The record · Transcript

Council session — 2026-03-10

Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (14,441 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are AI-suggested and editor-reviewed (low confidence — auto-captions garble names); each color marks a speaker.

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Good afternoon. I call the meeting of homelessness and housing committee to order on March 10th at 12:03 p.m. Diego, please call the roll.

Good afternoon. Dunphy, Ryan. Councilor. Ryan, if you can hear us online. Absent.

Morillo here.

Zimmerman. Here. Avalos.

Present. Claire. Claire, please read the statement of conduct.

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 at Portland council agenda. Slash 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.

Thank you claire. Today we have two items.

I'm here.

Oh. Thank you, councilor Ryan.

Dan Ryan: Yeah. Present. Thanks.

Got it. Thank you. All right. We have two items on our agenda. First, we're going to hear from members of the public on their feedback on homelessness and housing issues. We've got eight people signed up to testify today. And then we will hear an update from Portland permitting and development on how the temporary sdc exemption is working so far. So, diego, can you read the first item?

Item one homelessness and housing community feedback.

All right. Like I said, we'll hear from community members on their concerns, ideas or feedback. And each testifier will have three minutes. Diego, please call the first person.

We have david straub, robert pile, bob la bob will join us online.

Come have a seat.

Are you ready for me? Okay. Greetings. So I was here two months ago for the home forward, was appointing a board member, and we talked about.

Can you state your name first?

Can you hear me better now?

Can you state your name for the record.

David straub?

Thank you. Go ahead.

Okay. And we talked about behavioral wellness at the home forward facilities. As far as I know, in the intervening two months, there hasn't been any action by the council or a home forward, although there have been articles like in Willamette week talking about how poor the conditions are in these facilities. Now, rumor has it that some money that some of the newfound money that you guys have might be be put towards housing assistance. And I'm going to urge you to put at least some of that money towards behavioral wellness. Now, I understand that the current approach to mental health care isn't really a solution. That's the one on one treatment of disorders. But we can teach behavioral wellness in groups. And the great thing about this is that when you do teach things in groups, everybody who's a tenant gets the same kind of behavior encyclopedia. They're told this is the acceptable behavior. This is how you resolve conflict. This is how you build resilience, whatever it is. So potentially some of the issues that are occurring now could be solved on their own by tenants approaching others in a constructive manner. In addition, you now have kind of like this reference system because you don't want to put people out in the street. I get that right. But at the same time, we need to look at the fact that there are maybe 90% of tenants who are good, but they're now being put into this environment where they're struggling because of other toxic neighbors. As far as this 10% or so that I anecdotally think that this these housing complexes that are in issue, I think we also need to kind of give them an opportunity to redeem themselves. So if they're given like a number of complaints and you verify them, maybe some kind of eviction prevention program, like a 30 day focused behavioral wellness system to see if we can help turn their lives around. In the end, though, we do need to focus on behavioral wellness by putting more money towards housing assistance and not caring about what the experience is of the people who have after they get there. It's almost it's kind of criminal, right? We know that this is going on in these complexes, you know? Right. We know that some of the people are struggling. We know that some people are not behaving properly. We need to make them accountable. Now there are some vehicles that we some ways that we can do this. And bybee lakes, for example, shelter is doing one of them. In order to enter their 30 day program, you have to go through education. It's mandatory now whether or not a person can, you know, change from living on the street to being ready for multifamily. Living in 30 days is hard to say, but you also have, for example, 120 day program at your shelters that you're implementing. Now, this milestone program, there's really hardly any reference to behavioral wellness. But as part of that, you can mandate that there needs to be a behavioral wellness class that they attend Monday through Friday like bybee lakes is now requiring. So please. So please make home forward and the other affordable housing agencies require behavioral wellness education. Thank you.

Thank you. Go ahead.

Hello, councilors. For the record, my name is robert powell. I'm the principal of oak leaf redevelopment. Before most of you are redistributed to other committees today, I mostly wanted to say thank you for your work on these topics the last 12 months. Today you'll hear that in the last six months, only 265 units of new housing have complied with the requirements to receive sdc exemptions, with another 206 units issued the resolution before the climate and land use committee later this week. Regarding the acceleration of the inner east side plans, correctly states our official goal of 6000 units per year in 2023, there was 2169 multifamily units permitted. In 2024, it was 954 units. In 2025, it was 495 units. That's two consecutive 50% drops year over year. The new supply pipeline is dry and rents will go up in 27 and 28. Sdc exemptions are simply not enough. Thank you to councilor Morillo and Zimmerman for the recent resolution regarding design review. Temporary suspension would also help generate some new units by reducing project entitlement time and costs. But it's also not enough. On November 13th, 2025, your offices received a letter from sarah radcliffe of habitat for humanity, cosigned by housing Oregon, hacienda, cdc, proud ground and myself advocating for reforms to the public works process. This too, would help generate some units, but it's also not enough. The most commonly shared obstacle across all types of housing is the cost of capital. Publicly funded revolving loan programs invest in our city and undercut the market, creating a competitive advantage. Chicago's recently adopted Green social housing program uses this tool, structured to produce mixed income, climate resilient new housing. In 2024, the state of Oregon created the $75 million moderate income revolving loan program, which went into effect July 1st, 2025. Tillamook and coos bay are currently participating. Portland is not. Please request fb to enroll Portland as a sponsoring jurisdiction in this program as soon as possible. Housing production is economic and workforce development. More demand for labor means higher wages. Every dollar spent on construction returns three times to our local economy. Affordability isn't only about the cost of housing, but also the growth of wages. Two sides of the same coin. New construction best addresses both. Yes, please slow the inflow and backfill a short term rental assistance funding. Yes. Accelerate a pilot social housing initiative and capitalize on this moment in the market for new for existing units. But more broadly, invest in revolving loan infrastructure for new construction, whether through some of the unbudgeted housing funds or through PCEF. Housing is both climate policy and economic development. Thank you.

Thank you, robert, and know that the mural ordinance is coming soon. So we will be we are working on that. Thanks.

Next is bob. La bob is online. Bob, if you can hear us, feel free to unmute and begin your testimony when you're ready. I think they might be experiencing technical issues. We could circle back to them.

We'll circle back. Yeah, okay.

Next is doctor ernest fonseca, sahan mckelvey, stephanie condor.

Good to see you.

I just got on.

Okay. Bob, do you want to go ahead and kick us off?

Just in the nick of just in the nick of time? I solved the problem. Except I'm sure getting an awful lot of reverberation, so I have a difficult time hearing or paying attention.

To fix that.

Maybe mute yourself. That might help so you don't hear it come back. Okay, now try to talk to us and let's see if we can hear you.

I unmuted you, but I'm still getting a lot of reverberation.

Perhaps. Bob, if you could mute your speakers.

Bob, do you want to try muting your speakers instead of your mic and see if that works? And why don't you work on that and we'll get to another testifier. In the meantime, we'll come back to you. Okay? Ernesto, would you like to kick us off?

Chair of the committee, council president and members of the committee. Thank you for having me today. I want to talk to you about some recent conversations that I had with some of you related to a project that is in north Portland that was abandoned by the original developer. So in 2023, a local developer received an award from the state.

We'll come back to you, bob. I'll call you in a few minutes.

Those of us online cannot hear the current person speaking.

Oh, yeah, I see open signal I.

