The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2026-07-29
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (6,376 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are not yet identified (colors just separate consecutive turns). Auto-captions can contain errors — check the recording for anything that matters.
Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Portland City Council's July 29, 2026 morning session opened at 9:31 with public communications — topics included proposed heat-response policies, arena ownership, and several testifiers addressing a decorum controversy from a prior week's meeting, to which councilors responded from the dais. After the administrator's regular update on the city's response to federal interventions, the council took a roll-call vote on the Lloyd Center master-plan appeals — a motion to deny the appeals and uphold the Design Commission's approval with technical changes to a condition — concluding the multi-session land-use case. Second readings followed: the ordinance temporarily removing income requirements from system-development-charge exemptions for affordable home-ownership units, debated over income-targeting versus unit salability and the adequacy of down-payment assistance, and the electric-vehicle charging systems funding code. Both went to roll-call votes; all outcomes are recorded in the vote ledger. The council recessed to the afternoon's I-5 closure work session.
AI-drafted from the session's auto-captions, reviewed by an editor — describes the discussion only; recorded votes live in the vote ledger. Captions contain errors.
Procedural markers in this session
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0 Notice the district's all here.
1 Good morning, everybody. I'm calling to order this meeting of the Portland city council. It is 931 on Wednesday, July 29th. Keelan. Can we please call the roll?
2 Good morning. Koyama Lane. I'm on a rerouted bus, but I am here. Aye, Morillo Novick here. Clerk here. Green.
Procedural episode · turns 3–24
Parliamentary activity detected in this stretch (see the markers above). An editor-reviewed analysis has not been published for this episode yet.
3 Happy to be here.
4 Zimmerman. Lois Smith. Kanal here.
5 Pirtle-guiney here. Good morning.
6 Ryan. Here.
7 Dunphy here. And can we please read the rules of decorum for the chamber?
8 Good morning. Welcome to the Portland city council. To testify before council in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the council agenda at www.Portland.gov/council. Agenda information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's web page. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the presiding officer states. Otherwise, your microphone will be muted when your time is over, the presiding officer preserves order. Disruptive conduct such as shouting. Refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result from injection result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered when testifying, state your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifier should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name. Thank you.
9 Thank you very much. Well, first and foremost, I'd like to thank the hard workers at Multnomah county who are out there repairing the Hawthorne bridge and the morrison bridge this morning during rush hour. I hope it gets worked so that folks can get here on time tomorrow. Our first item on the agenda is agenda approval. Colleagues, is there any are there any requests to amend the agenda to reorder items or reschedule an item to a future meeting date? Nope. Do I have unanimous consent to approve the agenda? I do, the agenda is approved. Keelan can we please call public communications?
10 First up, we have john hollister.
11 I don't know, they're just all closed. It took me an extra half hour to get here, so thank god for. Welcome. Go ahead and introduce yourself. For the record.
12 My name is john hollister. I don't know if one of you guys can make a motion to. I talked to the guards ahead of time, and I have a native American friend that would be more than happy to come in, like 730 in the morning and smudge this room, because the energy here I'm just feeling is palpable. And so just a suggestion. What, what I'd like to do is go back in time and to, to talk about an event that happened on Friday, October 10th, 2008 during a john mccain presidential campaign town hall in lakeville, minnesota. An older woman at the mic said, I can't trust obama. I have read about him and he's an arab. John mccain immediately interrupted and took the microphone back. He replied, no ma'am, no ma'am. He's a decent family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. And that's not what this campaign about. The phrase we don't do that is often used online to describe mccain's reaction, but it's not the exact words he used in that famous exchange. The actual words were no, ma'am, followed by his defense of obama's character. Over the years, many people have paraphrased the moment, as mccain essentially says, we don't do that here because he refused to tolerate personal attacks, false smears against his opponent. There was also another memorable campaign event in which in which mccain told the crowd, I admire senator obama and his accomplishment accomplishments. I want everyone to be respectful because that's the way politics should be considered in America. He said that after members of the audience booed obama's name that October 10th, 2008 exchange is widely remembered as one of the defining moments of the 2008 presidential campaign. Because mccain publicly corrected one of his own supporters, rather than allowing a false or derogatory claim about obama to stand god, wouldn't that be just wouldn't that be awesome if we could do that? Not who's my daddy? Not not the, not to yourself in the heart. The, it's come on, people, it's let's let's get some work done. Oh, by the way, I've talked to some inside people about, the moda center. Don't worry about what you do. They're already gone. There are groups. There are owner groups in nashville and, kansas city. They're bidding and just can't wait for you guys to mess it up. But great job on getting the lawyer from from seattle that lost it for, for seattle. So great job guys. Keep it up and, have a great day.
