On a leafy street in Northeast Portland, a row of slender townhomes has emerged from a long-empty corner lot across from the University of Oregon-Portland campus. On the surface, these are modern, light-filled two- and three-bedroom residences tucked into a well-established family neighborhood. But beneath the surface, they are so much more.
Three of the six townhomes are an experiment being conducted by Proud Ground Community Land Trust and the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund (PCEF), to unlock the benefits of efficient, climate-resilient, and affordable housing in a city that urgently needs it.
“Simply finding land on which to build affordable housing is difficult, especially in North and Northeast Portland,” said Dominique Merriweather, Executive Director of Proud Ground, the largest community land trust in the Pacific Northwest. “Adding the extra costs of sustainable, climate-resilient building materials can push such projects out of reach.”
The PCEF-funded homes are “net zero,” meaning they generate as much energy as the occupants use. That’s possible thanks to solar panels, extra insulation, high-performance windows, ENERGY STAR® appliances, and highly efficient heating and cooling systems.
The PCEF funding is “creating permanently affordable homeownership opportunities for folks in our community who otherwise couldn’t get into homes like these,” said Sam Baraso, PCEF program manager. “The set of technologies that leads to net zero homes with super low cooling and heating bills are here for everyone.”
Tight construction and heat pump systems will keep residents cool in summer, warm in winter, and protect them from wildfire smoke. The developer, Orange Splot, has finished the homes with healthy and durable materials that will not need replacement for years.
Permanently affordable
The new homes will be sold to Proud Ground’s pool of applicants, who are low- or moderate-income, mortgage-qualified, first-time homebuyers. More than 75% of the families in the pool identify as households of color. In the Concordia neighborhood, homes like these would typically sell for more than $400,000, according to Orange Splot. But thanks to the community land trust model, PCEF and other programs, applicants from Proud Ground’s pool will pay less than $300,000.
The buyers will own the homes, and Proud Ground will record an affordability covenant on each of them to ensure they remain affordable each time they are sold in the future.
Together, Proud Ground and PCEF hope to build generational wealth for low- and moderate-income families through homeownership while creating sustainable, resilient housing in the face of climate change.
Championing affordable housing
The townhomes are the brainchild of Orange Splot developer and general contractor Eli Spevak, a former board member at Proud Ground. Spevak moved to Portland in 1994 as a volunteer construction supervisor with Portland Habitat for Humanity.
Working with area nonprofits, he often encountered parents and children whose lives – from employment to education to community and family support – would have been easier with stable housing.
“I loved handing sets of keys to people who had never before had a chance to own a home,” he said.
At the time, Portland was less expensive, and many policymakers did not see housing affordability as a top-tier problem, Spevak said. But as Portland’s reputation soared, it attracted newcomers from across the country. The surging demand collided with other factors that drove up prices and constrained supply in Portland and throughout Oregon and the West.
The home listing service Zillow released an analysis in February 2024 showing that Portlanders needed to earn $161,624 to comfortably afford a mortgage for a typical home here. That is about $65,664 more than they needed in 2020. Zillow’s report found Portland had become the 12th most expensive metro area in the country and that it would take the average household about 11 years to save enough just for a down payment.
The report was not a shock. Each year, the Portland Housing Bureau examines affordability with a magnifying glass, viewing rental and homeownership data through lenses of neighborhood, income and demographics. In the most recent housing bureau study in 2023, map after map is bathed in purple. They show that rising prices have wiped out the possibility of city homeownership for many families – such as Black, Latinx, seniors and single-mother households with average incomes–in every Portland neighborhood.
Multiple benefits for the homeowner and community
This project is just one example of PCEF-funded solutions for sustainable, affordable housing in the face of climate change. Other PCEF grants have supported green rental housing, such as the 128-unit low-income Anna Mann apartments in Northeast Portland. Those apartments feature a large solar array, efficient heat and cooling systems, and electric car charging stations.
For Proud Ground, PCEF’s interest in supporting homeownership is also a spark of hope in a tough environment. Rental apartments are often seen as the fastest, easiest solution to providing housing. But we should not neglect the life-changing aspects of homeownership, which in turn supports the stability of the entire community, Merriweather said.
“In addition to seeding wealth, it develops healthy communities and families,” he said. “Down the line, you have a generation of folks who are better off. We need to talk not just about dollars-and-cents wealth, but about the community that is better off as well.”
These projects and others underway across Portland are building a future where efficient, climate-resilient and affordable housing is a reality, setting a benchmark for innovation and partnership. Every PCEF-supported home built pushes us toward a more sustainable and inclusive future.