Portland's Residential Infill Project

After five years of collaboration and wrangling, the City of Portland, last week, adopted the Residential Infill Project . This is the largest overhaul of the City's planning and building codes...ever.  It is also groundbreaking nationally.  From an article published by the City of Portland, "Explained Sightline Institute’s Senior Researcher Michael Andersen, "This is the most progressive reform to low-density urban zoning in American history. Portland is going above and beyond Oregon's mandate for re-legalizing middle housing. Nonprofits will now be able to add below-market housing to any neighborhood. Middle-income Portlanders will be able to afford newly built, energy-efficient homes in walkable areas essentially by teaming up with each other to split the land costs.”"

Basically, RIP opens up the large majority of lots in the city to more, smaller units; cottages, ADU's, duplexes triplexes etc.  Projects that build in affordable housing can build more units.  It also restricts the above ground size of single family homes, from 6500 down to 2500.  

Before the passage of RIP, larger lots with multi-family zoning, were sought after by developers to build apartments and condominiums.  With most every lot being able to accommodate more units, it will be interesting to see what happens to land prices.  Many developers say construction and system development costs are fixed, leaving profit and land cost as the variables.  With smaller houses and ADA requirements, developers say they'll need to pay less for the land (cuz taking less profit isn't an option they'll choose).  

Neighborhoods and preservationists worry there will be a flood of projects in Portland's historic neighborhoods, making older homes vulnerable to demolition.  While I've not found details, the synopsis on Portland's website says that the RIP discourages demolitions and provides bonuses for the preservation of older homes.

RIP followed pretty closely behind Oregon's HB2001 which legalized development of duplexes on residential land currently zoned for single-family housing in all communities with a population of 10,000 or more.  Many worried this would effectively "ban" single family housing.  There is still plenty of single family housing being built, so this worry may have been unfounded. 

Restricting the size of new single family homes to 2500 (above ground) may well increase the value of larger homes built recently.  That is, if buyers want new(er) homes, bigger than 2500 sq ft, they may well pay a premium.

I'm excited to see more cottage developments in Portland,  There have been a few of late, offering stand alone small houses, on commonly owned property; condominium ownership, but single family.  These projects have been well received.

I expect we'll also see more folks build on their own existing lots; like an ADU, but perhaps a duplex.  Financing additional units on an owner occupied lot has always been tricky as there really isn't a bank product for that purpose.  Most owners use an equity loan on their existing home to build the new unit(s). This restricts such projects to those who have both enough equity in their home and can qualify (based on their income) for the increased payment without considering the potential income from the new unit.  Ironic that the owners who could really use the extra income from another unit on their property are exactly the folks who can't afford/qualify to do so.  I hope we'll see some new loan products.

The specific code for RIP is still in process, with implementation expected in 2021. I'm hoping to get further educated on this in the future.  For now, I probably can't answer your questions about RIP, but would be glad to chat about