Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Wonderful. Good evening and welcome to the December 2nd, 2025 Eugene Planning Commission meeting. I'd like to call this meeting to order. My name is Jason Leer and I'm chair of the Eugene Planning Commission. To begin this evening, I'd like to call on Commissioner um we say we're going to go with Commissioner Bon uh for the city's land acknowledgement statement. Okay, let me and I could read it. I've got it here. Thanks. Since time immemorial, the Calapouya people have been the indigenous stewards to our region, building dynamic communities, maintaining balance of wildlife, and enacting sustainable land practices. This land acknowledgement is a way of resisting the eraser of indigenous histories and to honor native communities by inviting truth, reconciliation. Following treaties between 1851 and 1855, Calapouya people were dispossessed of their indigenous homeland by the United States government, forcibly removed to the coast reservation in western Oregon. As we consider the impacts of colonization, we also acknowledge the strength and resiliency of displaced indigenous people. City of Eugene is built within the traditional homelands known as the Calapouya Elhi. Calapouya descendants are citizens of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ron community of Oregon, Confederated Tribes of the Seleletes Indians of Oregon. They continue to make contributions in our communities here and across the lands. We express our respect for the inherent political sovereignty of all federally recognized tribal nations and indigenous people who live in the state of Oregon and across the nation.

Therefore, the planning commission recognizes that what we do today will affect the many generations who will come after us. Thank you so much, Commissioner Bon, and thank you to everyone joining us in this virtual meeting format today. Our meeting will begin with public comment followed by anformational work session on rental housing cost burden in Eugene. Anyone wishing to join the meeting online can do so by following the instructions listed on the agenda for this meeting. Planning Commission meetings can also be viewed by watching the live stream available on our website or the broadcast on Comcast channel 21. For those who join the meeting via computer, device or phone, your microphone, webcam, and phone are automatically muted when you enter the meeting as an attendee. If you wish to participate during the public comment portion of the meeting and haven't done so already, please raise your virtual hand now to join the speakers queue. And you can do that one of two ways. For those viewing the meeting on a computer, laptop, or other smart device, click once on the hand icon on the menu. And for those listening to the meeting on a phone, press star 9. Public comment is an opportunity for individuals to speak to the planning commission on any topics except for items scheduled for public hearing or public hearing items for which the record has already closed. As a reminder, your hand must be raised to be in the queue for public comment. Is there anyone wanting to provide public comment?

Yes, looks like we have seven in the queue right now. Fantastic. So, I'll turn it over to you.

Excellent. Uh, well, hello everyone. My name is Crystal Fischer. Um, the planning commission has allotted a maximum of 10 minutes for public comment this evening. Uh, first we have a little housekeeping before we proceed with the public comment period tonight. Uh just a reminder, the public comment period for the public health standards code amendment uh city file number CA2503 closed at 5:00 p.m. today. If you would like to provide comments on the public health standards code amendment, you may provide your comments during the city council public hearing scheduled in February of 2026. Uh to ensure that everyone wishing to speak tonight has an adequate opportunity to do so, uh each speaker will be limited to uh looks like we have seven. So is a minute uh chair. Okay,

I think that works.

Okay, we will be limiting speakers to one minute. I will announce whose turn it is to provide public comment as well as who is up next. Uh when your name is announced for public comment, I will enable the allow to speak function uh which will allow you to unmute but will now allow you to turn on your video. Uh please do not unmute until it is your turn for public comment. I will let you know when you have um 20 seconds remaining in your allotted time. When the public comment is concluded, your microphone will be muted. Please note that the use of profanity is prohibited and any instances of profanity will result in immediate termination of speaking privileges. With these instructions out of the way, it looks like we have Greg Bryant who will be our first commenter tonight. And Greg, I'm allowing you to unmute now. You will have to unmute yourself before

Perfect. All right. You will have a minute once you begin speaking.

Oh, excellent. Well, um I'm uh here I from the South University Neighborhood Association board. Um we've got a number of issues. Let's see what I can do with in a minute. Um uh one is the uh effect that I I warned uh or that we warned about uh at earlier in the year of this the the zoning deregulations effect on our neighborhood. Um basically has has come to pass. And if you want to see how uh a monster apartment rental, market rate rental can be built in the middle of a uh a 100-year-old neighborhood and destroy it, come to 22nd and older and take a look for yourself. Uh it's uh it uh it has disturbed hundreds of people who see it and

everyone who lives around it blocks the sun, does many bad things. Okay. Thank you, Greg Bryant. Okay, next up, I'm going to lower your hand as well. Uh, next up we have Stanley Taylor.

My name is Stan Taylor. I am with Indivisible Eugene Springfield and I'm here to talk briefly about the Amazon warehouse that's to go in by the airport. I want you to know that we oppose it. We think that it was not given prop proper notice under Oregon law. And we also are going to be talking about filing a type five amendment to the industrial light zoning, industrial light zoning, uh to change the nature of that zoning so that this type of warehouse could not be brought into the city of Eugene. Again, I think this uh warehouse application was not properly noticed to the public.

20 seconds. Under Oregon 455.050. The owners of the building are supposed to be disclosed to the public for transparency purposes and that doesn't didn't happen here. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Okay, next up we have um Eloise Parish Muller. You should have speaking privileges now. You will have to unmute. Can you hear me? Yes, we can.

Hi. Um my name is Eloise Parish Mueller and I'm a lifelong resident of Eugene and a graduate of the University of Oregon with a degree in environmental science. Um, I'm here today in support of the campaign to stop the construction of an Amazon distribution center in West Eugene, a development which would cause massive increases in air pollution in an area of our community which is already disproportionately affected by industrial pollution and poor air quality. Given the lack of adequate community engagement and consultation in association with this project, those of us commenting today would like to know how we can get our questions answered by the commission. Um, we'll be sending a follow-up email after this session. So, if you're not able to answer questions during this meeting, please respond to that. Um,

so that we can figure out how to start a conversation around this and have adequate um, public engagement going forward. Thank you. Thank you. And Ruth Ren, you are up next.

