The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-08-12
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Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Portland City Council Homelessness and Housing Committee convened on August 12, 2025 (per the transcript, though the closing referenced meetings later in the year), with roll call, a conduct statement, and unanimous consent adoption of prior minutes. The session covered updates on the overnight shelter plan, daytime enforcement, and reunification efforts, including figures on bed counts, utilization rates, and reunification targets that were stated inconsistently across speakers. A city attorney summarized a federal executive order on homelessness, addressing its potential effects on discretionary grant funding, civil commitment policy, and housing-first program priorities, noting no direct impact on the city yet. Discussion also covered county shelter-bed goals, which were described inconsistently, as well as time-place-manner enforcement, sit-lie ordinance interpretation, and encampment abatement practices. Questions were raised about funding transparency, rental assistance gaps, and distinctions between sweeps and structured abatement. The committee then reviewed a Code Alignment Project ordinance to suspend certain development upgrade requirements across multiple city code titles through 2029, with public testimony from representatives of OHSU, NAIOP Oregon, Habitat for Humanity, and an architecture firm. Votes occurred on the ordinance, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger, and the item was referred to full Council for September 3.
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Procedural markers in this session
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0 All right. Good afternoon. I'm going to call the meeting of the homelessness and housing committee to order on Tuesday, August 12th at 12:02 p.m. Keelan. Can you please call the roll?
1 Mario? Yeah. Here.
Procedural episode · turns 2–10
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2 Zimmerman.
3 Here. Here. Ryan. Here.
4 Present. Claire, can you please read the statement of conduct?
5 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.gov/council agenda, slash homelessness and housing committee 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 a 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.
6 Thank you claire. Today we have three items on our agenda. First, we're going to hear updates from mayor wilson and his team on the overnight shelter plan and daytime enforcement, as well as from city attorney on the executive order on sheltering. Then we'll have an ordinance on the code alignment project. This is an update from permit Portland permitting and development, which is also co-sponsored, co-sponsored by councilors Dunphy and Morillo. And but before we get to those items, we need to adopt our committee. Many committee meetings. Wow. Committee minutes from the last three months. So let's see. These are the minutes from may, June and July. And I'll have these minutes approved by unanimous consent. Unless there are any objections. Hearing none. These are approved. Keelan can you go ahead and read the next item. I have two.
7 Mayor wilson, update on shelter services.
8 All right. So thank you, mayor, for coming today. We've asked you to return to the committee to provide us an update on shelter services. We'd also like you to make some time to discuss the daytime enforcement strategies and the recent executive order and its implications for homelessness and housing related programs. So with that, I will have you take it away. Thank you mayor.
9 Thank you chair. Thank you, councilors, for this opportunity to provide this report in our mission to repair, restore and revitalize our city. We have three key strategies. The first is to end unsheltered homelessness. The second is to reduce the burden on our public safety system. And the third, then, is to revitalize livability throughout our community. Regarding the first strategy to ensure a safe bed for every neighbor every night, I have distilled this into six key goals that our incident command meeting on Monday goes over in our pursuit. Goal number one, we're ending tent distribution. I'm grateful for the county's action on this, and I'd ask that you set a standard that no service providers funded by the county dollars distribute tents. I'll do my part by providing a better option, but we need to set a uniform expectation and standard across the city and the county. Next slide. Goal number two safe and appropriate diversion. We're working to set up diversion opportunities at every point of contact. That means getting people reunited with loved ones or reconnected to the resources where they were last housed. Resources that typically exceed what will be able to provide here for folks with more complex needs and barriers, such as outstanding misdemeanors or warrants, we are setting up a system to clear those within hours instead of weeks. I've met with the presiding judges, and they're excited to be part of the solution. So many of you have heard the story of giovanni, the gentleman in the photo. Suffering from mental illness. He was stuck on Portland streets and didn't call home because he thought his mother was going to be mad at him. We flew his pastor from brooklyn to Portland so he could escort him home to the arms of his mother. We made that happy reunion happen. My goal is to meet and exceed 14 reunifications per week, and we're getting closer to that number every day. We can do this. Phoenix has a 10% effective reunion rate, and boston has an 8% rate and is near functional zero in unsheltered homelessness today. There are so many giovanni's in Portland just waiting for us to ask the right question. Loved one. Reunification is the fastest, most effective way we can return individuals to the most effective support system. They have those who love them. Reunification is housing. Our 2023 point in time count is clear. Out of those who answered the question, where were you last housed? 26% were from out of state. That is a number highly supported by anecdotal information from outreach workers and shelter providers. In the last three days, we helped reunite people with their loved ones to detroit, michigan, dover, delaware and yesterday, charlotte, north carolina. Goal number three setting up our emergency shelter system. We're in the midst of the most ambitious emergency humanitarian strategy Portland has ever deployed in response to our homelessness crisis. For six months, we negotiated budgets and knocked on every door for funding. We needed to carry it out. Now we're in the action phase and you're seeing big moves. By the end of this summer, we will have opened or sponsored six shelters representing 630 beds. We have additional sites that we are in negotiations with and hope to announce soon. I am pleased to say that our sites are being utilized and that the data is encouraging. As of August 3rd, the city has provided 31,280 nights of safe, secure sleep. Our utilization, our utilization rates over the last seven months have averaged 73% for safes and 84% for the moore street facility. In addition to overnight shelter, we just announced that we are increasing city's capacity for day center spaces with portland's first outdoor day center at northwest glisan and broadway and expanding capacity, as well as hours at operations at joint northeast, halsey and 81st. These spaces provide opportunities to take a shower, to use a restroom, and to connect to services and support, and we look forward to inviting this committee to the opening of the oasis at the end of this month on northwest in northwest Portland. I'd like to take a moment to talk about the role of emergency overnight shelter in a housing first system. The city of Portland affirms housing as a human right and recognizes homelessness as a humanitarian crisis, requiring coordinated, layered responses. However, emergency shelter is not a substitute for permanent housing. Rather, it functions as a life saving stabilization strategy, low barrier and service connected emergency shelters meet immediate needs, prevent harm and violence, and create bridges to permanent housing. Ending homelessness is a public health issue. Unsheltered homelessness is associated with worse health outcomes than sheltered homelessness, including higher rates of chronic illness, reduced exposure to violence, victimization, and premature death. Low barrier, trauma. Informed shelters reduce that exposure to violence. Addresses environmental harm, and addresses chronic sleep deprivation. Housing first systems rely on both immediate shelter access and permanent housing supply. This model also reduces resilience on law enforcement and mitigates the criminalization of homelessness. Without accessible shelter options, people experiencing unsheltered homelessness are more likely to encounter police they face citations or being displaced from the public space. Expanding shelters were not increased. The number of encampment sweeps. Emergency shelters are part of a broader system that can reduce police interactions. Overall. Overnight shelters and secure storage facilities are dignified alternatives to living on the street that meet immediate needs and support transitions into housing. Caring for our neighborhoods and communities that are hosting a shelter is just as important as caring for our unsheltered neighbors, our team has learned through years of experience negotiating good neighbor agreements that we land on approximately the same commitments, rather than spending months to years negotiating. Our team is implementing a prescriptive approach that universally provides commitments to communities hosting a shelter in their neighborhood. Prior to the opening of a shelter, pmo conducts a site assessment evaluating concerns, which starts the process of activating the neighborhood. Everyone that lives or owns a business within 1000ft of the shelter are mailed two pieces of separate letters to notify them that a shelter is coming, and to provide information about the site, as well as ways to surface concerns. We are coordinating with our providers and operators to reduce impacts of shelter in our neighborhoods. This includes commitments to perimeter checks and engagements with individuals around the site. As part of my budget, the council approved, we are hiring ten city outreach professionals. This team is deployed each morning to each of our shelters to determine if there are any issues and work with participants. The questions we are asking. What's your plan today? What's your next step? How can we help? And we're getting the first look at the data. And it's clear shelters are good for portland's neighborhoods. Crime is falling and business levels are increasing. Well-managed shelters can bring tangible improvements, and that's what we're here to do over the coming months. I believe every added bed and day center will have an exponential positive impact on livability across the city. Every neighborhood needs a solution that doesn't rely on pushing people to the next neighborhood over. Every person deserves a place to go, a place to belong, and a place to sleep safely. Goal number four the city of Portland is committed to setting up 1500 new emergency shelter beds by December 1st. Multnomah county is committed to 1000 beds by December 31st, and we believe we can encourage 500 beds from private providers together. That means a safe bet for every person every night. If we can move people through the system, we must turn the tide with a rapid exit mindset from both our new and existing homelessness and shelter system. Rapid exit has a zero cost to implement, with potential for significantly improving outcomes. Mayor bowser told us. Told us Washington, d.c. Has 700 people living unsheltered in a city the similar size as Portland. In Portland, we have 7000 people living unsheltered. Here's what the standards we put in place for our 24 hour shelters. Engagement requirements, stay limits, bed utilization checks. We reduce and remove shelter, set asides, empty beds every night. These steps have zero cost to implement but can improve outcomes. How do you double the effectiveness of a single bed? You move someone through the system twice as fast. Bottlenecks have consequences. Every person stuck in the shelter system denies a bed to the next person who needs it. We've also gone from spending 40 million to over 400 million annually. If you're worried that my plan warehouses people instead of moving them through the system, look at these numbers. We have already been doing that, and it's time to unstick the system. There are 111 days until December 1st, the day the city has promised to have enough beds operational to ensure no person suffers and dies on our streets this winter. We must act together and be relentless in this pursuit. Most importantly, we must never exit someone to the street. Here's what a rapid exit model contract looks like. You don't go to the emergency room without talking to the doctor. You don't go to the emergency shelters without talking to the people who are there to help you. If our guests are working with outreach workers at one of our 24 hour shelters, we can extend these stays as needed. Nobody should be staying in emergency facility for one more day than they must. Goal number five we reestablish community standards on safety, health and sanitation in our city when we choose not to enforce existing policies, we create new ones. Many of these unwritten policies are of non enforcement, are unfair to those who play by the rules, contribute to the community and respect their neighbors. Worse, it means we expose people to harm by leaving them in terrible