Portland just keeps getting more crowded, with ballooning rents pushing low-income people to the periphery or out of the city entirely. And unless the city makes substantial changes, the situation is likely to get worse, with more than 100,000 people expected to move to Portland by 2035. Zoning laws, which favor single-family dwellings over density, are a big reason why we’re in our current state. For years, housing advocates have been pushing for a project that would legalize duplexes, triplexes, and four-plexes in single-family zones, and felt progress was being made. However, they were shocked a few weeks ago when Mayor Ted Wheeler candidly told the Portland Tribune that the city council’s vote on the project would be delayed by several months. “I’m in no rush,” he said.
The delayed Residential Infill Project (with the unfortunate acronym RIP) is meant to incrementally increase density in Portland’s most desirable neighborhoods—those that are close to major centers or near public transit. Housing advocates believe it’s an important step to increasing population density in low-density neighborhoods. Every moment without RIP, they say, is a wasted opportunity during which more old homes will be demolished and replaced with pricey McMansions—a one-to-one replacement that only encourages gentrification without increasing the city’s housing stock.
RIP incentivizes building more housing units instead of bigger ones, while capping the size of these new units to 2,500 square feet for a single-family home—much less than the currently allowed size of 6,750 square feet. It also legalizes and encourages multi-unit housing, and it’s flexible: Developments can be four-plexes, a duplex with a backyard Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU), or a house renovated to become several apartments.
This potential for increased density is why advocates were so angry to hear that Wheeler delayed a city council vote on RIP. Some even created memes about Wheeler’s “I’m in no rush” comment, furious that his views on the city’s housing crisis appeared so lackadaisical. But as it turned out, Wheeler wasn’t dragging his feet—instead, the policy was slowed down by an extended period of review by the Planning and Sustainability Commission (PSC), which delayed the city council vote.
“The way [information was released] made a lot of people think it was the mayor slowing this down—but nope, it’s the process itself,” says Joe Zehnder, a city planner working on RIP.