Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, good evening and welcome to the Westland Planning Commission meeting. It is Wednesday, July 15th, and I call this meeting to order at 6.01. Lynn, would you mind please calling the roll? Sure.

Commissioner Salti.

Here.

Commissioner Jones.

Ahoy.

Commissioner Walbotny?

Yes.

Commissioner Dietz? Yes. Commissioner Katjariski? Here. Commissioner Watten?

Here.

Chair Schulte-Hillen? Here. Okay, we have seven members in attendance.

Thank you. The next item on the agenda is public comment related to land use items not on the agenda. Is there anyone who would like to?

We do not have anyone in the room or online who want to comment.

Okay. Moving along, the next item is approval of meeting notes from June 17th, 2026. Anyone has any comments or would like to? Yes.

I reviewed the comments and or the notes from the meeting on June 17th. Sorry.

It's okay.

Thought I had it here. So I'd just like to approve the meeting minutes. Gosh, this was last month's. So can you refresh my memory on the date?

Yes, the 17th of June.

It is the 17th of June. Okay. I'd like to approve the minutes.

Okay.

Do I have a second?

Anyone like to second? I will second. Would you like to please call roll again?

Sure. Commissioner Dietz.

Abstain.

Commissioner Katarzynski.

I'm sorry, this is the approval of the minutes.

June 17th.

I also abstain. I wasn't here.

Okay. Commissioner Watton? Yes. Commissioner Schulte-Hillen? I mean, Chair Schulte-Hillen? Yes. Commissioner Wavotny?

I'll abstain since I wasn't here.

Commissioner Jones?

I didn't go over at Fine Tooth, but the 80% that I was able to read, yes.

And Commissioner Salti?

Yes.

Okay, so we have four yes and three abstain.

Thank you. Next on the agenda is the work session, the housing production strategy implementation. Looking forward to it, thanks.

hi I think I've met most of you by now but I'm Erica Smith senior planner and I'm here with Darren Weiss to really just introduce our consultants MIG who are going to give you a presentation on the housing production strategy implementation items and lead a discussion with you to get your feedback on those items so and specifically those are going to be the land use related action items for the hps implementation um so we're very happy to have matt hasty and brandon crawford from mig here there are excellent consultants um and they also helped us with the housing production strategy itself so they're very well qualified to help us with this implementation phase and we'd like to yeah thank them for all their hard work on this um Yeah, and so then before I hand it over, you should have, I think, three documents, including a memo from Darren giving an overview of the project and what the purpose of this work session is here today. And then there is a more detailed memo from MIG reviewing all the different options for implementing the land use action items and then there's a set of maps of different candidate sites for potential rezoning as part of one of the implementation action items and so with that i'll hand it over to matt and brandon awesome thanks erica can everybody hear me okay

Yes, awesome, thank you. Okay, so we will walk through a presentation. Brandon Crawford and I will kind of tag team this. I'll cover the first part of the presentation and basically give you kind of an overview of the project. And then Brandon will walk you through the details of the initial options and preliminary recommendations where we have those. So, Brandon, go ahead and advance to the next one. So, again, we'll give you an overview. We've got a slide here about your role in this process and sort of a summary of the different implementation actions that we're looking at as part of this project. And then, again, we go into some detail about three of these actions and, again, some different options and preliminary recommendations there. If we have a little extra time, we can also just sort of talk about some things we're looking at in terms of making sure that the city's kind of consistent with recent state statutes. We can also provide that as a follow-up. And then we'll just finish up with next steps. Um, so, um, we appreciate you all, um, uh, talking to us tonight and serving as the advisory group, um, for this. This element of this project, basically the land use related action items. Um, I'll talk about briefly some of the other actions we're looking at as part of this larger project. Um, ultimately, you know, you'll be recommendation or recommendations to council who will determine. which of these things you ultimately adopt as a legislative action. Next one. So again, just kind of a quick project overview before we get into the details. So I think a lot of you are familiar with this, particularly folks who were involved previously in the housing capacity analysis and the housing production strategy that the city has already previously adopted. Those are part of sort of this larger statewide framework that cities like West Linn go through in terms of in that housing capacity analysis, identifying future housing needs and different types of housing needs for folks who live in West Linn. And then the housing production strategy is all about identifying how is the city and its development partners and other stakeholders partners going to work together to meet those needs. So that's the HPS. That was adopted in 2025. They did housing capacity analysis in 2023. And in the Portland metro area, cities are required to update these things every six years. There's a six-year implementation timeline for the housing production strategy. And that typically gets adopted a year after the housing capacity analysis. Both of those were funded, those projects were funded through grants from the Oregon Department of Conservation and Development. And this project has also been funded through a grant from that agency. So your housing production strategy includes 12 actions to meet housing needs over the next six years. I'm going to show you kind of that full list, I think, on the next slide. But this project is about implementing The actions that were identified as shorter term actions, things that the city is trying to do, or at least make significant progress on during the 1st, half of that 6 year period during the 1st, 3 year. So, those 3 actions, well, those 6 actions are. Rezoning land higher densities. encouraging and increasing the potential to build smaller dwelling units, updating your systems development charges to sort of better tie those to, I guess, furthering development or action of specific types of housing, enacting a multiple unit property tax exemption, as well as a low-income rental housing tax exemption. For those actions 3, 4, and 8, we're actually working with a separate working group to review those. But then this group is also, the Planning Commission is also looking at zoning incentives for workforce and affordable housing. So we're focused on actions 1, 2, and 9 with you all. Next one. This one, I will not go through any kind of detail. It just kind of highlights the three things I mentioned on the last slide. And it just kind of shows you what the relative sequencing is and priority is for all of these actions that are in your housing production strategy. And again, the ones we're looking at here were intended to be looked at in the first half of that six-year period. And I'll just note also that Westland and all cities who go through this process are required to basically provide a midpoint report or status report and have a check in with the state about how they're doing on the short term actions at the midpoint of that six year period. So next one. And this is that. So that was the timeline for implementing the housing production strategy as a whole. This is our timeline for this particular project. And again, sort of highlighting the things that we're reviewing with you all. this evening and as we go through the process. So we've completed the first couple of tasks here, or we're in the tail end of moving tasks to, which is code audit, reviewing your code, and identifying options and concepts for how to potentially implement these actions. And at the same time, we've been working on those financing strategies that I mentioned earlier, So we're checking in with you this evening about what we've come up with so far, and then we'll move into the process of actually drafting initial updates to your development code to implement these three actions we're talking about here. And then we go through an interim process of reviewing that with you, refining it further, and then ultimately going through that adoption process. We're scheduled to finish this project up in approximately May of 2027. And this is a grant project. And in this case, the grant needs to be expended by the end of June this coming year. So that's kind of our hard deadline on getting the work done. But we're moving along on track so far. So I will give you just kind of a quick overview of this, these three actions, and then we'll pause, just see if you have any questions about the process generally, and then Brandon will take you through the process. each of these actions in more detail. So this sort of describes or notes, okay, what are the actions and what types of housing needs is each of these actions intended to address? And that's sort of the nature of that housing production strategy is each of the actions is intended to address a specific type of housing need, sometimes multiple types that were identified in your plan. your housing capacity analysis and in the housing production strategy. So rezoning land is intended to address the need for more moderate income, low and moderate income housing and increase the supply and address, frankly, kind of a somewhat of a shortfall or at least a pretty tight supply of land that's zoned for multi-unit housing. Action 2, encouraging the production or development of small, single-unit attached homes. That's really intended to help meet the needs of first-time homebuyers as well as moderate-income households. And then Action 9, zoning for affordable or workforce housing. That's targeted out of a range of different Types of households and folks in Westland, people who need. Lower cost or affordable housing need workforce housing. You need accessible housing. So housing that's accessible to people who are aging or people who have physical or mobility disabilities. I think we'll just take a quick pause here. There was a lot of talking by me, and I'll have any questions before we kind of jump into the details of those actions or strategies.