conditions. We need to reestablish community standards on public safety and sanitation. For example, we can't afford to continue to remove 10 million pounds of trash every year. The statue of liberty weighs 440,000 pounds. We dispose of the equivalent of trash every two weeks. The majority of that is coming from encampments. We all know the terrible toll this causes the neighborhoods and businesses. That's why we're increasing encampment outreach and enforcing existing laws and rules. Now that we have shelter capacity to always offer a better option, Portland has become a place where people bring uninhabitable rvs and try to live in them. Despite there being no rv hookups anywhere in the city, you have to go to tiger to dump sewage tanks. And as we know and lived in rvs on our streets are not doing that. Our rv task force currently tows about 38 unsafe, unsafe rvs per month, and we're funded to boost that goal to 96. Finally, we must adopt a person down mentality. It's not moral or normal to walk past someone who is in such distress when they're down on the ground. When we see it, we must rush resources, ask them what they need, but also tell them it is not acceptable in our city. Rvs have a short service life and are not designed for long term living. Look at the issues we see just in this one photo. Emergency vehicles can't get through extreme fire risk, mold damage, leaks, carbon monoxide confinement issues for our first responders, lack of proper licensing, registration, or insurance. It could easily cost $10,000 just to clean this one site up and tow the rvs for responsible disposal. Unlicensed, unregistered rvs, especially those that are no longer operating, have suffered damage or are improperly towed. They pose an unacceptable risk to the community, especially vulnerable road users like bicyclists and pedestrians. Facilities such as our north Portland road task site transitions guests from rvs, rvs. They're never leave the facility except for disposal. There are no good options for bringing a lived in rv to Portland. Those are the facts that underpin our goal to increase towing substantially. And finally, goal number six homelessness is a housing problem. Full stop. Everything that we're doing right now is simply triage. That's why we've set up a housing strike team. This new incident command center meets weekly, and every governmental body in the area has a seat at the table. If we don't act immediately, we'll only build 800 new housing units this year. The same we built last year. But we're not waiting. This council voted unanimously to support the 5000 new homes challenge by waiving sdc fees, and I'm grateful for your support. Another new initiative we are pursuing is the Portland housing access initiative, or homeshare, which can potentially provide deeply affordable rooms for as low as $175 a week. We want to flood the market with inventory to keep opportunities high and lower prices in our city. A single startup in atlanta has opened up 8000 units of home share in the city. Without building a single structure, we learned how they can coordinate payment according to when paychecks arrive, set up trusted, tenant friendly relationships. They remove other barriers, such as first and last month's rent and security deposit. We can unlock existing inventory and make it available rapidly. We can. A healthy city is a city with a widely accessible, deeply affordable and affordable housing. There are other options we're pursuing. We have 900 to 3000 airbnbs that are not owner occupied. We've seen adult foster care units empty. There are 429 units available with our housing connector application. We've also developed a $15 million office to residential conversion incentive. These are all tied to work in conjunction with the new unified housing strategy. And I'm excited about the potential of the unified housing strategy, which was unanimously passed. However, the only way this will be successful is we if we triage the emergency on our doorsteps. So this concludes my report. Thank you.
10 Thank you, mayor wilson. We've got some questions lined up. So we'll go ahead and start with councilor Morillo.
11 Thank you. Chair Avalos. Hi, mayor. Hi. Thank you so much for being here today to give us an update on this, as it's one of the most important issues in our city. I appreciate that we're talking about airbnbs and other more creative options to address the housing crisis that's hitting us, and I think that we're all very invested in doing what we can. I have a lot of questions, so I hope that people will bear with me, since I tend to be pretty quiet most of the time. I am curious about how the data on. I think it's slide nine goal for participant engagement and systems improvement. If this data accounts for exit options, when we're talking about people going into our shelter system. And then there's the 90 day shelter limit, is this taking all of that into account and how will that be reported out for us to see what is truly successful in getting people housed long term?
12 Yeah. So the, the main goal is to unstick the system. You have essentially five steps along the way. And we're really missing the left and the right of this steps. Right now we're reestablishing overnight shelters. And so somebody who's in a 24 over seven shelter, if they're not engaging in the system, they will be exited back to an overnight shelter. So our goal is, is we want to get as many people housing ready as soon as possible, establish ssi, establish the ssdi, their ids, remove their misdemeanors, help them into that next step, which is housing. The goal is, is to exit them rapidly into housing or if they are in a period of time, let's say that there's mental acuity issue and councilor Avalos. And I was with gateway center this past Monday. They have a 90 day stay limit, but they had one guy who had a mental acuity issues, was working as hard as he could do, and they kept him in through eight months through work, work, training and so on to get him ready. And then they moved and exited him into housing. It has to be a trauma informed system, but the 90 days is sit there. If somebody's coming in and they're just trying to make their next rent or they're traveling or something like that, we'll provide it for it. But our job is to move you on to the next step. And the next step is both ways. If you're struggling with engaging altogether, it's the exit to the overnight shelter. But the key point is we never, ever exit somebody to the street again.
13 I appreciate that answer, but I'm not sure how that actually works in practice, considering that the federal government, the state, have not actually funded rental assistance to the capacity that we need, or any of the other programs that keep people housed when they have there are different types of people that are unhoused. Some people don't need a ton of supportive services. They just had a medical emergency or something like that that made it so they couldn't pay rent. And suddenly they're on our streets. And I can tell you right now, I don't know what my other counselors inboxes look like, but I seem to get a lot of the housing and homelessness emails because people know about my lived experience and other things like that. And I'm getting emails from people who are now because state funds did not make it in the last legislative session, as we all saw, I had a mother who has three children who had a miscarriage, who is about to lose her housing, and we tried to connect her to any and all services that were available. And the best option we had was to tell her that she can take her three kids to a shelter. Maybe if there was availability, we. So when you say we're going to rapidly rehouse people within those 90 days, I don't know how that practically happens because the low hanging fruit, the people that don't need that much support, there actually aren't the resources for rental assistance and the types of things that they need right now, because we chose not to fund them. We chose to fund shelters, which is, you know, there's an emergency happening and that needs to happen to some degree. But the people who the reason it takes eight months or even longer to get them into housing is because they do need immense supportive services. And you can ask any person who's actually worked on the ground with unhoused people and some of the different barriers that they have getting into housing or a job. All of the things to get back on your feet, quote unquote, that doesn't seem like it's going to happen in 90 days. Realistically, I've never seen it happen. I would love if we shifted that system, but if we haven't funded those other resources, then how do you expect for some of those lower barrier folks who just really need money? How are we going to get them out in 90 days? Is my next question.
14 Yeah,
15 It's so many.
16 Other solutions other than just that. So reunification, first of all, that's going to take 10% of the pressure off the system writ large. So in other words, we're going to help 10% of the population get back home. It takes the pressure off the system and the cost. We have $400 million. We have the second highest resourced homeless services department in the united states per capita. The money's there. It's how are we using it that 10%. Now we need to also establish deeply affordable housing. So when a single room apartment cost $1,700 and ssi is eight $850, and you just need three $400 a gap financing, we can do that when your rent is $750. We have removed and reduced thousands of deeply affordable housing units. That's what the housing strike team is designed to do. And also we have available empty apartments. Skye and I are often talking to central city concern, 400 empty units. We just met with reach two hours ago. Of their 2700 units, 200 are empty today and this is across the city. We have to unstick the system. So it's not just the shelter system. We've got to focus on housing vacancies, but deeply affordable housing at the same time. But take the pressure off of our system by helping people get back home. If they can have housing in adjacent states and or cities as well. It's a system. It's not a one shelter is only one part of those five key parts of the continuum.
17 If I may as well. Sorry. Director of Portland solutions. I think we are also councilor Really interested in creative solutions around public private partnerships. There's quite a few foundations that are really already doing some great work in this space, but I think could expand that work and kind of double down on that work. Given the new funding constraints with the state and the federal government as well. So we're working on coordinating a lot of those pieces.
18 I'm definitely interested to learn more about what that's going to look like, because I agree that we need deeply affordable housing to get people housed so that they can survive in this economy, but that is going to take time. I'm guessing that's not going to pop up in 111 days. And so if people are getting kicked out of our shelter system within 90 days, and then they're back on the streets and then you're if they're there are going to be some people that are going to fall through the cracks. What is going to be the city's response for people who don't want to go through that revolving door of we didn't immediately get into housing. Maybe there is someone that ends up on the streets. What are we as a city going to do with that person?
19 So I, I think I should. Clarify.
20 So those engagement, visualization and state limits are only for our 24 over seven shelters. Only the 24 hour full service shelters were really focused on providing services for that individuals to help them become housed. It's a navigator to the house. We will always have overnight shelters, life saving beds for everybody. So if somebody is exited from a 24 over seven shelter, they're never going to be exited to the street. And that's what we have been working in the last seven months, is adding capacity, so we never have to use the street as a destination.
21 Okay, so there are currently 630 beds online and we are planning to have how many by December 1st, 1500.
22 Yeah.
23 Okay. That doesn't match up with the number of unhoused people that we have. So what are we going to do with the people who there are not enough shelter beds for?
24 So you it's a distribution.
25 Over time. So when we looked at last year's severe weather event, we provided about 1200 beds when it was 20 degrees out. So we're we're kind of estimating that in the peak of winter life saving care, that's essentially the capacity on the system. We need those beds because winter is coming and I don't want to leave people on the street this year. So knowing that number. But at this period of time, we are actively doing reunification, taking that pressure off. The rvs are slowly starting to go away. So we're reducing that capacity right now. If we need more councilor, we will add more. I don't know what that number is right now, but we just have 630 beds in the pipeline. Last night we had 300 empty beds because we just opened two shelters. So we're going to keep raising that number up and we want to see a significant gap of empty beds getting ready for winter, because we know once we get to winter, it's going to start shrinking. And if we get to that point where we have less than, say, 200 empty beds per night, you can bet skye and her team are going to activate new resources to come online. This is not something that's perfectly phased or planned. We have to try. We're going to have to find our failure points, improve, and then and then add to it. You know, we have limited finances. So we're going to be as judicious and cautious, making sure nobody is exited and nobody has to use the street any any more in Portland.
