Transcript
Automatically generated transcript. It may contain errors and includes testimony in languages other than English that is not individually marked up for assistive technology.
Candace Avalos
Good afternoon.
I am going to call the meeting of— oh, Nope, let's figure out what's going on there.
Okay, try again.
Good afternoon, I'm going to call the meeting of the Housing and Permitting Committee to order on Tuesday, June 2nd at 2:03 PM.
Diego, please call the roll.
Diego
Good afternoon.
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Absent.
Diego
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Here.
Diego
Novick?
Steve Novick
Absent.
Jessie Connor
Green?
Mitch Green
Here.
Diego
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Present.
Claire, can you please read the statement of conduct?
Claire
Thank you, Chair.
Good afternoon and welcome to the meeting of the Housing and Permitting Committee.
To testify before this committee in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at portland.gov/council/agenda/housingandpermittingcommittee or by calling 311.
Registration for virtual testimony closes 1 hour prior to the meeting.
In-person testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard.
If public testimony will be taken on an item, individuals may testify for 3 minutes unless the chair states otherwise.
Your microphone will be muted when your time is over.
The chair preserves order.
Disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others' testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed.
If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given.
Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting.
Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass.
Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually.
Your testimony should address the matter being considered.
When testifying, please state your name for the record.
If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent.
And finally, virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name.
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
Thank you, Claire.
All right, we have 3 items on today's agenda.
First, we'll have some time for public comment, as we always do at the top of the hour, on housing and permitting issues of concern or interest.
Then we will We will hear progress reports on the continued work of the Unified Housing Strategy and the Social Housing Study.
And for the second half of the meeting, we will consider the latest RECAP code improvement package.
So with that, let's move to— can you call item 1?
Diego
Item 1, Housing and Permitting Community Feedback.
Candace Avalos
All right, so we're going to hear from community members on their areas of concerns or feedback, and each testifier will have 3 minutes.
Diego, go ahead and call up the first person.
Diego
We have 4 individuals signed up.
First up is Robert Taylor, who— excuse me, Robert Pyle, who will join us online shortly.
David Straub, Benjamin Gilbert, Virginia Hammond.
Robert, feel free to unmute yourself and begin when you're ready.
Robert Pyle
Great, thank you.
Good afternoon, Council.
I've spoken with most of you present about this.
Unfortunately, I don't have the others here today, but for the record, my name is Robert Pyle.
I'm the principal of Oakleaf Redevelopment.
I wanted to take this opportunity in advance of the City Council meeting on Thursday, where the full council will hear the first reading of the moderate income revolving loan ordinance, to ask you again to remove the minimum unit requirement and the mixed-use preference and to support Councilor Green's amendments.
A 20-unit minimum excludes missing middle multifamily housing projects of 5 to 19 units for no discernible reason.
Any project of more than approximately 30 units will trigger BOLI prevailing wage requirements, adding 20 to 35% to the construction costs, creating additional gaps to fill in project feasibility.
Cottage clusters and townhomes are specifically eligible housing types under the MRL program, which adopts the definition of middle housing in ORS 197A.
Thompson Springs in Tillamook County is a 10-unit cottage cluster of 4-sale homes featuring universal design.
Designed for buyers in the 80 to 120% AMI range and is intending to utilize the MRL program.
Every MRL loan comes with a 5% administration fee paid to the sponsoring jurisdiction.
For a $750,000 loan funding approximately 30 units, that's a fee value of approximately $50,000 into the general fund.
District 1 specifically has the fewest tools for these smaller infill projects.
As most areas are ineligible for the multi-program, which accompanies inclusionary housing requirements for projects of 20 units or more.
In 2025, 1,600 units were submitted for permit.
Our official city goal is 6,000 per year.
I have emailed a memo to all of your offices containing more details, but please do not limit the potential of this tool to help us close that gap even a little bit.
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
Next up.
Benjamin Gilbert
Hello, my name is Benjamin Gilbert.
I am a tenant in District 4, a volunteer lobbyist for the Portland DSA, and I'm speaking on my own behalf today.
I want to take this opportunity today to speak about social housing.
I had the privilege of joining a group of Oregonians on a trip to Vienna to study social housing.
We all went into this trip with expectations.
I expected to see what I understood to be one of the most successful social housing systems in the world.
However, I also knew that like any system, there would be a myriad of complexities.
I knew the stats, that 80% of the city's population were tenants, that the average rents in the city were affordable, and that 60% of the population lived in some form of social housing.
All of these expectations couldn't have prepared me for the experience of actually seeing the city and speaking with its people.
To be in a city where housing is not merely a commodity, but a public good, was eye-opening.
To walk around a city whose residents were housed and not sleeping on the street was comforting.
A city where a zip code does not correlate with your income and where all residents, not just citizens, after 2 years of residency, including refugees, are eligible for social housing was incredible.
I have heard explanations for why we are in a housing crisis, like overregulation and prevailing wage.
But Vienna has over 98% of construction workers covered by collective bargaining agreements and a system of regulations far more thorough than what we have here.
I have heard how social housing won't work here or how it is too expensive, but Vienna spends less money on housing than our metro area spends on homelessness by a lot, and we're in a country that is far more wealthy.
It was eye-opening to learn that the shortest lease term in the system was 3 years and that the Chamber for Workers and Employees, a national org that represents all workers in Austria, believed Councilmember Smith.
Jessie Connor
I would like to thank the committee for this report.
Benjamin Gilbert
I agree with the committee that in order to protect the rights of workers, that that should be extended to 5 years.
I could keep talking about the amazing work that has been done in Vienna, but I want to communicate what we can apply here in Portland.
Firstly, it is crucial that we examine cost-based models for setting rent, especially in a system like the limited-profit housing associations of the Austrian model.
Second, we should build a strong foundation of municipally owned and operated social housing.
Third, we need a strong foundation of tenants' rights that privilege the right to housing over the ability of landlords to extract wealth from tenants.
And finally, we need to make sure that this social housing is for the many, not just for those who are most in need.
In order for the system to have buy-in from the population and to avoid stigma, it must be free from means testing beyond the initial entrance and available to the majority of Portlanders.
Thank you for your time.
Diego
We have Virginia Hammond online.
Virginia, feel free to unmute and begin when you're ready.
Virginia Hammond
Thank you.
My name is Virginia Hammond, and thank you for this opportunity to speak.
I am a homeowner in the Collins View neighborhood in South Portland.
I'm here to ask that you reconsider a planning and permitting decision and allow a creative and cost-free to the city solution that keeps developers and neighbors happy.
Our family bought our home in 1952.
About 50 years ago, our family and our neighbors put in and paid for clearing and graveling part of the road, Orchid Court.
At the time, the road was only a line on a map covered with grass and bushes.
The road left some 80 feet of the public right-of-way unmodified.
Today, this stretch has big laurels, holly trees, and grass.
Taking the road all the way through to the cross street, Palatine Hill Road, would require dropping down an embankment and present safety issues.
Thank you.
There's no need for this, and it is highly unlikely the city will ever consider completing the street.
While Orchid Court is on the city's maintain roster, so far the city hasn't done much.
There are 4 homes on the road and none of them have street parking.
There is a serious drainage issue that we have reported to the city.
The drainage issue and the one-lane width of the paving makes parking on the sides impossible.
In winter, they are muddy grass leaves and not level.
There is no street parking on this street.
At the unmodified end of the street, the city has approved a 5-cottage development with no parking, zero parking.
The developer presented plans that would have cleared the rest of the public road, about 80 feet of frontage, and graveled it so that the new homeowners would have a place to park their cars.
The city said no.
To these plans and is asking for a fee of roughly $60,000 from the developer to go into a fund that may or may not contribute to upgrading the street at some time in the future.
We accept the infill density, recognizing the need for additional housing in the city.
However, these new homeowners will surely need and want cars.
Public transportation access is a 10-minute walk, and then it takes another 25 minutes to get downtown.
A trip that takes a car about 10 minutes altogether.
The closest grocery stores are a 40-minute walk.
Realistically, these homes are going to have cars and will need to find someplace to park them, stressing out the whole neighborhood.
Please reconsider and permit the low-cost and creative use of this public space so that our neighborhood can remain a nice place to live.
Thank you.
Diego
Once more for David Straub.
David Straub
Good afternoon, councilors.
My name is David Straub.
I'm trying to find out, or I would like to have added to this social housing equation, behavioral wellness, and I'm trying to figure out why it It is already an element.
Back in January when we were nominating another person to the Home Forward board, I had noticed that everyone on there was real estate development oriented and there was no one mental healthcare or behavioral wellness oriented.
Now I opposed the nomination.
I knew it was more for just to communicate a message.
And now we look at the progress report for the social housing program and we seem to be doing the same thing.
I look at the, there's like, I don't know, a dozen people from Portland Housing Bureau, and they're all real estate development oriented.
And as I hear, you know, the testimony here and other comments, everyone seems to be focused on the financial and housing issues while no one really seems to be looking at the behavioral health issues.
I guess I'm just trying to figure out, first of all, why that is.
And the second part is to really impress upon you that that is really the solution.
We're never gonna build enough affordable housing.
We might be able to build some rental housing, probably not in time to deal with Councilor Dan Ryan.
While we have 16,000 people homeless right now, the solution in my mind is this Portland pilot program that you already have going on for home sharing, renting a room.
Now I understand that, you know, some people who are experiencing homelessness aren't ready to live in housing, but we need to find out who those people are because my experience is that the vast majority of them can get there.
I worked at one shelter for a month.
I worked at another shelter for 6 weeks.
It was more of a volunteer program and not something that was required.
But I was able to have an impact with a number of people.
A lot of them are capable of moving into housing, renting a room, if they're given some guidance.
And it would need to be a, what I'll call, wraparound service, meaning the landlords and potentially employers of these people would also need to have some type of behavioral wellness training, because in the end, they're going to need some long-term assistance and support.
But there is a way to educate people to do that.
And the key is here is that we have more than 300,000 homes in Portland.
If we start renting rooms, we could potentially end our homeless situation within 2 years if behavioral wellness is the solution.
If it's a financial problem or we keep looking at it as it is building homes versus building people, we're probably never gonna solve the problem.
We just don't have the resources to build enough housing.
We usually only build like 1,000 affordable units each year.
Claire
Thank you.
Benjamin Gilbert
Councilor Smith.
David Straub
We, and we're kind of overtaxed already, so I'm not really sure how we're gonna be able to do this social housing program as it's currently envisioned, given the fact that we already don't have the money to do it.
Behavioral wellness can be done cheaply if done appropriately, and to me it's the real solution.
So I'm hoping that you will consider adding a behavioral wellness component to the equation for solving our housing issue here in Portland.
Thank you.
Diego
That concludes testimony.
Candace Avalos
Okay, thank you to all of the folks that testified, and please do continue to, uh, come to committee and tell us your thoughts about housing policy during the first 15 minutes of each meeting.
Diego, please call item 2.
Diego
Item 2, Unified Housing Strategy Discussion and Brief Update on Social Housing Study.
Candace Avalos
All right, so as staff start making their way up, I'll give some intro remarks to kind of frame what we're doing today.
And thank you in advance to the PHB staff for the presentations that they put together today and for the tremendous amount of work that has gone into both of these efforts.
I want to start by acknowledging that both the Unified Housing Strategy and the Social Housing Study originated from resolutions that I was proud to sponsor and that council adopted last year.
And since then, I have had the opportunity to meet regularly with staff to discuss progress, review emerging ideas, and help move this work forward.
I appreciate the time and thoughtfulness and dedication staff has brought— have brought to these efforts.
Now, what stands out to me is how connected these 2 bodies of work are.
The Unified Housing Strategy is asking how we align the city's many housing goals, plans, and investments into a coherent long-term framework.
And the Social Housing Study is asking what additional tools we may need to create more permanently affordable, stable, and community-centered housing opportunities.
So taken together, both of those efforts are really about the same challenge.
How do we build a housing system that not only produces more housing, but also preserves affordability, prevents displacement, and creates greater stability for Portlanders across income levels?
And I appreciate that neither of these efforts attempts to start from scratch.
The Unified Housing Strategy builds upon years of planning, community engagement, and adopted policy.
And similarly, the Social Housing Study draws from existing models local experience, and research to identify potential pathways forward that are grounded in Portland's realities.
So today's discussion is not about making final decisions.
Rather, it is an opportunity for committee members to react to the direction of the work, identify any gaps, and provide feedback before staff return with final recommendations.
Okay.
With that, I will go ahead and hand it over to our staff to get into the presentation.
And note that there will be one part in the middle of the presentation where we'll take some technical questions, then we'll go through the rest of it, and then we'll dive into more discussion and questions.
Queesha Light
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos and members of the Housing and Permitting Committee.
For the record, my name is Queesha Light, and I'm the interim director of the Portland Housing Bureau.
Before we begin, we too want to thank Chair Avalos for her leadership and partnership in advancing this work and for her commitment to creating a more coordinated and strategic approach to housing policy in Portland.
So thank you.
One of the things that we're going to do first is just provide you a very brief update on the social housing.
But before we go there, I just want to note that today that what we'll be doing is providing a progress report on the development of the unified housing strategy and seeking your feedback on the draft strategic direction, the proposed engagement approach, and areas where additional input may strengthen the final strategy.
And then I just want to note that over the last several months, staff across the Community and Economic Development Service area have reviewed more than 20 housing-related plans and over 200 actions, goals, policies, and programs that guide housing work within the city.
And what has become clear through that effort is something that Chair Avalos noted: Portland has no shortage of housing priorities.
Thank you.
The challenge is not identifying what matters.
It is aligning our efforts, aligning our resources, our funding strategies, and political will around a shared set of priorities that can move us closer to the housing outcomes Portlanders need.
And so what I will do is I'm going to actually turn it over to staff because they have all the details.
They'll walk through our project approach.
They'll provide you an update on social housing.
Let you know the work that we've already completed, and then we look forward to a discussion with you.
Josh Roper
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
Josh Roper, Policy and Planning Director for the Housing Bureau.
Thank you for having us.
I'm going to try to make this very brief, the update on the social housing study.
We're going to spend the bulk of our time talking about the unified housing strategy, but want to give you a little bit of an update on the work that we've been doing.
We'll start with a quick overview of the project timeline.
We're going to be submitting the final report by the end of August.
We're currently in both phases 3 and 4.
So phase 3 is research analysis, education, and engagement.
Phase 4 is synthesizing findings, developing recommendations, drafting the report.
We're in both phases because this work is happening across the Bureau in parallel with multiple teams engaged.