Commissioner Wolvatne.

Thank you, Chair. So I was curious about options three, four, and eight, which we're not covering tonight. And you mentioned that there was a separate group that's addressing those. Could you tell us who that is and at what point does that get reported to the planning commission?

Yeah, I am going to punt that one to Darren and Erica and see what they have to say about that one.

Okay, that's a great question, Commissioner. So we're putting together a working group of city staff, someone from the Home Builders Association, some of the CAGs that deal with the financial components of the city government, like the Budget Committee, Utility Advisory Board, and then we're going to have the Clackamas County Assessor's Office and some affordable housing providers. uh... sit on that working group it won't be a legislative action so will not come through the planning commission it's uh... financial action uh... through through uh... city city policy and programs think that the planning commission would appreciate knowing what's going on in getting regular reports on the status of those options so Happy to bring you briefings as we move along through the process. We're just getting going on that portion of the grant as well as this portion. So once we have a meeting, we can report back into the commission.

Great. Thank you.

And I'll just reiterate what Darren said. On those actions in particular, the intent is not to actually adopt anything legislatively. It's really to identify some recommendations, some more detail about how to implement those things, but not to actually enact them as part of this process.

Any other questions for Brandon Looseward?

I think you can continue. Thank you.

Awesome. Thank you. All right.

Well, I will pick it up from here. Everybody hear me all right? All right. So I will dive into the details of what we found from just our code review slash audit, and then some preliminary options for you all to consider and where we would like your input and just kind of our initial recommendations for implementing these actions. So just going down the line, we'll start with action one. So first, we did just a pretty detailed review of The city's existing multi-unit zoning and how those zones are regulated. So really the two zones that are the multi-unit or multi-family zones are the R3 and R2.1 and then also mixed use. However, these zones make up a very small percentage of the city's entire residential land base, roughly 5%. And we'll talk a little bit more about what the larger share of residential zoned land is in subsequent slides. But overall, pretty small share of the city's land allows multifamily. So that's one of the reasons why we're exploring this action. These zones have minimum lot sizes, which is basically what regulates the allowed density of multifamily and really all housing types in these zones. So the minimum lot size for R3 is 3,000 square feet, and R2.1 is 2,200 square feet, and mixed use is 4,500 square feet. So fairly dense, but again, it's a pretty small portion of the city overall. Maximum height, for the most part, It's 35 feet in most areas and most zones. However, there is one exception for garden style apartments. They're allowed to be increased up to 45 feet, I believe in both R3 and R2.1 zones. However, it's not totally clear what garden style refers to. I don't think that's defined in the code, but that's something to untangle a little bit further once we get into the amendments. Then there's the floor area ratio. And that's basically a standard that controls the amount of area that a building can take up on a lot. And the maximum floor area ratio is 0.45. So in other words, 45% of the lot can be covered by the total square footage of a building and that includes multiple stories. So that's different from maximum block coverage that doesn't account for multiple stories and maximum block coverage is just the building footprint and the maximum block coverage for all the multifamily zones is 50% and that applies to detached single unit and multi-unit, but it doesn't apply to middle housing, so duplexes, triplexes, and that's mainly due to state rules. So that's just a high-level overview of kind of the key findings from the existing regulations for multifamily. So part of the strategy is also identifying properties in the city to rezone to multifamily. So specifically looking at commercially zoned properties or properties that are zoned for lower density, just single family to rezone those to allow multifamily. So to identify those properties, we came up with kind of a rezone criteria site selection methodology, if you will. And here's just a quick list at a high level. We get a lot more into detail in the memo on the criteria for selecting those sites. But again, at a high level, we looked at the development status of properties. So if a property was vacant or partially vacant, we gave it more consideration. In other words, we assigned it kind of a higher score in the ranking methodology. We also looked at parcel size and ownership. So if the parcel is over a certain size, I believe over two acres, we gave it a higher priority ranking considering multifamily development tends to be a little bit larger and it's going to be a little bit more feasible on a larger lot. We also looked at ownership because there are several properties throughout the city where there's one landowner for adjacent properties. If someone came in and wanted to build a multifamily development, if they owned multiple properties next to each other, they could theoretically build them on both those properties. That's another thing we looked at. We also looked at proximity to key community assets, so that includes things like schools, parks, transit service, and we analyzed this with some GIS mapping, basically just looking at properties that are within reasonable walking distance of these types of services. Usually a five minute walk is considered to be kind of higher scoring on this criteria and the map we're showing here on the right. Just a quick example of what we call walk sheds from the bus stops. So, yeah, again, we looked at the walk sheds for key community assets as well as transit. And also I forgot to mention commercial areas. And then the last criteria, which I think still needs to be assessed once we get a little bit more feedback, is utility serviceability. So if a site or property is affected has utility access right to it, so it won't need improvements for water, sewer, etc. In other words, it'd be more development ready. It'll have a higher score. So that is our criteria for rezoning. But beyond the rezoning site selection criteria, we also came up with some implementation options for amending the existing regulations for multifamily zoning. So some of those examples, so our first two examples we share here, again, are just rezoning the properties that we initially identified, but also eliminating minimum lot size for multi-unit in the R3 and R2.1, mainly because minimum lot size isn't really necessary for a multifamily structure because it's already going to be on the larger site. So that it's just kind of an unnecessary standard for multi-unit in these kind of higher density zones. Another Recommendation or option for you all to consider is removing maximum lot coverage. So that just gives development more flexibility on the site to build a multi-unit development. And then also remove detached single unit as an allowed use in the R3 and R2.1 zones. That's mainly because these zones are intended for multifamily and removing a single unit isn't allowed to use will ideally provide more development opportunities for multi-unit and remove the possibility of a larger site from being subdivided into a single unit subdivision when it could have been a multifamily development. And then the last option we share here is the increase in maximum height for multi-unit for up to 45 feet. So not just for that garden style artment that I previously mentioned, but really all forms of multi-unit development in the R3 and R2.1. And really 45 feet is pretty a pretty standard maximum height for multifamily and communities that are about similar size to West Linn. It's 35 feet can be a little difficult for a developer to meet. So we also note which options we recommend as we're going through this. all the options we raise here for action one, we recommend implementing. So I think I can pause here and let folks weigh in on what options they'd like the city to consider.

