Our April column, “New law touted as triumph for affordable housing but is it?,” elicited an opinion piece from our friends Edward Trompke and Ezra Hammer. In “Oregon housing law deserves applause rather than contempt,” they make several points that deserve further response.
First, we both agree that Oregon housing has not kept pace with demand and meaningful steps are needed to fix the housing shortfall, particularly with respect to low-income and affordable housing. Where we disagree is on the governor’s program as it is set forth in SB 1537 being “meaningful” and will, as they suggest, result in “an unprecedented amount of housing.” Their weakest argument is that the authorization for limited urban growth boundary expansions where 30 percent of the resultant housing would be affordable will come to pass. Land costs are significant, but extending the utility infrastructure to serve these expansion areas will deter developers from selecting this approach to provide affordable housing. Without massive subsidies (which presumably will be the next legislative priority for the development community), affordable housing simply will not be feasible. What developer would provide or guarantee this infrastructure and then agree that not recovering rents from 30 percent of the residential units is good business?
Next, they claim that land use watchdogs and environmentalists cannot be trusted to participate in forums to spur housing production. They blame these groups for the lack of needed housing, as opposed to high interest rates and infrastructure costs, which have nothing to do with the state or local land use regime. But watchdogs and environmental advocates also see the need for denser and more affordable housing as a way of preserving resource lands from the likes of certain development lawyers who use these tropes as excuses to bust UGBs and pave everywhere. The track record of 1000 Friends of Oregon, which with others led the middle housing legislation, received national recognition. They and others were left out of the governor’s forum deliberately because they would not follow the script of total obeisance to build at any cost.
As our friends rightly point out, the governor (when she was House speaker in 2017) spearheaded expansion of the obligation to apply only clear and objective standards to all housing (not just affordable or needed housing). City planners responded by revamping regulatory schemes to implement infill and design concept plans for complete communities using a one-size-fits-all regime of nondiscretionary standards. Our point is that this is a blunt instrument and does not result in better communities that might otherwise be created using a scalpel.
Now, after adding middle housing and climate / equitable housing requirements, the governor, and her crack team of housing experts, demanded relief from the clear and objective standards that they once advocated, requiring in SB 1537 that local governments grant up to 10 adjustments to lot coverage, landscaping, setbacks, parking, window requirements and materials and other standards upon request, with no right for any challenge. This yo-yo effect is exhausting the morale of local planning departments. But the public also won’t be aware of the impacts of the new regime until a windowless, treeless box goes up next door, not to mention the unaccounted stormwater runoff directed onto an adjacent property by a roof located on the property line. It is not “elitist” to want future homeowners to have access to the same green spaces, durable materials, healthful access to light, and freedom from trespass that our friends presumably enjoy in their own homes.
The Oregon land use system they criticize (and not in a good way) succeeds because it is built on balancing policy objectives that consider local government and public buy-in. In passing Senate Bill 100, then-Governor McCall cobbled together a diverse coalition of farmers, environmentalists and developers that all valued weighing statewide goals as set principles administered by local governments under an umbrella of public participation as its central mission. The system was inclusive and received that local buy-in. There was no unilateral pre-emption of local authority when it is only the governor and the development industry in the discussions, with no moderating voices at the table.
Our friends then call us “elitist,” saying we prefer homelessness to their housing scheme. This statement is a non sequitur and serves only to avoid the fundamental crux SB 1537 was driven by an industry that makes such a great show of its sheltering the poor and the homeless (having never participated or achieved such a lofty goal) when the result will be nothing of the sort, especially when it has disabled all resistance to its business model in LUBA and the courts.
This industry is not to be equated with Mother Theresa its aim is to sell market-rate, single-family houses, preferably on large lots. Conflating these aspirations to suggest that the result will be any measurable amount of affordable housing subsidized by development is nothing more than wishful thinking at best and prevaricating cynicism at worst. Governor Kotek’s actions are not to be celebrated, and neither the development industry nor its handmaidens are to be congratulated. Let’s just remember when these celebrants come back to the table again seeking further financial or regulatory advantages that they were the ones who promised that SB 1537 was the scheme that would bring “an unprecedented amount of housing.” We should hold them to that promise.
-- Edward Sullivan and Carrie Richter
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