26 Thank you. Sorry, chair. I just have a few more questions. Speaking of the finances of this as council, we have the power of the purse. We get to decide how that funding is allocated. So are we going to get a disclosed tracked information on how the money is being spent for these shelter programs? Is it going to become publicly available, and how are we going to be tracking success rates, getting people into housing long term?
27 Yes.
28 Yeah. So we are happy to share that information with anyone. But I think it's also part of a couple budget notes that you all passed as well. Just how different funding for the shelter system is allocated. So we plan to break that down in any way that you would like basically within our budget. But we present kind of monthly reports about how we're spending that money and what it's going toward. That's all public record and publicly available. So happy to share that in any form that you need. Just let our team know and we're happy to provide that for you. Or come to the committee and present it. But that will, again, like the mayor mentioned, we are actively planning for those beds. So it is going to be kind of month to month. We will be changing kind of how we're allocating and then really evaluating the usage within the system and kind of what we think we need, and that will change over time.
29 Okay. Thank you. I also just want to close with a few final thoughts, which is for one thing, I think reunification is really beautiful for folks who have a family that's willing to take them back in. I also know that a lot of the people on our streets, particularly queer youth, are on the streets because they do not have a family that is going to take them back in. And I don't think if that is a core part of the strategy, which is something that you talk about a lot because it feels really good and it's a nice media story that is not going to address all of the issues. For folks who don't have a good family to go back to. Some people don't have a family that will take them back. And we always talk about houston as this homelessness success model. But part of the reason they were successful is because they proportionately reinvested into rent assistance and other housing stabilization things outside of just the shelter model. And we have not been doing that concurrently here. We have primarily been focusing on shelter, and I understand there's an urgent need and then there's a long term planning, but we're not really seeing that from the federal government, the state legislature, and now us. And the reality is that with all of the cuts that are happening at the federal government, as someone who used to work on snap policy before getting here, families are being absolutely crushed. They are choosing paying rent or eating food. And sometimes neither. And so the we as a council are going to have a responsibility to be that, that social safety net. There is nobody that that stops with but us. So I really hope that we are thinking about all of these things as we are implementing this shelter plan. I want it to be successful and I want it to be good. And I also genuinely have concerns that this is going to become a process of expanding as much shelter as possible, so that we can sweep as many of our homeless neighbors as possible and get them off the streets and make the streets look pretty. But I'm not. I'm concerned that this is not about necessarily getting people to truly end homelessness. And just the fact that this administration, you know, we talk about the souls on our streets and the people that are being impacted by this, but we are doing more sweeps than were done under the wheeler administration is really concerning to me, because there was the propublica article by kay rambo, who works at street roots, the editor, that outlined very specifically the impact of sweeps on our unhoused neighbors, the fact that people have more drug overdoses, the fact that people get displaced because they are not near people who can take care of them, the fact that they are losing resources are having difficulty accessing their jobs, that they lose identification and other things that they need to survive. There is a true cost to us engaging this way, and I think I've been pretty lax in how I've been talking about this, but I'm going to start asking harder questions now because I think that it's time for us to really ask about what's going to happen to our unhoused neighbors under this model. So thank you.
30 Thank you, councilor Morillo, I'm going to interrupt our question process to bring up naomi from the city attorney's office. I forgot to do that right after the mayor. My apologies. Naomi is just going to give us a quick update on the impacts of the executive order on homelessness so that we understand how that affects us as a city. Thank you. Naomi.
31 Hello.
32 Naomi sheffield, chief deputy city attorney. And again, a short summary of president trump's homelessness executive order. It's entitled ending crime and disorder on america's america's streets. I wanted to first address, in terms of direct impact on us, there's not an immediate direct impact on cities. It's an executive order that instructs the president's agencies to act and implement, essentially, his policy agenda. And I'll highlight highlight the areas where he directs most particularly. So it it is essentially a directing, a prioritization within housing and human services, housing and urban development and the department of justice. And we are monitoring how that executive order is implemented, and those implementations may impact us, particularly with respect to grant funding is probably the most likely. So the three primary areas of the executive order first relate to civil commitment, civil commitments, and an emphasis on increasing or encouraging local governments and states to prioritize civil commitment for individuals with mental illness, and to provide technical assistance from the federal government to states. One of the things, and it's in local governments, one of the things that specifically addresses is consent decrees that the federal government had entered into challenging civil commitment practices among states, and getting rid of that. That doesn't directly impact us. We don't have a consent decree in that area. So that's that policy is really an emphasis of the federal government, but not directly implicating those cities actions. Right now. The second big area is discretionary grant criteria. And so that has been an emphasis of where of the president directing each of those agencies to prioritize discretionary grants towards cities and counties and state governments that are prioritizing the federal administration's priorities. This includes enforcement, particularly enforcement on related to open illicit drug use, enforcement of urban camping or anti-camping ordinances, enforcement around civil commitment, and then compliance with federal sex offender registry obligations. The other areas of discretionary funding. Prioritization include not prioritizing fund funding programs that are harm reduction programs, and or safe consumption, which again, I do not think has a direct impact on us. There's also asking doj to engage in some enforcement action around harm reduction and safe consumption sites, or considering enforcement action. And then the last area of discretionary grant reprioritisation is prioritization against housing first policies and prioritization in favor of policies that have specific requirements around recipients obtaining mental health treatment or substance abuse treatment as part of the housing services. If those individuals would qualify or benefit from such treatment. And so that's high level where the executive order is directing these three agencies to act. We haven't seen specific implementation, but we're right now following with other cities that have kind of are addressing similar issues following how that implementation goes to see if there are issues that would give rise to a need for kind of legal concerns or legal action on behalf of the cities. So I'm happy to answer any specific questions that you have.
33 Thank you. Counselor Ryan is in the queue, but I wanted to check. Did you have questions specific to naomi or did you want to go back to the regular? Okay, yeah. If you don't mind, we'll have counselor Zimmerman. Go ahead.
34 Thanks, naomi. I'm just trying to. Toward the end there, you talked about. I couldn't quite tell if you were saying there was a preference or if we prioritize housing placements into a facility or location that has mental health services. So in Portland speak, that's part of wraparound services. Are you saying that the executive order from the federal government would, I guess, deduct points, if you will, from a Portland grant, if they also hear that we do, or somewhere in the continuum with Multnomah county, have housing with wraparound services. I'm trying to understand some of what you're saying, because I couldn't quite tell if you were saying this. Executive order says, no, you can't do that, or you must prioritize that. And it seemed like we were bouncing back and forth between the various topics that you went forward with.
35 Sorry, I apologize. So on the in terms of the priorities around homelessness programs, and I don't know exactly how it will be implemented, but it would be prioritizing programs that require recipients. So require recipients of the housing services who suffer from substance abuse disorder or mental health illness to obtain treatment and services. So I want to say, I don't know that that's quite what we would call I'll defer to skylar on this. I don't know that that's what we would typically call wraparound services. I don't know that we typically require. So I think that that would be part of it. But I think it is encouraging these programs that offer and potentially require these services.
36 So in in in using Portland examples, bybee lakes, for instance, is a place where you have to engage in the services that are offered at bybee lakes to continue to be a resident there. That seems like something that would be supportive. And we also have other areas where it's the Portland model of laissez faire of you can engage if you want, but we're never going to hold you to do it. And that part doesn't seem like that. I'm trying to make sure that's kind of where the line seems to be distinguished in this.
37 That that is my understanding of where of how the president is directing his agencies to prioritize discretionary funding. Yes. Okay. Prioritize the more required treatment and prioritize funding to programs that do not require treatment.
38 Thank you for those. It helps clarify. I appreciate that there's a lot in your presentation, and we're in a time of quick ios and sometimes be a little hard to catch up. So thanks for that.
39 And councilor I'll just add so like one example is we've heard indications of a notice of funding availability from HUD that would align with kind of the president's executive order. As one of the agencies named for funding available for programs that would align with everything that naomi just went through. So that's kind of one example of that discretionary funding and how it will be implemented going forward. We haven't received all the details yet, but we've kind of seen indications of that.
40 Okay. Thanks. That's all my questions. Thanks.
41 Councilor Ryan.
42 Yes. Thank you, chair Avalos. Thank you, mayor wilson. Your steadfast efforts to address the continuing humanitarian crisis on our streets. You know, this topic is so deeply complex, much more complex than I think we give it credit for. Sometimes when we're in these meetings. And like many, it has impacted my life personally, and it just brings up a lot of feelings. You never know when they're going to show up, but for some reason, they did. Today, like many families with loved ones perishing on our streets, you experienced so much frustration, and I hear that often, and I've made some really great contacts since I've been in this role of also meeting with other people who felt helpless as their loved ones were perishing on our streets. So I always have to remember that's what grounds me in this work. Portland elected you with a mandate to take bold action on this issue. I know what it's like to do difficult things that the community wants, and yet the system that got us here is not always willing. I will continue to support you moving forward to help this city and Multnomah county achieve positive results. People want action and Portland can't move forward without it. Your focus today is spot on. Learning that we have at least 26% homeless upon arrival rate. Unfortunately, it's not surprising, but it's really helpful to have that information confirmed. I was very unsuccessful when asking for this data just four years ago. It was not a question anyone wanted to dig into, so I appreciate that you've been steadfast in getting those numbers. Thank you for using your bully pulpit to get this data. What can we do as a city to help reduce that number, as well as help them find their homes?
