Greetings, and welcome to ZacCast, your official podcast for local government nerdery. I'm Chad, that's Pat. Uh, Pat, after that stemwinder of an episode last week, I think maybe we can, uh, keep our timeline a little bit more condensed today. How's that sound for you?

Yeah, it sounds good. But, hey, when you got Chuck on the show, man, you gotta-

You gotta take advantage of it.

You gotta take advantage of it. What a great episode we had last week, uh, with Chuck, man. I just can't say enough thank yous for him coming on the Strong Towns Movement. He's in Dallas right now, uh, doing a tour. Uh, hopefully, you're gonna get out there and see him tonight, I think, right?

That's the plan for now.

All right, awesome. Well, if you don't make it out there and see him, you're gonna have to cut this portion out.

That's true.

The best intentions. Uh, anyways, uh, real quick, we're gonna jump into it. Uh, I sent you an article the other day, I think a couple weeks ago. I sent you an article from The Texanist that was specific on the s- the purchasing of public land, right? And the article that I sent you-

Right

... was, you know, basically I said, "What- how do you feel about what we're doing in the state of Texas, and how much land we should be buying in the state of Texas?" And I basically, you know, went ahead and gave you my opinion on we need to be more aggressive in purchasing public land in the state of Texas.

Yeah. Let's, let's lay the groundwork for this first, okay?

Okay, go ahead.

Okay, so it's a Texas Monthly piece by The Texanist.

Mm-hmm.

Title is, "Why does Texas have so little public land?"

Yes.

And the author goes through kind of the history. It's... This is apropos, especially since last night was the vice presidential debate, and one side is talking about using public land, uh, as a housing initiative. Um, Texas actually, among western states, and really among, uh, pretty much all states around the country, but especially among the, the sort of, like, west of the Mississippi states, has almost no public land.

Mm-hmm.

According to the article, 96% of the state is privately owned, and a lot of this stems from... And you can correct me if I'm wrong on some of the facts. I had a really hard time reading the article, because the writing was just not my style. Like, no offense to The Texanist, but not my style. Um, so Texas comes into the Union extending from the Rio Grande all the way up into Wyoming. As part of that, uh, sort of annexation into the United States, we gave up a lot of that territory, and in exchange, we got to maintain control of the pri- the public land, right? A lot of those western states, when they came in, the federal government took over that public land-

Right

... or at least large portions of it. So Texas retains control of that private land, uh, that public land, and we also had a monumental amount of debt, $10 million.

Which back then was a ton of money.

Right.

Could you imagine that public debt now?

I don't know. I'd love to do an inflation calculator. I'm not, I'm not sure that the inflation calculator goes back that far. Um, but so Texas, over the course of, you know, quite a bit of time, uh, is divesting this land in exchange for... A- as a means of both paying off some of that debt-

Mm-hmm

... and also in exchange for various public works projects. One of them in particular is the, the state capital-

Mm-hmm

... that's mentioned in the article. The state capital gets built in exchange for giving away a bunch of land.

Yes.

Right, and so fast-forward to today, and we basically don't have any public land in the state. The, the average, I think in the article it says, like, 40 to 60% of, uh, uh, of a state's land is, is ar- around that, that, that-

The average is a 60/40 split.

Yeah, I was gonna-

Yeah, the national average-

... do the-

-is around a 60/40 public/private split. Or sorry-

Yeah

... private/public split.

But again, it's, it's skewed more in the west. I mean, Utah right now is suing the federal government to take state control over a lot of that public land-

Mm-hmm

... so that they can have more control over their destiny and do, do things with it. So that's kind of the backdrop behind this discussion is Texas doesn't have really any public land, and there are arguments made in the, in, in the article about, you know, the benefits of open space, and, and wilderness, and, and getting into the outdoors. Obviously, I think pretty much everyone can agree that there are benefits to it, but the question is, like, what do we do from here? And so that's where I'll, I'll kind of kick it back to you.

Well, I mean, look, I mean, the voters in the state have already basically stated that we need to do more, right? So we, we adopted a proposition, a constitutional amendment in Texas, to create, uh, basically a park acquisition fund that generates about a billion dollars, and so that park acquisition fund has been active. And so that's actually moved us from just a little bit of acquisition we've done, uh, over that period of time, has moved us from, like, the 49th state to, like, the 30-

We're down in Mississippi territory.

Yeah, to the... Correct. Yeah, the terrible education system, right? Um, we've gone from the 49th state to the 35th, I think, right now.

Terrible football team as well.

So-

Yeah.

Um, so well, we play, um, Mizzou this week, so we'll see how that goes.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so anyways, I, I think, you know, we've already made some progress there. Um, but I'm of the opinion that a solution to significant sprawl is for the acquisition of significant portions of public property. Um, I believe that after reading this article, this is what came to mind. This is what I sent to Chad, and it sent him over an edge. I can tell you that right now. He's in a tizzy, guys, in a tizzy.

Another tizzy.