Hi, I'm Ruth Ren. I've lived and worked and paid taxes and voted in Eugene for over 30 years. And I'm opposed to the Amazon warehouse. Also, it's Amazon standard practice to deliberately hide their plans from the public using NDAs to conceal their identity so the community doesn't know what's happening until it hits them. That's unethical and it should be illegal. So, why are Eugene City officials colluding with Amazon in this process? Amazon is a predatory corporation. They won't bring good jobs because they will replace workers with robotics as soon as possible. They'll extract as much as they can, use electricity and water, dominate our streets, undermine our local economy, and they'll leave when it's 20 seconds.

So, let's be good stewards of this land, and let's slow down this process and research this project before they move forward. Thank you. Thank you, Ruth. All right, it looks like Terresa M, you are up next. And you should have permissions to talk now, but you will have to unmute.

Hi, I live in Ward One. I've been here for decades. Um, I'm also an organizer with Indivisible. Um, and I understand the commission exists to help plan for a better Eugene. And if that's so, then it looks like the proposed e-commerce facility off Highway 99 slipped by you somehow. And I'm hoping you'll send up an emergency flare for the city council so they don't risk having another highneck situation on their hands here today and gone tomorrow. Um, the warehouse has all the earmarks of an Amazon project and it's bad news. um taxation, labor, safety, the environment, respect for privacy and democracy. They their record stinks. And letting this corporate giant get a foothold in our community disaster.

Given that this project has advanced without adequate public discussion, please tell us what legal options do we have to challenge this? Thank you. Thank you. And Adrien, you are up next. And you will have to unmute before you begin speaking. Okay. Am I Am I unmuted? You are? Yes.

Okay. I'm a I'm a very lowbudget landlord in Eugene. I And I grew up here. I'm recommending a serious extension of the current list of projects that are exempt from building inspection and exempt from rental rules. Uh the eraser of the paragraph defining a family was a huge step forward that way. And I'd like to see consider consideration of igloo style heating, 50volt electricity, compost sewage instead of black water, sandbox gray water, gravityfed water handling, fireproof building materials, single property permit exemp exemption, inspection upon arms link sale, and non-contract rental payment without rental enforcement. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And then looks like we have Charmaine Landing, you're up next. And you will have to unmute before you begin speaking.

Well, I'm just reiterating uh what the other folks have said that I'm angry and alarmed at the way Amazon distribution center is being foisted on us. They're using backdoor tactics which enables them to avoid significant citizen involvement. The permit is no ordinary project. It's a warehouse the size of six football fields, over 2,000 vehicle trips per day, adding to more traffic, road use, and air pollution. I ask for a pause in certification of this project and citywide public participation in its acceptance or denial. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. And I do not see any other uh speakers in the queue at this time. Going to give just one more moment in case anybody didn't get in the queue and thought they were. Okay, looks like uh that concludes uh our public comment period for this evening.

Thank you and thank you to everyone for sharing your comments. As always, feel free to contact staff if there are comments you are not able to provide or that you wish to get to us in a different manner. I'll now close public comment. Um, next we'll ask if any of the members of the planning commission want to respond to public comment. And I guess I just wanted to maybe start off by telling folks who have kind of asked us specifically about the Amazon warehouse that that isn't really a decision that comes before planning commission. Um there may have been some activity on it before I was on several years past, but it's definitely not we're definitely not the decision makers when it comes to that. And uh those those comments may be better directed to city council and to some of the planning staff, but definitely want to give any other planning commissioners a chance to respond more directly if you've got anything else. Okay. Um for our next agenda item, I'll turn it over to Alyssa Hunter. All right. Thank you, Chair Lear. Uh, our next agenda item is planning commission election. So, annually you vote in a new chair uh and a new vice chair. Um, starting with the chair. Um, often the vice chair um is interested in the chair position. Um, that is not always the case. And um I have spoken with Commissioner Bailing and I hope you don't mind me bringing this up with folks. But one thing that we had talked about is just um having her remain if if that is the the planning commission's pleasure um having her remain in the the vice chair position for for the upcoming year um and have someone else um step in as chair and then she could do the rotation in the following year. So, I just wanted to throw that out there, but

it is um Commissioner Leer up to you to coordinate the nomination process and the voting and whatnot, and then whoever is the successful chair actually uh will convene the rest of the meeting.

Thanks, Alyssa. Um, having spoken with Commissioner Bailing, um, I did mention that I would be willing to serve as another chair with maybe the expectation that she'd have some more opportunities to chair meetings, but I would also be more than happy to clear the field and uh, let someone else who's eager to stand up as as chair to do it. So, just wanted to mention that. And with that, I suppose we'll take nominations. Commissioner Edwards.

Yes. Thanks, Chair Lear. Um I would um gladly nominate uh Commissioner Chair Leer uh for another term as chair. Um so I'd like to make that motion. Okay. Is there a second? I can second that.

Thanks, Commissioner Ramy. So, a little bit awkward for me here, but just again want to make sure that there's more opportunity for if anyone else would like to put themsel forward. And I'd also be happy to step aside and allow someone else to to serve as chair for this upcoming year. I don't see that. So, I suppose we'll take a vote now. All in favor of having me remain on as commissioner and chair for another year, please raise your hands. I

Thanks, Commissioner Edwards. And it looks like then it is unanimous. Sorry that we couldn't have all the members of the commission here. It's tough this time of year to get everybody in the room at one time. So, we'll now move on for uh nominations for vice chair. I would like to nominate Commissioner uh and current Vice Chair Bailing. I second that nomination.

Okay. Anyone want to put any other nominations forward? Okay, we'll go ahead and take a vote then. All in favor, please raise your hands or say I as appropriate. I

Okay, so we're unanimous on that. And I'll continue to run the meeting here as we move into the next segment. Um our third and final section of the meeting is a work session on the capital improvement program. Um it is specifically on the rental housing cost burden in Eugene. And for this item, I'd like to turn it over to Leah Roush to begin the staff presentation. Following the staff presentation, the commission will have the opportunity to ask questions.

