LOCKED OUT: ARANSAS COUNTY’S HOUSING CRISIS (PART 2)
Building a Way Back In: Solutions for Aransas County
Part One showed how serious the housing crisis is in Aransas County, but it also made clear that the situation can be turned around. A recent housing study laid out specific, practical steps that local leaders and residents can take, and community members who participated in surveys were very clear about what they need. This section explains those ideas in plain language and highlights concrete tools that could help local workers and first-time homebuyers finally get a foothold.
1. Workforce housing: Local government must lead
One central finding is that the private market cannot, by itself, supply enough homes that local workers can afford. Land prices, infrastructure costs, construction expenses, and fees set a minimum cost below which builders simply cannot go. That means the City of Rockport and Aransas County must take an active role in shaping the housing market instead of waiting for it to correct on its own.
A key recommendation is a workforce housing program focused on entry-level and mid-level employees of major local employers—schools, hospitals, public safety, county and city departments. These workers need homes in roughly the 250,000 to 300,000 dollar range, which are now almost impossible to find without some type of assistance.
Local government has several levers it can use to make those homes possible:
Help with down payments or construction gaps through second liens that are repaid when the home is eventually sold.
Sharing the cost of infrastructure like roads and utilities for targeted projects.
Waiving or reducing certain fees in exchange for binding commitments to build and keep homes in workforce price ranges.
Donating or discounting publicly owned land for housing. For example, contributing surplus land can reduce development costs by tens of thousands of dollars per acre, which can translate into more than ten thousand dollars of savings per lot when land is subdivided at moderate densities.
Non-aviation land near the county airport, which can already be used for residential development, is a particularly important opportunity. If a portion of that land is set aside for workforce housing, it can significantly improve the numbers for builders willing to produce homes at prices local workers can actually afford.
2. New tools for building and financing affordable housing
To make truly affordable rental and ownership housing possible, local leaders have access to tools that go beyond traditional zoning and incentives. One of the most important is the legal framework that allows the creation of a public, nonprofit housing entity with broad powers to support residential development at affordable prices for residents.
Such an entity can be formed by a city, a county, or both acting together, and it is overseen by a board of directors appointed by the sponsoring local government. Its purpose is to help finance residential ownership and rental developments that provide decent, safe, and sanitary housing at prices within reach of people with low and moderate incomes.
Once formed, this kind of corporation can:
Enter into partnerships with private developers.
Take ownership of land and lease it back to a developer through long-term ground leases, often around 75 years.
Serve as a general partner, ground lessor, co‑developer, or even general contractor through wholly owned subsidiary entities, keeping risk limited while maintaining oversight.
Help projects qualify for important tax exemptions on both property taxes and sales taxes on hard construction costs, so the savings can be used to lower rents or sales prices.
When this structure is used in rental projects, at least half of all units in a qualifying development must be reserved for individuals and families earning less than 80 percent of the area median income, with discounted rents tied to household income. In practice, this helps ensure that new developments deliver real benefits to local workers instead of becoming entirely high-end.
At the same time, these projects can generate benefits for the community entity itself, including a share of development fees, ongoing ground lease payments, and portions of sales, refinancing proceeds, and tax savings. Those revenues can be reinvested in more housing or used to support other public goals.
3. The Holigan modular model: Lower monthly payments, more stability
One of the most innovative efforts underway in the county is a large modular home community planned by a private developer. The project envisions about 1,100 home sites split between family housing and homes for residents aged 55 and older. The approach is different from traditional subdivisions: residents buy the home but rent the land underneath it, through an ongoing land lease.
This model can lower upfront costs significantly, which matters in a place where many residents are priced out of traditional new construction. All-in monthly payments, including mortgage and land rent, are expected to fall roughly in the 1,500 to 1,700 dollar range for entry-level units, which is much closer to what many working households in Aransas County say they can afford each month.
Critical protections are built into the community rules: no short-term rentals and no subletting. That means these homes are meant for full-time residents, not vacation rental investors. Similar modular land-lease communities have worked in other parts of Texas, and if this project is supported and closely monitored, it could provide a practical model for how to deliver stable, attainable housing at scale here.
4. Affordable rentals: Using partnerships to keep rents within reach
For many workers earning between about 15 and 30 dollars per hour, renting will remain the most realistic option in the near term. The county’s existing stock of rent-restricted affordable units is almost full, with waiting lists, and vacancies in market-rate apartments are low. That means there is not nearly enough supply, especially for households earning around 35,000 to 60,000 dollars per year.
New moderately priced rental developments aimed at these incomes need careful structuring to work. A typical affordable multifamily project uses a partnership that includes:
A developer.
A tax credit investor.
A public partner that participates in the ownership and ground lease structure.
In this model, the public partner or its wholly owned subsidiary can take title to the land and then lease it back to the development entity under a long-term ground lease, while also serving as general partner in the ownership structure. In return, the project can qualify for exemptions from property taxes and sales taxes on construction, provided it meets agreed affordability targets.
