We (mostly) won! The text below is from our successful 2020 campaign to improve the residential infill project with a deeper affordability amendment and a commitment to citywide anti-displacement strategies.

The Residential Infill Project is good: Legalizing fourplexes on any lot will greatly help create a greater diversity of housing choices, and bring down the price of new homes compared to our current zoning. 

But, as many Portlanders have pointed out during its years of development, the project can still get better. Below is a summary of the policy changes that Portland: Neighbors Welcome will be asking City Council to make, in order to better meet more Portland’s housing needs.

TELL COUNCIL YOU SUPPORT THE RESIDENTIAL INFILL PROJECT — AND THESE CHANGES:

To deliver more below-market homes: Create a Deeper Affordability Bonus that will make affordable projects competitive with market rate developers: 

  • Allow up to six units and total floor area ratio of 1.45 if half or more of homes are regulated affordable (rental or for sale) to households making no more than 80% of median income.

  • Allow up to eight units and total floor area ratio of 1.50 if 100% of homes are regulated affordable (rental or for sale) to households making no more than 60% of median income.  Allow waivers of construction excise tax, system development charges, and abatement of property taxes for affordable projects. 

To achieve greater strides in citywide anti-displacement: 

  • Allow current tenants to have a right of first refusal when properties change hands.

  • Find sustainable options for new revenue to support affordable housing in low-density zones, such as earmarking construction excise tax collected in those zones to also be spent in those zones, or allowing a limited amount of additional building size to be purchased if revenue is used to support affordable housing.

  • Support low-wealth homeowners by connecting ordinary people with information on financing additions to their property that create low-wealth housing.

  • Commit to supporting experimental programs that could make public housing funds go further by financing below-market cottages in low-income homeowners' backyards. 

You can also touch on the ways the Residential Infill Project already succeeds, including:

  • Finally, a formal recognition of our city’s racist land use history, and action to reverse exclusionary zoning. 

  • Outlawing one-for-one teardown-McMansion replacements, and bringing market affordability potential down to 80 percent of median income for fourplexes (as opposed to the McMansions currently being produced under today’s zoning, which are affordable only to people making 200 percent of median income!)

  • The long-term benefits of improved transit access & frequency, especially for East Portland.

  • Legalizing housing choices that allow for flexibility through all stages of life; and mandating more homes that are visitable for older adults and those living with disabilities.

  • Incentives to adapt and reuse existing housing stock, including internal conversions into multiple homes, allowing two ADUs, and flexibility for additions instead of tear-downs. 

  • Provisions for protecting and enhancing the urban tree canopy (especially with parking minimums removed to make more room for homes and trees!)

  • More efficient land use, which is absolutely necessary if we’re serious about cutting carbon. Every home built in transit-rich Portland is a home that’s not built on prime farmland outside the city. 

If you’re really interested, you can read our group’s official written testimony here.

The public record is currently closed after a 32-day comment period. We expect more public testimony on the proposal in the weeks to come, focused exclusively on proposed amendments. To be sure you know when you can weigh in on those, sign up to get our action alerts.

Generations of future Portlanders are counting on us! With a little help from you right now, we can greatly improve their lives.