The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2026-01-27
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (17,919 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 Homelessness and Housing Committee met on Tuesday, January 27, 2026, with roll call noting members present and one absent. The committee adopted December minutes by unanimous consent. During public communications, testimony addressed eviction defense legal clinic funding, with figures on representation rates and outcomes presented in support of continued funding. Multnomah County staff and a councilor provided an update on the Homelessness Response System Steering and Oversight Committee, covering a completed adult shelter review, a new eviction prevention table, transition to new key performance indicators with an implementation timeline running through August, and discussion of accountability measures tied to provider contracts. The committee then took up the Affordable Housing Opportunities Project, involving comprehensive plan and zoning map amendments to 19 properties across all four council districts, intended to reduce zoning barriers for affordable housing development and preservation. Staff presented site examples, discussed public engagement and testimony received, and answered clarifying questions about zoning designations, ground-floor uses, and specific sites including a Trimet property and a site near Multnomah Village. Public testimony included support from housing nonprofits, requests to add an additional church-owned property, and concerns about a separate Habitat for Humanity development. Votes occurred on moving the ordinance forward; outcomes are recorded in the vote ledger. The item was scheduled for full Council on February 11 at 9:45 a.m.
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.
0 All right. Good afternoon. I called the meeting of the homelessness and housing committee to order. It is Tuesday, January 27th at 12 p.m. Diego, please call the roll.
1 Good afternoon.
2 Dunphy here.
3 Ryan Morillo.
4 Zimmerman here.
5 Avalos.
6 Present. Claire, can you read the statement of conduct?
7 Good afternoon, and welcome to the meeting of the homelessness and housing committee. To testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the committee agenda@Portland.gov. Council agenda, homelessness and housing committee. Or by calling 311. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting. In-person testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard. If public testimony will be taken on an item. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the chair states otherwise. Your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The chair preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered. When testifying, please state your name for the record. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. And finally, virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.
8 Thank you claire. So today we have three items on our agenda. First, we're going to hear from members of the public on their feedback on homelessness and housing issues. So I have instituted a essentially public communications like we do at council meetings. And we'll have three spots for this at our committee. Then we will have an update from Multnomah county and councilor Zimmerman on the current work of the homelessness response system steering and oversight committee. And then finally, we will consider zoning and map changes to affordable housing properties as part of the affordable housing opportunities project. But before we get into those items, we need to adopt committee minutes for the month of December. So do I have unanimous consent to adopt those minutes? Yes. All right. Without objection, minutes are approved. Diego, go ahead and call the next item.
9 Item two homelessness and housing community feedback.
10 So again we're going to hear from community members on their concerns, ideas or feedback regarding homelessness and housing topics. Each testifier will have three minutes each. Diego, go ahead and call up the first person.
11 Sabrina lott, jenny dao, john grant. Not seeing either of them online.
12 Come on up. Go ahead and state your name for the record and get started.
13 My name is john grant, district three, and I'd like to speak today about the proposed amendments to the slow the inflow resolution. I am the board president of the commons law center, a former co-chair of the Oregon state bar's futures task force and a nationally recognized expert on law practice innovation. And here's what happens when you fund legal defense innovation that actually works. In 2023, before the commons launched our eviction defense clinic, only 535 tenants in Multnomah county eviction proceedings had legal representation, just 6% of all defendants. One year later, with the ted clinic in place, that number jumped to 1875 people, a 250% increase. Also that year, default judgments dropped by 25% and eviction judgments dropped by 31% despite increased volume. Here's how we did it. Traditional legal aid offers two options a brief phone call or full scope intensive legal representation, but only for people below 125% of the federal poverty level. Both are valuable, but they leave a giant gap. The commons fills that gap with in-person, limited scope representation at the courthouse for anyone facing eviction. Every day, there are dozens of portlanders who walk into court at 8 a.m. Holding a summons and eviction notice, and they are feeling scared and alone when they get there. Our team members greet them, explain our services, and offer a qr code that they can scan to complete an intake form on their phone within minutes. Our technology systems do a conflict check, complete an engagement agreement, print a notice of appearance, and draft a fee waiver so the tenant doesn't have to pay just for showing up to fight their eviction. Our client then meets with an attorney who listens to their situation, explains the rights and responsibilities, and then stands up in court to say, your honor, attorney for the defendant. The results. Over 80% of our clients get their cases dismissed. 75% of families retain their original housing 60 days or longer. And statewide, 92% of people remain housed 12 months later. Now, let me talk about scale, because you heard testimony last Wednesday that reflects a bias among old school lawyers, that limited scope legal work is somehow second class. The data proves otherwise. Mpd and olc each represent about 3 to 5 tenants a week using their full scope models. It's important work. The commons represents 88 to 15 tenants per day with limited scope representation. Limited scope is not about doing less, it is about doing exactly what's needed when it's needed most for far more people, and when nearly 1000 people a month are facing eviction here in Portland, volume matters. So I'm asking you to support the commons law center's courthouse clinic model. And if a direct appropriation to the commons doesn't pass procurement muster, then I urge you to allocate at least 1.2 million specifically for in courthouse limited scope legal clinic work. Do not put it in a general pool at fb. Do not force the most effective eviction legal defense program in the state to compete with the same providers that maintained that 6% representation for years. The data is clear. The model works. Fund what delivers results. Thank you.
14 Thank you so much for your time and your testimony. Thank you.
15 Noted once more for sabrina lot, jenny dow. That concludes testimony.
16 Okay. For folks in the public to know again, we will be creating some open slots at future meetings so you can sign up and give us your thoughts. Let's go ahead and call the next item. Diego.
17 Item three homelessness response system steering and oversight committee update.
18 All right. So I have asked jillian, shoni, and Ryan deibert actually deibert. Okay. Apologies from Multnomah county to return with an update on the current work of the steering and oversight committee. And then I will invite councilor Zimmerman to share comments after jillian and ryan's presentation. So with that, take it away.
19 Hi. For the record, jillian schnee, director of the homelessness response system. Thank you for the opportunity to provide a brief update as we start the new year. In terms of the steering and oversight committee, know that it is the shared desire by all the members to meet monthly. Last year, we largely achieved that, that this year will we will have a similar goal in place as well. But on that note, we actually did not have a meeting in January, but rather ask the committee members to pay attention to read and watch the work session before the board of commissioners on the adult shelter. Review. That review shared the cost, performance and racial equity data of 31 housing focused adult shelters. That review was one of the action items in our plan, so check that box. It is now complete. We pushed hard to get it done by the end of last year, so that elected officials here in this body and also on the Multnomah county board of directors, would have that data in preparation for the budget process on both sides of the river. To boil it down, the review shows that as we expanded shelter, there wasn't enough housing placement funds to support throughput across all of our shelters 100% of the time, and access to those funds largely determines a shelter's performance. In other words, the system is out of balance. The 20 million up for debate before this body and the overall fiscal year 27 budget process is an opportunity to change that imbalance in service to our newly adopted and shared key performance indicators. Looking ahead and it ties to recent discussions in this room is eviction prevention. In partnership with commissioner Singleton, we are convening our new eviction prevention table this week, and I just mentioned that because I know it's been a hot topic, that group aims to analyze current eviction prevention and housing retention programs, including rent assistance and legal defense, for example, and will make recommendations based on its findings. So I'll make sure to keep you all up to date on that. And the scope of that. That work group is actually going to be the topic of discussion at the February soc meeting as well. Interest all around. And then beyond February, the soc has named other areas of interest that it would like to discuss this year. I'm happy to share that with you. It's just for the first six months, a little light sketch and just know that it's very much subject to change as issues arise in the attention of the soc shifts when and as needed, particularly when it comes to budget, budget discussions and our key performance measures. And then very quickly, before I hand it off to Ryan deibert, in terms of the hr action plan, I just want to share that we're off to a strong start with our implementation committee. We have 46 of the 90 action items underway to varying degrees. We have our next meeting on February 2nd. That group also meets monthly, and that's where we come together to look at the status of each item, hold each other accountable, share information as needed for learning, awareness or troubleshooting as required. So with that, I'm going to go kick it over to my colleague Ryan deibert, who's just going to give you a friendly reminder reminder of our implementation timeline related to bringing on board our new new key performance indicators. Thank you.
20 Good afternoon, committee chair. Councilors. My name is Ryan deibert. I use he him pronouns and I'm the deputy director at the homelessness response system. Very glad to be here with all of you. As gillian suggested. Just here to share this slide. In a quick reminder, this was the same information that we shared with council at the recent adoption of the amendments to the homelessness response system, iga, but just just to recount, we are going to be transitioning from the key performance indicators that were used in the original version of the homelessness response action plan into a new set of key performance indicators beginning in this calendar year, and just wanted to walk you through briefly the timeline under which that will occur. So first, coming up here just in less than a couple of weeks will be closing out. We'll be closing out the books on on our old plan kpis with our final quarterly report that covered those original key performance indicators with data through the end of calendar year 2025. So look forward to that. The top line there, which is not spoiling any headlines, is that we will have exceeded pretty significantly our original goal to shelter or place shelter or house individuals across multiple sets of systems. As we move into may, we'll be releasing the first preliminary report using our new key performance indicators that were adopted by city council and the board of county commissioners using data through the end of March of this year. I think that's really key because it will give us that first look at updated trend data as as we continue into budget related conversations about how we're going to be shaping those outcomes moving forward. So. In June, we'll continue to model using that data to help place the budget decisions that you're considering. Looking into the fiscal year, 27 budget year into the context of those new key performance indicators, to try to understand how the budget decisions may impact those outcomes one way or the other. And then in July, once the budget, once the budgets are adopted on each side of the river, our steering and oversight committee will convene to set specific targets associated with each of those key performance indicators, based largely on what we're projecting coming out of the budget discussions. And then in August, we'll issue the first of our quarterly reports using those new key performance indicators relative to the goals that are set in July. That is what I've got to cover.