Another tizzy. Chad and his tizzies. So I, um, I'm of the opinion that if we would be more aggressive in public land, that, um, both at the city side and the state side, I think we could do a lot more for quality of life amenities, right? Um-... I look at cities that people would have considered to be suburbs that are now, would be, I think, almost in the urban core now. Uh, the, the one that comes to mind is Grapevine. Um, and the amount of amenities in Grapevine that they have, both that are owned by the Corps of Engineers, the state, and the city, uh, is tremendous, and it just creates a different livable culture there, even though their neighborhoods are somewhat plain, for lack of a better term, right? Um, but they do have a lot of town home development mixed in with single-family residential, and they do have some density that's mixed in around their park areas and things like that. It just... It allows you to build things that are significantly more profitable as a community, but also provide the open space that's there. I mean, obviously, the biggest example of this would be New York. I mean, Central Park is a, is a prime example of how you can get super, super dense around a big open space and still provide people that. I mean, not, not to go back to, like, our planning classes here, Chad, and I'll, you know, talk about some planner and misstate the name, and you'll correct me, 'cause I'm sure you remember who the actual planner of Central Park was. Um, but I, I just... We just don't build cities the way we used to with green space in mind, right? We have park dedication funds, which are basically cash flows that allow cities to go build park equipment on some land that they may already own, but we don't necessarily do a great job of fully integrating open space and green space into developments, and using that open space, green space to justify density conversations so that we can change the financial outcome of a residential development. That's my thought. Go with your tizzy.

Okay, so, so I have lots of thoughts on this topic.

Okay.

Um, this is a topic that comes up in my class to certain degrees. Um, I don't, I don't have, like, a formal part of the curriculum, but, uh, it definitely is something that comes up. Now, when I f- when you first presented this to me, you were talking about an urban growth boundary.

Yes. Yes.

Okay, so I wanna-

Yeah

... I wanna make sure that we talk about that as well.

Okay. Yep. Mm-hmm.

But in this case, what you're saying is, cities should use- should take more control over planning their, their open space and public land, correct?

Correct. And, and-

I 100% agree with this.

Okay. Okay. And, and I believe that the state should be more active in the acquisition of open spaces, and that's more of-

Okay

... a boundary conversation, urbanized boundary conversation, but we can get to that.

Yeah. Let's, let's table that one, and, and we'll definitely come back to that one. My biggest problem, or not the biggest, but one of the biggest problems that I have with how we build things, especially neighborhoods, is we cede the entire public realm to the developer, from the internal street design of the neighborhood to where the public space goes. Um, and it, it, it's all based on what's either what's left over-

Mm-hmm

... or what's gonna draw eyes from the arterial or the c- the, yeah, from the arterial into my neighborhood, right? So I'm gonna have, like, nice landscaping and signs and stuff. Um, the, the neighborhood that is going up north, just right north of me, is a prime example because on the highway, there's this massive, beautiful sign, you know, welcoming you into the neighborhood. And I'm sure that once this next phase gets built out, they're gonna have lots of landscaping, and they've got their four-lane, you know, kind of tree-lined, uh, collector that runs through it that everyone drives really fast on. And then you, you look at, like, the, one of the parks that they have, it's this tiny little playground that's just on a half cul-de-sac that's just, like, they couldn't build a house on it.

Yeah.

Right? And so it's just stuck there.

Mm-hmm.

And you have to be careful because you'll fall into a creek, uh, if you're, you know, if the kids are just running around, and you're not paying enough attention to them. Uh, they did put up a, a little bit of a fence, but, like, you could still just kinda like go off into the creek. So we, we focus these sort of public spaces either on, like, our entrances so that they can, um, draw people in and think, "Oh, that looks like a great place," uh, or on whatever's left over, and there's not a whole lot of thought into, like, how are people actually gonna use this? Is this functional for the people that are gonna be in this neighborhood long-term? And, and there's no reason why the city shouldn't be- take more, a greater role in planning out how that space is gonna work, um, whether it's in a single residential neighborhood or just across the city as a whole. Like, we do planning, we do parks planning and stuff like that, but when it comes to the, the primary way that we add residential development, it's single-family, like, track home developments, and we don't take anywhere near enough responsibility for what the public realm is going to look like in that development.

Correct, but why does the developer do that, right? I mean, that's, that's the first question. The developer does that 'cause he's looking at yield, right? He's-

Right

... you know, he or she is trying to maximize their yield of lots, which maximizes the profitability of the development itself.

True.

Right?

But if you can only build one type of, of, one typology of housing-

That's correct. That's my point

... then, yes, then you, you have to make that up somehow, and it's either gonna be bigger houses or, um, small, you know, smaller lots or, or whatever, but, like, you're not worrying about the public s- space. You just have, you have some, whatever percentage of it that you have to dedicate to it, and that's just gonna be whatever's left over.

Right. If you have a 1,000-acre development, right, and you're building quarter-acre homes on that 1,000-acre development, and you're able to trim off a third, right? Or let's, let's make this easier. Let's say you're able to trim off a half-... in lot yield and get your same yield on a brownstone or a town home style development, where you're able to mix that into your development to where you can squeeze out of that thousand acres 100 to 150 acres of green space, it makes a world of difference. A world of difference. If, if you look at the best developments out there that people wanna live in, that are, quote-unquote, "subdivisions, neighborhoods", this is one of my favorite terms used in, uh, in the Fort Worth area is all of the new neighborhoods that are built, uh, which are basically built in the, you know, far western regions or far northern regions, right? Which is the one that you're describing as well, with the big signage. But if you could look at that and say, "Hey, can we get to 10% or 15% of open public space in a development, and change density levels to get there?" I think developers would be willing to do it. It's just they need to be able to get their yield out of the- out of the property. And, and I think you're right, why are we allowing the development style to be dictated by a developer? Why are we not allowing livability to dictate the development style? That's- that's my point.