43 Okay, I think we're.
44 Sensitive to everything that councilor Morillo said. I'm well aware of those challenges.
45 You know, nothing.
46 I've proposed is rocket science or isn't being. Used as best practices around the nation. It's reducing the inflow. And so reunification is critical so that we can help people get back home. But also rvs. You know, I've been surprised at how prolific that is around the city. And we have online marketplaces that are posting our rvs for a buck or free or $500. And I've been going out with our rv mitigation team and finding how these individuals are coming upon them. They're spending $500 for a trailer. Then, you know, we hadn't been towing it. So we are now just simply applying the rules as they're written. I had one guy by the name of thomas when I did an rv mitigation mission three weeks ago, came upon his truck, was covered with gear, had a $3,000 schwinn electric bike on top of it. Officers were with me, the tow company PBOT, our outreach workers. And I explained to the officer, I said, that's an unregistered vehicle. It's not operational because I see it's missing a catalytic converter. It's uninsured, and the driver didn't have license. And I explained to the officer, I said, you know, I know I'm new to this, but by dmv codes, you can't have that, that that vehicle can't just turn over the ignition and drive down the road. The officer said, you're right, sir thomas, with the papers, we're towing your vehicle because it had already been posted. And then. Thomas accepted shelter, and I looked at his record for six years. We had moved him 62 times, offered outreach and support, shelter services 18 times. It was only until the officer said, okay, mr. Mayor, you're right. That's a tow situation. We can't let him drive off. Did he accept shelter? He's in a safe rest village right now. 66 year old man. And so councilor Just simply applying our codes as written. Again, it's not rocket science. We're able to help thomas now move through the system. And he had been causing costs to the system and frustration amongst our outreach workers for years with no positive outcome. And now we're addressing that. It's just one story that I'm I'm going out every week working with our outreach workers, trying to find out bottlenecks and things that we can improve the system. And it's working. So it's dedication, it's throughput, but making sure we have shelter in a place for thomas to go at the moment that he's ready himself.
47 Okay. I have some other questions. Thank you for that story. We learned from stories. How are conversations going with Multnomah county and your joint effort to reach sheltering goals to match our unsheltered population? You are transparent about our efforts at the city. How is the county doing on their goal for is 1000, right? Yeah. And it's supposed to be their goal is supposed to be achieved by the end of this calendar year. So in less than five months.
48 Working with them closely, we have support from, you know, the governor, the city, all of us are really trying to encourage them to focus on meeting that priority. There's funding gaps for all of us. Funding aside, it's a matter of your priorities. And we've partnered with them and said, we'll drop in 1500. We need you to meet and exceed your promise to the community for 1000. They're not there yet, but I'm getting some encouraging emails that they are looking for ways, and we're trying to help them with fire marshal review of their existing systems. Is there additional capacity? We don't want to set up $3 million shelters just for the infrastructure. We want to end unsheltered homelessness and use available capital for housing. So we're trying to help them with creative ways to rethink of how we can care for somebody today with focusing on housing, which is the ultimate goal. So that was just a long winded saying. We're working with them often. I had lunch with sherri peterson the other day. We're really trying to coordinate on family shelter. You know, there's a dearth of family shelters. And as we remove people from rvs, there's families that need that shelter. So we're wilson.
49 I know time is going to go fast. Can you give me a number, though? Like where are they in their goal?
50 You know, it's opaque right now.
51 I don't about 500.
52 So 500.
53 Chair and councilor. And I have to interject I think we need to say what is the county's actual goal now. Because it was 1000in the iga and at our last several socks we have seen, that's not the goal. I don't think councilor Ryan is asking for platitudes. I think he's asking for a real number. How has the county changed their sheltering goal?
54 I phoned a friend here, but anyway, are you there at 500? And like councilor Zimmerman, I want to know are they urgent about reaching their goal? Is there are they focused on this, working with.
55 Them every single week? Every single conversation I have is about meeting that 1000 shelter bed goal.
56 Okay, so the county's committed to reaching the goal of 1000 shelter beds by the end of this calendar year.
57 I can't speak for them councilor, but that is their promise and we must hold them accountable to that promise.
58 Okay, so that is their goal. They have not changed it. And so accountability, transparency. I just needed to know because our numbers were very clear, but I couldn't get a sense of theirs. I started to get a sense of what it is. I hear from you that there are 500, and they're still committed to get to 1000 by the end of the year, is that correct?
59 That is their community promise.
60 Thank you. Allow me to just ask a couple more questions. This is a broken record. Morning. Do we understand the composition of our homeless community? When I successfully brought built for zero to Portland in 2021, the goal was to finally have data to avoid the one size fits all and dated housing first plans. Do we know who the folks are? For example, currently experiencing economic deprivation that was discussed earlier and get them into housing, workforce and stable living from those who are chronically addicted to drugs? Many times medicating mental health issues with strong poisonous drugs that's causing further damage. Have we ever do we finally have the data that distinguishes between those audiences on our streets, and we're doing specific strategies for those specific populations. I ask this for the fifth year in a row.
61 I'm going to turn this.
62 I will say sort of I think is the short answer, but just some really quick because I know we're low on time, but examples. I think the county has come a long way. Councilor since I know you've been asking for this for a long time. The by name list I think has a lot of that information. Who that information can be shared with, I think is a piece that we're working on. Even the city I think sometimes has access issues, so we're working on that with the county. But one thing that I think this body would really appreciate is the case conferencing that's happening for those highest acute in our system. So folks who I think really need the help and the housing systems to work together, the county has done a really good job with health share to set up a lot of that case conferencing modeling. So that's for those most acute for those who really might just need some economic support or other kind of basic services, the state with through ohc is working with the county and the city on segmenting the population into four pretty easy to understand categories that I think will actually help service providers segment the population and quickly address their specific needs. I think you and I have both seen for years this disaggregated approach that really hasn't been efficient. And I think this is one step in the right direction. I think we still have a long way to go, just to be perfectly honest. But I do think it's helpful and it's better than what I've seen in the past.
63 So there's movement that's really good to hear. The providers were somewhat resistant to this process, so I'm happy to hear their complaint. This is my fourth and final question for now. Skylar, since you're up there, I'm gonna ask you this question. Please explain the difference between a sweep and a thoughtful abatement.
64 Yes. So I think we have worked very, very hard. The impact reduction program. Lucas has done an incredible job over years to incorporate outreach into the process. So I think notifying folks with at least 72 hours of a camp removal or abatement is helpful just for folks to know that that is coming and that that space will be cleaned. But I also we have resources on that note that posting notice, as well as outreach that gets sent to as many folks as we possibly can. We've also incorporated some de-escalation team members to our contractors. So we actually pay for folks who are able to connect individuals to different resources. We found that to be really effective just the last couple of weeks, for example, a lot of folks who are in pretty precarious kind of makeshift shelters that they've created that are fire hazards, we've been able to get a lot of those folks into shelter with that contractor kind of mitigation team. And so we've just really seen and learned kind of best practices, trying to be transparent. Ids, for example, are kept forever basically that we find. And so folks are able to reclaim that property at any point. But it's not a perfect process. And we just try as hard as we possibly can to incorporate all those different efforts. And we also take feedback constantly to try to improve the system.
65 Along those lines. Is a reunification program part of the abatement? Yes, and that's part of the service outreach.
66 So the outreach providers are always asking that question, you know, and I think to councilor Morillo point, that's not the right answer for every person, but it is the right answer for some people. And I think we want to be able to provide that resource when possible. Yeah.
67 Thank you. I've got a couple questions and then we'll start winding down here. First, I'll just say to enumerate some of the points that councilor Morillo was making. I think it's important that when that when we're comparing our systems and best practices, that we take into account what other cities are doing to make other resources available, because we are very strained in Oregon, we, our state legislature, chose to remove a lot of necessary life saving funding, and I'm very concerned about how we're going to continue our operations if we can't fall back on basic things like rental assistance. So I think it's it would be good for us to always accompany this data with good information on the full spectrum of services that other cities offer. One good example of that, I think, is from atlanta. When we were talking about reunification in particular, and they have seemingly dedicated a lot of dollars to be able to support people beyond that first step of reunification. Right. And there's a broader discussion about what that looks like, but due to time, let me ask a couple specific questions about ordinances. So is it your interpretation that the sit and lie ordinance prohibits people from sitting on the sidewalk in all of downtown Portland during the day? Is the city enforcing this ordinance? And in general, I just want to see how this is being accompanied by your policies and your openings of day shelters. How are you interpreting this ordinance and are you enforcing it?
68 I'll take.
69 The person down and then you can handle the sit lie the person down. One of the things that I've been working with, our public safety service area is people lying incapacitated on our street is endemic throughout the city, and I'm working with our team to rush resources to those that are incapacitated so we can provide help, including expanding Portland street response. So when we call 911, we can be there quickly and ask that person, what do they need? But more importantly, if you're incapacitated, we can't have you on the street in an unsafe situation. When it comes to the sit lie, I'm going to turn to you guys. You know the law better than I do.
70 I will defer to naomi, but quickly just say, I think one thing that I think is important for folks to understand is these resources are voluntary. So the day centers are shelters are voluntary resources. And so we will keep offering and extending that hand every single time that we talk to somebody. But that's a voluntary resource. But I don't know, naomi, if you wanted to talk about the ordinance.
71 I don't skyler would know more about what enforcement is happening on the on 14, a 50 or a 5143, I think.
72 170 oh time place manner would.
73 Be, which is the time place manner as it was modified. And it, it, it regulates camping. So that's just the starting point in terms of sitting or lying. So camping and just is defined as pitching, using or occupying camp materials with the intent of facilitating sleeping storage of personal belongings or carrying on cooking activities. So it isn't just a person sitting and in terms of sitting on the sidewalks then only regulates camping in certain situations. So one of them it prohibits camping when reasonable alternate shelter is available. So that gets to the offer of an alternate shelter. And then it prohibits camping with just with respect to yours. There's a list of certain types of camping that are prohibited, and we would call them kind of manner in terms of time, place, manner. And that would be individuals who obstruct the pedestrian use zone. So could give you a picture of I don't have it PBOT would have a picture of a sidewalk, but the part of the sidewalk that people use, and it's particularly relevant for ADA purposes. It's the part of the sidewalk that essentially allows individuals that are mobility impaired to get through sidewalk. So it's not the part really closest to the building, and it's not the part where the trees are along the road. But so you can't be camping in a way that obstructs the pedestrian through zone. And I guess another one. I think that speaks to your question potentially a little bit councilor Avalos obstructing private property or business adjacent to the public right of way. So if you're camping in, for instance, a building, a business's entryway like in their alcove and obstructing access to the building or to the business, that would also be prohibited, there are other manner restrictions, but I think those two probably speak to it. I do not believe there's I again speak to.