21 Thank you. Yes.
22 Good to see you. Good to see you. Ryan, could you just explain quickly why we're changing the kpis? I assume it's because the new ones are improved and will give us better information. And you can tell me that I just. I think it's the first I heard of this. Sorry.
23 So the we have discussed with both the board of county commissioners and city council on a number of occasions a transition to this new set of kpis. The primary reason for doing so is that our original set of key performance indicators for the first version of atrap essentially all ran through the close of calendar year 2025. So we've reached the end of those, each of those goal horizons. So it was an opportunity to reset those key performance indicators and look more broadly at given new data sets that we've been able to develop over that time, how folks are coming into homelessness, how folks are exiting homelessness, and looking at our overall balance of how many people are experiencing homelessness across the system. So this gave us a chance to recalibrate toward that more fluid set of data that we now maintain and incorporate a number of key performance indicators that could connect to our partnering work that we're doing with with our health system partners and with others.
24 Well, that sounds more people focused than, say, unit and widget focused. It also sounds like we're moving more towards outcomes and not just inputs. And that's the lens I will be looking at for the improved kpis. Thank you. Great.
25 Councilor Zimmerman, would you like to give your update?
26 So I just think for our council, the most important part here will be that June time frame that you saw on the slide that Ryan just highlighted because. In a lot of partner organizations, when you come out of something like this, you have a target when it comes to how much you fund. And it would be great if we could say the Portland city council, you're on the hook for funding this way. Exactly. But recognizing when we walk into our budget process, there will be adjustments made after June based on whether or not investments were made. And we say that without knowing exactly what number I think we've been assigned. So I think there's room for us to get some more information and where do we want to go? And also, this is the. Deliberations and negotiation around iga and iga funding, you got to remember really happens in the executive branch. And then the funding happens in this branch. And so there is this we have to be deliberate at seeking out what it is that the executive is trying to achieve, or how they're going to partner with the county on this and whether or not we're going to fund that. So that's the point, I would say is the important part to keep. So. The Ryan and jillian show is always fun. I appreciate you guys coming down here and helping us with this and keeping, frankly, the sock on track. And I will say the the elephant in the room part of this that at least some of us have is we also know that there is significant 100% change happening in the chair's office come this time next year. And so what does that mean? And any time you're in the last year of a of an executive particular elected official, it's always this how much do you move now or do you wait? And I think that there are some of us who are experiencing that in this last month of this news, if you will, that, that that there will be a new chair come next year. So I say that because I don't know the right answer. I don't know where the mayor or this council will want to push, and I don't know where the county commission is going to push or where the county operations is going to push. And if those philosophies will be different in the new year. So I just think it's good for us to keep that in mind and be clear eyed where we can be and accept that there is change coming that we can't predict quite yet. Thanks.
27 Thank you. Colleagues, any comments or questions? Councilor Dunphy?
28 Yeah. Jillian. Ryan, could you guys talk to me a little bit? I mean, so we used there are kpis. There are metrics. It seems like there are some kpis. Also. Could you tell me a little bit how they all sort of work together and like, how do you how do some of these kpis inform the work of the larger or connect to the larger kpis? And how are you all thinking about like, like the stuff that's already underway versus stuff that's about to start? Like if you have a little bit more to talk about that.
29 Well, I'll start and then I can kick it over to Ryan. I mean, they're they're all connected, right? By design, the 12 key performance indicators that we put in place are at the highest of levels. Right. But there are literally hundreds of sub indicators tracked by any given department or bureau on any given day, I think here at the city, great examples of your indicators are actually published on your performance. Portland dashboard has others, like oodles of data that they track internally around occupancy and vacancy and affordable housing developments, for example. But those all I can't think of an example where there's a sub indicator that doesn't filter up an influence to some degree. One of the 12 that we have put in place which to offer some commentary in response to councilor Zimmerman. I really do think that the collaborative work around the key performance indicators was solid, and those are great key performance indicators. Maybe we change 1 or 2, but I really do think they are long lasting key performance indicators that we can track over time, regardless of the electoral cycle. Ryan, anything to add?
30 Yeah, I mean, I think I would just offer a very similar answer, but maybe in more of a metaphor, which is to say that those key performance indicators should give you a sense of whether or not we're headed in the right direction. And then when we start to talk about indicators, we're looking into individual programs, how they're performing so that the key performance indicators tell us if we're going in the right direction. The indicators help us understand how to course correct if and when we're not.
31 Councilor. Ryan.
32 Thank you. Chair. Excuse me. Great to hear that update. I'm really happy to hear that. Thank you. I'm and I'm glad to hear that most of them are staying the same. It's really important not to move the goalpost too many times. It's hard to track progress. We passed this body in the not so distant past. We passed amendments on the joint office agreement that asked the county to have the providers attach themselves to certain indicators for accountability's sake. We've been missing that as we've been building this over the last decade. And so I'd like to hear how that's coming along. I realized it was slow to implement, but I'm hoping that contracts being awarded going forward will have them identify the indicators that they're accountable for, not for shame's sake, for improvements sake. Clearly, we need to improve. We've been failing, so we'd like to see how they're tracking that. What's the update on that amendment that was passed by this body and approved in the joint office agreement of like two years ago. How's that coming along?
33 I'm not remembering the specific amendment, councilor Ryan, but I can tell you at the county, for every program offer which the equivalent over here is decision package, there are required outcomes and outputs attached to the funding and the description of the program. From there, it then filters down to the contract level. So in like shelter provider contracts you will see length of stay goals, housing placement goals, all tied to the amount of monies that they have access to. That's just by way of example that exists today.
34 Yeah. And on those I recall, we were looking at those that went into recovery or trying to stay in recovery. Those that are going into workforce, they'll obviously have the resilience to be successful placed in independent housing. Those are the indicators I think portlanders want to see, because then they know that their investment in this is actually bearing fruit.
35 Yeah, but the behavioral health division has outcomes and outputs tied to all of those mental health investments into the program offer. Perhaps I can screenshot and show you some examples.
36 Good news. And so this is all transparent. It's okay. These are public documents. Thank you I'll be following up on that. Appreciate it.
37 Colleagues any further comments or questions. And do you all have any further comments to add. All right. Thank you so much for your time. See you next time.
38 Thank you.
39 Please read the next item.
40 Item four adopt the affordable housing opportunities project, amendments to the comprehensive plan map and the official zoning map.
41 All right, so as staff are walking up, I have a couple of comments that I want to make to just ground our discussion today and be clear about what this item is and what it is not. So the affordable housing opportunities project is about land use and regulatory reform. It's intended to reduce barriers and make it easier to build income restricted affordable housing in Portland over the long term. So what's before us today is not a funding decision, and it does not on its own produce unit units, and it doesn't address the immediate housing instability that thousands of portlanders are facing right now. That doesn't mean that this work isn't important. It is, but it is one tool within a much larger housing system. And my role as housing chair is to make sure we're honest about how each of these tools function, who it serves, and what problem it's solving. We're in a moment where people are becoming homeless faster than we can house them, and that's not because Portland is lacking in ideas. It's because our system is fragmented, under-resourced, and often asks one policy to do the work of five. So regular regulatory reform matters, zoning matters. And these are long term levers. They don't stop in eviction next month, and they don't keep a family house next week. So as we discuss ahop today, I want us to be clear about where this fits on the housing continuum, how it's aligning within the housing strategy, and what assumptions we're making about future funding that doesn't yet exist. My goal today for this item is not to debate whether affordable housing is good. I think we all agree on that. But to understand how this proposal works in practice, who it serves, and how we ensure it complements rather than distracts from the urgent work of keeping people housed. Before we get into the presentation, I want to flag a couple of questions and concerns that I'll be listening for, that I hope staff will help address as we as we discuss further. So I want to understand more about what income bands does this realistically serve without additional subsidy given current construction costs, where does it fall short without public investment? How long does it typically take for zoning changes like this to translate into actual units on the ground? How does the ahop protect against displacement, particularly in communities that have already borne the brunt of past land use decisions and how it interacts with the existing anti-displacement tools like the north and northeast preference policy. I want to see where does this sit within the broader housing continuum that we're working to develop with our partners that are here? And how do we make sure that this doesn't get framed as a substitute for prevention, stabilization or replacement strategies? And what assumptions are being made about future funding subsidies or incentives that aren't part of this ordinance? And how should council understand the limits of what regulatory reform alone can deliver? So with that framing, I'm looking forward to hearing the staff presentation, getting into the details, and I really appreciate the work that's gone into this. And I want to make sure we're evaluating in the full context of the housing crisis we're living in. So with that, please take it away, introduce yourselves and get to it. Thank you.
