Portland's Houseless Thread

[2oh1]

Originally Posted by Encolpius

Here's one reason: state law (ORS 223.297 to 223.314) stipulates SDCs may only be used to fund capital improvements to water, wastewater, storm drain, transportation and park systems.

Does transportation include our bridges, several of which aren't prepared to withstand a major quake? ...especially the Burnside and Marquam, which is deteriorating particularly quickly. But, whew, thank god we've got a windfall for parks. Come to think of it... does transportation include streets? How many times has the city tried and failed to find money for repairing and maintaining our streets? Ah, but Amanda pulls half a billion in additional funding out of thin air for PARKS.

To be crystal clear here, I'm not complaining about funding parks. I'm complaining about misplaced priorities for additional funding created by Fritz through higher fees that will drive up the cost of development.

Originally Posted by Encolpius

That's funny, and here I thought all these years more housing wasn't built because land prices in Portland were still too low to generate development.

So jacking up development costs with these additional fees is a GOOD THING? Surely not.

Originally Posted by Encolpius

Regardless, I don't know where you're getting that Portland currently lacks development capacity

I didn't say that it does. I'm just saying that height, which Fritz is against, makes sense.

Originally Posted by Encolpius

can we at least agree that developers are not currently clamoring for more height so they can build affordable penthouses to accommodate Portland's homeless?

I agree... but that doesn't mean PARKS are where money needs to go right now. Come on. That's ridiculous. We've got a housing crisis and a homeless crisis (related, but different topics), but we're finding half a billion dollars for PARKS? Thanks Amanda.

Please, dear god, let someone run against her.

[Encolpius]

Originally Posted by 2oh1

Does transportation include our bridges, several of which aren't prepared to withstand a major quake? ...especially the Burnside and Marquam, which is deteriorating particularly quickly. But, whew, thank god we've got a windfall for parks. Come to think of it... does transportation include streets? How many times has the city tried and failed to find money for repairing and maintaining our streets?

As per state law, as I mentioned, SDCs can only fund capital improvements, not repair and maintenance of streets. They could only fund bridge improvements if those improvements added capacity. Making bridges earthquake-proof is certainly imperative and worth doing, but SDCs cannot be used for that.

Originally Posted by 2oh1

...

2oh1, in the second half of my last post I was responding to mhays' comments. Sorry if that created confusion.

[soleri]

Originally Posted by Encolpius

Regardless, I don't know where you're getting that Portland currently lacks development capacity: after all, Metro just voted unanimously earlier this month not to expand the Urban Growth Boundary on the grounds that lack of capacity is not the culprit behind expensive rents. Plenty of parking lots we can still build on. And if we're going to upzone, we could debate whether upzoning in neighborhoods of detached single-family homes (where upzoning would permit things like duplexes and midrise apartments) or upzoning in the central core (where the extra height can almost only mean more high-end offices and luxury condos) is more likely to lead to additional affordable housing.

But to keep this discussion focused on homelessness and the extent of Commissioner Fritz's alleged personal culpability, with respect to the charge of callousness in opposing an increase in downtown building heights in the midst of a housing shortage, can we at least agree that developers are not currently clamoring for more height so they can build affordable penthouses to accommodate Portland's homeless?

While I always appreciate reading MHays perceptive and knowledgeable comments, I will agree with you that upzoning in and around downtown is not the cure to any real-world problem. On the other hand, upzoning in established residential areas comes with its own set of political risks that I doubt many politicians are willing to subject themselves to. Portland actually does affordable housing fairly well. What it can't do - and probably shouldn't do - is try to solve homelessness with zoning policy. There are simply too many factors and variables at play here, ranging from mental health issues to a political economy that increasingly focuses on making the rich richer at the expense of this thing called "society". The solution, if there is one, will be national, not local. Until then, Portland is bearing a disproportionate burden in caring for the marginal and distressed. And the more it does, the greater that burden becomes. It's the paradox of social conscience - we care enough to make ourselves attractive to people in genuine need. Props to cityscape's excellent post above, too. Thanksgiving is an appropriate day to think about problems like these.