Excellent. Thank you, Chair Leer. Thank you, um, members of the commission. Thanks for having us here tonight. Again, my name is Leah Roush. I'm a senior planner in community planning in design on the planning division. Commissioner Remy, I'm sorry before you get started, are you just noting that you're leaving a little early? Yeah. Yes. I I just wanted to apologize to Leah and frankly everybody uh that I'll be h I'll be leaving at 6:15. So I won't I won't be here that long, but I'll try to catch up on video later. And I'm really glad I was here for the elections because I couldn't be happier with the way they turned out. Thank you too for for doing this. Thank you, Commissioner Remy.

Thanks, Commissioner Rainey. And um Amber, if you want to share screen whenever you're ready. Um we are going to talk a little bit about severe rent burden in Eugene um this evening and we'll have some opportunities for questions and discussion from you all at the end of the meeting. I'm joined by Amber Freriedman from the planning division as well as Genevieve Middleton from the community development division who will both um present a little bit to you all tonight. Um so each year the state requires cities with high rates of severe rent burden to hold a public meeting. Eugene has exceeded this threshold um for many years where more than 25% of renter households experience severe cost burden um and that severe cost burden is paying more than 50% of their income on their housing costs. state state law requires that the city um meet to discuss the causes and consequences of severe rent burden, barriers to reducing rent burden, and some of the possible solutions. Um because these topics are so integrated with some of our ongoing work, we wanted to take this opportunity to update you all on some of the data around affordability on rent burden, existing city policies, programs, and investments to address affordability and some of the root causes of rent burden and then how it connects to our current work in planning. So, in addition to actually hosting today's meeting, the state also requires that we share data on new housing development each year, as well as submit a survey to the state that provides some specific information on the affordability of housing within Eugene and the actions the city is taking or plans to take to increase affordability and otherwise reduce rent burden. So the attendance of this meeting including um the affiliation and

location of attendees will be reported to the Oregon Housing and Community Services Department as a part of this kind of um public meeting requirement. For folks who are joining us on YouTube or TV at home and didn't fill out the Zoom survey for the meeting, um we'll ask that you please share your affiliation and location through this QR code on the screen. you should be able to scan it with the camera of your smartphone or by entering um the link that's on the screen. So, you'll also if you go to that form, you'll have the opportunity to provide any additional comments to staff um and to the city about severe rent burden and housing affordability. The form will remain open until the end of December. Um and then when we wrap up the meeting today, we'll also share this slide again um if you're unable to pull that form up right now. So with that, our agenda for tonight, um Amber is going to talk a little bit about what rent burden is, including the causes and consequences. Um then she'll hand it over to Genevie, who will talk a little bit about city supported actions to address rent burden, and then I'll wrap us up by talking a little bit about how um this work fits into our urban growth planning. So with that, I will hand it over to Amber. Hello. Um, thanks for coming everyone. I'm Amber Freriedman, uh, she her pronouns. I'm an associate planner on the community planning team. Um, like Leah said, I'm here today with some colleagues both from the planning division and the community development division. Um so for some of you today's presentation may seem like a little sense of deja vu like maybe you've heard some of this before and that's because you have uh most of you have at least myself and a few other staff have given a similar presentation in previous years

to fulfill this state required public meeting. So a lot of the things we're going to cover today um are true from year to year. But I'm just going to start with the basics. What is rent burden? Uh Leah mentioned it, but rent burden is the percentage of household income a household spends on housing expenses. So when a household spends more than 30% of their income on housing expenses, they're considered rent costbururdened. A household that spends more than 50% of their income on housing is considered severely rent burdened. The formula to calculate your rent burden is total monthly housing expenses divided by gross monthly income. Uh so the example on the slide shows a household who pays $2,000 a month in combined rent and utilities and has a monthly income of around $3,500. To determine that rent burden, you would divide 2,000 by 3500, which equals 0.57. um to get that as a percentage just multiply it by 100. Um and so in this scenario we see that the household would have a 57% rent cost burden. So we would consider this household severely rent cost burdened. As Leah mentioned, Eugene is considered a severely rent burdened city. Uh the population in Eugene based on 2023 data was around 1,00 or 177,000 people um with over 38,000 renter households. Uh 12,000 of those renter households are living as severely rent burdened. So they're spending more than 50% of their income on housing costs. Um so that 12,000 is about a third of our Eugene renter population. So a third of our renter households are spending half of their income on housing costs. The graph

here on the right shows both rent cost burden and severe rent cost burden. So overall 62% of Eugene renter households experience some level of rent cost burden. Uh the green section here represents those that are paying over 30% of their household income on housing and the blue section is highlighting those that are paying over 50% of their household income on housing. The overall median household income in Eugene in 2022 was around $66,000 which is about $10,000 less than our state average of 76,000. Um, but for those households that identify as black or Asian in Eugene, the average household income drops into the 40,000s. Um, so we're seeing 41,713 for black households and four 49,594 uh for Asian households. These communities also experience higher average unemployment rates with 8.7% and 8.6% 6% as well as lower than average home ownership rates with 31% and 32% compared to white households which own homes at a rate of 51%. The city conducted a survey of renters in fall of 2023 and the top concern for renters was affordability. The survey found that 7% of respondents have had to move because they could no longer afford their current rent and 8% reported having to move in the previous two years because they could not afford a rent increase. In both of these situations, people that are aged between 18 and 35 were more likely to have had to move than those renters over 36. From the same survey, we see that 16% of

respondents reported receiving a rent increase of more than 10% in one year. And another takeaway from the survey is that access to housing for renters with certain circumstances, uh especially people with conviction histories or that use housing subsidies, um it's extra challenging and costly to access housing. Um, so, uh, what causes rent burden in Eugene might be a logical question. There's no one answer, but there are a few contributing factors or causes. So, supply and demand is one part of the puzzle. Eugene's rental vacancy rate fluctuates between 3 to 5%. So, about five or less out of every 100 part apartments are actually available for rent at a given time. Um, there just aren't a lot of rental units available and that makes for a competitive market and leads to high rents. Decades of housing underproduction in Oregon has left the entire state with a shortage of housing units. Um, a shortage of housing units compared to what we need to house our Oregon communities. Uh, rent to income ratio is another big part of severe rent burden. Um, in Eugene, our median rent is about $1,400 a month and the average annual wage or pay in Eugene, according to the US Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, is about 56,000 annually. For the past several years, Eugene has conducted a rent assessment of market rate multi-unit developments. So that means developments that do not receive subsidies to provide affordable rents to income qualified tenants and have more than five units. So from that assessment, we found that the median rents in 2025 were $1,43 for a studio apartment all the way up to $3,565