42 Great. Thank you. Pardon me. Good afternoon. Councilors patricia diefenderfer, chief planner, bureau of planning and sustainability. For the record, chair. Avalos, you framed up a lot of good questions for this. I think it is important to contextualize this project. This project is a project that is looking at individual sites and that are owned by other public agencies or nonprofit affordable housing developers, and changing the zoning in order to facilitate affordable housing in the future. As you noted, it is it is not, you know, a project that's going to solve all of the city's, you know, housing issues. It is a very targeted project that was identified in the housing production strategy. These projects are likely to be projects that would seek some level of public investment. And these projects are projects. When we talk about affordable, we're usually talking about especially the entities that would be that own these sites and that would be developing these projects. We're usually talking about projects that are at 60% of area median income and staff can bill. You can correct me if I'm wrong about that, but I believe that's correct. So those are just to answer at a high level. Some of your initial questions, we'll go into more detail and we can certainly take more questions afterwards. I'm just going to provide a little bit of an overview and some framing and introduction to this project before I turn it over to bill cunningham, who will provide the presentation. So ahop is part of portland's ongoing efforts to address housing affordability and supply challenges. We all know that Portland is facing significant affordable housing gap, a generally an affordable housing shortage, both affordable and you know, otherwise. And that half of renters in Portland are cost burden. So all of these approaches are just additional ways in which we're trying to address those issues. Ahop the affordable housing opportunities project builds on previous citywide housing policy efforts and proposes zoning changes to specific sites to increase and preserve existing affordable housing. You'll see in the presentation that in some cases, these sites that are being rezoned are actually already have housing on them that are affordable, and the change in zoning will facilitate the preservation of those units. The city has approved similar projects such as this. In the past. There were two other projects similar to this, where individual sites were identified for zone changes to remove barriers on those sites to their development as affordable housing. Those projects were in 2020 and 2021, and I think staff will talk about that briefly. This is, as you noted, one of the actions outlined in the city's adopted housing production strategy. So the strategy called for collaborating with affordable housing providers to rezone properties to both facilitate the preservation of and existing of existing and the construction of new multi-dwelling affordable housing. So this project directly implements one of those strategies that's identified. Staff collaborated with housing Oregon, a statewide association of affordable housing and community development organizations, to publicize the project. And that's how many of the sites were identified. We work closely with the interested organizations to review and select sites, and resulted in the sites that you'll see before you today, and you will hear from some of those organizations who are signed up to testify today. The project proposes a comprehensive plan and zoning map changes as needed to 19 properties that are dispersed across all four council districts, with the goal of achieving the following. Removing zoning as a barrier so that nonprofit and public partners can deliver affordable housing on sites that are often very accessible to transit services and have the needed infrastructure to support them. That was part of the evaluation. Allow housing, where it is currently prohibited, on a small number of properties owned by public agencies, and facilitate the preservation and continuation of existing affordable housing, as I mentioned, and community services that do not conform with existing zoning. So this reduces regulatory barriers to renovations and upgrades of these sites. The planning commission, and you'll hear from the planning commission chair a bit later, reviewed this project in late August of 2025 and recommended approval. Their recommendation is what is before council today, and so I will turn it over now to staff to to bill cunningham. Introduce yourself please.
43 Thank you. Patricia bill cunningham, a senior planner with the bureau of planning and sustainability. And I'll go through the presentation and try not to spend so much time on things that patricia had covered. Just our agenda for presentation is to provide some background to summarize the proposed map changes and the types of changes, and to provide a brief summary of the timeline and engagement for the project. The background I wanted to highlight that what is before you, the affordable housing opportunities project recommended draft serves as the planning commission's recommendation to city council, and the recommendation involves two essential actions. One is to adopt affordable housing opportunities, project recommended draft report and to amend the comprehensive plan map and zoning map as shown in the recommended draft. And I'd want to highlight that there are no proposed amendments to zoning code regulations, only to the mapping, so no new regulations. Part of this, and I'm going to be using the acronym just to save some words and be referring to this as ahop. Just so you're aware, very briefly, the record of evidence, I wanted to note that written testimony can be viewed on the project map app. As of noon, we had received 24 pieces of written testimony, and the project record can be found in the project files box with the website address shown here. And moving on. Just essentially the proposed ahop map amendments are strategic and limited. They're really focusing on 19 properties that nonprofit affordable housing providers and public agencies identified as having zoning constraints to providing additional affordable housing and sometimes also community services. And in some instances, it's also about preserving existing affordable housing. And in terms of a timeline, housing, this can happen. It very much. It varies across the different providers. Some are wanting to go really soon, others this is something for them to start planning for the future. And one essential thing to be aware of with zone changes is that they are an essential first step before providers can start to plan for additional housing. The basic thing is, a number of providers would like to provide more homes than some of their properties, but the zoning is not allowing that. And before they can arrange even a financing, they need to have zoning in place to confirm that what they would like to do can actually be done. So think of zoning as a first step, and the timeline can vary. Also want to highlight, as patricia mentioned, that this is not a lone small strategy. It's one of 35 actions in the city's adopted housing production strategy that's looking at a range of approaches for addressing housing affordability and housing supply. Just very briefly, in terms of what what ahop is doing, it's embedded in what we had shared before, but it is both about supporting new affordable housing development and continuing existing affordable housing by addressing zoning constraints. And the sites are pretty much all located in places that are close to services of various sorts, either around mixed use centers or business districts or along transit lines. And this is consistent with comprehensive plan policies for expanding affordable housing opportunities and high opportunity locations, and the zoning changes that are geared for allowing additional housing. We've calculated as increasing housing capacity by about 900 units. And in terms of the existing affordable housing that the regulation or the mapping amendments are intended to support their continuation. There are 576 units in that situation, so it's limited, but it does have some impact. Also, want to highlight or reiterate what patricia had mentioned that this builds on preceding projects. There was an expanding opportunities for affordable housing projects that focused on properties owned by faith based organizations. Zoning was changed in neighborhood areas, and often these faith based properties were amongst the larger neighborhood properties, and this shifts the focus now to properties owned by nonprofit affordable housing providers and public agencies. Moving on to the proposed map, changes wanted to highlight the locations of the properties and as you can see in this map, or you might be able to see the 19 sites are dispersed across all four council districts, and the types of of changes are highlighted here. There are nine properties are that are owned by affordable housing providers, where the zone change is really geared to allowing more affordable homes to be included on those properties. When current zoning doesn't allow that. There are three properties owned by public agencies where the current zoning prohibits new housing, and this would open up those properties for affordable housing development. And then there are seven properties involving non-conforming situations, usually involving existing affordable housing that's larger in scale than current zoning allows. And when you have that situation, it can be difficult to do renovations or small improvements or additions to existing housing without a burdensome process. So this is really intended to promote the continuation of that existing housing. And as we go through some of the example properties I went to to highlight that there are two types of mapping changes. One is to the comprehensive plan map which sets long range direction regarding intended land uses and the types of places, and this examples showing a change to mixed use neighborhood. And that's a mixed use zone that's applied in neighborhood areas where it's intended to allow a mix of uses such as such as businesses and housing. And it's a medium scale designation smaller than our larger mixed use urban center locations. So more of a neighborhood type situation. And the other types of mapping changes are to the zoning map. And the zoning map indicates the specific zone that would apply to a property, and it attached to the zone are the detailed zoning regulations that that indicate the details of what could be built and the kinds of land uses. And here we're showing a change from egg one to cm2. And cm2 is about a four story zone. And under any one designation comp plan designation, such as mixed use neighborhood, that could be more than one zone. In some cases, the larger scale zone can apply in a core business area and feathering out to a smaller scale and other neighborhood areas. Comprehensive plan map changes and zoning map changes. And sorry if I'm speaking too close to the mic, usually don't have the benefit of a mic. Want to move on to the first example? And this is one of a series of properties owned by nonprofit and public affordable housing agencies where they're wanting to expand ability to provide housing on the sites. This first property, which we call the prescott property, is a vacant site owned by habitat for humanity. It's located in council district two and the cully neighborhood along northeast prescott. It's near the cully neighborhood center and almost across the street from scott elementary school. The current zoning for this three quarter acre property is single dwelling r7. The proposed changes to the small scale rm one zone, which is a low rise multidwelling zone which is intended to accommodate habitat for humanity's interest in developing ownership townhomes on the property think they're proposing about 16 of them, which would not be allowed in the current r7 single dwelling zone. So really opening up that ownership opportunity in a neighborhood location close to services, the adjacent property to the east already has rm one zoning and accompanying this change, the zone change would be a change to the comprehensive plan map designation of multi-dwelling neighborhood. Again, more of a neighborhood scale multidwelling zone. The rm one zone change is consistent with policies for locating housing, including affordable housing ownership, housing close to services. The second example we have is the canton grill site, and this is about one acre of land owned by a piano, which is a nonprofit that advocates for portland's asian communities, and also the 82nd avenue corridor and has become increasingly involved in community development. And this is one of their efforts. It's located where districts one and three meet along 82nd avenue. It's within the j district neighborhood center, close to the intersection of 82nd and division, very close to pcc southeast campus, and it's currently occupied by the vacant former canton grill and surface parking. The current zoning is mixed use m2, which in this location is limited to four stories and is interested in developing a mix of upper level housing, affordable housing and ground level spaces for community services and commercial uses, as well as providing some ground floor courtyard space, but fitting all those uses into a four story envelope is pretty challenging. So the proposal is to change to the mixed use cm three zone, which allows more flexibility for height and is appropriate along major corridors such as 82nd and in places like the j district. There's no change to the comprehensive plan designation, because the civic corridor designation allows cm three as one of the implementing zones. And again, it's consistent with policies for accommodating higher density housing close to services and transit. Moving on now to the public agency properties where housing is currently not allowed and the zone change would open up new possibilities. The first example is located at southeast 17th and holgate. It's one of two properties owned by TriMet along southeast 17th and along the light rail line there. It's located in council district three, in the brooklyn neighborhood, located on the max orange line, and this particular property is immediately adjacent to a light rail station near the TriMet bus garage, and you can see in the aerial that the platform for the light rail station. The site's a little over half an acre is currently vacant. Trimet would like to open the site up to affordable housing development, but the current employment e.g. One zoning, prohibits new housing. The site is proposed for mixed use. Cm two zoning, which is a medium scale zone, allows up to four stories and it would allow a mix of housing and the community has been interested and also having ground floor services, and that four stories would make it easier to accommodate both housing and potentially services. And also wanted to mention that the cm two zone. While it allows for stories, there are regulations that require step downs in the scale of the building and landscape. Setbacks adjacent to the single family zoning just to the west of the property. And there'd also be a change from the comprehensive plan map from more of a mixed employment to mixed use neighborhood designation, and this is consistent with the policies for locating mixed use zoning close to places such as light rail stations. The next property is what we're calling for.
