Chloe Eudaly (running for Commissioner position 4)
Should policies be adopted to ensure every neighborhood in Portland welcomes more neighbors, through smaller, denser, lower-cost housing options like smallplexes, cottage clusters, and small-to-moderate-sized apartment complexes, via both the nonprofit and private markets?
Yes, everywhere. I've been an enthusiastic supporter of RIP--I strongly believe that we must eliminate exclusionary zoning laws that have kept communities of color and low income households out of certain neighborhoods for decades. I have pushed BPS on developing a policy that will generate the number of units we need, the types of units we need (affordable and accessible), and to develop strong anti-displacement strategies to go along with it. I remain concerned that average homeowners will not benefit from RIP unless they sell their homes and I've been working with community advocates and the private market to develop a loan product that would open of the possibility of thousands more ADUs across our city.
Should Portland expand transit-oriented development (allowing apartment complexes by-right within a short walk of all major transit lines) as a way to discourage the use of single-occupancy vehicles and reduce our city’s carbon emissions?
Yes. I support this approach along with strong anti-displacement measures, both residential and commercial. Too many times, we've seen big transit projects accelerate development driven displacement, forcing low-income households and small businesses out of the central city and to neighborhoods with inadequate transit. They are then replaced by more affluent households who are less likely to use public transit. This somewhat defeats the purpose of improving and increasing public transit!
Should neighborhood associations have less, as much, or more power than other community organizations when it comes to questions of housing, such as whether new apartments or homeless shelters are permitted in a given neighborhood?
The same amount of power. You know this conversation is near and dear to my heart. Neighborhood Associations serve an important function as mutual benefit organizations that improve the quality of life in their neighborhoods and build a sense of community. I see that function as being very different from the role they currently play in civic engagement. If the city truly believes the civic engagement is essential to our decisions, whether policies, projects, or programs, then we must invest in a system that reflects the full diversity of our city and recognizes that people organize and identify in ways other than neighborhood. I hope to see Code Change through but the whole process is being further delayed by our current public health crisis. I didn't want to bring any piece of it back to City Council while we're practicing social distancing. Although, as of this week we have started taking public testimony during our online sessions, it's still challenging to participate and we are focused on the most essential work right now. As an alternative I'm exploring a very exciting digital platform for civic engagement. This platform would serve multiple functions, including presenting projects and polices to the public for feedback, presenting citizen led initiatives, connecting community members who share the same interests and burning issues with each other across the whole city, recruiting volunteers, and participatory budgeting! We could engage 500x the number of people who currently participate in our Neighborhood Associations. It would also be an incredible tool to have at our fingertips during this crisis when we have so many urgent decisions to make and we're not able to conduct traditional outreach and engagement efforts.
Should Portland dedicate less, as much, or more money to regulated affordable housing? (If you answered "more money," what funding mechanism(s) would you pursue to build this additional housing?)
More money. My office was considering a high income earner tax to fund housing programs and policies (including supportive services) until three different measures emerged that were looking at the same revenue stream. We need to federal government and the state to step up to the affordable housing crisis. We can't keep solving for chronic under-investment and an inequitable tax structure at the city level; big corporations and the wealthy need to pay their fair share of taxes. I'm for restructuring the mortgage interest tax deduction to make it a credit, and eliminating the deduction altogether for the purchase of second homes at the state and federal level and investing those dollars in getting and keeping people housed.
My housing vision for Portland is a city where everyone has a safe, stable, affordable roof over their heads. Affordable housing is available throughout the city, especially in neighborhoods with ample public transit, good schools, job opportunities, and other amenities, not relegated to the most distant and disadvantaged areas of our city. And there are a variety of subsidized affordable housing options from SROs to family sized apartments. We need to focus our limited public dollars on housing for extremely low-income households, continue to incentivize affordable housing in the private market, and explore options such as housing cooperatives, co-housing, and community investment trusts. And we need to create access to ADU financing for thousands of average Portland homeowners who could significantly add to our housing stock in a relatively low-impact way. Unless we see a radical shift at the federal level that delivers deep investments in affordable housing, we need to be pulling every lever available to us to create abundant housing of all kinds and for all income levels.