Maybe one of the problem.

Sorry. We'll get right back to you. Okay. Open. Signal is back. Open. Can you hear us? Councilor. Ryan. Bob, I'm going to have you mute yourself and we'll come back to you. Okay? All right. Why don't we restart the clock for arnesto? Thank you.

Thank you, madam chair. President.

Okay.

Okay. Members of the committee. In 2023, a local developer received an award from the state through the Oregon housing and community services low income housing credit tax rate program to develop an eight story, 72 unit affordable housing project. The state invested about $4 million, and investors and lenders invested almost $14 million. In mid 2024, the developer defaulted on the project and abandoned it. The reasons are many poorly underwritten, a serious lack of experience developing affordable housing and therefore a lack of experience, understanding compliance and more. After the original developer had abandoned the project for almost a year, with significant taxpayer dollars already invested, one of our political leaders asked me if I saw a path to move this project forward and through the finish line. So the state of Oregon wouldn't lose this money through foreclosure proceedings. We at the cna came to explore this project and see if we could save it. We restructured the project, redesigned this seven ton project into 57 larger family units, better designed apartments to provide high quality housing. The state has allocated another $13 million for us to finish the project, but we need a final investment support of $3.5 million that I'm hoping the city can help us with when restructuring the remaining rent fund or another source, we're ready to deliver to portlanders and support your efforts to house people asap, while helping the state of Oregon and Oregonians not to lose those $4 million. The project in question is located at 1208 north jesup street, Portland. This project was formerly known as minnesota places and now has been renamed as monaca. While already met with some of you, I am here to formally ask for your support and to pass the 41 million amendment that councilor Mead is proposing, or to include in a future resolution or ordinance. This $3.5 million ask for this project. We have been partners with the city of Portland and the state on anything that you call us to, to support. I am here to ask you to please help us finish this project. 3.5 million bucks will give you 57 units. We're ready to go in less than one year. The community in that part of Portland want to see this project completed. It's blighted as it is right now, and we are running out of time every day that passes, every month that passes, pushes are closing for this project, you know, another month and another month. So with that said, I am hoping that in one fashion or another, all of you can support us to finish this project together. Thank you.

Thank you. Go ahead.

Good afternoon, chair Avalos, council president Dunphy and members of the committee. My name is sam mckelvie and I am the director of advocacy and engagement at self enhancement ink, or c.I. I'm here to continue to speak to this committee regarding the funds that are currently being discussed in the full council to determine the most viable path forward that can maximize the impact of these dollars in our community, as our city council committees are being reset, I want to continue to urge this committee to remember the urgency of need, including the need for hope and the need that we have to trust our leaders. These upcoming decisions represent a significant opportunity to address these needs, as well as the real and tangible housing needs that so many face every day. I want to express my support for the variety of uses that have been proposed in the various resolutions, ordinances, and amendments that have been brought forward by several of you and your fellow council members. There are certainly no shortage of need in our community that these funds could help to address. In doing that, I also want to continue to stress the importance of funding alignment because while it is a stroke of good fortune that this funding is available, we all know that it is not enough to meet every need. I can say with certainty that throughout the totality of our various housing programs across all jurisdictions, the ability to address three things have been disproportionately underfunded. These are the cost of rent, access to eviction prevention, and real pathways to homeownership. I've seen all of these addressed in the various proposals that have been put forward, and I would encourage you to keep these things at the forefront of your thinking as this conversation continues in your community. Transitions not because these things represent the most important needs, but because these things represent the most minimally funded needs. I would also urge you to remember that for the thousands of people who are living in homelessness or dealing with the day to day or month to month trauma of pending eviction, or living with a lifetime of suppressed hope that has conditioned them to give up their dreams of ever breaking through the ceiling of debilitating poverty. For these people, a dream deferred is a dream denied. For many, tomorrow is too late and we are all depending on you to move and act with urgency to ensure that the dreams that could come true with the implementation of these dollars are not lost in the posturing that will only come in an ever elusive tomorrow. We need you to lead. We need you to act decisively, and we need you to remember that your communities are your communities are trusting you to act with the urgency that matches the needs that we are facing. You have the power to make some people's dreams come true. Please do not delay in doing so. Thank you.

Thank you. Go ahead.

Okay. Good afternoon. Housing and homelessness committee committee chair. Avalos and committee vice chair. Council president. Dunphy, thank you for having me today. My name is steph condor, and I'm executive vice president of related northwest, a local area developer responsible for creating approximately 1700 units of housing over the last seven years in Oregon, either complete or in development. As the lead developer behind broadway corridor parcel six, I'm here to share with you the vision and the need to get this project out of the ground. Parcel six will deliver more than 200 homes and will be 100% income restricted. Serving households from 60 to 120% of area median income. That means both affordable and moderate income homes, all restricted for long term in portland's central city. This scale of long term income restricted housing is rare and critically important. In addition, this project will play a catalytic role in the broadway corridor, leading the momentum for portland's downtown revitalization, inspiring confidence among partners and investors, and signaling that Portland is aligned on downtown's revitalization. Broadway corridor represents a once in a generation master plan downtown development that will create economic opportunity and needed housing. Parcel six will also be a net zero energy, making it an innovative and highly sustainable solution. It will reduce long term operating costs and utility burdens while serving an invisible example of climate forward urban housing. We often hear of the missing middle. And there is a reason. While deeply affordable housing has established funding pathways, there is a real shortage of resources for middle income housing. These units are for nurses, teachers, city employees and service workers. People who keep Portland functioning but are increasingly priced out of living near where they work. We're seeing many families turned away from rent restricted housing because they're over income and just nominally so. This ensures for 60 years, housing will be attainable for our workforce. As an active area affordable housing developer, I see firsthand the depth of need in our community. I appreciate the focus on rental assistance and agree that it's an important tool. However, addressing our housing and affordability challenges requires a balanced approach. We cannot solve this crisis through rental support alone. We must pair assistance with the creation of new housing opportunities, and this project directly advances several of the city's most pressing priorities. Your commitment to broadway corridor also signals to the state that this is a very important project. Otherwise, this project will not go forward and the state will not invest. The city of Portland has a meaningful opportunity to invest in the support of hardworking portlanders. And so I thank you for your time and your thoughtful consideration, and we respectfully ask for your support today. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes. Just for the record, I didn't say it. My name is ernesto fonseca. I am the chief executive officer of hacienda cdc. Thank you for having us.

Thank you. I should have caught that. I thought you did say it, but maybe not.

No.

I you know, there were so many instructions.

That I.

Yes.

Totally lost my train of thought.

Thank you.

Appreciate it. Let's see if we can get bob back. Yes. Do you want to give it another try?

Are you talking to me?

Was that bob.

Is still online?

No.

Bob, if you can hear us there.

Okay, I think it works.

It works. Go ahead.