13 Next up we have jack dickinson.
14 Welcome. Introduce yourself for the record, three minutes.
15 My name for the record is jack dickinson. Councilor Smith. Last week, at one point, you interrupted one of your colleagues to imply that she was threatening the mayor. If we're talking about threats, I think it's worth remembering that last year, you threatened to shoot multiple people who crossed over this desk. I, I constantly see you interrupting people with points of order that are not, in fact, points.
16 Of order. Gentleman has the.
17 Point of order.
18 There's no point of order. During a public communication. He's allowed to address individuals. Okay.
19 Interesting that you played into my exact next prepared response. It. You constantly bring people up city staff up here not to ask them questions in good faith, but in an attempt to extort a very specific wording out of them that you then use as apparent justification for a vote you have already made. When I hear you say you don't like giving up your power easily, and I square that with how I see you behave yourself. The conclusion that I'm left with is that you don't care about preserving councilwoman Smith's ability to represent district one. You care about preserving Loretta smith's ability to do what she wants. I think people who know me would describe me as a patient person. But over the past year and a half, I am frankly at my wit's end. And my frustration is not just with you, it is predominantly with you, but like councilor Morillo, I really don't know what you were going for last week. I think I would like to have a serious conversation about whether or not councilor Smith is abdicating her role as a city councilor to serve as a spokesperson for keith wilson, but that conversation has just become nigh impossible to have in good faith because you've poisoned the narrative well with the daddy comment. There are just too many distractions coming out of this body. There are times when I am listening to these meetings online, and I have to take off my headphones or pause for a minute, because I don't have the bandwidth to deal with a fourth grade classroom. Ultimately, if we're talking about this kind of stuff within the context of decorum, councilor Avalos was absolutely right last week. This is the responsibility of the council president to deal with. And if you're not prepared to handle that responsibility, don't jump in at the 13th vote. I, I don't think there is a world in which either Elana pirtle-guiney or Sameer Kanal would have allowed it to get to this point. And I
20 I think if there's going to be. If you're willing to, to levy the rules of decorum against the people who come here who only have three minutes a month to speak, I think we can do a better job of of doing that amongst yourselves. So thank you.
21 Thank you very much.
22 Next up we have diane sussman.
23 Welcome. Thank you. Introduce yourself for the record. And you have three minutes. Yeah.
24 My name is diane sussman and I live at 1005 southwest park avenue. I'm not a registered lobbyist for any organization, nor do I represent any group. Thank you. Other than the miserable, sweat soaked people battling our every summer heat, I wondered for years why Portland, which considers itself something of a Green giant, so profoundly lags california and Washington state in this regard. One millennial who grew up here said that Portland made a big push on environmental programs in the 90s. Then it just stopped, and we've been patting ourselves on the back ever since. So I have three modest proposals. First, require businesses to keep their doors closed when temperatures are 85 degrees or higher and they are running the a c new york city has such a law in san francisco, has such a law and doesn't even need it. It's galling to see places like anthropologie, cb2, and kuroko cool their stores to refrigerator temperatures and keep those doors open. We all depend on the grid. It's unconscionable to think that this kind of waste can exist side by side with people who have no ac, and whose very lives are at stake. We may not be able to provide ac fast enough to people who need it, but we can at least apportion it wisely. Back it up with a hotline number that people can call for repeat offenders. If businesses don't comply, let them serve as cooling centers. I'd love to sit on cb two fine couches in 98 degree weather. Make one downtown city owned garage ev only and free for the first year. Install chargers and stripe spaces for smaller cars. Recoup some of the revenue by ticketing scofflaws in year one. In year two and beyond. Charge an amount that covers for the energy use of charging stations, plus an additional parking fee. Require all new hotels and multifamily housing to install free ev chargers in their buildings and garages. Expand composting to multifamily housing, not just single family homes. Seriously, which type of housing generates more compostable materials? The type with a lot of people in one building, or those with a few people in one building. Make the program enticing by letting residents pick up free city made compost for their gardens several times a year. Palo alto does that. It's a virtuous payback system that makes people look upon such programs fondly. Hype the program further by leaving out bags of city compost, complete with cute city label at all community gardens. Thank you.