for a four-bedroom apartment. When we measure the affordability of rents, the assessment compared local rents with those considered fair market rents by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, which we call HUD. So HUD's fair market rents are used to determine payment standard amounts for the Housing Choice Voucher Program. So, our 2025 Eugene data shows that our median rents for all apartment sizes are at least $27 more than the standard for the 2025 fair market rents. So, why do we care if Eugene is a severely rent burdened city? Um, there's a number of consequences. There are negative economic outcomes. People have less disposable income to spend in our local economy. People have less savings in the bank for unexpected expenses. We see high housing costs affecting local business economy as well. It can deter potential candidates from relocating, especially if salaries don't offset the cost of living. Uh we also see limited housing inventories making it hard for new hires to find suitable accommodations quickly, which can delay or derail hiring decisions. Uh there's also increased risk of experiencing homelessness. Uh it stifles generational wealth building. One of the primary ways people build generational wealth is through home ownership. So when they spend the bulk of their income on rent, there's not much left over to save for buying a home. This is particularly concerning because it perpetuates the already systemic and existing racial wealth gap. um as black, indigenous, and people of color are statistically less likely to own homes due to historic racist policies and practices.

When individuals can't pay rent, some natural responses may be doubling up on occupancy, moving in with friends or family, or moving to a lowerc cost area, either by choice or by eviction. This can result in crowding and displacement. According to the 2023 Eugene Eugene renters survey, 8% of respondents reported having to move because they couldn't afford a rent increase and 7% have had to move because they could no longer afford the current rent. Folks that move to lowercost areas may have longer commutes to work or school, to healthcare, grocery stores, etc. Um, and that contributes to less personal time for them and more carbon emissions from driving. then see an increase of cars on the road causing traffic as well as parking congestion. Severe rent burden can include negative health outcomes. Having less money due to housing costs can lead to sacrificing necessities like health care and nutritious food. When people are rent burdened, they may give up other basic needs like child care, internet access, and transportation in order to pay rent. So focusing for a minute on evictions, see that rising rents, cost burdens, rent a arars, and dwindling resources have led to an increase of rates of eviction um court filings for eviction for the non-payment of rent. In 2023, landlords filed 1,284 eviction court cases in Eugene and 82% of those were for non-payment of rent. In 2024, landlords filed 1,700 eviction court cases in Eugene, which was an increase of 32% over that year. 87% of those court filed evictions were for non-payment of rent, so an increase

of 5 percentage points since 2023. Uh, according to data from the National Equity Atlas, Eugene had about 3,640 households that were behind on rent in 2024. That comes out to be about 9% of our total estimated Eugene renters. So, why isn't this problem solved yet? Um, so if we think about rent cost burden as a math formula, we have housing cost divided by household income. So to get a smaller cost per number, we either need to increase the denominator, our household income, or decrease the numerator, which is housing costs. So one of the strategies is to increase wages. In Eugene, we have lower than average. We have we have wages that are lower than the state average. Um so but with the tools we have, uh we are focusing on reducing or stabilizing housing costs through housing production. Um, but there are two pieces to this math equation. So, focusing on housing production, but the city of Eugene doesn't build housing. We support programs and projects that do with funding and other resources. Our nonprofit and private developers are the ones doing the development and construction. Unfortunately, there are a number of barriers to progress related to housing production. Some of these include cost and availability of lands, materials, as well as construction labor costs, city permit costs, and system development charges. Uh when acquiring a piece of land to build on, any old piece won't do. Uh the piece needs to be connected or able to connect to infrastructure. Has to be designed for the type of structure you want to build. Uh for example, not all land is zoned for multi-unit housing. So, if you're trying to build an apartment complex, you have to find a site that is zoned appropriately or go through a process to

see if it can be reszoned. So, once you have your perfect piece of land that meets your needs, uh the barriers still continue. Increasing inflation, high interest rates, and supply chain demands are proven to negatively impact the ability of developers of all scales and sizes to build housing and pace with our community need. Um, in addition to all that, we've seen declines in federal investments in housing. So, finally getting to solutions. What can be done about barriers? What is the city already doing? Who else is working on this issue? Uh, to answer those questions, I'm going to pass this off to Genevieve Middleton, the affordable housing policy and planning manager at the city of Eugene. Thank you, Amber. In the following slides, I'll be highlighting the city's efforts in three key areas. Production of incomequalified affordable housing units, preservation of existing affordable housing, and protections available to Eugene renters. I'll also touch on additional communitydriven solutions aimed at reducing housing cost burdens. The city supports the production of affordable housing with federal, state, and local funding sources. Affordable housing here means incomequalified housing that is accessible to moderate lowincome households by using a mix of subsidies and incentives. The city receives two federal grants, CDBG and home from HUD. These grant activities and projects must benefit households at 80% area median income and below. The home program focuses on creating housing units typically for households at 60% area median income and below. And the picture here shown here is a home funded project currently under construction called Ali Court by Homes for Good Housing Agency and includes 80 affordable rental units and an on-site

early learning center. Our other federal grant CDBG can be used to purchase land for future incomequalified affordable housing development. Next slide. The city has three local funding sources that supports affordable housing production. The first is the affordable housing trust fund which is funded by the city's local construction excise tax. Since its inception in 2019, $4 million is supporting the creation of 485 low and moderate income homes. The fund has also been used to keep 243 households in their homes through rent assistance. City fee assistance, including system development charge exemptions, helps to reduce building costs for new units. More than $5 million in fee assistance has supported the creation of 1,375 rental and home ownership units in Eugene. An additional 570 units are in the pipeline. The housing under construction in this photo is a 47 unit affordable housing project called Legacy Park that received both affordable housing trust funds and city fee assistance. And lastly, for production, the lowincome rental housing property tax exemption, referred to as LRY, provides a 20-year property tax exemption for lowincome rental properties, reducing annual operating costs, common need amongst affordable housing providers. There are 45 properties with 2,319 units that currently benefit from the LAR program. Next slide. The city's rental rehabilitation program has existed for over 40 years. Through the program, essential repairs to preserve affordable housing properties helped to keep them a part of Eugene's housing stock. In the past 25 years, this program has helped to preserve more