So a particular topic will be handled by some combination of okay.
Teams within the Bureau and another will be another team or another group of teams.
We filed for your review, for the public's review, a progress report in what we're calling a preview draft because we wanted to give people, you all and the public, a sense of the direction and the shape of this work.
It is not close to complete.
We have a lot of work to do in the next few months.
In particular, I wanna highlight that it does not contain the alternative financing strategies work that we are— we really see as a key component of the final product.
But I think does give you a sense of what we've been up to, what we're doing, and where we're trying to land this.
And I think it's a good introduction to the work.
So we can go to the next slide.
And this is just an overview of the contents of that preview draft.
So some introductory information about the resolution that directed the study, the scope of the study, Some background on housing affordability and stability in Portland, which we see as the key things we want to focus on in connection with the social housing work.
Some research findings from a literature review and other research efforts around social housing and other alternative models.
An introduction to development work and this concept of non-market housing.
So this is a term that sort of encompasses alternative models that we're exploring, but also the models that we are already okay.
Using in Portland.
So alternative models like a cost-based model or, you know, an expansion of limited equity co-ops.
But it also encompasses the LIHTC-funded projects that we have done for many years.
And there's a sample of preliminary recommendations, again, excluding alternative financing strategies.
And when I say alternative financing strategies, that's both for multifamily rental and for alternative homeownership opportunities, the financing side of that work.
So again, you'll get a sense of the direction we're going and where we are trying to land this, but it is not comprehensive and it is subject to change.
And then there's a quick update on the alternative financing models work that's happening right now.
Go to the next slide.
And this just sort of reiterates what I just said for the record.
So I think that that covers it.
And like I said, we'll try to spend the rest of the time on the Unified Housing Strategy.
We are more than happy to hear feedback.
As you have time to take a look at the preview draft, feel free to reach out to me or the team.
Thank you.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Sorry.
Staff Routh
You're good.
Jessie Connor
Put these together backwards.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Sorry.
Virginia Hammond
Okay.
Josh Roper
So we're going to shift to the UHS, the Unified Housing Strategy.
Um, Queesha, I think, gave a good—.
Queesha Light
Covered most of those, these slides here.
Candace Avalos
We can move forward.
Great.
Josh Roper
Next slide.
Yeah, I think we can skip this one too.
It's largely covered.
So a little bit about the timeline and the phases of the Unified Housing Strategy.
So this Unified Housing Strategy development work has occurred in 3 phases starting in the fall of 2025.
So Phase 1 consisted of the assembly of the city's current housing-related commitments.
We took all of those plans and strategies and we categorized them, the action items that made up those plans.
And then we produced an inventory that was going to be used for the phase we're in now, Phase 2.
We came to committee, I don't recall exactly when, but that inventory was made public and is available for review.
So Phase 2, winter 2026 to spring 2026, where we are now, this consisted of reviewing the inventory with the mayor, Councilor Avalos, Staff and council and city staff.
We were looking to identify overarching goals to organize this large body of planning and strategic work that had been conducted over many years, to prioritize the action items that made up those plans, to start to plan for engagement that was meant to begin in Phase 3, and to work excuse me.
Work on the production of a draft unified housing strategy to figure out what the deliverable would look like.
Phase 3 is gonna be this summer through the winter, and that will be when we do the community engagement work.
And that includes what we're calling a broad invitation to support the advancement of the city's housing goals.
So figuring out how stakeholders can plug into this work and support and collaborate, which I think is an important piece of this community engagement work, will be a very important piece of the engagement work.
We're going to be considering and responding to feedback that we receive in connection with that community engagement.
And ultimately, we'll be looking to get the Unified Housing Strategy adopted by Council and then continue the work in an implementation phase that follows.
Next slide.
So really briefly, a couple of slides on housing needs analysis targets.
So you'll see here 2022 to 2045 forecasted targets for Central City, a little over 31,000 units.
Citywide, over 120,000, which equates to annual average unit production to meet that target of more than 5,000.
The housing unit targets are in a forecast adopted by City Council.
You also see a 2025 to 2045 revised target.
This is the product of work done by the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.
The targets have been revised down based on data that has since become available.
So the central city target under the revised targets is now nearly 23,000, and city— excuse me, citywide is 87,750.
That changes the average annual unit production to meet the target to 4,388.
Next slide.
Here are short-term housing needs analysis targets that are particularly relevant to the work that's happening in the Unified Housing Strategy at those tables.
So in Central City, 2025 to 2030, total units 5,700.
For the same period, that annual average is 1,100.
Then you have the mayor's targets for total units by the end of 2030.
So by 2031, that's 2,500.
You have the mayor's target annual average at 500.
Citywide, 22,000.
For 2025 to 2030, annual average 4,400.
Mayor's target, 20,000 by the end of 2032.
So by the time 2033 starts, 2,500 annual average.
Next slide.
Okay.
And I'm going to turn it over to Jessie Connor.
Thank you.
Jessie Connor
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos and Housing and Permitting Committee members.
So we're going to roll through a little tiny bit more detail about the 2 initial phases, and then we'll roll through the work we've gotten so far on a draft UHS as well as a proposed engagement plan, all for your thoughts and reflections.
So at a high level, the Phase 1, like Josh said we really had like kind of 4 big actions.
We cataloged everything we could search and find.
We categorized those into buckets based on the resolution direction, right?
So those were really around funding, production and preservation, homelessness, anti-displacement, etc.
Then we analyzed those also based on direction that we found in the resolution around tenure, affordability, I think Director Light already covered these, but staff really dug deep, and this just kind of gives you a snapshot of the funding that was available to the the city.
Strategies and plans that we looked at and included, as well as the sort of non-city adopted plans, you know, the Metro Regional Housing Coordination Strategy, our Anti-Displacement Action Plan Foundation Report, and the Age and Disability Inclusive Neighborhood Action Plan.
When we moved into Phase 2 in the beginning of January, our first goal was to start to refine down that initial inventory.
So the inventory was— that intention there was to catalog everything we can find.
We started to remove items that were either duplicates, some sort of duplicated efforts, some standing city policies with little opportunity for movement or change, items with— and then yes, I already said that part— items with limited opportunity to influence.
Some of those also were things that were already far along in the legislative process, different proposals from the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability that were either already at committee or were at council.
Our next step was to take that narrowed-down list and build it into the 5P framework that folks were interested in in Phase 1.
The 5Ps are produce housing, preserve housing, prevent displacement, promote equity and inclusion, and progress environmental sustainability.
We took those items and participated in work groups with the mayor and Councilor Avalos and some of the CEDSA staff to really support their discussions around prioritizing those— that remaining list.
What's really rising to the top?
What's going to need a little bit of extra something or some alignment from this council and the administrative body.
And we are at that place of presenting to this committee.
Part of the way through that Phase 2 process— so that last slide, that's where we had intended and planned on going at the outset in January.
We got part of the way through that process in our discussions and conversations as a workgroup, we realized that a need to sort of shift and refocus the way that we were working things through.
So we worked through refining and aligning, placing items into one of the 5P categories.
We worked through the prioritization exercise with the councilor and the mayor, identifying items as either high priority, a moderate priority, or a lower priority for this particular exercise.
It doesn't mean that those items don't have value or aren't already being worked on in other spaces, but we were trying to tailor it for this particular body of work.
The impact of that was that we found the need to restructure the way we were thinking about our framework.
So we wanted to focus on goals that centered these 3 key elements around production, We included in the work that you will see today for your discussion the highest priorities, the things that were really rising to the top out of those conversations.
And then a way to tie in sort of the remaining elements of the 5P strategic framework are these, what we're calling right now the Getting It Right, to tie those in around anti-displacement, equity and inclusion, and and those are, are being seen at this moment as additional elements for achieving our outcomes associated with a particular action.
So that's a bit of a lot around process to date.
So I just wanted to pause to see if there's any questions, clarifying questions about purpose, Phase 1, or Phase 2.
Virginia Hammond
Yes.
Candace Avalos
Committee members, any questions at this point?
Jessie Connor
Okay, wonderful.
Okay, so the, the next few slides, um, they're going to be a little, uh, content dense, but that is an attempt to hit the high points of what you're about to talk about and discuss, as well as making sure that we've got members of the public familiar with the way that we're sort of framing this out now.
So Phase 2 is really centered around 4 primary goals.
Goal 1 is to produce new housing, adding 20,000 new residential units across all housing types and income levels permitted by 2033 and built by 2035.
This is our attempt to blend both the mayor's production It should be noted that our intention is for the preservation goal to be additive.
It is in addition to the production goal, not a subset.
Thank you.
Goal 3, innovate production preservation and stabilization, implementing strategies adopted by City Council from the 2026 Social Housing Study to increase the supply of non-market housing options and next-generation housing strategies.
This one is a little preemptive of your social housing work, a little optimistic on our end.
Goal 4 is to secure long-term sustainable funding using the city's political will and influence now I'm going to run through each of the goals and identify what was sort of rising to the top out of our workgroup meetings.
So for Goal 1, the producing new housing, this had by far the most discussion because it has the most this is going to be a little bit much, so hang in there with me.
Implement accessible housing production strategies and educate on opportunities for aging in place and community.
Creating an accessible housing inventory, a citywide anti-displacement toolkit that includes some type of impact evaluation tool, conducting a thorough analysis of the landlord-tenant policies, looking at local codes, local city codes, investing in job— excuse me, investing in industry job training, retraining, and career pathways.
A lot in here also trying to tie housing to workforce training because we need folks to be able to afford the housing that we build and the housing that we have.
Investing in youth and adult workforce development programs, navigation, and job placement, expanding, um, and improving, really building upon existing mass timber workforce programs, uh, as well as promoting both mass timber, modular, and 3D construction in codes, as well as like building the workforce, uh, for that particular industry and infrastructure, um, and ensuring that the investments are distributed equitably, uh, across all districts with a lens towards historical and under- is invested.
Using TIF strategic investment funds and a potential middle-income revolving loan fund to invest in mixed-income housing.
Conducting periodic review of the inclusionary housing program.
Facilitating community ownership of renewable energy.
And a host of streamlining permitting processes, coordinating both housing development and infrastructure improvements across the city, how we're sort of really working together.
Some planning efforts around the Inner East Side, increasing housing capacity and density.
Again, some code cleanup and permitting process pieces, as well as ensuring that we maintain appropriate land supply for industrial manufacturing.
Moving on to Goal 2, the sustaining existing housing.
Our strategies include ensuring preservation strategies prioritize existing residents, that we stabilize the city's affordable housing portfolio as it is today, as well as developing and implementing a regional affordable housing preservation strategy.
We also acknowledge that we need to enhance asset and property management capacity and proficiency through training and technical assistance.
I'll make a small asterisk here, and this is one that is actually not located in a plan, but definitely has risen to the top in recent conversations, and so it's included here.
Focusing on preservation efforts on locations where projects provide affordability in expensive neighborhoods, purchasing middle-income housing and doing a conversion to limited profit.
Again, launching that affordable housing listing service and leveraging PSEF and other types of resources to really reduce operating costs.
Thank you.
Our third goal around innovation includes introducing long-term leases for renters, extending that duration of tenant income recertification period, increasing cooperative opportunities, increasing equity building opportunities for renters, another underscore of advancing innovation around modular construction.
Thank you.
Cross-laminated timber and other more earth-friendly technologies, proposing local and state legislative change to support those models so that there— if there needs to be technical language additions into state statute and implementing a land banking strategic plan.
The last goal is to secure long-term sustainable funding by starting with a communication strategy and a campaign for future housing resources.
Exploring different types of revenue to identify something long-term and stable as aligned with the housing needs analysis.
We get increased funding for existing low-income homeowner programs, developing a strategy for building generational wealth, adopting— developing and adopting action plans for the 3 new Central City TIF districts and the 3 new East Portland TIF districts.
Establishing some requirements for existing housing to increase their resilience.
Comprehensively studying SDCs and their potential impact on development feasibility.
Continuing to work through our infrastructure improvements program, you know, supporting offsite improvements, potentially developing a bucket of funds for things that are triggered by individual developments.
And adopting a sustainable and diverse funding model for Portland permitting and development.
The next couple of slides I'm just going to hit on quickly here.
These are the getting it right.
This is that tie back into that 5P model.
So these are just extra questions that we will be asking ourselves.
Are we, with this action item, are we really hitting this mark as well as maybe any unit count that we are also aiming for, right?
So are we prioritizing, you know, housing and economic stability of the existing residents?
Are we preserving or enhancing the affordability?
Are we creating workforce opportunities, right?
Are we prioritizing modernizing existing housing infrastructure, targeting investments in construction and trade industries that are emerging?
For equity and inclusion, are we really prioritizing and centering the right communities?
Are we targeting areas and neighborhoods where there's the greatest difference between extremely low income and market rate rents?
Are we prioritizing activities within council's direct influence, really centering those items, reducing barriers to housing production and code?
And deploying funds, of course, across all of these that are aligned with their originating activity.
So the next piece that I'm going to run through is our proposed engagement plan coming up for this summer that we're really looking forward to getting your thoughts and insights on and some direction.
So really the purpose the purpose of Phase 3, the engagement there is to identify— to what Director Light was saying— identifying and leveraging stakeholder partnership opportunities, surfacing and addressing barriers to some of the overarching goals, and really sharing a unified strategic direction with the public that shows this council and administration's alignment.
To do that, this kind of gives you a run-through of how we could approach that work.
Through sort of building our tables around the 3 big goals and attaching them both with Goal 4 around funding.
So this would look like producing housing and talking about the funding goal, preserving housing and funding, and then the innovation and funding.
July and August, we would look to host our facilitated events, really drawing on our— the stakeholder engagement that came with the originating document, right?
Like if it came from the Housing Production Strategy, if it was something that came from one of the strategic plans that we looked at in Phase 1, really drawing from some of our industry and partners who have participated in some of those spaces so far.
Of course, a set of period— or, and I will also add, and a more broadly public engagement effort as well, so that we're hitting those stakeholder tables as well as reaching out to every council district, considering those feedback— the feedback, incorporating that, some work sessions with that smaller work group that we had in these last few months, and then bringing those findings for further consideration back to this committee.
That was a lot, and I think with that it is my turn to turn it over to Chair Avalos.
Candace Avalos
Thank you so much.
And yes, very dense information, but hopefully we'll just not get too marred down in the details and really bring this conversation up to the strategy.
So thanks again for the presentations.
As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the goal is not to make final decisions or debate specific policy recommendations.
What I'm hoping that we can do today is help shape the direction of the work.
Before it comes back to us in a more finalized form.