25 Thank you very much.
26 Next up we have annette johnson.
27 Hello. Three minutes right? Yeah. Make it quick.
28 Please introduce yourself for the record. And you have.
29 Three minutes. Johnson. I go by nettie. I'm a lot of things. I worked on the bridge and stuff. I'm a flagger. I'm disabled. Been disabled since oh eight. Was homeless, heroin addict, prison, all that. Right. I got 22 years clean, and I'm making my way in life as a productive member of society. And I, a lot of my family members tell me, don't tell people this one statement because it makes me look ignorant. But when I found out that blacks were slaves, I was in the reading jail and the girl black girl told the white guard, if you didn't like us here, don't bring. You shouldn't have brought us here, I said. She didn't bring me here. I came down I five and she said, well, they brought your ancestors. And then she. And then she realized, I didn't know. Fast forward, I'm in district four. There's homelessness all up on woodstock. There's vacant apartments on 73rd. And foster people need places to live. They don't have the access for somebody to come out there and show them how to give the application the way I did in order to get here. As a vendor at street roots, I meet all kind of people on woodstock and I, I stood for, keith wilson. I thought Portland needed a change. But the one thing I'm advocating for, and this is on another level is interpreters for black people. Like we need interpreter. Like sometimes we speak with our hands or we speak whatever, and it's misunderstood. But if you go back to the history of slavery, that relationship was always misunderstood. And when the lady here from district four, Angelita, spoke to this lady here, Loretta Smith, I believe, you know, that's not Loretta Smith, is it? Are you okay? It hurt me. You know, I have a black daughter. I have black people, college graduates. They want to be somebody, right? And it's mathematically impossible for a white man to birth a black woman. So either her understanding is not up to this standard here, because you guys are making a fool of yourself. You look foolish to the city. And if you drive down the street, aluminum foil covers the streets of Portland. Why isn't that important? There's about ten people dead in the morgue this week from fentanyl overdose. But this city want to talk about donald trump. I don't care who's the president, really. But that statement. I wish you would give her an apology. And I wish y'all get it together. Thank you.
30 Thank you very much for being here. Oh, don't forget your sunglasses.
31 Oh, those are expensive, too. Hell, I worked two days for these. Have a good day.
32 Two.
33 Next up, we have galena easterly. Galena. Easterly. Our alternate today is pastor robin weisner.
34 Pastor robin weisner. I, I find myself uncomfortable sitting here. The reason why is because I'm a black man in the city of Portland. And I want to state this because it was stated about somebody's daddy, the daddy of Portland. I will start here. And I usually don't do this. People who know me well, I've supported I think I've met everyone here on this council and supported everyone on this council. So me to stand here and give you a correction or try to speak to you as if I'm a moral authority or someone to tell you what's right or wrong. I think you already know that. But I do have to stand for what traumatized me, what sent me through a area when I heard about the daddy of Portland, my daddy, I turned this say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud. Who was the first man to set foot on the north pole? Matthew henderson, a black man who was the founder of a a blood plasma and director of the red cross, a blood bank doctor. Charles drew, a black man who invented the world's first stop light stop and gas masks. Garrett morgan, a black man who made the first clock to give time in America and wrote the first. And benjamin ben, you're a black man who was the founder of the city of chicago in 1772. Jean baptiste, a black man who was the woman who led countless slaves to freedom on the underground railroad. Harriet tubman, a black woman who served as the first lady of the united states from 209 to 217 and was an American attorney and author. Michelle obama, a black woman who was born in 1966 in grand rapids, michigan, and is an American politics and business woman who is a member of the Portland city council. District one Loretta Smith, a black woman. Before I leave, I would like to say these last words in a protest.
