About the Housing Bonus Alignment Project

Project purpose

Guided by the Housing Production Strategy, the Housing Bonus Alignment Project will restructure development incentives in Portland's mixed use and multi-dwelling zones to support the development of needed housing types such as accessible units, affordable units, and units with more bedrooms for large households or households with children. This project will propose changes to development bonuses to facilitate these broader public benefits.

The Housing Bonus Alignment Project focuses on making zoning amendments outside of the Central City. The Central City Code Amendments Project is exploring creative solutions to foster housing production and business activity in Portland's Central City.

What are zoning bonuses?

Zoning bonuses are additional development entitlements in exchange for providing certain needed housing types. Examples of zoning bonuses that may be explored as part of this project include:

• Increased floor area ratios (FARs) to allow for more building square footage
• Additional building height
• Additional building coverage to allow for a larger building footprint
• Reduced requirements for other minimum development standards, such as landscaping, setbacks, or outdoor area.

What types of housing units are being explored?

The project is focused on adding or enhancing bonuses to increase the supply of specific types of dwelling units identified in the Housing Needs Analysis, such as:

• Multiple bedroom units for larger households and households with children
• Units with greater accessibility for older adults and people with disabilities
• Units with deeper levels of affordability for low and very low-income households

Project background

Portland's zoning code includes a system of height and floor area ratio (FAR) bonuses that encourage the development of housing. However, as a result of incremental changes over time, these bonuses vary between multi-dwelling and mixed-use base zones, plan districts, and overlay zones.

This project is being undertaken in support of increasing Portlanders' access to opportunity, which is a key initiative in the Housing Production Strategy. This initiative works to help ensure equitable access to housing and aims to increase the number of Portlanders of all income levels living in safe, healthy housing that provides convenient access to jobs, goods and services that meet daily needs.

What is the Housing Production Strategy?

Adopted in 2024, the Housing Production Strategy (HPS) is an action-oriented plan that the City uses to direct and implement policies and programs to help Portland meet its need for quality, affordable homes, and ensure equitable housing access in a time of increased urgency for diverse housing needs.

The Housing Production Strategy builds off the Housing Needs Analysis, which was developed to understand current and future housing needs in Portland. The HPS identifies specific actions (policies, programs, development regulations, financial incentives, etc.) that the City will implement over the next six years to meet those identified needs. The State requires that the City complete a new Housing Needs Analysis and Housing Production Strategy every six years.

Project steps and timeline

Spring – Summer 2025: Audit code concepts, interview developers and convene conversations with community groups to guide considerations for targeted housing needs

Winter – Spring 2026:

• Release a discussion draft of the proposal and share draft amendments with interested parties to get feedback on the preferred approaches
• Release proposed draft based with public feedback, continue to refine and make modifications, bring proposed draft to Planning Commission, invite public to testify
• Release recommended draft, bring recommended draft to City Council, invite public to testify, keep public and interested parties informed

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