And there are really 2 things that I'm hoping to get out of this discussion.
First, I want to understand whether this committee believes we're headed in the right direction with the proposed objectives and strategic framework.
Are these the right outcomes?
Are we organizing the work in the right way?
And are there important gaps that staff should continue exploring?
And second, I want to talk about engagement.
So we know that a strategy like this is only as strong as the people who help shape it.
So I want to spend time thinking about who needs to be at the table, who may be missing, and how we ensure we're hearing from both stakeholders and Portlanders more broadly as this work moves forward.
And I'll just put an extra note on that to say my goal in staggering the kind of engagement is that I really want all of the stakeholders, you know, the people that are in the industries working on all aspects of the housing spectrum, to engage with this information in a way where they can offer expertise but also plug in.
This is an opportunity for us as we start shopping it around to the public to ask where can private companies, right, or organizations lean in on some of the strategies.
Maybe they're already doing things that we have on our list that they can plug in.
And then the second part, when we bring it back out to the general public, that's where we want to hear what does the public want us to prioritize.
So I see the engagement in those 2 phases for that reason.
So with that, we are going to open up some discussion.
I see we've got people in the queue, and these lovely folks will be here to answer questions as well.
I think Councilor yes.
—Might have questions, direct questions.
But the opening question that I have for us is, do these objectives capture the right priorities for the city?
Colleagues, I sent you guys an email yesterday with just some basic framing of questions for you guys to think about, and I will do my best to guide the discussion.
Feel free to take your time to speak to whatever.
You don't need to speak to the questions that I ask, but I will be prompting us throughout just to make sure we're getting what we need to get back to the Housing Bureau.
So with that, we'll open it up with Councilor Green or Vice Chair Green.
Mitch Green
Thank you, Chair Avalos.
Thank you so much for the presentation and the updates.
I'll speak just to the UHS for now.
I think I've got— I'll get back in the queue later for some social housing study stuff.
But just at a high level, I like the exposition of these 4 goals.
I think starting off with Goal 1, anchoring it to the housing production strategy, anchoring it to the mayor's priorities, Just reminds us that we— whatever we're doing here needs to be not at cross purposes with like sort of the executive lens and the focus of the City of Portland.
We do need to add 20,000 new residential units, and we have to be reminded of that constantly, that that is an urgent thing.
And, you know, how we get there, We're gonna have to work hard to get there.
But, um, so that kind of brings me into the reason I put— I think initially put my hand in the queue, which was just to make sure I really understand what's happening here.
Um, so all the strategies that have been sort of enumerated on here, is, is that sort of an enumeration of an inventory of the policies and the plans and the strategies we've already adopted in sort of scattershot form?
Yes.
Okay, that's, that's really helpful.
I think it's just, it's bewildering how many there are.
And I don't need to tell you, you've done this exercise.
And so I think it's really important for this work to focus all that.
So I appreciate that that was the intent here.
I think just in goal 1, I'm not seeing enough foregrounding of the need to basically take a moonshot.
And I know this is an inventory of existing stuff, so we're thinking about how we move forward.
Yeah.
And to do something new, I think we really should foreground a lot more of the need for us to sort of press the gas, so to speak, on updating our codes, our zoning approaches, and doing that in a multi-jurisdictional, cross-jurisdictional partnership way with state legislature and other areas of the region because we're not going to be able to do 20,000 units of new production.
If we cannot change our existing planning processes, I know we're ascribed by law to a certain degree, but like pushing that boundary and having sort of a— and this is a budget question for us to contemplate over the next few years— is like making sure that we are dedicating resources for BPS to have whatever team it needs to move as quickly as possible.
So that way when we do things like entity site for all resolution to speed things up, it doesn't take away from other work.
Virginia Hammond
Yeah.
David Straub
Mm-hmm.
Mitch Green
And it takes a lot of work and staff time to focus all this and ask the question of, is this new idea, is this new concept pulling away from the thing that we actually think we want to preserve?
So, you know, things like expanding our portfolio of pre-approved designs, all sorts of ways to sort of make it as easy as possible to do development in the City of Portland, I think needs to be a thing that comes out of this document.
I do wanna say that I appreciate the anticipation of the social housing study results.
I think it would've been a misstep to notice that there's these 2 resolutions in play and think about this in its own set of silos and then think, well, we'll deal with the social housing results as it comes out because I know that there's already conversations that are cross-pollinating there.
So kudos to that effort.
I appreciate that.
On goal 4, and I think I'll just leave it there for now.
And let my colleagues speak is I do think that we need to secure stable funding for this work, but I maybe wanna soften the new revenue streams in bold and just say, just make sure that we have sustainable and dedicated revenue because it's entirely possible we can contemplate pushing forward a policy agenda that repurposes existing revenue.
Mm-hmm.
Or if when metro regional government's ready to kind of think about something new, Yes.
We work with them to expand the language around the thing that they want to renew or float to support our work here.
Just want to be really mindful that there is a certain amount of tax fatigue out there.
And we do spend a lot of money on housing-related stuff in this region.
And if we're focused, then we're just spending that same pot of money more wisely is kind of how I would offer a framing.
But really appreciate the update.
I know a lot of work's going into this, and the good news is we've already done a lot of work.
So let's kind of bring it all together.
So I'll leave it there for now.
Candace Avalos
Wonderful.
Thank you.
Quick process note to say that we have this conversation until about 3:35.
So just FYI, we might have a little bit more time as well 'cause we could eat in a little bit into the other item.
Okay, next up, Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I have a question about, I think it's Goal 2, sustain existing housing, preserve 1,400 units of existing affordable housing by 2035.
What does that mean?
Does that mean that at least 1,400 currently affordable units will still be affordable then, or does it mean that 1,400 affordable units that we think right now are in danger of disappearing are preserved?
What does it mean?
Josh Roper
So it means that over that time period, that many units should be involved in our preservation strategy of some— it's like some kind of preservation strategy from the Housing Bureau.
And that could be focused on physical issues with a building.
It could be focused on expiring regulatory covenants that need Some kind of solution to extend the affordability.
There are different strategies that apply that fit under that preservation umbrella.
Excuse me.
But fundamentally, yes, it's about are we avoiding the loss of affordable units from the market?
Steve Novick
So that means you're identifying affordable units that you think are at risk of loss and doing something to avert the loss.
Josh Roper
Yeah, so when you hear us talk about a preservation NOFA, for example, that's an example of how we invite providers to apply to us to seek funding to avoid the loss of affordable units in the market.
Steve Novick
Another question I have is, are we looking at other cities that have a good track record of producing housing and having housing affordable and seeing what they do?
Like, I remember Some years ago, Willamette Week had an article saying that Chicago and Tokyo are among the cities that do a good job of creating new housing.
Are we doing that kind of scan of cities around the country and the world?
Josh Roper
Yeah, a lot of the work that's happening under the social housing study umbrella involves comparative analysis of, you know, Portland compared to— you'll hear about Vienna a lot, but that's not the only place we're looking at.
There are other examples of social housing and other examples of housing work being done well that we're comparing Portland to.
You know, you'll hear about the revolving loan fund in Montgomery County in Maryland, for example.
You'll hear about Chicago and their work.
You'll hear about Seattle.
Steve Novick
And you're looking at zoning and permitting rules and strategies in other cities as well?
Josh Roper
I know planning is— the housing bureau to a To a lesser degree.
That's a little bit outside of our primary scope.
It's definitely outside of our primary scope.
Steve Novick
Okay, so you should be asking them that.
All right.
What does introduce long-term leases mean?
Does that mean in city-owned affordable housing or sort of promoting the concept in general?
Josh Roper
It could be a variety of ways.
So for example, it could be that if we're funding This is down the road, but funding something that we've identified as a social housing project, that the funding solicitation includes requirements around how leasing works.
So that could lay out how long, you know, at a minimum leases need to last and the circumstances under which the leases can end.
It's sort of a regulatory layer that exists outside of The broad legal layer that applies to all housing.
But there are other ways to accomplish that.
You could use just law, right?
Local law.
And there are other mechanisms that we're looking into as well.
So it's pretty broad.
Steve Novick
I was pleased to see the idea of promoting mass timber, modular, 3D.
Are there currently laws that restrict the ability to build, that the city controls, that restrict people's ability to build cross-laminated timber housing or modular housing, et cetera?
Josh Roper
Not that I'm aware of.
We've been doing some accelerator, this mass timber accelerator work where we've had some firms assessing the feasibility of using mass timber for projects.
I haven't heard at least that the obstacles they're running into are legal.
It's more of a feasibility, like a funding feasibility angle.
But we can get you more on that if there's anything there.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
And finally, Madam Chair, reflecting on the large number of strategies listed here, my reaction is that if we're going to go out to the public and ask for them to prioritize, We can't ask people to pick among such a long list that we need to narrow it down and ask for people to help choose between a small— a smaller number of things.
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
And I agree.
And I hope that what this conversation can do is we're starting to winnow that down.
All right.
Next up, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
There we go.
Thank you, Chair.
There are definitely a lot of strategies here.
I'm a little concerned that as we open up this conversation, um, we're seeing what's here and what's missing, and we need to be figuring out priorities and risk adding to it, especially as we talk to stakeholders.
Um, but in risking doing that, I want to flag a couple of things that I didn't see that I think are important for us to look at, and then a couple of other thoughts about how this looks and what the engagement piece might be.
The first is under Goal 2, when we talk about preservation.
There's a lot about how much money we spend preserving and what preservation means, but I wonder if we are having conversations as we think about our housing strategy about a better approach to preservation in the long run and expanding the period of time under which we have covenants for affordability and building into the work that we do, especially as we develop housing, as opposed to just funding the development of housing, funding for regular maintenance so that But those preservation NOFAs are less critical crisis moment, and there is a regular cadence built into the funding models, which as I understand it right now, the funding models allow our nonprofit providers to operate but not always to keep up with that regular cadence of maintenance, which is why we end up with the crises we do.
And should we be thinking more proactively about our preservation model as we look at the development of new properties or the purchase of properties that we bring into our portfolio for the first time.
I also did not see anywhere on any of these lists the words family-size unit, and that is incredibly concerning to me.
As long as we continue Councilor Smith.
Thank you, Mayor.
If we continue to just talk about the number of units we need and not what type of housing we need, we are going to continue to have a housing crisis.
We do not have space for families.
We do not have space for families with more than 1 or 2 kids.
We do not develop affordable housing in a way that allows for multigenerational living because our affordable units generally require people to apply for just their insular family based on number of children and number of working parents.
Multigenerational living literally breaks those covenants in many cases.
And until we start to think more flexibly about how people live and who they live with and build that into our goals, not just into our conversations, we are missing the thank you.
So I'm risking adding more to what is already a long list because I think that it is just not feasible for us to move forward with a set of goals and priorities that doesn't look at what we're building.
I really appreciated the note to— I think it was in Goal 1— Industrial land.
There was a lot in Goal One about the construction industry and construction jobs, and we have a number of large projects in our region where we know that we will need to increase the pipeline of people into construction jobs.
We also know that when the economy is struggling, the construction workforce is one of the easiest places for the public sector to infuse support to get people back into.
Living wage jobs.
But if we just rely on growth for the creation of living wage jobs, we are going to enter a cycle or continue a cycle that is just not long-term sustainable, and we know that.
So I'd like to just highlight the inclusion of ensuring that our increased construction maintains space for industrial jobs, because I think we need to say that regularly and make sure it continues to be part of the work that we do.
I also think as we look at our zoning and our land use and what housing looks like in our community, we need to not only think about the importance of industrial land but also the importance of green space as a means for public health, and the fact that as we build denser and we have fewer garden apartments, fewer single-family homes, fewer unit types that have green space naturally around them, and denser living, we need to be more intentional about making sure that that's paired with green space to maintain the public health benefits, including cooling benefits.
So I just wanted to note that.
As we think about the inclusion of industrial land and potentially other land types as needing to balance with our with our zoning that also allows for the increased housing that we need.
I, in seeing the community engagement plan, didn't see a lot about engagement of the.
Community as a whole.
I see a lot around stakeholders.
I see a lot around making sure that people who are engaged in conversations about housing are engaged in this conversation about housing.
But I don't actually see in this plan a place where we say to Portland, is this what we want housing to look like in our community?
And so, Chair, I hear you saying that that is part 2 of the plan, but I don't see it here.
And I think we need to be very honest with ourselves, because if what we are doing is having a conversation of the usual suspects about whether we're going in the direction that the usual suspects all want to go, let's not call this community engagement.
Let's call it stakeholder engagement.
And if what we actually mean is that we want to hear from Portlanders, will this plan create the type of place that you want to live in a way that allows you to live with the people you want to live with in a way that is affordable?
Then we need that to be in the plan, and we need to not just say it's in the plan, and we need to think very intentionally about what types of questions we're asking, because I fear that we will ask questions that point people to an answer or that limit their ability to think creatively about what they want their future to be in our community because we just ask technical A or B questions.
So I hope that— I hope that we are talking about true community engagement.
If we are, I need to see it here.
If we are, I hope that that is something where you use us as folks who are in community regularly to help think about how we might ask some of those questions to really allow our community, not just our engaged stakeholders, to think about our community's future.
What that looks like and to really buy into what is at the end of the day a big change for Portland.
Because if we're talking about building this many units, that changes the face of our city.
And that's what we need, right?
We know that this is Portland's moment where we're kind of saying we're not the big boys.
Little town anymore.
We're not the big little city.
We're actually becoming a more urbanized city.
That's a change in what our city looks like, and that's hard.
And we have to be bringing Portlanders along with us.
We have to do it.
We can't create this in a way where Portlanders are telling us we can't go there, because we know it is what our community needs, and leadership means helping get there.
But if we're not bringing people along with us, it's going to be really hard to get there in a way that is comprehensive and that includes all of our neighbors, all of our neighborhoods, all of our communities.
So I hope that's what we mean by community engagement, and I hope that you will work with us to help make sure that we can do it successfully and bring people along with us.
I'll end there for now.
Thank you, Chair.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Councilor Koyama Lane.
Thank you, Chair.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you for the presentation.
There's so much in here that I'm very excited about, specifically looking at Phase 1, calling attention to housing that meets the need of youth, families, older adults, people with disabilities, caregivers.
We know that Portland needs to be a place that people can age in and be able to thrive.
I know about a year ago, Councilor Avalos made the decision to make sure to include the Age and Disability Inclusive Neighborhoods AIDEN Action Plan into the Unified Housing Strategy.
Thank you for doing that, Chair.
And I see it mentioned on slide 11, I believe.