74 I can speak to enforcement.
75 Yeah. We have not enforced time place manner since February. I think we wanted to make sure we were getting more shelter resources online now, I think is a time if we want to relook at that. And it's the mayor's direction, we can look at certain cases. But I will just say for context, we've only ever enforced it in 40 plus cases. We've only ever done two different arrests. And most people that we would enforce against accepted shelter, that was the end result. But it's used very sparingly. It's very resource intensive as a practice.
76 Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and go to counselor Zimmerman. We've got five more minutes. So keep your answers short.
77 So appreciate this. You know when I and we just went down the path and I think you said used 40 times and forced only twice. And that was similar to what I think the city presented to the county before I came over here for this term. My, you know, mayor, you've known that my support for shelters goes along with a pretty robust neighborhood good neighbor agreement. You've used the terms 1000 foot, you know, enhanced services zone, whatever the right term is, I am starting to worry about that. And it you know, you yourself have said I'm not a law and order guy and you stopped the enforcement of time, place, manner. And yet we don't really use time place manner a lot. But in the there it was described a lot in the last administration as being important to have at least a backstop, so that people understood there was some level of accountability for when shelter exists, there is a contractual obligation amongst everybody in society of what is and what is not acceptable. I'm trying to square this peg, because your plan and the way you articulate this plan is. I think to councilor Maria's point, sometimes there's some good storytelling, but there also has to be some tough truths at the end of that. What I'd love to hear you say is, because I'm opening a shelter next to 405, the underpass is on, 405 are going to be clear for the first time in five years, but you won't. That is the level that I have watched portlanders get comfortable with saying, okay, I see it. There is a there is an enforcement zone. There is an area where I can expect cleanliness or lighting or something along those lines. I, I'm wondering when we're going to see the meat of what these enforcement zones look like in terms of cleanliness, exclusion for drug dealing. I don't really want to keep hearing about the story of how we think it will go. I'm looking for examples for like, here's how I deployed PBOT to wash the streets every morning, bts to put more trash cans in that area, graffiti abatement to occur. I want to be able to share examples with my residents, and I don't have those right now. And coupling that with the fact that you turned off time, place, manner, enforcement, I need your help to be able to convey that to my district, and I'm not feeling like I've got the cards to do that right now.
78 Right. I'll go back to the first comment. You said tpm should be used as a backstop, but we have to provide the resources and care for our community members first. And you're right, I'm not a law and order guy because those are my neighbors. All right. So I'm going to provide care and concern for those first with access to services so we can help people with their journey in life. And if it's recovery, we want to help with that. But we are reestablishing the community standards. I'm not going outside of those guardrails. Our officers were were not enforcing registration, was not enforcing licenses, insurance. Well, that's ending. So you can call that law and order. You're not.
79 Very supportive of that. By the way. I'm very supportive of that.
80 Yeah.
81 Well I just.
82 It's a matter but I had to have the shelters available first. So officers and outreach workers know that they're doing a dignified, decent thing first. Now, if somebody is living in a businesses corridor and if they call for support, we need to move that person out of the corridor because that's against the community standard. But I have a better place to direct that person. I don't want to do it with law enforcement. I want to do it with outreach workers. And you funded the outreach workers. And so we're doing that now. We're still opening shelters. We only just have, you know, 2 or 300 shelter beds open as of last Monday that are available. So you're seeing a slow, methodical approach to a plan that's not reactionary, that's not draconian, but you're seeing a stepped process of us reengaging and improving livability, but providing access to care as our primary first response. So you're seeing it play out. But I just I don't want to say that we're going to attack this in an aggressive manner. And it's longer. We just don't have time for that. But you're seeing it. December 1st is a goal. It gets cold out. We have to be ready and we're going to welcome those individuals in. And that's the time we're going to they're going to say, oh it's warm in here. I like it. And they're going to be more open to recovery and access, and then we're going to really reduce and remove all encampments and rvs and makeshift shelters.
83 Councilor thanks, mayor. I part of part of why I want to this is important when it comes to the access to shelter and why the county's new number is not 1000. The county's new number, I think, is 857 or 852 in terms of their goal. These things matter because the ability to have an open bed for someone to go, and that example of the rv person who then chose to go to one of the rvs is such a great example. But one offs aren't going to solve this. But that's the point. You know, no person in Portland is confused by what you mean when you say the part of the sidewalk we walk on, because every portlander I know has stepped into the road to go around to avoid a situation. So we're all quite familiar with what that picture looks like. And we continually see, and I'm wrapping up, we continually see that there is a resistance almost immediately. Most every person in this room is resistant to change. But we see that resistance. But we also then after a few pieces, pugh pushes and a backstop that regularly people are taking the option of shelter and so that that enforcement is not draconian, but it is part of the negotiating tactic. It's part of the psyche of getting a person to say, okay, I'm ready to do do the thing which will never happen in a world where folks are sicker than they've ever been on our streets, more intoxicated than they've ever been on our streets. Those decisions we have to lead people to good decisions. And that takes sometimes a harder reality, I think, in a in a lot of ways than we've previously operated. But that starts in your office. That from my chair, I think that starts from your office, because that's what I want to share with residents. I am waiting to see the evidence of that. I'm still waiting for you to commit. That 4 or 5 will be a reasonable area for the first time in five years, so that we can see that change happening. We have to start experiencing it. Thank you. Chair.
84 Thank you mayor and team for being here. Obviously these discussions will be continuing, but for now we'll end it here. Thank you. Thank you for.
85 Your time. Thank you.
86 Thank you. Thank you.
87 Can you please read the next item?
88 Three amend city code to reduce permit submittal requirements and temporarily, temporarily suspend city imposed development upgrade requirements.
89 All right. So this item is coming to us from Portland permitting and development and is co-sponsored by councilors Dunphy and Morillo. So staff are coming up and I'm going to hand it over to the councilors. Whoever wants to go first to introduce it.
90 Great.
91 You know, colleagues, this is a in the world of nerdy policy and city code, this is about as exciting as it gets. Long realizing the dream that was started by by councilor Ryan and previous city councils of unifying our permitting work and looking for those areas where there's overlap and conflict and things that just simply aren't working anymore. The pad team have been working diligently for years to try and bring a policy package forward that will meaningfully improve the experience of building something here in the city of Portland. I wish I could take more credit for it. I just get to put my name on it. I'm really thankful for the opportunity, thankful for all the work that has come before, and excited to let this team cue us up for what is coming. Councilor Morillo.
92 Thank you. Thank you all so much for being here. This is. I agree, staff have done such incredible work on this and it's very rare that you get to just show up and get to be happy about something that people have put years of work and effort and research into. So I had an absolutely fantastic briefing with terry thiessen, christina gawne, I know d.c. Olivera, you've worked on this, and I apologize if I mispronounced this, but mickey stekelenburg and I just wanted to name all of you for doing such fantastic work on this. You really deserve all the roses for this work. This is such common sense, tangible steps towards making sure that businesses in Portland and other buildings are actually getting the support that they need. And this is modifications for some of our existing buildings. And this really shows what good coordination and good government should look like. So I am really happy about us showing what government and state capacity can actually do when we are functioning correctly. And I'm really happy and excited to support this work. So thank you all so much for all of the work that you have put into this. This is going to make things so much better. And as someone who did constituent services at city hall and got all of the angry questions from people who were confused by our permitting system years ago, I am really happy to see that this will be a big shift for people and will improve their lives tangibly. So thank you.
93 Thank you councilors. Go ahead and take it away. Guests.
94 All right. Thank you. Chair. Councilors. Daniel, for the record. So before I get to my prepared remarks, I just want to start by sharing how genuinely excited I am to introduce this item. When folks ask me in this, you know, in the city, to give them an example of like what the new form of government is doing. Well, just one example. I've been pointing to this project for a couple of reasons that I'll share. So it's just it's a great, great point in time for us. So my colleagues and I are here today to present a package of amendments to the city's development codes to address common concerns from folks who often are surprised by unexpected requirements when they come into the development counter to do work on an existing building first. This package is in many ways the first of its kind in Portland. While most legislation focuses or contemplates code changes for one bureau or one title, this project is inherently multidisciplinary. It's been a multi bureau coordination project, and the package in front of you today focused on four different titles in our codes. And with the outcome of being focused on clarification and the reduction of conflict amongst those codes. So I want to thank the staff from the six bureaus and community economic development and public works, many who are in the room today that have put together this package to deliver this good work. They heard the concerns from our communities and responded and such with this code package. And second, as I alluded to this, this package reflects the emerging governance model between the legislative and executive branches of this new government, as bureau staff identify ways to improve how the administration delivers services for effectiveness and efficiency, we will often need your help in partnership to realize those improvements. So thank you for partnering with us on that. So, councilors Dunphy Morillo, I appreciate your your partnership and look forward to doing this again and again as our code requires. So my hope is this is a model for future phases of cleanup alignment, but also how we do business together. So thank you. This is the business of government doing better. The code changes that staff will present are targeted and fairly modest to start. Yet they deliver real impact with intention. They represent the first batch of what we hope is an ongoing partnership to continually improve our codes. But make no mistake, these code changes will have real, meaningful impact to the small businesses, homeowners and other customers trying to get a permit from the city. We want to see more of that more frequently, and this helps go a long way. And lastly, but not least, I want to thank councilor Ryan, whose early leadership on this work set the stage and direction through his permit improvement task force for the work you see here today. Councilor Ryan is another product from your vision from many years ago. Bravo to you for your leadership, and thanks again for being a partner in this work. And so now I'll pass it to the team to walk through this package. Thank you.
