Back in December, I wrote an article about Amarillo’s slowing rezoning process. Whereas rezonings used to take 22 days on average to move from a final vote of the Planning & Zoning Commission to final approval by Amarillo City Council, the average has ballooned to nearly double that in recent years.

More recently, a report from CBS has highlighted how the supply side of Amarillo’s housing market is among the tightest in the nation.

The economic reality is clear: government regulation contributes to shortages. To fix this problem, it’s clear that our local government needs to tackle its broken rezoning process.

This isn’t some esoteric economic issue either. A leading cause of the affordable housing crisis is government intervention keeping housing supply artificially low. We should be freeing the market, not hampering it. This crisis itself is also a key driver of the homelessness crisis.

The City of Amarillo markets itself as a city of “open spaces” and “endless opportunities.” We need to stop just repeating that mantra and actually turn it into policy. With a new city plan being developed and local elections fast approaching, I’m hoping this issue will finally get the attention it deserves. Get the government out of the way, let capitalism work, and we can all reap the benefits.

-Noah Dawson