8/12/2020: Portland’s Residential Infill Project passes after five years, adding much-needed “middle” housing and addressing displacement by prioritizing regulated-affordable homes.
Today, by a vote of 3-1, the Portland City Council approved the Residential Infill Project, allowing duplexes, triplexes, or four-plexes on virtually any residentially zoned lot citywide. The project not only brings the City of Portland into compliance with House Bill 2001, Oregon’s unprecedented statewide zoning reform law—it far surpasses the bill’s requirements. Now also included in the Residential Infill Project is a tailored anti-displacement strategy through a “Deeper Affordability” option, in which housing providers may build five or six units on a lot if at least half are affordable to low-income Portlanders.
After five years of revisions, public hearings, and community feedback, the Residential Infill Project has evolved into a proposal more proportional to the housing challenges that Portlanders face. As passed, it:
Re-legalizes smaller-scale “missing middle” housing types in all Portland neighborhoods, expanding access to often more exclusive, higher-opportunity areas.
Utilizes a scaled approach, letting the size of buildings increase with the number of homes.
Provides more places for Portlanders to live, and addresses our undersupply of housing—a significant factor contributing to our skyrocketing rents.
Bans new “McMansions,” and discourages one-for-one redevelopments.
Provides more opportunities to age in place, including allowing two accessory dwelling units per lot and greater flexibility to accommodate mobility devices.
Better addresses the climate crisis by providing more opportunities for housing in walkable, transit-connected neighborhoods and reducing future emissions by curbing sprawl.
Implements major parking reforms, and removes on-site parking requirements from more than 60 percent of the city's residential land.
[Direct quote that can be used by media:] “Portlanders can now celebrate that more housing options will be available to them throughout the city, and with provisions like the deeper affordability bonus, we are slowly chipping away at the housing affordability crisis we are experiencing.” - Robert Hemphill, P:NW member
The project also begins to reverse historic zoning patterns, which are vestiges of racist and exclusionary laws that explicitly prohibited Portlanders of color from living in and/or banned lower-cost attached homes from being built in much of the city. The city recently published a report on the history of racist planning practices in Portland, which described how single-family zoning, redlining, and other tactics prevented people of color from living in today’s single-family neighborhoods. Community groups pushed city staff to undertake substantial policy adaptations to ensure that new middle housing construction won’t exacerbate and indeed will begin to reverse displacement trends, while actively supporting increased income and racial diversity in every neighborhood in the city. We are proud of Portland for taking this critical first step to examine our history, to confront our mistakes, and to begin to change long-unfair rules that have created and worsened disparities for generations.
As passed today, the Residential Infill Project makes Portland the leader in zoning reforms among U.S. cities. In the last few years, Seattle passed landmark accessory dwelling unit reforms, Minneapolis legalized triplexes, and Austin introduced visionary upzones for affordability. However, with this Residential Infill Project vote, Portland takes the lead in progressive land-use reforms, (re)legalizing four-plexes by-right, while also providing effective development bonuses for deeper affordability.
[Direct quote that can be used by media:] “Portland has been successful in no small part because policymakers and advocates adopted a “yes, and” approach to housing solutions. Portlanders recognized that advancing tenant protections, reforming our zoning codes, and increasing support for regulated-affordable homes are absolutely complementary policy goals. - Trisha Patterson, P:NW Membership Committee Chair
As our community tackles an international pandemic, there was never a more urgent time to ensure that abundant housing is available to everyone. With viral transmission correlated with overcrowding and an increased number of people per bedroom, it is imperative that we pursue long-term solutions that will enable Portlanders to afford housing that meets their household’s needs. By legalizing more housing options, we will be better able to respond during this and future challenges to our public health.
As exciting as this victory is, more work needs to be done. Our city remains besieged by a housing crisis, exacerbated and amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. We are also all part of a national awakening to interrogate white supremacy embedded throughout our social fabric, and our housing, land use and transportation policies and investments are sadly often chief among them, as illustrated in city reports on gentrification and displacement.