35 Some people say we got a lot of malice. Some say it's a lot of nothing. I say we won't quit moving until we get what we deserve.
36 I'm a black man in the city of Portland. Thank you for your time.
37 Very much. You as I take you eyes.
38 Second place communications.
39 Thank you. Councilor. Morillo.
40 Thank you, council president. Thank you to folks that have come and testified about this, and I just wanted to take a moment to say that I agree with the people that have come to testify that I agree. I think things got pretty heated last week, and I was doing it sort of in service of saving some of the employees that had come to our offices who were worried about the services that were going to be cut, and also the very real humans that we work with who are not going to be working with us any longer, who are not going to be serving portlanders. I also want to take a moment to clarify that I, I don't know if this makes it any better, but I will say I was not directing my comment to councilor Smith. I was making a comment generally about someone invoking a different patriarchal authority to come and settle disputes for the council rather than us working it out amongst ourselves. After I repeatedly came with extremely large compromises for the ordinance, it was in no way about councilor Smith. She was repeatedly interrupting me, so I ended up speaking to her directly through those interruptions. But I do want to take a moment to clarify that, because I think the meaning of what happened has been largely changed in narrative. And I did want to take a point of privilege to clarify that. I don't think that necessarily makes my actions better. I was talking about the vast majority of moderates on council who I think were using the mayor when I really wanted them to work with us and compromise with us and negotiate with us. But I understand how that would have been taken by certain members of the community and how that is interpreted, and I certainly never wanted to give that impression, neither to the community members nor to councilor Smith, because while we disagree at times, I do have immense respect for a lot of the work she does and how she fights for the community. And sometimes we do get frustrated with each other. But I know at the end of the day, she is trying to fight for district one and I have immense respect for that. So I just wanted to say my piece on that, and thank you to the folks who came and gave feedback. I am taking it to heart.
41 Thank you, councilor Morillo councilor Smith.
42 Council president. I'd like to take a point of, you know, personal, yeah, privilege. So this whole thing has kind of shook me up a bit. I was going to speak this morning, but you all know me. When people mislead you, I try to set the record straight. I disagree with councilor Morillo. I asked the question, who are you calling daddy? And she said, he's your daddy, not my daddy. That was what was said. So she did say that the mayor of this city was my daddy. And to come here this morning and try to re-explain what she said. It's been all on the news all over the united states. My mother called me about it yesterday. And so. Whatever you do when you make a mistake, you have to say what the mistake is. You can't change it. The words are out there. And you did say your daddy and looked at me. You didn't say moderates. You didn't say anything. I asked the question, who are you calling daddy? And you said he's your daddy, not my daddy. Go back and look at the tape so you can't come and explain. You just make it worse. And so when I'm in a situation like this, this whole explanation is giving me additional hostile environment because it's not the truth. I don't have any problem with accepting anybody's apology or, recollection of something because sometimes we get it, we get it wrong. But I do appreciate the people who came here today who really, were traumatized by it. And the statement was disrespectful to my dad who passed away of cancer, who his last few days he was, he was in a lot of pain. And to disrespect him and my mother and my family to. Flippantly for a quick laugh and social media content. It wasn't worth it. I didn't like it. It's toxic. And I feel like I'm on a. Instead of being on a very honorable city council, I feel like I am sitting on a reality tv show, a really bad reality tv show, and I am a black woman. I have a degree from Oregon state university. I'm a former business owner. I'm a mother, and I'm a grandmother, and I do not deserve to be disrespected and mistreated like this. So thank you for allowing me to say that.
43 Thank you colleagues. Our next item on our agenda is our regular update from city administrator lee. With regard to status of the ongoing response to federal interventions in the city. City administrator, any updates?
44 Yes. Council president, the litigation is continuing over the over the writs of review. Our city attorney's office is conferring with opposing counsel on a briefing schedule and hearing dates as well. We will update the city council once we have our next steps of the hearing dates, and those things will be set as a reminder, on June the 26th, ppd posted an administrative rule related to the facility for public comment. That public comment period has now closed. As of July the 26th, p, p and d received 21 comments during the public comment period. Staff have reviewed the comments and are preparing the final version. We expect to have that final version shortly. Council can expect more information from director couch coming soon in a council update. Thank you.
