Your city or county could not give one big project more than 10 years of property tax breaks.
What it does
HB 729 would cap the total time property tax abatements can cover the same parcel at 10 years, counting every deal with the same owner, its affiliates, or whoever takes over the property, including land added later. A taxing unit would have to approve any new phase of a project by a majority vote at a regularly scheduled meeting before that phase could get its own tax break. Terms that let a developer, rather than the city or county, add a phase, add property, redraw a boundary, or extend the deal would be void. Cities and counties would face the same 10-year cap on economic development payments that are measured by property taxes.
What it means for your community
If your city or county has handed a large project a long tax abatement, this would limit how long that project can stay off the tax roll. Each new phase would need a public vote by city council or the county commissioners court, so you would see those decisions instead of them being locked in by contract. Taxing districts that use abatements to land a company would have less room to bargain, and local budgets could feel the change if a project starts paying property tax sooner. The rules would cover agreements signed after the bill takes effect, plus older deals that add a phase, new property, or a new abatement period after that date.
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