than 1,300 units at 38 sites in Eugene. Shown here is the recently completed rehabilitation at St. Vincent Depal's Oakwood Manor. This site has 72 units with a mix of one, two, and threebedroom households and for households up to 60% AMI. Next slide, please. New renter protections were added to the city's rental housing code in 2022 and 2023 to help improve stability, affordability, and racial equity in rental housing. Protections include rules that cap screening fees, security deposits, and require landlords to process applications in order received, provide tenants with educational information about their rights and documentation of the condition of the rental at move in and out. Under these protections, landlords must also pay relocation assistance to tenants for certain types of teny terminations and rent increases above the state maximum. Render protections also include support services for tenants such as a free tenant hotline currently operated by Springfield Eugene Tenant Association and technical assistance for landlords and code enforcement. You can learn more at eugene rentalprogram.org. And while the city of Eugene does not own, operate, build, or manage housing, we collaborate with many nonprofit and affordable housing providers. Although not an exclusive list, the community partners shown here develop, construct, and manage affordable housing units available to lowincome households in Eugene. They include Homes for Good, Dev Northwest, St. Vincent, Nepal, Cornerstone Community Housing, Shelter Care, Sponsors, Square One Villages, and more. These partners also work together and with other community agencies to provide support and connections for

tenants. Now I will hand the slides to senior planner Leah Roush to present on urban growth strategies.

Awesome. Thank you Genevieve. Okay. So in addition to the housing production, preservation and protections programs and investments that Genevieve talked about. Um one of our long-term efforts to address housing production, affordability, and choice is our ongoing 20-year urban growth planning through the urban growth strategies project. As Amber addressed, severe rent burden is closely tied to the availability of housing that meets the needs of our community, and we'll need to ensure that we're planning for and supporting enough housing for Eugene moving forward. We've shared previously with the planning commission how the new Oregon housing needs analysis or the significantly changes how cities will plan for future housing needs within our urban growth boundary. Rather than planning only for population growth, we will now also account for decades of housing underprouction, housing for people experiencing homelessness, and other factors. Using the 2025 ONA, we know that Eugene will need to support the production of more than 26,000 new dwelling units in the next 20 years. To meet this housing need, Eugene needs to produce 70% more units annually for the next 10 years as compared to the last 10 years. We also expect the next few years will bring a more challenging market environment with rising costs, interest rates, and shifting demands, which makes this an even steeper hill to climb. Using data from our growth monitoring program, we know that Eugene saw an average of 965 new units per year over the last decade. And of those, about 100 each year were subsidized affordable housing. To meet our new housing need, Eugene needs to see closer to 1,600 new units each year for the next decade, including closer to 700 each year that are affordable to households with the lowest incomes. We're now also required to meet our housing need, not just through overall production, but also by affordability. The state will require that we

demonstrate we're taking action in some way to meet these specific affordability needs. This chart breaks down those 26,000 new dwelling units into affordability bins based on area median income or AMI. On the far left are new units needed for households with the lowest incomes. The bars in green are units needed for households making less than 80% of the median income, which is typically a level of affordability that's only provided through subsidized um different subsidies and incentives like the ones that Genevieve talked about. More than half of Eugene's needed housing is at these deeper levels of affordability, which is evident through the high levels of rent burden in our community. So, I'm not going to talk about the Oregon housing needs analysis framework in a lot of detail tonight, but I did want to provide some context um for our focus this evening. So, as I just shared, the state now allocates our 20-year housing need um which is kind of the first step in this framework. The next step is in the process is for Eugene to complete an analysis to localize and add context to that need by housing types, characteristics, and locations. That analysis will support both our housing capacity analysis, which looks at our land supply and capacity to accommodate that 20-year housing need, and our housing production strategy, which is a newly required action plan that will identify and prioritize actions that will meet our housing need and further fair housing choice in Eugene. Tonight I'm going to highlight the second step in the process which is the contextualized housing need which we'll be working on um and bringing to you in 2026. So the contextualized housing need uses current and future housing needs along with population and market trends to evaluate fair housing choice and identify fair housing issues.

Bareousing choice means that people have the information, opportunity, and options to live where they choose without unlawful discrimination or facing other barriers. Fair housing issues are conditions locally that restrict fair housing choice or access to opportunity or otherwise result in inequitable housing outcomes. The analysis must include consideration of protected classes with a particular focus on communities of color, low-income communities, people with disabilities, and tribal communities. The result of this analysis will be basically the needed housing types, characteristics, and locations that we'll need to plan for in our housing capacity and production work. The contextualized housing need is made up of a few different components, which I'll preview for you this evening. So first is understanding Eugene's historic context. Specifically a review of past discriminatory actions and practices related to land use and housing. The analysis will include topics like indigenous stewardship and dispossession of land, early settlement and land ownership in Oregon and state and federal and local laws around land and housing access. We'll look at population growth and development trends in Eugene, specific development projects and acts of displacement, and how zoning and land use planning have fit into that picture. As a commission learned this summer, we've already begun some of this historic analysis work through a research effort called the equity atlas. We recently launched an online resource which you can view using the QR code on the screen or access through the urban growth strategies website. The Equity Atlas, selected stories from Eugene's history of displacement, shares just one example of the many threads we identified in our research that connects events in the past with our present context. The thread does not by any