Commissioner Watton.

Yeah, so the idea of removing the lot coverage, but you want to keep the FAR calculation at, what was it, 45 for those zones, is that right?

Yes, that is correct. Although, oh, go ahead.

Oh, go ahead.

I was going to just say we could consider either increasing far or removing it, but I should have mentioned another reason we're recommending removing lot coverage is because the city is already using far, which kind of a more. Useful and flexible standard for controlling the intensity of multifamily specifically block coverage is kind of more. Typically, more so used for lower density development, like single family.

Yeah, yeah, no, exactly. I, I just. Even in some R5 stuff, the definitely well, all of it. Can be driven by the, so it definitely maintains a restriction. I just. I just wasn't sure at this level, is the FAR, has it been kind of algorithm through with regards to if the 45% is still a solid number? I've been involved in a few projects, but they're smaller multifamily here in Westland, and both of them are driving forces, but I just want to know If what we're trying to chase in the R2.1 and the R3 is a product that we need to take a look at other jurisdictions and what the FAR numbers mean. I know LO's got FAR. I think Milwaukee does, but I can't remember. But anyway, I just want to make sure that we don't leave that behind thinking 45 might be the right number when it actually is going to ender. what we're trying to do here. That was just something to think about.

If I may, that's a great catch there, Commissioner. So in table one, under the multifamily zone summary, it's sort of hidden in here, but the third footnote down, no max for plexes, multifamily units, townhomes, or cottage clusters. So there is no max FAR for multifamily. It was all controlled by that that minimum lot size per unit. So that's what was controlling the density of the site. And we're recommending moving away from using lot size and just using a minimum and maximum density, so a straight number, like minimum 15, maximum 20, or whatever we land on. FAR does not apply to multifamily currently.

Yeah, I guess I was, in my mind, I was thinking middle housing, but We're thinking broader than that.

Sorry to interrupt you, but yeah, middle housing is also exempted from the maximum FAR. It's the same footnote in these zones here.

In the 3 and the 2.1. Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Thanks for reminding us. I forgot the... Multifamily was exempt from FAR. So yeah, really, the size of multifamily would be controlled by things like maximum height and setbacks and other site development standards.

So any other questions?

thoughts on.

We do have a few more questions. I'm sorry. I think Commissioner Mulvaney had his light on first. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. So I had a question about the garden apartments and the 45-foot Maximum height that proposal, so I just did a quick run through definitions on in the CDC and I couldn't find Anything there I was looking at other places as well Chapter 40 has been repealed which deals with height 41 deals with height on steep slopes, so I'm just trying to figure out how where garden departments fall into this, and how we define them, since we don't have a definition. At least, I couldn't find one.

Yeah, we can dig into this and get the Planning Commission an answer.

Thank you.

Commissioner Watton?

Oh, this might go back to what Darren was talking about. Actually, I think I think we're still on it is. The are are 2.1 in R3. I think it said in one of the slides was about 5% of our city. What if it's in our documents? I apologize, but what's our goal to get our 2.2 point one in R3? Bump that percentage up. Do you guys see kind of a rough idea what that looks like? Because based on where we have R3 and R2.1, it doesn't see much action. It hasn't for many, many years. I like the idea of what we're chasing here, but I'm just curious.

So the series of maps the in the back of the packet and then Brandon Brandon had ran through the criteria we had used to narrow down potential sites to look at possibly rezoning to our 2.1 or our three or some kind of multi-unit multi-unit zone so again we're here tonight just to make sure that you're comfortable with the criteria we used to narrow the sites down and then we will then evaluate the sites more more in depth before we come back to the commission but that will be one of the tools that we would use to create more more availability for for multi-unit development within the city and that's been shown as a need through the housing capacity analysis and the housing production strategy oh i'm sorry

Please go ahead. I just note that we haven't identified a specific target yet, but we're going to use that analysis to see what kind of range we would kind of come up with if we were to rezone some or all those category sites and help that guide us. This city, I will note that as a follow-up to the city's previous housing capacity analysis, the city did rezone a number of sites to meet an identified deficit of that type of land, but there's still, while maybe not a deficit, at least kind of a, I would say it's pretty tight, the amount of land available for that type of use. And it was something that was identified in the, housing production strategy, but the housing production strategy also didn't identify a specific target in terms of number of acres or share of land within the city, but that is something that we'll look at as we're further evaluating this action, as Darren said.

Thank you. I don't think there are any more questions at the moment, so please proceed. Thanks.