So-

The health, livability, everything else that's associated with it, like, green space is just as important as some neighborhood service being walkable, is the point that I'm trying to make, right?

Yeah, but it has to be integrated into the development. Like, uh, I think it's called Carlton's Landing. I'm gonna look this up real quick.

Yeah, it's a beautiful development.

So this is a development by, uh, Andres Duany, who did Seaside, Florida.

Mm-hmm.

And, um, I mean, it's largely detached single-family homes, but the, the way that the public space is utilized is actually functional.

Yes.

And it looks like it would create a good community, even though this is probably gonna end up being more of a resort, uh, vacation development. Um, but there's a lot of care that goes into how do we organize the public space? If you l- talk to, like, Jan Gell, he's a famous Danish architect, his, his criteria for how you design a place is always to think about the spaces where people will be first, and then after that, then you can talk about the buildings and things like that.

Yeah.

But we, we put the public spaces at the end of the discussion, they're just the leftovers. And it's, it's, it's unfortunate because we're creating places that are sterile and, and not functional. The other aspect of this is because of that, we've kind of geared ourselves towards the private spaces being more important. I mean, you can do an aerial view of lots of different neighborhoods , and even though, you know, maybe there's, like, a neighborhood pool, 40% of the houses have pools in them.

Yeah.

Right? Like, we spend a lot more of our time in our backyards by ourselves, or maybe entertaining some friends, and there's not a whole lot of reason for us to, to bring that life out into the street, to bring it out into the public spaces.

Yeah, so, um, you know, I live on three-quarters of an acre to an acre, and with my neighbors, we had, like, this unwritten rule when we originally built our houses that we were gonna use wrought iron open fencing on our developments, and so we're all open in our backyards. It's funny how more interaction you have with your neighbors when you're fully visible into each other's backyards.

Mm, than with, like, a six or eight foot privacy fence?

Correct. Like a double-sided privacy fence, right? Uh, it's, it's very interesting to me how that changes the dynamic between the relationships of those people. When you talk about Carlton's Landing, their backyard is basically public space, right? Their front yard is, like, a patio, uh, walkable trail, right? That's like a patio, and then their backyard is... There's, like, a little, I would say, like, a little grass patio area, and the-

Yeah, and actually-

... backyard is like straight into public space.

Most of the areas, the f- most of the areas, the front yard is the public space. Like, they'll have a- they'll have a, like a courtyard of houses that are sort of fronting-

Mm-hmm

... a big open park, and then the back is, is more like an alley.

Yeah, correct.

Right, so-

Yeah, sorry, sorry. I was thinking I was back- I was bo- I was backwards on that one.

Yeah.

You're right, yeah. So, um, and so, like, everything... Like, if you're front porch sitting, like a good country song there, right? Uh, in Carlton's Landing, you're probably front porch sitting with, you know, four or five different neighbors that may be on their front porch at the same time. Right?

Yeah, and like 20 kids that are running around the park.

Correct. And so, and it's a very open green space environment, and so instead of everybody maintaining this area, those are all publicly maintained spaces. You know, or in that instance, it's HOA maintained, 'cause I actually did pull all that to look at it.

Who likes to actually mow their yard and keep their yard looking good? I know there are, like, Hank Hills out there.

Mm-hmm. I-

My dad was one of them.

I've kinda become a Hank Hill.

I think...

Yeah.

Come on. But if you didn't have to, like, wouldn't you rather spend your time doing something else than mowing your yard?

Yeah, I mean, you know, I think... Look, I think there are a lot of people out there that like their space, I'm not, you know... But like I said, it- you ought to pay for that, right? Like, if you're-

Yeah, that's the thing. You can live however you wanna live, but if it's subsidized, then you're- we're changing the dynamics of those decisions and that decision-making process.

Right. Like-

That's always been my argument. If you wanna live in a s- in a lower density, more privacy-focused development, that's perfectly fine, but you should- you should b- bear the cost that comes with it.

So, you know, we have this, like, national conversation right now, which is kind of rolling into the-

Mm

... the next. But we have this national conversation about using public land to build more affordable housing. Like, this has become the, the, the norm, and honestly, you have people from both parties that are kind of adopting this conversation, right? It's very populist.

Yeah, it's a little bit more on the, on the Republican side, but yeah.

It, it is, but it's very populist, right? And so I'm the opposite. I believe we should be using the purchase of public property to create, uh, buffer zones between urban and ex-urban communities.

... Yeah, the transect. The, I think the argument is on the, on the Republican side, the argument is probably twofold. One is that, like, the federal government has too much land.

Yep.

Right? And it's like a small government type of thing, and I don't know where I was gonna go with the other one. But, I mean, the biggest problem with it is a lot of the federal land is in places where we don't have anything else right? Like, there's not developments around it, so are you just gonna build, like, a city in the middle of Yellowstone or, like-

Yeah

... in the middle of the Nevada desert? Like, is that gonna work?