And all that feedback, all that echoing went away finally. Well, with with obvious help from somebody besides me. So I'm. I'm bob lau, I am going to give you the micro version rather than the macro version of the other very considered talks that I've been hearing. But first, and to say that I am not a professional public speaker, obviously, and I really appreciate having the opportunity to talk this afternoon. I am a long time real estate agent, having come from a background as a teacher, and I still consider myself in so many respects to be an educator. And that really brings me to the project that I am currently involved in. As a listing agent on Burnside. It is an affordable housing sdc waiver project and it is has what I call anyway, an overlay is kind of makes me think of a environmental overlay and other respects and and the real estate area. But it's the three bedroom bonus program. So we've been marketing this program since last June. We've had a smattering of sales and activity, but it's real obvious that the difficulty in getting people to qualify is substantial, especially for the three bedroom bonus program. And it's something when I say the other aspects outside the requirements of the program, that we have no control over, particularly interest rates, because when you have the lower income buyers that this project is designed for, they are very interest rate sensitive. And so the slightest increase in interest rate can mean that they can't qualify for a loan. So obviously they can't purchase these homes. And one of the things that we've found also is they have difficulty in getting down payments so easily. The vast majority of the few people that we have had being able to purchase under the three bedroom program and to a certain extent, the affordability or the sdc waiver program have been people that have gotten significant down payments from relatives. One way or another, they've done that. There's also been someone who, although I don't know the number involved here, got a loan from the from a down payment assistance program loan. And so just the typical person though is going to need pretty much family help in order to qualify. And they want my three minutes. So I've got all sorts of things to say. But obviously I hadn't rehearsed this talk before, so and I do want to say that I really appreciate the feedback that I've gotten so far from the various counselors, particularly counselor dunphy's office. It's been great. Not that other people haven't responded accordingly, and it's been helpful. So anyway, I guess I'm out of time. Thank you.

Thank you bob. Thanks for hanging in there through the technical difficulties, and please feel free to send over any of your further thoughts to our offices. I'd be happy to hear that. Thank you. Do we have others?

The final two lisa jackson minthorn norma. Okay.

Oh.

Go ahead, please introduce yourself.

Elana. My name is dakota dewey. My english name is lisa jackson spotted elk. I know most of you have received an email from me about a 14 page demand letter that was written to a nonprofit, multiple nonprofits. So I want to address housing here. I didn't come scripted, but I've been keeping an eye on everything that has been going on. I'm grateful that you all can get along this weekend. That was really amazing. But we need to talk about business. The late stage of capitalism was brought up. The demand, the dominance of multiple national corporation globalization had came up. Why we need to fix our city. So, mind you, I come from a reservation. I've only been here five years. The year has changed in 2020. We all know that and I have so much faith in this council because of the racism, everything that has happened to natives. I just noticed you all just got a tribal relations not even ten years ago. That's how far back we are. So I'm here to represent natives. I don't come scripted and I want to let you know these housings are suffering. The natives in this community are suffering and we need to help each other. Coming from this, coming from this point, I noticed on the human resource research institute, institution of the national alliance to to end homelessness, it says native Americans, there is not a consent general population data on native Americans. Therefore this analysis this analyst was not able to examine the rates of homelessness among the group in the states. That's how underrepresented we are. And we're here and we matter. And I'm going to continue to come here because I hope you all learn something off of that 14 page demand letter that I wrote, because that's the type of stuff that's happening in your housing. This isn't only happening to natives. My question is, is who's holding these nonprofits accountable? We need to start writing policies to help people in these situations. And like, I'm not here to to point fingers. I'm grateful that you all are here to try to make change. But I have that sign for a reason. This isn't only stolen from us, this is stolen from everyone. And this is going to take generations to change. This may be about our friends, Dan, but it's not about us. This is about everyone, and this is about the next generations to come. Because this stuff isn't going to be changed in just in a year. This is a type of mess that's going to take like ten years to three decades. And so that's why I'm here, because I want you to know, natives are here and we need help to. This is a 280 state, which I understand a lot of people don't understand that. But we still have federal rights. I come from a reservation five years ago. Why do I have to come out here and suffer to.

Thank you. So I'm understanding the last person on our list is removing themselves. But we have one more. We're adding to our list. Frank. Yes. That's correct.

Oh.

Am I on?

You are on. Please say your name and go ahead.

Okay. Well, I just came from the federal building about. They sent me down here. Let's see. I was over there talking about the veterans. I'm a veteran and I'm concerned, very concerned about where I've been treated as a veteran in these homeless centers. Do entitled do good Multnomah. And it's amazing. I, I get told different things all the time about where they're sending me, and they're saying it's for veterans. And then I find out that it's not. And it's like, well, it seems like they're trying to avoid us, give us a hard time. I can go through all kinds of examples. But anyways, I'm concerned about these 500 1c3 that I believe that is the funding is through through the city or the or the county. I don't know which that's what I'm trying to figure out and bring it up to the authorities what they're doing to the veterans, because a lot of veterans that I meet are very annoyed at how they're being treated. And there's these facilities. The management is needs some looking into. And let's see, I was told to come here. I didn't know it was going to be a homeless meeting. Actually, I guess I lucked out. And so I'm very concerned about it. And is there anything that you can do? Because I know you're busy, but in in order to know what's going on, I don't know. I'm 74 this month now, and I'm trying to do what I can can to save the save the constitution and the country, because it seems like what's going on now is it's being taken over and I'm concerned about it. And as long as I'm alive, it's my duty to, you know, uphold the constitution, which I am learning that the government is violating. And anyways, the problem is, is the way that they're treating veterans. It's like they're trying to move us out. And I they keep me busy on running here and going there, there and everywhere I go. I got a start over with my information that they want. Thank you very much. I'll be back.

Thank you sir. I'm going to jump in here quick and make sure that you understand where the veterans service office is at in our community. Okay. It's actually you're on the right side of the river, but it's down at fourth and oak, and it's.

Fourth, fourth and oak.

Yep. Four. Two, one southwest oak. And they have responsibility for the veterans service, veterans services that exist in Multnomah county. So I that is for some of the topics you brought up, is the next best stop.

Okay. I just came from the federal building, which is on first and main.

I'm aware. Yep. So going to fourth and oak is is where you're going to want to go.

Okay. And that's for the county right.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. And we have one more testifier. Go ahead.

John collins.

Hello.

All right. So my name is john. I'm currently homeless, living in a motel shelter. And I've heard a lot of testimony from people that represent different organizations and here on behalf of their interests. But I don't represent anyone. I'm a volunteer currently living in the system. I wanted to share a little bit about what I'm seeing as the pulse on the streets and speak for the the homeless people that are currently in it. So here's basically what I'm hearing. We just found out we had $107 million in unspent funding. So a lot of homeless people wondering what's up with that. Also, we're hearing, you know, but that that's the city. We're also heard the announcement from the county that they're looking to cut about 700 beds and life saving resources, things such as the bybee lakes rehab center and the market street shelter is just closing its 100 bed shelter. So I know these are different, separate budgets, but a lot of the homeless are wondering, you know, what's going on. And I was wondering if anybody could explain that just in simple terms. I've heard councilor Morillo at a previous meeting when nobody really understood what was going on, and she kind of jumped in and explained it really well to everyone, and I was wondering if she could be cool and do that again for us. Also, another thing is the home ford, you know, currently home ford has about 2000 unoccupied affordable housing units sitting vacant. As of June of this year, I was 1483 on the waitlist. As of this morning, I'm 1482. So this is not moving. I can vouch for that. Right. So also if we look at the county numbers on the dashboard, it says at 12,000 eviction filings, there's 12,000 people facing eviction out of affordable housing or any type of housing this year. Five. 5 to 10% of those become homeless. So that is about 600 to 1200 people per year. So I would highly recommend that we look at one using some of this money with the city to go in and maybe rescue 1 or 2 shelters. I know we can't save them all, but these are not only shelters, these are life saving resources. These are detox treatment programs. I also do volunteer work and go get people into detox and rehab and shelter every week. I'm I'm all for preventative measures on the front, on the on the back end, I guess of, you know, we need to build more affordable housing. We need to look at preventative ways. But also, please don't forget we have an emergency, a humanitarian crisis out on our streets right now that's looking to get only worse with the closing of these 700 shelter beds. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

That concludes testimony.

