With West Linn home prices well above regional average, the city government is developing strategies to produce more affordable housing.
This undertaking is part of the city’s effort to comply with rules enacted by the state Legislature in 2019 for communities to assess current and future housing needs and develop a plan for meeting those needs.
At a joint meeting with the planning commission June 17, the West Linn City Council discussed housing and possible ways the city could spur development to meet the community's needs. The meeting marked the first of several council discussions on the city’s path to adopting a housing production strategy.
Planning Manager Darren Wyss told the council that the planning department, along with consultants from MIG, are building off of findings from the Housing Capacity Analysis, which the city completed last year. To do so, consultants have met with stakeholders like homebuilders, developers, architects, affordable housing providers and people from underrepresented populations.
According to Matt Hastie, one of the consultants from MIG, stakeholders shared that West Linn has been flexible regarding its goal of promoting different types of housing but there are barriers making development of any housing, particularly middle and multifamily housing, more challenging. Those challenges include the lack of buildable land, the city’s hilly topography and high land prices.
Hastie shared the team’s finding that West Linn’s average home price of $868,000 for homes sold between the spring of 2023 and 2024 is above the average for the rest of the Portland metro area, which is closer to $500,000. In turn, homes in West Linn are generally out of reach for people from middle or lower income brackets.
Hastie and his colleague mentioned various tactics the city could utilize to spur development of housing attainable to a wider range of people. These included a wide range of policies and ideas, from land acquisition and urban growth boundary expansion to tax abatements, code changes and reduced systems development charges. Public-private partnerships and tax increment financing were also cited as possible tools.
With the housing production strategy expected to be completed by May or June of next year, Hastie said the planning department, consultant team and city’s housing production strategy working group will determine which strategies will work best in West Linn. Hastie also mentioned that there is a potential for these strategies to align with the city’s work on Vision43 and the waterfront project , which could significantly alter two areas of the city in the coming decades.
Planning commission member Gary Walvatne noted that some of the state rules meant to spur more affordable housing options like middle housing have actually led to more high-end middle housing developments in West Linn that are still unattainable to many people. He said West Linn should employ a nuanced approach to ensuring new housing developments are truly affordable.
Mayor Rory Bialostosky noted that the city does not have an affordable housing project in the works, as several neighboring communities do, but West Linn residents pay into Metro’s affordable housing bond. He said Metro is considering another affordable housing package and that West Linn should take advantage of the funds as long as they’re available.
“West Linn has drug its feet when it comes to opening up to different housing types,” Council President Mary Baumgardner said. “People like the way it looks with mostly single-family residential homes and don’t want it to change.”
Baumgardner said it’s time for the community to “be brave” and discuss diversifying the city’s housing types.
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