44 A quick question.
45 Sure. Thank you so much, chair. Just a clarifying question, bill. When you say the ground floor services, are you talking about services provided by the provider or are you talking about leasing it out to retail?
46 It could go either way. Some affordable housing providers will provide some services that could serve the residents and others as well. While other developments have included leased out commercial space.
47 So it's leasing it out no matter what. Either one.
48 It could go either way, it could be under the same operation or not. And also want to highlight, too, that there could be a choice to do purely residential development here. There's not a requirement that there be ground floor services, it's just the cm2 provides that option.
49 There is a clause that you can have them be housing units.
50 Yes.
51 That's been a thing. As you know, at these areas, we've we've struggled across the city to lease those out. And so we have affordable housing units that are that are vacant at the bottom because we can't lease out a lot of the retail.
52 This is.
53 A I don't think we want to do more of that. So you're telling me we're not doing that.
54 It's a mixed use zone and it really allows the flexibility for commercial uses on the ground floor. And I think it depends on the the TriMet and who they partner with to develop the site. But I'm sure that's feedback that we could we could provide and.
55 Offer that because we all know that's a thing throughout the city.
56 Sure. Yeah. Of course.
57 Thank you.
58 And I did want to highlight that all the zone changes that involve mixed use zoning, and none of them will require ground floor commercial. It's just an option but not a requirement. The next one is the sears armory site. This one is owned by the city of Portland, located in council district four, in the Multnomah neighborhood. It's located along southwest Multnomah boulevard, which the comprehensive plan designates as a neighborhood corridor appropriate for a mix of uses. It's also close to the Multnomah village neighborhood center and also close to services on barbour. There's a supermarket less than a quarter mile away to the east. It's currently the location of the Multnomah safe rest village, which was authorized under portland's housing emergency ordinance. The current zoning is employment, e.g. Two, which prohibits new residential development, and shelters such as the safe rest village, are a conditional use in the zone, and I wanted to highlight that this is a pretty large site. It's over three and a half acres. The proposed zone changes to mixed use cm2 zoning, which would allow a mix of services and housing. This would be accompanied by that corresponding comprehensive plan map designation to mixed use neighborhood. So keeping it to that medium scale that's often applied in neighborhoods. And there are several things this would be achieving. One, it would facilitate continuation of the safe rest village, as the cm two zone provides more flexibility for shelters than is the case with the two zone. I wanted to highlight, too, that safe rest villages such as this one are important parts, of course, of our of the city's efforts to address unsheltered houselessness. Another key objective is to open up the possibility of long term affordable housing on this property. The two zone currently in place prohibits new housing. Also wanted to highlight that there had been past city plans for an emergency operations center on this site, and I want to highlight that emergency management uses are and allowed use in the proposed cm two zone. So whether it stays or goes to cm two, the city still has the option of of including emergency management uses on the site. And with a three and a half acre site, it's possible you could have more than one use, but this zone change would open up that possibility for a broader range of uses compared to the current case bill.
59 We have one more quick clarifying question.
60 Hey, bill, on the on this map that you're showing on the right hand side there of 25th avenue, it doesn't have a zone there I'm trying to get a sense for is that also residential or is that an egg? I think it's actually an office building, but it's probably been there forever.
61 If you're talking about immediately to the east, it's two multidwelling zoning. But you're right, it's a kind of an employment type use.
62 It's can you say the zone again?
63 Our our mm2, which is the medium scale multidwelling zone. In fact I should mention that.
64 So it's a continuation. So our m2 is in that little pocket of the northeast corner of this graphic that you have. It's in a continuation into the next across 25th. That's the same.
65 That whole block of area is all arm two. And the proposed cm two zone is a four story zone, which is the same scale that's already allowed in eg2 and which applies in the adjacent arm two zones.
66 And then. This is my last question. Chair, thank you for the indulgence on this. Just since we're on this slide. So given the nature of this site and it was probably made an army reserve center long before, I think some of these zones probably existed, we just plopped the zone to meet what the use was at whatever time this was. I'm assuming that because it doesn't, it doesn't jive with the rest of that area. Is that kind of the way that that probably got plopped there, or was that a planning commission in 19? Who knows when said, we really want jobs to be in this center at some point.
67 Know the history of it is that prior to 2014, that property was zoned multi-dwelling. What's now rm two, and the site was transferred to the city of Portland in 2012 from the us army. And original intent at that point was that it would be an emergency operations center. And 2022 you had the Multnomah safe rest village come in, and in 2023, city of Portland was able purchased the property and removed the deed restrictions, which limited the use to an emergency operations center. So it's it's it's interestingly, it started out allowing residential multi-dwelling residential but had a national guard armory on it.
68 Councilor Zimmerman to your point, it was probably you're right rm2 zoning would be a more. Just looking at the zoning pattern in the area would be and as bill indicated, that was the zone that was that was put on more likely not because of what was there, but because it made sense in the context of the area. But then I think when it got purchased, transferred to the city, we put a zone on it that was more fitting for what the use was. And so both things are true, and those are both ways in which, you know, proposals for zoning come about. Yeah. So I think you just observed something that was interesting.
69 Yeah. One other point is the cm two zone compared to if we went to rm two, would better allow the option of public safety or emergency management uses on the site. So the cm two continues to allow that possibility while also allowing residential and community services.
70 You've helped clarify a few questions I had there. I will do more later, but thank you for that.
71 Yeah, sure.
72 The next example is more about the preservation, the non-conforming situation examples, and I'm just sharing one here. This is schrunk riverview tower, very much a large scale landmark in the saint john's town center. It's owned by home forward, located in the cathedral park neighborhood in council district two, essentially part of the saint john's town center. And existing development consists of an 11 story affordable housing building. There are no plans for redeveloping the property. The current zoning is rm two, which is really intended for 3 to 4 story multi-dwelling development, and as mentioning, if the building is larger than the current zoning allows, it makes it really difficult to do minor improvements without major review. So the proposal is to change the zoning to arm four, which is a better match with the existing scale of the building. And it really also signals, regulation wise, the fact that that affordable housing building is an important part of the saint john's town center, and it's providing an important service in terms of affordable housing. And the zone change would support the long term continuation of that existing affordable housing. And also want to mention that it conforms to policies about providing opportunities for affordable housing or preserving affordable housing in places close to services, such as the saint john's town center. Just very briefly, before we move on from the staff presentation, I wanted to just say a little bit about the project process. The process kicked off in the spring of 2024. The initial outreach was to affordable housing providers, letting them know about the project and involving them in identifying properties they had, where they're facing zoning constraints to affordable housing. And there was an open invitation to any nonprofit and public affordable housing providers to to identify properties that wasn't a kind of a pick and choose providers. It was really open to any nonprofit or public agency for affordable housing and moving in from fall to spring. There was a lot of work done with the community partners on analyzing the sites, understanding the zoning situations, and beginning to develop proposals. The public discussion draft went out in June of 2025, and a key milestone was going to the planning commission on August 26th of 2025 for the public hearing and the commission's recommendation, and again, very briefly, about public engagement. We had sent out over 1700 notices about the proposed draft to neighboring property owners and others to inform and invite testimony. There was not a requirement to notify those nearby neighbors, but we did want to make sure we're transparent about what was being proposed, and this followed from a previous mailing for the discussion draft of over 1400 notices, staff held online information sessions and gave presentations to neighborhood associations and district coalitions, including each of the four district coalitions and staff kept the public updated about the project through a range of approaches that are listed here, and through a map app that allowed people to learn about the specific zoning changes, where they were in relationship to where they live, and provided opportunities for input. So in terms of what we heard from the proposed draft, and a lot of the themes have continued, from what I've seen, we received general support for expanding opportunities for affordable housing, and most of the proposed sites did not receive any opposition. But two sites ended up being the focus of public testimony. One was a sears armory site, where much of the public input was opposed to the zone change, and major topics raised included concerns about the safe rest village and its continuing, and concerns about related public safety and livability issues and community interest in the property. Really serving as an emergency management site, and which, of course, the city had previously planned for the site. And as stated in the packet previously, I did want to highlight again that the cm2 zone proposed for that property does continue to allow emergency management uses, but it does open up opportunities for other uses such as housing. The other property that received testimony was where the TriMet sites on southeast 17th. There was largely community support for changing to allow housing or a mix of uses, and many people wanted to be able to include some services on that property, although there were also concerns about the four story development that would be allowed and concerns about parking impacts from the new development. And I did want to note again that the cm2 zone does require the scale of development to step down adjacent to single family zoning and requires things like landscape setbacks. And that's it. Just wanted to reiterate the action requested of planning commission, which was to adopt the report and amend the comprehensive plan map and zoning map as shown in the recommended draft. And that concludes staff's presentation.