95 Thank you donnie, I think we can advance. Did we already see the agenda? Yes. Okay. My name is terry tyson and I am the strategy manager for the permanent improvement project. Next slide please. This is the agenda that we're going to run through with you today and culminating into some public testimony and conversation. Next slide. So I want to start with a little background before we dive into the details. Donnie referred to some history, and I'm going to add to some of that. The code alignment project is an effort under the umbrella of the permit improvement project, which is a cross bureau effort to improve how we provide customers the essential city service of permitting. This work is driven by staff and customer feedback, with the overarching goals of reducing permitting timelines, improving customer experience, and improving performance management. Early in this effort to align the city's permitting functions, the permanent improvement task force identified five key focus areas customer support, process improvement, modernization of digital services, review of the funding model, and regulatory coordination and cleanup. The code alignment project is centered on the coordination and cleanup of the regulatory landscape. By working to make our development codes and policies consistent, clear and accessible to customers, applying for permits so they can complete their projects efficiently. The code alignment project is a cross bureau effort to respond to the experiences consistently expressed by permit customers and staff that in order to simplify permitting, we must address the codes that regulate the built environment on private property and in the right of way. Next slide please. The regulatory challenges permitting customers face have been raised multiple times over many years. City audits, council resolutions, customers, staff and housing surveys have all indicated that we need to address our code barriers to improve permitting. This project is addressing the cumulative impact of regulations that can create barriers to an efficient and effective permitting system, regulations that govern our built environment often overlap can be inconsistent, inconsistent across codes, sometimes conflict either as written or as applied, all of which can lead to a lack of transparency and a lack of predictability. These are all issues that staff and applicants are left to untangle, often after the permit is already under review. These regulatory obstacles can lead to unexpected costs for applicants, delays, frustrations and, in some cases, projects being abandoned altogether. The code alignment project is a step to take responsive action to address these regulatory problems. I'm now going to pass the presentation to my colleague micah stekelenburg, the code alignment project manager, to walk you through this new approach to this project has kicked off. And the proposal we are introducing for your consideration. I also want to highlight that we have policy and implementation staff from each of the bureaus who collaborated on this proposal, available in the chamber, to provide any needed clarification and answer questions at the conclusion of our slides. This proposal would not be possible without their expertise, persistence, and innovation. Micah.
96 Thank you terry. For the record, my name is micah stekelenburg. I'm the project manager with the permit improvement team. Thank you for your time today. I'm going to start us off by reviewing by reviewing how we developed this proposal. Next slide please. So the process and scope of these amendments are different from typical code packages. It's a new approach to code development that holistically examines our regulations across bureaus, with the intent of simplifying policies by bringing them closer into alignment. Typically, one bureau proposes changes to one code to advance the mission of their individual bureau. The code alignment project takes a cross-functional approach to evaluating code improvements from a city perspective, which is more reflective of this new form of government. The project team consists of both policy and implementation staff from across the development related bureaus that you see listed on the left hand side of your screen. We asked the project team to work differently on this project, to focus specifically on how to create more consistent and predictable requirements, and to evaluate how the codes could be better aligned and work together to provide a seamless, well integrated regulatory framework. We focused on specific outcomes for small businesses and small project types. Recognizing that this applicant pool is often less resourced to hire professionals to help them through complicated codes and permitting reviews. Next, slide. With the project team and guiding principles in place, we began to narrow down the scope of work. We started with a list of 100 issues that customers and staff had previously identified. Out of that list of 100, we found that 80 required major policy changes only in involved title 33 changes, which were being addressed by other projects or focused on process or technology improvements. The remaining 20 issues fell into two categories code conflicts and cost thresholds, and the team quickly aligned around cost thresholds, identifying them as a significant pain point for customers. And further, we then further narrowed the scope to four specific cost threshold triggers. Cost thresholds are development triggers. When an improvement is proposed to an existing building that meets or exceeds a certain dollar amount, the city requires the applicant to make improvements to their building or their site to bring it closer into conformance with current code standards. These are often not part of a customer's original scope of work. Next slide. There are several regulatory challenges with our cost thresholds. The four titles that this code package includes address land use trees, right of way improvements, and buildings. They all have upgrade requirements based on the cost of a project. They're spread across several codes, making them hard to find. The cost thresholds are different for each code. Some are flat numbers, some change every year, and others remain static. On top of that, another improvement threshold uses a formula based on a property's assessed value. The improvement requirements often come as a surprise to applicants, who may not learn about them until they submit for their permit, adding significant costs and project delays. Additionally, when we research other peer cities, we found that upgrade requirements are typically based on the type of work proposed rather than project costs. So Portland is an outlier in this regard. Next slide. So the intended outcomes for this project are to create consistency across the four codes for upgrade threshold requirements to close the economic feasibility gap for small businesses and small project types. As you know, these projects are having difficulty getting off the ground right now. And to simplify the permitting process, improve regulatory transparency, and create predictability. I also want to add that the project team considered several options to align the thresholds, but found that making even minor adjustments quickly led to the need for a deeper analysis and additional data collection to develop a long term solution. As such, we're proposing to pause the regulations for about three years to allow time for this analysis and provide much needed economic relief for Portland businesses. Next slide. We launched the code alignment project in November of 2020 for just over nine months ago, with the intent of bringing our first code amendment package to council this summer. We published articles in Portland permitting and development and bts monthly publications and project updates were periodically sent to city listservs. Combine these news outlets have approximately 4000 subscribers. We have reviewed the proposal with two city advisory committees and sent out public notices to almost 1000 people. Next slide. So now we'll go through the specific code proposal. There are four cost thresholds again, that we're proposing to suspend until January 1st, 2029. This regulatory pause applies to projects proposing additions and alterations to existing things and not new construction. There are a few exceptions that we'll walk through, and again, during this pause, the bureaus will continue to work on a long term code solution. Next slide. So we'll start with nonconforming upgrades, which are in title 33, our zoning code. And just to get us grounded, the nonconforming upgrade requirement is triggered for projects with a value of more than $356,000. It's intended to bring sites that were built under prior codes up to date, with modern code requirements for things such as landscaping and trees, better delineated pedestrian circulation systems, and bike parking. These upgrades mean hiring additional contractors, revising site plans, and increasing the project budget. Applicants must spend up to 10% of the project cost on bringing these items up to date as an alternative. An alternative exists where applicants can defer the upgrade for 2 to 5 years based on the size of the site, but in these cases, the 10% cap no longer applies in the site must be brought fully up to conformance by the end of the time period. Next slide.
97 I just want to clarify. So are you now reading what these changes are going to be. So like what you just read is that is a proposed change.
98 That is what the existing requirement is. So we're going to give you an example of kind of how that current requirement plays out with a permit. And then I'll go through the proposal. So you'll I'll follow that same format for everyone what the requirement is and example. And then the proposed change. So an example of how this can play out for nonconforming upgrades. There is a public benefit to these requirements. But there can be a number of unintended consequences or types of projects that one would not normally expect these requirements to apply to, such as a tenant improvement in a in a multi tenant strip mall or a daycare upgrade. In addition to the cost of the upgrades themselves, there are other cost considerations. Analyzing and developing the necessary plans to address the nonconforming upgrade for a small business site can cost thousands of dollars, and for large sites like school campuses, it can be up to $100,000. There's also a loss of some, or there also can be a loss of parking spaces or accommodations to require to the required to meet the required landscaping and pedestrian walkways. There can be impacts to floor plans to accommodate long term bike parking, which means revising plans at additional cost. Additionally, if there's not enough room to install the landscaping or the bike parking due to site constraints, the applicant would need to submit for an adjustment. Adjustments cost around $5,000, plus any cost to prepare the application, and can add 2 to 3 months to the review while a decision is pending. We have heard from pad review staff that applicants for these smaller projects often decide to abandon their permit, find an alternative site, or reduce the scope of their project to fall below that cost upgrade threshold. Next slide. So for the proposed changes following the lead of the housing regulatory relief project, the amendment would extend the existing temporary pause for residential projects to include all projects until January 1st, 2029, based on a five year review of commercial permits for additions and alterations. We anticipate that this would impact roughly 70 sites per year, or about 8% of the total. This number does not account for projects that applicants walked away from, because the additional costs and complexities of meeting the upgrade requirement. So now moving over to title 11 trees currently under title 11 trees, any new construction, additions or alteration development project, valued at more than $25,000, requires that the project street frontage be brought up to street tree density standards. This threshold has not changed since the 1990s, and now includes small projects that were not originally intended. This proposal would exempt additions and alterations from the planting from from that requirement for three years. During that time, new building construction would still trigger street tree planting requirements, as would projects for PBOT requires frontage improvements. New building construction encompasses most large new development types, and alterations and additions are typically smaller projects such as finishing a basement, remodeling a kitchen, or updating a commercial space for a new tenant. These are often interior only projects with no site work or ground disturbance. Next slide. So here is an example which demonstrates existing code requirements and what the proposed changes would look like currently to meet the requirements for a project like this alteration, the owner would need to pay a street tree review fee and create a tree plan as part of their building permit. They would need to show all of the trees in the right of way and on site, including the size of the trees. If unable to create the tree plan themselves, applicants would sometimes need to hire an arborist or a landscape architect to create the plan, which can add cost, time and complexity to the project. For projects like this, we have heard that the tree planting requirements are often a surprise and lack a clear connection to the improvement being made, such as adding a basement bathroom. The amendments proposed would not require street tree planting or tree plan for projects like this. Next slide. So in summary, under these amendments, additions and alterations would not require new street trees to be planted, only new buildings or projects which trigger frontage improvements would trigger the street tree planting requirement. And this change would bring Portland street tree review requirements into closer alignment with peer cities, which were reviewed as part of this project. There's also a handful of minor other minor amendments that we're proposing to the tree code. The first would allow smaller size trees to be planted to meet permit requirements. This refers to the size of the tree at the time it is planted, so the caliper inches of the trunk, not the height, which are easier to procure and transport and can also be easier to establish. The plan would also allow for p and d to waive the requirements to submit a tree plan. Plan for projects which will not have any tree or any tree impacts. And finally, some technical changes to align title 11 with proposed changes to title 33 are also being proposed. As well as correcting a reference to the south waterfront sub district. Next slide. Street improvements. There are two thresholds that trigger street tree improvements. First, when a project improves a site in a way that increases vehicle trips to that site, either through new building or increasing the occupancy of an existing building. The second way is when a project proposes significant alterations to a building. The significant alterations trigger is based on a comparison of the assessed value of all existing improvements on the site, and the permit value if the value of the project is greater than 35% of the assessed value, street improvements are needed. This project focuses on the significant alterations threshold only and not the trip increases threshold, so these requirements can include sidewalks, curbs, ramps, and planting wells, and there is no cap on the amount of money an applicant must spend on street improvements. They just need to be brought up and up to compliance with current standards. Next slide an example scenario a project that meets the definition of a significant alterations can vary in size and type. This is not an uncommon scenario. The example that you see it often includes interior work such as a new kitchen, bathrooms, as well as improvements to a storefront or entryways. If the building is on a corner lot, the requirement could improve include rebuilding the corner ramps to be ADA compliant, adding new tree wells to the sidewalk, and rebuilding driveway approaches using city design standards. Next slide. So proposed changes to our street frontage improvements. We're proposing again to suspend significant alterations through January 1st, 2029. The proposed ordinance would suspend these requirements to existing buildings that do not increase trips to the site during outreach. Staff and community stakeholder from community stakeholders, we heard a strong desire to continue to bring sidewalk and corner ramps up to standards for important community destinations like k through 12 schools, universities, hospitals and parks. These uses draw a lot of pedestrian and public transit trips, and major alterations to these sites are often extend the life of the building for generations to come. So again, alterations to these uses would still be required to make these frontage improvements. If they met that threshold. We typically only see a few big institutional alterations per year, so there are a small percentage of the significant alterations permits. And last but not least, building code and seismic evaluation. We're proposing to suspend the seismic evaluation report. A seismic evaluation report assesses a building's vulnerability to earthquakes, helping to identify potential structural structural weaknesses and inform decisions about safety and potential retrofitting. The report aims to determine the building's ability to withstand seismic events. This report is for information purposes only and no action is required as a result. And I would just like to note that this proposal does not include any modifications to unreinforced masonry. Next slide. So next steps for this project are to monitor and develop long term alignment during the pause time frame, and to scope the next phase of work by the code alignment project team. Next slide. So unless there are any clarifying questions for staff from the committee members, we'll turn it back to chair Avalos to open up the hearing for public testimony.