In the weeks and months ahead, Portland will be making more key decisions that will impact housing availability and affordability for a generation to come, including a more comprehensive citywide anti-displacement plan, much-needed resources to fight homelessness, and additional zoning reforms to allow more mid-sized, mixed-income buildings near jobs and transit. Portland: Neighbors Welcome will be there, advocating for policies that can deliver affordable, stable housing for ALL Portlanders.
After all, zoning isn’t really about buildings. Zoning is about people. It’s about access to opportunity, racial justice, aging (and living!) in community, and environmental and climate equity. Zoning reforms, like other public policies, should reflect and further our values as a community. This is readily apparent in the depth and range of testimony given at Council on the Residential Infill Project. You can find testimony from many organizations in support of the Residential Infill Project here:
https://portlandneighborswelcome.org/reasons-to-support-infill
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For more information and for quotes please contact: David Sweet, P:NW Communications Committee. 503-493-9434; cullyguy@gmail.com.
Portland: Neighbors Welcome (P:NW) is a grassroots membership organization. We believe that every neighborhood in our city should be open and available to people with diverse backgrounds and incomes, and that every person who wants to sleep indoors at night should be able to. We support policies that can deliver an abundant supply of homes that are affordable to rent or buy at every income level and every household size, and ensure that all tenants can live without fear of eviction or displacement. We advocate for those land use, housing, and transportation policies that will make Portland a fairer and more sustainable city.
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It takes a city! Thank you to all of the people and all of the organizations who contributed to Portland’s landmark and precedent-setting zoning reform:
We wish to thank Mayor Ted Wheeler, Commissioner Chloe Eudaly and Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty for their votes in support of the Residential Infill Project. Former Mayor Charlie Hales initiated the Residential Infill Project in 2015, and deserves our thanks as well. Over the years many dedicates staff worked to design and improve every aspect of the Residential Infill Project - including Morgan Tracy, Sandra Wood, Love Jonson, Sam Diaz, Andrés Escobedo, Derek Bradley, Shannon Buono, Julia Gisler, Todd Borkowitz, Eden Dabbs, Joe Zehnder, Andrea Durbin, Tyler Bump, and the many others who helped prepare the policy the passed today. We also wish to thank past and present Planning and Sustainability Commissioners including Daisy Quiñonez, Katherine Schultz, Katie Larsell, Steph Routh, Chris Smith, Oriana Magnera, Mike Houck, and Eli Spevak for their service and many improvements to the legislation.
Portland also owes a debt of gratitude to the numerous advocacy organizations who have given their feedback and efforts to strengthen the project over the past five years, whether as an ad-hoc group or as a nonprofit, by offering support, public testimony, and/or engagement with the proposed policy. These organizations provided crucial insight, feedback, and expertise, to ensure the Residential Infill Project would be designed to fully achieve the optimal housing affordability, racial justice-minded, and climate-smart outcomes benefiting all Portlanders. Thanks to: Anti-Displacement PDX, Home Forward, Proud Ground, Cully Housing Action Team, Habitat for Humanity, Hacienda CDC, Housing Land Advocates, Community Alliance of Tenants, Housing Oregon, Oregon Harbor of Hope, Portland for Everyone, and the Welcome Home Coalition; environmental groups including Verde, OPAL - Environmental Justice Oregon, Sunrise PDX, 350 PDX, Urban Greenspaces Institute, Audubon Society of Portland, 1000 Friends of Oregon, Sightline Institute, Depave and the Oregon Environmental Council; transportation advocacy groups including Oregon Walks, The Street Trust, BikeLoudPDX, Portlanders for Parking Reform, Community Cycling Center, and No More Freeways; neighborhood-based advocates including the Rosewood Initiative, the Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods, Inner Southeast Action and the Cully, Mt Scott/Arleta, University Park, Powellhurst-Gilbert, Woodlawn and, Sullivan’s Gulch Neighborhood Associations; government entities including Portland Public Schools, the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development and Metro; and other community groups including the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO), AARP Oregon, Portland African American Leadership Forum (PAALF), and Business for Better Portland.