Okay, and we're live.

Great, thank you.

I'd like to call to order the meeting of the Lake Oswego Planning Commission this Monday, February 23rd at 6 30 p.m.

Christina, can you please call roll?

Chair Nojock.

Here.

Vice Chair Bruce.

Here.

And Commissioners Moreno.

Here.

Mitchell.

Here.

Guinea.

Here.

And slide.

And Commissioner Twing has not yet joined.

And we also have Council Rachel Verdick with us.

Here.

Great.

Christina and Councillor Verdick.

Do we have any city council updates to share?

Sure, I can give an update from council.

The council did pass the rezoning of 4,000 cruiseway place.

So that has been agreed upon and is moving forward.

I think the other big news we had goal setting on Saturday.

For the most part, the goals stay pretty much the same.

There was a few additions on there.

In terms of we're going to be inheriting the Pioneer Cemetery, so there will be work around that that was added.

We want to see the completion of the pathway between George Rogers and Foothills.

And obviously, we are going to be moving forward getting a new city attorney and city manager.

And for those of you who may not know, Martha submitted her resignation.

And Megan Phelan is interim until the council approves a I don't know if you say a different interim, so Megan can focus on her uh her normal roles until we hire a new person.

And so those are I think some of the bigger things that have gone on.

And then we do have something fun on Saturday for those of you interested.

There's the Lunar New Year Festival, and that's going to be from 12 to 3 30 at Lake Ridge High School for those of you who are available and interested.

So any questions for me.

Okay, well, if anything comes up, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Thank you so much, Councilor Redick.

Moving on to agenda item number four.

Uh approval of minutes from January 26th, 2026.

Do I have hear any motions to approve or any uh revisions to the minutes as written?

I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes as written, please.

Thank you.

Do I hear a second?

Second.

Thank you, Councillor Marino.

All those in favor of approving the minutes as written for January 26, 2026.

Hi.

Hi.

Thank you.

All opposed.

Hearing none.

Any abstaining.

Hearing none.

The approval of the minutes for January 26, 2026 has moved to be approved as written.

Item number five, public comment.

Christina, do we have anyone signed up tonight?

None signed up tonight.

Great.

Thank you.

Item number six is our commission for citizen involvement general updates.

Uh for its annual general meeting.

That is going to be held Tuesday, March 3rd at 7 p.m.

at the Westwood West Ridge Elementary School.

And items on the agenda will be on their new online directory.

And they have two guest speakers.

One is a representative from South Shore Fire Station to talk about rebuilding the fire station at present location.

And also a speaker from the Lake Oswego Sustainability Network for helping homeowners reduce yard maintenance pollution pollution.

So for anyone who is interested, uh please contact the West Rust.

I cannot say this West Ridge Neighborhood Association.

With that, uh we are moving on to agendum item number seven.

Our update 7.1 housing needs and production update, PP 22-0005.

And uh staff coordinator Eric Olson, long-range planning manager, will present to the planning commission.

Thank you, Chair Najak.

Um I have some slides that I can use tonight.

Um, and um I'm going to be using um or at least showing you, um, trying to explain some of the slides that were used by uh the representative from uh the State Department of Um Land Conservation and Development, um, Samuel Goldberg, who was actually here last week um to give a very similar presentation to our city council on the 17th of February.

Um, but I did not ask him to come in for a sort of duplicative purpose to present to you.

So I'm going to do my best to sort of um reflect what he had communicated to council and um, you know, going to uh talk a little bit um about the revisions to the statewide um or I guess the new rather framework that is now statewide um for the housing needs analysis called the Oregon housing needs analysis.

So I'll go ahead and share the slides that I put together, which again are mostly his.

Oh, that's not correct.

Okay, let's see here.

All right, there we go.

Second here, I'm not used to keynotes here, so I have to figure out what I'm uh I apologize on there.

All right, so once I'm done formatting here, um anyway, I will go ahead and present.

Um it's not right either.

I apologize for this.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and just kind of um do my best to present in its current form.

Um, but yeah, essentially um, you know, I want to give you an update on this new framework that was passed by the state.

Um, you know, I guess I want to start with really just a broad overview of you know, kind of where we're at and what the framework that we were operating under just a couple years ago was at the um state level, just back in 2023.

So, as I think all of us um are aware, but I you know, I know a lot of the planning commission in its current form.

Um, many of you probably um, or at least some of you weren't around during the adoption of our housing needs analysis, but um essentially um through the passing of Household 2003 back in 2019, um the state uh added a requirement.

Um, and it's really, you know, it was all already a requirement for cities to conduct housing needs analyses through uh you know the statewide planning goal 10 requirements, but um they sort of formalized those requirements through Household 2003 and required uh cities um over 10,000 in population uh in the Portland Metro at least to complete an HNA or housing needs analysis every six to eight years for Lagos Vegos every six years, and um we were on a schedule that was adopted by um DLCD or the State Department of Land Conservation and Development.

