Oregon homes are selling for higher and higher prices. While many will say it’s the fault of out-of-state people willing to buy high, and others will say it’s the fault of building material prices going up, what everyone can agree on is that there aren’t enough affordable houses for everyone who wants to live here.
In the Portland area, the rules of home building have been modified to allow for more expansive living.
Since Aug. 1, 2020, Portland has been allowing homeowners to build two smaller dwellings as part of a typical city lot. One of these added dwellings would likely be a recreation of underused space within the original home — something akin to a separate entrance to back rooms with a small kitchenette space included. The second added dwelling would then be a standalone tiny house style structure on the grounds known as an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU).
The goal is to offer low-cost housing within the city limits, although there is also the benefit of allowing the homeowner to make income from their property. Another benefit, of course, is keeping jobs and therefore income tax revenue within Portland.
The ability to build secondary housing on your property has been legal in Portland since 1996. In 2017, Senate Bill 1051 expanded that right to everywhere in the state.
What is Corvallis Doing About It?
According to Corvallis’s Community Development Director Paul Bilotta, there are things happening — both short-term and long-term — to address the housing shortage in the city.
To begin with, many residential areas already do allow more than one home on a lot, albeit generally in low-density zones. The city has been working in low-density areas to “revamp” by providing “a wide range of middle housing options such as townhomes, duplexes, triplexes, cottage clusters, etc. in areas that had previously been reserved for only one single family home per lot.” Standards for ADUs — also known as Mother-in-Law units — have been relaxed, which “led to a doubling of the number of ADUs developed in the city.”
Last year, Corvallis modified regulations concerning vehicle living. While manufactured homes can be added to a residential lot, living in an RV is still restricted to non-residential zones. Although, most of the wording concerning permits to park an RV on someone’s land for an extended period of time relate directly to the care of someone in medical crisis, and the vehicle must meet sanitary sewer and water requirements.
A microshelter program was created by Corvallis in order to transition houseless people into housing funded by the city. Microshelters can be seen at Safe Camp — the refuge set up on the grounds of First Congregational United Church on West Hills Rd., at First United Methodist on Monroe Ave., and at Corvallis Evangelical on Kings Blvd. Additional sites for microshelters are in the works, although most seem to be on church properties. In the cases where a person becomes houseless but has access to an RV, they can legally live in the areas set up for microshelters provided they have permission from the owner of the land.
To pay for more affordable housing, the city has a tax called the Affordable Housing Construction Excise Tax which charges 1% of the improvement value on residential construction and 1.5% on commercial and industrial construction. “This year, it is being used to create 11 affordable home ownership units that will maintain permanent affordability through the use of a Community Land Trust.”
The Future of Corvallis Development
Changes to the Mixed Use Zoning were initiated in July of 2019 and are expected to be completed soon. The goal is to mix residential and non-residential use in some areas in an effort to better use space in Central Business, Central Business Fringe, and Riverfront zones. In South Corvallis, the city is looking at an urban renewal plan “to incentivize more affordable housing creation.” The first housing projects from this plan should begin building in the next year or two.
In June of 2019, a report about Corvallis land development was written to determine what barriers lay in the way of affordable and available housing creation. In Phase 1 of this process, land was divided into parcels by what it would be used for. For Phase 2, the city will need to determine block perimeter — the size of a standard city block — to “ensure that the layouts for new developments facilitate access between properties and support non-motorized transportation choices like walking and bicycling.” Bilotta said that block perimeter is the largest barrier identified by the committee. In Phase 3, the city will discuss pedestrian oriented design standards.
One significant issue for new development in Corvallis is that there is a lack of “usable vacant high density residential land” which will require a series of rezoning actions to take place. One solution has been annexation of nearby lands, although the amount of land available for this process has decreased. The annexation of the land known as Marys Annexation at the northeast corner of 53rd St. and West Hills Rd., which added approximately 118 acres to the city, adds a great deal of room for housing while leaving room for protected natural areas.
Preferably, these prime pieces of usable and vacant land will be distributed throughout the different sections of the city. One such area is 53rd Flats, a 100–unit affordable apartment project which will begin construction soon through Commonwealth Development. The city of Corvallis has “created financial incentives and code incentives for affordable housing production.”
Incentives to Build
The incentives come in the form of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds provided through the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Other funds for development will come from the Affordable Housing Construction Excise Tax approved in 2016. For more information on these funds, go to the City of Corvallis CDBG Program webpage.
Recently, a Request For Proposal for the 2022-2023 fiscal year was issued to use some of these CDBG and HUD funds with the caveat that “these funds must provide a direct benefit to low, very low and/or extremely low income people.” All RFP’s must adhere to the Corvallis Consolidated Plan, which “has established goals for both the creation and retention of renter and owner housing opportunities that are affordable to low income households.”
As far as code incentives go, Corvallis leans on reduced parking requirements for affordable houses and more ADUs. According to Bilotta, the number of ADUs in Corvallis has doubled in the pandemic, leaving him to hope that as things return to normal, the number of units built within a year will go even higher.
One last place to begin to scout out added dwellings is the upper floors of downtown businesses. Bilotta said, “Businesses in the downtown are not only allowed, but encouraged to build multi-family housing above their retail space.”
He cites as an example of this the Julian Hotel project which modified the historic building into affordable apartments. The success of that project led to Corvallis hiring one of the key employees of DevNW — who were responsible for the project — in March.
Building permits run the gamut from single-family homes and ADUs to duplexes and other multi-family units. Corvallis has seen building bursts in the mid-’70s and early 2000s, but currently there is a bit of a lull in the number of permits being requested due to the lack of space in which to build. However, the number of permits in the last couple of years have been nearly evenly divided between single-family and multi-family homes.
The end goal is to provide housing for everyone who wants to live in the city of Corvallis.
“Corvallis,” Bilotta said, “has a number of short-term and long-term initiatives underway to ease the effects of the statewide housing shortage.”
By Sally K Lehman
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