Recent housing data shows rent prices in the Dallas metro area are gradually declining as the region starts to build more housing.
That's according to Alex Horowitz, national housing policy director at Pew Charitable Trusts, who spoke at the Dallas Housing Coalition's 2nd Annual Housing Summit on Friday.
"Dallas is taking some real steps in the right direction, and we've absolutely seen that rent decrease," Horowitz said.
He said Dallas is among six metro areas that added enough housing to see rents go down in 2023 by a market average of 1.4%. While that's a modest decrease compared to other areas like Austin and Orlando, Horowitz said new state and local policies could drive further decreases and bring much-needed relief to renters, including the newly enacted Senate Bill 840. The law — which some cities have resisted — gives developers permission to put multifamily housing in areas designated for commercial use.
"Not every city has complied as readily and as cleanly as Dallas has with that law to allow apartments on commercially zoned land, and also Dallas is looking at building codes to allow more homes under the single-family building code," Horowitz said.
But while renters benefit from new housing construction, much of it is still unaffordable to many lower-income Dallas residents, with "Class A" or high-income housing taking up most of the new housing stock, Horowitz explained.
The summit's theme, "Growth without Displacement," focused on the need for more accessible housing as Horowitz and other keynote speakers addressed factors impacting affordability, including gentrification and policy.
Gloria Ardilla, co-founder of Josephine Torres Cultural Center and West Dallas community advocate, spoke about the development of Trinity Groves in the historic La Bajada neighborhood where she grew up and how it impacted affordability. The area is known to be a hotspot for gentrification as brand new high-income homes are built next to older, more affordable homes.
"To us, the lower income people, Clack and brown community, the solutions have to be intentional, otherwise they're not going to be helpful," Ardilla said.
She stressed the need for neighborhood preservation and code enforcement as keys to keeping residents from being displaced.
"When we think about this planning and we think of all these houses and all these opportunities ... we have to figure out how those actually are accessible," she said.
Horowitz added that while there has been some progress in North Texas, there are also regulatory barriers in some municipalities that impact rent prices that are still more than 60% higher than 2010 levels. Those barriers include "tactics" like requiring an Olympic-sized swimming pool or yoga studio in order to build an apartment complex, he said.
"This is not good faith addressing housing affordability in your area," he said.
Horowitz noted five municipalities in the Dallas region — Irving, Plano, Arlington, Frisco and Grand Prairie — that have been adding mandates that make building apartments more expensive.
"When there are too few homes, the people with the most resources win and the people who have the fewest resources lose," Horowitz said. "It doesn't have to be this way. There can be enough for everybody."
Pablo Arauz Peña is KERA’s growth and infrastructure reporter. Got a tip? Email Pablo at parauzpena@kera.org.
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