I'll just be saying DLCD uh moving forward though, um, to uh adopt our initial housing needs analysis in 2023.

So that's what we did.

Um we adopted that before the end of 2023, and um that's what we currently are operating under the 2023 HA.

Um, and using a lot of the information that was in that HA, and of course um, you know, for folks that weren't um around when that was adopted.

I'll just kind of give a brief refresher of kind of what some of the figures were in that document.

Um, you know, that document ultimately kind of is a big sort of top line number.

We ended up um with a sort of resulting in a projection of need for about 2,000 units over the course of a 20-year planning horizon.

So it was 1,968 to be specific.

But roughly speaking, that represented a 1% growth increment over the course of that 20-year planning horizon.

And I think a lot of folks on the planning commission at that time, um, again, some of you are still here, maybe not all of you though.

Um, you know, a lot of folks, including commissioners and the city council, um, a lot of folks on our um advisory committee at the time, the HPS task force, um, you know, felt that that was quite low.

It was that 1% number over 20 years seemed um pretty different in comparison to the roughly 1% um over the course of an annual basis, 1% per year was more like um the growth rate that was um happening um more recently when that analysis was conducted.

Of course, a lot of folks saw that things were starting to level off and growth wasn't occurring at quite the um rapid rate that it was pre-pandemic at that point.

Um, but still that seemed low at the time.

And so there was actually a footnote in the 2023 HA that kind of pointed that out, and that we needed to revisit this with the next time we you know did our housing needs analysis as a city.

So that's just something to keep in mind here as well.

But using those um uh sort of that information and sort of the there's a lot of more detailed kind of information about what income levels we should be aiming for, what types of housing um needs the city has in terms of detached or single family or um you know, middle housing, the different, you know, tenure levels, um, a lot of different sort of aspects of housing that uh and qualities of of housing that we should be aiming for as a city if we are going to meet the needs of of our residents and accommodate growth over time.

Um so we use those figures to produce the housing production strategy and sort of um develop a set of actions, about 13 different actions that we um have committed to as a city um to undertake to promote housing production to again the assumption at that time was that we would be shooting for over a 20-year horizon, the roughly speaking that 2,000 um unit number.

And um as again, a lot of you probably remember, uh, we adopted the HPS here as the um in the city of Lake Aswego back in November of 2024, and it was formally approved by DLCD last year in April.

So um still fairly recent.

Um, but we are currently um, you know, beginning to and have already implemented a few of the strategies and are really starting to implement some of the larger impact strategies in the HPS.

So that's uh a bit of background.

Um about the same time as we um adopted our HPS, the state um was undertaking the process of developing kind of a new system for the housing needs analysis that would look at a statewide allocation as opposed to the previous system, which was um more or less based on some projections of growth that came out of Portland State and were um you know, kind of developed um, you know, with Portland State and Metro, at least for the metro area.

And um that's a little bit of how those were developed, but there was no like central coordination really to think about you know overall needs as a state and how those would be sort of um allocated um on a jurisdictional basis.

So um as part of HP 2003, they were tasked to undergo some rulemaking and um develop some rules related to the statewide new statewide system.

So that's how they developed ONA.

These are the beginning of the DLCD slides here.

Um, so it's intended to be a statewide method to think about housing production and think about things um a little more globally.

Um, and you can see that you know, that's really a few different pieces here.

Um, you know, that there's um, you know, the the methodology um basically includes an obligation um that you know governments need to um take actions to affirmatively further fair housing, and those include adopting an HPS and um what they're now referring to as a housing capacity analysis.

Um we had called a housing needs analysis before.

Um, you know, basically, you know, the way that the state phrases this at least is that there's a shared responsibility between state and local governments to take action here and sort of track things and um partner together to address these housing needs.

Um so there's actually three different agencies at the state level that help um do this.

Essentially, um the Department of Administrative Services does a lot of the uh numerical sort of um more quantifiable work with the methodology for housing need.

The Oregon Housing and Community Services Department looks at production outcomes and works on what they call the housing production dashboard and housing equity indicators.

And the State Department of Land Conservation and Development, again, DLC D works on those housing production strategies and housing capacity analyses with cities and sort of reviews those for compliance.

And that's all associated with goal 10 and goal 14 implementation.

They also have this new kind of housing acceleration program that's somewhat related to the housing accountability and production office, which is another sort of new component at the state level where cities that aren't really meeting their targets are sort of diverted to this other track, which is you know, sort of the problem child track, I suppose you could call it, but um they go into the housing acceleration program if they're not really producing as much housing as um they should be in terms of um you know meeting these targets.