45 Thank you very much. City administrator lee councilor Kanal.
46 Thank you, council president. Thank you, administrator lee, I wanted to ask, in the context of conferring, prior to your starting as city administrator, our attorneys agreed to a, or sorry, not necessarily our attorneys. The city agreed to an extension. And I'm just wanting to make sure that we're not providing any additional time throughout this process as we confer with our opposing counsel.
47 I don't believe so, but I'll have that conversation with our city attorney and follow up with council on that.
48 Okay. Thank you.
49 Thank you. Councilor Kanal keelan, can we please call item number four?
50 Item four, document 2026-217. Consider appeals of the design commission's approval of a voluntary central city master plan review and adjustment review for the lloyd center central city master plan. Lu 25-091308ccmsad.
51 Thank you very much, colleagues. As a reminder, these appeals are pursuant to the design commission's decision to approve a central city master plan at the lloyd center site on July 8th. This body voted 10 to 1 to tentatively deny the appeals and uphold the design commission's decision with technical changes to condition of approval. C dot eight dot c. I would now entertain a motion to deny the appeals and uphold the design commission's decision with the technical changes to the condition. As previously stated. Anybody want to move that for me?
52 So moved.
53 Thank you.
54 Second.
55 Councilor Ryan moves. Counselor Clark seconds. Colleagues, is there any further council discussion? Yes. Can we clarify? We are voting affirmatively to deny the appeal and uphold the hearing officer's decision on the the master plan. Okay. And the and the new conditions. Okay, colleagues. So, keelan, can you please call the roll?
56 Yeah. Just just a second. Give me one minute. Okay.
57 Okay.
58 Councilor Koyama Lane had previously, what's the word? Yeah, she had removed herself from the.
59 Right.
60 Okay. So we are good.
61 Yep. Thank you.
62 Koyama Lane is absent. Aye, Morillo.
63 Aye, Morillo. I Novick.
64 I. I Green. I Zimmerman I. Absent Smith. I Kanal. I pirtle-guiney. I Ryan.
65 I I.
66 The motion carries with a vote of ten ayes and two absent.
67 Okay. The motion is passed, the appeals are denied, and the design commission's decision is upheld. Thank you all very much for being here. Can we please move to item number five?
68 Item five, document 2026-205. Amend to partial and full exemptions of system development charges for affordable housing developments. Code to temporarily remove income requirements for home ownership units. Amend code section 30.01 .095 colleagues.
69 The second reading of a non emergency ordinance. Is there any further council discussion? Councilor. Pirtle-guiney.
70 Thank you, council president. I try to not jump in on second readings, but there were a few things I wanted to reiterate here because I strongly support the goal of expanding affordable homeownership opportunities, and I strongly support the goal of making sure that homes that are on the market in our city are able to sell, and that we can continue to provide enough homes for people in our community. But if the programs that we create are going to mean anything, we have to be clear about how committed we are to targeting portlanders who are truly priced out of homeownership. And when we remove income limits, we risk turning a public investment into a broad market subsidy that could benefit anybody in our city who's looking to purchase a home. That's why I brought forward an amendment last week to provide a different approach. And while we heard that there were some operational complications with that amendment, I suspect that that wasn't why most people here voted no. This council has struggled with creating home ownership pathways. We saw that when we took up our work on housing funding earlier this year, and we are creating barriers for affordable home ownership in our community by not committing to these programs. I bring this up today. I reiterate it from last week, because there were some comments last week that down payment assistance maybe isn't worth it because it doesn't go very far. And I felt the need to address that. Before we vote. I meet portlanders regularly who pay rents that are higher than mortgages. They could afford the month to month, but while they pay those incredibly high rents, they can't save 5 or 10 or 20% for a down payment. They need help. They're. There's data from a 2023 harvard study, which finds that for many households, the key barrier, the primary barrier to homeownership is not monthly affordability. It's not repair costs. It is the upfront down payment cost. And while I know that there are more dollars needed on a one time basis for down payment assistance compared to, for example, rent assistance or other interventions, that same study shows that down payment assistance, $25,000 is often the sweet spot can be a deciding factor on whether or not a family can move into homeownership and build generational wealth for their family. This same harvard study found that it is most impactful for black and latino households who have been structurally, as well as financially locked out of our housing markets. We passed $3 million in rent assistance this year at $25,000 grants that would have helped or an equivalent amount to homeownership, because we don't want to lose that investment would have helped 120 Portland families on the path to homeownership. So I understand the reason this was brought forward. But colleagues, I asked for us last week to look at the funding available within the housing bureau and see whether some of it could be set aside for down payment assistance in the future to ensure that even as we make changes like the one before us today, we retain our commitment to those families, particularly black and latino families, who are priced out of homeownership without a little bit of help. So please don't think this is the end of this conversation. My team is working on some proposals that can help here. I will be asking us in the future to look for funds again, and I hope that this is something that we are committed to as a council, even as I expect today, this ordinance, to pass and undermine a little piece of that commitment. Thank you, council president.
