City Club of Portland adopts amended housing report


The report includes a proposal to re-zone single-family neighborhoods.

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The club voted by a “wide margin” to adopt a minority version of the report, said Mike Westling, who was a member of a club housing affordability committee that wrote it. He argued in favor of re-zoning residential neighborhoods to include more “middle housing” such as duplexes, triplexes and townhomes.

“Portland’s residential zoning code was not brought down on stone tablets from Mt. Tabor,” Westling said in prepared remarks at a club meeting.

The club committee was in large agreement about what it called a housing affordability “crisis,” arguing in favor of lifting the statewide ban on rent control, banning no-cause evictions in Portland and implementing a rental property licensing system in the city, among other approaches. The club called upon civic leaders for “action now” and more than just “half-measures and business as usual.”

(READ MORE: Oregon Live)

Last week, the City Club of Portland drafted a report that argues for rent control, eviction limitations and rental property licensing.

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