I'm wondering if someone can explain a little bit more about the city strategies and plans versus not city adopted but included and the differences and Yeah, any possibilities of making that plan be one that is officially under city strategies and plans?
Jessie Connor
So the difference between those 2 categories, Councilor, is that the top, the city-adopted ones, they've gone through the full legislative process and either been adopted by resolution or ordinance.
The other 3, I mean, Metro's Plan, um, is a different jurisdiction's plan.
But, uh, we do— I mean, we could put them on the spot a little bit, but we do have, uh, members of Planning and Sustainability that could speak more specifically about Aiden.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
That's just helpful, and I, I will be following up.
I'm excited about that.
I am curious, um, how are we as a committee able to track which elements from the ADEN plan are being implemented so we can know and the public can know.
Are there any thoughts that anyone wants to share about that?
Jessie Connor
There are a couple of ideas that we've been thinking about, perhaps around a dashboard with the— around the inventory, the Phase 1 inventory, because that really is the sort of laundry list of all of the pieces in connecting those.
And while AIDEN may not be a council-adopted plan, I do know that Planning and Sustainability made a concerted and intentional effort to incorporate elements of that body of work into parts of the housing production strategy, which Thank you.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
And within Goal 1, was glad to see that the strategies listed right away were around accessible housing production, aging in place and community, specifically creating an accessible housing inventory.
And I know my staff and I have been meeting with advocates and experts and understand that there isn't a city in Oregon yet, including Portland, that actually has knowledge of their accessible housing stock and that there isn't a known clear method or approach yet.
We don't seem to collect the information during the permitting process.
So I'm wondering if anyone can speak to what's our plan to do that inventory.
It's very exciting.
Josh Roper
Yeah, excuse me.
We've been working on an RFP for an affordable housing listing service.
And the goal would be to have that provider able to, well, to set up the system so that people can filter by certain features, including, you know, accessible units and other characteristics.
The idea is for that platform to be focused on affordable though, right?
Not the entire housing market.
I'm not sure what the options for non-affordable market look like currently, but that at least is what we're trying to fill a gap with.
Shannon Buno
Yeah.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Really exciting.
And I don't have to convince any of you that we need to know what the current stock is to know how we get to where we need to be in the future.
So thank you.
Josh Roper
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
All right.
So we are going to go back around into the stack.
We'll go right to you in a second, Vice Chair Green.
Let me just offer a couple more guided questions that I'd love for you all to weigh in on.
You know, we want to make sure that we— thank you for all the comments people are making about the objectives.
And I'll just note, definitely agree with your points, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, and it is the intention to do that.
But I agree with the framing, especially your framing around the city will change.
I agree.
And I do think that we need to—.
I agree.
Talk about that when we're asking Portlanders what they want their housing future to be.
So I would welcome you and everybody on this committee as we get into that phase.
Let's talk about how we talk about that with Portlanders and ask those questions.
Also, Councilor Novick, definitely don't want to overwhelm the public, so we'll want to make sure that we're dwindling that down.
And I'll just say, I believe that my goal in having this first phase of engagement be the stakeholders, one, like I said earlier, is because I want I want the stakeholders to buy in, literally in some cases, but also figuratively to just say, like, this is, you know, if these are the plans that the city has, these are areas of our work that already overlap with the city, how can we make those align?
But then also, I want Portlanders, I don't want to overwhelm them by giving them all of those details.
I think we want to give them the overarching goals and ask the questions that Councilor Pirtle-Guiney is asking, right?
Like, what does your housing future look like?
What do you need?
And then they will be able to react to something because I I want them to react to a list that they can say, of these, the shortlist, these are the things that are rising to my priority, so we can get a temperature check from the public.
So that's what I'm hoping that phase with the community looks like.
And so we'll go back around.
I think I would love to learn more about if there's anything that people feel is missing from these lists.
I think the only thing that's missing is the and also what we like about the approach, because I'll note that the way that we started, we had the 5 Ps and we kind of were going to just go through each P and make objectives.
And we realized that 3 of those Ps should just be incorporated with preserve and produce, right?
So preserving, anti-displacement, sustainability, all of those things should be parts of the bigger goals of production and preservation.
So I'm curious to hear your reaction to that.
Because that was a shift that we made and I want to see if that feels right.
So I'll leave that question there and then we'll get the queue going up with Vice Chair.
Mitch Green
Go ahead.
Thank you, Chair Avalos.
And I'll speak to your prompt question first and then I sort of raised my hand for a couple different other reasons.
But yeah, I think the thing that's missing for me so far and what I hope maybe we can roll into as we move forward is Is some sort of systematic way to analyze, I guess, to work backwards from the goal 1.
Like, what would we— what would some planning timelines need to look like?
Like, for example, like, if we identify that we are going to pursue a plumbing code change, say, you know, agenda, like, how long would that take?
And what would the impacts be?
Similarly so, like, if we were to adopt Inter-Eastside for All, Next, what was the timeline?
Well, it'll be next year.
Then how long, of course, from the time that we would adopt that, would we expect to see sort of the necessary kind of state planning goal timelines be?
Like having a matrix of almost like a Gantt chart of what those timelines look like could be really helpful for not only the community, but this council, because every day that we lose is just a delayed— it just gets costlier down the road for that marginal unit of housing that's gonna be produced.
And so I think it might help us raise up both just the interdependencies at play here between BPS, Housing Bureau, and the rest of the city, but also just the urgency for us.
So that's maybe new work here, but I do think it's crucial for unpacking this kind of like spaghetti of sort of policy strategies that's built into here.
To the comments, I wanted to respond to Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
You raised, I think, a really important set of concerns and questions regarding the intergenerational housing and kind of the family-scale stuff.
You also, Councilor Koyama Lane, you spoke to that as well.
When I think about social housing, I think about that as the big opportunity to take that issue head on.
Thank you.
I think the comment about, you know, covenants and are we violating those is well taken.
And so when we do social housing, or as we're sort of analyzing and contemplating it, I really don't want us to try to reimagine in like, how do we do the same thing we've been doing but just slightly different with a different brand?
I don't really want to reproduce the same regulatory burden that has led us to a place that we've gotten.
If we— if that's what we get out of social housing, we will have failed, frankly, as far as I'm concerned.
So to that end, like, it's less about AMI levels for me and more about what is our planning problem.
We need X amount of housing for family-sized units by this date.
How do we set up— how do we have the public sector step in as the guiding force there with the financing and the sort of regulatory framework to unlock that.
And, you know, I think about why people leave Multnomah County.
There's a lot of different reasons why people leave Multnomah County, but the largest is affordability.
And most people by definition who leave are not rich.
They are working-class families who can't make it work in the city of Portland.
They've had to move further and further to the margins.
To find 2, 3-bedroom housing.
And then they finally give up and they move to Clackamas County or Clark County or Washington County.
And we can actually have, if we do it right, and we've intentionally built intergenerational living spaces or even just traditional family spaces.
And we've said, this is social housing.
You've got a lifetime lease.
You've hereditary rights to this lease that you can pass down through the generations.
Then you've created— you've like frozen in time a cost basis for a family that can stay and they can grow into their income a little bit.
I think that's like the thing I think about most when that thing comes up.
We've built a lot of— by having the market lead, even in affordable housing, which is sometimes thought of as non-market, we've had the result being a lot of studios built and one bedrooms built because that's how things pencil out on the pro forma.
And it has led to a mismatch in demand and supply.
So that's my comment on that.
So I'm really supportive for us thinking about family and intergenerational living as a thing to be solved for.
In the document on social housing, I really appreciate the kind of— I know it was a quick breeze-by on the presentation, but I did do the pre-read.
And a few things I want to note that I appreciate.
Calling out the limited profit housing area as being one of the big opportunities is It's pretty crucial because it's sort of, even though we haven't done the alternative financing yet, it sort of suggests that there's the space for sort of nonprofit or NGO or sort of community orgs that could also be development partners with the City of Portland.
And our job is to help them do it and do it well.
One part that I would offer as a suggestion is— I think that's a great point.
There's a line that says it serves low and moderate income households from 0 to 120% AMI.
I think serves those AMIs is too restrictive.
Like, I think we should prioritize those AMI groups to get into limited profit housing, but I don't think we should means test them beyond that.
So I don't want the social housing stock that's part of the limited profit housing association approach to forever always think about how are we always calibrating these units for those AMI levels.
I want folks to be able to have You know, if you're a single mother or you're a recent college grad, you should have first in line kind of access.
But once you're there, you're there.
And I think that's the magic of this type of housing.
And I just think throughout the document, we should strive to decouple from HUD AMI levels as much as possible because for one, well, 2 reasons.
One, it's really confusing to the public.
I mean, I think everyone in this room knows and can live and breathe AMIs and like you can right off the top of your head know what an AMI at 60% is.
Yeah.
60% Rent, it looks like, but most people don't.
And I have to do my homework before I think about it too.
I think just thinking about it in terms of serving most Portlanders is a really good way to think about it.
And these are cost-based rental models where, again, as I said, prioritize folks at the lower end of the income distribution or of higher need, and then never check again.
Really, really happy to see TOPA and right of first refusal language in there.
For those following along, that's tenant opportunity to purchase.
Having some legislation that we adopt that comes out of this recommendation to facilitate renters becoming owners of their apartment buildings through a limited equity model is, I think, a really very Portland thing that we can do.
And that's a way that we can Plug in some of our local institutions to kind of turnkey social housing a little bit.
Lots of great language on tenant governance.
And so I'm trying to be mindful of how much I'm speaking here, so I'll just leave it there.
Looking forward to the broader study being complete.
And just last note, the literature review of social housing models.
I just want to note that most of these cities, Montgomery County, sorry, taking notes.
Candace Avalos
Okay.
I put myself in the queue to say a couple of things in response to some of that because completely agree as it relates to the means testing.
And we talk a lot about aging in place, and I want to talk about waging in place.
I'm going to make that a thing.
Yeah.
Because that's the issue, and that's what we learned a lot about in Vienna, is that you should be able to get in, and then it— you should not have to fear that if you are moving yourself up, And gaining economic prosperity, that now you're risking your housing.
Because if you just are $1 above whatever arbitrary line that has been set, it doesn't mean that you can suddenly afford, you know, some luxury apartment, right?
But what it— then, you know, people are often restricting themselves just so that they can keep their housing.
I mean, I hear it all the time.
I'm sure we all hear that from folks who are— and it's not even— it's not just housing we hear it on, like food stamps or other services.
So I just, I really want to encourage us to get away from AMI.
And one way that I talk about it in my district, because in East Portland they talk a lot about, like, I hear people say, we don't want to have all the affordable housing in our part of the town, like, why doesn't it share it across the city and all of that.
And I think that mentality comes from, you know, a certain place that I can understand, but my response is always, it's not about building affordable housing.
It's about building housing that's affordable.
Like, we have to reframe that so that we're not thinking about affordable housing as, you know, just some kind of— like, I think there's a mentality that it's like trashy housing that nobody wants to live in.
And, and so what I try to stress to my constituents is, I want— do you want your neighbors to be able to afford to live here, right?
If we keep getting priced out, we have the least economic thank you.
And so I just want to encourage us as we continue to talk about that, that we use that framing, because when we bring this conversation to the public, to Councilor Pirtle-Guiney's earlier points around there might be fear, right?
Or there might be discomfort in the change that will come with increasing housing stock and neighborhoods change and all of that.
And we want to get away from this mentality that that's a bad thing, but we have to prove that it's a good thing by making sure that we're putting all the supports around it, that we're building neighborhoods that have amenities, right?
Because that's the other thing that I hear in East Portland.
People are concerned also that we're just going to build up a bunch of housing and we're not going to have anything around it, right?
It's like, sure, there's a lot of land in East Portland that we could build things on, but if you're not building infrastructure around it, and especially in a place that already lacks so many basic infrastructure needs like sidewalks, then that makes the idea of having more housing in their neighborhood feel less appealing.
So we have to continue to work on that mind shift.
Yeah, I'll leave it at that for now.
I don't see anyone else in the queue right now.
Let me prompt you with a couple other questions and see if folks will get back in the queue.
Hold on.
So can we talk a little bit more about engagement?
I, you know, we're starting to discuss what are our expectations for like how we talk to the public.
Hold on.
No, I'm just in the queue.
Okay, great.
Thank you.
I see you're in the queue, Councilor Novick.
I'll finish this question and then answer.
You can answer that or say whatever you need to say.
Help me think through what does that phasing look like?
Because like I said, I think that there's a couple of different— there's a different way to approach the different stakeholder groups, right?
And I want to hear from you all how you're thinking about that.
And just in general, also, I would love to know what is this committee's interest in now moving forward being more a part of this?
Because as you know, this committee is all brand new to the housing work.
So a lot of this for you all, you know, we've been working on this over the last year.
And so I also just would love to hear from the councilors, what is your intent in helping to shape these next few steps that are going to be very public-facing?
And I would love your support.
So with that, Councilor Novick, go ahead.
Steve Novick
Madam Chair, looking at the list, I was thinking that one way we might divide up the strategies for public discussion is there's a number of the strategies that involve spending money on something or other.
So we might want to sort of slim that down and say, okay, here's ways we could spend money, which ways make sense to you?
And then there's policy choices.
I mean, some of them are like nobody disagrees.
Yes, we should streamline permitting.
But then there's a question of should we change zoning to make it easier to build more things somewhere?
I mean, that's something that is a policy choice people might have different views on.
As far as community engagement, I was thinking about what Councilor Pirtle-Guiney said about, you know, are we just engaging stakeholders?
And I was thinking personally, I always like doing scientific polls on issues where it makes sense.
So we make sure that we're not just— we're listening to a large cross-section of the community.
But another thing you can do, which is something actually I've had people lobbying me on in different contexts in the past few months, is to have citizen juries to like randomly select a group of people drawn from all over the place to sit and think about a problem.
And maybe it's 24 people.
I mean, and by definition, that's not a statistically significant group, but I think other jurisdictions have had some success pulling together a group of people and you'd have to like, you know, pay them for their time to come in and study a public policy problem and come up with recommendations.
And so that's, you know, something different from a poll of 400 people.
It's something different from inviting, talking to people who happen to show up at a, you know, at a neighborhood association or one of the groups we talk about.
So that's something that I would be really interested in exploring.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
I will Google that and look into it more.
And it sounds like you've had some info.
I would love if you would share it with me.
Steve Novick
Yeah, I can, I can sic the people who've been sicced on me on you too.
Candace Avalos
Send them my way.
Sounds good.
All right, uh, Councilor Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you, Chair.
Are we moving to the engagement conversation, those questions?
