duplexes

While I'm on the subject of duplexes, Austin has always struck me as having an unusually large number of duplexes.  I finally got around to looking up the numbers.  Duplex units make up 5.3% of Austin's housing stock.  By comparison, they make up just 1.8% of Houston's stock, 1.7% of Dallas's stock, and 2.2% of San Antonio's stock.*  Austin thus has more than three times as many duplexes as Houston or Dallas (relative to the total housing stock), and more than twice as many as San Antonio.

Why?

I'm no

Frequent commenter Don Johnson, an infill developer, sent me the picture below, which nicely illustrates how the McMansion regulations actually encourage the construction of massive duplexes.

Someone must have decided that the City is "soft" on duplexes. That's the only conclusion one can draw from an ordinance that the City Council is scheduled to consider tonight.  This ordinance will make it next to impossible to build dupexes on long, narrow lots.

Duplexes are one of the last affordable options for central Austin.

The McMansion Task Force nevertheless did its best to discourage them by drastically curtailing the allowable footprint and mass of structures on central Austin lots.