Portland’s Residential Infill Project

          Portland’s Residential Infill Project is currently on hold because of COVID-19. The city was two public hearings away from passing the zoning changes when city government came practically to a halt, and at press time, there was no way to know when life and city operations would return to normal.

Tracy said the project began in late-2015 or early-2016 to address three key issues: economic scale of new housing, general lack of rightsized housing — to match the number of people residing in the households — and narrow lot development.

He noted the city is expecting an increase in population of about 100,000 or 260,000 households by 2035 and the population of those over 65 is expected to double.

“There’s a mismatch between existing stock and the population we’re seeing,” he said.

Housing for seniors is part of the issue, and Tracy said the local and national AARP chapters have been advocates of the RIP. Tracy shared an example of an older couple who live in a duplex in a historic neighborhood, but both units have two stories. They told him, “We love our neighborhood but it’s getting hard.” With this proposed zoning change, Portland will be able to add an accessory dwelling unit on for their older residents’ living needs.

Portland wants to blend multifamily residential units with single-family residential units and blur the distinction between the pricing of each. The city has to take this action, with Tracy stating, “We are nearly built out — we can’t annex any further. There’s not much land for new development.”

Most new development in recent times has been two to three lot developments. Within those zones where the changes are proposed, he said there are approximately 2,800 vacant lots and most development is splitting the property to build a second home.

One of the new tools proposed in the RIP is floor area ratio, which could encourage other types of development.

Tracy explained, “FAR, or floor area ratio, establishes limits on building size based on the lot size. It measures all the floor area of the building on all floors, not just the footprint of the building (that’s controlled by building coverage limits). FAR serves two functions: 1.) Controls building mass to ensure that structures do not overwhelm the site and is proportionate to the lot size. Meaning as lots get larger, structures can get larger and conversely smaller lots means smaller buildings. 2.) Creates a market incentive for creating more units. How? Establishing a lower FAR for a single unit, but incrementally larger FAR for additional units.

“For example, a house is allowed .5 FAR. So on a 5,000-square-foot lot, this means 2,500 square feet of floor area. A duplex is allowed .6 FAR. So on that 5,000-square-foot lot, the duplex can be 3,000 square feet. (Or 1,500 square feet per each unit). Triplexes and fourplexes are allowed .7 FAR or 3,500 square feet in this example. That means the triplex units would be 1,166 square feet each, or the fourplex units would be 875 square feet each.”

There will still be basic standards like height restrictions, setbacks, street facing windows, etc. “But architectural style is not part of the requirements and historic districts are different; they have their own set of rules,” he said.

Oregon House Bill 2001

          House Bill 2001 makes some of these zoning changes statewide, requiring cities and towns with more than 10,000 in population to allow at least duplexes to be built on single-family lots. The state’s bill passed first in late-2019 while Portland’s has taken about four years.

“We wanted to give people time to wrap their minds around it,” he said.

However, with smaller municipalities, it might be different. Tracy said, “Without the state pressing their finger on the scale, it would be harder for them to get something like this passed.”

Displacement risks

          Tracy was asked by the planning commission to study how the zoning changes could impact low-income renters in single-family homes.

He said there were three types of displacements: direct displacement where the government comes in and takes the property for right of way; indirect where demolition has happened and redevelopment is high; and induced displacement where, for example, a light rail is put in and it reduces property values.

Portland concentrated on the indirect and looked at where redevelopment was most likely to occur and how much redevelopment was anticipated.

Tracy said if the city was projecting a need for 16,000 to 20,000 more housing units, that could be reduced to 4,000 with the Residential Infill Project and the construction of fourplexes. So the possibility is to create two to three units where there are now one or one and a half.

He admitted if you’re the one being displaced, it’s hard to see the benefits to the city, and it’s usually the low-income renter who has the hardest time finding new affordable housing.

“We always had this difficulty discussing how this benefits the city as a whole when the impact is seen directly on your street,” Tracy said. 

Tracy considers this project a combination of upzoning and downzoning at the same time as the city is increasing the unit density but the building density is reduced.

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