HB4506

HB4506 lets Texas municipalities deliver certain zoning-hearing notices by email or text message, but only to recipients who choose electronic delivery. It was signed and took effect June 20, 2025. Cities are not required to replace mailed notices.

A city using electronic delivery must provide an online portal on its website where recipients can opt in and manage their notice preferences. It must ask each electronic-notice recipient to acknowledge receipt. If the recipient does not acknowledge receipt, the city must deliver the notice by the method otherwise required by the zoning law. Sending an unacknowledged email is not enough under this provision. The act does not create a new grace period that overrides existing hearing-notice deadlines.

The express changes cover:

• Notices to owners and occupants when a proposed zoning change would make a property’s currently permitted use nonconforming. Those notices still must be mailed or delivered electronically no later than the tenth day before the hearing and include the required bold warning about potentially losing the right to continue the current use.
• Zoning-commission notices to owners of real property within 200 feet of a proposed zoning-classification change. Those notices remain due before the tenth day before the hearing.
• Zoning-commission notices to affected school districts for residential or multifamily zoning changes, with the same before-the-tenth-day deadline. Existing small-county exceptions and a district’s ability to request notices remain in Section 211.007(c-2).

The bill changes delivery options, not the underlying decision about whether rezoning should be approved. It does not eliminate public hearings or independently replace other required public notices. The opt-in, portal and acknowledgment rules are in new Section 211.020.