99 Councilors, are we good to go to public testimony since we've got five folks? Get that out of the way. All right then, keelan go ahead and call up the first person. Thank you to the presenters. We'll call you back up after.
100 First up we have michael harrison.
101 Good afternoon, chair Avalos and sorry, vice chair Dunphy and council members. Thank you for letting me be here. I'm michael harrison I work for OHSU. I'm here in support of the proposal today. Even though the proposal doesn't particularly affect OHSU. We've signed three agreements with the city council covering a little more than 100 acres of our campus, saying we will be bringing our campuses up to current code because of that contractual relationship. The abeyances don't affect us. So why am I here? I'm here today to ask for one additional code change that's in the same body of code that you're currently working on today, but it isn't included in the proposal. Before you. And it's sort of what happens after you bring your campus up to code or after you build a new building. Currently, when we bring our campus up to code, we're given a two year abeyance. So in other words, if we build a bike parking garage or take an existing bike parking garage and bring it up to code, if the city council were to make another change to code, like saying you have to have fewer vertical and more horizontal bike spaces, or you need an extra foot between one bike and the other. If that change happens within, if that change happens to code, and we've just built a bike parking garage, we would have we wouldn't have to improve that garage for two years, but after two years, we'd have to go into essentially a newly built facility and make changes to that facility. So the same hold true for the landscaping code, how it affects parking garages, bike parking and some other elements of the code. What we're asking for is for the code to change from a two year grace period to a ten year grace period, so that if something's newly built or you've just brought something up to code, that you don't have to make any changes to it for ten years. For us, it can be very distracting for our campus planners and the people trying to build buildings. When you do that, you need to kind of look at the whole 122 acre campus on markham hill, for example, and make sure kind of everything's up to code. So appreciate your time today. Sarah vandervelde, our vice president of campus planning and real estate, submitted something to the record that is on this point and is far more eloquent than I'm being right now or really ever been. So I appreciate your time today and bearing with me, and can answer any questions you might have. Thank you.
102 Thank you.
103 Next up we have kelly ross.
104 Good afternoon, madam chair. Councilors. My name is kelly ross and I'm appearing today on behalf of naiop Oregon, the commercial real estate development association. And I'm here to strongly support the recommendations that came to you unanimously from the planning commission and to express our deep appreciation to city staff for their openness and willingness to meet and discuss with us over the last seven years problem areas in the development code that identified many of the issues that this package contains. I'll just be very brief and say that. These four code areas that will be temporarily delayed will continue the city's aggressive actions that have previously been made to improve and speed up the permitting process for commercial development and in so doing, will make a strong statement about helping to bring new tenants to commercial spaces that are currently vacant or underutilized. So again, deep appreciation to the staff and commendation to the work that the planning commission did on this and urge your support of the package. Thank you.
105 Thank you.
106 Next up.
107 Next up we have michelle schultz online. Go ahead michelle. Michelle, I see you're unmuted. Can you hear us? All right. Let's we'll go on to the next person. Then we'll come back to michelle lee armstrong.
108 You hear me now?
109 Oh. Hi, michelle. Yeah, just a second. We're going to come back to you. Okay. Thanks.
110 Sounds good.
111 My name is actually sarah radcliffe. I'm also registered to testify. I work with lee armstrong and she's not available, so I'll just testify on her behalf as well. Good afternoon. Chairs. Avalos and Dunphy, members of the committee. My name is sarah radcliffe, and I work with habitat for humanity, Portland region. Habitat supports the code alignment project and the proposed changes. We appreciate the effort that's involved in making incremental progress, and I'm also personally happy to see this project land here at housing and homelessness, because code and permitting issues are so integral to increasing our city's housing production. To build on this progress, I'm here today to request a cap two that focuses on the public works process and requirements around roads and frontage improvements for new construction and housing. In particular, this is an area where a lot of competing interests collide. Storm water, fire safety, parking, pedestrian and bike access, ADA compliance, tree canopy density requirements and this creates a process that's prone to delays and code alignment issues. Plus, infrastructure is expensive. In particular, portland's goals for street connectivity are in tension with its housing production targets. Developers cannot realistically deliver housing at an affordable price point, while absorbing the costs of improving the city's roads to the degree that is currently required. And we'd like to suggest holding work sessions with housing developers to understand the public works costs and delays, and to inform the scope of the code alignment project to thank you for your consideration.
112 Thank you.
113 Next up we have michelle schultz online.
114 Apologies. Can you all hear me now?
115 We can hear you.
116 Great. Good afternoon. Members of the homeless and housing committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is michelle schultz. I'm a licensed architect and principal and owner at gbd architects. We're proud to be headquartered in district four, and for over 54 years, our firm has been designing projects that help shape portland's skyline, neighborhoods, and sense of place. As as a Portland based architectural firm, we're honored to have played a role in building and revitalizing the city. But today we're facing a troubling slowdown in development, especially for renovations and additions driven by process complexities and financial barriers that are making it harder to improve and adapt our existing buildings. We want to keep working here. We want to keep investing here. We want to keep contributing to the vibrant future of Portland. That's why I'm here in strong support of the code alignment project. The post postponement proposal, and support of the efforts that the city staff have put into this proposal in front of you today. Cap removes redundant regulatory hurdles, streamlined permitting for upgrades, and allows property owners and small developers to respond more quickly to urgent housing needs by supporting suspending certain upgrade requirements in titles. 11, 17, 24 and 33 for alterations and additions. Not new construction until 2029. The proposal provides immediate relief without compromising public safety. Importantly, it includes a 2028 review that ensures transparency and accountability and your ability to review the process. This is more than a permit permitting update. It's an economic jumpstart cap will make it easier to reinvest in existing buildings, activate vacant spaces, and bring both housing and small businesses back to life. It's a clear signal that Portland is open for business, committed to revitalizing our neighborhoods and downtown, and ready to partner with the community to create a more vibrant and livable city. By streamlining the rules for building improvements, cap sends a powerful message Portland is ready for investment in itself and welcomes the growth of our community needs. I urge you to support the postponement so that we can move projects forward now, rather than watch them stall and disappear. Thank you for your support.
117 Thank you.
118 Completes testimony.
119 All right. Sounds good. Committee members, we've got the last 20 minutes here to discuss. And I see councilor Zimmermann is first in line. And if you guys want to come back up, I assume they'll have some questions for you. Go ahead, councilor Zimmermann.
120 Thank you. So I represent the west side and southwest Portland. Deep southwest Portland is an area with a lot of lots that I would say should have been or should be taken advantage of our residential infill program. Right. We have a lot of large lots that you could put something on and it's not happening. I'm trying to understand from not from a developer standpoint, but from a normal person who might be able to add something where these changes are helping spur that development. And trying to get a sense of the this is I think the word was used earlier, incremental. And I'm trying to get a sense of like, is it too incremental? Is this a significant change? Because what I'm seeing here, I can't quite tell what I would expect of a residential type of development. And there's some other aspects I'm really happy about. So I would start with that question, please.
121 Thank you for the question, councilor. I'm going to tackle that second part and ask our colleague to talk about rip and fill the intentionality of taking. This initial bite was a couple, and this is for transparency. One is the city of Portland across our bureaus needed to learn to work together, and it sounds like really tedious, but it was very important because these codes are addressing conflict and looking at removing redundancy and in some cases, improving how people interact with us. We had to like, learn that muscle like that. To be. That'd be worked out. So this is hopefully and I alluded to this in my comments, the first phase of many related to code alignment. I think staff will tell you that we have a laundry list of things to take on that will probably be a little meatier, a little more complicated, maybe more controversial, but are necessary. So I would ask for your, you know, grace and allowing us to get this package through as as small but mighty as it is to set the stage for the next as it serves the business community, which is really I want to emphasize this, these are for this package was really targeting people that are improving existing buildings. So as a small business, whether it be a preschool or a barbershop, they're coming in. We're trying to minimize the barrier to just doing business in Portland, like running a business. So these code improvements really targeting that element more so than more broader strategic. How do we remove barriers and permitting to get more housing built per se. So I hope that answers that piece. And then morgan, please introduce yourself and answer the rip piece.
