LET TERS
founded Eugene Parents Concerned About
Testing. Rosiek will speak up and work to
bring Eugene together to defend and im-
prove our public schools.
With either of Rosiek’s opponents,
we’ll get more of the same. This is no time
for school district business as usual. Vote
for Jerry Rosiek.
Stefan Ostrach
Eugene
Editor’s Note: Go to eugeneweekly.com for a full array
of the 4J school board election letters EW has received.
LCC NEEDS EARLY
CHILDHOOD PROGRAM
As early childhood educators for over
30 years, we were dismayed to hear that
the LCC Board of Education is considering
the elimination of its early childhood train-
ing program. How can our community af-
ford to lose this most valuable educational
asset?
The demand for early childhood care
and education programs continues to in-
crease, with numerous studies demonstrat-
ing the critical importance of educational
experiences during the early years. A key
component of quality early childhood pro-
grams is the quality of the teacher(s).
The National Association for the Edu-
cation of Young Children says: “We can in-
vest now in our children and families and
enjoy long-term savings, with a more vi-
brant nation of healthy, achieving children
and more stable families. Or, we can fail
to make the investment and pay the price:
increased delinquency, greater educational
failures, lowered productivity, less eco-
nomic competitiveness, and fewer adults
prepared to be effective, loving parents to
the next generation of children.”
Our future preschool educators need to
have access to an affordable, two-year ear-
ly childhood education. All young children
deserve excellent early childhood care and
education. We urge the LCC board to retain
their early childhood education program.
Our community cannot afford the absence
of this most foundational training program.
Please leave your comments to the
Board in support of the early childhood
training program online at lanecc.edu/
board.
Christopher & Deb Michaels
Eugene
VIEWPOINT
BY K A A RIN K NUDSON A ND JOSHUA SKOV
Fight the housing crisis,
fill the missing middle
SMALLER, MORE AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN WALKABLE NEIGHBORHOODS IS PART
OF THE SOLUTION
O
n a rainy night in January, the National Associa-
tion of Realtors published an article that should
have alarmed every hopeful homeowner, empty-
nester, and business entrepreneur in Eugene.
Seattle — where the median home value
recently tipped past $620,000 — was named the most-con-
strained, least accessible housing market in the country.
But who was second?
Eugene.
On April 11, renowned architect and urbanist Daniel Pa-
rolek spoke at two local events about “missing middle hous-
ing,” a term he coined. “The key to missing middle housing is
that it never gets much larger than a house,” Parolek explained.
“Missing middle is about smaller, well-designed units in walk-
able neighborhoods.”
This remarkable range of housing designs — including
duplexes, fourplexes, courtyard apartments, bungalow courts,
row houses and live/work units — fills in the gap between typi-
cal single-family homes and mid-rise buildings.
But in many communities, including ours, these once-com-
mon missing middle housing types are now rare for a simple
reason: we’ve stopped building them.
One culprit is outdated zoning. A century ago, it made sense
to separate people’s homes from the noise and pollution of
industrial-era workplaces. But today, these same regulations
push daily needs farther apart and restrict both the supply and
variety of housing available. Most of Eugene’s residential land
is zoned for single-family housing alone, and our current land
use plans call for more than half of new homes in the next 20
years to be single-family residential alone. And yet, by 2025,
the majority of households will be without children. By 2030,
35 percent of all households will be a single person.
Another obstacle is that we’re often talking about the wrong
things. We need to stop talking about “density” and start talking
about neighborhoods and more inclusive communities. More-
over, one-size-fits-all Systems Development Charges (SDCs)
encourage building larger — more expensive — houses. Many
communities focused on affordability are rewarding develop-
ers for building more units within the same buildable envelope.
Because missing middle units are smaller, they can be more
affordable by design, which might mean young people with
entry-level jobs can get into the local housing market, or that
your own parents can stay. They’re also designed to blend into
the surrounding neighborhood and can provide a graceful tran-
sition from single-family homes to the commercial buildings
and businesses along our busier corridors.
While Eugene’s housing affordability crisis has gained na-
tional attention, the entire country is grappling with this genera-
tional shift in the housing market. Baby Boomers are seeking to
downsize while Millennials are trying to break into the market
— and they’re both looking for smaller, more affordable hous-
ing within walking distance of shopping and public transporta-
tion, according to the Urban Land Institute and AARP. Or, as
Parolek summed it up: “What the Millennials want, the Boom-
ers need.”
Meanwhile, suburban single-family homes make up 90 per-
cent of the current U.S. housing stock. Combine this market
mismatch with the still-significant influence of the Great Re-
cession’s housing market crash, and it adds up to a 35-million-
unit shortage in the walkable housing desired nationwide. Here
locally, we have our share of that shortage.
But we can do something about it — specifically, our build-
ing culture has the skills needed to do something about it. Over
the past 10 years, Portland has taken concrete steps to eliminate
barriers to missing middle types like backyard cottages, and
the market has responded. With every step to build capacity
and remove financial disincentives, Portland’s local industry of
builders, architects and homeowner-developers focused on this
smaller scale has grown in capacity and diversity.
According to AccessoryDwellings.org, Portland issued 615
permits for accessory dwelling units in 2016 — 20 times the
average number of permits issued each year before Portland be-
gan waiving the SDCs for these units in 2010. They’re building
almost as many small cottages as they are typical single-family
homes.
Make no mistake: Eugene still needs single-family housing,
market-rate apartments, mixed-use projects, and larger afford-
able housing projects — missing middle housing is not a silver
bullet. But it can help provide some of the quality, variety, af-
fordability, and accessibility our community has long lacked.
Kaarin Knudson is a local design professional and member of the AIA-SWO Design
Excellence Committee. Joshua Skov is board president of Better Eugene-Springfield
Transportation and ran for Eugene City Council in 2016. More than a dozen organi-
zations sponsored and over 300 people participated in the recent community events
focused on “missing middle housing.”
eugeneweekly.com • A pril 27, 2017
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