EDITION
HOUSING SPECIAL
April 27, 2016
The Magnolia apartment building on Northeast Martin Luther King Boulevard brought 50 new, afford-
able apartment homes to the Eliot Neighborhood.
Dramatic Steps Urged on
Housing Affordability
Report calls
for immediate,
bold action
Portland will not solve its
housing affordability crisis with
half-measures and business as
usual, a new City Club of Portland
report has concluded. The report
issued this month calls on city and
state to take bold and immediate
steps, on a variety of fronts.
“The city has a housing emer-
gency, and timid measures won’t
solve it,” said City Club Executive
Director Mike Marshall. “Our re-
search committee found that bold
reforms to how the city manages
land and regulates landlord-tenant
relations are required. This issue
goes right to the heart of livability
and equity issues for all Portland-
ers.”
Recommendations laid out in
the report call for a city ban on no-
cause evictions and creation of a
just-cause eviction policy, while
asking the Oregon Legislature to
end a ban on local rent regulation.
In addition, the report says the
city should remove barriers and
identify incentives that encour-
age development of more housing
types, working with neighbor-
hoods to dispel concerns about
“missing middle housing,” the
housing options like duplexes and
triplexes that aren’t allowed in
Portland’s more exclusively zoned
single-family neighborhoods.
The City of Portland, Portland
Development Commission and
Metro should fund a land bank
for affordable housing that strate-
gically purchases properties and
the Portland City Council should
create and fund dedicated revenue
streams to build new subsidized
affordable housing units, the re-
port says.
The city should also imple-
ment a landlord licensing system
that would allow for housing data
collection, increased home inspec-
tions and education. A minority
report further recommended that
the city update zoning to allow
middle housing development im-
mediately.
“Portland does not have accept-
able housing affordability for a
city of its size, demographics, sen-
sibilities and priorities. Our laws,
policies and accepted practices
regarding zoning, lending, and
the rights of renters and owners
of single-family homes no longer
serve the population well,” the re-
port states.
A City Club member-volunteer
research committee began study-
ing the issue of housing afford-
ability in July. Over eight months,
it interviewed 20 experts and
stakeholders, and reviewed doz-
ens of documents.
The full report is available on-
line at pdxcityclub/housingafford-
ability.
Page 5