Residential Infill Project Update - More townhomes, Six-Plexes, and Other High-Density Housing

Last week, the Portland City Council unanimously approved updates to the city’s Residential Infill Project, allowing more types of housing to be built on lots originally zoned for one home and setting new rules for building configuration and maximum size.

The original bill passed in 2019 effectively ended single-family zoning in large Oregon cities, allowing duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, and “cottage clusters” to be built on parcels previously reserved for single-family houses in cities with more than 25,000 residents and allowing duplexes in single-family zones as in cities with at least 10,000 residents.

“It’s not adequate to our current housing shortage and displacement problems, but it’ll make these problems easier to solve both in the short and long term,” Michael Andersen, a senior researcher with the sustainability think tank Sightline Institute, tells The Oregonian. “It’s not going to make homelessness disappear in 2023, but it is going to reduce homelessness in 2050. And it’ll make all of our problems less difficult in 2022.”

Residential Infill Project Updates Effective July 1st

Developers can build:

• High-density multifamily housing — such as two, four or six-unit plexes — in a single structure
• Cottage clusters, or multiple small homes that share a common outdoor space
• Townhomes, or separate, often multi-story homes that share a structure with other units

Read more of The Oregonian's coverage at OregonLive.com.