June 6, 2023
MEDIA CONTACT: Michael Andersen, Sightline Institute, michael@sightline.org
SALEM, OR – A group of Oregon housing experts has a unique idea to help the state build more homes that residents badly need: the state could offer interest-free loans to potential low- and mid-price housing projects that can demonstrate they’re just slightly short of cash.
Under the concept, these state loans of about $25,000 per home, passed through to qualifying housing projects via the government of any cities that opt in, would be paid back in lieu of the future building’s first ten years of property taxes. After the ten-year loan period, local taxing jurisdictions would then have a larger tax base to draw on thanks in part to the state fund.
The concept was workshopped this year in House Bill 2980, sponsored by Rep. Pam Marsh (D-Ashland) and Sen. Dick Anderson (R-Lincoln City). Though the Portland Business Journal reported that the bill “appears dead” for 2023, backers aim to keep developing the idea for future years.
In research published this month, the Pacific Northwest-based think tank Sightline Institute calculates that a revolving housing loan fund along the lines of HB 2980 would work out to a program cost per home of just $10,000 over the course of the next few decades.
“If Oregon’s leaders are looking for relatively high-impact, low-cost ways to boost homebuilding, especially in lower-wage regions, they’d have a hard time finding more cost-efficient options than this one,” says Michael Andersen, senior housing researcher for Sightline. Andersen argues that a program could be linked to the state’s new housing production program, creating a fiscal incentive for cities that demonstrate they’re doing their best to get out of the way of housing production.
Read the full article explaining the measure: Oregon’s Untapped Gold Mine: The Homes That Don’t Yet Exist
Related:
- Yes, Oregon, there is a way to build enough homes | The state has done it before—with more apartments and even a smaller construction workforce.
- With flexibility over parking, Oregon homebuilders get to work | Tens of thousands of homes are now more buildable, including several projects now resurrected that local parking mandates had previously killed.
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Michael Andersen is Senior Housing Researcher and Transportation Lead at Sightline Institute. View his latest research, and follow him at @andersem.
Sightline Institute is an independent, nonprofit think tank providing leading original analysis of housing, democracy, forests, and energy policy in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, British Columbia, and beyond.