73 Councilors, I believe we have staff, the planning commission chair, who wants to just communicate the the planning commission's recommendation on this project.
74 Sounds great. Thank you both for your presentation. So, colleagues, we actually have quite a few public testifiers. So, Zimmerman, do you want to ask now or do you want to ask after?
75 I've got a couple that might help with that. I'd like to get out before.
76 Okay. So then let's take a couple.
77 And then.
78 Okay, let's go ahead and take councilor Zimmerman's questions real quick. And then we'll invite testimony after that. And steph roth you're welcome to come join us if you'd like.
79 Thanks. So my initial question that is kind of my overarching is that we put the word affordable in front of all these zoning changes. And what I'm not grasping on the most basic level is, why is that? A is that a specific in code thing, or is that a marketing tactic? Because I guess I thought housing zones were housing zones. So could a non affordable unit go into any of the places we talked about? Councilor what am I missing I guess?
80 Oh sure. Yeah. No, I think it's a fair question. I think what because these sites, it's based on ownership, because these sites are owned by entities, that they build affordable housing. And in the case of the publicly owned sites, these are sites that the public agencies have expressed an interest in doing. Affordable. You're correct. The zones don't prohibit market rate. So us changing these zones doesn't mean that you couldn't have market rate housing. Why we are considering this a project to promote affordable housing is because of who owns the sites and the expectation around what we believe. The the sites will be developed with. Does that make sense?
81 It does make sense. And it's a helpful, right? The st. Johns project is one that I when we get past the comments, I want to get into a little bit because it goes it's some of the stuff about code that just drives people nuts. A thing that exists there already can't be changed because it exists there already. Mind bogglingly irritating, right? But that is a helpful designation. And for the one in my district, the sears area is an area that I believe a whole host of things could happen there in the future, and so limiting it to one type of housing, it was where I had a little bit of concern and you have laid that concern. So thank you. That's all. Chair.
82 Planning chair, did you want to add any comments?
83 Sure. Chair. Vice chair Dunphy and members of the committee primarily. This is our first opportunity for planning commission to come before you. So we're just taking that opportunity. My name is steph roth. I have the honor of serving as your chair of portland's planning commission, and we are charged with guiding the city of portland's land use planning through stewardship, development and maintenance of the city's comprehensive plan and zoning code. And I'll just share nine out of nine. We have deliberated a lot on this project. As bill mentioned, it's it has a it's part three of an ongoing series of how do we use the blunt tool of zoning to to help alleviate our housing crisis. Because I served on the planning commission during the first expanding opportunities for affordable housing, I'll just share the spirit of that. It was primarily faith based organizations, so similar to what director diefenderfer just shared about, you know, looking at what the what the mission of the organization is that a lot of a lot of congregations came forward to say, you know, our congregations are changing in size. We have different needs, and our mission is to serve the community. And we're not looking for a handout. We're looking for, you know, just cutting a little red tape so we can help the city advance its goals to house portlanders. And I feel like this is this is a continuation of that of that. And I'll say one thing that is in your transmittal letter to bill's point, we did hear testimony that underscored a loss of trust, specifically with the sears armory site between city coordinated operations and property neighbors. And this is beyond the scope of ahop, but it offered the opportunity for people to share their frustrations, and we want to acknowledge their concerns here, because one thing that I really appreciate about the planning commission is that that these are these are not small questions that come before us. They're not small projects that that we have conflict around them. And people have different ideas. And that is really healthy in a democracy. And so we look forward to struggling with these projects going forward and looking forward to building the connective tissue between our commission, your body on city council committee and city council. Thank you.
84 Thank you. Yes. Go ahead, councilor Ryan.
85 Thank you chair.
86 I'm sorry. And nine out of nine planning commissioners agree. This is a great project.
87 That was my question. I'm like, did you vote or not? Okay, I do have a follow up though based on what you said, why was it out of the scope when it comes to the site at Multnomah village?
88 Because we do not. The zoning code does not. Direct operations of a safe rest village, is that do you want to just.
89 I think what we were saying is that the use this this particular project is just proposing a zone change. The safe rest village is an existing use. And there's, you know, Portland solutions. And I think we actually have a representative from Portland solutions here today. Portland solutions works with the neighborhood to manage, you know, they have a company that helps to manage the safe rest village and address concerns from the neighborhood. It was just that conversation was just, you know, not necessarily in the scope of this project, simply because the proposal here is to change the zoning for the future potential of allowing affordable housing on the site. It does also facilitate the maintenance of the safe rest village. And as we've noted several times, it does allow for a wide range of uses, and it is a large site. So in the future there could be a wide range of things that happen. We just based on conversations within the city and the sort of, you know, vision around what could happen on the site. It seemed like a good idea to put forward this zone change so that there could be those options. That range of options could be available in the future.
90 Thank you.
91 Okay, okay.
92 Thank you to the three of you. We're going to go ahead and open up the public testimony. Diego, go ahead and call the first couple folks.
93 First up, lee armstrong, christina dirks, lacey sutton christina is online.
94 Go ahead. All good.
95 Yes.
96 Go ahead. Can you hear me? All right.
97 Good afternoon. Councilors. My name is lee armstrong, and I'm here on behalf of habitat for humanity Portland region in support of the affordable housing opportunities project. Habitat owns one of the properties that is proposed for rezoning on prescott street, where we plan to build 16 family sized homes that are affordable for households who are priced out of the for profit housing market. Rezoning this property to one will make it significantly easier for us to build homes on this site, and we really appreciate that the city has been proactive in proposing rezoning for this property to help facilitate housing development on it. While we're all here talking about affordable housing development, we'd like to suggest two more changes that would reduce, excuse me, reduce the cost of development on this and other properties. This prescott street property is located in what's called the eastern pattern area. The design requirements of this area, including a required rear setback of 25% of the total property depth, make development on this parcel more difficult and expensive. So we'd like to suggest the reduction or elimination of these requirements for affordable housing developments. Also, habitat has multiple developments in Portland that are subject to design requirements that have not been updated in almost 30 years. As an example, conservation districts require us to set the ground floor of a home two feet above grade, which makes it almost impossible for us to meet the community's need for accessible, affordable housing without going through lengthy and expensive and unpredictable land use processes. We would suggest that these standards be updated or eliminated to facilitate the development of accessible housing. Thank you for considering these suggestions and for your service to the city.
98 Thank you for your testimony, christina.
99 You may unmute and begin when you're ready.
100 Thank you. Good afternoon, chair Avalos, vice chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is christina dirks, and I'm here on behalf of home forward, the public housing authority for Multnomah county. We are in strong support of this project and the amendments to the comprehensive plan map and the zoning map. This ordinance presents a practical and cost effective way to increase housing capacity and, as importantly, to preserve existing affordable housing for the long term. We appreciate the bureau's thoughtful engagement and collaborative approach in this project. As a result of that process, 11 of the properties included in this project are owned by home forward, representing approximately 660 affordable homes at each of these sites. The proposed zoning changes would either allow for additional housing, make preservation and reinvestment more efficient, or expand the ability ability to provide on site services. And importantly, all of these projects are located in transit and service rich areas. To give a few concrete examples, bill already went through a few, but six of the projects have been out of zoning conformance conformance for decades, which simply means, as bill highlighted, that their scale doesn't has always exceeded the underlying zoning. And so as a result, in projects like skunk river, riverview tower, even modest capital improvements, that design were designed to improve living conditions for residents and the long term viability of the building required costly and time consuming land use reviews. Adopting this ordinance would remove those barriers and allow us to more efficiently reinvest in these properties. In addition, three properties would transition from strictly residential to mixed commercial zoning, which would allow us to better serve our residents and the neighbors by doing things such as co-locating early learning centers and providing on site case management. And at a time when development costs continue to rise. This project is an effective and smart way to use every tool the city has available to address our housing crisis. And for these reasons, I strongly urge the committee to advance this ordinance and thank you for your time and consideration.