And I think it's more being a little broad here.

I think it's more that you know the cities aren't really taking the steps that they should be taking to um you know meet housing production targets.

So anyway, a little bit more on that later.

So again, I'll try to talk as best as I can, not being from the state here about this.

Um but the intended outcomes and purpose for this is to really look at this more on a statewide basis.

Um they have a new methodology that was developed that was actually passed um in late 2024.

So again, roughly when we passed our um HPS to begin with.

So we're in what the state is now calling the pre-ONA OHNA cohort.

Um a lot of cities are in the ONA or the sort of cohort that is actually adopting their first housing needs analysis under this new ONA framework.

So we're in kind of a unique position there.

Um, but they do have a new methodology that accounts for historical underproduction of housing.

Um, it looks at sort of um differences between jurisdictions and will compare um, you know, different jurisdictions to one another and will adjust accordingly.

So if one jurisdiction is producing way more housing than another, then it will um adjust their need accordingly.

Uh it also accounts a little bit better for homelessness.

Um, again, looks at population growth on a little bit more of a macro scale and accounts for second and vacation homes in the methodology as well.

Um so, you know, I think there's a lot of big big picture planning that's shaped by this work.

Um, you know, I think there's some ideas for future amendments to urban growth boundaries that could be set up by this ONA work.

Um, but the idea is to get a bit more of a realistic estimate of that long-term, long-term and near-term residential capacity.

So this is the graphic that they use.

And so they start with a sort of state allocation that they then divvy out to all cities in terms of the Portland metro area.

They give kind of a number to Metro and then Metro has their own system of divvying things up, but they still operate within the same framework and use a lot of the sort of methodology developed by the state.

There's it's complicated, but there is a bigger role for Metro in the metro area than there is in other metro areas you know within the state.

So it is a little bit more complicated here, but you know, for the most part, this this is uh remains true in the metro area too.

So once we have that allocation of need, um, we look at a contextualization of housing needs.

So thinking more about um, you know, and again, we did this as well as part of our housing production strategy.

We actually have a contextualized housing need um analysis, including including within um that HPS as well.

But um, you know, essentially we break that down into a lot more finer grain detail and look at the specific sort of um stratifications of need, I suppose you could say, and um try to get a more realistic assessment ultimately, um looking at also capacity um within the city, you know, how much zoning capacity do you have to accommodate housing?

And you know, the idea here is to come up with a little bit uh better of a version of a what we call the buildable lands inventory right now.

Um the idea is that this will be a development ready lands inventory, so it'll be a lot more of a reflection of like actually um land that is developable and not just land that might be vacant or meeting some of these other kinds of criteria that were used before, but um that looks a little bit more realistic to a developer that could come in and produce housing.

Um, eventually cities then you know use this information to um you know basically develop their housing production strategies, which we've already done as a city.

If things, you know, um, if basically the city doesn't do um the doesn't undertake um the actions that they say they're going to undertake to meet their housing need, then they could get referred to the housing acceleration program.

Um, or they could just kind of continue to go through the cycle, um, implement their HPS and then you know, redo their HNA on that six year cycle.

And so I would just um remind folks that because we adopted our HA last in 2023, the next HA cycle for us will come up in 2029.

So that's not too far from now.

We're already kind of to the midway point there.

And so on in 2029, we'll we will have to utilize this new um ONA framework uh more formally.

Um, but even in in the interim, um we are, you know, there are sort of ways to get a sense of what the result would be if we were to look at our sort of um housing need or need allocation from the state.

And we'll talk a little bit about that in the coming slides.

But um, there is what we call a um housing production dashboard that shows um or sort of reflects on an annual basis the housing that is produced by different jurisdictions and their housing needs are sort of modified accordingly based on this methodology on an annual basis.

So, you know, I don't want to sort of bury the lead here.

So I will say, you know, ultimately under this new statewide OHNA system, um, the city's um projection of housing need over that 20-year time frame would more than double.

Um so it would go from roughly 2,000 to closer to 4,850 units for the 20-year time frame.

Of course, this is something um that will change before we um you know start our HA in 2029 and get sort of through that um whole effort again.

But it's just something to be aware of, and I wanted to bring it up as we are implementing our HPS because it's really something where you know, I think folks in the community have begun to um express some concern that we're overproducing housing, which is um kind of a new um perspective, I guess.

So we haven't heard much before, and um we um have uh you know, we have known about this for a little bit, and this is actually um these rules were formally passed by the state late last year.

So we do know for sure now that we will be held to this higher standard in our future sort of housing needs analyses cycles.

So um anyway, I think I just wanted to point that out in general.

So you know, we our housing needs are going up, and that's something that we should keep in mind as we um continue to implement our housing production strategy, just in a general sense.