Candace Avalos
Yes.
I mean, I think we're— it's open-ended, so if you'd like to—.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Okay, yeah, that's kind of what I wanted to add on to, and I appreciated Councilor Pirtle-Guiney bringing Thank you.
Councilor Smith, thank you for bringing up the question about engagement.
I think advisory bodies are important, and we can look at the inventory to see which ones align.
And we also know that a lot of the people that join those are already engaged.
That's what we were kind of talking about.
I also view our job as city councilors as representing our districts, for us to be doing a lot of that engagement.
And we have every district represented up here, so I would love to think about what that What our role is as committee members.
And engagement doesn't always have to be fancy or expensive, but thinking about what that can look like in terms of town halls or trying to do some of our own paid polls, or maybe just some of our own serving and making ourselves available in our districts to bring back here what is the pulse in our district on some of these topics.
Claire
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
I definitely agree and would love to take Housing Committee to the streets.
So we'll talk about, um, some ways that I, I have some ideas on that.
All right, we're winding down a bit.
I don't see anyone else in the queue.
Um, let me just look at my notes on if there are any final things I wanted to make sure you all react to.
Um, I will note that, uh, I owe Jesse a list and that I'm going to get to you eventually.
I'm sorry.
Um, but, um, uh, the bureaus put together— because also a reminder, the Unified Housing Strategy work is not just PHB, it's all of the essentially CSDA bureaus.
So we've got BPS, we've got permitting, we've got Prosper in the room, we've got Portland Solutions.
So we've got all of these cross-sections across the bureau, and we— they put together these lists of essentially the frequent flyers, right, of City Hall, people that have been engaged, are on all these committees.
And they gave me this long document with all those lists, and what I've been doing is just going through them and just kind of seeing, you know, if I recognize names, if there are people that I know in community that I don't see on those lists.
So I would love some support in you all, you know, reaching into your networks and adding to the list.
So I would ask that folks be thinking about that.
And if you want to send me ideas and names, soon we're going to start putting out feelers for times in summer to get— and this is like the stakeholder group.
So I'm talking like the industry experts or developers or people in affordable housing, all of that.
Thank you.
And then, so I just wanted to mention that.
I think I've asked—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Do we have that current list?
Candace Avalos
I have that list and I can send that.
Okay, thank you.
Yeah.
Um, well, I think we covered quite a bit.
I want to check with you all.
Is there anything that you didn't hear from us that you want to make sure you ask us that you need?
Josh Roper
This has been really helpful.
I don't have anything in particular.
I don't know.
Sandra Wood
No, just think we're, we're all aligned and happy.
Know where we're going after this.
I mean, yeah, it's good.
Candace Avalos
Great, thank you so much.
Thank you.
Well, um, thank you, colleagues.
Uh, the work continues.
I think the next steps from here, as you saw on the timeline, we're going to be starting to do that engagement.
I'll keep you posted on that.
And then we're working towards, um, what will be a final product that honestly we're still trying to shape.
And so that's another area I'd love your thoughts in the coming weeks, um, because the whole point of this exercise is for us to, as a city, as councilors, as representatives of our districts, of our constituents, to bring together our visions and make sure that we are communicating clearly to the staff what we expect out of housing policy, our housing future.
So that's what they're looking to from us.
And I'm hoping the final product, if you will, of this will be some culmination of a direction that council is directly giving to the city about what we want them to prioritize, what we want them to work on.
And then that will inform us as we enter future budget discussions when we start seeing what we want to prioritize in funding.
Thank you again.
This has been a very helpful conversation.
And yeah, we will continue soon.
So we are going to take a quick break.
We're going to take a 10-minute break.
Actually, let's just come back at 3:45.
And then from there, we'll go on to item 3, which is recap.
Thank you.
See you at 3:45.
All right, colleagues and audience, we are going to get back started.
Um, let's call Item 3, please.
Diego
Item 3, amend City Code and improve land use regulations through the Regulatory Improvement Code Amendment Package 11.
Amend Code Titles 20— excuse me, 32 and 33.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
All right, if you all want to come up while I give some intro remarks.
So colleagues, before us today is Regulatory Improvement Code Amendment Package 11, or recap.
This is part of the city's ongoing effort to maintain and improve our zoning and land use code.
While these amendments may not be headline-grabbing, they are important because they address the day-to-day challenges that residents businesses, nonprofit organizations, and city staff encounter when navigating our permitting and development processes.
Recap projects are intended to identify technical corrections, clarify existing regulations, remove unnecessary barriers, and improve the overall functionality of our code.
And this package includes dozens of relatively small amendments, but together they help create a more predictable, efficient, and user-friendly system.
I appreciate the work of the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability and the Portland Permitting and Development staff, as well as the Planning Commission and community members who participated in reviewing this package.
These types of code maintenance efforts are an important part of ensuring that our regulations continue to support housing production, economic activity, and effective service delivery while reducing confusion and administrative burden.
So with that, I'll turn it over to staff.
Eric Engstrom
Thank you, Chair Avalos and councilors.
Appreciate the introduction.
For the record, my name is Eric Engstrom, Director of the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.
Staff will carry the bulk of the presentation, but I just want to say a few things before we get started.
We're very happy to be bringing you regulatory improvement code package thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
We now move to Agenda Item 2, Public Communications Package, aka Recap Number 11.
You said it well in terms of the purpose of it, so I won't reiterate that.
Continue to improving our regulations for development is one of my top priorities as director in partnership with other bureaus, including PBOT, PP&D, and Housing and others.
Councilor Green, I appreciate your moonshot comments earlier.
That's on point to this.
Agree.
I'd like to ramp up that effort to include more meaningful reforms.
And to that end, we will be bringing you a number of other projects to improve development regulations in the coming year-ish, including a plan to further look at design review reforms, a central city-focused package, of course, the Code Alignment Project, CAP 2, which is a collaboration focused on issues that cut across multiple city titles.
Collectively, all this means we're going to be looking at things like parking and frontage issues, repurposing existing buildings, elements of the tree code, continued work on middle housing codes, and a lot more.
Today is just a teaser at the— that again, as Chair Avalos mentioned, is fairly minor things, but collectively they matter.
And with that, I'll turn it over.
Sandra Wood
Great.
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos and councilors.
My name is Sandra Wood.
I'm with the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, and I'm the code development manager.
And with me today is JP McNeil, the project manager for this project, and Shannon Buno, who is our code editor, but in this case she's also a senior planner working on the project.
As you all know, we're here for the Recap 11 hearing and to hear the Planning Commission's this is our agenda for our time together today.
I'll provide some background on the program, its origins, and the current context.
JP and Shannon will then share the proposals.
Our presentation will conclude with the Planning Commission Vice Chair Lucas Pollack saying a few words about the Planning Commission's recommendations and an amendment they made.
Thank you, Deputy City Attorney.
Then we'll have time for oral testimony, though I believe no one has signed up.
We can confirm that.
And afterwards, the committee can have time to discuss and to take action on this item.
The Planning Commission recommends that the City Council take the following actions: adopt the project report, amend Title 33 of the city code, which is the planning and zoning title, per the project Portland's current zoning code was rewritten entirely and adopted in 1990.
And of course, as you might imagine, the world changes between the time of a new adoption of a zoning code.
And so over time, there's changing needs, new laws and court rulings, new technology, and obviously some changing perspectives and priorities that necessitate updates and improvements to our regulations.
So code maintenance is considered best practice in the regulatory and in the urban planning fields.
Having the recap program helps us carry out one of our comprehensive plan policies, 10.4, which calls for promoting good planning by addressing existing problems, ensuring good administration of regulations by keeping regulations as simple as possible and improving the code document by using clear language and identifying and acting on regulatory improvement suggestions.
So what is RCAP?
As you've heard, the acronym stands for Regulatory Improvement Code Amendment Package.
These are a bit different than other legislative packages in that their purpose is to provide an ongoing vehicle to ease regulatory burdens and make the zoning code easier to understand.
Amendments address a variety of topics and geographies which are packaged together for efficiency.
They're focused on technical and minor policy changes.
Major policy requests are assigned to other projects like the ones that Eric was describing.
The work plan is based on an online database of amendment suggestions that we receive from the public and implementers, and we have a fair and transparent selection process— selection criteria that are established.
Just to note that RECAP is not the same as the Code Alignment Project, CAP, which you may have heard of.
The main purpose of the new CAP program is to create alignment between different city codes, and RECAP has generally been mainly about the zoning code.
So we use selection criteria to rank the suggestions that are received.
This is to ensure that we are objective, as objective and transparent as possible, while keeping an eye on the comprehensive plan guiding principles of equity, health, prosperity, and resilience.
The higher the score, the more likely an item will be addressed.
We look at the variety of stakeholders affected by that issue, the geographic applicability, how— as in, how widespread is the issue?
Does the degree of impact— how problematic is the issue when it's being implemented?
Is there an avenue for an applicant to seek regulatory relief in the form of a land use review?
And the regulatory improvement— what is the potential for improving the regulation without adding a lot of complexity and options for the development community and public to wade through?
Jessie Connor
We put a lot of thought into this.
Sandra Wood
We published the work plan with items we're addressing, but we also publish an appendix with the scores of the suggestions of items we did not select.
And those are the 2 documents shown on the screen.
This next slide summarizes the public involvement for RECAP 11.
We published our work plan, and, um, in March of 2025, the discussion draft period was open for 6 weeks, and that is our proposal to the public.
Thank you.
Public.
We do our public engagement, and it was open in the summer— last summer.
We presented the proposal to several groups, including those listed on the slide.
The MAP app, which is BPS's testimony repository that you're using for this process here too, was open during that time, and we received 36 comments.
Many of those comments were about the Multnomah Safe Rest Village.
We sent notice to over 700 people for the Planning Commission hearing that occurred in September.
The commission received 12 pieces of written testimony and one person testified in person.
And today this committee is holding another hearing.
As of noon today, you received 8 pieces of written testimony on this matter, and as of that time, no one had signed up to finally, we've provided updates on the project to the 700 subscribers at each of our project milestones.
With that background, I'll pass it on to JP and Shannon to discuss the proposals.
Thank you.
JP McNeil
Thanks, Sandra.
So my name is JP McNeill.
I'm a city planner with the Bureau of Planning Sustainability.
So Shannon and I will now go through the amendments that are in the RECAP 11 packet.
Thank you, Councilor Mitch.
So there are a total of 56 code amendments in Recap 11.
Sometimes for some recaps, the scope of the project is built around specific topics.
So for example, the last recap, Recap 10, there was a directive to focus on amendments that supported post-pandemic recovery and housing production.
For this recap, the amendments are bundled by topics that rose thank you.
There are 2 categories that rose to the top in the ranking process that Sandra was just talking about, and those themes were parking and exterior areas and activities.
There's also a 3rd, more general catch-all regulatory improvement category.
There are also 7 sign code amendments that were added to RECAP 11 to support some work that Parks is doing, and those amendments relate to wayfinding and moving image signs at Washington Park.
We won't be covering all of these amendments today, but we've pulled out some topics and examples to give you a sense of what's in the package.
There's a table at the beginning of the recommended draft that lists all of the amendments, including the technical ones, for your reference if you are interested.
All right, our first theme is a group of minor parking updates.
These fall into 2 subcategories.
One is related to vehicle parking and one is to bike parking.
Our bike parking amendments, we have 3 that are related to this topic.
The first 2 are to ensure that all bike parking users have access to the bike parking area, and this is resolving the issue of users being locked out of bike parking areas.
The second, there's also an amendment that would allow for a change of use in a building without triggering the requirement to install more bike parking.
So the rationale is that someone could come in for a permit for alterations and be exempt from the bike parking requirements under the nonconforming upgrade rules.
But a change of use, which isn't subject to those nonconforming upgrade rules, might not even include any alterations, and therefore it should also be exempt.
And the amendment, it creates more— it creates parity and makes it easier for businesses to open or to fill vacant commercial spaces.
Our vehicle parking amendments.
Of these, the one that we found the most significant is item MP3.
So this proposal is to allow parking in residential front setbacks when a garage is being converted to living area.
So under current code, as illustrated by the diagram on the left there, there's often a driveway.
It has to be removed and the curb cut cut closed when a garage is converted to, say, an ADU or other living area because parking isn't allowed in that front setback.
So this change would allow the driveway to remain provided it's at least 18 feet long and can accommodate a parking space.
And it only applies when there's an existing garage that is being converted and there's an existing driveway and an existing curb cut.
It would not allow for a new 18-foot deep driveway to be poured.
This makes residential conversions easier and more practical for homeowners.
The next category of amendments relate to exterior areas and activities, and there's 3 subcategories here.
One is screening, exterior activities, and common areas.
The first— there are proposed amendments to clarify setback and screening rules for mechanical equipment To ensure that it's screened when necessary without impeding the operation of common smaller equipment like heat pumps.
The Planning Commission amended this item to lessen the requirements for installation of mechanical equipment in single dwelling zones, but in multi-dwelling zones where larger equipment may create more impacts, screening requirements will remain with added requirement for screening from the street when it's located within a set there's also an amendment to exempt screening from design review for some minor accessory structures such as trash enclosures or loading areas.
And this makes it easier to improve a property without an additional review.
And for exterior activities, currently the code is very inconsistent on how exterior activities— so there are things that happen outside of a building but are related to the use, how those are categorized and when they're allowed.
So this amendment clarifies a distinction between activities associated with uses that are associated— that are— that there's a distinction, I'm sorry, with uses of an industrial nature from other generally commercial or recreationally oriented uses and when those are allowed.
Thank you.
In various sections of the code.
There aren't any real changes to what's allowed where, but it makes it clear for businesses that the fun stuff like outdoor dining or a bocce ball court or something like that, those are allowed in commercial areas, but not things like metalworking.
And then finally, the common areas for residential uses.
Multi-dwelling developments, they're required to have outdoor areas, either individual areas per unit or common areas.
It ensures that apartment dwellers have outdoor areas to relax and recreate.
And the common area amendments, they make it clear what types of structures can be in a required outdoor area and that the outdoor area can be covered, but it can't be fully enclosed.
And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Shannon to take on the next batch of amendments.
Shannon Buno
Good afternoon.
My name is Shannon Buno, and I am also a city planner with the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.
The next Recap 11 category is a catch-all theme called Regulatory Improvement.
This category contains 30 disparate amendments, including amendments related to outdoor shelters, temporary activities, and a host of other topics.
The bulk of the amendments in this category are technical in nature, but there are 5 minor policy amendments, and I'm going to talk about 3 of them.