122 Thank you. So morgan tracy, a senior planner with the bureau of planning and sustainability, was project manager for the residential infill project. And I think just by continuing donny's point on that, the residential infill project is about small scale residential new development primarily, but some some additions, additional infill type development, really a different animal than what we're talking in terms of the code alignment project proposal here, which is really about most mostly commercial alterations, but to some degree larger scale residential development upgrades. I do want to sort of preface that there was recent state legislation that impacted middle housing. So the bureau will be proposing some future legislation to respond to that. So stay tuned for that.
123 Thanks. Moving into 11.1 this is under tree suspend tree planting requirements. I do want to just say I appreciate being able to read in the dialog that there was at least one proposal to suspend the street tree planting, and that that that did not make it in because it maybe wasn't seen as as or that it would have it would have backtracked us in terms of our goals to street planting. And I want to say, I think that was the right call. This I will call it the hybrid version of if you're doing. I think everybody understands if you're just fixing a bathroom in the basement of your house, the idea that the city of Portland would tell you you need to put a few street trees in is bonkers. So I just want to compliment you on that. At the same time, a full suspension of our street tree planting would have seemed too far for me because I think it's an important path to when you look at the google image, getting more of the city to look like my district in places that it doesn't yet. So I just I appreciate that there was some nuance there. Instead of just lopping off the entire low hanging fruit. Wherever that analogy was going with streets or with trees. But you know what I mean? So I just want to compliment that. That helps me understand that this was quite detailed as as we went through on 11.2, though, reduced street tree plan requirements in certain situations. This amendment allows the city administrator to delegate authority to forestry staff to waive. Et cetera. Et cetera, et cetera. I'm very curious why we're not using the word direct. And I say it for this reason. We have come to a conclusion that we have some problems in the management of our tree code. I would love to have seen this go more in that we are directing this to occur, and only then if we think there's a situation where the city administrator should then waive that direction because of a one off. I guess I don't have faith that the urban forestry program is ever going to actually, on their own, waive anything. So I'd like to see this be a little bit more top down in the direction than from the bottom up, because so far the bottom up is not working in this aspect of the urban forestry. And then I see you come up to help answer. But I also at the end of that, I'm hoping you can help describe a little bit, for there's been some changes on the different roles between pd and urban forestry and who's got who's got the red pen with the authority in it on this topic now, and I'm a little I'd love to be able to feel comfortable about 11.2 because that that was one area. I'm just not sure bottom up's going to work here.
124 Okay. Please go.
125 Yes, please.
126 Sure.
127 Yeah. Thank you for the question. Councilor Zimmerman, brian lando with urban forestry and I had the pleasure of working on this project. So it does give discretion to paddy as the implementation, as the current implementation group within the development part of title 11. The reason it's written the way it is there was a lot of implementation components that are still being finalized and worked out to understand when is it safe to not allow the tree plant requirement. And the idea is if it's a internal only addition or alteration, there's no ground disturbance, there's really no need to go and identify all the trees on the site when you're not doing any work outside of the shell of the structure anyway. So it is definitely the intention of moving that direction. I think it was worded in that way to allow for paddy to work through all the implementation steps of that, to identify within their process. What are the situations where we can wave waive that requirement?
128 Okay.
129 So when I read forestry staff, I should read that as that new element that is now in paddy and not the old version of urban. The urban forester is also in this document a few times, and I'm trying to square those words. And I recognize we are 8 or 6 weeks into a significant change on. That and moving toward an October change. So, okay.
130 So councilor Just to double down on that as we're contemplating this transition, it's not just bringing urban forestry enforcement team into pd, it's how does it weave into existing structures. We're continuing to improve permitting development, but also bright lining those roles to the point, though, about like the directedness of this of this particular code change. It's really trying to empower our staff to, to make good decisions. Right. And that's, that is something that you flagged as something you might have have questions about. And that's fair. But as we move into a more solutions oriented permitting structure, how we're trying to work with homeowners and businesses and new developers, it's that idea that, let's figure this out and let's be like, let's use that discretion to actually solve for good. As to constantly saying no. So I'd offer that flexibility actually is intended for a future state. I think it's coming. It's not a pipe dream that we're actually working with our communities to get work done.
131 Okay, thanks. I appreciate going this route. I, I'm leaning toward supporting this. I am very glad that we did not scrap the street tree planting overall, but we're saying that if your project is just inside your house, there's no changes to the outside that let's start passing the common sense test. So I appreciate doing that. And then I take very seriously the comments from sarah and talking about, you know, the, the, the frontage as we talk about development, I think we've got I'll just say some of these seem like low hanging fruit, but we've got some big things to tackle in that realm. And I am, I guess, really hoping that that advice is or suggestion is taken quite strongly. So thanks, chair.
132 Councilor Ryan.
133 Yes, thank you, chair Avalos. First of all, I'm just very excuse me, I'm very excited to see this project moving along. And of course, I'm very supportive of this legislation. I blame the being in this room now for five hours. It's been such a long journey. It started in 2021 even before you, terry. But I will say that building this with commissioner Mapps at the time and having representatives from all three offices, was the first time we did an all in approach on this and we just kept building and building. So it's so exciting to see this day arrive. And I'm happy that you said this is the beginning of many. The first bite at the apple, I think, was the word I heard. But please know that code confusion was or code clutter was one of the first things that came up in the very first meeting, and it just kept coming up over and over again. So this is why, terry, you were hired in 21, 22 with the budget. And then we were fortunate enough to have the last council approve your team being built after that. And I just want my council members to understand that's why this is happening today. This didn't just happen. The last council could have passed all of this, but nothing would have moved. We needed actual smart people in there, poking and probing, doing that cat herding to people who I called them cats for a reason, who really didn't want to always play with each other. And so this is how it works. And I'm just delighted that we're here today. And also we've done a one pager, our office. We should probably continue to have you keep looking at those things. But all of us, when we go out to our constituents, it's not that nerdy. Everyone can almost relate to this. So many portlanders have experienced the confusion and the customer service that that just allows them to scratch their head over and over again. It brings all different types of people who usually don't agree with one another together. So this is a unified approach for a reason. We're listening to our constituents. I appreciate the suspension of upgrade requirements. That includes the most common complaints I've heard. And these are barriers that have really been damaging to Portland for a long time. And now we're not in a place of we're we're not the it city right now. So we have to go to great lengths to figure this out asap. And so I do appreciate that. I want to caution us up here about something. When we looked in the task force at where some of these clutter moments came, confusion moments came, really listen to this, please. If you hear one thing I say today, it was often last minute amendments by people that sit up here that somehow got passed, and then it allowed the staff to go, what just happened? And forevermore it became folklore, if you will, of probably uncharitable things being said about those, those commissioners that passed such things which added to this confusion. So we have to make sure that we really are listening to the experts that work at the city, that are working this out with those that came to testify today and not think that elected official politicians at the last minute should make edits to that work, I just want to put that caution out, because it came up so many times when we were looking at, how did that get passed? Oh, as a walk on amendment. La la la la. That's the story. Okay, I said my piece on that. I did appreciate that you said this is the first of many, and I do hope that we can get a summary of what we can get excited about going forward. Those of us in these offices, so you can manage us so we don't do last minute amendments. And also so those customers out there can be excited about where we're going. And I want a timeline that's connected to that. Is that fair.
134 Can do. Councilor.
135 Thank you. Of course I'm supportive of this. I'm a little chagrined. I'm not one of the sponsors. Just thought I'd.
136 Say that I would add a quorum.
137 If that's a friendly add on, I'll take it.
138 Any. Hold on further questions? Okay, well, let's go ahead and start moving towards passage or towards a vote. Oh.
139 Just sorry.
140 The there was an item in the staff report about a one off or an outlier about tying some of our stuff to the valuation of a project. Is that considered a best practice in urban planning or. And I could not help but notice that the $25,000 mark in some of the original documents is also what used to be the driving baseline for our property tax assessment, which again, has also not changed with inflation. So if you basically just put a fence up, your house is supposed to get reassessed under Oregon law now because it's 30 years old, are we an outlier for good reasons or is that strange tying everything to a cost base instead of a tangible change?
141 Broadly speaking, I'm speaking at the highest level possible. First, it is typically how we do our tax evaluations. Our permit processes is based on the value of a project. So by that logic, we are consistent with best practices around the country. The amounts we choose that 25 k marker. A little more complicated of an answer there. Councilor but you are poking at something that we need more evaluation on across the bureaus. This isn't, you know, unique to ppd or parks.
142 And bpa.
143 Because 356,300 is not exactly a round number on our other. Right. We've got reasons in there.
144 Yes.
145 I just I want to bring it up, you know, the property tax system. And I'm definitely doing a tangent here. But it is related in that property tax system was designed that you could have predictable taxes in Oregon after the measure 50 stuff. And they didn't tie it to inflation. Which means if you even think about making a change to your house under state law, it needs to be reassessed. Now given inflation, because it hasn't changed appropriately when we apply that. Similarly we're seeing that. And so I just wanted to give a compliment that that was in the staff report a few times over. And I thank you for that because these numbers sounded they sound interesting. But that's that's a small house's siding bill. And that that shouldn't be a significant change. That's called regular ongoing maintenance and repair. So just thanks for putting that in there. Those details make a difference five, ten and 30 years later. And so it was noted. Thanks.
146 All right colleagues. With that I would like to entertain a motion to send the ordinance document number 2025 314 to the full council with a recommendation to pass.
147 So moved.
148 Second.
149 Moved by councilor Zimmerman, seconded by councilor Morillo. Any further discussion? Clerk go ahead and call the roll.
150 Maria.
151 I, of course.
152 Zimmerman I. Dunphy I. Ryan I Avalos.
153 Hi motion carries with five I votes in the ordinance will move to full council with a due pass recommendation.
154 All right. And so this code alignment project will be continued to full council specifically on September 3rd at 10 a.m. We had to have a specific time due to the land use nature.
155 All right.
156 Correct. Yes, yes. All right. Well, that is it for our agenda. Our next meeting is Tuesday, September 9th. I'm going to adjourn this meeting of homelessness and housing committee at 1:59 p.m.
157 Congratulations.