ARTICLE: Oregon Decides It Was a Mistake to Let Cities Ban Homes
SALEM, OR – New housing laws in Oregon legalize lot splits for starter homes, among many other changes, and allow the state to directly override local zoning to approve pre-permitted home designs.
Governor Tina Kotek ceremonially signed HB 2258 today, July 28 (legally, however, the law has been in effect since earlier this month). The law grants the state the power to override local zoning and allow any type of housing on standard urban lots.
Oregon’s complex zoning overlays – including 779 distinct categories in Portland alone – exacerbate the acute shortage that has driven up rental and home prices. Since 2017, Oregon has been rethinking its 100-year-old decision to leave the details of zoning mostly up to local jurisdictions.
The new law “essentially creates two zoning codes for a property owner to choose between: a local option and a state option,” writes Michael Andersen, Director of Cities and Towns at the nonpartisan regional think tank Sightline Institute, in an article analyzing Oregon’s legislative outcomes. “And because property owners will tend to choose whichever code allows the project they most want to build, both local and state planners would have an incentive to make their code relatively flexible.”
Another bill in Gov. Kotek’s signing package, HB 2138, gives cities and counties 18 months to make their zoning codes more flexible, including increased flexibility through lot splits, legalized multiplexes and cottage clusters, and other specific changes.
The legislation builds upon the state’s first-in-the-nation 2019 reforms to its lower-density zones and remove needless barriers to starter homes across the state. Oregon is now ahead of any US state to standardize zoning rules across cities.
“Oregon’s housing shortage didn’t happen by accident,” said Sightline’s Michael Andersen. “It’s been 100 years in the making through restrictive patchwork zoning that’s left us with high rent, high prices, long commutes, and homelessness. State-level reform offers a blanket solution to unlock more options of all shapes and sizes – the kinds of homes we need across the state.”
Andersen is available to comment on policy impacts.
Article: Oregon Decides It Was a Mistake to Let Cities Ban Homes
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Michael Andersen is Sightline Institute’s Director of Cities and Towns. Since 2006, he has been writing about ways better municipal policy can help break poverty cycles, with a focus on housing and transportation. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
Sightline Institute is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank providing leading original analysis of housing, democracy, and energy policy in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, British Columbia, and beyond.