Would you support a citywide moratorium on evictions during the three coldest months of the year, as Seattle recently adopted?
Yes. Housing is a basic need and human right. Our failure to recognize it as such has resulted in the national housing crisis we're in today. Everyone deserves a safe, stable, affordable roof over their head. Half of American live at or near the federal poverty line, half of renters are cost-burdened by rent. Many of us are one paycheck away from financial disaster. A winter eviction moratoria would keep people safe and housed at a time when our system is already taxed.
As Portland implements an anti-displacement plan, which policies from the Anti-Displacement PDX Coalition would you support? What additional anti-displacement policies do you support?
Require advance 90-day written notice to a tenant if the owner plans to sell, demolish, or redevelop their home.
Grant a “right to stay” to existing tenants; require landlords to rehouse tenants they displace in their neighborhoods at a rent comparable to what they had been paying, or by helping the tenants to purchase a unit with down-payment assistance.
Implement a Tenant Opportunity to Purchase policy that gives all current renters, and then the city, the first and second rights of refusal to purchase a property at fair-market value before it goes on the market.
Earmark Construction Excise Tax (CET) revenue from construction in single-dwelling zones as a source of subsidy for affordable units in single-dwelling zones.
Charge a fee for any redevelopment of a property in single-dwelling zones that does not include at least two units, unless prevented by site constraints and use the new revenue from this fee to subsidize regulated affordable units in the single-dwelling zones.
Property tax exemption for any regulated affordable units built on-site, for the duration of the affordability restriction.
My office is actively working on a Tenant Opportunity to Purchase policy and I successfully advanced a directive to develop anti-displacement strategies that is underway at BPS. We must officially recognize housing a human right and establish a tenant bill of rights. I'd also like to see Portland pass a Right to Shelter policy. And I'd love for the state to finally overturn the ban on rent control and return regulatory powers to municipalities. I support land banking and land trusts, and am interested in greatly expanding home ownership opportunities for low and moderate income homeowners, which would guarantee long-term stable, affordable housing, while allowing families to put to roots and build wealth.
While tenant protections are an essential part of any anti-displacement policy, I believe that we need a greater focus on moving low-income households out of the rental market altogether and into home ownership opportunities, which is why my office is working on a tenant opportunity to purchase policy for tenants whose units are being sold. I'm also interested in strategies such as the tenant interim lease program in NYC that allows tenants to move into buildings purchased by the city with the opportunity for tenant management and eventual ownership as a low-income housing cooperative. Finally, Proud Ground recently advanced a project that includes homes for families earning 30% of MFI--we need more of that!
What else should Portland pro-housing, pro-tenant community know about you & your candidacy?
Through Relo and FAIR I've delivered the strongest tenant protections to Portland renters that we've seen in our lifetime. As second chair on the Joint Office/A Home for Everyone executive committee, I've been a strong voice for tenant protections. Tenant protections are what I'm best known for, but that's not the only work I've done to alleviate our housing crisis. I supported the Portland and Metro Housing Bonds, and I'm supporting the HereTogether measure. I deprioritized enforcement on tiny homes and RVs in private driveways and support overturning the ban on tiny homes in the city. My office worked closely with the Kenton neighborhood and community advocates to site the Kenton Women's Village, an alternative shelter site which is home to 20 women transitioning out of homelessness. I strongly believe in the right to shelter and that we have a moral obligation to house and shelter people. To that end, I support using public property for alternative shelter sites--tents, tiny house villages, safe parking.
Finally, I worked diligently to improve BDS while it was in my portfolio, including modernizing the permitting software which allows for online permit applications and plans submissions for the first time ever, as well as streamlining processes to making permitting and inspections run more smoothly, and created a small business concierge serve to help small developers and organizations navigate the permitting process.
Eudaly received an A overall from our scoring committee. See all scores and read about our process here.