Thank you. Really appreciate everyone who has come out and know that we will continue to make space available in the committee at the top of it to for open feedback. So please continue to sign up and share your thoughts with our committee. With that, let's move to item two. Diego, if you can go ahead and read that.

Item two temporary system development charge exemption for housing program.

All right. So we have staff from Portland permitting and development who are coming up. And they are here to provide an update on the temporary stc exemption program for new housing. As council knows, this program was adopted last year with the goal of reducing upfront development costs and helping move housing projects forward toward or during a challenging market. And today's presentation will walk us through the early implementation and the initial data we're beginning to see from the first several months of the program. I'll note that we also have staff from several other bureaus here in the room with us today, who can help answer questions after the presentation. Since this program touches multiple infrastructure systems and city processes. And with that, I'll hand it over to staff of pad.

Good afternoon, chair Avalos, vice chair, Dunphy and committee members. Sounds like we're closing out this committee, so that's fun. My name is steven himes. I'm the public works development manager in Portland, permitting and development.

And I am alice nielsen. I am the interim customer support and permitting services manager with Portland permitting and development.

We are happy to be here today to provide the first update on the city's housing focused sdc exemption. Before moving into the presentation, I will note, as chair Avalos just did, that alice and I are joined here in the room by colleagues from Portland permitting development and from the various public works bureaus, and they are available to help answer questions if needed. With that next slide, please. So here's our plan for today. We'll start with some background information on the housing sdc exemption program. I will then talk about the significant bureau partnerships that were necessary to develop and implement this program, and the associated reporting. Alice will then walk you through the data pools, which hopefully you've been able to see already in the published report. And finally, we'll talk about some next steps for the program and the upcoming reporting periods that you can expect. We plan to breeze through the slides fairly quickly to leave plenty of time for discussion. So first, a quick orientation for those who are watching and may be unfamiliar with this program and its goals. System development charges or sdcs are a type of fee the city charges to development projects to account for the development's impact. Once it's constructed on our various infrastructure systems, those sdcs become revenue for the city's four public works bureaus bts, PBOT water and parks, and help fund new capital improvements or pay debt service on previous improvements to those systems. In July of last year, city council unanimously passed ordinance number 192082, which became effective a month later on August 15th. This ordinance created a new category of sdc exemption, essentially waiving those charges for development projects that build new housing, with the goal of spurring construction of 5000 new housing units during the three year program window. The ordinance included parameters to ensure it was only incentivizing development of stable, long term housing units, and to clarify that only housing specific sdcs were to be exempted, meaning that, for example, neither transient lodging facilities or accessory dwelling units are eligible for this program. Likewise, on mixed use projects, only the portion of sdcs that are tied to the building's residential uses are exempted. Finally, development projects must start construction within a set amount of time to realize the cost savings, ensuring accountability that the city is actually seeing those new units get built. Next slide. In addition to the new city code that authorized this exemption, and that the ordinance created a city staff who implement this program on a day to day basis also needed additional eligibility and process clarity in the form of of an administrative rule. That rule, ianb 13.29, in Portland policy documents, was pretty much rushed into existence to match the short timeline of the ordinance effective date, meaning it didn't go through the normal notice and comment period, and is therefore currently just a temporary rule. Pnd is working through the process to convert enb 13.29 into a permanent rule, and you can see here the next steps and timeline for that. We're targeting April 30th for final approval, but that could get pushed into may depending on the timeline for internal review. Any future updates to this rule would also go through the same update process, including a public notice period. So not much to dwell on here, just flagging it for you all for awareness since there will be a public notice comment notice issued soon and as it relates to this program. So I want to take a moment here to appreciate that every aspect of this program's implementation has benefited from significant partnership between city bureaus. It has taken a village and hundreds of hours of staff time to get here, since it's also true that no one bureau or office in the city centrally manages all aspects of sdc. We wanted to talk briefly about roles since it can get confusing when it comes to sdcs. So starting at the top, the four public works bureaus manage sdc revenue by applying it to their respective capital programs and debt service for system improvements. As I previously mentioned, two of those bureaus, PBOT and parks, also have teams that work directly in the permitting process to assess development projects and collect the sdcs from developers moving down. Pnd has responsibility for the city's overall development permitting process, including technology improvements associated with sdcs. In contrast to PBOT and parks. You'll notice here that the collection of biz and water sdcs is managed by my team in pa, not within biz and water. I also want to highlight here that pnd conducted a significant amount of proactive outreach to projects that appeared eligible to benefit from this exemption program, to educate them about the program and prompt engagement with the city. We knew that some certainly wouldn't be tracking this, the news of this program's adoption, and didn't want them to miss out. And alice can speak more to this effort if there are any questions about that. And then moving further down the list, you can see the Portland housing bureau and city revenue are also at the table because they play key roles in administering existing sdc incentive and deferral programs, which this new housing exemption had to play nicely with, and then finally, prosper and helped the team with some development project data analysis. And next slide okay, which leads to the report itself. So in a moment alice will walk you through the data, but I'll set the table a bit first in the amended ordinance that you all passed, council requested written implementation reports every six months, so you could have visibility into the progress being made. The amendment included a list of specific topics that community and economic development were to report to you on, which are summarized on the slide here. Our team was able to pull data from most of the items on this list, and you'll see those quantified on the following slides. Bullet four is a bit different because it asks for identification of material changes in the rate or timing of permit issuance and construction starts, including observed trends in project movements, activation of previously dormant applications or other indicators of increased project viability. And this gets at the at the degree to which this exemption may or may not have been a deciding factor in any given developer's decision about whether to move their project forward or not. And unfortunately, developers face myriad factors when making such a risk calculation, and those calculations are typically opaque to us, especially when we're talking about counterfactuals. Therefore, it was not possible to quantify this item using currently available data sources for this first report out. Then, we opted to share anecdotal feedback that we've received from several housing developers that touch on the degree to which this exemption has moved the needle for them in their projects, and alice will share that feedback later on in the presentation. And next slide.