101 Once more for lacey sutton.
102 My name is lacey sutton, and I bought a house in a southeast Portland development called cherry blossom, which was built by habitat for humanity without fire access and water supply. I've talked a lot about that here, and yet I have barely scratched the surface. But today I wanted to tell you about another habitat development called simpson, which is about a mile away from the prescott site where they want to put another 16 houses. I believe our problems at cherry blossom began with land use and a lack of early bureau review, which habitat took full advantage of when they purchased the property. Simpson, however, is not in a design overlay yet. They also have no fire access. We at least have a hydrant across the street that no one bothered to test. Simpson has no hydrant and like us, they have no sprinklers to provide equivalent protection. During koin news investigation, the city was unable to provide even their fire plan review. Cherry blossom at least had a review, even if nothing on it was done. All simpson has is approval by the same fire plans examiner who approved cherry blossom in the same week. What else do these very different developments have in common? Millions of dollars in funding with tight timelines, as habitat Portland region ceo put it when he told bts any help getting through permitting quickly would be a big boost for us. Last year, a senior fire inspector told the deputy ombudsman that simpson's mountable curb was part of their fire access, but he failed to explain why this 20 foot wide area doesn't have no parking, fire Lane signs or red curbs. Every time I drive past simpson's and simpson's entrance, there are cars obstructing it. The inspector also said simpson's hydrant was a mere 410ft away. If you measure the distance from the hydrant on lombard to those houses, 410ft kisses the corner of the first building. If you measure the way, fire code requires, the homes in the back of the development are well outside the 600 foot maximum. Simpson has nothing, and the ombudsman report said nothing about it. If you ask habitat why simpson has nothing, they will tell you everything past inspections. But it shouldn't have. And they know that they built a nearly identical development a few years prior called brooklyn pines. And it has everything, even sprinklers in the furthest unit because it was just outside the range of access. Fire safety is always required in new construction, except at simpson, except at cherry blossom, except by that fire plans examiner that week. If habitat truly didn't notice the obvious difference between these properties and the other dozens they've built, well, that's a problem too. It might even be worse either way. Why are you considering allowing them to squeeze another 16 families onto a single lot in cully? We need safe, affordable housing, not just more of it. Since I have a second, I also want to say that fixing the problems at simpson are going to be relatively a lot easier than fixing the problems that cherry blossom it. You won't even have to consider tearing down their houses, which is being considered.
103 Thank you lacey.
104 Next we have Ryan, lyle, william lemon, joanne buck.
105 Hello.
106 One second. If your name was called, go ahead and come on up so that you can be ready. Sit at the table and then go ahead and introduce yourself.
107 Hi, my name is Ryan lyle, and I am, I guess I should refer to my notes. I am testifying about this the TriMet lots, the two lots on 17th that have gotten a lot of attention from the neighborhood, mainly. Well, when the orange line went in along 17th, around ten years ago, they just kind of took out a bunch of staples of the community. There was a bank, a couple restaurants, a deli, convenience store, and lots of office spaces, and those just haven't been replaced. And and when it was being proposed, TriMet came to the neighborhood and said, how can we remedy this for you? And they really didn't address our concerns back then. And then they came. I mean, we're really happy about this. Ahop opportunity. But when they came and they presented to us, they said that the neighborhood would be very involved in the process and it would be an open bid for, you know, they're going to say any nonprofit providers who want to, you know, offer to build on these sites would come and they would present to the neighborhood and we would be able to have some kind of interface with them. But then in November, they decided to just do a without letting anybody know, a letter of intent with some developers who will not be addressing any of our concerns. And it's just kind of a reflection of. You know, the neighborhood was really excited about it. And and now we feel a little bit kind of betrayed. And it feels very familiar where there's a top down development approach to neighborhoods. And I think that over the last 20 years, you know, there have been tensions between neighbors, neighborhoods and developers. We you know, a lot of people found Portland to be a really desirable place to be. And neighborhoods were kind of pushing against development. And then it became more like a top down like, well, we're not going to really listen to the neighbors. We're going to just do these things. And I feel like the the fact that we now have this new council structure where there's representatives from districts was kind of a remedy for that, where we'd have representation in the neighborhoods. Anyways. This kind of feels like out of step. It's it's like top down. We've got the right idea. We're not going to listen to the neighbors. So that's kind of sharing some concern and frustration that the neighbors have about this. Like we're very supportive of more housing. And I don't think anybody is saying we don't want this, but there are very clear problems with this site and the the way that they want to present or want to create the site in the future, and the neighborhood's actually have good ideas to make it better for everybody.
108 Okay. Yeah.
109 Thanks.
110 Thank you for sharing that.
111 Go ahead. Thank you.
112 Hi. My name is william lemon. I work at reach cdc, a nonprofit whose directive is to build affordable housing. We are here to request that we also include the tabor heights united methodist church into this proposal for the a hop. It's located on 6161 southeast stark street. Reach was selected by the church and its congregation to lead affordable housing development on the site. Currently, it's zoned r five, and we would also like to change to ccm one. We have not started any process of community engagement. We're really needing this design change or zoning change in order to begin the process of community engagement. The reason it's so important, as the folks who presented here earlier, is because in order for us to even begin looking at financing, we do need this zoning change. We cannot begin any low income tax credit negotiations with the state unless this designation is made. I do want to highlight what this gentleman said before me. We are looking to do a lot of community engagement, but I think in order to do so, we need to know what zoning we will be able to actually communicate to the to the community that we're actually going to be engaging. And if it does get allowed to be changed to ccm one, we can then begin the process to identify to the community. Here are our options and here's what we think would be best. But then also looking towards having, you know, this healthy debate on what would be best used at the site. I think things that we can propose are multifamily apartments. There's already currently a childcare facility on the site that's utilized by the community. If that is what the community wants, we can work to make that happen. Or it could be more single family homes that could be sold at an affordable price. I'm very fortunate to be here with some of the congressional members and some of the community members to advocate for this. We're really excited about the site. The tabor neighborhood is very walkable and accessible to a lot of amenities. And so, yeah, really looking forward to this. And I think my request would be to add the tabor heights united methodist church onto this proposal. Thank you.
113 Thank you.
114 Go ahead.
115 Hi. My name is joanne buck. Chair and members of the homeless and housing committee. I just said my name is joanne buck and I am chair of the church board at tabor heights united methodist church, which is in the mount tabor area. I'm a retired community health worker nurse who's worked with homeless and the poor, the poor throughout Portland for the past 30 years. So I am deeply I deeply care about our neighbors and their access not only to housing, but to the wraparound care that brings dignity and wholeness to a person. Our pastor, reverend drew hogan, sends his regrets and is sad not to be able to attend today while he is out of town for denominational interviews. I speak today on behalf of our congregation in support of affordable housing opportunities project and in request that the tabor heights united methodist church property be included in the proposed cm one zoning change. For the past three years, our church has been intentionally listening to our community to neighbors, service providers, and people most impacted by the housing crisis. What we consistently hear is that people need affordable housing close to their existing support networks, especially the aging adults and people with health needs. Many of our neighbors are living in housing that is no longer affordable or appropriate as they age. Displacement threatens not only housing stability, but access to medical care, transit, and community connection. As a as a community health professional, I know that housing is the foundational to health and the ahop can help our community meet this need. Our church believes loving our neighbors means stewarding our land as a gift to the community. We are prepared to leverage our property for affordable housing, and we are grateful for partners like the reach community developers and sarah who along with who along with you can help us love our neighbors. We ask the city that the city partner with us by including our property and hops together, we can help our neighbors have the housing they need. Thank you for your time.
116 Thank you.
117 Thank you all very much.
118 Last we have todd struble. I think they're having a little bit of difficulty joining us online. Just one moment, okay.
119 Hello? Can you hear me?
120 Yes.
121 Hi, my name is todd struble. Thank you for having me. I am the real estate development manager at apano. You saw the slide on the canton grill development. And I'm here to testify in support of the plan. I think we purchased the canton grill in 2023, and our plan is to redevelop that into affordable housing with approximately 60 to 80 units. As bill mentioned, it's close to transit along 82nd and in division with the bus. Bus rapid transit projects happening. It's really in a key site, and we're really looking forward to the future of that site. So basically, as bill mentioned, this provides us with flexibility to develop the site. We are still a few years away from having a finalized design, but with the change to cm3, I know our architects are much happier being able to have a little bit more flexibility with the height of the building and just the planned uses. Open up some more options for us. So. I guess the only thing I wanted to add is that, you know, this these zoning upgrades is often like a benefit for the owner of the site. And I just wanted to really clarify that for our site. The goal is not to just maximize the the units, you know, taking advantage of the zone to shove as many units as we possibly can. Our goal is really to have a quality, community based design and affordable housing for the long term. So thank you for your time.
122 That concludes testimony.
123 Thank you todd. So we've got a couple of us in the queue. Yeah. Let's have you come back up because I know we've got some questions for you. And I wanted to kick off by just getting your, I guess, response to folks who are calling for additions to the ahop, I guess. How does that logistically work? Is that something we can consider?
124 Yes.
125 Thank you, councilor Avalos. Patricia diefenderfer, again, for the record, it's not uncommon for projects like this that once were. Once the project is going through the legislative process, more entities hear about the project and are interested in being included. At this stage, we we are aware of that site. And at this stage, if if the committee were interested in having that site be included in this package, that would be possible. But we would have to do a notice. There's a required legal notice to the site and some. And for courtesy we do surrounding sites as well for a certain radius. And so if that were the desire of the the committee, we would ask that you give us that instruction and then we postpone action on the package and the and the potential amendments to that package until after that notice period elapses. And it's it's would be a 30 day notice period.
126 And what I'm understanding and maybe I'm looking to you, claire, because we talked about this. So in that scenario would we want to make that amendment in committee. Is it something where we could bring it to just the council, like between now and this going to council, we could make that amendment or what does that look like.