MP-14 increases the total number of individual shelters allowed for an outdoor shelter located in the EX, commercial, or multi-dwelling zones.
The amendments align the zoning code with the capacity of the outdoor shelters that have been built during the declared housing emergency.
This will allow those outdoor shelters to continue operating after the housing emergency expires in 2027.
Second.
Without this change, some of the shelters would need to go through a conditional use review to continue operating.
This amendment garnered the most attention in earlier phases of this project.
The increase in the commercial zones was scaled back by the Planning Commission from 200 units to 100 in response to testimony from neighbors who were concerned that the larger increase would allow the Multnomah Safe Rest Village to continue to expand.
The Planning Commission's recommendation sets the maximum number in a commercial zone at exactly the current size of the Multnomah Village shelter.
MP-14 also includes amendments that allow existing outdoor shelters located on publicly owned parcels in the general employment and industrial zones to continue operating without going through the conditional use process.
The next 2 amendments are to the temporary activities chapter of the zoning code.
The temporary activities chapter allows short-term deviations from the code for activities that are temporary in nature and will not adversely impact the surrounding area.
The temporary rules allow short-term activities ranging from farmers markets and garage sales in residential zones to construction staging and commercial filming.
Activities like fairs, carnivals, and other major event entertainment uses are allowed temporarily in many zones, but they are currently limited to 2 weeks at a time.
However, circuses and seasonal outdoor events like the downtown holiday ice skating rink occur for more than 2 weeks and have structures that take time to install and remove.
Amendment MP-15 extends the time limit for these types of temporary activities to the duration approved as part of a required Portland Fire and Rescue permit.
This will make it easier for these events to operate.
The Temporary Activities Chapter also currently allows many kinds of temporary activities and structures during a natural disaster or other health and safety emergency.
MP-16 clarifies that a sobering center is an allowed temporary activity during the duration of a declared shelter shortage or other health and safety emergency.
Without this amendment, a conditional use review is often required, adding cost and process to establishing these important facilities.
And finally, we have a few sign code amendments.
The overarching goal of this group of sign code amendments is to provide Portland Parks and Recreation more flexibility to install modern and informative sign in large— signs in large parks such as Washington Park.
The amendments will allow signs in public parks located in residential and open space zones in the same manner as is currently allowed for signs for other institutional uses such as schools and religious institutions in those zones.
In addition, the amendments will allow small changing image signs in parks that are more than 5 acres And the amendments will allow Portland Parks and Recreation to go through a sign code adjustment to allow a larger changing image sign in any park that's over 50 acres in size.
That concludes our presentation.
This slide shows where we are along our project timeline, and at this time we've requested another hearing before the full council on June 25th.
Thank you for listening, and to reiterate our proposal, The Planning Commission recommends that City Council take the following actions: adopt the project report, amend Title 33, Planning and Zoning, per the recommended draft, and amend Title 32, Signs and Related Regulations.
And please let me introduce Lucas Pollock, Vice Chair of the Portland Planning Commission, who will provide some insights on the Planning Commission's recommendation.
Lucas Pollock
Hello, councilors.
Thank you for hearing the Planning Commission's recommendation on Recap 11.
Again, my name is Lucas Pollock, and I'm the vice chair of the Planning Commission and the current youth commissioner.
On October 28th, we voted unanimously to recommend that the City Council adopt this project.
But before that, in September, the commission held a public hearing on this project.
We heard testimony from residents living near a 100-unit outdoor shelter who raised concerns regarding the impacts of the use.
They also expressed frustration that the outdoor shelter regulation Thank you.
In our deliberation, the commission recognizes the dire need for outdoor shelters to provide a stable place for Portlanders experiencing homelessness.
We also recognized that the impact of outdoor shelters are not being shared equally across the city, that there are few sites available, and we heard from Portland Solutions that providers can more efficiently serve a greater number of people at larger sites.
Nevertheless, the Planning Commission was sympathetic to neighborhood concerns and passed an amendment to lower the number of outdoor shelters allowed in commercial zones from the staff-proposed 200 outdoor shelter units to 100 units.
The result is still a net increase from the currently allowed 60 units to 100 units.
The amendment reflected the commission's interest in creating some level of predictability, as shelters have become a longer-term solution than was originally anticipated.
The Recap 11 packet before you today incorporates this important amendment, and we urge you to adopt it as written.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Candace Avalos
Wonderful.
Thank you so much, and thanks for your service on the commission.
Okay, so we've got councilors in the queue, and we're going to kick it off with Vice Chair Green.
Mitch Green
Thank you so much.
Didn't know I was going to go first on this, but that's okay.
I really appreciate the Thank you for the presentation.
The summary table is extremely useful.
I'm sure you guys know that already, but I was like, how am I gonna possibly follow all this?
But that's just a really good way to do it.
I support largely most of this.
I do have a question though.
I'm a little uncomfortable about the, what was it, MP14?
Is that the one with the shelters?
Lucas Pollock
Yes, yes.
Josh Roper
Yeah.
Mitch Green
I appreciate the Planning Commission's intervention on that.
I still think 100 is too high for a single site.
Doesn't really, it doesn't concord with the evidence on like how people interact together at a place like this.
And I mean, I worry that our approach to zoning standards is driving the thing and cost efficiency is driving the thing rather than sort What do evidence-based practitioners want out of a congregate— sort of not congregate, but, um, you know, these temporary alternative sites?
So I'm uncomfortable with that level.
I don't know what the best way to amend that is.
This is a very different style of ordinance than I am used to.
And so if we can have a dialogue on that, I'd appreciate that.
But if I wanted to just reject that amendment, I'm curious what the committee thinks of that one, but also what's, what's the least disruptive way to do that?
Candace Avalos
Well, let me just note a process thing too.
If we make changes because it's a land use thing, there's like additional noticing that we'll need to do.
I'm not saying that is a barrier to you, but just that will be one thing we'll need to consider.
Mitch Green
Um, that's why I'm— that's why I'm treading lightly here, because I understand that there is that other layer, and I just, I'm just hoping we can have that conversation.
Candace Avalos
Yeah, I think definitely let's entertain the discussion and colleagues can react to that.
David Straub
Okay.
Mitch Green
So I guess it's an open question for anyone in the building if you want to respond to that.
Sandra Wood
Let me take a stab at that.
I'm trying to digest a little bit maybe what your thinking is.
The 100-foot limit applies both in the multi-dwelling zones and the higher density multi-dwelling zones.
And the Planning Commission's proposal was also for the commercial zones.
So in the multi-dwelling zones, there was already a 60-foot limit and— right, unit, sorry.
Yeah.
Unit limit.
So the 60 increased to 100.
And in the commercial zones, it also went from 60 to 100.
So maybe we could understand a little better if you're concern about the 100 in the multi-dwelling zones and the commercial zones, or one or the other?
Mitch Green
Yeah, I'm happy to sort of articulate a little bit more.
When you talk about outcomes and you talk about the population being served by these shelter sites, you reach a point at which— and it's just some research I can dig up and share with the committee on this.
I don't have the citation at hand, but beyond about yeah.
About 30, really, but definitely by 60, you get really poor diminishing returns of scale on outcomes.
Because when you concentrate that many people with that high of a need on one spot, you start to get a bunch of interactions that are undesirable.
And you move away from the goal of trying to steward transitional housing situation and then ultimately move these people into a permanent Mm-hmm.
100 People is outside of that.
The proposed site in North Portland is 200-some-odd people.
That's, that's way outside of any reasonable basis of, of warehousing people, frankly, on a piece of land.
And so I'm really uncomfortable with codifying an increase in that just based upon I recognize that there was an initial desire to go higher, and then the Planning Commission said, let's, let's ease off on this.
But for me, it's about— I know that this is a temporary emergency, but if we're codifying it, sort of sends a signal that that's— this is just now the new normal.
We're just going to have for decades, perhaps, people living in temporary housing.
Candace Avalos
I think that's a fair point.
Mitch Green
Um, little huts in a parking lot, and we have not addressed the underlying, um, problem.
And also, we have not really chosen the right model to, to allow these people to move on into a much, um, more humane and frankly better outcome situation.
So I don't personally want to vote for an amendment that says we've ignored the science and we're just going to go ahead and codify but I also understand that there are important interactions in our land use process that this sort of discussion I'm having right now throws a wrench into.
And I, I, I, I definitely don't want to be the person, the reason why our, our ability to change our codes and zoning is ground down to a halt.
But this is an important one.
Eric Engstrom
Councilor, just speaking broadly, um, it's completely fair game to talk about individual items in this package.
With past recaps, that's been in a typical scenario where the council dives in and says, you know, I'm uncomfortable with number 22 or whatever.
So I want to— we'll speak up if there's a notification issue involved with that.
For this particular item, the context there is, as you all know, the best practices and the council policy on what our shelter strategy is has evolved over the years, and we've been trying to keep the zoning as best we can current with the latest thinking on that.
There was a larger package yes.
Some years ago, the Shelter to Housing Continuum Project, which really reformed that structure and created the opportunity for outdoor shelters.
This amendment started at a moment where it looked like our direction was to move towards bigger shelters.
I think it's really the Planning Commission— or sorry, the council's prerogative to decide what your policy is on this.
So, and it might be worthy of discussion with with the shelter provider folks if that's an interest of yours.
We're just responding, frankly, to what the city's overall administrative direction has been with those things and trying to make sure that the zoning code is not a barrier to the direction that the city is trying to go.
Mitch Green
I really appreciate that, Director Engstrom.
That's very helpful from the process side.
This is a council I'm curious what my colleagues on the committee think about my reservations with that specific item.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
And sorry, I have to pause to say I forgot to mention there is no official testimony.
Let's just confirm that, Diego.
Great.
Say it.
Diego
No one signed up.
Candace Avalos
Perfect.
We jumped right in.
I knew that there were no testimony, but get it on the record.
Okay.
I'll respond to your thoughts when I'm up.
But next up we have Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Coincidentally, I was coming at the issue from the opposite direction, and I haven't read the research that the council, all the research Councilor Green's talking about, but I've heard the Community First Village in Austin, which has several hundred tiny home residents, held up as a model.
And I wanted to hear What did the staff have to say about why 200 would be better?
What concerns were there about the limited number of sites for putting any of these places?
Were there thoughts about maybe not wanting to foreclose the possibility of using really large sites, like to refer to Councilor Murillo and my— Councilor Murillo's and my dream— golf courses that you'd preclude possibilities if you limited to 100?
Yeah, I think that's a good question.
What was the argument for 200?
JP McNeil
I can speak a little bit to that.
I also haven't seen the research that Councilor Green was referring to, but we, at the Planning Commission stage, we were heavily involved with— or Portland Solutions staff was involved with the project.
And so we brought them on board.
They were at the Planning Commission, and they shared with us their experience working with operators about the shelters here in Portland.
And their experience has been there is a limit.
The limit is higher than what the research might show where things, where the conditions might deteriorate or there's pressures on the services.
But they've been, the 200 was sort of their absolute cap.
And I think their ideal would be more in the hundreds.
But they did, they've definitely experienced that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Steve Novick
Anything to add?
Sandra Wood
Might I offer also, I think there's 2 different issues here.
One is the land use issue, and the caps that we're putting for the land use perspective are 20 individual shelters in a single dwelling unit.
Zones, 60 in the lower multi-dwelling zones, 100 in the highest multi-dwelling zones, 100 in commercial zones, 200 in the EX zones.
So the reasoning behind that is because of the impacts, infrastructure, planning reasons, right?
Like, we have— those lots could be used for multi-dwelling housing and could have similar impacts with similar So that's like the land use, and that's of course our expertise.
And like JP was saying, during the Planning Commission deliberations, Portland Solutions was there to speak to the operational side.
So the operational side is a different question, and that's where their expertise comes in.
And the operational side, I think they could probably run a 100-unit shelter regardless of zone.
So I think what we have here is what the land use perspective is, taking into account what the Portland Solutions and the operators were saying is the economies of scale that they're trying to achieve from an administrative standpoint.
Eric Engstrom
I guess another way to say that is we're trying not to use the land use code to dictate their operational choices.
We were and so setting the number high enough was sort of the logic of doing that so that we weren't in the way of those decisions.
Sandra Wood
And we took a look at all the shelters that were operating.
And the fact is that we have— they're allowed to operate until the housing emergency ends next year.
And what we were trying to ensure was that we had enough space to thank you.
Candace Avalos
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Chair Avalos.
At the beginning of the presentation, you all talked about the selection process for what is included in the reports, and there were a lot of technical steps that you went through.
Is there a similar process for the public comments?
Is there a step where somebody says, do we actually want this policy change?
Does this fit with the policy direction that we have been moving?
And if so, who makes that call?
Because that wasn't on the list that you went through for us.
Sandra Wood
I think we're making that call right here and at the Planning Commission.
I think the legislative process is that process.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
So there are not things that you're staff looks at and says, we've gotten 10 complaints about this, but this was actually an intentional decision.
If you got 10 complaints and that's more than anything else— that's, I'm sure, a much smaller number than what you get, but we're using small numbers for the sake of efficiency here— that would come to us regardless of what the policy is.
Patricia Diefenderfer
Well, for the record, Patricia Deifeneder—.
Yes and a no.
Well, I think we would say I would say that, overarching, the RECAP program is about addressing what we call technical changes or minor policy amendments.
So it's a bit of a judgment call.
It's not a, you know, it's more of an art than a science.
But the idea is that, again, we had been making past code changes to facilitate outdoor shelters, and this was consistent with that.
And I think as Director Engstrom said, the direction at the time that we initiated this project was we were looking at more— fewer but larger kind of shelters.
And so this was consistent with past actions and with the direction that— where things were going at the time.
And I think that this is a moment to have this conversation and to evaluate, is that I think that's still the case.
I think, overarching— I think that's still the case.
I think, overarching— I think, overarching— The goal here was to contemplate that if the shelter emergency— sorry, the emergency ordinance was removed, would these shelters be able to remain?
We were trying to create a regulatory environment where they could remain and operate, given that we know that, you know, these needs are going to go beyond next year.
Eric Engstrom
Stepping away, just then for the record, Eric Kingstrom again.
Stepping away from this specific issue, broadly speaking, yes, the BPS management, when we're reviewing what's moving forward in the work plan, we are considering policy and existing policy and considering whether it's a minor policy or major policy change.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, so that's happening at the 2 of your level.
Eric Engstrom
And, and to some extent, the professional planners take that into account.
Sandra Wood
I mean, for example, we receive— and these are suggestions for improvements to the code.
Sometimes people will say, hey, I'm working on a development and I'm seeing a conflict between this code and that code.