All right. Good afternoon. For the record, my name is alice nielsen and I am the interim customer support and permitting services manager with pnd. Up next we have the first analytics snapshot of this program. We will go over the current milestone which includes the initial five month implementation period. That reporting period is August 15th, 2025 through January 15th, 2026. This is not a full six month report out as as we were required to have the first report back to council prior to the full six month period. The next report will be in the fall of 2026 and will include a full year of data. The information we've collected thus far has been a collaborative multi bureau coordination coordination effort that spans pnd, bts, prosper, Portland, bts, PBOT, parks and the water bureau. Next slide please. Before we dig into the data, we want to share how we are tracking the statuses of permits in this program. Qualifying sdc exemptions are tracked through the following statuses. Enrolled, issued and complied. Enrolled status refers to qualifying permits with filed sdc exemption, paperwork awaiting permit issuance, and permanent sdc exemptions. Issued status refers to issued permits advancing towards construction that have not yet reached the milestone for permanent sdc exemptions. Complied status refers to permitted units that have met the required construction milestones, resulting in the permanent exemption. Sdc fees in order for new construction projects to reach complied status, they must have an approved foundation inspection. One year after issuance of the building permit. The conversion of for conversion of space to housing in an existing building, and insulation and vapor barrier inspection must be completed one year after building permit issuance. And finally, for all projects that qualify, applicants can submit a construction completion guarantee for from an accredited financial institution prior to building permit issuance. Next slide please. This slide shows the current progress towards our 5000 unit goal. Currently, 34.4% of our goal is active within the pipeline, represented by the combined enrolled, issued and compliant and complied categories and enrolled status. We have 1248 units, or 25% currently enrolled in the program, showing strong initial interest and onboarding and issued status. We have 206 units, or 4.1% of units that have reached the issued stage in compliance status. We have 265 units, or 5.3%, that have that have successfully met compliance requirements. There are currently 3280 units, or 65.6%, remaining, to reach the 5000 unit goal. While issued and complied numbers are smaller, these represent the first wave of units moving through the pipeline towards completion. Next slide. This slide represents the value of sdcs exempted for each sdc bureau for the first five months of the program. As of January 15th, 2026, 265 new housing units have complied with the program for an approximate total of 6.6 million. In sdc exemptions, an average of $25,221 per unit. An additional 207 units have had their permits issued, and are on track to receive approximately 4.1 million in sdc exemptions, but are not yet considered complied. 1248 units have enrolled in the program, which, if they all move forward to permit issuance and reach compliance, would result in an estimated 21.9 million in sdc exempted. If all of these permits were to qualify for the sdc exemption, it represents a total of 32.7 million in forgone charges spread across the city's four public works bureaus. Next slide. Next up, we have units broken down by housing type and how each type is contributing to the 5000 unit goal. The primary driver of units is apartments with 878 units in 878 units enrolled, 159 units issued, and 41 units in compliance. They represent the majority of units currently in the program, consistent with portland's typical housing production trends. Next is single family dwellings with 191 units enrolled, ten units issued, and 112 units in compliance, followed by townhouses which represent 152 units enrolled, 35 units issued, and 112 units in compliance status. Next slide please. While the report did not require us to provide this information, we thought it would be helpful for city councilors to see how many units were enrolled, issued and in compliance of the temporary sdc exemption in each of their districts. We're not going to do a deep dive into this information today. I just wanted you to have it in case you were curious, but please do let us know if you have any questions about the data and if you would like us to continue providing this in the future. Next slide please. This slide illustrates the historical volume of new housing permits created through issued building permits from 2020 through the end of 2025. Spikes in the unit count are attributable, for the most part, due to apartment developments. While the data shows a decrease from peaks seen in 2021, the number of new units saw an increase in October of 2025, reaching a total of 153 units. This represents a 38% increase or an additional 42 units when measured against the 111 units recorded in October of 2020. For some permits that have been ready to approve for several months or years, but waiting to pay their fees and get their permits issued have since indicated movement forward. Specifically, 49 units that were previously approved to issue status in 2024 and prior have now been issued of. Of these permits, 25 units have issued building permits that have not yet complied and 24 units have complied with the sdc exemption program requirements. Next slide please. It is important to view these numbers through the lens of the current market. There are a few economic factors that continue to present difficulties for the construction industry. The first is construction costs. Development costs have surged by approximately 50% since the onset of the pandemic. These costs remain at historic highs, with no signs of local or national cooling, and continue to pose a significant barrier to project feasibility, regardless of local incentives. The the next factor is marginal interest rate fluctuations. Since the legislation took effect on August 15th, 2025, short term construction interest rates have seen only a nominal decline. This marginal decrease is insufficient to drive a meaningful spike in construction activity. While short term interest rates used for construction loans have dipped slightly, long term interest rates remain higher than construction financing. By combining data from diverse sources, we can hopefully see exactly how these incentives are or are not moving the needle on housing production in Portland. At this point, it is still very early to tell how successful this program will be. We do have a lot of permits in the pipeline, however, however, and a year's worth of data at the next reporting deadline may help clarify if this program is a success. Next slide please. While the early numbers are not enough to support the success of this program, we do have a lot of helpful feedback from our customers. I reached out to several different developers in the area to see if this program is helping move their housing construction projects forward. These are a few quotes from the many I gathered that show promise for the future of this program. They provide insight into the level of help the sdc exemption can provide. The first quote is from a developer for a large multifamily development, and the feedback we are receiving is that it's not just this incentive that will help move the needle on large projects, it's several different incentives provided by the city and time to navigate the logistics around due diligence and funding for large housing projects. Next slide please. Next is a quote from a midsize multifamily development project that is currently under construction. This customer told us that the sdc exemption was the only reason this 40 unit apartment project is being built. It would have remained on hold indefinitely had they not received the sdc exemption. Next slide please. And finally, we have feedback from a new single family in middle housing developer who also said the sdc exemption program is definitely a factor in kickstarting residential projects that were otherwise not financially feasible. I would like to note that in my conversation with e quote or comment. About this program. They all agreed that this program is important for the future of housing production in Portland. Next slide please. Next steps. As stephen outlined earlier in the presentation, we are working towards a permanent administrative rule, which will be effective in may of 2026. The next written report will be delivered in the fall of 2026, and should give us much clearer analytics as to how this program is helping or not helping build new housing units. We will continue to be proactive in reaching out to our customer base to gather their input on if this program is helping move their projects forward, and we will also continue to reach out to our customers to let them know that this program is is available. With that, I would like to say thank you for the opportunity to present today. And are there any questions or comments?

All right. Thank you so much for your presentation. And yes, we've got about an hour left if we need it. Hopefully not all of that. But yeah, we'll go ahead and take questions starting with councilor Morillo.

Angelita Morillo: Thank you chair. Avalos. Thank you guys so much for this updated report. I'm really excited to see some of the results of this and I think it's incredibly helpful. So I appreciate the presentation. I thought the report was very helpful overall and I think can give us some context as far as decision making around this moving forward. I was curious about like, you know, this is pretty early on. We're barely scratching the surface of the data that we're going to collect on this. And from the report, I saw that there were comparison points that were highlighted to demonstrate the success of creating new units via the number of stalled projects that move forward after the program went into place. And I'm wondering if it's also possible to provide a more overarching analysis of the questions around, like units that were estimated to be created by the sdc, exemption that would not be built otherwise, either for this time frame or for future reports, because right now there are so many variables that could have impacted whether or not like just a strict timeline. Analysis of this is how many units were built at this time versus now doesn't necessarily tell me the policy is the direct result of these units being built. Does that make sense? And I realize that might be more challenging of an analysis to put together. But is that something that we could do for the next report?

So we've been talking about this and we do. It could be challenging because we essentially need to ask our customers if that's the case, if this is what helped them. So we've been kicking around the idea of a survey for our customers. That's also a little tricky when it comes to analytics, because they have to take the survey, right. We can't make them do that. So we're discussing that right now. But it's a definite possibility. And it should be pretty easy for us to put together a survey and send it out to our customers, since we initially reached out to them anyway to tell them that this program was available for them. So the short answer is yes, I think we can get that information, but it might not be completely accurate.

