Protest Petitions Stymie Affordable Housing

The housing crunch is creating pressure for the expansion of affordable housing in metros across the US. But in many places where new low-income units have been proposed, individuals and institutions are invoking obscure laws—some dating back nearly a century—to raise the bar for approval by local officials.

Last year, a non-profit organization applied for a rezoning of the shuttered Crowne Plaza hotel in Tulsa, OK. The group, Veteran Services USA, planned to renovate the 11-story building, operating floors two through six as a hotel and converting the top four floors into low-income rental apartments for veterans.

The veterans’ organization in Tulsa had the support of the local planning commission, which voted six to four in favor of approving the project. Institutional neighbors of the hotel, including Oral Roberts University and Walmart, were able to block the plan by filing petitions that under state law triggered a requirement that the approval needed the support of a three-quarters supermajority of commission.

In Austin, TX, residential neighbors of a 2.16-acre parcel zoned for single-family housing succeeded in stopping a developer from building 33 condos on the site, 17 of which were to be built by Austin Habitat for Humanity and sold for $140,000 each to low-income families.

About a dozen homeowners in the neighborhood filed petitions against the rezoning, triggering an ancient statute that held that if opponents representing at 31% of the land within 200 feet of the property filed opposing petitions, supermajority approval of the rezoning would be required. The developer withdrew the proposal after the petitions were filed, Bloomberg reported.

According to George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, Oklahoma and Texas are among 20 states that allow a small group of neighbors to raise the threshold for rezoning approval from a simple majority to a supermajority.

The percentage of the land held by opponents and the proximity to the proposed rezoning vary by state, as does the definition of a supermajority.

The laws in Connecticut and Nebraska permit those owning just 20% of land within 500 feet and 300 feet, respectively, of the property to be rezoned to trigger majority approval of 2/3 and 3/4, respectively.

As the housing crunch has tightened, some states have moved to reform or repeal the protest petition process. North Carolina and Wisconsin recently repealed statewide protest petition statutes, but Wisconsin gave municipalities the option to keep city mandates in effect.

In Massachusetts, a state law that required a 2/3 legislative majority for any rezoning was amended in 2021 to lower the approval threshold to a simple majority, but only for rezoning that loosens regulations against housing.