[mhays]

So we agree that sprawl is not the answer. But you're misreading other factors.

For land availability, look at land prices. Buildable land in Portland isn't terribly plentiful and prices reflect that. Land values don't wait for most parking lots to go away before rising. Equilibrium is a complicated topic, but to keep prices from rising there needs to be a lot more capacity than you'd think. One reason is that a lot of properties will do nothing regardless of price, so what's truly "available" is only a subset of what looks underused.

Cheap land is helpful for development. What's no helpful is when the periphery is kept artificially cheap by opening up new areas for sprawl. Public policy should help development supply where growth is desired, not where it isn't desired.

[mhays]

Zoning isn't the only solution, of course.

You need a sizeable subsidy program. In Seattle we have a publicly-approved levy of $16,000,000 per year I believe. There's also tax abatements. Reducing or eliminating parking requirements is a big one assuming there's transit nearby. But policies that add cost to development are counterproductive because they make everyone else's rents higher (even existing units, because fees reduce construction which affects supply/demand). Locally I advocate for expanding our levy, and everyone sharing the burden.

I'm a big fan of micro units as an option for low-income singles especially. At the bottom end they're like dorm rooms, maybe 150 sf (but for one, not for two). Or they're more like 250 sf. This is the only way to build new housing in core neighborhoods that's affordable to the average barista or retiree equivalent.

Accessory units are pretty obvious. These can help both the house owner and the new resident, as well as the nearby business street. The complaints seem to be entirely about classism (maybe a little racism?) and parking.

[2oh1]

Originally Posted by mhays

Zoning isn't the only solution, of course.

You need a sizeable subsidy program.

Y'know what else would help? Not adding nearly half a billion dollars in additional developer fees over the next 20 years.

I'm not ready to give that up because there was a question raised about why people badmouth Amanda Fritz. I'm telling you why. We've got a housing crisis. Costs are increasing. Rents are spiraling. Yet Amanda Fritz wants half a billion - that's billion, with a capital B - in additional developer fees that will further drive up the cost of building housing for at least two decades.

And what does she want the money for?

Parks.

Not for funding parks. No. She wants it for additional funding for parks.

How do we find someone to run against Amanda Fritz? There has to be a better option.

[RED_PDXer]

Originally Posted by 2oh1

Y'know what else would help? Not adding nearly half a billion dollars in additional developer fees over the next 20 years.

I'm not ready to give that up because there was a question raised about why people badmouth Amanda Fritz. I'm telling you why. We've got a housing crisis. Costs are increasing. Rents are spiraling. Yet Amanda Fritz wants half a billion - that's billion, with a capital B - in additional developer fees that will further drive up the cost of building housing for at least two decades.

And what does she want the money for?

Parks.

Not for funding parks. No. She wants it for additional funding for parks.

How do we find someone to run against Amanda Fritz? There has to be a better option.

I'm far from being a fan of Amanda. I voted for her in the last election because she frequently responded to my emails on issues and actually changed a proposal (in favor of more density and less parking) in response to my comments. however, since she's been elected, I've disagreed with her any many things. Regardless, I do think we need investments in parks, as well as transportation, ending homelessness, etc.

I applaud her for going after funding for her department to provide more and better services (ie. parks) to Portland, particularly for east Portland which is severely underserved. The $500 million (I haven't researched this number, just accepting it for purposes of this argument) over 20 years isn't being raised at the expense of more affordable housing. Large residential units (the unaffordable type) are primarily paying the increase in SDCs, as are commercial developments, which appear to be unaffected by the modest increase.

While I will not likely vote for Amanda again, I don't think she's to blame for all of our problems. Also, I find the particular claim that raising parks SDCs is at the expense of other services, or are leading to less development are completely unfounded. If anything, they may contribute ever so slightly to more smaller, affordable units being developed - though I doubt they'd even have that much effect.

[Encolpius]

Originally Posted by RED_PDXer

I applaud her for going after funding for her department to provide more and better services (ie. parks) to Portland, particularly for east Portland which is severely underserved. The [$$] isn't being raised at the expense of more affordable housing. Large residential units (the unaffordable type) are primarily paying the increase in SDCs, as are commercial developments, which appear to be unaffected by the modest increase

Well said.

