College Kids Rejoice—Housing Reform is on the Way!

When a citizen goes beyond the call of duty, he’s a hero. When a government goes beyond the call of duty, it’s overreach—and, unfortunately, some municipalities, like the city of College Station, seem to have made a bad habit of it.

As was revealed in a Senate Committee meeting earlier this year, College Station city employees seeking to enforce occupancy restrictions prohibiting no more than four unrelated people from living together were sent to stake out suspected violators for weeks at a time. Employees were seen rooting through trash cans, taking photos of license plates, and generally lurking around residences. Landlords were pressured to hand over private information to the city. Neighbors were encouraged to report unusual numbers of cars in next-door driveways. For A&M students (the most frequent targets of these campaigns), the situation was unnerving, and worse, the regulation was driving up the cost of housing for cash-strapped Aggies.

In response to situations like this one, the Texas Legislature recently passed, and Governor Abbott signed, SB 1567, which prohibits college towns from adopting or enforcing zoning regulations to limit the number of occupants in a dwelling based on certain characteristics like “age, familial status, occupation, relationship status, or whether the occupants were related to each other by a certain degree of affinity or consanguinity.” It is a victory for cash-strapped college students and many others.

Seeing as college students tend to be renters, they are particularly challenged by the fact that Texas has the second-largest housing shortage in the nation. Because of this shortage, prices have jumped. So much so, in fact, that a two-bedroom rental home at market value now requires a person to work 3.5 full-time minimum wage.

The goal of SB 1567 is to remove regulations limiting the number of occupants in a dwelling so that additional units will be freed up and increase supply which, in theory, will help lower costs. Admittedly, it won’t solve the housing crisis, but it is almost certain to help, and such a policy is just as enticing from a landlord’s perspective. Spare rooms represent $65 billion in possible income for Texas families willing to open their house, and for those who own designated rental properties, the policy makes their investment more lucrative.

But removing occupancy limits isn’t simply about economics. It is also about protecting property rights.

According to most classical traditions, one’s right to possess property implies one’s right to use it also, with some exceptions granted for dealing with externalities. As Chief Justice Phillips wrote in his opinion Spann v. Dallas:

Property in a thing consists not merely in its ownership and possession, but in the unrestricted right of use, enjoyment and disposal. Anything which destroys any of these elements of property, to that extent destroys the property itself… If the right of use be denied, the value of the property is annihilated and ownership is rendered a barren right.

Every time a city restricts the use of property by imposing petty regulations it violates the right to private property. Occupancy limits are no exception. In these situations, it is the Texas Legislature’s responsibility to step in and correct local government overreach so as to ensure that Texans’ rights are not trampled.

Arguments in favor of housing occupancy limits usually stem from a misunderstanding. For instance, it is commonly asserted that removing limits would end single-family zoning. However, single-family zoning does not regulate who lives in a district. Rather, single-family zoning regulates the building types in a district.

Another common claim is that removing occupancy limits would drastically change the character of a neighborhood, presumably for the worse. Streets would become dirtier, noisier, etc. However, there is little, if any, evidence to support this claim and more importantly, even if this claim were true, occupancy limits are not the solution. Cities have other tools necessary to address these problems, like noise, trash, and parking ordinances. These local laws are within the purview of municipal governments and do not violate a person’s property rights in the same way as occupancy limits.

With all of this in mind, the signing of SB 1567 into law is a very good thing for price-sensitive college kids looking for a place to stay. Too, it promises to increase housing stock and ease one aspect of the cost-of-living in particular communities. But best of all, it’ll stop some city governments from veering outside their intended lanes and protect private property rights from abuse.

That is something that we should all welcome.