By Tom Henderson • Staff Writer • 

City grapples with law eliminating single-family-only developments

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Comments

jusasking

I'm not clear. Is this 'may' include these units in neighborhoods, or 'must' include?

Lulu

Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky-tacky, little boxes on the hillside, and they all look the same.

Rotwang

Right. Try and sell them. I'll never share a wall.

gregtompkins

Better start building some saltwater desalination plants at the coast! The Californians with their wineries suck up all the water and so do all their overcrowded cities that are relocating since they destroyed their own nest and have to move them.

Don Dix

As of 2010, 22 cities fell above the 25K population, so $3.5M doesn't even come close to covering the listed costs per city ($600K+) just for technical assistance. (Metro cities combined are 10 of those 22). Just where will most of 'assistance' end up?

And the legislature passes a law that cannot be implemented without raising taxes, fees, and licenses -- same dance, same song, different band!

Lulu

Well, I'd give about anything to live in Gearhart. But guess what? I can't afford the more modest asking prices. So I will search somewhere else.

gregtompkins

@Don Dix you’re right we are going to end up with the increased density and yet still be even more expensive! I’m looking at Woodburn and Hubbard areas now. Newberg and McMinnville both outrageously overpriced and just going to get even worse!

Tuvey

While I applaud the "affordable" housing requirements I have questions. How many are required per how many units built? How is this more affordable in that a duplex will cost the same or more than a single family home requiring a higher monthly rent in one unit to make ends meet for the home owner in the other and how does this make it more affordable? Do we need to have duplexes, triplexes and townhouses in every plan along with single family dwellings? How accurate is the "400%" increase in the article? Won't the additional units provide more income for utilities in that there would be 2+ billings per house instead of 1?

Lulu how do you know they're all going to be like that and how do you know the current plans aren't also your ticky tacky housing?

gregtomkins I'm learning to not read your comments. Most of the time you twerk them so that you can gripe about Californians and your comments don't even match the article your commenting on. Maybe find another venue for you venting? (vineyards to radishes is one example)

Don Dix I don't understand your comment about technical assistance. I understand the comment about legislature passing laws that require more taxes but where are you getting your numbers like $600k+?

Don Dix

Tuvey -- 7th paragraph down -- They calculate the law would cost affected cities roughly $80,000 for code updates, $250,000 for internal staffing costs and from $250,000 to $400,000 for reviewing their infrastructure capacity.

Adding up those minimum numbers [80K+ 250K+ 250K = 580K -- or effectively 600K+ before any actual upgrades to any or all particular city system(s)].

Treehouse

Perhaps one method of addressing the costs for upgrading infrastructure would be through impact fees on builders and developers. I don't think HB 2001 places any restrictions on how affected cities pay for implementation.

It seems to me that in established residential neighborhoods with only infill opportunities remaining, the impacts would tend to be fairly small. Where some major planning and revision might be expected would be as yet undeveloped areas within the UGB. If substantial portions of these undeveloped areas saw proposals for higher density housing the city might be burdened with significant costs to upgrade transportation and utility infrastructure. Passing those costs on to developers might affect the affordability of these new "missing middle" neighborhoods. But that would still leave developers the option of avoiding the higher impact fees by choosing to develop single family instead.

Lulu

When there is a mere 10 feet between houses, I call that ticky-tacky, Tuvey. Plus, your question to me made no sense.

Ossie Bladine

@jusasking The original online headline was a bit misleading; I just changed it for clarification.

The new law does not require any multi-family housing units in developments. Rather, it allows developers to include multi-family units as part of development on any residential property, no matter the zoning. So the city may have land zoned single-family residential, but they can't stop developers from putting townhouses there.

Ossie Bladine
Editor

gregtompkins

It looks like all leftist areas want this density concept:

https://www.thenation.com/article/zoning-housing-homeless-segregation/

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