All right. Thank you for those comments. We'll move on to the next action. So this action, action two, is the small unit, small single unit development action. So similarly, we did a detailed review of the code. how it currently would regulate this kind of use and what sort of barriers would be around to single unit development. And as I mentioned, a pretty small share of the city is zoned for higher density, specifically single family. But on the contrary, R10 and R7, which are kind of lower to medium density zones comprised of the vast majority, specifically R10, of the city's land base. R10 is a fairly low residential zone. It's a minimum lot size of 10,000 square feet. And as I note here, those fairly large lot sizes just aren't very practical for developing smaller units. Typically, a developer is going to build a larger larger home on it, that's going to be more marketable on those larger lots. So technically or theoretically, small single-family homes are allowed in the city. It's just that given the minimum lot sizes and development standards, it just is not marketable and feasible for developers to provide that product. That said, the city does have middle housing land division standards and requirements that's kind of driven by state law, specifically for detached plexes, and that theoretically could allow smaller units, and that's kind of the intention behind those state rules. However, given the uh large lot sizes in the city uh a land division for a detached flex and just to back up a moment a detached plexus a duplex triplex or a quad plex type of middle housing that isn't attached it's separate detached units all on the same lot and these middle housing land divisions are intended to basically partition or subdivide those detached plexus so each unit is on its own lot And the intention behind that is to basically encourage smaller single unit, small lot properties that would be more appropriate for starter homes and more within reach for first time home buyers, et cetera. But again, given uh the city's large lot sizes and what the city has seen to date with these rules on the books it's mainly been um just creating a kind of more medium-sized properties with just average size homes at least compared to what the rest of the metro region has been seeing so for this evaluation we also looked at some case studies for what other Oregon cities have been doing. This has kind of been an increasing trend for boosting housing production and delivering housing that's more affordable to moderate to low-income households. So a few cities we looked at is Lebanon. They recently adopted some small lot dwelling standards specifically in decreased minimum lot size for, or didn't decrease, they created a maximum lot size of 2,500 square feet for that housing type specifically in their residential zones. And then Bend took kind of a more simple approach and just reduced their minimum lot size pretty substantially to 1,500 square feet and had some other standards that we note in the memo to kind of help ensure that properties on lots that small would, or houses on lots that small would actually be smaller dwelling units. Albany has kind of more of a sliding scale of 1500 to 6500 square feet variable by zone for these small lot housing types. And then Beaverton took a very pretty simple approach of just reducing their minimum lot size pretty substantially as well. So to move on to the implementation options and key decision points that we'd like to discuss with you all, city could reduce the maximum lot coverage or floor area ratio for detached plexes specifically, basically just to help ensure that the homes that are built on these middle housing lots that go through a land division, that those homes are relatively small. And we kind of have a graphic here that I just quickly sketched together to kind of help illustrate the concept of the middle housing land division and how the city can set limits to building size to help ensure that the homes on those detached plexes are pretty small. Another approach would be to scale to maximum lot coverage or FAR for detached plexes based on the lot size, really regardless of zone. So for example, if there's a large lot that's in a higher density zone, for example, if there's a 10,000 or 15,000 square foot lot in a In the R5 zone, if that lot went through a middle housing land division, it would be controlled by the FAR for that zone, not necessarily the lot size. So they had a FAR, a high lot coverage or high FAR that was tied to that zone, like R5, if that lot coverage was, say, 25%. and there is a larger lot in that zone, then the developer could build a pretty big-sized home, since the lot's pretty big, if that makes sense. Another option would just be to simply set a maximum building size, just cap the building size for detached plexes rather than having these kind of coverage or FAR standards to control building size. We don't recommend that. Instead, we're recommending either using coverage or FAR just to provide a little bit more flexibility. Another option that we're recommending is to exempt lots with existing dwellings from maximum coverage or FAR. That would basically enable single-family lots with a larger home that might be taking up a good portion of the lot to add a unit and do a middle housing land division and not have to worry about exceeding the coverage or FAR limits. Another option would be to use a sliding scale for maximum building size based on the housing type, kind of an approach that Portland has taken to basically incentivize and provide more flexibility for middle housing. So basically allowing a larger FAR or coverage for detached. I'm sorry, not detached, but flexes in general. and smaller coverage for a single family, which is kind of what the city is already doing. But this would just be taking it a little bit further and kind of describe the nuances of that a little bit more in the memo. Other simple option would just be to reduce minimum loss size for certain zones, kind of similar to what Beaverton and Bend did. And then these last two options, seven and eight, creates a new small lot detached single unit housing type. So this would be a distinct housing type with its own definition and its own set of standards and to allow that and really all of the kind of more moderate to higher density zones. So wouldn't be allowed in the R40 or R20 or R15 since those are intended to be kind of more the the lower density, less intense zones. And this last option here would be to just eliminate maximum FAR and lot coverage for townhouses specifically. So this isn't really specific to detached single unit, but this is kind of hoping to achieve a similar, I guess, goal overall for this action, just to encourage smaller units that theoretically would be available for purchase. And I believe this is something that the city actually did originally consider when you all were initially going through implementation of the state's middle housing requirements. It's something you tabled and something we're revisiting now. So I will leave it there and see if there are any questions or suggestions for these options.

Commissioner Mulvaney.

Green should be go.

So I'm going to go back to just some basics on what drives pricing in this community. it's the school district people want to be here because the great schools and that drives up lot prices and housing prices as well and from there that drives our property taxes also our SDC's are really elevated and so builders don't want to come in here and build small houses unless they get some relief from the SDC's and I know that's one of the things that's going to be considered but they need to amortize out spending $50,000 on SDCs for a single house. And so if you're going to build a 2,000 square foot home on an R5 lot or R7, it gets dicey as to pricing and marketability. And so that's kind of where we're stuck. And I think one of the other, I'll just point out my little street. I'm going to call this act, and it's R10, but the lots like mine is 8,000 square feet, and that's because the street takes up part of that real estate. So just because it's an R10 area doesn't mean that there's a full 10,000 square foot lot there. I mean, there is one lot on the street that's 11,000, but that's the rare area on the street. So anyway, those are just things that... that stand out to me that we need to deal with if we want to increase housing affordability and allow people to move into this area.