I mean, I don't know if you've read the articles on Yellowstone-

That's my biggest problem with it

... but you can't even get a guy to work concessions at Yellowstone, let alone build a city there. So but, I mean, the-

I don't think we need a whole lot of new cities is the problem.

I, I, I think that's, I think that's valid, but let's just talk Fort Worth, for example, right? Let's just look at the western side of Fort Worth, 'cause that, that to me is, like... It's so easy to understand. When you get outside of Fort Worth on the western side of town, there are basically six to seven ranches between Fort Worth-

Mm

... and the next bunch of cities, right?

Do you mean- w- when you say when you get west of Fort Worth, are you talking, like, west of Weatherford?

No, no, no, no.

Or are you talking, like, literally west of Fort Worth?

I mean, like, west of 8- west of 820.

Okay.

So, like, west of the loop around Fort Worth-

Yeah

... you have most of that property was at one point owned by six ranches. If the state would've come in and just created public land in those areas, it would've drastically changed the development style of everything that was happening in that area. 'Cause it would've significantly limited the amount of available land for future development, which would have made people think about development differently. And you don't-

Okay, so you, you wanna move to the urban growth boundary?

Yeah, go for it.

Okay, okay. Go ahead. Keep going.

So, so my, my thought process is, is that not only can you create an ability for people to go fish and people to hunt and people to do the things that, you know, they would be able to do... And that, you know, the Texanist talks about that, right? Is that, you know, like, hunting has become, you know, you gotta go get a lease on property. It's, it's become very difficult for people to, like, to be- I mean, hunting has become like golf, right? We're gonna have to create, like, a whole first tee system to do that, which is why the, you know, deer population in the United States is out of control is because we just can't shoot enough deer. We don't have enough people out there shooting deer. But the reality is, sorry, Bambi fans, I, I know, but, uh, but the reality of the situation that we have right now is that you can't just go hunt unless you are paying for a lease to go hunt that lease, or you own a ranch, or you have property out west, or something like that. It's become a very country club-esque type thing. And so I think you can kind of hit on both of these things, um, through public land. You can hit on the development issues that we have, which is sprawl. Sprawl is a problem, and you can also create a quality-of-life amenity that isn't very costly. You don't have to build a state park on every single bit of public land. Like, all the stuff we're buying out in, uh, far Palo Pinto County, the new, uh, state park that they're building out there, what- why don't we, why don't we have to build the state park? We could just say, "Hey, this is open public land. Go utilize it. Don't live on it." Those type of things, right?

So one of the biggest challenges with the urban growth boundary is the economics of it. Um, um, I haven't found an econom- like, an urban economist who thinks that they're a good idea.

Okay.

It's particularly a problem in, in England. Espe- like, The Economist, in particular, has been railing against them for, like, 50 years. Um, but just take as a concrete example the West Fort Worth area. Like, so let's say that all of those ranches had been purchased by the state or the c- whoever, right, and, and preve- development had been prevented there. Assuming that you could have afforded that, given how much more value would p- have been created to the ranch owner by developing it than just by selling it for, for open space, and, a- assuming also that it wouldn't have been done by eminent domain, 'cause this is Texas, and that's just probably not as likely. We usually, like, we only use eminent domain for, for streets, but we're not gonna necessarily take someone's r- you know, 2,000-acre ranch and hold it for open space. What, what, what is the likely thing that would have happened is that Weatherford would have grown up even faster.

But would it have?

Right, development would have-

'Cause, I mean, that's an extra, that's an extra 15 miles.

Yeah. The urban growth boundaries in England can... are up to 10 miles, and development just skips past it.

Okay.

Because what it does is it increases land prices in the interior, which makes sense. But if you're not able to actually build in a way that makes sense with those land prices, then... Like, the way that this all works economically is people are trading their time and their mobility costs for their land, uh, and their, their housing. So if I can't afford to live on the interior, like, inside the growth belt, then I will just go live further away and pay less. Like, that's the wh- that's why sprawl happens generally.

Yep.

But if you're artificially restricting that, uh, development, and land prices are going up even higher in the central city, then it makes that equation even more skewed towards just skipping the boundary and, and going further out. I mean, there's a lot of people that live in We- Weatherford that commute to Fort Worth.

Sprawl, sprawl happens a lot because of affordability, right? Let's focus on the financial piece.

But that one, but that's, like, sort of the economic view of it-

I get it

... is, like, you can... I, I can post a link to the standard urban model if anyone is interested in reading it, uh, or, like, l- learning about it. But, like, it, it, it, it explains pretty well why we get lower-density development away from the central city and higher-density development closer to the central city, and it's almost, uh, entirely driven by land prices, a- which, which is a demand factor.... right, uh, or a factor of demand and, and supply because you have less land in the central city, and you have more land outside of the central city. Um, but what you end up trading, like, y- you're not really saving a whole lot of money per se, because you're trading both your time and you're trading transportation costs-

Man, I-

- in exchange for lower housing costs.

So I get that, but on the governmental side, by buying that acreage and turning it into public space, you're saving a ton of money. So, I mean, just look at the interstate cost, right? If you take 4,000 acres off of future development, off that interstate corridor, you're saving a billion dollars in future interstate expansion costs.

If you can take the people that-

That's probably half a, half a billion dollars in property purchases.