So, in terms of the housing need allocation, this is going to be the part of the presentation where I am the most lost.

Um so essentially, you know, they look at um different sort of sub-allocations of need, um, you know, kind of a regional allocation for the entire metro area.

Um, it's broken down by population growth, demographic change, second or vacation homes, um, underproduction of housing, and homelessness.

So those are the different kind of component parts of that total number there, and that's how they sort of arrived at that total number.

So that's the overarching um need for the region that you can see represented in that graph.

And um, you know, this is kind of allocated by transportation.

I forget it's TAZ transportation access zone.

I forget it's transportation something zone.

I feel like Brian probably knows this, but anyway, it's broken down by TAS and um in Metro, they sort of um sub or they allocate this um within the region and do a sub-allocation and they weight things, and so they weight it by access to transit.

Um they try to allocate housing in areas where they know that there is more access to transit, sort of make sure that um jobs are being located, you know, or housing is located near where jobs are located so people can work closer to where they live.

Um, and again, this sort of idea of inverse weighting for cities that have historically underproduced market rate or affordable housing to make sure that sort of this idea of like fair share that um cities that have historically underproduced market rate or affordable housing would theoretically be responsible for a greater share of or a more sort of proportionate share of housing production going forward.

Um that actually breaks out a little bit differently than you might think, um, particularly because Lake Aswego has been producing a good amount of housing recently.

So um our our numbers have actually um been improved, or at least you know, going down in terms of the anticipated need um based on our production.

Um so that's it's kind of interesting how this actually plays out, but that is the concept in terms of where the methodology came from.

You can see here, this is um the numbers that you can see in the graph or in the table on the slide um for Lake Aswego come from the 2026 um uh sort of uh I think it's the housing methodology report.

So based on the official methodology that was passed by the state.

Um this is the 20-year allocation of units in the city is 4,850.

And you can see that it's broken out at different AMI levels, and it's important to note that because the city will be expected to try to target, you know, housing for those different income levels to the extent that we're able to.

I think um it's important to again point out that because we are being kind of weighed against neighboring cities, you know, we're being um compared to a lot of other jurisdictions that also don't have much uh in terms of resources to support affordable housing, you know.

I think um, you know, there's not a ton of um, you know, housing authorities in places like Oregon City or Tualton Um Tigered, but um, you know, there's uh, you know, so so basically I think um to the extent that you know we're able to produce affordable housing, um, you know, I think uh you you can see that we're all kind of in the same boat, I suppose, as suburban jurisdictions here in the metro region, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

I think um the lack of resources, you know, is is somewhat equitable, equitable in terms of um how that's shared around the region.

I think of course the city of Portland might have a little bit more.

Um, but you know, it the methodology does account for um sort of similar types of jurisdictions that you're adjacent to.

Um moving forward.

Um so yeah, this is a little bit more about contextualized housing need.

Um, but yeah, this is just again sort of more fine-grained detail about the types of housing that we're going to um, you know, analyze for need in our next cycle.

But, you know, what types of housing do we need?

What type of characteristics does that housing have?

Where is that housing needed?

Um, you know, what affordability levels, what um uh, you know, discriminatory actions or um barriers to fair housing need to be addressed to produce housing, you know, things like that are all part of addressing contextualized housing needs.

So that's going to continue to be a big part of this.

That's something that we're already kind of um addressing with RHPS at least and as a part of our um HPS and HNA process previously, but that will be reinforced by this new process as well, from what I understand.

Um, so I'm gonna stop sharing the slides and just kind of talk a little bit more um broadly.

I think, you know, again, the the really the big um takeaway here is for the more near-term implementation of our HPS.

Of course, we're not going to be embarking on the um housing capacity, quote unquote analysis until 2029.

So that's a ways off.

But you know, we don't want to necessarily be in a situation where we get to 2029 and everybody says, oh my gosh, we all of a sudden have to produce nearly 5,000 units of housing over a 20-year time frame.

And we previously thought we only need to do 2,000.

So I, you know, I think I just wanted to sort of share this information now that we do have more certainty from the state about how this system will work and what this methodology looks like.

And also um, you know, just to keep this in mind as we produce or we um pursue the strategies in our housing production strategy, particularly things like the rezoning and code audit to think about um some of the expectations from the state and what that could look like in terms of scale.

Um, with that being said, though, you know, the state I think also has uh pretty um, you know, they've been pretty clear that they don't necessarily um expect cities to, you know, exactly hit the number that they're given in terms of these targets that they know that um, you know, that there are a limited resources for a lot of jurisdictions and that um this could be a challenge without those resources at the table.

So um, you know, I think they're looking for cities to take good faith efforts and you know fulfill the actions that were identified in the housing production strategy.

