housing & industry advocacy

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS UPDATES • HBA OF GREATER PORTLAND

Lake Oswego Approves New Waivers for Demolition Tax

On November 15th, 2022, following input from HBA, the Lake Oswego’s City Council passed a resolution to codify and update their Demolition Tax program. Since 2020, the demolition fee has inherently increased costs to homebuyers and remodelers, but the city recently created a new path for builders to avoid the fee if they use enhanced deconstruction methods. Originally, the $15,000 tax applied to the demolition of any and all residential structures, with a small discount for certified deconstruction. HBA staff held several meetings with city officials and provided testimony to council urging greater flexibility of the fee’s application. As a result, the new rules enacted by council went into effect December 15th, 2022 and will now allow full fee waivers if builders utilize certified manual deconstruction contractors/methods to remove an existing residential structure. Doing so will now save builders $15,000 on any demolition they undertake. There is also a new allowance for affordable housing to receive the waiver and a new requirement for deconstruction of homes built before 1940.

Originally intended to raise funding for parks maintenance, since 2020 when the tax went into effect, there’ve been 83 demolition permits pulled and $1,125,000 in fees collected. Although we are disappointed that the council did not agree to sunset the tax as HBA had originally advocated, we are pleased that they listened to our testimony to allow more flexibility for discounts and waivers.

Happy Valley Land Development Code Vote December 6th

On December 6th, 2022, Happy Valley City Council voted on a host of Land Development Code changes to comply and accommodate for state mandates related to HB 2001 and middle housing legislation. While most of the updates are technical fixes and will have minimal impact on housing and new home construction, HBA is concerned with several

For more information on any of the below items, please contact Director of Policy and Government Affairs Preston Korst at prestonk@hbapdx.org provisions that would increase building costs and reduce living space for new homes. One specific item of concern is council’s proposal to increase interior side setbacks from 5-feet to 7-feet. This will reduce living space, hurt interior livability and flexibility, reduce exterior design variability, and reduce land values by impacting potential yield on development.

City of Portland HOLTE Program Advocacy

HBA has been engaging with the City of Portland on their Home Ownership Limited Tax Exemption (HOLTE) program for the past month and continues to advocate for a reasonable increase in the program’s per/unit cap set by the Housing Bureau. Both HBA staff and members of our Portland Building and Urban Development Council (PBUD) met with commissioners’ staff as well as the leadership team of the Housing Bureau to voice our support for increasing the current price cap from $430,000 to reflect construction cost increases related to inflation and supply chain constraints, as well as market and employment trends in recent years driving the cost to purchase a home higher.

City of Milwaukie Considers Natural Gas Ban in All New Construction

On December 6th, 2022, Milwaukie City Council considered two resolutions related to the banning of the installation and use of natural gas in all new home construction. The council has yet to release any draft language or agenda packets for the resolutions being considered and HBA, along with other advocacy groups, are concerned that there has not been enough public outreach to reach an informed decision. Not only are we worried that this new ban will adversely impact the cost of building and maintaining new housing, but we have serious doubts that the city has undergone the appropriate public involvement process for such drastic action.

HBA’s Political Action Committee, OFAH, supports pro-housing candidates and measure at the local and state level. We advance policies that support the entire housing industry while directly challenging antidevelopment activities. Our work ensures that Oregonians, regardless of income, have access to diverse and affordable housing options.