Under Houston's current building code, a landlord can skip air conditioning entirely if the rental unit has window screens. Screens. In a city where summer afternoons hit triple digits and Harris County has logged more than 7,600 heat-related illness cases since 2019.
Council Member Alejandra Salinas introduced a "Right to Air Conditioning" ordinance on July 13 that would close that loophole. It goes before the Proposition A Committee on July 28. If the committee advances it and council votes by mid-August, as Salinas projects, landlords would get 90 days to comply.
Do the arithmetic. Mid-August plus 90 days is mid-November. A tenant sitting in a screenless apartment right now, sweating through the worst weeks of the year, would gain a legal right to cooling that her landlord cannot be fined for ignoring until the heat is mostly gone.
The Houston Apartment Association supports the measure. That tells you something. Most Houston landlords already provide AC. The ordinance sets a floor most of the industry already stands on. The fight, if one materializes at committee, comes from the landlords operating below it, the ones for whom screened windows have been good enough.
Nearly 23,000 homes in the Houston area lack any air conditioning. For those tenants, the ordinance would turn cooling from a landlord's goodwill into a legal obligation. But obligation is not refrigerated air. Between passage and compliance sits a whole summer's worth of heat, a landlord's willingness to spend the money, and an enforcement apparatus the city hasn't built yet.
The loophole today: Houston landlords can forgo AC if units have window screens. Without screens, they must keep units 20°F below outdoor temp, meaning 80°F indoors when it's 100°F outside.
What the ordinance would require: Operable refrigerated cooling (central air, window unit, or portable unit) in all habitable rental spaces.
Status as of July 23: Introduced July 13. Committee hearing July 28. Council vote expected mid-August. Not yet enacted.
The calendar gap: If passed mid-August with a 90-day window, landlords can't be fined until mid-November. Houston averages highs above 90°F through October.
Who supports it: Council co-sponsors Alcorn, Castillo, Pollard. Houston Apartment Association, Texas Housers, Houston Tenants Union, Houston Food Bank.
Named opposition so far: None on the public record. The July 28 committee hearing may surface it.
Peer cities: Dallas and Austin already require AC in rentals. San Antonio and Fort Worth do not.
Enforcement context: Houston's Apartment Inspection Ordinance passed May 2026 after years of delay, the city's first systematic rental accountability tool. Its capacity is untested.