But um, you know, I think in terms of the actual housing production, you know, a lot of that is controlled by the market, a lot of that is outside the control of any jurisdiction.

Um, and you know, I think there's certain things that the cities, you know, obviously can do, and those are a lot of that is outlined in the housing production strategy.

But I think the state is understanding that um there are many things that are outside of our control.

So um, you know, I think they you know have indicated that they'll be lenient, but they also have this new housing accountability and production um office and this um sort of acceleration program that kind of seems like a little bit more teeth.

Um like it has a little bit more teeth to it.

So um it's difficult to predict, I suppose, is the easiest way to put that.

Um, but you know, I think there are a lot of reasons to believe that they won't be super rigid in how they interpret at least the sort of numerical unit production piece of the housing production strategy itself and that housing needs analysis piece there.

Um so yeah, I you know just wanted to kind of give you a heads up about that.

There's a lot more information that Samuel from DLCD was able to provide to the city council on the methodology and some of the um sort of uh you know the concepts and um history behind that and some of the um sort of foundation um for that.

So I'd encourage you to take a look at that uh city council meeting if you do have a chance if you're curious about any of that.

Of course, there's that quite lengthy methodology report, but you know, we're just kind of now um beginning to uh comprehend what this means for our own planning here in Lake Aswego.

Some of this um statewide methodology has been under rulemaking and sort of discussions for years and years and years.

And so there's finally an outcome, and we wanted to just give you all an update about that.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Uh counselors or commissioners, do we have any questions or comments for Mr.

Olson?

Yes, Brian.

Hey, good evening all.

Can you all hear me okay?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay, cool.

So having some audio issues.

Uh thanks, Eric.

Great presentation.

Um I like I think it's important to kind of acknowledge or memorialize like just what a huge shift this is.

Like the Department of Land Conservation and Development was set up to like stop all of this, right?

Like urban growth boundaries, inserting public process at almost every level uh for like almost the exclusive purpose of preserving our farmland in Oregon, um, not you know, preventing the sprawl of our neighbor state to the south and all that kind of stuff.

And so um now it's it's like switch places.

It's like the the department of development, and maybe we'll do some conservation.

Um and this is you know, the this Eric, you're bearing you're not bearing the lead, but like could be quite explosive when our city housing needs analysis says 2,000 units, and oh, here is the state in this, you know, these official very public letters saying, oh, we think it's closer to 5,000.

Um to the state's credit, you know, they they put out some dashboards and transparency stuff.

But I think um I think the value that this committee could add, you know, maybe in the next year or so, perhaps some public hearings or work sessions uh to help support city council as we look at both our population growth, the units produced within the city, and then the units in the pipeline of like, hey, you know, what and what is Lake Oswego doing at the same time, Westland, Tiger to Walleton, Milwaukee, Oregon City, and being able to build the case to go back to Metro and DLCD and saying, like, look, we are producing, you know, the population is is actually growing at this rate, and we are producing, and we have it in the pipeline, you know, more than half of the target for the whole metro area.

We would like to negotiate this before getting in the penalty penalty box, something like that.

So there's there's probably a lot of possibilities that the planning commission through work sessions or public hearings to help inform city council and stuff like that could look at.

But this is going to be certainly every other city in the metro area is gonna look at these letters and be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, like to Eric's point, like we don't have the land available, we don't have the urban reserves or rural reserves, we don't have the public infrastructure, all that kind of stuff.

Thanks.

Yeah, thanks, Brian.

I think um, you know, obviously we're gonna have um the larger effort with the um citywide rezoning in particular, where we're going to actually look and try to look at specific areas of the city that might be able to support additional housing capacity.

So we should have a very clear-eyed view of where things could work or not work um in terms of um you know existing um non-residentially zoned areas that could be um you know tweaked or um rezoned to better accommodate residential uses.

But um, you know, I think the numbers that we see though there will give us a good sense of kind of like what the ballpark is of what we can actually maybe do ever within this city, you know.

I think um, you know, there's a lot of uh capacity that was unlocked with middle housing as well.

But yeah, I mean we are are very built out.

I mean, we're um, you know, we're obviously within an urban growth boundary.

Um, and there is not a ton of what they would call the state development ready land within our boundaries.

So um, you know, it's important obviously to be opportunistic about the opportunities that do come up.

And I think um obviously that 4,000 cruiseway place rezoning was a good uh example of that.

And I think um really in in some ways this is a follow-on to some of the conversations that um resulted out of that uh rezoning application and some of the questions that we were getting from the community about hey, aren't we are we producing enough housing already?

Like, isn't that um isn't this you know too much?

Like, isn't this going to be over what we're expected to do at the state level?

And so um it's really important to at least have this to you know be able to point to it and say, you know, actually from the state's perspective, like we are not even close at this point.

