HB2439 is Detrimental to Texas Cities

A really bad bill.

Bad legislation!

The City of Southlake is a master planned community located in the heart of Tarrant County. Through the years, Southlake’s City Councils have worked closely with the developers and residents to ensure the high quality build out of the city. Members of this community have spent untold hours on the skillful preparation and thoughtful execution of plans and policies to ensure an attractive, safe, financially viable, and sustainable community for Southlake residents and businesses. The Southlake City Council is opposed to HB 2439, as currently written as it compromises our city’s standards for responsible growth in accordance with local values. While we are generally in agreement with the concept of limiting government intervention and unnecessary regulation, the City believes general oversight of building materials is a necessary component of managing development to ensure long-term sustainability, construction quality, and compatibility and helps support community development standards. Regulation of building materials also supports certain community characteristics and identity considerations. The City respectfully requests that the bill not be signed into law. Thank you for considering our point of view.

Gov. Abbott, This legislation will significantly diminish the quality of life and desirability of the Las Colinas community in Irving. It will have an equally negative effect on many other special districts in our State. I request that your veto HB2439. Thank you, Robert Betis, DDS

Please VETO this bill, not one city in Texas supports it.

This legislation will negatively impact Lewisville by undoing decades of plans, studies and ordinances adopted with citizen guidance to enhance this community and ensure it's long term vitality. Unfortunately this is another example of the states overreach that has dominated this session.

Please veto this bill so that elected representatives who are closest to their constituents can continue to represent the will and desires of those constituents and continue to preserve the public health, welfare and safety of the very same.

This bill would ruin the opportunity for cities and private entities to enter into agreements that provide much higher quality development and services for the public.

Without these restrictions some communities such as Las Colinas have lost their credibility with new corporate tenants and existing tenants to keep the community at a very high standard.

Please veto and support Texas communities.

This is a primary tool to help develop a communities culture, standards and expectations. Please VETO!

My husband and I worked for approx. two years to work out a Development Agreement that would be beneficial to both parties. If I understand it correctly, this would now undo many of the specifics we worked so hard to get. Due to many recent occasions where situations that hurt the public and municipals and local governments, our representatives at the state appear to have lost sight of who you were elected to serve and protect. Governor, please veto this bill

Governor Abbottveto HB2439

This will affect the investment that thousands of property owners have already invested and who expect quality development near their investments.

It would be so nice if everyone on this earth treated each other as decent human beings instead of trying to tear people down. If we all cared just a little bit then I am sure we could get along fine.

The City of Lockhart is very much opposed to this bill.

This is absurd, especially retroactive stipulation. Governor Abbott, this bill will take away a community or city’s sense of individualism and uniqueness. Cities will lose a consistent look and feel in their downtowns or community gathering areas. I ask you, why is this beneficial and who gains from it? I respectfully ask that you do not sign this bill.

The ability to chose our neighborhoods and local governance is important to Texans.

This is a terrible bill. We don’t want the buildings in our communities to look like character-deprived strip malls cladded with stucco and metal sides.

My firm is the City attorney for over 40 cities and HB 2439 would be determinantal to them. On a personal level, I want the city in which I live to be able to require that homes built in my neighborhood have some minimum amount of masonry, stone or similar materials so that a house does not get built on my street that looks like a metal storage shed. Many of us who live in cities actually do so because we want the city regulations and view them as protecting our home values and safety. My local council members are easily accessible to the citizens and easily voted out of office if they regulate in a way that a majority in the city disapprove of. I don't know if you have ever had a neighbor whose suffered a loss of the majority of their house from a fire. I cam tell you from personal experience it is terrifying to watch such a large fire, but the brick contained the flames to the internal portion of the house. If the house had been wood, the exterior would have also been burning and would have been more of a threat to the neighboring patio homes.