The vote was split 3-2, with Council Members Curt Maddux and Todd Yancey voting against.
Council Member Howard Wood, who voted for the change, cited growing responsibly as a motivation for reassessing the minimum lot size.
Wood did not return requests for comment before publication.
In contrast to the city’s move to create larger lots, data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Construction shows homeowners across the country are increasingly purchasing homes on smaller lots—those less than 7,000 square feet. Data shows 33% of homes sold in 2011 across the country were on lots spanning less than 7,000 square feet compared to 45% of homes sold in 2021.
Although Conroe’s larger minimum lot size remains under the 7,000-square-foot mark, developers in the Conroe area said homebuyers are demanding smaller lots to keep homes affordable and more manageable to maintain.
“The market demand dictates what builders and developers are going to make available in order to stay in business; that’s a smaller-lot product,” said Matthew Reibenstein, owner of AR Homes-Rural Design Build and secretary of the Greater Houston Builders Association.
Montgomery interim City Administrator Dave McCorquodale said Montgomery is also reassessing higher- and lower-density residential areas to keep up with residential market demands. The city requires lots to be at least 75 feet wide, or about 9,000 square feet, he said.
“Cities are always kind of in a balancing act of trying to respond to the market pressures that the developers face, but at the same time, we’ve got to protect the quality of life for the existing residents,” he said.
Conroe increases lot size
A motion to increase the minimum lot size from 40 feet wide to 50 feet wide in Conroe failed May 12 but passed two weeks later as Wood replaced outgoing Council Member Raymond McDonald, who had voted against the lot change.
Maddux said development guidelines are often revisited during election years.
“If you go back traditionally in all the elections, it’s a political topic. It’s been ran on in [2018, 2020] and now [2022] to where it’s almost an item that comes up—trees and lot sizes—in an election year,” Maddux said. “I don’t want to be the city that goes back and forth with change.”
The city decreased its minimum lot size width to 40 feet in 2018 to provide more affordable housing amid an influx of apartments, Maddux said.
“I want there to be affordable housing in Conroe, and the 40-foot lots can do both—it can make for retirement [with a] half-a-million-dollar-home or $300,000 home and then on a 40-foot lot you can have a starter home that’s affordable living,” he said.
Reibenstein said he believes a 10-foot wider lot will cause the cost of a home to increase, making homeownership out of reach for some residents.
Average property values in Montgomery County spiked 52.83% from 2010-20 while median household income did not increase at the same rate, Community Impact Newspaper previously reported.
“Despite the fact that there’s more people looking for homes more than ever right now, the issue of course ... is we have to go from the mentality of affordable housing to housing affordability,” he said.
He defined housing affordability as whether people can bear the cost of purchasing a home.
Bill Ellison, owner of ASGI Homes based in Conroe and developer of Marie Village—an affordable community in the works off Crocket Martin Road—said he believes adding 10 feet to lot size width raises the price about $100,000 for a homebuyer between the additional land cost and the likely larger home on the lot.
A February 2021 study by the National Association of Home Builders found that every $1,000 increase in the price of a home in the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land metro area causes 4,533 families to be priced out of homebuying.
"For every thousand dollars a house may go up in price, there’s a number of people who can no longer afford that home,” Ellison said.
Finding a balance
Census data shows builders nationwide are catering to demands for smaller lots. The median lot size of new single-family homes built in 2021 in the southern U.S., which includes Texas, was 8,570 square feet, a decrease from 11,048 square feet in 2011.
With developers eyeing smaller lots, both Conroe and Montgomery are striving to balance demands with city regulations, officials said.
McCorquodale said he anticipates City Council and the city’s planning and zoning commission to revisit its future land-use plan by the end of 2022, as Montgomery has granted several variances for smaller, 60-foot-wide lots over the past five years in subdivisions such as Hills of Town Creek and Buffalo Springs.
McCorquodale said the city has previously discussed creating two densities of single-family residential zoning but not taken action. The future land-use plan would outline places for higher and lower-density lots—such as 60 feet and 75 feet wide, respectively—which will give developers more certainty on what will be permitted.
“What we’re looking to do now is to bring that conversation back up, ensure we like the areas and the rationale for why we have higher density in certain areas and lower density in others, and get that plan adopted,” he said. “We make that an official document, and that allows us then to go in and add a zoning classification [for small-lot single family].”
In Conroe, Maddux said an advisory committee of city officials and community members has been charged with revisiting lot size.
Maddux, a committee member, said as of late June he anticipates the committee will have a revised ordinance within a month, which could downsize lot requirements or provide guidance for approving variances to the minimum size.
“We understand that there is a place for smaller lot sizes, and we do believe that there is a place for a mixture of these lots,” he said. “The 50 foot is temporary right now. ... We know it’s a very serious topic amongst the citizens and the voters of Conroe, and we’re trying to help.”
