By Elliott Lapinel
Households in Oregon face a lot of barriers trying to find affordable housing. Decades of discriminatory zoning practices and chronic underproduction of housing have not provided enough homes at affordable rates. Oregonians eligible for housing vouchers spend years on wait lists. According to the Oregon Regional Housing Needs analysis, construction of regulated affordable housing will need to triple for the next twenty years to dig out of this hole.
Luckily,
one barrier to building more affordable housing will be eliminated by
the end of the year. Under a new set of state land use and
transportation planning rules called Climate Friendly and Equitable
Communities by the Land Conservation and Development Commission,
affordable housing developments in much of the state will no longer be
subject to minimum parking requirements.
Many
people don’t realize that since the mid-twentieth century, all new
buildings in Oregon and across North America have been required to
comply with off-street parking mandates: predetermined ratios of
required parking spaces per home or square feet of a store. While
well-intended, these parking mandates result in an oversupply of parking
spots. Vacant spots aren’t just an eyesore, they increase rents and can
prevent new housing from being built at all.
Down
the block from me in Salem, the results of reduced parking minimums are
already in action. The Evergreen Presbyterian Church is currently being
converted into 18 affordable homes, including 9 set aside for
chronically homeless veterans.
This is only
made possible by the fact that the site was within one-quarter mile of
transit, and therefore exempt from Salem’s requirements that
multi-family housing have 1.5 parking spaces per home. At that rate, the
site would have needed parking spots for 28 cars, three times more than
what fit after the small existing parking lot was redesigned for
handicap parking.
People with lower incomes
are the least likely to not own a car, and in the most dire need of this
type of housing. After the Oregon Land Conservation and Development
Commission finalizes the temporary rules in July, nearly 60 percent of
Oregon’s population will live in a place where it will be legal to build
affordable housing like the Evergreen Church.
Elliott Lapinel is a data administrator at the ARCHES project, a part of the Mid Willamette Valley Community Action Agency
The connection between the supply of affordable housing and minimum parking requirements -- like the consequences of single-family zoning restrictions -- is one that many folks overlook. Thank you, Elliott, for this concise and timely reminder.
ReplyDelete