Oregon is addressing housing crisis

SALEM: At its December meeting, the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) unanimously adopted the first set of rules Oregon will use to implement what it calls “comprehensive, system-wide housing planning reforms to address the state’s housing crisis.”

The adopted rules direct the approaches and methods local governments will use to reverse decades of underinvestment in housing production and meet community needs.

The new rules require local governments to use standardized methods to determine local housing needs and adopt accountability measures to track local progress toward housing targets. Technical assistance, funding, and other resources from the state will be available to help local governments meet their housing goals.

Other measures will reduce the legal vulnerability and encourage community engagement required of housing policies to address the needs of marginalized and underserved groups.

The second phase of rulemaking will seek clarity and certainly in how cities assess the capacity of land within an urban growth boundary to meet their community’s housing needs. The third phase will include the development of a suite of adoption-ready actions and other resources local governments can use to address housing needs. Officials said, “The three phases of rulemaking, concluding before January 2026, will result in Oregon’s most significant housing reform in decades.”

To address statewide needs, the Oregon Legislature charged the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) in House Bill 2001 (2023) with developing rules that chart a new direction to meet housing needs more fully and equitably.

“The level of effort and care that our commission, staff, and partners have taken with these rules is a testament to our collective desire to serve Oregonians,” said Brenda Ortigoza Bateman, DLCD Director. “These rules will help Oregon communities accurately identify and characterize housing needs. Meeting that need through housing production will require a multi-disciplinary effort involving infrastructure and development-ready land, local government staffing capacity, and access to capital.”

“It is truly rewarding to reach this important milestone, having witnessed the immense efforts devoted to this process over the last two years,” said Anyeley Hallova, LCDC Chair. “As a real estate developer, I’m keenly aware of the scope of investment and lending critical in supporting the housing solutions we desperately need in Oregon and how we need to address the current gap. As commission chair, I’m encouraged that our newly developed rules build a strong framework to serve our diverse communities better and increase equitable housing production across the state.”

Former Director of the Oregon Fair Housing Council and Vice-Chair for the commission, Allan Lazo, served as commission liaison to the rulemaking effort and has been deeply engaged in this work throughout the development of the rules. “We know that every part of the state is in a housing crisis, and these rules are in front of us today. This is part of the solution this commission plays,” Lazo said during the commission’s deliberations. “These rules address all three legs of the stool - production, affordability, and choice.”

He went on to note that, “There are going to be pieces of this we don’t agree with, that we won’t get right, that we will need to come back to; but every benchmark we reach as a commission moves us leaps and bounds above our last step.”

“Boosting housing supply demands that we activate bold, practical actions to support our local leaders in tackling one of the state’s biggest challenges,” said OHCS Director Andrea Bell. “As the Oregon Housing Needs Analysis details, Oregon can’t move toward a more equitable economy or address the full complexity of the homelessness crisis unless we substantially increase our supply of homes.”