71 Thank you, councilor Pirtle-guiney councilor Koyama Lane.
72 Thanks, colleagues. I'm going to vote no on this item. I want to be clear about why I and many others on this dais talk often about the importance of being able to both afford to live and work in Portland. This if this passes today, then homes that are supposed to be reserved for families that make less than 128,000, will be available to folks that make more than that. When I look at that number, I think about fellow teachers and nurses and the people who make your coffee. I think that that was put there for a reason. And that amount was decided for a reason. When we passed the temporary sdc waiver exemption last fall, it was intended to spur new housing production. And while I understand that this change to the affordable housing sdc exemption program would make it so, you know, you can align that with the sdc waiver requirements. So both both waiver programs are the same. I think it's really important to daylight daylight, the trade offs. By waiving those income requirements, it makes it harder for families that make an average median income to compete and purchase an affordable home in exchange for making it easier for our developers to sell. I asked multiple times for some more information about what has been tried to, as in between to get those homes sold, to, to think about some other possible solutions. I worry that passing this today is turning our backs on the original policy goals for that program. And I also want to acknowledge that our current system of offering tax incentives to spur housing production, you know, isn't necessarily working as it should. I'm hoping that we as a body and our staff can bring forward policies to innovate and tackle our housing challenges in a way that centers people and families, over just bottom lines and the needs of developers.
73 Thank you, councilor Koyama Lane councilor Kanal.
74 Thank you, council president. I appreciate both my colleagues, bringing up concerns. I wanted to start by asking, has there been what's the degree of analysis that's been done as to whether or not that sdc waiver has impacted anything?
75 I'm not 100% sure. Let me get some housing staff here to kind of answer that question.
76 Yeah.
77 I think maybe it doesn't necessarily have to be here. I think today, but I think it might be worth, and I know, working with chair Avalos of that committee, but just to try to get some understanding of that because I, I have also heard the same shared concern that councilor Koyama Lane brought up to. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney. First, I appreciate you addressing homeownership. I wanted to kind of ask, I was hoping that there would be another amendment today, but I'm happy to hear that you're continuing the work in a different legislative, sort of vehicle. And I'd like to work with you on that if that's possible. Because I think last week, last meeting, yeah, that was last week. We had a conversation that was, I think, too short on this item. And now we're in a second reading, so I understand how that's working, but I would like to, to continue that conversation because I think there were two ideas that were related to the topic. The other was in the other amendment that was proposed that could easily be their own legislative conversation. And I'd like to make sure that those don't get lost. Thanks.
78 Thank you very much. Councilor Kanal councilor Smith.
79 Thank you, council president, I just want to note, for the record, councilor. Elana. Pirtle-guiney. We do have the d pal program, which is the down payment assistance program at the Portland housing bureau. So it's not like we're not without any down payment assistance. And I think we even give up to $120,000 per, per person. And remember, we also in the tau, we put $2 million in. So we have to identify how much more money are you talking about putting in. And I don't think all of our money even got spent last year for the down payment assistance program. So I don't think there's a lack I don't think there is a lack of policies, within the city of Portland or lack of dollars. I think it's hard for people to get approved, credit approved, job approved. Those are, those are things that prevent people from getting pre-approvals to, to actually get getting a house that they can afford, because there are so much product out there at the lower level that people, they can't they don't have a job. They don't have two years on their job. They, they don't have the right credit score. All those things that I think are a bigger barrier than having the money because we have the money. If they, if, if they qualify.