127 So I think the options are that you could make that this amendment in committee and you could instruct staff to, to include it in the package. And that would mean us going and doing the noticing and setting another meeting before this committee in, you know, more than 30 days. We were I think we were estimating like a 224 or 224 meeting would be an option. And another I mean, I guess a possibility is that you could vote on the package as it is and transmit that to council, and then council could consider amendments. But once again, if if the amendments were, if we were instructed at the stage of council to do to add properties, we would again have to kind of pause the project, do the noticing and come back to full council after the notice period has elapsed so the council can vote on both the package as proposed and any additional sites that would be that are included.
128 So can I get just a temperature check? What are you all feeling about this? And I don't know if there are other amendments that any of you have or maybe that might emerge. What are your thoughts? Whoever wants to unmute and tell me.
129 I'm generally not in favor of a of delaying for a I think it was the 6161 start project, I think. Yeah, the tabor one one. It's not my district, so I want to be careful about how much I comment on that. But two, I think that it's also an endless queue. Right? I think we'll always have somebody who just heard about a thing who is coming in. And so while it sounds appropriate and it sounds like it would have been good to put in this, I'm not sure that stopping the rest of the process is something I have an appetite for. And and I'm not willing to give as much deference to it since it's not my district, so I don't have a lot of ownership over that property. And so for that, I take it as a noted, and I would like this to move forward. Generally, I have some thoughts about the d4 stuff, but that's where I'm at.
130 Yeah, my thoughts are very similar. I think that this project that is being proposed by the public sounds like something we should want to be supportive of, and I suspect that there are probably dozens and dozens of other individual properties. I have some. I feel a little weird about doing spot zoning from the dais. I think that I think that this project has been cheaper, faster and easier than it would have been for each of these individual properties to go through an individual zoning change, and I hope that this conversation will also raise additional people who are like, oh, hey, by the way, I'm working on this and I could use a little extra and maybe there's another process, maybe there's another chapter for this. But at this point, I wouldn't be comfortable with delaying the process and spot zoning from from up here, even if it sounds like a pretty good project.
131 Councilor.
132 Thank you. Two things. One is I would agree with both of my colleagues spot zoning from the dais. There's always a regret later on that I learned that as the person who started the permit reforms, and when we looked at almost all of the code clutter challenges, many times it was commissioners coming up with a really bright idea to add an amendment last minute to a code that said, I would like to know and hear from you what the good people from the tabor space community of faith community would have to go through to land their intention.
133 Yeah.
134 Once this is in place, it seems like that would make their next steps easier. But I'm assuming that.
135 I mean, if, if if the instruction is to include them with, you know, understanding that it would delay the, the whole package, then.
136 Oh no, I'm not into that. I'm into you explaining to them. Yes. If this does pass what their journey would be like.
137 But they're, they're not in the package currently. So so what, what would.
138 They need to do to have their own package.
139 So they would they would have to initiate the zone change themselves. So there's there is a quasi judicial process and maybe people can speak to that a little bit more. There is a process for an applicant who owns a property initiating a request for a zone change. There is time and expense associated with that. But I mean, it is something that that property owners pursue with, you know, with some regularity. I would say, I don't know if you have anything else to add.
140 I would just add that they would have to seek both a zone change and a change to the comprehensive plan map, which is a higher bar to change both of those, because right now the designation, the long term designation for that site is single dwelling. So you'd have to really state more of a strong policy argument for why should depart from what the current city plan for the area is.
141 Okay. I have to. As you know, I have to leave at 130 for a meeting down the block that I chair at 2:00. I don't know if we're voting on this today. I, I don't want to rush the vote, that's for sure. My point is, I just had to let people know why I'm leaving. It's from a previous commitment that was plopped in, and I think I just want to applaud a lot of the work. I do think that listening to the Multnomah village say, I know I have a lot of context on that, so I have a lot of questions on that. And I'll pause there. I thought the testimony was really awesome, and I wanted to acknowledge that. I think we heard from the planning commission chair that the similar testimony was heard by them, and they did approve this in a unanimous unanimous vote. That is, I think one of our justifications with the cyprus village site is that the concerns were off topic, if you will. I think as public servants, listening to them, I think we need a better response than that. I think they're raising some really good concerns.
142 Yeah, I can just say that this was much debated or deliberated in the planning commission. And I think if you refer to the planning commission's transmittal letter and I believe that the chair communicated this, there was acknowledgment that this community wanted to have a conversation with the city about the long term vision for the site. And so that was communicated. I think this zone change in this, in this proposal to the site facilitates that to the extent that it creates more options for what could happen on the site than with the current zoning, that that is something that I mean, that is one of the reasons that the the commission flagged that for council in their transmittal letter is to to make council aware of that. And I think it's kind of up to, yeah. This body and the full council to.
143 And patricia you got here right as this was happening the shelter to housing continuum that we passed in 2021 that lays a foundation for this. And I was missing some of that foundation work from that as it's tied into this. But I just wanted to put that into the record.
144 Sure.
145 Would that be true.
146 I think.
147 And then the other one connected to that, maybe if I finished it will be helpful. So there's also communities of faith that you mentioned that also have villages, if you will, smaller ones and their property. I couldn't connect with what was said about that and if it was relevant to this zoning.
148 Okay.
149 I'll take the first thing. Point is that the e.g. The current zoning of the Multnomah village site is e.g. Two. Is it igg2.
150 Igg2 and igg2 is an employment zone. And the reason that the safe rest village is allowed there currently is because of the housing emergency, right? If the if the housing emergency were not if the city didn't doesn't extend the housing emergency, that use is not allowed in the zone as currently as the current zone.
151 Except as a through a conditional use review.
152 Right. It would require a conditional use review. So we're just trying to facilitate, you know, the ongoing use of that for the the period of time that the city wants to, you know, retain the safe rest village and again, also allow for additional uses on the site.
153 Okay. I think I just want to put this into the record. It's perhaps not relevant to this actual topic, but it is in terms of neighborhood engagement. When you when we put the safe rest villages in and there were adjacent neighbors, the two that come to mind were the one at peninsula crossing where I thought we mitigated that really well. That's out of north Portland habitat. Humanity knows a lot about that because they were gifted that site basically with a lot of infrastructure work already done, because the safe rest village was there and we had a neighborhood that went from not wanting it to actually worried that they were leaving, because actually, urban alchemy did such a good job with neighborhood engagement. And they also did some adjustments with fences and such. There's adjacent properties on the north side that are right there, and that's the challenge. So I hope that there's negotiations about fencing and other accommodations that would make us better neighbors. And I know we struggled with the former provider to do basic neighborhood engagement, and I think that's improving. But I'd like to hear about that, too. I'm not in district four. That said, I care about the entire city, and I just wanted to lift those concerns. I apologize that I have to leave early for the meeting that I need to be at. At the same time, thank.
154 You, thank you.
155 Thank you, councilor. So I am definitely hearing a general sense of not wanting to delay. I think that if there is some more discussion, yes, it would delay it on the other end if we bring it to council and between now and then there's some decision to make a change. But I don't see a reason for us to delay it out of this committee right now. Am I reading the room correctly? Okay. Sounds good. Councilor Zimmerman, you're up next.
156 Okay, first off, just thank you. This looks like some good work. And, bill, appreciate the thoroughness of your presentation. I feel like perhaps there's other members of your team in here. Patricia, I just this is a good project, and I think it's gone. Well, I didn't quite know what to expect as I was walking in in terms of what does this mean? And so you answered my first question earlier on the technicality. I think what I've noticed I always ask when we're changing zone is it doesn't look like any industrial land is lost in this situation, which is something I keep an eye out for. And I see you nodding. I understand the employment. I'm glad that you just did get into a little bit about the safe rest village and Multnomah village. I have certainly heard from constituents about a concern that this zoning allows that shelter to become permanent, and knowing how it was cited under that emergency clause or emergency ordinance. I both I'm reflecting their concern and I guess highlighting, underlining, italics, bolding that I don't believe any such thing about it should be permanent. Right. And so from the perspective of this zone change, I don't take that as the city's commitment to a permanent shelter or shelter site there. And what I, what I do think is that the future of that zone, there are a variety of, I think, what could be highest and best uses and a variety of of housing options, including emergency operations. Future. There's just a lot that can go on there that with that much space, it's also an area that needs desperately our attention to what councilor Ryan was getting to. But as the district four person and I know that when I vote in favor of this today, I will catch a little bit of flack for this, because some folks are going to be concerned that that's a permanent action. And I, in everything I can tell about this zone, is that, yes, by keeping it the edgy, we essentially mean it has to go through emergency clauses to stay a shelter. And it looks like a technical way to try and stop a thing that's already happening by preventing this zone change. So. The mayor knows my position about that rest village and how much longer it should or shouldn't exist, and what it will take to either make it survive the future or not. Speaking about the TriMet lot. And again, this is not my district and so I'm using it as a technical question, not so much about the specifics, but in that there are two homes that are not included in best I can tell from the map in the change, because there are two five now, and that makes sense for them. Is it a better practice to take an entire block like that and rezone it? Those homeowners have no obligation to ever sell, change, do anything. Nothing changes for them, those two homes. But it does allow the development of that to be one, an easier lot to develop. Two, they can potentially cut a large check to somebody if their land is now more valuable to them, and that homeowner has a different decision making package in front of them. Is it better practice to do this kind of carve out the way we have it now, or would it be better to take the entire block encompassed by the roads and just say, you're all changed? And I say that I'm being cautious with my words because I'm not trying to encourage the the pushing out of anybody. But if that if those homeowners wanted to be part of that, would that be a better practice or is that not appropriate? And I'm asking that true, because I'm not sure the practices in land use on this.
