Later this year, the Metro Council is expected to announce that capacity improvements inside the urban growth boundary have allowed the region to meet at least half of its need for the coming 20 years of residential growth.
That might be a surprise to Oregonians, who haven't seen many high-rise condos or neighborhood townhomes going up in the last couple of years. But analysis by Metro staff and consulting firm Johnson-Reid is showing how cities can make some simple improvements to help communities realize their development potential.
The study looked at what would happen if simple streetscape improvements were made to three of Metro's centers – the Gresham regional center and the Lake Oswego and Lents town centers. Street trees, benches, wider sidewalks, bicycle racks and lanes and street parking were all imagined for the areas studied.
What the planners found was a dramatic increase in residential capacity in the areas, particularly in the less-affluent communities. In Lents, streetscape improvements tripled the amount of land that was financially viable for developers to build on. In Gresham, 58 developable acres became 183 developable acres.
Metro assistant regional planner Brian Harper explained that as consumers look for those types of streetscape improvements, they're willing to pay more. That opens up more avenues for developers who want to make a project pencil out before breaking ground.
"If they came in and said let's increase the rents by 10 to 20 percent, then some of those properties that weren't valuable enough before become valuable enough," Harper said.
Harper is open that the study has its limits. The research didn't look at low-income communities, nor truly suburban areas, something pointed out by Clackamas County mayors at Wednesday night's meeting of the Metro Policy Advisory Committee.
"The examples were pretty urban," said Oregon City Mayor Alice Norris. "Even Oregon City, which is at 30,000, we're still more on the fringe. I wonder if you don't get the same result in small communities."
Jerry Johnson, a principal at Johnson-Reid, acknowledged the concern.
"There's a self-selection issue," Johnson said. "You have a subset of people that value urban amenities, but tend to be in urban settings. People living in a semi-rural or suburban context maybe don't value the urban amenities at the same level. Even within districts, things need to be customized a great deal."
Multnomah County Commissioner Judy Shiprack expressed concern about the cost of implementing those kinds of improvements. In Lents, an urban renewal district is funding a streetscape project on Foster Road; urban renewal districts tend to take resources away from county governments and special districts.
"We start to spin off here into a highly speculative hypothetical realm that is going to be scary for developers and the public," Shiprack said. "I get concerned and protective about the public's role."
But Lake Oswego Mayor Jack Hoffman said the long-term benefits far outweigh the short-term costs. He said the tax base in Lake Oswego's urban renewal district was $40 million when the district was created in 1986. Now, the tax base is about $240 million, Hoffman said.
"We use that for more public investments and paying off the debt for the urban renewal area," he said.