Yeah, that makes sense. I figure it won't be completely accurate because of the reasons that you stated, but I think it will help contextualize it. And I think that if that type of survey has to go out so that we can address that, I bet counselors would be happy to put it in our newsletters and stuff to make sure that the word gets out there as much as possible, because I want to make sure that when we are giving these exemptions and we're not taking in that money for the city, that there is a positive net result for the public, and that means that we are building that housing. And it was a direct result of the policy. So that's kind of where my head is at. But overall, I think this was a really helpful report. And I just want to make sure that we can tell that the impact of these results is truly because of the sdc waiver and not because of other variables. As much as we can reduce that down, which it's hard to do with this. I was also wondering, do we have any examples of specific infrastructure projects that have that had to be moved up or expanded due to new developments that were exempted from sdcs?

I think.

And also, I can send these in an email later if that's helpful. They might be a little granular.

Yeah. So councilor, if I understand your question, you mean an scc exempt housing program went forward not paying their scc, and because of that housing development, there was a need to move up a related infrastructure project to support that housing development. Is that correct? Okay. So I am not aware of a specific example of that. I will say, when a housing development does need infrastructure constructed to support it, typically the developer is building that themselves regardless of this program. So. I don't think that there would be a case where they would not have built it, and therefore the city infrastructure agency would have built it on their behalf in a manner that's different than than without this program in place. Does that make sense?

Yeah, that does make sense.

Did you have anything? Yeah. Councilor donnie oliveira.

For the record, thank you for the question. We had reached out to our public works colleagues to sort of get that. And I actually got their response today to that, that very question. So if you give me one second just to, to pull it up. But stephen is accurate to say that it's that that's not known to us yet. But the direct answer is, as I do so for for bts and water, the scc programs are reimbursement based. So in these programs, sdc revenue reimburses the cost of capacity has already been constructed and is available to serve development. So as a result, bts and water are not aware of any infrastructure projects that were advanced or moved up or expanded due to the exemption of development with exempted development. And that's separate, right? And then for PBOT and parks, their improvement based. And so in those programs the revenue helps fund future capacity of investments. So it's not a 1 to 1 like based on where the project is. Does that help answer the question.

Yeah, that's super helpful. Thank you for pulling that up on such short notice. Appreciate you digging into that before this even started. I have one more question. I was wondering if for the next report, it's possible to look at the cottage cluster type housing or middle housing and have it broken out from the general family or single family home category, just so we can disaggregate that data a

Yes. So we're also looking into that. That permits up right now we don't necessarily identify whether something's a cottage cluster, but we can go back and identify those. And then also we're looking at maybe like a technology fix where we can identify those. So the reporting is a little bit easier. But again we haven't been tracking that thus far. But we can we can do that. So it should be a possibility for the next report out.

And councilor May I also this is also a challenge we face with broader residential infill project reporting. So bts reports annually on on rip as it's known. And we have some of that granularity challenges. There's a lot of data scrubbing just to get those that report data available. And what al said is accurate. We probably need some some software data analysis investments to streamline this because this is reasonably, you know, useful information that we don't have easy access to. So working on it on multiple fronts.

Yeah.

Well, thank you all so much for taking time to answer my questions. And I was the person that put in the amendment to have a report on these updates. So I just really appreciate how thorough this has been. It's clear you're thinking about doing this in the best ways possible and getting council all the facts we need to make these decisions moving forward. So just the utmost gratitude for your work. And I'm going to take a second to clarify comments that we heard earlier from the public, just in case anyone's watching. I think there's been a lot of misinformation around the housing dollars going around that there is $106 million just sitting for us to use. And I want to clarify while we're all here that there is not most of that money was allocated for long term use. There's about 21 million for council to address it as unallocated right now. And I think just as like nonprofits and other folks that are needing money right now are looking at this, I wanted to make sure that there's I'll put it on the record as many times as necessary to clarify for the public. So thank you guys so much for your information.

Vice chair Dunphy.

Thank you. Building off of what councilor Morillo had asked, I'm this is a low priority, but I'm interested to know. One of the. Okay, backing up a little bit, I was one of the arguments for the sdc waiver originally for me, as someone has told me, was that there were about 4000 permits of various stages in the back log that were just sort of sitting there and were probably never going to move forward. So I would be interested to know the ones that have made it through on the other side, if they applied well before we implemented this. And what was it July of last year, just to see if it did clear up the backlog. But again, low priority if you're able to just glance at that, but I did also I'm interested I guess if you could help me understand just sort of context, you know, obviously the number of issued and complied permits is dramatically smaller than the number enrolled. Is that to be expected? Does that compare to permit issuance broadly that we have a lot of interest up front and not that maybe 10% actually come out the backside? Or how does it how does this compare to historical norms? High level.

First count. Thanks for the question, councilor. I think I would just start by saying that I think what you're seeing is a natural progression, right? It's it's natural that we're seeing a big glut of enrolled currently, and it's just a matter of timing. Right? At least we're hoping so that most, if not all of those eventually make their way to. Issued and then complied. Right. So it's just kind of the natural progression of the the pig down, the snake, if you will.

And I do think the data supports this in that like new single family homes, we've seen a lot more of those make it through to issuance and into compliance, because they just don't take as long to get through like plan review as like a larger project. The other thing that I did point out with the the customer quotes is that the larger projects are just taking longer to figure out right now, and that's because of the, you know, the market right now and the cost of construction materials and interest rates. But they are telling me they're trying to do it. I mean, they're very and this program is crucial along with a lot of other factors, but that it's just taking them some time working through it with their lenders, working through it with, you know, their entire teams to do all of their due diligence. It's just they're like, please, please, please be patient with us. We're getting there. So we've had a lot of very positive feedback from larger construction projects and the teams around those.

That's great to hear.

And councilor Just one last thing. The typical development cycle, regardless of sdcs, slows down in the winter time. So our hope would be some of those enrolled would pick up naturally because they're going to pull their permits to begin construction and better weather. But then to the question you had, like, we've been on the phone and I think there's real there's that 4000 number that you referenced. Those projects are very much still trying to get to the finish line, and it really is finalizing that, that cap stack that really is the and this helps. This actually drops the number down to described. So we're hoping with interest rates starting to move a little bit down, there might be more financial appetite to invest.

That's great to hear. And I I feel like we're setting the table and nobody's at the you know none of our guests have arrived yet. And we're going to have some great things for them when they get here. But. I have one specific I've heard one specific piece of feedback, and we heard it a little bit from earlier in the day from testimony about some conflict between this sdc waiver program and the affordable housing sdc waiver program. Can you help me understand how we are reconciling the conflict between those two programs, and if there's more that this council needs to do in order to try and make those affordable developers who maybe got their sdc waivers right before this went into effect, how we can make them more whole or at least easier to administer.

Thank you for the question, council president. So just for the audience, for the public, before this sdc exemption, we already had affordable housing exemption that through certain criteria waived sdc along with some other permitting elements. If they put a cap at this, the sale of the price of the home and looked at income levels, we see that the hydraulics of that are making those initial sdc projects not not be able to be sold on the market. And so we actually do have a policy in development that will be coming to council, hopefully later this spring that will address that. And I don't want to get ahead of decision by council, but we will contemplate perhaps removing that that income requirement so that the sale would still be, you know, capped. But we still have a little more flexibility for the the buyers. I think that will unlock that. And we think that will be well received and that will just for clarity, that will be temporary as well, to align with the sdc moratorium that we're currently in with the broader sdc exemption.