means capture the entire story of discrimination in land use and housing or of displacement. Nor does it fully capture the actions taken to resist these injustices at the time or today. However, it gives us an important insight into the history of Eugene and the types of events, practices, and actions that inform our current housing landscape. So, the contextualized housing need in addition to that historic context, we'll also consider our current context. So, the state of housing production, housing affordability, and housing choice. We'll pull together data on the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics affecting Eugene's housing needs. We'll look at trends related to housing production using growth monitoring data. And we'll complete an affordabil affordability analysis, including a review of market conditions affecting housing development, existing and expected barriers to development and data related to affordability in Eugene. Then finally, we'll actually look at a current housing inventory um by types, characteristics, and locations. The next piece of this very comprehensive analysis uh is to better understand issues in housing choice and for communities of color, low-income communities, people with disabilities, and tribal communities. So that'll be called the fair housing issue area analysis. The analysis will lean heavily on the work of our community development partners who regularly plan and analyze fair housing issues within the federal regulatory framework. And fair housing issues again are conditions that restrict housing choice or access or otherwise result in inequitable housing outcomes. So we'll look at um and evaluate issues related to housing tenure. So whether housing is available to rent or to own and other wealth building opportunities through housing. We got permanent

housing to resolve homelessness, accessible and adaptable housing needs. um housing that has access to community assets and mitigates exposure to harms. Look at trends in housing stability, anti-displacement, and displacement mitigation, as well as how we can plan to address and disrupt patterns of segregation. So, all of that analysis results in our 20-year needed housing by types, characteristics, and locations. and that um kind of planned housing will need to remedy and mitigate any of the fair housing issues we identify. It'll need to meet our housing production target as well as look at how we can accommodate more housing in and near our mixed use centers. I've mentioned a few times already the kind of housing types, characteristics, and locations. So that framework is going to come up a lot and I wanted to just briefly define what that encompasses. So through the contextualized housing need and subsequently our housing capacity analysis and housing production strategy, we'll plan for housing that meets our needs um community needs by different types. So things like single unit detached housing, middle housing, or multi-unit housing. We'll look at different characteristics or features of that housing. That includes things like whether it's accessible or adaptable for people with disabilities, the size of that housing, so that the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, whether housing is being built that has layouts that support different family situations like multigenerational housing or housing where you could age in place, or um whether it has other culturally relevant features. Look at um tenure of the housing being built in Eugene. So whether it's available for rental, home ownership, um or other kind of forthcoming ownership models like co-ops and land trusts, whether that housing is energy efficient and climate resilient,

and other specific needs like whether it has on-site supportive services or um uses trauma-informed design. And then the last piece, so we'll plan for housing um the location of housing I should say. And that's really defined as in proximity to community assets or harms. So for assets, we're thinking about things like groceries, parks, shopping, community supportive services, and high quality transportation services, and proximity to harms, natural hazards like flooding or landslides, wildfire, um as well as the presence of toxic emissions or highways. Um, we'll also look at segregation by race and income um throughout the city. So, there's a lot of pieces to that. It's a very comprehensive and far-reaching look at our housing needs more so than we've done in the past. Um, and is a new analysis for the city. Um, so we'll be bringing this this back to the planning commission for review and discussion in a few chunks. Um, but with kind of the full draft analysis complete in the fall of 2026, we'll do another work session with the planning commission as well as with state council before we submit the um analysis to the state for approval. Um, we need to do that by the end of 2026 so that it's ready to support our housing capacity analysis and housing production strategy which are planned to be adopted by the end of 2027. Okay. So, with that, we threw a lot of information at you. We'd love to answer any questions or hear any discussion from the planning commission. And for those who are online, um thank you for participating. Um if you're watching at home, please do scan that QR code or visit the online form um to fill out our participation survey. And with that, I will hand it back to you, Commissioner Lair.

Thank you so much, Leah, for a nice presentation. um want to provide an opportunity for anyone who's got questions at this time uh or follow-ups or anything else to to speak up and I know this will be coming back before us in a more substantive form. So I think we'll have a lot of chance to engage with it later too. That's right. Doesn't look like any questions at this time. So thank you so much again. Um next on our agenda we have items from commission and staff. Are there any items or info uh to share from commissioners? Sorry, hang on. Sure. Commissioner Bon, do you have a question? Yeah, I have several.

Um I have some detailed questions and maybe I'll take some of those up with staff offline. I I think the general I I'm I'm um I was looking back at we we last heard about this two years ago and I was kind of looking back at that. So I was going through this material there is um clearly the city of Eugene has a lot going on in this area and a lot of programs. uh there's a an abundance of websites and things that were listed in the material for us and I will admit I did not get to all of that. I have looked at some of it in the past. Um I I guess kind of a kind of a general question I have maybe for all of the all three presenters. Um, I I find myself as I go through this material wanting some more context or wanting some perspective. Um, you look back at this House bill that started this seven or eight years ago and there are, you note in the material there are some requirements in there about reports and about capturing data. Um, and I'm and it I I was just having trouble as I went through this. I I found myself wondering how are we doing? Um, I I and I don't I I want to be really cautious here as I usually try to be since I don't have the depth of knowledge that you guys do. I appreciate all of you very much and I know that you you know a lot of this in detail but I

uh when I when I go through it I have this sort of a sense that we're just not making as a city we're really not making a lot of progress. And I guess as I talk about some of this I'm kind of looking for some reactions from uh the three of you or from some of the other planning staff that's on here. Um I uh when I when I'm when I'm kind of looking at um we talk about we talk about the number of rental units that are in the city. Can you can you tell me um approximately how many housing units that are owner occupied? Can you give me like a approximate number? you have like 37,000 rental units. We have 180,000 people live here. Um, and I find myself kind of curious about, you know, are there is there corresponding information about homeownership and mortgage burden and, you know, how all that's going? Um, but I'm I So, when I look at the rental, I'm trying to get to something kind of specific here. You've you've got you've got numbers. There were like 12,000 rental households that are severely rent burdened. Um, and I'm kind of curious how that compares. And I know it gets to be a little complex, but how does that compare over the past seven or eight years as you've done this work and as we've monitored this? Are we are we moving in a direction where a a smaller percentage of people are rent burdened in our community? I have a feeling that it's kind of growing. I don't know why I

the one thing that jumped out is the number of evictions this year is substantially look to me substantially higher than just a year ago and I don't know if you have if you look back even further than just one year but if we've been doing this seven or eight years is there a trend. Um so I'm let me kind of let me kind of hold there and see if somebody has some response. I just in just in general my question would be are we making progress at all in any of these areas as we as we look at them.

