Background & Overview
Under Commissioner Carmen Rubio, the Community and Economic Development bureaus including Housing, Planning and Sustainability, Development Services, and Prosper Portland have undertaken a comprehensive series of housing production analyses over the last year. The results of this work were presented in a Council work session in July 2023, and have led to a set of recommendations to spur housing development in Portland. Commissioner Rubio's office presented this process and the IH Calibration Study's findings in depth in a blog post last summer.
Since the conclusion of the IH calibration study in July, PHB staff have been developing a suite of proposed code changes to implement many of the key recommendations identified by the consultant team, BAE Urban Economics, and the IH work group. The bureau will be presenting these proposed code changes to City Council and holding a public hearing on January 10, 2024.
Inclusionary Housing Program Proposed Code Changes
The proposed changes to the Inclusionary Housing Program include:
Expanding the property tax exemption to all residential units within eligible neighborhood areas (see map below) if the project is providing units affordable to households earning 60% of the median family income or less. Selected neighborhood areas include higher-rent submarkets outside the Central City, in order to effectively offset the impact of the affordability requirements under IH in those neighborhoods.
Revising the goals for the tax exemption and the Inclusionary Housing programs.
Removing outdated sections of code.
Updating definitions and adding new definitions for clarity.
Making technical corrections and fixing scriveners errors.
The final recommendations for code changes for the Inclusionary Housing Calibration Study will be brought to City Council for a presentation and public hearing on January 10, 2024, with a potential vote on January 31, 2024. The proposed changes are anticipated to go into effect as of March 1, 2024. At the direction of Commissioner Rubio, projects currently in the pipeline as well as those already under construction will be able to take advantage of these changes.
The proposed code changes will be brought in coordination with the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability’s Housing Regulatory Relief proposals which aim to increase housing production by providing regulatory relief for developers and builders by creating both temporary waivers and permanent changes to zoning regulations. Draft code amendments were released in September 2023, and have since been undergoing review by the City Planning Commission, with frequent public meetings open to community testimony. The Inclusionary Housing and Housing Regulatory Relief projects will provide a series of options aimed at improving development financial feasibility.
Housing Bureau staff are working on additional changes to the Inclusionary Housing and tax exemption administrative rules to clarify and simplify the program requirements, particularly for the program options to locate affordable units offsite and the ability to alternatively provide the minimum required affordable units in fewer, larger family-sized units. Those updates will be shared publicly in the coming weeks, and are also anticipated to be effective March 1, 2024.