You know, I think um we have a lot of uh you know room to go.

I think there's a lot of things that we could point to that we think might happen or that we expect to happen in the near future, like foothills or you know, obviously North Anchor, which we um, you know, development that has been in various stages of uh completion for a long time, but has has not actually broken any ground, you know, and and and um got underway really at all.

So it's hard to say like, oh yeah, those units are gonna, you know, we're sure that those will come on board, you know, anytime now, but use you're just like looking at your watch waiting a little bit, not sure when we can actually take credit for that.

So, you know, it's it's difficult to know when things are going to come on board and even the projects that we've been working for um as a city for a long time.

Um it's difficult to know when those are actually going to come to fruition in terms of the actual production of housing.

So um, you know, when we report to the state, we report on both um permitting and production.

So we report on when they receive their permits and we were when they receive their certificates of occupancy.

Um so those those two inputs go to the state and they do receive that.

And that's what they will update those dashboards um based on that information.

Um so you know, it's it's good to remember that, but it's also um, you know, we're gonna start talking about capacity as well.

So just thinking about what something like a zoning change could mean for what we could um theoretically develop.

So I mean, there's a lot of different conversations here, of course, but um anyway, it's just important to think of these things as sort of discrete and the idea of potential housing being very different from actual constructed housing and um important to kind of keep this all in our heads at the same time and make sure that we're not um you know, I I guess you know, I guess make sure that we're actually on target for you know being able to meet these numbers.

And I think um most folks, I think uh when they see these numbers from other jurisdictions, they're probably thinking, like, how are we gonna do this?

You know, we we need more money from the state, basically.

So if anything, you know, this is a good push to just continue to advocate for um more funding for particularly for those lower AMI levels that are impossible to produce without massive amounts of subsidy.

So thank you, Mr.

Olsen.

Uh, if I can comment, I think North Anchor is a great example of what can happen in the cycle of a real estate development.

And that market rate housing is also suffering and not being able to be built.

Portland has record low construction starts for housing.

So all of that is just going to continue to uh put pressure on our affordability issue.

So keeping in mind exactly that that the actual constructibility of this housing might happen very far in the future because of economic realities of building it that we can't control.

We can just do our zoning, our planning and our envisioning of what we would like to have, but we're not the ones who can control what gets built in when.

So we have to plan far out in the future and also have plans that are adaptable to changing conditions.

Absolutely.

Um sorry, go ahead, Jessica.

I didn't see your hand there.

I that's just you just made great points.

Um uh Chair Najak.

That's that's exactly that's exactly right.

And you know, one of the concerns that we had is we're going to be starting this work on the commercial rezoning in in order to increase capacity, uh housing capacity in the city to uh address the the deficit of land that we had that was identified in our um HA just a couple of years ago.

And um, and also the code audit.

And we just wanted to, I guess the big takeaway is we we wanted to bring this to both the council and the planning commission before we start that work because we want both both of these uh the council and the commission to think bigger than 1,968 units because we think we're gonna hear a lot from the community that's like nope, that's all we need to do, we need to stop there.

But in just a couple of short years, that number is gonna go up two and a half times.

And so while we are doing this really difficult and um intricate work uh for the next couple of years, we need to think bigger than the 2,000 units.

So that's that's really the big takeaway here.

And I think as Eric pointed out, um, we will be measured against quote unquote our peer cities.

And so the way that I look at it, as long as we're not doing worse than them, we should be fine and shouldn't be in danger of the uh being in the the housing acceleration program.

But that's the the stick that the state has that they can kind of come in and intervene to try to address the need.

And if they want to come in and try to help us build more affordable housing, I'd love to see them.

I'd love to see what their solutions are.

Uh so that's all I say, but uh, but that is the big takeaway is when we start this work, just remember that while right now we're only legally obligated to those 2,000 units in just a couple of short years, it's going to be much larger.

And these are the big projects that can move the needle that we need to focus on.

Thank you.

Yeah, I guess I just continue to add that you know, we base our housing production strategies on these numbers, right?

And we try to um scale the efforts based on the numbers.

Um, but you know, the quantifiable components of this um I think are going to be less like legally sort of um, you know, I I think that at least based on the approval letter that we received for the HPS, what we're bound to do as a city to DLCD is to fulfill the implementation actions for the HPS as opposed to like hit that exact number and no no less or anything like that in terms of housing production or capacity, really.

I mean, I think we um I think um if we we do our best and show them that there's no more capacity in the city or that you know there's no more that the city can do to produce housing, then um, you know, I I think that they're kind of amenable to that.

But um I I will just say I don't think we're in this like problem child sort of you know category yet.

I think that we're doing well and we are producing um, you know, at least in recent years, we've added a good number of affordable units to our um inventory here in the city.

