Zoning, HOAs & Historic Districts in the San Antonio Metro (TX)

1. San Antonio's Unified Development Code (UDC)

San Antonio's zoning and subdivision rules are consolidated into a single Unified Development Code (UDC), codified as City Code Chapter 35 and administered by the city's Development Services Department (DSD). The UDC is now updated on a five-year cycle, with the next full amendment cycle scheduled to begin January 2027. The most recent comprehensive cycle ran February 2022 through January 2023: 234 total amendments were submitted (191 internal, 43 from the public), 193 were recommended for approval, and the adopted package took effect January 1, 2023, coordinated by DSD with the Planning Department, the Office of Historic Preservation, and neighborhood coalitions all participating. Separately, DSD's own UDC page notes additional 2025 amendments made specifically to conform to new Texas state land-use preemption laws.

2. ADUs and San Antonio's 2022-2023 UDC amendment cycle

That 2022-2023 UDC cycle relaxed San Antonio's accessory-dwelling-unit (ADU) rules — raising the maximum ADU size and loosening bedroom-count limits — with the current standard codified at UDC §35-371. As commonly summarized (we could not independently confirm the exact current size figures against the code text itself this pass, so treat the specific square-footage numbers as unconfirmed pending a Municode check): an owner-occupancy affidavit is required (the owner must live in either the primary home or the accessory unit), short-term rental of a non-owner-occupied ADU is prohibited, and on-site parking is required only for larger ADUs. The city has also offered fee waivers for qualifying ADU projects. We could not confirm a citywide elimination of off-street parking minimums comparable to some other Texas cities' recent reforms — if that matters to a specific project, confirm current parking requirements directly with DSD.

3. A pending 2026 missing-middle housing proposal — not yet adopted

Worth knowing if you're weighing future density near a specific property: District 1 Councilwoman Dr. Sukh Kaur filed a Council Consideration Request on January 27, 2026 proposing a formal "missing middle housing" program — city-identified parcels, permit-ready plans, and scaled financial assistance by affordability tier. It was discussed at the Governance Committee on February 18, 2026 and has since advanced to the Planning and Community Development Committee for further review. As of this writing it remains a proposal under committee review, not adopted city policy — check the city's own council-agenda records for its current status before assuming it's in effect.

4. Texas HOA law: the Residential Property Owners Protection Act

Texas HOAs are governed by the Texas Residential Property Owners Protection Act, Property Code Chapter 209 — a state law that applies the same way across all four of this metro's counties (Bexar, Comal, Kendall, and Guadalupe), with no county-specific carve-outs. It covers assessment-lien filing and payment-plan rights, mandatory notice-and-cure periods before enforcement action, records access and open-meeting requirements, and board-election procedures. Notably, Texas restricts HOA foreclosure specifically for assessment-only or fine-based debt — an association generally cannot foreclose purely over unpaid fines, and there are conditions limiting foreclosure for small assessment debts — a stronger homeowner protection than many states offer, with a post-foreclosure right of redemption.

5. San Antonio's 32 local historic districts

The City of San Antonio's Office of Historic Preservation (OHP) currently recognizes 32 locally designated historic districts, with binding exterior-change review handled by the Historic and Design Review Commission (HDRC) — this is distinct from, and stricter than, honorific National Register of Historic Places listing, which carries no binding local design review. District sizes range from tiny (Leon Springs, just 3 parcels) to large (the Mission Historic District). Two neighborhoods in this guide sit inside one: Southtown includes the King William district, and downtown's Arsenal district is where H-E-B's corporate headquarters now sits. The full list, per OHP's own page: Alamo Plaza, Arsenal, Auditorium Circle, Cattleman Square, Dignowity Hill, E. French Place, Fulton Ave., Government Hill, Greenlawn Estates, Healy-Murphy, Hemisfair, King William, Knob Hill, La Villita, Lavaca, Leon Springs, Main and Military Plaza, Mission, Monte Vista, Monticello Park, Nathan, Old Lone Star Brewery, Olmos Park Terrace, Rinconcito de Esperanza, River Road, School of Aerospace Medicine, St. Paul Square, Tobin Hill, Ursuline Academy, Westfort, and Woodlawn Lake. Alamo Heights is its own independently incorporated city with its own separate zoning and preservation ordinance — its historic character isn't governed by San Antonio's 32-district list, and we haven't yet independently researched its own historic-district apparatus.

6. Zoning & historic character in the metro's other cities

Outside San Antonio's own UDC, this metro's other three cities each have their own separate zoning authority and historic character. New Braunfels' Gruene neighborhood is home to the Gruene Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1975 (roughly 15 walkable acres, with its boundaries expanded in 2004) — an honorific/preservation-incentive designation rather than a binding local design-review district, as far as we could confirm this pass. Boerne's downtown corridor along Main Street, branded the Hill Country Mile, includes two individually National Register-listed buildings; the roughly 1.1-mile corridor itself is treated by the city as a defined heritage/historic-design area, though we did not confirm a specific binding local-ordinance citation this pass. Schertz has at least several documented HOA-governed subdivisions, most notably The Crossvine — a mixed-use, master-planned community northeast of San Antonio with its own homeowners association, built around a continuous greenbelt and hike-and-bike trail system, described by its developer as the area's first development of its kind; Homestead and several smaller subdivisions (Sedona, Greenshire, and others) are also HOA-governed. Treat this section as general characterization rather than a comprehensive per-city ordinance review — each city's own planning department is the authoritative source for a specific address.

7. How we keep this page current

The UDC framework and 2022-2023 amendment-cycle facts in Sections 1-2 are settled, sourced history, though the exact current ADU size limits in Section 2 need a direct Municode confirmation before you rely on them for a specific project. The missing-middle proposal in Section 3 is genuinely in flux — check its current committee status before assuming either way. Texas HOA law in Section 4 is a stable state statute. The historic-district list in Section 5 comes directly from the city's own Office of Historic Preservation page. If you spot something on this page that's changed, or notice a broken link, we'd like to know — see our contact information.