Yeah, I'll just quickly say great comments. I think we would agree. And that, in fact, is why we're looking at adjusting your SDC methodology to tie the SDCs more directly to the size of houses. So you'll get more info about that down the line. But that's one of the things we're looking at as well, because we recognize that, yeah, that's an important factor in the cost of housing.

I WANTED TO GO BACK TO THIS IDEA OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND WHAT THE DEFINITION OF AFFORDABLE IS AND TO WHAT POPULATION AND WHAT THE TARGET AUDIENCE IS FOR THAT AND HOW YOU CAN GUARANTEE THAT THE HOUSING ACTUALLY IS AFFORDABLE.

So I'll take a first shot at that, and Brandon or Darren or Erica might have other things to add. There's a couple different ways we use that term, affordable housing. One, when we say affordable housing, sometimes we just mean affordable to a household of whatever the income is in terms of they're not spending more than a certain percentage of their income on housing. So what's affordable to somebody with a relatively low income is generally different than what's affordable to somebody with a really high income or a lot of kind of assets or wealth. So sometimes we use that when we're using the word affordable housing here for the most part, particularly when we talk about the next strategy, we're typically talking about people based on the average income in West Linn who are making less than 80% of the average area median income. um, in Westland. So that's not the average for the region, but it's the average for Westland. And when we talk about workforce housing, we're typically talking about more, I would say, modern income households, folks who are making as a household between 80 and 120%, um, of the area median income for Westland. So that's how we're generally, I would say, defining those terms here. Um, But again, I will say, and I know it gets confusing, sometimes we do use that term more broadly. But here, I think we're talking really more about below 80%. And that gets down to people with very low incomes, below 50 or even below 30, but kind of 50 to 80 still considered low income and 80 to 120 is considered moderate income and often kind of is what we think about when we say workforce housing. And in terms of how can we guarantee it, very hard to guarantee it. I would say that you can't guarantee it simply by how you zone the land. That's one of the most important tools any city has is how they zone their land. And there are things we can do and are trying to do to use your zoning regulations to at least increase the opportunities to build housing that's affordable to people in those ranges I talked about. But the zoning alone is not going to guarantee that those homes are going to be affordable to those folks. Really, The ways to guarantee that are to some degree through some of the other strategies that we're looking at, the tax incentives, which then if people take advantage of those, they are required to provide housing to people in those lower income ranges, and it's required to be affordable for a specific period of time. And then there are other strategies where you can work with developers of affordable housing, whether they're nonprofits or market rate developers, and provide incentive. Again, that's what we'll talk about a little bit in the next item. And with them then committing, again, to that housing being affordable to people in specific income ranges. So there are ways you can do that. Um, the zoning allow necessarily going to do it, at least in terms of the things we're talking about here, but it's 1 tool, you know, it's 1 of these 12 strategies that we're looking at. So I think excellent question. Sorry about the long answer, but those are my thoughts. And I don't know, Darren, if you're random or Eric have anything to add.

Yeah, thanks, Matt. I would suggest we finish with the item number two, because item number three is directly addressing affordable housing. And page 13 of the MIG memo sort of outlines some of the ways it's defined in state statute. Before we get lost onto affordable housing, any more questions about what Brandon just had presented on small unit development?

Yeah, there are three commissioners who still have questions. If they're about item number two exclusively, I believe Commissioner Jones was first. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. Real quick, so on the previous slide, just because I'm trying to make sure I'm following my notes, it said that the larger lots were impractical for smaller division, or, you know, for developing. Was that correct, or how... How was that being presented?

Yes. Just from a home builder's perspective, if they have a 10,000 square foot lot or larger, they're going to be inclined to build a larger house on that lot because just the property by itself is going to be I mean, I don't know all the mechanics, but the property itself is going to be relatively expensive just by virtue of being larger. So to maximize their profit on that lot, they're going to build a, more often than not, they're going to build a larger home. So that's, that's the reasoning behind why you're not gonna be seeing small lot or small single units on larger lots, unless it might be a middle housing land division. But again, that hasn't been the city's experience to date, which is why we're also tinkering with the middle housing land division options here. Does that make sense?

Yes. And something we've brought up a couple of times in the last two years is have you looked at or did you look at any of the examples of the I believe Darren has referred to it in 2024 as cottage style or the co-op style housings that you find in St. John's or around the 42nd block on Belmont in Portland? which are smaller, they're higher density, small individual units in a larger, you know, kind of a larger lot, and it allows, it's a way of addressing and getting it to make it more affordable housing using a larger lot. Is that a model you looked at at all? And so you all refer to it as co-op or cottage?

I'll take a quick stab at this and I'm sure there and has more to add, but I know the city already does allow outage clusters, which is multiple smaller units on a single lot. And that's that was required by state law from the middle housing require legislation from your peers back. But I can't speak to the co housing or co op model.

I'll take a stab at it. Thanks, Brandon. That's a great question, Commissioner. Yeah, so we do allow cottage clusters. They have specific parameters as part of the middle housing code amendments that came through the state. So we do allow cottage clusters currently. We've had some interest by some developers, but nothing has panned out yet. So what Brandon and Matt are presenting on this small unit development is finding tools and incentives to do just what you're saying, allow more smaller units on a property as opposed to what we currently allow. Uh, in brand Brandon is correct. Uh, I don't know if you remember 2 years ago, we did the 2 year check in on the middle housing and what we found was typically the developers taking a 10,000 square foot lot. Which currently only allows 1 single family home on it, but through middle housing, they can build 2, 3 or 4 and then split them. So what we're seeing primarily is being split into two lots, two 5,000-square-foot lots, which is a typical lot size in most cities, but in West Linn, that ends up a middle housing land division. So what we're seeing is just typical single-family homes just being constructed through middle housing, and we're trying to figure out a way to incentivize the development of some more smaller homes on those same lots.

For that model is so the maximum for that size would be for Dwelling structures on a 10,000 currently through middle housing.

Yeah, if you did a Through the middle housing land division or our code. Yeah, you can do a duplex triplex or quad plex You can also do that couldn't make that sentence at all. Sorry duplex. Okay, triplex or quad plex you can also do townhouses townhouses have to be attached and The the style and Westland it's popular right now are detached. So we're not seeing a lot of townhouses being constructed.

