SB840

SB840 requires qualifying large cities to allow more apartments and residential mixed-use projects in commercial areas and limits restrictions on converting older commercial buildings to housing. It applies only to municipalities with more than 150,000 people that lie wholly or partly in a county with more than 300,000. Signed June 20, 2025, it took effect September 1, 2025. Final act; History.

Covered cities must allow these residential uses in zoning categories allowing office, commercial, retail, warehouse or mixed-use development, without requiring rezoning or the listed discretionary exceptions and approvals. This particular use-permission rule excludes heavy-industrial zones, land within 1,000 feet of an existing heavy-industrial site, land within 3,000 feet of an airport or military base, and designated clear or accident-potential zones. Those exclusions are written for Section 218.101, not as an exemption from the entire chapter. Multifamily means at least three dwellings in one or more buildings; residential mixed-use requires at least 65% residential floor area. Both can include condominiums. Definitions and Section 218.101.

The development rules prevent cities from setting a density cap below the greater of 36 dwellings per acre or the highest residential density they allow; a height cap below the greater of 45 feet or the highest height allowed for the listed commercial uses on that site; or a setback/buffer requirement more restrictive than the lesser of 25 feet or the comparable commercial requirement. Cities cannot require more than one parking space per dwelling or a multilevel garage, impose a floor-area-to-lot-area ratio restriction, or require nonresidential uses in a multifamily project outside a mixed-use zone. When the permitting authority finds the project meets compliant municipal land-development rules, approval must be administrative, without further city-council action. These are limits on what cities may require—not a command that every project be built to those dimensions. Section 218.102.

The separate conversion protections cover office, retail or warehouse buildings at least five years old at the proposed conversion start. Conversion to residential mixed-use or multifamily occupancy must cover at least 65% of the building and at least 65% of each occupiable floor. Cities cannot demand a traffic-impact study, traffic-mitigation improvements or fees, extra parking beyond existing spaces, utility upgrades beyond the minimum capacity needed, or design standards stricter than the applicable minimum International Building Code standard adopted under state law. New impact fees are barred unless the land was already subject to an impact fee before the conversion building permit was filed. This is not a waiver of every permit fee or parkland requirement. Sections 218.201–218.204; Building-code framework; Impact-fee definition.

The act preserves short-term-rental rules, state/federal water-quality protections, voluntary density-bonus programs and generally applicable stormwater and historic-preservation rules. Generally applicable water/sewer-access requirements and building codes also remain, subject to the chapter’s specific limits. A qualifying housing organization or another person adversely affected or aggrieved may sue the city for a declaration of rights or an order stopping or correcting a violation. A prevailing claimant must receive court costs and reasonable attorney’s fees. Suit belongs where the property is located; the Fifteenth Court of Appeals handles intermediate appeals. The final act does not include the earlier economic-damages remedy or express immunity waivers. Sections 218.003 and 218.301.

The zoning/development subchapter applies to projects initiated on or after September 1, 2025. The conversion subchapter applies when the conversion building permit was submitted on or after that date. The impact-fee conforming amendment preserves the existing prohibition on roadway impact fees outside city limits in the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction; it does not newly invent that prohibition. Sections 3–5; Pre-effective-date fee rule.