That letter helped start a movement, and on Wednesday that movement achieved one major goal. With a 3-1 vote, the Portland city council approved the “Residential Infill Project” (RIP), a package of amendments to the city’s zoning code that legalizes up to four homes on nearly any residential lot and sharply limits building sizes. The changes pave the way for duplexes, triplexes, cottage clusters, backyard accessory dwelling units, basement apartments, and other types of affordable “missing middle” housing that have been banned in Portland since the adoption of the city’s first zoning code in 1924.
Developers will also now have the option to build as many as six homes on any lot if at least half of the resulting sixplex is available to low-income households at regulated, below-market prices — a so-called “deeper affordability option” that advocates estimate is the equivalent of a free subsidy of $100,000 or more per unit to nonprofit developers. Parking mandates that required builders to provide space for cars along with people are also now a thing of the past on most of the city’s residentially zoned land. [...]
But Portland’s project is unique and potentially more effective, experts say. RIP increases the allowable floor-to-area ratio (FAR) for multi-unit buildings, while reducing FAR for new single-family homes — a devilish detail that may be key for accelerating production, according to Michael Andersen, a senior researcher at the Sightline Institute, a research center focused on sustainability and urban policy. This sliding size cap will allow multi-unit buildings to take up more of their lots than single-unit buildings. The changes are also by-right, which means developers will be able to utilize them without neighborhood design reviews and appeals processes that can stymie new plans, as vividly seen in drawn-out local zoning battles in neighboring California. On Tuesday, Andersen wrote that Portland’s changes are “the most pro-housing reform to low-density zones in U.S. history.” [...]
But many environmental groups, including the local chapter of the Sunrise Movement, support the changes, as do anti-displacement activists who helped shape the sixplex amendment, which was added in 2019. Along with detailed changes to FAR that incentivize more low-income housing, the reforms are expected to “change the economics of displacement,” said David Sweet, a co-founder of Portland For Everyone, a coalition of housing nonprofits, residents and businesses that advocated for the infill change.
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