Okay.

Thank you Yeah, so anyhow to wrap it up the the goal the goal of this is to find Some incentives and and codes to be able to develop exactly what you're talking about smaller units on the same size lot I Think we have one final question from Commissioner Kaczorski I

Thank you.

I'm a little on the fence between whether this question is appropriate now or when we shift into affordable housing. So I can wait. If you want to table it, we can come back.

Yeah, I'll come back. Okay, I think we're ready to move on.

All right, well, I will jump into our last action here, which is action nine. And this, as Darren mentioned, this is the action specific to zoning for affordable and workforce housing. So in terms of what the city currently has on the books for affordable housing, in short, there isn't really much. City does not have a definition in the zoning code for affordable housing or accessible housing. And I should mention that we're also including accessible housing in this action. And that was Part of the condition of the state's approval of the city's housing production strategy is to consider options or commit to options, really, to help production of accessible housing types.

So we're kind of including that into this action here.

An option here would be to consider the definitions provided in the Oregon Housing Needs Analysis Model Code and the state's statutory definitions for affordable and accessible housing. I'll note the model code was recently completed, I think at the end of 2025, so it has some pretty recent best practices and guidance for these kinds of standards. So something to consider. The city currently does not have any bonuses or zoning incentives for affordable housing. Currently, the state does have requirements to allow affordable housing under certain circumstances, regardless of the city's current regulations. So technically, the city does allow affordable housing just by state's mandates and override local zoning rules, which we'll talk a little bit about here in subsequent slides. But currently, the requirement is any zone Any property that is zoned with a maximum density of less than 16 units per acre has to allow 200% density bonus and a 12-foot height bonus if the developer provides a certain percentage of affordable housing units. And this is kind of a sliding scale state requirement. For higher density zones, the bonus is not as high for density, but it is higher for height. So you would have to allow a 24-foot height bonus in zones that allow densities of 17 to 45 units per acre. And other bonus considerations that we looked into that aren't driven by state statute would be increasing lot coverage or decreasing minimum landscaping for affordable housing developments. So here's just a quick table of... how the city's current standards would for lot coverage and landscaping would interact with a 10% or 25% or 50% bonus. So that's just a quick snapshot of that. And jump to the next slide. But I can come back here if anybody has specific questions about these figures.

So

For the implementation options and key decision points, number one, we are recommending scaling the bonus level to the number of affordable and accessible units. So kind of similar to what I was just showing on the previous slide. the city, we're recommending the city allow a higher development bonus if the developer provides more affordable units. So for example, if they allow or if they provide 25% affordable units, then they get up to 12 feet. And if it's 55% or 50% affordable units, then maybe an additional 24 feet in height, just for example. Another option is to adopt bonus standards directly from the state's model code. Again, this is kind of just the most recent best practices and guidance for cities to consider, and it's also directly kind of responding to state statutes as well. So just by virtue of following, being consistent with state model code guidance, you're also meeting state statutory requirements for specifically affordable housing. We also recommend applying bonuses equally for accessible and affordable housing. So just kind of considering those types of units interchangeable, so allowing a minimum landscaping reduction for accessible or affordable housing, just kind of treating them the same. Another option that we recommend is to use density standards for multi-unit development to leverage affordable housing. And then lastly, to apply bonuses to specific areas of the city, which we are not recommending, but is an option to consider. So I will pause there, see if anybody has questions or thoughts on these options.

Commissioner Kaczoreski.

Thank you. I would like to know why you are not recommending applying bonuses to specific areas of the city. Can you tell us more about that?

I think we're recommending just allowing them citywide to all of the specifically multifamily zones, but as we'll touch on if we have time in the state statute requirements. The city is also required to allow affordable housing kind of co-located with other uses, such as religious uses. So just allowing it in a broader number of areas that just provides more opportunities and flexibility to match.

Yeah, I would say the other reason is so is not to concentrate or focus lower income housing in specific locations. That's frankly been an issue in a lot of communities. And it's one we're trying not to exacerbate, you know, by sort of targeting specific areas. I mean, there will be a certain that may happen to a certain degree by applying some of these bonuses in higher density zones, but we're trying not to, you know, beyond that, you know, target these to, or, or, um, apply these just in specific parts of the city.

And also for the reason, uh, Brandon mentioned.

Thank you. Mr. Wobotny.

Thank you, Chair. So kind of related to that, I'm just thinking about the Highway 43 concept plan and what we assume is going to be some level of mixed housing there. So I guess my question is, if we have housing mixed in with commercial, retail, is there a benefit? Is there a way for us to have a benefit for the developer than to have affordable housing within that but not for the entire residential inventory for a particular property?

I do think the zoning in that area and particularly in some of the specific focus areas along that corridor that we've been looking at, you all have been looking at as part of the Highway 43 vision plan. I mean, they make sense in terms of identifying opportunities or looking to partner with, let's say, affordable housing developers to build housing in those areas, particularly because that corridor does provide access to commercial services, retail services, shops, et cetera, as well as to parks and schools, you know, to some degree, too. So I think that to some degree we will do that, but I also think we don't want to sort of – beyond identifying opportunity areas or target areas really only allow these bonuses to be used in specific parts of the city. So I think it's one thing to sort of identify opportunities. It's another thing to say that's the only place that we would apply some of these incentives or bonuses. Does that make sense?

Sure. Thank you.

It's a little bit of a, I don't know, speaking out of both sides of my mouth or something, but I recognize that there are some good opportunities there, and we have talked about that with you all, you know, over the course of that project.

Commissioner Kaczorowski? Thank you.

I know that there are some areas in Portland where with new housing a certain percentage of the units must be sold to individuals with incomes below a certain threshold. coming at it, I'm wondering about coming at it both from the perspective of incentivizing the build and then incentivizing on the purchasing end also. I'm wondering what the mechanism is for doing that and is that an option here?

I'll take a quick stab at that.

Theoretically, I think that's an option. However, this action, so what Portland is doing is they have a inclusionary zoning requirement, which basically means it's required for multifamily housing of a certain number of units to have a certain percentage of those units be affordable at a certain income level, similar to what Matt was describing earlier. What we're doing is a little bit more flexible, more of a carrot rather than a stick approach. These are zoning incentives to really incentivize developers to provide affordable units rather than requiring them. Does that make sense? I'm not sure if that answered your question.

