A push by the Metro Council to look at affordable housing took a step forward last month, when the council was briefed on a proposed work plan for addressing the region's affordable housing inventory.
The push comes after a budget amendment, proposed by Councilor Sam Chase, to fund planning work in affordable housing. At a July 29 work session, Metro staff briefed the council on its affordable housing proposals.
"We want to be really well informed and inclusive," said Jonathan Williams, a Metro project manager. "We're going to take a really hard look at what we've been doing, we're going to talk to the communities and learn about what they are doing and what's worked. Then we are going to come up with a strategy of how to move forward."
The main effort by Metro's staff will be centered on working with partners in the region to learn about the issues communities are facing and discuss any of the strategies that have been successful so far. Partners in this effort won't just be cities and counties around the region – they'll include community-based organizations, advocacy groups, affordable housing developers and market-rate housing developers.
"By convening all these folks together we can really activate areas that aren't already activated," said Councilor Craig Dirksen. "We can coordinate work with others that are already doing it."
Metro staff will use the outreach to build a series of reports and assessments evaluating the short and long-term barriers and opportunities for affordable housing. The plan also calls for a regional and national best practices assessment for affordable housing to provide examples and tools to communities about what works.
Some of these efforts will be building off of work done in the past, a point that Councilor Bob Stacey made in his comments during the council discussion.
"There are a lot of great ideas out there, some of them 30 years old," Stacey said.
Williams agreed and emphasized that the project would be about next steps not starting over.
"We've done work on this in the past, but it's been awhile and we need to refresh," Williams said. "We need to get everyone back together to see what lessons have been learned and where we go from here."
Stacey cautioned that the project couldn't turn into a report that just sits on a shelf.
"One task that this project needs to accomplish is to provide reassurance to everyone… that we are not just going to do another study," Stacey said. "We should use this two years to advance a positive dialogue."
Councilors were encouraged by the planned "Equitable Housing Development Summit," scheduled to take place in the 2015, which would achieve a regional consensus on next steps. At that point Metro efforts would turn from research to action.
"It's pretty clear there are some policy things that Metro can be doing to help encourage affordable housing," Williams said.
One example would be providing small technical grants to communities to help them rewrite code or create plans to encourage more affordable housing. According to Williams, these grants would be low-cost for Metro but allow jurisdictions to make progress on affordable housing.
Although there were many positive and supportive comments from councilors during the discussion, concerns still remained, especially about buy-in from communities and residents.
"It will be interesting just to see how you're going to make this happen, because I know it's going to be pretty challenging," said Councilor Shirley Craddick, "particularly when there might not be the political support for it."
Councilor Carlotta Collette had similar concerns related to how residents will accept affordable housing.
"I think sometimes communities are very resistant to affordable housing because they have this preconceived notion of what it's going to look like and how it's going to live next to their house," Collette said.
Dirksen added that well-done affordable housing efforts could assuage those concerns.
"So often the affordable housing that is unacceptable isn't intentional affordable housing, it's unintentional affordable housing," Dirksen said. "If we can make an effort to make our affordable housing intentional affordable housing, we can avoid a lot of that negative."
Chase was encouraged by the support he's received from Beaverton Mayor Denny Doyle and Lake Oswego Mayor Kent Studebaker.
"They really want to engage in this and they need affordable housing, but that's not enough," Chase said. "We need to engage a lot more of the jurisdictions."