IT’S EITHER the best or worst time to take over the Portland Housing Bureau.
Portlanders are becoming more concerned over rising housing costs by the day, while the bureau continues to take fire for falling short of its goals for affordable units. There’s ongoing squabbling on city council over whether affordable units should be aimed at the city’s poorest residents, or at working-class folks at risk of being priced out. And a bid to give the city power to compel more cheap condos and homes just died in the Oregon Legislature.
Stepping into this maelstrom is Kurt Creager, who was tapped earlier this month to take the reins of the housing bureau after the departure former Director Traci Manning.
Creager knows Portland. He spent 16 years developing affordable housing in Vancouver, forming allegiances that spanned the Columbia. And he partnered with some of the city’s biggest developers during a stint with local design firm Otak, which had a hand in developing the South Waterfront.
Most recently, he’s been working to create cheap housing in Fairfax County, Virginia—formative stomping grounds of Mayor Charlie Hales—though Creager is ditching the position after less than a year to return to the Northwest.
He starts August 10. We wondered what Portland should expect.
MERCURY: Portland’s got a reputation as the last affordable big city on the West Coast. Now that’s slipping away. What’s your take on the housing dynamic here?
KURT CREAGER: Portland is relatively affordable compared to its neighbors Seattle or San Francisco. Anyone coming from either of those two jurisdictions would be delighted with the range of options. But for Portlanders native to the area, it’s quite sobering. In relative terms, it’s still affordable. However, if you look at the median incomes of Portland residents, it’s quite expensive. Income growth hasn’t been that strong.
What do you see as our biggest challenge?
It’s going to be the increased production of affordable housing. [City Commissioner] Dan Saltzman has made it clear that status quo is not an acceptable option. He’d like to see a wider spectrum of tools. The effort to recalibrate the zoning code to be more effective is very helpful [“The Soft Sell,” News, June 24], but it won’t be a panacea. Policy’s great, but unless you can produce, the policy is just an abstraction.
One big knock on the Portland Housing Bureau is that it’s failed to meet its housing goals. How will you ensure that doesn’t happen?
We in the public sector have to under-promise and over-deliver. And as a general practice, local government needs to be held to account for its commitments. That means that you need to be transparent and monitor progress, even if it is shorter than you might have hoped, so you can take corrective action.
There are differing ideas for how housing money should best be spent. Some officials want to focus on the lowest incomes. Commissioner Saltzman has said he wants to also provide “workforce” housing.
The interest in serving a full spectrum of needs is quite important. Dan Saltzman has made it clear he wants to serve workforce needs and not just those with extremely low income. That would obviously have to be balanced with not turning our backs on the needs of the homeless or people with special needs, but serving a broader spectrum—so it’s a value-added kind of effort.
There was a recent failed attempt to kill Oregon’s preemption on inclusionary zoning, which allows governments to mandate affordable units in new developments. That disappointed a lot of people. Does it make your job a lot harder?
I’m interested in the job partly because I think you’re on the threshold of doing something significant, and I’d like to help you go there. [Inclusionary zoning] hasn’t been a partisan issue here in Virginia. Developers understand the business proposition. They’re willing to go there. I think it will likely happen [in Oregon]. There seems to be quite a lot of interest in it. I think it will be resurrected.
You’ve been in Virginia less than a year, and now you’re leaving. What would you say to people concerned you might give Portland the same treatment?
I’m making a long-term commitment to Portland. It’s a place I have treasured over the years and I think I can make a positive difference in the community. I have no interest in using this as a stepping-stone to anything else.
I have a hard time believing in affordable in Portland housing when A) real estate speculation allows for property valuation based not on utility, say like if it were valued to market like a commodity, but on speculation, B) there aren’t livable wages to pay to live in affordable housing, except for out-of-state refugees from places where rents have bloated to almost Weimar Republic extravagance, and C) affordable housing’s journey from drafting board to ribbon-snipping is so egregiously expensive it’s effectively placed unfairly on the backs of others (e.g. that $140 million-dollar shooting gallery, the Bud Clark Commons), when their money should be going to things like our crumbling infrastructure and bolstering our flagging academics.
Status quo is not an acceptable option…be transparent and monitor progress…under-promise and over-deliver…serving a full spectrum of needs…it’s a value-added kind of effort. Could this guy sound any more like a corporate hack?
(Sorry, my last comment was rushed! Here’s what I meant:)
Affordable housing isn’t going to happen here, or be of any use if it does until:
A) property is valued on the basis of utility and speculation is discouraged, say for example by requiring purchasers to retain ownership of the property for a period of seven years before turning it over; B) the process of getting affordable housing off the drafting board and on the ground made cost-effective (see “High Cost of ‘Affordable’ Housing”, Portland Tribune, 06 February 2014); and C) the local job market becomes amenable not only to Bay Area tech-sector refugees but to the legions of Portlanders who work as janitors or in warehouses.
Until then, we’re just going to slide inexorably into Thunderdome, with nary a Mad Max to save us.
Supply and Demand.
Surely there will be a point where people just can’t afford the rents, and till then, I wouldn’t expect any sort of change.
The ‘Market’ will correct itself on its’ own, in time.
I just can’t see how you can legislate this sort of thing effectively, in any real way.
Mad Max? Move to the outback of the Kimberley.