It does make sense. I just have concerns about You know, if we go to all the effort of incentivizing this and getting this built, but we don't set anything in place on the purchasing end, it's all for naught. Because you're going to have people who could well afford whatever they want saying, great. these homes are 500,000, I'll take it all day long. And it's not reaching the targeted audience. So I think that we really run the risk of it being a great plan that's completely foiled.

Yeah, I'll add a couple of things. I think points well taken in that regard. I think Again, this effort we're talking to you about is really focused on zoning mechanisms, but there are a variety of other strategies within the housing production strategy that are also aimed at encouraging or promoting or partnering with folks to build affordable housing, and frankly, housing that's affordable to people in low or very low incomes is always going to take some kind of subsidy. It's almost never going to get built just, you know, um, market rate. And so there are, that's where some of those other strategies come in. So that is one thing I would say. Um, and if you really, as you say, do want to see housing be affordable, there's gotta be some, there's gotta be some requirement that it stay affordable. So that's one thing I would say. The other thing I would say, um, Brandon's right. Portland does have what's called an inclusionary housing requirement. It's the only city in the state that is doing that. The state passed some legislation a while back that allowed for that. Previously, that wasn't even allowed to be done in Oregon. It's allowed in other states, but not here. But when that was adopted, there were a variety of requirements added on to that. So if you're going to do that, there are a bunch of other things you have to do as a city and most cities simply don't have the capacity to do all the things that come with implementing an inclusionary housing. requirement. And that, in my opinion, is why we haven't seen other cities around the state adopt it. Plus, it just can be challenging politically. But I don't know that that's really what's kept it from happening in other places. So I would just add that context to the mix, but also say, I agree with what you're saying. And those are things we're thinking about. And they do relate to some degree a little more to some of the other

of non-zoning strategies that are part of the housing production strategy plan as well commissioner deets

Yeah, I just wanted to add on to what you were saying about affordable housing and I think real estate or developers are in the business of making money and they're going to do the maximum price for what the market will bear and so you know, we can have this really great ideal for affordable housing, but we could ultimately be giving these bonuses, plus also making developers a lot of money, all for naught. And I worry about that with these zoning incentives.

Yeah, I don't disagree, but I think if you're going to use the zoning incentive and if this incentive is to build units that are affordable, you would only provide the incentive if somebody is guaranteeing that the housing is going to be affordable to people in certain income ranges. And Some of the incentives that are embedded in the state rules that Brandon mentioned earlier, that's exactly what they do. You don't just give them to anybody to build whatever kind of housing they want or at whatever price they want. That housing is then targeted to and required to be sold or rented to people at a certain income range. So that's kind of how the incentives tend to work. will, again, a lot of developers take advantage of the incentives. That's the part that's harder to know. But the incentives themselves really do need to be tied to the housing being affordable to people in specific groups, whether it's the numbers I mentioned earlier, below 80% area median income or in that more workforce housing range of kind of, you know, middle-income housing. So... The incentive should not be provided to somebody if they're not going to be building the kind of housing, well, affordable housing.

So I think we want to make that clear.

Commissioner Katarzynski?

I think that a lot of the reason for providing the incentives to developers is specifically to help them make money because why exist otherwise right and the problem that we're having right now is that because our SDC costs are what they are the only way for developers to for it to be worth it to do something is to make it expensive so if We're offering incentives to make affordable housing. It is to help them make money at that. for me, the biggest caveat is what happens when it's finished. And just going back to what I said earlier, I just believe that it's essential that it's a two-step package. It's a one-two punch where we have to incentivize to get it built, but we also have to put in some controls on the purchasing end somehow to ensure that it's not just something opportunistic buyers are also getting rich off of. The whole point is for it to be accessible. And if we have, speaking as a Californian, if we have a whole bunch of Californians coming up with a lot of real estate money, able to buy this at a great value, that's great, but it means we're not accomplishing what we're setting out to do. So I just think we have to have... Both well, but we have to set that qualification in place is what I'm that's all I'm saying.

You do have to and that's what I'm saying is you, you would not implement this strategy without putting that in place. So, I absolutely agree. And. That's the intent of this strategy is to put that qualification or that requirement in place.

On page 13 of the MIG memo, there's the four bullet points that just briefly explain some of the statutory requirements around affordable housing. Happy to provide more information to the commission if you'd like. But you can see that there's a length of time associated with the affordability component of a project there.

Thank you. Commissioner Mulvaney?

Thank you, Chair. So I've brought this up in the past, but this is probably a good time to at least think about it again. And that's for those properties in West Linn, and there are a number that have CCNRs that are tied to the land, or they're in HOAs, and they have specific rules. The HOAs probably are a little less likely to be split up. But anyway, the properties that have CC&Rs associated with those properties, doing anything With those properties regarding rezoning could be a challenge if there are requirements within those land associated rules That would limit or prevent that from happening so at some point and it appears to me that we're just letting the developers and have to check this out and then we at the planning commission if it comes before us have to then think about it and ask well are there any ccnrs or any other hoa kind of rules or whatever that apply to the land that that would limit their development in putting in um housing in a rezoned area. So I think it behooves the city to look at those properties that are going to be rezoned and make sure that they actually can be rezoned. So I'm just throwing that out there as another consideration.

I'll just add, having been involved in a rezone with property that involves CCRs that doesn't prohibit a city from rezoning property.

Why I understand that but I'm just saying if there's if there's a CCN are associated with the property that that says thou shalt not subdivide this and turn it into Yes, that was the exact scenario And that was the exact scenario the city it's unenforceable for the city And generally many of those are legally unenforceable and Well, but they're tied to the property. They are. The deed registered at the county level.

Indeed, yeah. Like I said, I went through a scenario just like that, where there was a subdivision that said that no more than this many units in the subdivision, and they went through a rezone and fought it in court and found that it was unenforceable.

Then why do we have those kind of

Well, a lot of the CC&Rs have also been wiped out by the state at this point as far as, like, prohibitions on middle housing and additional units and so forth as well. The original HB 2001 made it from that point forward, and then they later amended it to make it looking backwards. So I also don't know that there are that many CC&Rs that have survived that as well.

