Portland recently adopted a creative policy allowing up to six homes on most residential lots.
Previously, on a 50 x 100 sq ft lot, a single home up to 6,750 sq ft could be built. Now basement suites, garden suites, cottage clusters, duplexes, four-plexes and six-plexes are permitted, without off-street parking.
An illustration is available courtesy of the Sightline Institute.
To build at the higher density, there is an affordability requirement. Rental units must be affordable to households with 60% of the area’s median income and for-sale units must be sold to households with 80% of the area’s media income.
The new policy called the Residential Infill Project offers greater flexibility, supply and affordability and follows legislation passed last year by Oregon allowing multi-family or “missing middle” homes on single-family lots.
Other cities such as Minneapolis, have adopted similar policies, and state-wide initiatives are being pursued in Minnesota and California.
British Columbia lacks province-wide solutions to enhance housing supply and affordability, mostly due to the government’s policy of self-determination for municipalities.
Municipal rezonings are too often mired in bureaucracy and public hearings that are long, expensive, may take years to resolve, and only add to housing costs – if the development is approved at all.
To achieve housing affordability, there needs to be more action on regulatory reform.
For example, the BC government requires municipalities to establish actionable targets for greenhouse gases, yet there are no targets for housing affordability.
Strong demand and a shortage of housing, continue to cause higher prices, added to rising costs of materials, labour and development process.
Now is the time to explore this housing solution in Portland – a city that launched LRT in 1984 with the same population as Greater Victoria today.
This column appears Wednesdays in the Times Colonist newspaper.
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