Willamette Week
Ironically, it came at the hands of fellow Democrats.
By Nigel Jaquiss July 05, 2023
Excerpts
As the final hours of Oregon’s 2023 legislative session careened to a conclusion… The votes trickled in slowly, June 25. But the bill, which Kotek considered a key tool to increase housing supply, failed by a single vote.
Kotek, who won election last year with record contributions from environmental groups, nonetheless teamed up with the Oregon Home Builders and Oregon Property Owners associations—and Senate Republicans, whose 43-day walkout had hamstrung the session. And ironically, the biggest loss in her governorship so far came at the hands of fellow Democrats.
House Bill 3414 was part of Kotek’s effort to crank up housing production to 36,000 units a year—about twice the current rate. (Oregon is currently 140,000 housing units short of what the population requires—a key contributor to the unsheltered homelessness spiraling across the state.) Earlier in the session, the governor got lawmakers to allocate $200 million in emergency housing funding and multiples of that for bonds for affordable housing. But HB 3414 proved trickier.
Then in mid-June, as part of the negotiations to get Republicans back to work, Kotek and legislative leaders agreed to make HB 3414 a priority.
When Republicans returned, a new amendment supported by Kotek offered a prize homebuilders and property rights advocates long sought: a one-time, fast-track expansion of urban growth boundaries around the state to add more developable land.
“We were on record repeatedly saying we need to address land supply,” says Dave Hunnicutt, a lawyer and lobbyist for the Property Owners Association who has worked on the issue for nearly 30 years. “For us, it’s not a policy issue, it’s a math problem.”
Kotek agreed: It wasn’t enough to slice through the permitting, zoning and other red tape. Lawmakers also needed to free up more land. (Environmentalists disagree: They say there is ample land for development; there’s just insufficient infrastructure to support it.)
That new amendment galvanized the Oregon Conservation Network, which includes 42 environmental groups, led by organizations such as the Oregon League of Conservation Voters and 1000 Friends of Oregon. The OCN labeled the bill a “major threat.”
“The topic is not going away,” Kotek says. “Housing is a crisis.”
______________________________________
Comments:
From OPB, September 25, 2023:
Advocates on both sides of the issue, meanwhile, were watching intently.
Mary Kyle McCurdy, deputy director of 1,000 Friends of Oregon, said her group had backed HB 3414 early in the session. But 1,000 Friends could not support the changes that weakened state land-use laws. McCurdy said the bill does not have adequate requirements for housing density or affordability within any expansions, and she argued it was not necessary in the first place.
“There are thousands and thousands of acres inside UGBs,” she said. “Cities have testified to this.”
The problem, McCurdy argued, is that cities don’t have enough money to build infrastructure for new housing on available land.
____________________
Yes, housing production is in a crisis; Gov. Kotek is to be commended for forcefully advancing this issue. But 1000 Friends is also correct; the UGB doesn’t need to be expanded to accommodate more housing units. According to the City of Portland 2045 Housing Needs Analysis proposed draft, August 2023, Bureau of Planning & Sustainability, Portland has more than enough zoned development capacity to accommodate the projected household growth. Under current zoning the city has the capacity to build 236,977 housing units – about twice the forecasted need by 2045. The challenge is developing housing for different types of households and their needs, including housing affordability and access to complete neighborhoods with safe and convenient access to the goods and services.
Ironically, Dave Hunnicutt of the Property Owners Association identified the crucial matter – indirectly. We do need to address land supply. The problem, however, is that the developable land is already there, but much of it is locked up in landholdings.
The key is to free up the existing supply of usable land to make it available for development. This can be accomplished with financial incentives. Using the property tax system, make it expensive to hold onto vacant and underutilized sites, and reward building investment with lower taxes. A split rate land value tax will achieve this. It’s time to reform Oregon’s property tax system: Repeal Measures 5 and 50, and replace it with LVT based on real market assessments.
Tom Gihring, Research Director
Common Ground – OR/WA
