Bill Sponsors / Authors:

  Rep. Tom Oliverson
  R - Cypress

  Sen. Bryan Hughes
  R - Mineola

 

Supporting Documents / Links:

•   Kimberley Mickelson on HB 866
  March 22, 2023
•   Kimberley Mickelson on SB 494
  April 12, 2023

House Bill 866 – Platting Shotclock

During the 87th interim session, the Texas Municipal League (TML) worked with the Texas Planners Association and the Home Builders Association in order to work through the permitting shot-clock impacts from House Bill 3167 from 2019. While these negotiations were still ongoing among the associations, several bills were filed relating to permitting and the shot clock, two of note are House Bill 14 and House Bill 866 (companion is Senate Bill 494).

House Bill 866 proposed changes to Chapters 212 and 232 of the Local Government Code that relate to the plat submission and approval requirements for both municipalities and counties.

The filed version proposed new subsections that state that the planning commission of the municipality or county may not:
(1) require any prerequisites/conditions or obtain any approvals before a person files a copy of a plan or plat;
(2) delay the starting date for calculating any timeframe to approve or disapprove the plan or plat; and
(3) refuse to accept, acknowledge, process, or act on a filed copy of the plan or plat.

Additionally, this bill would have allowed an applicant to appeal the decision of the plat review to the Governing body, inherently making plat decisions, which should be based on health and safety, to be a political one. This bill would have also allowed an applicant to go to a third-party review if their application was rejected by the City. The mechanisms for a third-party review were not clearly laid out and had no indication of what would have made a third-party reviewer qualified to be making land use determinations that would impact Houstonians.

The Planning and Development Department Development Services staff accepts a subdivision plat when it is complete and ready to be reviewed for compliance with Houston Development Land Ordinance Chapter 42. To allow a subdivision plat to be reviewed and presented before the Planning Commission when the plat is not complete would result in inadequate information for the Planning Commission to consider and would result in several disapproved plats or deferred items causing Planning Commission agendas to be lengthened. The Department continues to work diligently to ensure that plats are complete and reviewed on a timely basis.

This bill passed the House and was placed on the Senate Intent Calendar, but ultimately it was removed from the calendar and did not pass the Senate.