And um that is, you know, uh we have a large number in terms of unit need, but it's actually reflected in our numbers and they are um going to continue improving um even just with what we know will happen and projects that are already underway in the coming years.

So um yeah, I I just want to sort of reiterate though that we're not like legally bound to the specific number.

I think um it's probably going to be the case that many jurisdictions are not going to reach even you know the numbers, even those that were under that sort of pre-ONA framework and using those PSU numbers previously.

Sorry, I'm I'm the one calling on people, but it probably should be Chair Najak.

So that is all right.

Thank you.

Um I believe next we had uh Commissioner Guinea.

James was ahead of me.

Oh, okay.

Commissioner Bruce.

Yeah, thank you.

Uh so I think Director Namangalou just sort of touched on it a little bit.

But my question is really what happens when a city is put on the housing acceleration program.

The state comes in and tries to tell you how you should be doing it better, or what would actually be the effect of being put on that program.

Um yeah, so I can sort of speak to that.

I mean, of course, we haven't seen what happens yet, but essentially what they can do is they can intervene and um sort of uh help help the city that there's they kind of frame it as they're coming in to assist us in uh addressing the issues and and in terms of why we aren't meeting whatever the the target is in our production strategy.

And you have to know there's there's housing needs, there's housing choice, there's housing affordability, or there's capacity.

So there's different ways where we might not be meeting our housing production strategy that uh that was approved by DLCD.

So I think it just depends on how we're not meeting whatever whatever need um in our HPS in terms of how they might um step in.

As part of the ONA uh process that they just uh adopted in January, they have adopted model codes, and those model codes will probably be the benchmark that they are going to um compare like different jurisdictions codes to in terms of like being a best practice for different aspects of of um uh housing production.

So that is my concern is they could come in and and require us to you know use their model code instead of our own code.

That could be one tactic.

But again, I don't know, it just depends on what the issue is that uh and what um which strategy were not implementing or is not working for them to come in and what need is not being met.

So um there's no one off answer that I can provide that um that's gonna apply to all cities.

It's gonna be on a case by case basis.

Could they withhold funding that we're relying on for certain programs?

That's a good question.

I mean, I am, you know, this if you look at the ONA um the ONA provisions that were passed.

I mean, it's something like 154 pages long.

So I I didn't read through all of that, and it's it's quite complicated.

Um, so I don't know for sure if that is one of the sticks that they could use, but I can certainly look into it.

Um, but we were told that it's more coming in to assist the city in meeting those goals before they take more punitive action.

I'd definitely like to see if there's some more detail in the report or that we're able to get a better lead on like tangibly what steps they could do that would be different than what we're already trying to do.

It could be punitive, like something like withholding funding or something like that.

I it's it's a very new program.

So I think yeah, I think they're still kind of figuring out a lot of this as well.

But um, yeah, we'll uh try to get more specifics for you on that.

I would say it would probably be, especially if they're here to assist us, it would be the opposite of withholding funding.

They would actually provide grants or assistance to help us comply.

But again, how can they do that?

I don't know.

If we're not able to do it, how do they have a better concept of of how that's gonna be done?

That's to be seen.

Well, like that's like, you know, don't do this or we're gonna come bring you some money.

So well, we'll give you money to do the thing we want to do.

Yeah, right.

So yeah, some interesting, it's interesting that it's you know it's still under development.

I understand that, but if there's any more detail we can get, that would be probably helpful for the planning commission and you know, advising the city council what we think here.

But really interesting stuff.

And I'm also curious, do we know how the 2023 HNA got it so wrong and why we think maybe the new 2025 OHNA study is more accurate.

You know, I think um yeah, I I mean a lot of the allocation and at that point again, it was kind of it was a metro process.

It was something that was kind of um discussed uh for a while.

And um yeah, you know, I think as part of that process, there was, I think um, you know, I I I could make a lot of assumptions, and I probably shouldn't make assumptions about kind of what was what was discussed at that time in terms of the assumptions about growth here in the city.

I think maybe um there were some assumptions that, you know, um anyway, I I think uh the HNA process in a general sense um, you know, wasn't really um standardized, I think uh is probably the easiest way to say it until fairly recently.

Um so cities could kind of try to um you know land at a number that just kind of worked for them for whatever they were planning to do anyway, a lot of the time.

And I I will stop generalizing after saying that.

I think um yeah, I think for a lot of cities though, there were um, you know, sort of uh basically the way it would work, PSU would come up with a number, the population research center would come up with a number for the entire metro area, then Metro would talk to all the different jurisdictions about you know how they think you know it should be allocated.

And so you know, when they talk to Lake Aswego, um staff at the time, you know, thought that we would have a low growth rate at that point.

Um and that was pretty, you know, a good amount of time before 2023.