Originally Posted by mhays

So we agree that sprawl is not the answer. But you're misreading other factors.

For land availability, look at land prices. Buildable land in Portland isn't terribly plentiful and prices reflect that.

Land prices ought to be indicative of current availability to an extent, but they also reflect factors like the influx of wealth since the beginning of the tech boom (see the dramatic rise in Portland's GDP over the past decade) and the expectation that this will continue. They go up and down. They're largely speculative. On a global scale, the inflation of land values reflects the function of financial markets and real estate speculation as outlets for surplus capital and credit.

To the extent that land values are speculative -- not faithful instruments for measuring reality -- it can be asked whether high-rise luxury development doesn't have a greater inflationary effect on land values (by pushing the top end of the market, and developers' profit expectations, ever higher) than deflationary (by adding marginally to the total number of housing units on the market).

Height, and the kinds of amenities that are only possible in very large buildings, are a critical way in which developers inflate the price of luxury housing and offices at the upper end of the spectrum. What we want to avoid is a situation like in Manhattan, where as the architect of 432 Park Avenue has explained, "There are only two markets, ultraluxury and subsidized housing." The majority will get squeezed out. Seattle's affordable housing strategy as you describe it, while certainly more coherent than Portland's under Mayor Hales, seems headed in this direction.

Therefore I modestly propose that Portland should do NOTHING to encourage high-end luxury development: the city should not raise height limits along our waterfront and in historically valuable parts of Old Town, it should not allow unlimited heights in downtown or the North Pearl or on the redeveloped Post Office site. We should upzone to medium densities in many parts of the city. I certainly recognize that we need to build up if we're not going to sprawl out, and I don't have a solution to the unprecedented phenomenon of developers refusing to build unsubsidized apartments for middle-income earners -- other than replacing the developers (or rather the banks who finance them) by constructing public housing for people of all incomes.

[maccoinnich]

The North Pearl has unlimited heights since 2008. Since then there's been a pretty broad mix of buildings built or under construction: the Cosmopolitan is the one—one!—high rise luxury condo; the Ramona and the Abigail are mid rise subsidized housing; the NV and Block 17 are high rise, high end market rate housing; the Freedom center is mid rise, low end market rate housing; the Parker and the Modera Pearl are mid rise, high end market rate housing; Planet Granite is a low rise climbing gym. I am genuinely not seeing the harm produced by having a zoning code that allows for a range of typologies.

[Encolpius]

Well, the financial markets crashed in 2008 and it was a while, obviously, before developers began to take advantage of those height allowances. The Cosmopolitan and NV are the most recent. Just wait.

[maccoinnich]

How long should I wait?

The 1988 Central City plan upzoned the area north of Burnside along Broadway, to take advantage of the extension of the bus mall to Union Station. The allowable heights along NW Broadway and NW 6th are 350' or 460'. This code went into effect in 1991. There haven't been any buildings that come anywhere near maxing out the height limits built since.

[Encolpius]

maccoinnich, you're right: the River District is not yet Manhattan (the comparison was hyperbolic, but it was for the sake of making a point). You know better than anyone else what has and hasn't been built so far. The most recent additions include the NV (a 26 story urban oasis like no other), the Cosmo ($525/sq ft condos, $1200/sq ft penthouses), and Block 17, which advertises itself as a 'luxury gated community' with a rooftop clubhouse and deck and 24-hour on-site security. Each of these buildings also demonstrates that developers are increasingly conscious of the importance of views, amenities and ego. In order to have more of all three, future buildings in this district will eventually have to go taller.

mhays proposed that greater building heights 'in key areas at least' will cause the market to improve for those of modest income, whereas I believe the opposite. Recent developments in the Pearl, where the luxury/subsidized dichotomy of new development is extraordinarily evident, I think reinforce my point. Despite the hundreds of millions in public money that helped to build it, the Pearl is not a neighborhood for middle-class Portlanders to feel welcome. The Oregonian reports, 'Even developers share foreboding that the central city is becoming a playground for the affluent while the young and the old and the people in the service economy no longer can afford to live there.' And, despite adding over 11,000 new apartments since 2013, rents in Portland are still headed in the same direction, which ought by now to cause a rethink in strategy.