And that the the existing one is administered by fb primarily. Is that right? Yes. And so is that also leading to some conflict or a backlog of any kind or any sort of other bottlenecks where we have two separate bureaus administering different sdc programs? Or how is that.

Not from an administration perspective? This thing that you flagged is a challenge. We want to need a policy adjustment to address. We hopefully that will solve it. And just for transparency, we were we were sensitive to this potential dynamic when we adopted it. But until we saw the the reality which we picked up in the fall started to see that the results in the fall, we said, okay, we have to make that adjustment. So I share this with chair Avalos a couple weeks ago to check in that something that we'd love to see in the new committee address. So the housing bureau is working on a policy to to address that.

If this council needs to take more action to make this work better, I, I'm very eager to see what that looks like. So thank you.

Thank you. All right. I've got myself in the line here. So I wanted to ask some questions about the temporary rule. So I noticed that, you know, it said that the administrative rule is moving from temporary to permanent. And to be clear, I am aware about the role of temporary rules and all of that. But I guess I just wanted to ask what specifically would change by making the rule permanent. And, you know, given that the program is still early in implementation, what would be the downside of keeping the rule temporary until we have more data?

Take a stab first.

I'll take a first stab. Yeah. Councilor, thanks for the question or chair. Thank you for the question. So in terms of making the the administrative rule permanent from its current temporary status, nothing is changing. Nothing is proposed to change substantively in the rule itself. It really is an administrative step to make the rule permanent, to create a, you know, regulatory durability, if you will, in terms of making changes to the rule, which I understand to be part of your the second part of your question, what do you want to take a stab at that?

There's a practicality chair. There's a practicality of temporary or temporary rules, generally only lasts for about 180 days. And so they're really just a device to put in place. So we have the authority to enact council policy as staff contemplate the more durable, permanent structure of the administrative rule. So generally, you know, that's our that's our marker is to solve for that to a point of can we collect more data? I think our public comment period is probably going to enlighten us on what data we're still lacking, but I think it's a fair thing to assess. And I think Steve alluded to it in his presentation. Even after we adopt the admin rule and we see something that's not working, or there's still some that needs to be addressed, then we can do another admin rule amendment to to address that. But the point's taken. That data would obviously help inform the the more permanent rule.

Yeah. And that was going to be one of my thoughts. Just like if making the rule permanent would limit our ability, council's ability to just adjust it as program outcomes might change. So I just wanted to understand your intent. And yes, I'm aware that temporary rules are temporary. It's in the name, but just wanted to understand what it was looking like, if it was going to be, if there was some particularly different thing that needed to be adjusted in the permanent rule based on what you're learning from the program, I'm hearing no, but something that I want to just keep an eye on. And then as it relates to fiscal impact, I mean, looking at the slide, let's see what slide was that. Slide ten where it says value of sdcs exempted. I thought that was a curious way to label that slide in my reading that that slide is essentially this is what the revenue we're losing by having the sdc in place. Yes. And so. I guess, you know, as we know, as they fund essential infrastructure and we are in a difficult budget environment. So just curious, you know, as we're implementing it and starting to see, you know, those I guess savings for the developer. But you know losses for the city. How are we balancing housing incentives with maintaining this infrastructure that residents rely on. What's that looking like as far as. Yeah, making sure that we're able to be solvent on many fronts.

That's a great question. I think it's a policy decision. At some point when we adopted council, adopted the ordinance, we were projecting out what that impact would be to the bureaus. I think to their credit, they they were willing to to take the risk. Just given that even the scc is only collected when housing or other projects are built. So we weren't really generating a lot of sdcs. And so this is, I think, maybe gets the question that council was asking is, does the sdc actually move the needle to get these these housing units built? Obviously we speak about being in a housing crisis. We're looking at all the tools in our toolkit to do that. And I think the other thing that kind of goes unspoken chair is, yes, we see the impact to our sdcs. Absolutely. The other element that we really don't talk about often is the construction industry is dependent on a pipeline that has almost dried up. So we're also solving for its the valuation of the housing itself, the construction industry, and yes, the resources that go into our infrastructure bureaus that they need. No, no doubt. So I think that analysis needs to happen once we have a little bit more information. I think five months was just to get it out. We want to be responsive. I think at the year point, I think we'll be able to answer those questions and present to you probably with some decisions like do we keep the stc exemptions or is it too much of a burden on our bureaus that we'd have to remove it?

Thank you. And you know, I bring it up just because I know after the vote, I actually got outreach from east portlanders who were pretty upset with me. And they were like, we we hear you, we understand. And also like, we're still waiting for our fair share of resources and investment from the city. And they were disappointed that, you know, I didn't fight harder for that. And, you know, again, we we made our decision. I stand by the decision I made to support the stc waiver, but I have to continue to raise that as these are concerns that my constituents keep bringing to me. And again, we just want to we know that we're in an even more dire of a fiscal crisis. And every day it seems more and more dire. And so just got to keep elevating that, to make sure that portlanders know that we are trying to weigh these, these challenges and make sure that we are still putting those investments where they're needed, especially in east Portland. So that's why I have to keep raising it. But I appreciate your your thoughtful response. And that's all my questions for now. We'll move on to councilor Zimmerman.

Eric Zimmerman: Thanks. I just want to clarify, did you say the average number was about 22 or 32,000? In the.

22,000?

So it was 2025.

I do that. What's the math there? Because if I take the 6.6 mill divide the 206, I'm not there. If I take the other numbers, I'm not there. So are we. Are you saying that if we combine even the enrolled, which I would put in the maybe thoughtful fantasy category, they aren't really. Where are we getting that number? Because I was at 32,000. I thought for the complied. So I want to make sure I'm calculating the right way. And I ask it because 22 is significantly different than what we were expecting.

So councilor, it's the excuse me, it's the 6.6 million divided by 265.

Okay.

Yields approximately 25,000 per unit.

Okay. Got 25. Okay. Thanks. I appreciate understanding exactly where we're at. Okay. Thanks. Now, you asked about the breakdown of council graph. I really appreciated that. So I hope that that stays in it. It's really great to see that. And some aspects of that are surprising. Some are not and some are very good to see. I'm glad to see that this is that there's a lot of interest in the non-district for districts. I think that's really important in terms of the way the city grows. Now, I want to note that you had mentioned in your talking points that there was a 50% reduction two years in a row in the terms of the the permits that had been taken out. And I want to make sure that was in 24 and then 25, we saw about roughly about a 50% reduction. But you also said that in October, and I think this is October 25th, we saw a 3,038% increase over October 24th is I want to make sure I heard that correctly before I cheer it.

I think that's also because that's when we put this program into effect, and we had a glut again of people submitting. Good.

So I hope so.

Yes.

