SALEM – The Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) on Dec. 5 unanimously adopted the first set of rules the state will use to implement comprehensive, system-wide housing planning reforms to address Oregon’s housing crisis.
The adopted rules direct the approaches and methods local governments will use to reverse decades of underinvestment in housing production and meet community needs. They do this by:
- Standardizing planning: Local governments across the state will use the same methods to determine local housing need, creating a better statewide assessment of need and allowing coordination across regions.
- Supporting local governments: Accountability measures will allow the state to track local progress toward housing targets and help when cities or counties have difficulty making progress. Technical assistance, funding and other resources from the state will be available to help local governments meet their housing goals.
- Reducing legal vulnerability for local governments: Local governments will have clearer obligations for meeting housing needs.
- Focusing on Equity: The community engagement required of cities ensures that housing policies address the needs of marginalized and underserved groups.
The second phase of rulemaking will seek to provide clarity and certainty in how cities assess the capacity of land within an urban growth boundary to meet their community’s housing need. The third phase will include the development of a suite of adoption-ready actions and other resources local governments can use to address housing need. The three phases of rulemaking, concluding before January 2026, will result in Oregon’s most significant housing reform in decades.
The state believes Oregon’s current housing undersupply threatens the core of Oregonians’ common purpose. To address this statewide need, the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) was charged by the Oregon Legislature in House Bill 2001 (2023) to develop rules that chart a new direction to meet housing needs more fully and equitably.
“The level of effort and care that our commission, staff, and partners have taken with these rules is a testament to our collective desire to serve Oregonians,” said Brenda Ortigoza Bateman, DLCD Director. “These rules will help Oregon communities accurately identify and characterize housing need. Meeting that need through housing production will require a multi-disciplinary effort, involving infrastructure and development-ready land, local government staffing capacity, and access to capital.”
Former director of the Oregon Fair Housing Council and vice-chair for the commission, Allan Lazo served as commission liaison to the rulemaking effort and has been deeply engaged in this work throughout development of the rules.
“We know that every part of the state is in a housing crisis, and these rules in front of us today, this is the part of the solution this commission plays,” he shared during the commission’s deliberation. “These rules address all three legs of the stool – production, affordability and choice. There are going to be pieces of this we don’t agree with, that we won’t get right, that we will need to come back to; but every benchmark we reach as a commission moves us leaps and bounds above our last step. There are capacity issues in cities and local governments, shifting regulations that they are being asked to comply to – which really emphasizes the ongoing support this program needs. This will take a long-term commitment from all involved agencies and the legislature for more than just production, for affordability and choice. I think there is something in this program for every community. And it sends the message that we are doing what we can do to move Oregon beyond a crisis.”
This initial reform to Oregon’s rules for planning for housing is accompanied by a suite of services and tools created by partner agencies:
- The Oregon Department of Administrative Services (DAS) will develop methodology to estimate the state’s 20-year housing needs and set housing production benchmarks for local government progress and outcomes. DAS must publish the methodology and production targets annually, with the first release scheduled for Jan. 1, 2025.
- The Oregon Department of Housing and Community Services (OHCS) will develop a housing production dashboard to monitor local governments’ permitting progress toward housing production targets. Additionally, OHCS will establish indicators for monitoring equitable housing outcomes by local governments. OHCS must publish the dashboard and equity indicators annually, with the first release scheduled for Jan. 1, 2025.
- DLCD will adopt and amend all rules associated with the legislation by January 2026. DLCD aims to reform the implementation of housing planning from a narrow focus on zoning and land capacity towards a more comprehensive framework that emphasizes local actions to promote housing production, affordability, and choice within communities and across the state.
Oregon Housing Needs Analysis – Adopted Rules
“Boosting housing supply demands that we activate bold, practical actions to support our local leaders in tackling one of the state’s biggest challenges,” said OHCS Director Andrea Bell. “We know housing is a platform for quality of life and strong communities. As a government agency that exists to serve the people of Oregon, we will not be timid in pursuing solutions for the betterment of those we serveAs the Oregon Housing Needs Analysis details, Oregon can’t move toward a more equitable economy or address the full complexity of the homelessness crisis unless we substantially increase our supply of homes.”
Goal 10: Housing – An adequate housing supply is a fundamental building block of a healthy community. Likewise, provision of housing for a community is one of the primary elements in a comprehensive plan for cities in Oregon. Housing takes many forms and should be built to serve people at a variety of income levels. A housing supply that meets community needs is one that offers people a range of different places to live, different community densities to choose from, and does not overburden the financial resources of any group living there.
Goal 10 planning, at a local level, asks that cities inventory their “buildable lands,” referring to land inside an urban growth boundary that is suitable and available for residential use. This is determined, in large part, by local zoning codes. At a state level, both the administrative rules and Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 215 offer local governments guidance and requirements so that they can fulfill their obligation to provide housing for residents.
Oregon’s statewide land use planning program — originated in 1973 under Senate Bill 100 — protects farm and forest lands, conserves natural resources, promotes livable communities, facilitates orderly and efficient development, helps coordination among local governments, and enables citizen involvement.
The program affords all Oregonians predictability and sustainability to the development process by allocating land for industrial, commercial and housing development, as well as transportation and agriculture.
The DLCD administers the program. A seven-member volunteer citizen board known as the LCDC guides DLCD. Under the program, all cities and counties have adopted comprehensive plans that meet mandatory state standards. The standards are 19 Statewide Planning Goals that deal with land use, development, housing, transportation, and conservation of natural resources. Periodic review of plans and technical assistance in the form of grants to local jurisdictions are key elements of the program.
Related Agency Work – Many precedent documents processes inform these draft recommendations:
- OHCS and DLCD each published reports in 2021 (OHCS summary report, OHCS technical report, and DLCD report) describing technical elements of the new statewide methodology for calculating housing need and recommending legislative action to implement it.
- In early 2022, OHCS and DLCD developed an initial framework document, titled “Meeting Oregon’s Housing Needs: Next Steps for Equitable Housing Production,” to describe how the new methodology might be incorporated into the state’s Goal 10 processes. The recommendations herein build from this framework.
- DLCD and Communitas Consulting facilitated a working group, which met six times to inform recommendations. To review meeting materials and summaries, visit the DLCD Oregon Housing Needs Analysis webpage.
- In response to a 2022 legislative budget note and direction, DLCD led a parallel Housing Capacity Working Group, charged with considering specific reforms to the Housing Capacity Analysis and the process described in statewide planning Goal 14-Urbanization.
- ECONorthwest, conducted best practices research into what is working in other states and reviewed an audit of California’s housing planning system to inform these recommendations.