But if you can take the people that would have lived in there and put them in the central city, and if you could build the central city in a way where you didn't have... still have to have a car to go everywhere, 'cause now all you're doing i-i- assume we don't change our development patterns-

Yeah

... which I think you have to assume-

Yes

... for the sake of argument.

You're never gonna change development patterns.

We don't change our development patterns. It creates an incentive, but as we have seen, and this is one of the things that I, uh... Going back and listening to the episode with, with Chuck last, last week, um, as I was editing it, the one thing that I really wanted to bring up, but I forgot by the time I got around to it, is, we know we talked about, um, sales tax being an, uh, anesthetic for the pain that's caused by property values going up and property taxes going up, and how this is a feedback loop, and what it should be doing is telling you that something is wrong and you need to fix it. But we don't do that. We don't respond to those incentives. Instead, we put Band-Aids and patches on property tax-

Right

... to keep the prices from going up, right? We have a tendency not to or to favor short-term, um, easing of pain in exchange for long-term economic health, physical health. Happened in 2008.

Yeah.

Happened in the Great Depression. Like, in the long run, these things equilibrate, but as, uh, Kane said, "In the short- in the long run, we're all dead," right? So we will trade that long-term fiscal stability and economic stability in exchange for comfort today. And so, yes, an urban growth boundary should create an incentive. Prop 13 should create an incentive to build more efficiently from a financial's perspective, and it didn't.

Yep.

Um, even SB2 and all the reforms that we have here in Texas should create natural incentives to build more efficiently, because when you build new things and when you're limited on revenue, you should build them more, uh, fiscally responsibly, but it doesn't. Our land use regulations ares- are, are not changing as a result of all of these natural incentives that we've created, and I don't think that they would change if we artificially limited, through an urban growth boundary, where we could build. So this is my... This is my biggest concern with it, is if it doesn't come with serious land use r- reform, it's gonna make things probably worse than they are today. And we spent an hour two weeks ago talking about-

Yes

... how I think that the, the assumptions that we have in our, in our development patterns, where it's just a natural thing that we're gonna have sprawl that goes from, you know, downtown Dallas all the way to Sherman and Denison. Like, this seems insane to me, but I don't know, like, if, if the option is we can just let that happen, uh, or we can put a growth boundary around it and probably exacerbate a lot of other problems, I, I don't know which one I would prefer. But if you could get an urban growth boundary coupled with significant land use, uh, reforms, l- like relaxing the things that you can build and, um, and, and allowing more density and, and also allowing more sort of active transportation, more public transportation, where you didn't have to have so many vehicles on the roads, then I think that it could possibly be better than what we have today. But, uh, all of this to say, to get back to the point that you made about saving on highway spending, okay? Assuming that we don't change our land use patterns, but we put this, this growth boundary around our central cities, and you have the option of I can pay a lot more to live in the central city with s- relatively similar development patterns. Uh, maybe, you know, maybe there's, like, a slight nudge towards more density. But for the most part, I'm still having to use my vehicle, or I can live, you know, 20 miles out, and I'm gonna drive in. You're putting just as much pressure, if not more, on the central city highway system, which is significantly more expensive to maintain and rebuild and expand than the rural highway system. I mean, look at Houston and Austin right now. Like, the numbers are just astounding, how much is being spent to add one lane of highway and things like that. So I, I don't know that it would actually save Texas any money in the long run.

I think it's a very interesting topic. I don't care which way you slice and dice it and where you buy property, but Texas is significantly behind in the amount of public space that people can go to, right? If you live in Colorado, you live in Utah... I mean, those are extreme examples, right? Because there's just so much federal land. Um, you know, but if you live in California, if you, you know, if you live in Pennsylvania, if you live- like, those states are significantly more open to purchasing and having public property than we are in Texas. Uh, and the voters in Texas have overwhelmingly said this is something they want. It was a bipartisan pass through the state. So, um, it was an amendment-

I have another question for you.

Went to the voters. Yeah. What's up?

Do you think that the state legislature is going to implement some kind of urban growth boundary with the intention of densifying and creating higher levels of urban form in our, in our cities?

No.

When-... even though there's no structural reason for this to occur, that type of development is correlated in this country with more democratic politics.

I, I don't think Texas will do anything from a state level to stop sprawl, period. In fact, I think the state will significantly limit and hamper the ability of local governments to prevent sprawl. I think that's the future I see in Texas. So I don't think it will be a well-thought-out plan. I think it will be if the developer comes in with a subdivision ordinance, you have to approve. I think the state has pretty much done everything it can in Texas so far to-

Okay, well, let's-

- destabilize the financial and fiscal sustainability of the state.

Yes, that's true.

Yeah.

So let's say that then the, the new regime is if, if a dev- developer comes in with something that matches the subdivision ordinance, you have to approve it, no questions asked. Couldn't you change your subdivision ordinance to limit sprawl then?

Uh, what I'm saying is-

Would the state then come back and say, "No, you actually can't. You can't-

I, I think the sub-

- change the subdivision ordinance to get rid of, you know, detached single-family houses?"