[maccoinnich]

I am far more concerned about the effects under zoning than I am of the effects over zoning. Whether it's South Waterfront, the Lloyd District, the West End of Downtown or Gateway, there are plenty of places where the zoning allows for much more intense development than has or is occurring. You cite the figure of 11,000 new apartments as if that's a lot, and yet as BikePortland pointed out the cumulative growth in Portland's housing stock has consistently lagged its cumulative population growth. There is the short and simple reason for why rents and house prices in Portland are skyrocketing.

And if you really want to attack a neighborhood for being exclusively for the wealthy, why choose the Pearl? Here's a redfin map of homes for sale under $350,000 (a depressingly high number to choose as the cutoff, but still...) There are homes for sale in the Pearl, but none in Boise, Buckman, Kerns, Sunnyside, Richmond, Laurelhurst, Grant Park, Alameda Ridge or Irvington. But sure, it's the Pearl we need to attack as a gated community, and not Laurelhurst which literally has gates.



And yes, developers will market their buildings as being luxury housing. Given the tight rental market, they can get away with it. But lets have a look at the amenity package offered at Block 17. WiFi in common areas. Open Courtyard. On-site management. "Fully functional" bike storage. (My god, when will the excesses of global capitalism stop?) Parking. Package receiving. Close proximity to other things. 24 hour fitness center. If that list doesn't sound like something out a Tom Wolfe novel, it might be because every one of those amenities is also included at the Sitka, the low income apartment complex across the street. About the only thing that is even a bit indulgent is the rooftop clubhouse and deck, which takes up roughly the same amount of space as three units. Given that the project includes 281 units, the cost per resident of building that space is relatively low.

Meanwhile the fact that the zoning in the Pearl is intense enough to get 281 units on a single block (at the R5 densities of Portland's single family neighborhoods you would get 8 houses on the same site) means that the tax revenues can be used to fund useful things like the traffic signals that were just turned on this week outside Powell's. Or, to bring this back on topic, homeless shelters. Bud Clark Commons was partially financed with $29.5 million in River District TIF money, which would have not existed in the absence of all the condos and apartments built in the 2000s.

The City is currently getting ready to adopt its new Comprehensive Plan. Given that Portland won't be annexing any new land in the next 20 years, with the possible exception of West Hayden Island, all the growth has to occur within its existing boundaries. The growth scenario laid out is that 40% will occur in the Central City, 40% in the "Centers and Corridors" and 20% in other neighborhoods. Given that the Central City is a pretty small geographic area, for it to absorb 40% of the growth means that there needs to be a lot of development capacity there. To downzone and turn back on the strategy of housing growth downtown (which really dates back to the 1972 Downtown Plan) would be a terrible idea, that would have massive implications for the affordability of Portland.

[Encolpius]

So 11,000 new units are not enough to keep up with population growth? What about the growth of the population of fancy people? Are we keeping up with that? Because that's the question that matters rather more to developers. Who else can afford to live in what they're building? According to HUD, a family of three making the median income in Portland can afford to pay $1,662 for a two-bedroom apartment, all utilities included. Rent alone for two-bedrooms at Block 17 runs between double and triple that.

Where are middle-class Portlanders supposed to live? Can you explain the logic of how this is supposed to work? Does everyone play musical chairs, so I end up living in the apartment lately vacated by the fancy person in Block 17, some less-fortunate person takes up residence in my home, etc., etc.? Let's assume for the sake of argument that for every fancy person who needs housing (here defined as someone who can afford to pay Block 17's $3.74/sq ft*), five people needing housing are not fancy. Then for trickle-down housing to work, every fancy person would have to vacate their five other apartments upon taking up residence in Block 17.

*(Btw, does the Sitka have a Rooftop Demonstration Kitchen for Classes/Events inside its Rooftop Clubhouse? Wall Scrabble in the High Rise Commons Game Room? Am I just too easily impressed?)