Okay.

A lot of CC&Rs were also wiped out or grossly affected by equal housing laws. So they're always... in an evolving process.

Thank you.

I don't believe we have any more questions at this point.

All right. Well, time check.

Darren, do we still have time to discuss the statutory section? Can we briefly go over that?

Yes, yes. Yes, please proceed.

All right. I'll discuss that real quick, and then we'll just move on to next steps. Matt, I saw you unmuted yourself.

Yeah, I would just note that we'll give a quick overview of this on the next slide, but there's more detailed info in the memo, so I think, you know, it will probably answer questions you would have. But we'll just kind of give you a quick flavor of it before we hit next steps.

For sure, thanks. All right, so yeah, this is a very high-level overview of the housing-related statutes that we're considering. Many of them are based on applying with affordable housing laws that have recently been adopted by the state. And when you look at the memo, we kind of have a larger table and more detail, as Matt mentioned, but here we're only including those pieces of legislation and statutes that are We talked about with city staff and determined that these are kind of more high priority and kind of lower hanging fruit to include in this project. However, there are some lower priority ones that we're also looking at and could be considered if there's time and resources to include in the project. But to just quickly run through these high priority statutes, one we're looking at is updating the code to be consistent with HB 4064 and 2347, which were both passed by the legislature in the last four or five years. Considering this a high priority, mainly because it is pretty achievable within the scope of this project, and that is to update code to clarify that manufactured homes and prefabricated structures basically are allowed on any single family zoned lot. In other words, they're basically just going to be treated the same as a single family home. So the code will just be kind of silent on the building materials specifically, whether it's built on site or off site. And then another slight change to the code will be to clarify that manufactured dwelling parks must also allow prefabricated dwellings. In other words, that's a dwelling that's mainly constructed or built offsite and then just kind of assembled onsite. So functionally pretty similar to a manufactured home. Another one we're looking at is more procedural, and that is an update to clarify that final decision or action must be made on the review of an affordable housing project. So it needs to be review and city decision needs to be complete within 100 days. And then this last one we're taking a close look at is the approval of affordable housing development under certain conditions, whether it's, I think I mentioned this earlier, but affordable housing has to be allowed on any property that is owned by a religious nonprofit or contiguous to another property that is zoned for residential or really just any property that is not zoned for industrial use. So that could be commercial or institutional, things of that nature. And I'll also note a lot of these statutes really already apply anyway. If the developer wanted to come in, for example, and build an affordable housing development on a property owned by religious nonprofit, the city would have to approve it regardless of what current zoning says. So some of these updates are just to ensure that the local regulations are consistent with state statute. It'll help with help with the city's implementation, help reduce confusion and potential trouble that the city could get into if they don't enforce it correctly, consistent with the state statute. So I think I'll just pause there real quick and see if anybody has thoughts or questions on the statutory compliance.

JUST TO CLARIFY, WITH THE NEW MIDDLE HOUSING LEGISLATION THAT PASSED WITH THIS MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING STUFF, WE WON'T BE HEARING IT IN FRONT OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION, IS THAT CORRECT? MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING? IT JUST AUTOMATICALLY GOES THROUGH THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING PROJECTS WITHIN THE 100 DAY TIME FRAME, IS THAT RIGHT?

We're still working through the new legislative rules with the city attorney. You're going to get some information about that later. So I save those questions for then.

Commissioner Wabotny.

So, thank you, Chair. Keeping in mind affordability is our... building official and that department, are they keeping up with, or is our code keeping up with allowing other types of housing than stick built, doing things like 3D printed homes, things like that?

Yes, the building department follows the state building code. So whatever rules are in place, that's what's being enforced.

Okay. Thanks.

I believe that's it for questions at the moment. Thanks.

All right.

Our last slide here is to just quickly talk about next steps. In terms of the broader project, there's a lot of next steps. But just for Planning Commission's purposes, we just narrowed it down to what's relevant for you all. After today, we're going to finalize the code review and audit report. And then that will be kind of the basis for drafting actual code amendments. And the code amendment drafting will mainly take place over most of fall. We'll get started on it here in August and have... some pretty close to final drafts ready for planning commission review by towards the end of December and be ready to discuss it with you all in January, 2027. These are kind of broad high level timeframes. We can't guarantee that it'll land right in January, but that's kind of what we're aiming for. So we're kind of keeping it, fairly open. Again, Matt shared the overall project timeline earlier that showed a little bit more detail. That's kind of what this is based off of. But yeah, that's tentative January 2027 work session will be your next opportunity, really the opportunity to provide feedback on our drafted zoning code amendment and we'll also narrow down the the potential properties for rezoning to multi-family that we briefly discussed earlier so and and i'll just kind of repeat what we said earlier which is that um

We are working on those other sort of financial-based strategies. We're in the process of scheduling the first working group meeting that we mentioned. And as Darren mentioned, you know, once we've had that meeting and gotten some feedback, we can provide an update to you all on where we're at with that aspect of the project as well. So.

Just noting that in addition to what's on this slide.

We appear to have one more question, Commissioner Dietz.

Dang it. I just wanted to go back and just verify if you don't mind sending more information for where we can read up on affordability and where it's defined by state law and renting versus owning. So that'd be great.

Yes, we can send more information to the Planning Commission.

Okay, I think if we don't have any additional questions or feedback, I'd just like to thank you both, Brandon and Matt, for your time and really informative presentation. And we'll look forward to the next steps. Thanks.

Thanks for having us.

May I move on to the next agenda item, which is planning commission announcements. Are there any planning commission announcements? Okay, next we have staff announcements.

Yes, thank you, Chair. Just my typical what's coming forward to the Planning Commission update. So the next regularly scheduled meeting on August 5th, we will cancel because we have agreed to a special meeting on August the 10th, which is a Monday, where there will be a hearing for a development application. So that will be the 10th. And then the regular scheduled meeting on the 19th of August, we do not have anything identified for that meeting, but in case the meeting on the 10th gets continued, that would be a good targeted date to move a continuance to.

I'm sorry, would you remind me of that date, the second, if there's a continuance?

The 19th.

Okay.

And that's all I have.

All right, thank you. This meeting will adjourn. It is 7.34 p.m.