Foothills Urban Renewal Goes Down, Lake Oswego Affordable Housing Funding with It.

Despite a motion from new Councilman Gustafson to table the resolution to repeal the Foothills Urban Renewal Area and Plan, the new Council was determined to kill it and it was killed by a vote of 4 to 2 (would have been 5 to 2 if the Mayor was in town; Councilwoman Jordan was the other vote to table the motion). This means that $6.5 million in TIF funding for affordable housing in Lake Oswego is lost.

I very much appreciated support letters from Oregon ON and Enterprise to keep the renewal area and plan in place; my written testimony is HERE.  The Chamber of Commerce and School District also testified in support of keeping the Foothills Urban Renewal area and plan, but to no avail.

In addition to my oral testimony, Pegge McGuire of the Fair Housing Council of Oregon also testified in person and sat through the nearly 4 hour session.

I will be working to provide Metro with information about Lake Oswego's rejection of affordable housing funding, which should be a factor in evaluating LO applications for competitive regional grants including construction excise funding and discretionary transportation funding.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.