A provision to require cities to plan for a "range of housing of different types, tenure and prices" in urban growth boundary expansion areas is likely to become part of Metro's rules, after winning unanimous support from the Metro Policy Advisory Committee on Wednesday night.
A new version of the proposal, which has been the subject of negotiations for months, calls for cities to plan for housing choices "in the context of housing needs of the governing city, the county and the region… in order to help create economically and socially vital and complete neighborhoods and cities and avoiding the concentration of poverty and the isolation of families and people of modest means."
Language that required cities to plan for families making 30, 50 and 80 percent of the region's median family income was dropped from the proposed changes to Title 11, which dictates that cities must come up with some concept plans for an area before they can ask for that area to be brought into the urban growth boundary.
"This language we came up with, over the course of many discussions, tries to address a lot of the concerns raised by both Hillsboro and Beaverton, in terms of not having something that limits the kinds of plans that can be developed," said Jody Carson, a West Linn City Councilor and a member of MPAC and its housing subcommittee.
At Tuesday's MPAC subcommittee meeting, Beaverton argued that it might not make sense to plan for certain amounts of so-called affordable housing in potential urban growth boundary expansion areas, when social services and transit access are clustered in other, established parts of their cities.
"This language reflects the concerns we had," said Beaverton Mayor Denny Doyle. "This is a very complex situation. This is a good start and I think Title 7 (Metro code on affordable housing) may offer us some other avenues to explore and try to come up with regional solutions."
Indeed, the committee passed two resolutions Wednesday night: the first to recommend that the Metro Council approve the changes at its Thursday meeting; the second to recommend that Metro establish an ongoing housing subcommittee to look at ways that Title 7 can address regional housing issues.