary\u00a0rules that\u00a0will\u00a0give\u00a0developers\u00a0even more incentive to take their money and invest it elsewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s\u00a0especially critical right now that the council\u00a0gets\u00a0its strategy right.\u00a0Dallas is facing a mismatch between supply and demand\u00a0for\u00a0affordable housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The city\u00a0is\u00a0short\u00a046,000 units for low-income renters, this newspaper reported, and there are only 28 units available per\u00a0100 extremely low-income households.\u00a0Almost all\u00a0low-income renters spend more than 30% of their income\u00a0on housing. This situation places the heaviest cost burden on those who can least afford to bear it.<\/p>\n

We shouldn\u2019t pretend that anything Dallas does as a city is going to shift the much larger market forces that affect how much housing is built and where. Our newsroom recently offered readers a detailed look at the complicated story of how we got to where we are<\/a>\u00a0today.<\/p>\n

None of that means the city\u00a0shouldn\u2019t\u00a0try to help solve problems wherever it can, instead of creating them. Local policy\u00a0won\u2019t\u00a0change wider markets, but whatever localized impact is achievable is worth it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Affordable housing has been a driving force behind North Texas\u2019\u00a0decades-long growth spurt, but rising rents and home values have dulled the luster on the state\u2019s enticingly low cost of living.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re\u00a0not yet as\u00a0terribly\u00a0unaffordable as some of the major coastal cities. But if we want to avoid getting to that point, we need to get rid of unnecessary barriers to housing development.<\/p>\n

Have thoughts about this?\u00a0Send a\u00a0letter\u00a0to the editor\u00a0using our\u00a0letters\u00a0form<\/a>\u00a0or email\u00a0letters@dallasnews.com<\/a>.\u00a0Letters should be no more than 200 words and include the first and last name of the writer and city of residence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The best housing policy the city of Dallas can embrace is one that reduces bureaucratic barriers as much…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,90221,89145,88000],"class_list":["post-277952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-tp-editorials","tag-tp-affordable-housing","tag-tp-dallas-city-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}