Does that happen? No: if anything, the number of apartments fancy people vacate when they buy a condo or rent a luxury apartment is < 1, since these are often just pieds-à-terre or investments. So once the luxury market is sated (i.e. all the fancy people are satisfied, at which point developers' profitability, we can assume, is optimized), everyone who's not fancy still faces a dire housing shortage.

Of course, if the ratio of people who could live in Block 17 to people who couldn't were more like 1:1, then developers building only luxury apartments and taxing that to subsidize some amount of affordable housing might even work to solve the housing shortage. Maybe this model wouldn't be quite so problematic, then, if this wasn't a time when income inequality is the highest it's been since the 1920s.

You make its excuses resourcefully, maccoinnich, but it's the wrong strategy. The rules of the game are rigged: in order for the banks and developers, abetted by City Hall, to win, most of us will have to lose. So yes, the city's strategy for housing growth downtown (that is, making enormous public investments to facilitate the financing and construction of luxury highrises) should be revised or abandoned.

[Encolpius]

[fig. 1. The city's growth strategy in the North Pearl: not a 'range of typologies' but, ultimately, a forest of highrises. The few midrises are presumably affordable housing: one is in fact The Abigail. This view doesn't include the Post Office site.]



[fig. 2. Ditto, South Waterfront. Growth strategy courtesy of Vancouver, BC, which is a paragon of affordability.]

[mhays]

Originally Posted by 2oh1

Y'know what else would help? Not adding nearly half a billion dollars in additional developer fees over the next 20 years.

I agree completely. Fees like this are one of the big reasons why market-rate housing is so expensive. We have them too up north, which I've argued against.

(PS, my biases are in both directions -- as a die-hard urbanist and contractor with developer clients I want infill development to be easy, and as a homeowner who also has property-owner clients I should want development to be harder so values rise. Also as a contractor, I probably shouldn't be so hard on sprawl. My urbanist and environmentalist side takes precedence on all of this.)

Edit: There's so much to reply to in this thread. I'll keep to a couple points for now.

1. What counts as luxury housing? Is a $2,000/mo one-bedroom luxury? It's not cheap, but I bet the average resident is close to the median Portland metro household income, or not that much higher. That would include lots of 28-year-old young professionals and 60-year-old empty nesters (singles and couples) making $70,000. Without kids and possibly without cars, the 30% metric isn't relevant in many cases. (It's not that you "should" pay that much, it's that people do pay that much, because living in a great neighborhood and/or close to work is often worth it.)

2. Housing goes downmarket over the years. Today's moderate-price housing was often far higher in the food chain in 1970 or 1920...or even 1990.

3. Every new unit is part of the same stew. Portland is growing, and the people with money will get their housing...the trick is to have enough housing that this doesn't push everyone else aside, like it's doing in San Francisco, Manhattan, etc.

[2oh1]

This thread has strayed so far from the topic that the topic of opening homeless camps in every neighborhood in the city isn't even part of the conversation anymore, but then again, that topic didn't seem to interest anyone, being that it died almost immediately. Instead, this thread has turned into The Affordable Housing Thread, Part 2. And we're falling into the same trap The Affordable Housing Thread fell into, which is that Affordable Housing isn't housing that's affordable. Instead, it's a euphemism for housing for the poor, as if to suggest everyone in Portland is either deep into six figures or homeless. Middle class? Working class? ...in Portland? It's a taboo topic I guess.

In 2010, I had a neighbor renting a 1 bedroom in my building for $995 a month. Today, that same apartment rents for a hair over $1800. It's unreal.

One by one, everybody I know who lived in the city but didn't buy a house at least a decade ago has moved further out, displacing people who were already calling those further out neighborhoods home, so those people move further out too.

Originally Posted by mhays

2. Housing goes downmarket over the years. Today's moderate-price housing was often far higher in the food chain in 1970 or 1920...or even 1990.