I think that conversation was like in 2018 or something like that.

It was well before um the actual HA was produced.

Um, so it's interesting to think about how that all took place, but it was before the standardization of the process happened at the statewide level and uh that standardization of the process, I think results in more sort of of a consistent outcomes between jurisdictions.

Well, and I would just add very quickly, I won't go into a lot of the detail, but the methodology, the current methodology where we it's two and a half times the amount.

Um they it counts for underproduction because we've had an historic underproduction of housing, so kind of a backlog of not producing enough housing, plus considering homelessness and some other factors.

And so they came up with this metro region wide number, and then they had a calculation in terms of how they allocated it to each city.

So it's really looking at at housing need from a broader perspective, whereas before we were just looking at the needs of Lake Offs we go based on our population growth.

So it was a much simpler approach.

And now the the state is is um is allocating it um on a regional basis and um yeah, and and and and accounting for underproduction um for the housing that hasn't been built when you know during the um Great Recession, um, which is when we started really underproducing housing, um, which has been going on for years now.

So that's why we have these big numbers.

And then on top of that, they also um front-loaded um the uh earlier numbers.

So we will have a higher um allocations at the beginning of the 20-year period and then towards the end to again try to catch up on the underproduction.

But again, uh you can put whatever number you want out there, but the market is really what is the biggest driver of what is being built.

So I'm very curious how this is all going to play out.

Thank you, Jessica.

Um, I see uh Commissioner Guinea patiently.

Thanks.

Yeah, what one of the things that I think about when you would it uh encourage us to think big, and then as we're talking to our friends and neighbors about thinking big too, um we want to stay out of the penalty box because like the conversation last couple minutes has been about what could the state do, you know, and and it it's probably more likely than withholding money that the state would come into communities in the penalty box for some time and say, okay, uh, you know, we're going to you know reduce local control, and if there's a plan for a particular type of housing in a particular type of zoning, we're gonna speed up um land use hearings and things like that.

And and sort of if you look at how the uh Project Turnkey motel shelters um were able to be uh cited with almost no community input or opposition and all of that kind of stuff.

It's like, hey, hey, friends and neighbors, like we want to continue to to build housing here uh the the way we want it and the way the character of like Oswego wants it, and let's keep keep that going before the state comes in and says, okay, now you have to put a five plex over here because of something else.

So just yeah, more speculation, but but but more to come on that.

Yeah, those model codes, I think Jessica's really um correct when she says that you know, those are likely to be kind of where cities, you know, the the likely recourse, you know.

I think even with the Senate Bill 1537 mandatory adjustments, you know, when you know, there's a lot of um maybe I'm maybe I'm kind of complaining things right now, but there's a lot of requirements that are passed by the state where you know basically what happened was if you don't pass this, if you if you don't pass your own thing, then you have to go with the model code.

And that was that's kind of been the state's um, you know, sort of regulatory framework under this new housing system for the last few years.

So I would not be surprised if that's kind of the recourse um for for this.

But uh yeah, I I don't think it's like a one-size-fits-all thing, though, necessarily either.

Um think that's a little bit more nuanced when it comes to the um the housing production strategy, because those are all so different and have like you know their own unique collection of strategies.

But um, but yeah, something like the code audit, for instance.

If they found that the code audit um, you know, didn't result in a you know successful um sort of reduction of barriers to housing, then they they might say, here's a model code that you should implement instead or something along those lines.

Thank you.

Do we have any further comments or questions?

All right, thank you, Ms.

Joelson, for the presentation to us.

Very insightful and especially thinking about the work we're doing uh with the foothills redevelopment and making sure that we're uh planning adequately for housing with uh with that particularly large piece of land for redevelopment is important.

Moving on to item eight, other business.

Hearing none, uh, let's move on to item number nine schedule review.

I'll keep it quick.

Um, our next meeting will be on March Ninth, and that will be another uh sort of uh work plan review based on recent council goal setting.

So um I think you know, I'll do my best to uh you know, kind of summarize what council goal setting um you know, sort of resulted in from last weekend for you all by that time, and we will talk about a Planning Commission work plan for 2026 to fulfill those goals.

And um, at our meeting on March twenty-third, um, we will continue our discussion about foothills, particularly with respect to um sort of continuing our conversation on opportunities and constraints, but transitioning a lot more into a vision conversation and goal setting conversation for the area.

So something that we're also going to be doing with the city council, but um, it's uh conversation we're having with lots of different sort of um uh you know components of our community and and residents here in Lake Aswego um at this phase of the project.

So I wanted to get um of course input from the planning commission as well.

So that's for our uh meeting on March twenty third.

Um so yeah, that's just uh a brief kind of um summary through the next month.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Um with that, we will adjourn the meeting of the planning commission.

Thank you all, and have a great night.