Those of you that are dancing in the periphery, it's time to get in the ring is my point in bringing this up, which is for a year that had a 50% reduction October, which I would put it as kind of the first time, I think anybody could have pulled anything together before, before or after July. We saw an increase when if you look at the year over year, we should have expected a decrease. And so I'm happy about the 38%. I know we don't have big numbers here 265, 206 etcetera, but but bucking trends is important. And the one off kind of conversation. I appreciate those who gave you some quotes about, you know, this was great for us and but I'm really going to be looking at the, the statistic numbers, like how many people I have some testimony here as well from Oregon smart growth that within their own members that they their group said that they have 546 market rate units that are back into active deal consideration with their financial partners after this action. So I get all that. And again, I keep saying like, now it's time to get in the ring. And that's where I want to make sure that we're we're sending that message to, to the development community. Because I do think that I hope that the enrolled number, in large part, rolls into the issue number, and that that will be a that should send a signal, because after that, there really aren't that many more to hit that 5000. And so I think getting in the queue is going to be important. Yeah. You know, I think it's it's interesting in terms of how we do sdcs in terms of what we give up by value or what we don't. You know, I was very much supportive of this because we weren't taking anything in. But if we, you know, I think our city does not work on the system of what's raised in the district, goes back to the district. And, you know, if if there was deep heartburn on the idea that sdcs. Were. You know, waived for a certain point, I'd say, I guess, well, maybe, maybe we go to that kind of model where you raise in the district from which you raise it, you can fund what you got. But I think this made a lot of sense to me. And so I hope that we stick with this enrollment or excuse me, this exemption for a while, knowing that most of district four and a large part of our public works bureaus, I'd say we are we are built out in that our value goes to help other parts of the city. But if that's not welcome, well, we can keep ours and and whatnot. But I think overall this looks very promising. I appreciate the report. Appreciate councilor Morillo bringing this amendment to help with the report, because I think this is a great touch point. And. I guess if there are future areas where the staff believes you have encountered a rub or a hang up, that you identify it for necessary fixes or needed fixes in order to enable the program, you know, and there might not be any right now, but as those come up, I hope we see those in reports so that we can then take quick action to to correct that, of course, correct that and respond in real time instead of after the fact. And with anything new, I expect there will be some points of rub over the time. So okay, thanks for helping me on the math on that, I. I think I'm going to wait until we get to that a year end to understand, because that is still lower than I was expecting per door in terms of the exemption. And so that's something that I think I'll have to understand more as bigger buildings come in. And I don't know if you know, of contributing factors, but that's that was the one thing that stuck out of this is not as big of an exemption as I was expecting, which is, on the one hand, I guess good that we're not charging so much because I'm not a, you know, in certain areas. But at the same time, for making a per door cost more affordable, we haven't quite hit the mark as much as I thought we would. I don't doubt it looked like maybe you wanted to jump in there. It's okay. Okay. Donnie doesn't want to dance. Okay. No problem. Oh, this was my last question. It was also on the issued permit unit count. Slide 13. That's our very jagged graph. So that tells me there must be certain months when the financial world decides that's when we go in and we do certain work. And other months when you just don't do it. Or in the construction world, is that what's reflecting here, or is that just a highly volatile system? What am I seeing here?

It's a highly volatile system. And we we don't love this chart here okay. Because it looks scary right. So we like contemplated leaving it out. But it does tell a story and it does tell a story of construction. I mean it is up and down all the time. It goes on cycles. And because we only had a little short graph to put it in, I think it looks scarier than it is.

A little drunken sailor ish, but that's okay.

Yeah. Yes, but it definitely does show how very busy we were at certain points. You know? Back in 2020 even, and how it just kind of fell off the map a little bit. So we're hoping that it'll start trending upward again.

Yeah. You know, I hope that we come to this in October of, of this year. And we're talking about many quarters who show a similar increase over what we maybe would have expected from from 25. But thanks for the work. I know it's I know we collectively we took a pretty significant move and I think we've been doing that. And that puts a lot of stress on a system to implement change on the fly. So thank you.

Councilor Ryan.

Dan Ryan: Yes, thank you. Thank you, chair Avalos. And I want to thank, first of all, steven and alice for your agility over this program. I can only imagine that you were building it as as developers and builders were wanting you to give them what what was due, if you will, with this legislation. And I can only imagine how many challenges there were just to adapt to that. I also want to thank councilor Morillo for one asking. I think the heart of the matter question, which is if this wasn't here, would they have pulled a permit? And I think we'll know more about that as time goes on. And I want to say that the anecdotes that I heard were similar to what we've been hearing from the folks developing out in district two. So I did find them to be helpful to provide that. My question would be, are you when you get the feedback, will you have suggestions for us on or what administrative adjustments you could make that would allow this to to be successful? Because I think like anything it's it's new and different. So it takes some capacity to adjust to what the new rules are, and then it takes all of you some time as well. Have you learned anything in the first five months of operation that you haven't shared with us, that maybe hunches right now that aren't showing up in the data on what we could do to improve this?

I think I can take this. Okay. I think what we're hearing, which we need to look at, is the milestones for larger projects. So larger projects obviously take longer to build. They take longer to get their foundations in. And we may need to bump those timelines out a little bit for them to meet them, just to make it a little less scary for them to enter, you know, to to take a risk. And so that's something that we are looking at right now. And, you know, what we're seeing is that this is working for smaller and mid-sized projects. But it's really it's a lot harder for the larger projects. So you know what the customer feedback I'm receiving is it's not just this that is going to push those. It's going to push the needle on the financing for those. It's a lot of other incentives given by the city. And I you know, they mentioned some good ones. I had some good ones mentioned in that quote, the first quote that I had. But I do think that for these larger projects, it is going to take more than this. I mean, it's just and I think that we need to maybe, do, you know, go out to other jurisdictions, see what they're doing, and just really listen to our customers on on what they think will move the needle. Otherwise, I don't know if we're going to see a lot of large projects come through. I think we need to maybe give them a little bit more of a of help in other ways.

Yeah.

Alice, I appreciate that that, that that's what I'm hearing as well. And so would you say most of the pulled permits are for under 19 units?

There? I would say yes. And to councilor Mario's point, I think a lot of them are like cottage clusters, middle housing, things like that. Definitely. Maybe like four story and lower apartment buildings, but nothing above that. And we've seen very few that are larger than that.

Almost embarrassed to ask this, but I I'm getting confused on the goal. I know the goal is 5000. It's one of the time parameters of that goal. Was that in one year's time, or is that over three years.

Three years?

So if it's over three years, then we're actually on a pretty good pace. What you say?

Yes.

Okay. I think I got caught up in certain press statements that thought it was more grandiose than that. So I appreciate you answering that question. When we do comparisons on from 2021 to now, of course it's helpful, but I keep asking if we could consider going back to 2014, 2015. I think that was a much more prosperous time. And usually we see information that can inspire us to to reach those types of goals, because that's the type of building I think that we want to get to, to get out of this humanitarian crisis. So I just wanted to offer that. I also remember that we didn't have a lot of data sets that were really built in the form of bdds. So I don't know exactly if you have those data sets that would be easy to compile, and I respect that. I just want to basically thank the two of you for, I'm sure, putting a lot of extra time to figure out how to implement this idea, and I think it's showing promise. But the anecdotes that you shared and what I've heard, I think, allow us to keep figuring out how we can keep improving upon this. But I certainly don't want to give up. And I'm really glad that we had this amendment that was passed so that we could have this dialog about about six months in. I really appreciate it. Thanks again.

Okay.

Okay, colleagues, last call for any more questions or comments. All right then with that, I will thank you all for your presentation and your time. And this is the last meeting of this iteration of the housing committee. Thank you all for your service. See you next time.

Thank you, thank you.

Meeting is adjourned at 1:32 p.m.