80 Thank you, councilor Smith, councilor Green.
81 Thank you. I encourage I'm actually I welcome I welcome the standalone legislation that councilor Pirtle-guiney is hinting towards when we come that will come before this this body, I think we should have a conversation about, how we prioritize, you know, down payment assistance and other tools to make homeownership a possibility to councilor Smith's point, credit access is oftentimes the largest barrier. And I think if this body is serious about facilitating pathways to homeownership for the populations that we would like to serve, we need to think about stepping in as the underwriter of that credit, the way the va steps in to guarantee mortgages for veterans, the way that other, bodies step in to guarantee credit risk as well. That's something we can do and stretch our dollars in a big way. We haven't had that conversation yet. I'll note that I'm supporting the, the ordinance because I think it's really important in a stressed market to preserve the capabilities and the development capacity that you have. And we cannot afford to lose developers who have deep practice in providing affordable homeownership opportunities because the market is slack. And if we let that dry up, if we let those firms go into receivership or to sell off their portfolios, they will be replaced by other types of providers who do not have the commitment to low income homeownership opportunities. And so those are the stakes. And I think extending the sdc waiver provides something on average of 25 to $30,000 of headroom for those developers to then lower the price of those units to sell them. And so in some sense, it works the same way as down payment assistance, if that's really what the dollar is. I'll note that in the north northeast preference policy discussion, the average cost of each down payment assistance was something like $300,000 per household. So that's what that's what that over ten years, that's what that program spent to get people into the house. So those are the real numbers. It's not 25,000. It's not 300,000. It's a wraparound of, down payment assistance. And so that's the our benchmark. And in a number of new, eastside tif districts, the community driven leadership councils who are guiding how we're going to use the affordable housing set aside dollars, are prioritizing down payment assistance. And so we have a lot coming up, that we can look to when we look at the data and think about how we prioritize. But I welcome a comprehensive approach to this. I didn't think it was an amendment. Was the space for that in this, in this piece? I think we need to, you know, this is not if I was designing a policy from scratch on how to how to make it easier to serve these policy policies, this sort of sdc waiver would not be it. But but these are the conditions we created when we did a waiver and didn't consider this part. And so we have to correct that imbalance and move forward. And, I'll note that this is a temporary program anyway. So we have time to get it right. So I'll be supporting the underlying.
82 Thank you, councilor Green colleagues. Seeing no one else in the queue for discussion. Keelan can we please call the roll?
83 Calling the roll on document 2026-205 Koyama Lane nay. I Novick.
84 I.
85 Clark I.
86 Green I.
87 Zimmerman.
88 No.
89 Absent Smith. I Kanal. I pirtle-guiney no.
90 Ryan a.
91 Dunphy I.
92 The ordinance passes with a vote of eight eyes, three noes and one absent.
93 Thank you very much. Can we please call item number six?
94 Item six, document 2026-209. Add electrical and electric vehicle charging systems. Funding code and code. Chapter 26.11.
95 Colleagues is the second reading of a non emergency ordinance. Is there any further council discussion? Councilor Green.
96 I just had to say this might be the fastest ordinance that's moved through the body. I think we had about six minutes of discussion last time we passed the second reading. I didn't want to let us go to vote without just noting that historic moment. Thanks. I'm going to support it. Look forward to voting. Thanks.
97 Thank you, councilor Green. Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue, keelan, can we please call the roll?
98 Calling the roll on document 2026-209 Koyama Lane. Hi aye, Morillo.
99 Good work.
100 I Novick.
101 I.
102 I I.
103 Zimmerman I.
104 Avalos absent Smith. I know.
105 Thanks for the work.
106 I pirtle-guiney.
107 Good bill should pass.
108 I Ryan. A Dunphy. I the ordinance passes with a vote of 11 ayes and one absent colleagues.
109 That completes our agenda for this morning. We are in recess until tomorrow afternoon. Thank you. See you at the work session.