157 And I just want to share. Just getting back to the scope of this project and the intent, which is really intended to be limited, just looking at properties owned by nonprofit and public housing providers, that goes somewhat beyond the scope. It always is good to be holistic and look at a broad area, but it was really outside the scope of this limited project. And I did want to mention, too, that we're anticipating a future project that will be revisiting zoning and the inner east side neighborhoods, and that could be an opportunity to have a big picture look at the area. But a big picture looks always good. But this project is not really set up to to do that. Probably every one of these sites, it may be good to look at a broad area, but it's this was a very limited scope, trying to move quickly to enable affordable housing.
158 That's a good reminder for me. I, I hear your words on that of of think small, miss small in the sense of like just what's owned by those who have a desire. Okay. And again, going up to shrunk riverview tower in north Portland. I'm familiar with this building, having gone to college up in this area. I guess I want to use that as an example for so much of what drives people crazy about land use and zoning, and it just doesn't pass the normal person smell test, which is, I think your exact quote was, it makes it hard to do minor changes without major review quote. And I have heard from so many different ways in which this type of thing comes up. So one if this makes it easier to just be better landlords or a property that is able to change with the times or or take advantage of opportunity, I'm all in for that. And I guess I, I look to others who are involved in the larger code reform when I talk about code reform, and I think councilor Dunphy probably means this, this is what we're talking about here. You've got a I'm just guessing, a ten story building in a place that doesn't have a lot of ten story buildings, and it's been there for a long time, and probably to do minor changes requires erroneous in my my editorializing, erroneous land use only processes for the sake of land use. Planners at one time said this is what should happen and it doesn't make sense to anybody. So the more we can attack that situation, the more I'm happy. I just I use it as an example for let's see more of that in the larger code, because damn it, if the thing is already there, what are we really trying to solve with the old kind of go through the process just to re stamp the thing that was stamped 50 years ago? I don't get that.
159 Sure.
160 I think that's a great comment, and we'll certainly reflect on that and think about that as we do future projects where we can address issues like that. I will say that. You know, it. It depends on what is being proposed, how much it starts to bump into the code and what. So I don't want to leave the impression that, like everything requires a land, sorry, a land use review from the city's perspective. But I will point out to one of the advantages to doing this to resolve non-conforming situations. It's actually on the finance side. Oftentimes, property owners will not be able to get financing to rehab, rehabilitate, or do renovations to buildings where from the financing financing perspective, that building is not allowed to exist because that suggests that the building shouldn't exist there. So it's it's a little bit on both sides. It it definitely helps with the financing and being able to finance renovations. And it depending on what's being proposed there, it could bump up into zoning code issues, which I understand seems a little bit. It's not intuitive because you're like the building is already there, but it does depend on that front. It does depend on what's being proposed. So this is a good this is a good move for these these buildings and these sites generally. But your point is well taken. Understood.
161 And then just thank you for including the overview in your presentation bill, in terms of 1234 cm2 and three. So I, I say this as the two of us who brought the design review and we have there's others who are up here who talked about code reform. And I often get questions about, you know, neighborhood conforming. Does it make sense to the neighborhood. And I've tried to convey to folks, yes, I understand that there is a little bit of like use some words in your presentation. It's way better than words I'm going to use. But there's a there's a glide path to a high rise from a single family house. And hopefully the high rise isn't next to the single family house. But thank you for including that. It was the representative from apano who spoke and said, we're not trying to maximize units, but darn it, I hope at the canton site I hope we are. I actually think there are some places along those corridors we should go as high as humanly possible. And they are. They are ripe for that type of. Jump on the glide path, if you will. Those corridors make a lot of sense to me and again, not my district, so I won't go too heavy there. But to the public who's watching, I do see an effort here to maximize. What is. Not, I guess, a a a huge change to neighborhood character, right? Maximizing units, but not at the expense of neighborhood character. And a lot of parts of the other districts, not so much mine that does matter. And so I, I see that I'll be supportive today. Madam chair, I think that is helpful. And I've learned some stuff today. So again, thank you for a very good presentation. And I think to the rest of the team that worked on it. Thank you.
162 Councilor.
163 Thank you. I know that this, as you've said over and over again, this is a limited project and these are site specific to the properties that are already owned by community partners that we know do this kind of work, and we're moving in that direction. And all of that. And I agree with what councilor Zimmerman was saying that, like broadly, I think we have some reforms to zoning that I would love to see to make it just easier and faster and more clear on how to develop these things. But specific to this project. And maybe future iterations of projects like this, do we have a mechanism for guaranteeing the outcomes of development specifically meaning? Not that I have any reason to think that they would, but, you know, preventing a future bait and switch that a nonprofit gets suddenly a ultimately a windfall in value of a piece of property. And maybe they're facing tight times and they just swap it out. In fact, it wasn't a nonprofit that did that. But I believe there was a building in old town that came into city hall, like block 15, I want to say, or 45, something like that, where they got a big upzone because they showed all these pretty pictures of a tower they were going to build, and then they never built it and they sold the land. Do we have a mechanism for guaranteeing anything out of this?
164 I would I would say the answer to that is we do not have a mechanism to guarantee that they will be affordable housing, but again, because of who they're owned by and their missions and their expressed interest in what they're interested in doing there, we have pretty good confidence that that's what will happen there. And that's why these projects, when we've done these projects where we do site specific zoning changes, we're looking for the kinds of entities where this is mission aligned, like it's aligned with their mission. So you heard about the previous iterations where it was faith based organizations. Those are organizations that, you know, for a variety of reasons. We believe that their intention is to do affordable housing. But this is this is what we are. You know, we're we're operating on that assumption.
165 Is there a this is maybe an unfair question. And again, I want to note you all did some really good work over a long period of time dealing with the systems that we have, but is there a better way to do this? Is there a way that by policy rather than by site specific issue, we could I don't know if x then y the way, you know, if you are a nonprofit and you are applying to do permitting, then you can just automatically get an up zone to something or something like that. Is there a better way we should be thinking about this for the future?
166 You know.
167 We can certainly take that and think about that. But I think that one of the questions it raises for me is the question you just raised, which is people could, you know, say they're nonprofit purchase, you know, get their zone change. And then there could be a change in plan, the land could be sold, etc. So, you know, in the zoning code is a difficult tool to do that. If then kind of, you know, logic with but it's not impossible. And we can certainly look at.
168 I might mention that at least in our multidwelling zones, we have bonus provisions where if at least half the units are affordable at 60% of median family income, you essentially get a bonus that lets you do the next higher zone. And we currently have another project that's looking at reviewing housing bonuses to apply a similar approach to the mixed use zones, you do more deeply affordable things, you get a bump up, and you're essentially getting the next higher zone. So there is some of that mechanism that essentially does almost an automatic up zone and boost and what you can do.
169 Thank you. You know, broadly I just I, I know that oregon's land use laws are particular. And we also have 100 years of good and or 70 years of good intentions piled on top of each other. And if you look at our zoning map, it's a little intimidating. And anything we can move in the direction of either best practices of other places that have successfully moved towards whatever it might be, I generally want that to be the direction our city is going, and I do worry that the inherent, complicated nature of our zoning and comp plan program, it just makes things inherently more expensive. And we are dealing with, at the very least, ten year old zoning. You know what the best thinkers at that time thought our city needed? And then obviously things change. And, you know, comp plan 2035, we're now nine years away from that being started. So I'm trying to think about these things sort of in the long, the long and the immediate term. So that is really helpful. And I'm sure we will be talking more in the near future. So thank you, friends.
170 Thank you again. You know, I think what we've learned from this is that there are clearly more projects that we need to discuss. And I think when we talk about cap two, when we talk about unified housing strategy, let's think of the ways that we can do more of these things. I am ready to vote on this today and support its movement so we can get that going. But let's talk about what it looks like to incorporate the voices that we heard, and also not just with you all, but also with the planning commission. And I know I am long overdue for going to the planning commission and building some relationships there, so I'll make that. I'll put that on my to do list as well, seeing no one else in the queue. Last call. Well then let's see. Let me get the language. So I would like to entertain a motion to move ordinance document number 2026 zero through seven to the full council with a recommendation to pass.
171 So moved.
172 Second.
173 Moved by councilor Dunphy, seconded by councilor Morillo diego. Please call the roll.
174 Dunphy.
175 Hi, Ryan.
176 Morillo.
177 Hi, Zimmerman. Hi, Avalos.
178 I with four eyes and one absent. The motion carries and the ordinance number 2026, dash 037 will move to the full council with a recommendation to pass councilor.
179 Pardon me. We want to make sure that you state the the time certain the date and time certain.
180 I will do that right now. And so this will now move to the full council meeting on February 11th at 9:45 a.m. Time certain. Thank you. Got it.
181 Great. Thank you.
182 Okay with that? Our next meeting is Tuesday the 10th. Stay tuned for updates on that agenda. We are done at 1:51 p.m.