Yes, in theory, new housing is built, making older housing less desirable and thus more affordable. That theory stopped working in Portland around 2005. All you have to do is track the prices of renting in NYC in 1965 vs 1990 vs 2015. Or, hell, track the prices in Portland between 1995, 2005 and 2015. 1995 to 2005 was relatively stable. 2005 through 2015 (especially 2010 to 2015) has been meteoric. Today's prices aren't even the new normal because they're still climbing at rates that, a decade ago, were unfathomable. Even after adjusting for inflation, apartments in most buildings today are renting for more than they did when the buildings were brand new. It's insane.

[65MAX]

Originally Posted by maccoinnich

I am far more concerned about the effects under zoning than I am of the effects over zoning. Whether it's South Waterfront, the Lloyd District, the West End of Downtown or Gateway, there are plenty of places where the zoning allows for much more intense development than has or is occurring. You cite the figure of 11,000 new apartments as if that's a lot, and yet as BikePortland pointed out the cumulative growth in Portland's housing stock has consistently lagged its cumulative population growth. There is the short and simple reason for why rents and house prices in Portland are skyrocketing.

And if you really want to attack a neighborhood for being exclusively for the wealthy, why choose the Pearl? Here's a redfin map of homes for sale under $350,000 (a depressingly high number to choose as the cutoff, but still...) There are homes for sale in the Pearl, but none in Boise, Buckman, Kerns, Sunnyside, Richmond, Laurelhurst, Grant Park, Alameda Ridge or Irvington. But sure, it's the Pearl we need to attack as a gated community, and not Laurelhurst which literally has gates.

And yes, developers will market their buildings as being luxury housing. Given the tight rental market, they can get away with it. But lets have a look at the amenity package offered at Block 17. WiFi in common areas. Open Courtyard. On-site management. "Fully functional" bike storage. (My god, when will the excesses of global capitalism stop?) Parking. Package receiving. Close proximity to other things. 24 hour fitness center. If that list doesn't sound like something out a Tom Wolfe novel, it might be because every one of those amenities is also included at the Sitka, the low income apartment complex across the street. About the only thing that is even a bit indulgent is the rooftop clubhouse and deck, which takes up roughly the same amount of space as three units. Given that the project includes 281 units, the cost per resident of building that space is relatively low.

Meanwhile the fact that the zoning in the Pearl is intense enough to get 281 units on a single block (at the R5 densities of Portland's single family neighborhoods you would get 8 houses on the same site) means that the tax revenues can be used to fund useful things like the traffic signals that were just turned on this week outside Powell's. Or, to bring this back on topic, homeless shelters. Bud Clark Commons was partially financed with $29.5 million in River District TIF money, which would have not existed in the absence of all the condos and apartments built in the 2000s.

The City is currently getting ready to adopt its new Comprehensive Plan. Given that Portland won't be annexing any new land in the next 20 years, with the possible exception of West Hayden Island, all the growth has to occur within its existing boundaries. The growth scenario laid out is that 40% will occur in the Central City, 40% in the "Centers and Corridors" and 20% in other neighborhoods. Given that the Central City is a pretty small geographic area, for it to absorb 40% of the growth means that there needs to be a lot of development capacity there. To downzone and turn back on the strategy of housing growth downtown (which really dates back to the 1972 Downtown Plan) would be a terrible idea, that would have massive implications for the affordability of Portland.

Very well said, Mac. I don't understand how some people can claim that upzoning exacerbates the skyrocketing cost of housing. The market here has been well below our larger west coast siblings for decades, so the rapid rise in housing costs has more to do with Portland's new found popularity. And prices here are starting to approach an equilibrium with those more expensive cities. If anything, upzoning helps relieve the pressure by allowing more units to be built in a smaller area. Why is it problematic to have a few very expensive and very tall enclaves concentrated on a few blocks within the Central City? That just means there are more blocks available elsewhere for more moderately priced housing. High rise high end condos are not the cause of the skyrocketing prices, they are a symptom of it. These wouldn't be built at all if our market wasn't this hot.

[ceb426]

Came across a post on Devmap about this. Anyone know where it'd be built?

[RainDog]

Well the link you posted is a map with the location highlighted....