Yeah, I think the state is basically gonna come back and say, "You can't take away what is..." And, and, and honestly, the truth, I think developers... If you sat down at a table with developers and, and home builders, you probably could come to some conclusion what would be better for both the public sector and the private sector. But I think in Austin, what is best for the private sector is gonna be first and foremost, and, and you're not really gonna have much public sector conversation at the table. Uh, so they're just gonna continue to limit the ability of a city to regulate anything that would have... Which is, it, that would have a significant impact on a city's finances. I think that's why cities need to be more aggressive in their conversation, and they need to understand more. It's not a sales pitch, but it's why cities need to truly understand where they make their money and how they make their money. Because when you're having a conversation with a legislator, you ought to be able to tell them, "Hey, look at what I make per RU here versus what I make per RU here." RU standing for residential unit equivalency or RUE. That's an engineering term. But I just, I- we don't, we don't have the ammunition to have the conversation on the public sector side. So we're getting there, I mean, but we're kind of the only game in town, and we, we need to have that conversation more aggressively with the state so that they understand what they're like. It's the same thing as there are some reasonable people, even people that are, I think, are unreasonable at times. I mean, I use Senator Betancourt as a punching bag all the time, right? But he understands that appraisal caps will do very bad things and talks about it openly.

Yeah, and he also, he also argued in favor of the state lowering or requiring a smaller minimum lot size and things like that.

Correct. So-

Which again, you know, he gets into-

Would-

- the local control question, but-

But would also normally kind of be a lean Democrat conversation. So I, I'm not saying that there aren't reasonable thinkers there, but what I'm saying is, is not everybody's in the same room to have the conversation, and so we're not enlightened. Whereas if you look at, like, the Liberty Foundation and ASE and all these... and, and, uh, APAC and all these other players that are out there, these conservative politicians are going to conference after conference after conference that are paid for by special interest or these organizations that are funded through donations, right? They're PACs, and they're learning about these conservative causes. We're not teaching legislators on either side of the aisle about the cost or impact of urban sprawl. That's not happening in any room they're in right now. They don't know that. So how do we change that? That's the question: How do we change that conversation? And I, you know... And I think that's- I think it's really tough. I- look, I think Chuck has done a fantastic job of it, right? He's created a following of both politicians on the left and on the right who read his books and look at the cost implications of things, and he does a really good job of, like, taking the example and kind of pushing it through so that people can understand a tangible, uh, example. Um, and so but we've got to do a better job of that locally in Texas because if not, the state is just gonna say, "We're gonna take an easy legislative approach that gives us a soundbite, and we're gonna put it in place." Like the development shot clock. The development shot clock is a soundbite. Most cities met shot clock requirements anyways, right? But what happens when you have a bad developer who submits bad development plans? You're now giving that bad develop- I mean, you're putting more bad developments in the pipeline because cities are a little afraid to challenge that bad developer because of the way the statute is written, 'cause they know they could possibly get sued, right? Um, yeah, we should have provided developers responses within 30 to 40 days. Like, that should have happened before. Um, but we've, like, created this whole law around it because it has a fancy term that's easy to talk about publicly, which is, "We put in place the development shot clock to help builders get through the process faster." So and really all it did was help bad developers.

Yeah, we have a tendency to subsidize the bad-

Yeah

... and not subsidize the good.

We promised to keep this short.

And I think we've done a pretty good job.

We've done a pretty good job with it.

Yeah, a little over 35 minutes.

Yeah, yeah. Not bad, Chad. Not bad. So-

Well, you got a big game this weekend. Is it in Columbia?

Uh, man, I think it's at A&M.

It is at College Station.

Yeah. We, we have a pretty sweet schedule. The games that we should be worried about-

Are all in-

Are all-

... College Station

in College Station. So LSU's in College Station, right? Uh, Missouri's in College Station, and then, uh, you know-

Notre Dame was in College Station.

Um, yeah.

You're in College Station- ... mister number two in the nation. I wouldn't... Well, I wouldn't be worried about that game.

Uh, I would be worried about that game if I were you, especially if we beat Mizzou this week. You're gonna get real worried about that game.

... No. Here's the thing about College Station-

When do y'all play Georgia?

Is, uh, it would be- so we play OU next weekend. Georgia's the following weekend.

You play OU this weekend or next weekend?

We have a bye this week.

So it's Grambling this weekend? Is that the game at the Texas State Fair? The Grambling-

I have no idea

... versus, uh, Prairie View, or was that last weekend?

Don't know. Couldn't tell you.

Yeah, I mean, so then we have, you know, South Carolina, New Mexico State, Auburn, and then you guys. We have a pretty nice schedule set up for you. If we can get through Missouri and LSU, oh, boy, it sets up nicely because we have to beat you, right, to make a playoff spot.

All I gotta say is, it is nice when your backup quarterback is one of the top 10 quarterbacks in the country, even though he's only played two and a half games.

You're talking about your backup quarterback.

Mm-hmm.

When's he actually gonna see a defense that's worth a hoot, though? That's the question. It's coming. Oklahoma.

It'll be next year, pro- uh, if all things go well, it'll be next year.

Georgia?

Manning is not playing in that game.

Oh, you're hoping your boy... Oh, you're hoping your boy's coming back.

Yeah, Ewers will be back for Oklahoma.

You don't, you don't think the fans are gonna demand it? I guess they love Ewers so much.

We love Ewers.