And we look at it and we're like, yeah, that's not what we intended.
We should definitely fix that.
And that's a minor policy amendment.
So let's put that in the next package.
Sometimes we get requests for things that are not anti-theory.
And one of the most common ones is that we should be requiring parking.
You know, a lot of community members are concerned about parking and new apartments in their neighborhoods, and so they want us to have minimum parking requirements.
At this point, we're not even allowed to have minimum parking requirements per the state.
So no, we don't advance that.
And but you probably would.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
I think that's a good point.
Sandra Wood
You'll see in the appendix of things we did not choose and why it scored low, um, because it doesn't comport to, to the goals.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, that's really helpful.
This is a long list, and so for me, understanding some of that background and the, the policy and political calls that are made is helpful.
The way our process currently works, we have what, 4 days with this before we're sitting here discussing it to read through 190-something pages of changes.
Um, so understanding what some of those decision-making processes are, are really helpful.
Councilor Green, to your point, to the point that you raised, I don't know that I give you a yes or no on where I'm at on that today.
I read through most of this and marked a few pieces where I felt like I needed to ask some follow-up questions, not necessarily in this room, but of stakeholders and other groups that are interested.
And I'm still working through some of that, but I do think that there's a lot that, that needs some consideration, certainly.
Sandra Wood
Thank you, Chair.
And can I clarify one more thing?
I mean, everything in this package we think are good ideas, and so did the Planning Commission.
It's not that— and there are many other requests that are still on the list of exploring for future projects.
Does that help?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
That does make sense, knowing who is making the judgment calls and when and how.
This is the type of work where I think council sometimes feels like we are put in a position of rubber stamping administrative work.
Mm-hmm.
And having both that background information and the time to really sit with it and dig in on it is important.
I know that the Planning Commission has done a lot of that work, and I have a lot of faith in our Planning Commission, but we are the ones who hear from constituents if we make the wrong call.
So I think I just would make a plug here broadly to the ethers that we still need to figure out how to back up the postings so that councilors have more time sitting with documents like this.
And that's something that I know we're working on internally.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
All right, I'm up in the queue.
Let me just start by appreciating this work.
You know, these amendments are technical in nature, but the work is important because it reflects thank you, Councilor Smith.
Thank you, Mayor.
I think this is a great package that reflects the city's commitment to continuously improving how our regulations function in practice.
So I'm grateful that we kind of have this ongoing practice of checking these codes.
We need to make it easier to build housing and support businesses, and sometimes that's major policy, but sometimes we're just getting into the nitty-gritty here of where our code can be clearer and more predictable and less burdensome.
So I appreciate what this package brings forward on that front.
Thank you, Councilor Herant.
Um, as it relates to your prompt, um, Vice Chair, I, um, I think I definitely agree in spirit, and I want to learn more about what— like, I, I also know that the data in general show— is showing that it's better to have more condensed, you know, groups of people.
Um, I, I I, for example, I spoke out very vigorously a couple years ago when they were trying to make 3,000-person camps, um, or 1,000-person camps, but 3 of them or whatever.
Um, and so, uh, definitely something that we've been talking about a lot in community over the years as we've been standing up all of these shelters, uh, or all of these, uh, the pods and things that we want to obviously increase our capacity as much as possible because we have so many people that need access and if we're looking holistically at what it takes to facilitate, you know, these kinds of spaces, it gets really challenging for the providers.
And I had this conversation with Cultivate Initiatives because the city was pushing for the Menlo Park site to increase by 50 more people, and they had expressed their concerns and shared why that would be difficult.
So I'm carrying that forward.
Thank you.
I'm just keeping that in my mind as I'm reflecting on your question and agreeing that I've heard from community that we need to be careful about how we scale these sites.
So I am definitely interested in looking into that.
I would love to— I mean, I heard the logic.
I would love— maybe I'll reach out to the Planning Commission to just understand a little more about how they're feeling.
I know there's some planning commissioners here if you want to react to that.
I think that's a great idea.
I'd welcome you to— did you want to respond to kind of y'all's thoughts on this change?
Lucas Pollock
Yeah, yeah.
You'll have to forgive me and I'll let staff correct me if I say anything incorrect or anything, because it has been since October.
But overall, the— what I kind of remember being okay with the 100-unit aspect was when we talked to people from Portland Solutions, they They said that actually it kind of helps their economy of scale when they're able to access and provide services on larger sites, but that currently most sites are pretty much under the 100-unit mark and didn't really have plans to expand to certainly not 200 units, but also not to 100 units.
But I think it was kind of more establishing a precedent.
You know, we're gonna be dealing with outdoor shelters for a long time coming still most likely.
And I think a lot of our thinking was having something set in the code helps us kind of navigate in the future in a way that'll be, that will both help serve our houseless neighbors and also the neighborhoods that are hosting these sites.
If that answers any questions for you guys.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
That is helpful just to hear your logic behind that.
And I think just hearing that it's very future-focused, right?
Yes, we are going to continue to need these sites.
We're going to probably need to scale them up, not just on their sites, but creating more of them.
So I hear that.
But yeah, I definitely have some reservations that Councilor Green does and would be curious if we should talk more about what that looks like.
Councilor, were you thinking that— I know there's like a bunch of process-type things that we need to consider in making amendments.
Yes.
Is this something that you're thinking would bring to full council to propose an amendment to change, or you're going to change it here, or which one is it?
Mitch Green
I think it'd be best to try to change it here first.
Okay.
And if, you know, if we have to have more conversation, we have to have more conversation.
But I feel like, I feel like this is probably the opportunity to do that.
Candace Avalos
And what would changing it look like?
Is it that we reject it entirely?
Is it that we're changing the amount, or what would the change for me, I—.
Mitch Green
It would just be moving to, um, reject the proposed amendments on— where is it— page 111 of the Exhibit B.
Okay.
Which I think is— it just has the— it has the red lines.
So basically just undo those red lines.
Okay.
That's kind of how I'm thinking about it.
Okay, that's good.
I don't want to, like, insert my own planning frame into this.
Yeah.
Like, I don't want to change these numbers.
I think that's haphazard and chaotic.
Eric Engstrom
I I'm fine with where they're at.
Candace Avalos
Okay, sounds good.
Um, I, I think I would lean towards supporting that effort, so I'll just put that on the record.
Um, and then the only other question I had was, um, I guess I just wanted to hear high level, what are, in your opinions, the most meaningful improvements that applicants, homeowners, and businesses or community orgs will experience as a result of this like, as you all have been discussing this on the Planning Commission, been hearing from stakeholders, can you talk to me about what you all expect the impact to be?
Lucas Pollock
I think, I think a lot of the impact we're seeing is going to kind of be more establishing a ceiling and a precedent for how we're dealing with large outdoor shelters going forward.
And on top of that, from what we heard from service providers, You know, some might be under the current 68-unit limit, but with hopes to expand under 100 units.
Candace Avalos
Let me pause you.
I mean in general.
Oh, okay.
Not just about this one.
I mean like for the whole package.
Lucas Pollock
Oh, for the whole package.
I think this was easy as this was what we got the most testimony on.
This is what we definitely focused most of our deliberation on.
I think kind of what we would benefit from during the full package is just kind of continuity, removing redundancies and making It clearer on these smaller things.
You know, we didn't hear any testimony really about, you know, the minor parking updates or signage necessarily, but I think going forward, just having these in— having these approved in place alongside the shelter amendment will kind of just give everyone, you know, a little clearance.
A lot of complaints we get about Portland zoning code is that it's confusing and that there there's some broad, you know, kind of overlaps and redundancies.
And I think this kind of helps to clean it up, make it more accessible to people.
Candace Avalos
And also just curious, could you gimme a flavor of like what you were hearing?
Like what was it that people were saying when they were testifying as it relates to the shelter amendment?
Lucas Pollock
They were mostly concerned that the increase to 200 units was not what they had been kind of promised or heard about when they were talking with both the shelter provider and the city, I believe.
I think they were also under the impression that the site in, I believe, Multnomah Village was at some point slated to become permanent affordable housing, and they weren't super either aware or happy if they thought the outdoor shelter was to be both expanded and kept for longer than intended.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
That's helpful to understand.
Okay, those are all my questions.
We'll pass it back to Councilor Vice Chair Green.
Mitch Green
Thank you, Councilor Avalos.
Candace Avalos
Oh wait, can I pause you?
Yes.
Did Councilor Koyama Lane speak yet?
Not yet.
Let me get to Councilor Koyama Lane and then I'll come back to you.
Josh Roper
Thanks.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thanks, Chair.
I was, uh, going down a similar line of thinking, uh, reading in the exhibit that most of the testimony was really about livability concerns, neighborhood— the neighborhood association and residents having expressed opposition to the shelters.
Were there any folks there that specifically were coming in talking about concerns around outcomes for those who are accessing the shelters?
And did that come up at all, this conversation that we're kind of having about what's the right number?
Happy to hear from you all, or Chair Routh.
Lucas Pollock
I believe we only had one person come in and testify verbally.
Yeah.
I spoke to a number of FAE orally, and their concern was generally about the outcomes for people.
But I think mostly overall it was the uncertainty around what's going on.
It's, you know, it's a very fluid situation with what they're dealing with, and it's kind of— I think they were hearing a lot of one thing and then another, and they really wanted someone to just come in and give like a concrete answer.
Candace Avalos
And I—.
JP McNeil
Yeah, go ahead.
Sorry, just one thing to add is that there's the written testimony that was also provided to the Planning Commission.
I don't have it right here in front of me, but I know that there were a few pieces that came in, and I don't know if this was what you were asking, that was in support of the idea that we need these shelters, we need to be able to be standing them up, that there's a need for them in the city, and that these are challenges that we're facing.
And so it wasn't— everybody wasn't coming up coming up against it, I guess, is what I'm saying.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
And can someone kind of explain to me how MP14 would look in action?
Because I'm looking at, like, the Multnomah Safe Rest Village.
That's one that we're discussing.
And on our website, it says that there are 100 shelter units.
That's our capacity right now.
We're looking at Menlo.
It says 75 sleeping units.
So is this, Can someone explain to me how they're zoned and maybe—.
JP McNeil
The whole point of this that we started off with was so that what exists on the ground today would be allowed to or able to continue operating under the zoning code if the housing emergency were to go away tomorrow.
And it's slated to go away in 2027.
So what it would look like at Multnomah Safe Rest Village is nothing would change because They would be in compliance with the code if the housing emergency went away tomorrow.
At Menlo Park, they'd be able to go up a little bit if they wanted to.
There's the flexibility there.
It doesn't mean, from what Portland Solutions told us, they don't have plans necessarily to expand all these.
It was just to have the wiggle room in case things, they can, as things change and needing to move around.
And there, I know that since Planning Commission, it's been a while, we haven't been, that was back in October, but since then, I talked to them recently, several of the shelters have closed.
Right.
Yes.
Or slated to close.
And so that's one of the other challenges that they face with this is that the reality is that it's difficult to site these.
I think that this, the testimony that you heard, it sort of illustrates that.
And so one of their challenges is that they have some sites that are in place.
And so siting new ones is difficult.
Siting new ones within neighborhoods is challenging.
And so then I heard some Some concerns about warehousing.
And so then that's the tension here is that there can be in neighborhoods and Multnomah Village doesn't seem to really like having that shelter.
Or the alternative, which is kind of what's happening now, is North Portland Road, which is in an industrial area, is getting larger because other shelters are closing.
And so there's a balance there.
It can be big shelters out in industrial areas, which has its own problems, and then the challenges of trying to— so part of that, what I'm getting at is the ones that are in place now, we're trying to keep there.
That was the goal that was given to us.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Do you know if Clinton Triangle would fall under the same?
JP McNeil
Clinton Triangle, we— that one is zoned EX, and so that is the only zone that would now allow up to 200.
And they're already at 160.
Yeah, so that one, um, and EX zoning is central employment, so it's generally Central city located.
So that was the one where the largest impact, largest footprint seemed appropriate.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Chair, is it possible for me to hear Steph Routt's perspective?
Are you open to kind of sharing some of the process and where you're at?
Staff Routh
Also happy birthday last week.
Okay.
Hello, Chair Avalos, Vice Chair Green, and members of the committee.
Happy Pride, and thank you for having me.
I want to, like, take us back first.
RECAP, as you've probably heard, RECAP is kind of our regular—.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Can you say your name for the record?
Staff Routh
I'm sorry.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm Staff Routh, Chair of the Planning Commission, for the record.
Sorry.
RECAP generally is kind of our annual housekeeping, like spring cleaning of a lot of codes.
And as Sandra said, Like, it's what filters to the top.
Land use in my experience is, it's a really blunt tool.
And especially the shelter amendment, I'm so glad that you are talking about it.
We foresaw and hoped that you would also struggle with this, for we did as well, and we like to be in good company.
So we are all in good company with each other.
And that shelters particularly are a context-sensitive, like the success and failure is really context-sensitive.
And as I said, land use is blunt.
And so one question I think that we had just generally as a body is how much for this zoning process should be what we can do versus what we should do, and is what elements should be confined to a zoning or a land use conversation?
And I think that's a great question.
Versus a program conversation.
And so I think that one thing that we felt coming to you, and please, I'm also looking if I am speaking out of turn, but we felt that some of that was, we went into the closest to a middle ground that allowed for the conditions that currently exist on the ground, such as Multnomah.
While still pulling us into what the limits of a shelter that would be too far.
And we did feel that 200 was too much too far.
Was 100 the correct answer?
I'm not entirely sure, honestly.
Like, I struggle, I continue to struggle with that decision, and I think most that was probably a non-answer.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
No, this is all really helpful.
Thank you.
And thank you everyone for your patience.
And I am grateful that you all did the work.
It sounds like there was maybe a move for there to be an expansion.
This is more being able to make sure things could stay where they're at if needed.
Thanks.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
All right, Vice Chair Green, you are going to, uh, you're up next, but do you mind if I ask the question?
Because I know what you were going to do so that we can get that clarified.
So staff, um, we just want to understand, can the committee vote on Councilor Green's amendment that he's going to propose in a moment without further notice or Measure 56 notice and the opportunity for public testimony?
Yes.
So we will be able to discuss an amendment here, pass yes, I don't think—.
Sandra Wood
I, I'm trying to think.
Definitely not a Measure 56 notice.
And when you're moving on to full council, then the public will have an opportunity to testify at the full council.
So that would be good.
We'll want to publish it in some way so that they know what the notice is.
I think we should publish it.
Queesha Light
Right?