Yeah, maybe I can speak quickly just to the data pieces and then I'll hand it over to Genevie to talk more about trends. Um that data that Amber shared comes from the American Community Survey. So the US Census Bureau and through the growth growth monitoring program we do um track that on an annual basis and that's a part of kind of the the annual reporting and growth monitoring.

Um we do look at both cost burden for renter households and for home ownership households. So um there certainly are lots of households that are cost burdened who are home ownership households. it's less than um the percentage I should say of renter households. So in 2023 it was 25% of home ownership households were costburdened compared to that 62% of renter households. So it's certainly more severe um for renters. Um but yes there's it's certainly present across um home home ownership as well. Um, and we do look at that on an annual basis from the ACS and kind of tracking those trends. Um, you know, it goes up and down from year to year, but I wouldn't say we're seeing a lot of positive pro progress. Um, seeing an increase in cost burden for renters. Um, so I think Genevieve can speak more to some of the trends that she sees in her work.

Thanks, Leah. Great question, Commissioner Bon. And we recently published the 2025 Eugene Springfield consolidated plan. And in that plan, we noted that some trends that have changed between the five-year plan previous to this one that we have seen an increase in housing cost burden and severely housing cost burden um since the previous 5-year plan. So we are your question of is it getting worse? Yes, it's getting worse. And is the number of lowincome and se and extremely low-income households growing? Yes, that number is growing. Do we um it uh this is for cities in Oregon that are more than 10,000 people. I don't know how many cities that is, but it's several. Are are most cities kind of like us with this percentage? Uh they exceed the threshold and have to do this reporting and so on or are we are we a little more severely rent burdened symptomatic than other cities or do we have any information on that? Is this kind of just generally spread all across the state? We do. Um, so I don't have it handy, but I can um we can send it as a follow-up to the state has recently put together a dashboard um that actually compares um cities all over the state in a variety of housing indicators including rental house burden, rental cost burden.

Um the last time I looked at it, I want to say we were up there in the top few. Um, but we could send that to you all as a followup. I I'm not real interested in generating extra work for staff. Uh, if I was to spend time in my free time and look through some of the material that you reference in the website, there are there probably is additional data in there about a lot of this stuff. Yeah.

Yeah, certainly. Um, and this comes from the ACS and I can't remember if we linked that specific dashboard, but there's a lot of good data in it. So, I can just send around that link, too. Lots of info to explore there. Thank you. I I Oh, go ahead.

I have an additional resource. It's not published yet. It will be coming out in early 2026. It's the Eugene Realtor Protections Evaluation. and we are working with Echone Northwest to do an evaluation of some of our policies. And in doing so, Echo Northwest has done um has done an analysis of renter renter household characteristics. And I can just read right here that Eugene does not see meaningful variation from its peer cities in rent burden by income level. So that is to say that a lot of our peer cities are seeing similar

um similar rent burdens by income level and by population size and I will have a lot more of that material and we'll make sure that you can um access that when it's available.

Yeah. Maybe my general the general comment I mean to the extent that you guys have metrics on on these kind of across the board that that's and maybe again I I have not been to all of the different websites. So you may have all this but to the extent that you can make that sort of available to the community or people who are interested in this you talk about dashboards and so on and these sort of metrics across the board and that might show trends and how we're doing it particularly if we can begin to identify gosh here are some areas where we're making some progress and we can tie it back to some of the stuff we're doing. it just, you know, I I don't know. I'm I sometimes get a little detail, but I sort of feel like it would help if we could connect some of the dots a little bit. Um, one last comment, then I'll stop. We almost every at many meetings in the last year, we've talked about the Oregon housing needs analysis and uh that we need 26,273 new dwelling units in the next 20 years. And I know this has come up a few times. I'm I um uh I have two parts to this one. Let me just ask I can you clarify or verify for me the 20-year period started last January of 2025?

Yeah, that's a good question. So, when does it start? Yeah, we are going to get um a housing need every year in January from the state. So, I've been sharing with you all our 2025 housing need. We'll get a new one in January. They'll kind of run that methodology every year. will lock in to a need for our 20-year period um for the housing capacity analysis work.

I expect that to be our 2026 need. So it'll be 2026 to 2046 will be our new 20-year period that we're planning for. Um but we'll officially lock that in um with the state next year, but they'll they'll be running this analysis at the state level every year. So when we say when we've been saying we need the 26,000 uh this past we're in December

the 2025 housing development in Eugene did that count towards the 1,700 we needed in year one or is year one coming next year? Year one for our growth monitoring and capacity analysis will be 2026. Okay. Okay. I I would I would like uh again just again a suggestion if if we can document that and get it clear clear on a website somewhere. I think a lot of people in the community, we publicize this a lot

and I think it would be good if it was sort of out there so people could kind of watch how we're doing, you know. I mean, 1,700 new dwelling units a year is a pretty big bite, I think. And I I think others have thought that, too. I think it's it's going to be it's going to take some some work to do that. And it would be good to be able to kind of watch how that's going. So,

yeah. And I would be remiss to not mention um Heather's not here to do it that we have our growth monitoring data dashboard on the planning division's website that is currently um monitoring trends. We have the annual report. There's a dashboard that shows new housing units by different types. Um and we're tracking lots of different pieces of data. Um that's all based on our last 20-year planning period. So, it'll all get kind of refreshed when we adopt the new housing capacity analysis. Um, but same structure. It'll be that annual reporting. How how are we doing compared to that 20-year need? Um, so we do have a place for that. Um, and those dashboards are available.

Okay. Well, let me I I will go there and look at that and I'll talk to Heather a little bit if I have other questions. I just um thank Thank you. I again I appreciate what what you guys do. There's a this is a very well it's just complex and there's a lot to it and I I think there's a lot of people in the community who are really probably interested in how this is all going to proceed. So that's what I have. Thank you very much. Thanks for the good questions. Thanks Commissioner Bon. Uh Vice Chair Balin.

