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Commission approves new tax deferment program

LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO

This map shows areas in east Portland eligible for the ten-year property tax abatement exemption the city grants on new construction of multi-family housing development.
COURTESY PORTLAND HOUSING BUREAU
With no changes, the Portland Bureau Planning and Sustainability last month approved a revised program for tax abatement for multi-family housing development. The proposal will now go to the Portland City Council for enactment, at a date unavailable at press time.

The program excuses developers of new multi-family housing projects that meet certain criteria from paying taxes on the structure for the first ten years.

The Portland Housing Bureau staff has been revising the terms of the program, and the areas in which it is available, under a process called the Big Look.

Earlier this year staff offered a draft that removed parts of the Gateway and Lents urban renewal areas from the territory where the program is available. However, a new draft released in late April added territory along transit corridors having a high degree of walkability, defined as having commercial services, schools, parks and other destinations within easy walking distance. The new territory includes Northeast Sandy Boulevard west of 112th Avenue; Southeast Division Street west of 148th Avenue; 82nd Avenue between Northeast Sandy Boulevard and Southeast Foster Road; and 122nd Avenue between Northeast Halsey Street and Southeast Powell Boulevard.

In an earlier action, approved by the commission at a special session, city staff made geographic and other changes to a related program offering ten years of tax abatement, in certain areas, for new homes sold to first-time home-buyers.

The East Portland Action Plan Housing Subcommittee reviewed programs and, in a May 23 letter, generally supported the programs but asked for additional changes. For the home ownership program, they asked that the program create as many opportunities as possible for new minority homeowners and that applicants be encouraged to take Home Owner Readiness Training; that the maximum allowed income be increased from 100 percent of median area family income ($73,000) to 120 percent ($89,000); and that the program target people already living in the area.

For the Multi-Family program, EPAP asked that it be extended into the four outer Neighborhood Prosperity Initiative districts, and that the program look favorably on mixed-use and mixed-income projects as criteria for selection.

Kate Allen of the Housing Bureau said staff had included the EPAP territories, and the Home Owner Readiness Training was a requirement for potential buyers. They declined to lower the maximum income and to include mixed-use as a criterion for approving abatement. Office of Housing director Traci Manning said the requests did not “tail with our strategic plan.”

Parkrose School District Superintendent Karen Fischer Gray, a member of both EPAP and the commission, thanked staff for, “listening to 50 percent of our requests. We're very into affordable housing, especially for minorities. We're not interested in everything being low income. That's not helping us maintain property values.”

Another issue for Mid-county, as well as other areas, is the desire for transit-oriented development on transit streets, which is interpreted as projects offering little or no off-street parking. Planner Tom Armstrong said the issue was more a matter of zoning code requirements, and was best addressed through the Portland Comprehensive Plan update now in progress. Commission member Chris Smith said that in the past, if an apartment project did not have off-street parking, “lenders wouldn't sign off and people wouldn't rent. Both are no longer true.”

Commission member Don Hanson said, “It's important to talk about this. The biggest reason for the change in development is that there's great demand for rental housing, and when you take parking out of the equation, development becomes eminently feasible.”

Fischer Gray later told the Memo that on the whole she is satisfied with the proposal.
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