Patricia Diefenderfer
Yeah, I'll just add, I mean, typically, if a provision, an amendment is not expanding or making less restrictive, in this case it'd be making it more restrictive by reducing the number that was proposed, that kind of falls within the umbrella of what we studied and how, you know, what we engaged So that's typically something that can be done without triggering kind of all other requirements for noticing and further outreach.
Sandra Wood
And as we understand it, the amendment would be basically to strike the whole Minor Policy 14, which means everything would go back to the current code.
And so it wouldn't be more restrictive.
If you were to go beyond that and make it more restrictive, then we would—.
Eric Engstrom
I think the current code does not require notice.
Jessie Connor
Than what was proposed.
Than what is current.
Right.
Candace Avalos
What did you say?
Patricia Diefenderfer
That's true, yeah.
And it's not more restrictive than what is currently on the books.
Sandra Wood
If you wanted to put something on, if you wanted to make an amendment that makes it more strict than what's currently in the zoning code, then we would need to notify the property owners.
Jessie Connor
Okay.
Candace Avalos
Sounds good.
Well then, Vice Chair, go ahead.
Mitch Green
Thank you, Chair Avalos.
And just for everyone's edification, I emailed every member of this committee the report that I had in my brain.
I've made it available to the clerk as well so we can have that for posterity.
But it is a PSU study, um, commissioned by the, uh, Portland State University Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative, uh, was it was funded by a Meyer Memorial Trust grant.
Anyway, they did an analysis based upon, I think, a total of about 3,000 survey respondents for folks either with— who live in these villages, live near the villages, and then randomized sample of Portlanders.
And they found— and this is on page 181 of this—.
Candace Avalos
There's only 138.
That's what I was about to ask.
Mitch Green
Okay, well, there's—.
Candace Avalos
Which page is it on?
Mitch Green
It's page 92 of the PDF, but it's 181 of the actual— sorry, um, it's, it's page 91 of the PDF.
Sorry.
Okay.
It poses the question based upon their analysis on how many villagers, and they say that overwhelmingly when they speak to this broad cross-section of people, the ideal village size is somewhere between 25 and 30.
And I know that's decidedly smaller than what the kind of current model is, but this is a very different model, and this is the model that's a good point.
That's the model that I think is where the city should strive to go towards in the future.
And the key piece here is this is a level, maybe 60 is the upper bound.
That's Dignity Village, by the way, has about 60 residents.
That's the upper bound at which, like, there's a seemingly stable balance of community relationships there where villagers are not disruptive to their neighbors, that are also not disruptive with each other, and so on and so forth.
And so it's for that reason that I, I would move to strike the changes on page 111 of Exhibit B, essentially just rejecting MP-14.
And I would look for a second.
Candace Avalos
I will second that.
Diego
And is that, you know, clerk folks, is that the right language, or do we need to if I may state it for the record, the proposed amendment would be to remove amendments to Chapter 33.285, short-term mass and outdoor shelters, specifically Code Section 33.285.040, use regulations, which is page 11, Exhibit B.
Claire
111.
Diego
111, Sorry.
Mitch Green
Yeah, and it's just, there are track changes on this site, on this, in this document, and the intent is to revert to the original pre-amended language.
Thank you.
Sandra Wood
May I clarify just so we're talking about page 111 and 113, correct?
It goes on.
Correct.
And we're talking about all of Section 35.1.
Mitch Green
Yeah, my intent is to just reject MP-14.
Patricia Diefenderfer
So it's, it's not any specific zone, it's, it's all of the, the changes per any of the, the zones.
Mitch Green
Yeah, I do not want to raise the capacity.
Patricia Diefenderfer
Okay.
JP McNeil
One other consequence of that is that, um, it's the how the employment zones and industrial zones are treated a little differently.
Because a conditional use review is required in those zones.
And so this, and this on page 113, the amendment would allow any existing outdoor shelters that are in those zones, namely North Portland Road, I forget what else is left that's in the, oh, Clinton Triangle.
Shannon Buno
Dignity Village.
JP McNeil
And Dignity Village to continue operating without a conditional use.
When the emergency goes away, they'll have to come in for a conditional use review, which opens it up to discretion and public comment.
So that is just to be aware that that's also a consequence of striking the whole thing.
Mitch Green
Good, thanks.
Patricia Diefenderfer
And does—.
Candace Avalos
So you're saying if and when the emergency clause ends, when does it end?
I don't even know.
JP McNeil
It's scheduled now to end in October of 2027.
Candace Avalos
Oh, okay, good.
Mitch Green
They just— you have to go through the conditional land use permit process again.
JP McNeil
Yeah, if they can't get approval, they'd have to close.
Candace Avalos
Got it.
Okay, well, this has been moved and seconded.
I chatted the language to, uh, the committee members so you can see that in front of you.
Um, and we will now move into discussion on this amendment.
So, uh, Councilor Novick, did you want to speak to the amendment?
Steve Novick
Um, yeah, one thing I wanted to mention— you mentioned cultivate initiatives, Madam Chair, and And they were actually the organization that told me that they looked to the village in Austin with several hundred residents as a model.
So I just wanted to mention that.
And so I just wanted to go back to what we were talking about a minute ago.
If this passes, then Dignity Village will have to seek to renew a conditional use permit when the emergency expires?
JP McNeil
That's correct.
Steve Novick
Are there other, are there other places that'll have to go through the same thing?
JP McNeil
The North Portland Road, any— yeah, North Portland Road and Clinton Triangle.
And as far as I—.
Jessie Connor
And Multnomah Village.
JP McNeil
And well, no, Multnomah Village has been rezoned to CM-2.
Shannon Buno
But they're above 60.
JP McNeil
Well, that would be— well, yes, that's a different— I'm just talking about the employment and industrial zone ones at the moment.
Steve Novick
And the limit we'd be reverting to is 60?
JP McNeil
I'm sorry?
Steve Novick
And what the limit we'd be reverting to is 60, is that right?
Is that across the board?
Sandra Wood
No.
Steve Novick
Oh.
JP McNeil
It would vary by zone.
One thing, so for, it would go back to in single-family zones, this wasn't proposed to change, so the maximum is 20 individual shelters.
In some of the lower impact multi-dwelling zones, it's 30 shelters.
In the commercial zones and some of the higher density multi-dwelling zones, That's 60.
Same with the EX.
So that's Clinton Triangle would be limited to 60.
And then when you get to the other employment, general employment zones and the industrial zones, they're not allowed by right.
They have to go through a conditional use.
So Clinton Triangle, Dignity Village, North Portland, and I think that might be it that's left now.
Benjamin Gilbert
Kenton.
JP McNeil
I think I said Clinton Triangle.
If I didn't, oh, Kenton.
Sandra Wood
And Kenton would all have to go through a conditional use review because there is no and to be clear, the cap in the other zones that you were just summarizing, that's the cap that's allowed by right.
Above that is also a conditional use review.
Steve Novick
And I apologize for not knowing this, but would the proposed amendment have raised the limit to 100 everywhere or just in some places and left others alone?
JP McNeil
It would be a conditional use review for all.
The proposed amendment increases it in the commercial zones to 100.
In the higher density multifamily zones, it increases it to 100.
And then in the lower density multi-dwelling zones and some campus institutional zones, it increases it from 30 to 60.
And then the biggest jump is for in the EX zone, which is central employment, Where there's— that's Clinton Triangle.
That goes from 60 to 200.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
I am going to be opposing this partly because I'm concerned about using the land use system to make operational decisions of what happens at these sites.
But also, I think that given the limited number of— given the difficulty in finding sites, I think that this will significantly restrict our ability to rely on the tiny house village model okay, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, to the amendment.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Chair.
Um, I want to thank Councilor Koyama Lane for the line of questioning that she went down.
That was really helpful for me in understanding the impact here.
Um, Councilor Mr. Green, I think I need to oppose this today.
I agree that we need to look carefully at the size of a lot of these villages, and you and I have talked about that.
There are some that I think are getting too big, and I think specifically as you're talking about self-governed villages, which is what the bulk of the report that you sent focuses on, there definitely is a smaller size that's necessary.
Some of the villages that we have that are not the self-governed villages but more of the, the top-down structure that are pretty large have been able to be successful, some less so, right?
And I have concerns about what we're doing out at Portland Road.
But what I don't want to do is create a scenario where we have villages Thank you.
So I think that's a really good point.
I think that there are some shelters that can't operate once the— once our state of emergency goes away.
I would be interested if we had more time, which I don't think we do unfortunately, in thinking about how we treat new shelters and what is sunsetted in and what's not.
But I don't want us to lose shelters.
And the, the warning specifically that one of our self-governed villages would have to apply for a land use variance if we don't make this change when that state of emergency goes through— or goes away, rather— is a big red flag for me.
I don't want to put them in a situation of needing to kick people out or lose their land.
And so I think that given that piece especially, I can't support the wholesale change today.
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Councilor Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you, everyone.
Um, can someone explain to me yeah, I think it could be amended back in by any of the other councilors who are on the committee.
Virginia Hammond
Okay.
Sandra Wood
Aren't here today or by any of you.
Um, if it gets amended out completely and the council passes, you know, no amendment on this, most of these shelters are operating under the housing emergency, right?
Eric Engstrom
Yeah.
Sandra Wood
And so they would continue to operate, and then we would be getting closer to the October 2027 date with maybe there's a a conversation amongst council and the city administrator about what to do with the Safe Rest Villages in particular.
And maybe there's a solution, or maybe we're told, uh-oh, we're going to have a problem.
There isn't a, you know, a magic thing that happens on that day.
What would probably happen is on a complaint basis.
So community members will say, hey, the housing emergency is over, this was supposed to last until only now.
So they would issue a complaint to our bureau partner of Portland Permitting and Development, and they would start acting on that.
Not a great situation, I think, for the providers to have that uncertainty.
A legislative process takes a while.
So if we were to want to amend the code back or have some kind of compromise, I think this is probably the project to do it in.
You know, Director Engstrom or Patricia can correct me if I'm wrong, but I would be concerned that we think the problem's gone away and then we get to next summer and all of a sudden we have to like scramble to come up with a different land use solution when possibly what you're looking for is an operational solution.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
I will say I would— I'm concerned about the idea of many of these sites at some point having to close some of their beds and wondering, you know, that assuming that means people are pushed to the streets or to the congregate overnight-only shelters, which I think are not as preferable.
Even though October 2027 does seem close, it does seem like there's some time.
Candace Avalos
Councilor Smith.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
I am interested in, in actually talking to some of my colleagues at the county, some of the commissioners, and seeing what their perspectives are.
And so where this lands, however I vote here, might not be the same that I vote at the full council.
So I, I'm interested in supporting it but having some conversations to see if it's something that can come back in.
I appreciate this study that you shared.
I'd like to look some other studies too.
And I also want to acknowledge that a lot of work has been done and that this conversation isn't, isn't over.
Also, Chair Avalos, if for some reason MP-14 isn't addressed here or at the full council, would you say that it would be something that you would prioritize for us to make sure we're not waiting until the last minute?
Councilor Smith.
Candace Avalos
Do you mean like operationally, to talk about the operation?
Yeah.
Claire
Yes, absolutely.
Candace Avalos
I agree that there is a— we need to talk about the policy behind it and not maybe not muck up the land use issues.
So that's— yeah.
So I'm down to prioritize that conversation.
Okay.
I'm next in the queue, but I said what essentially I was going to say.
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Thank you, Chair Alvo.
Colleagues, I'm going to withdraw my amendment actually.
I've been moved by the discussion.
I think every single person up here has made a remark that acknowledges the thing that I am worried about, but raises some risks that I personally find unacceptable.
Particularly, I'm very worried that some of these villages that I care deeply about, who I know people who live in them, Being kicked out because then they lost a by-right place to be.
And I can't control who's going to be on the next council or who's going to be the next mayor.
So I appreciate, I really value the discussion.
I think what we can do when we go to the full body is we can daylight that we had this conversation and that it was a robust conversation.
And then if we want to make adjustments there, we can.
We'll have a little bit more time.
But at this time, I'm going to support the entire recap.
I really appreciate all the work that's the been done.
Thank you.
Hard work that's been done in there, and thanks for being in this dialogue with me.
I'm going to formally withdraw my amendment at this time.
Candace Avalos
Sounds good.
And since I was your seconder, I agree to withdraw.
Thanks.
Um, okay, well, I don't see anyone else in the queue.
Colleagues, are we ready to move to a vote?
Okay, then I will entertain— let me get the language up.
I would like to entertain a motion to move the ordinance document number 2026-189 to the full council with a Aye.
Seconded by Councilor Novick.
Please call the roll.
Diego
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
Diego
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you for all your hard work.
Aye.
Diego
Novick?
Steve Novick
Yes, thank you very much.
Aye.
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Diego
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Diego
With 5 ayes, the motion carries, and the ordinance, document number 2026-10, passes unanimously.
Candace Avalos
Thank you so much to all of you for your hard work.
Thank you to the Planning Commission for their work and for helping us grapple with these issues.
I think you can hear our intent, and we will continue to have a discussion about the policy aspect of what we discussed today.
Colleagues, our next meeting is Tuesday, June 16th.
At that meeting, we— oh, sorry, there's one more piece in terms of the agenda.
Okay.
Diego
Councilor Smith.
Candace Avalos
Oh, I am very sorry.
Yes, I have that in the notes and I didn't say it.
All right, um, hold on.
Okay, so the Regulatory Improvement Code amendment package will be continued to a full council meeting on June 25th, 2026 at 2 PM, time certain.
Got it.
Sandra Wood
And can we clarify one other thing too?
I believe— is the oral testimony closed?
At this point, and the written testimony will remain open.
Queesha Light
Okay, that's—.
Candace Avalos
Is that a question, or is that a— that's what's happening?
Sandra Wood
Well, um, I spoke to the city attorney about, about that because usually— well, well, we're new to the committee structure too, so usually the oral testimony needs to be closed before deliberation and passing a recommendation, and the written testimony in this case, we would suggest leaving it open, um, so that the public can continue testifying.
Um, and when you get to full council, then we'll close the written testimony, the written record.
Candace Avalos
So to confirm, oral testimony is now closed, written will continue until the council meeting, correct?
Okay, perfect.
Thank you.
Okay, um, at our next meeting, we are anticipating a resolution from Councilor Dunphy and I on the second phase of the Code Alignment Project, or CAP 2, and we'll have a couple of affordable housing finance items from the Housing Bureau.
And with that, I will adjourn the meeting of Housing and Permitting at 5 on the dot.
Mitch Green
Look at that.
Jessie Connor
Wow.
Candace Avalos
Hell yeah.