Thank you. Um you may have just answered the question Leia. I maybe the answers are in the dashboard. What I didn't glean from the presentation is of the projects currently in process under construction completed this year, how much of it addressed the affordable housing need even not by type, just totals. then um if it won't be available on the dashboard till 2026, I understand. But if the dashboard currently addresses that, I' I'd like to uh check out that resource also. I mean, you presented the problem beautifully and something some things are happening. I mean, I I went to Commissioner Lear's wonderful groundbreaking yesterday. So, I know that there are affordable housing units under construction. And how are we doing?

Yeah. So, um the growth monitoring data dashboard doesn't have 2025 data yet. Um so, you usually get that annual report and the dashboard gets updated at the first quarter of the following year. So, um, we don't have that data up there yet. Um, but it will be available in the next 6 months or so. Um, four months. Um, but, um, I don't know if Genevieve you all have another resource around affordable housing development that you want to mention. So, if we're thinking about the total need for affordable housing units in this production year versus where we're at under construction, those are numbers that I can pull. I don't have them off the top of my head, unfortunately. It's always an interesting question of what has been completed this year and is open and accessible to the community versus what is under construction. And so, um, we have an exceptionally large list of projects under construction or in development towards construction. So, we have projects that are working on finishing their finances and leading towards construction right now. We also have projects that are sitting on the state's weight list, waiting funds. And so we have projects in the pipeline in all levels of development from the initial planning, gathering finances, groundbreaking currently under construction, which you saw two two references to in tonight's presentation. And it is a large portfolio of projects that are in the pipeline. If you would like those numbers, we can pull them,

but we have to be specific about what do you which numbers do you want? Do you want numbers that are just anything in the pipeline or things under construction or have recently opened? So, happy to help but need a little more direction. I personally would like to know um projects that are open currently and of the ones in the pipeline um how many are in that preconstruction phase and how many are under construction? Those are kind of the three major categories I would think. Yep.

That would be very interesting and very helpful and thank you for all your work all of you. Great. We can get you those numbers. Thanks, Commissioner Edwards.

Thanks, Chair Leer. I just I had a quick question. Um I you know, I was at an event um this afternoon. reason I was a little tardy, so I apologize. Up in Portland um and it was uh the governor was announcing a a new economic development initiative and a question came up um of her having to do with the amount of vacancies with subsidized low-income properties and and units in Portland. And that I I that I found that kind of odd, but I'm curious if we happen to know if we have a lot of vacancies in the in the subsidized or in the um you know affordable units and if not do we do we track that at all? I'm just kind of curious about our own community. That's a great question and we do not have a way to specifically track all of the different subsidized units and where they're at as far as vacancy or or availability. Um,

Amber might be able to speak towards vacancy rates of some of the larger subsidized affordable housing sort of apartment complexes that we have. Um, I can't remember the number, but I know it would be very low. And then just speaking to other affordable housing developers, Homes for Good Housing Agency has an extremely large wait list for you for folks who want to get into units and so there is no okay vacancy there. Amber, do you remember the reference to vacancy from that report?

That report doesn't include affordable housing. The report is market rate housing. It's only market rate. Okay. Okay, that's fine. I just thought that was a

I was gonna say I can jump in for second. Uh having working in this field, um it is very low in Eugene. And anecdotally, it sounds like the number especially for smaller units has gone up quite a bit in Portland from being at near zero, but it's it's close to zero. Almost every project has a weight list. Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. Okay, any other questions? I think that is everyone. So, with that, we'll bounce back to um info from commission and staff. Are there any items or info that any of the commissioners wish to share? Seeing none, pass it to Alyssa or anyone else from the staff who'd like to share anything.

Okay, great. Just want to remind you of your upcoming meetings. Your next meeting is next Tuesday and uh that's actually in person here at the um atrium building and that will be a work session on urban growth strategies on housing and job actions. And then your last meeting of the year is on Tuesday the 16th. That will be a virtual meeting. there's a public hearing and possible action on a a refinement plan amendment zone change and then also he will continue with um deliberations on the public health standards and I also just wanted to mention um just for your information um we do have a building permit in for an e-commerce facility out in the clear lake industrial expansion area the area that was brought to the urban growth bound boundary in 2018. Uh there is a building permit in so commissioner Leer is correct. It is not something that would uh come before the commission. It is a permitted outright use for a warehouse and distribution center. Um and it is currently under under review as a building permit. Um so just so you have that information. Um and that that is all that I have. So, um, we will look forward to seeing you in person next week.

Well, thank you so much. It'll be great to see everyone in person. And oh, Commissioner Bon, did you have something you want to share?

I do. Uh, the other third item we have at the end of the agenda is how are we doing? Um, I I was uncomfortable tonight when we allowed one minute for the seven people who came here to give us comments. Um, I I'm not entirely recalling exactly what all goes into how we set up to decide to give 10 minutes. Um, I know I I don't have a crystal ball on anything. I've been through enough of these meetings though over the last several years that I was pretty sure tonight we'd be done before 7:30 and we are. Um I I guess I would just rec I I'm not sure that we need to have any discussion about it tonight. I'd like to just throw it out there for a kind of future discussion maybe between Alyssa and Jason or Commissioner Lear if you're setting the agenda. And when we do public comment and it's a meeting like this is I don't think we even do public comment on a night we have public hearings. I think we traditionally don't not really remembering exactly but it um I I think on on uh and I know sometimes if we have some kind of an issue and there's like 30 people I'm not suggesting we give long periods of time but I think on an occasion like this if we had seven people I think uh several of the people I think had some things to say and a minute felt awfully short so I'm just registering that as a constructive comment going forward. We're the citizen involvement committee for the entire city of Eugene. I think of us as kind of

a conduit, I guess, in part back to the council and and um anyway, so I would uh that's my that's my comment. Um thank you, Commissioner Bon. I I appreciate your feedback on that and I think that is something we can we can talk about um prior to to future meetings when we intend to have public comment on the agenda. So, thank you for bringing that up.

Yeah, Commissioner Bree and I agree with you too. It did feel a little bit short as people were going through. So I think that process is a little bit informal and kind of decision gets made a little bit on the spot but definitely a point well taken and I think we want to honor everyone who came out and spent their time after work to come and speak before planning commission to have a chance to get their message out. All right. Well, with that said, thank you all. Uh the meeting of the planning commission is now adjourned. We'll see you next week.