These savings are used to offset rent discounts on units reserved for households below certain income limits. Under typical arrangements, at least 50 percent of the apartments must be set aside for tenants earning less than 80 percent of the area median income, and rents for those units are capped based on detailed income and rent limit tables for the county. This approach allows the creation of high-quality housing with rents that local workers can realistically afford, while still attracting private investment.
5. Preserve, repair, and build in the gaps
New construction is important, but preserving and improving existing homes is often the fastest and least expensive way to protect affordability. Rockport and Fulton have many older houses, some of which are still solid but need major repairs to remain safe and healthy. Investing in rehabilitation helps keep those homes in the hands of working families instead of letting them fall into disrepair and be replaced by more expensive construction.
At the same time, infill development can add gentle density without the cost of extending new roads and utilities. Allowing more duplexes, triplexes, small apartment buildings, accessory dwelling units, and garage apartments inside existing neighborhoods gives homeowners a way to create rental income and gives renters more options at lower price points. Aligning zoning and permitting rules with these goals is a low-cost step that can produce visible results over time.
6. Short-term rentals: Protecting neighborhoods and local housing
Short-term rentals through platforms like Airbnb and VRBO have taken a growing share of Aransas County’s housing stock. Each unit that becomes a vacation rental is one less home available to long-term renters, and this shift places upward pressure on prices across the board.
Survey responses showed strong concern about how short-term rentals affect neighborhood quality and housing supply. Residents described visitors who do not respect local communities or the bay, and many called for stricter controls to prevent entire blocks from becoming de facto hotel districts.
Other Texas communities have adopted a range of tools: caps on the number of short-term rentals, registration and licensing requirements, and neighborhood-specific limits. Aransas County and Rockport have the legal ability to take similar steps if they choose. The main question is whether there is enough political will to act, given the economic interests involved and the role tourism plays in the local economy.
7. Better jobs, better housing stability
Housing costs and wages are two sides of the same coin. Many residents of Aransas County have attended college or obtained vocational certifications, yet a significant number commute to jobs in San Patricio County or Corpus Christi to make use of their skills. Higher-paying employers have tended to locate outside the county, which pulls talent and purchasing power away each day.
The county’s location about 30 miles north of a major industrial region, combined with an airport, coastal amenities, and quality of life, creates real opportunities to recruit branch offices and light industrial employers. Non-aviation land near the airport is particularly well suited for this kind of use, and pairing employment growth with nearby housing development can shorten commutes and strengthen the local tax base at the same time.
If more good jobs are available locally, more households will qualify for mortgages, keep up with rent, and stay rooted here. That is why economic development and housing strategy need to be planned together.
8. A live–work–play community designed around attainable housing
On the ground, a large mixed-use project planned on 85 acres in the county shows how these tools can work in practice. The developers of this project have decades of experience in residential and commercial real estate and have assembled land in an area that qualifies as an Opportunity Zone, which opens the door to additional investment capital.
The vision is a true live–work–play community, with long-term rental housing, shops, restaurants, parks, ponds, and related businesses that support daily life. Most of the housing is planned as long-term rentals, with only a small portion designed as short-term rentals in a central, more commercial area. The aim is to create a three-way win: for the community, for local government, and for the investors behind the project.
Crucially, the plan for attainable workforce housing in this community depends on using the public financing and ownership tools described earlier. With a suitable public partner in place to own the land and participate in the development, the long-term rental housing can be delivered at rents that local workers can afford. Without that partnership, the workforce housing portion is not financially feasible from both a construction and operational perspective.
9. What residents say they want
A survey of 376 workers and residents asked what housing changes would help Aransas County families the most. The answers were consistent:
More lower-priced, entry-level single-family homes topped the list, selected by more than 60 percent of respondents as the most important change.
Many also called for more moderately priced apartments, preserving and rehabilitating older housing, and stricter rules on short-term rentals.
Very few people said they wanted more upscale development or more RV parks.
In short, people want to live where they work, in homes that match the wages available here. They want their children and parents to be able to stay in the community they love, not be pushed out by rising costs or forced to commute long distances every day. As one respondent put it, securing essential housing is viewed as vital for the survival of longtime residents.
10. The choice facing Aransas County
The evidence is clear that immediate, coordinated action is needed across all housing types. Without it, the window for preserving the economic and social diversity that makes Aransas County a real community, not just a resort destination, is closing fast. Teachers who leave, nurses who commute, and service workers who double up in overcrowded units are not statistics; they are neighbors whose presence or absence will shape the future of this place.
None of the solutions described here are easy, and none are free. They require political courage, strong collaboration between city and county leaders, and a willingness to invest public resources and attention in long-term community well-being rather than short-term gains. But allowing the county to drift toward a landscape of vacation homes and high-end properties that working families can no longer afford is a choice as well, and one many long-term residents do not accept.
The problems have been measured. The needs are well understood. The tools exist, and some projects are already taking shape. What happens next depends on whether the people who call this coast home insist that it remain a place where they, and not just visitors, can afford to live.