If, if-

He took us to the... almost to the promised land last year. So close.

So close. Well, if you ask Texas fans now, you're going undefeated.

Uh, I've never said that, even with the-

Do you lose to Oklahoma?

... PFF ran- The problem with the Oklahoma game is that the team who should win, 50% of the time they don't win.

How old was your eldest when you taught him to say, "OU sucks?" Like, 18 months maybe?

Two, like, when he could talk. Two or three.

I just remember getting on the phone with you, and in the background I would hear, "OU sucks!"

"OU sucks," yes. Uh, my youngest kids, they're- one of their teachers at, at daycare is a big Oklahoma fan, and so I've been, I've been putting them in all their UT garb this week.

Yeah. So you don't want to go to the game in College Station?

Just, just to be obnoxious.

You don't want to go to the game in College Station?

I'm up for it. I think it- logistically, I think it'll be tough for me.

Okay. I have... Just, just so you know, uh, I secured tickets for the A&M game, uh, in, in the suites at your stadium next year.

Okay.

So I'm gonna wear all my Aggie gear-

Two for you.

And I'm gonna take a picture-

Two for Mike Elko.

I'm gonna take a picture of it for you.

Who's gonna be your quarterback next year-

When I get there.

-and will you have any receivers for him to throw to?

Mar- Marcel's back next year. Marcel's fantastic. We're gonna get receivers. I'm not worried about that. They're coming, so-

It's so funny, man. All, all those receivers you recruited.

But you haven't faced a, you haven't faced a defense like ours. By the way, guys, he said, "Oh, my God!" So if he tries to cut that out...

I'm not worried about A&M at this moment.

Man, I love when your pride gets the best of you. It's my favorite, Chad.

It's not about pride, it's the, the th-

Have your brothers start- started talking smack to you yet about the game?

No.

Okay.

For good reason. They're worried about it. Um-

I'm not worried, I'm not worried about it.

The-

You're expected to win that game.

The thing about playing the Aggies is, what, like 75% of the time we come away with a W, so like, eh, I'm, I'm not gonna get worried about playing in College Station. Like, how many actual SEC games have you won in College Station?

Wow!

Like 40% of them.

Wow! Okay.

You have those people there.

You got your numbers right.

You have the 12th man there.

For a guy who doesn't care, you sure do have those numbers right off the tip of your tongue.

I, I don't have... I- No, I, I- it's probably more than that. I'm, I'm-

Uh-huh

... lowballing it for effect.

Okay.

But it's just not the... It's not the, uh, intimidating environment that you like to think it is.

Well, look, if... I'm gonna have a much different opinion of where we are as a team after this weekend, right?

Who, uh-

Mizzou, Mizzou is a big game for us.

They... Who did they almost lose to-

Doesn't matter

... this week?

Who did y'all almost lose to?

No one.

You, you were dying last week.

Did you watch the game? Do you wanna actually go through it?

No, I don't, but I just, I just know you kept making mistakes, and you were in a tizzy on the Texas machines.

I wasn't in a tizzy. I, I, I said one-

We should be- we should have 20... We should have 27 points by now-

Oh, my gosh!

... I think is what you said.

I said it's frustrating because we could have, like, 27 points by now.

Yes.

We had a fumble in the red zone, a 65-yard touchdown pass that we dropped-

So-

... and then we took three points off the board with penalties.

So what you're saying is you're not invincible.

That's 13 points.

You're not invincible.

We still won by three scores.

But who did you play? Mississippi State. Who'd you play?

It doesn't matter.

It does matter. Who'd you play?

Who did you play? Arkansas.

Arkansas. Arkansas was three and one.

You sc- you scraped by the last minute against Arkansas.

They were three and one and nationally ranked. Or no, they weren't actually nationally ranked.

I think they were.

I think they were out of the top 25.

I, uh, here, la- I'll end on... I, I will end on this because this is really kind of funny.

If you actually watched the A&M-

So-

... Arkansas game, by the way, you felt really good about it 'cause the defense was very good.

Okay. Um-

Thanks

... when the AP Top 25 poll came out, there was apoplexy in College Station.

Why?

Because, uh, y'all were tied with, I guess, UNLV for 25th.

Okay.

But there was a glitch on the AP's website where it wouldn't show more than 25 teams, and so it showed UNLV as 25. It didn't show A&M, and then it showed all of the others receiving votes, and A&M wasn't on there either. And so TexAgs went crazy like, "What? We beat an SEC team, and we dropped out of the poll, and now we don't even have any votes?" Like they were, they were just losing their minds. That was a, that was a funny, uh, time on, on Twitter Sunday afternoon.

This all came off of Orange Bloods?

No. Uh, so I follow this guy who-

How many hours a week do you follow these crazy Texas Orange Bloods people?

How many hours am I on Orange Bloods? Maybe one hour over the course of the week.

Okay, so how many times do you check it?

There are-

How many times a day do you check Orange Bloods?

Uh, an average of less than one.... so on Thursdays-

That came across as a total lie.

No.

Your eyes went to the top left, and you started with-

I was thinking. I was doing the math.

Uh, uh, uh, just, uh, l- less than one.

So on Thursdays, there's a, a big, like, group staff write-up in the evening, so I read that. Um, Friday afternoon they do score predictions. I usually go check that out, see what people are saying. And then, um, after the game, I'll read the, the write-ups, so that's three times. And then on Sundays, there's two different staff reports, so on Sunday evenings I'll go read both of those. So that's four different times that I go on Orange Blood during, during game week.

So I, w- I want one of two things to happen. I want you to either-

Mm-hmm

... lose to both Oklahoma and Georgia, so that you can come back to planet Earth, okay? Or I want you to continue to fly to Mars and beat both Oklahoma and Georgia, and then lose to us in College Station. Do you know what I want?

Both of those will be straight-up tizzies for the Chattigan. Do you wanna know what I want?

What? To win a national championship.

This is what I... This is, this is what I always want.

Oh.

I want Oklahoma to lose every game, and I want A&M to lose every game. I don't have this sort of grand plan where, like, I'm gonna spoil your, your, you know, storybook season. I just want you to lose.

I, I never thought you would be Pinky. I've always thought of you as Brain and me as Pinky, but apparently, yeah.

It doesn't make it sweeter-

The-

... for y'all to, like, be on the cusp of the playoffs-

Oh, it makes it... No, no, no

... and then for us to beat you. It makes it sweeter for y'all to lose every single game.

It makes it sweeter for an Aggie to beat an undefeated Texas, or to beat a two-loss Texas, right, and knock you out of the playoff contention. Like, it... I don't know if... Because I think Texas probably, if you lose to the right teams, maybe if you lose to Oklahoma, it doesn't... What, what is Oklahoma's ranking? I d- I don't, I don't think-

They were, like, 15th going in.

Yeah, so I think you'd be okay. But if, if you did, if you did lose to somebody else, it would be an issue. Does Oklahoma play Bedlam, or are they not... Or is this, like, an Aggie-A&M break-up?

I think they're done with that.

Like Texas A&M.

They're 19th right now.

Okay.

I think they're done with that.

Okay. 'Cause I think you can... I mean, honestly, I think Georgia played so well against Bama. I, I think you could lose against Georgia, you'd be fine, right?

That was an interesting game. Did you watch it?

Georgia-Bama? Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

It was a great game.

I mean, it was super entertaining.

Oh, yeah, great game. I went back and watched it late, so I watched, like, clip after clip. So yeah, the, the, the two pass plays towards the end, the Georgia pass and the, and the other pass-

Oh, my God, Ryan Williams.

It's crazy, dude.

Uh, on that final touchdown pass?

Yeah. Yeah, it was wild.

He literally... He looked like he just went into slow motion, just turned around, looked at the defenders, and then took off. Like, that guy is a star.

Yeah. It does sadden me, though, that Texas doesn't play, like, a Baylor or a TCU or a Kansas anymore. 'Cause, like, you, you really... You're not losing to, like, a mediocre team like you did back then. I'm gonna make so many people mad with that statement.

Like Appalachian State?

Like App State, 100%. I deserve that. I deserve that. We should have never lost to App State.

Okay, let's-

But that got us a new coach

... let's wrap this up. Let's wrap this up. What is your, as of today, your end-of-the-regular-season record for A&M?

We have one loss.

So you're, you're gonna go 11 and one?

I hope to. If we're 10 and two, I still think-

No, I don't ask what you hope to.

Yeah.

I hope they'll be going undefeated. What do you think will happen?

I, I'm an Aggie, dude. I'm always on cloud nine, always. It's 11 and one.

I'm asking you to use the rational part of your brain.

There is no rational part of your brain when you're an Aggie fan. How could you be rational? You've been beaten down your entire life. Like, you can't be rational about it.

Folks, this is why I, I don't even try. Like, it's, it's literally... It's not animosity, it's just pity.

There, there was only one coach, the Char- the Charlie Strong area, era, for as long as you and I have been friends, for 20 years, right? There is only one period of time where you were rational about Texas, and it was when Charlie Strong was your coach. That was it, where you finally said, "Okay, yeah, we're probably not gonna win a national championship," or, "We're not gonna make a great run," or, "We're not one of the best in the country." That's the only time you've ever done that.

That's... That is categorically false.

And I will say, Texas is at the top of their game. Texas is as good now as they've been probably since Mack Brown and Vince Young.

2008 was probably a better team than that. Um-

Just couldn't make it happen, or?

We lost in the freaking corner-

Yep

... touchdown pass to T- uh, freaking Michael Crabtree.

Ah.

And then we lost the three-way tiebreaker.

Allison, shout out to Allison, who reminds you of that one occasionally.

Can't stand that guy.

Crabtree.

Yeah.

That was a really, that was a really-

That team was better though

... that was a really good Texas Tech team, though.

They were pretty good.

Yeah.

Probably one of their best teams.

Who was the quarterback of that team, 2008?

Oh, gosh.

He went on to win Bros, right? Can't remember who that was.

I, I don't remember who it was.

Okay.

Um, I, like, it's on the tip of my tongue, but I can't think of it.

That was a great pass.

Graham Harrell? Was it Graham Harrell?

I think it was Graham Harrell. That was a great pass.

Yeah, it was Graham Harrell.

Yeah. So anyways, all right, let's wrap it up, we promised.

We promised.

Thanks so much, folks.

All right, see you, Pat.

Thanks for hanging. See you. Bye.