Video from Lake Oswego Council Meeting Terminating Foothills Urban Renewal, Including Affordable Housing Funding.

My prior post on the repeal is HERE; video I created and posted to the Internet Archive is HERE and embedded below. [My testimony is at 1:08:50 and the testimony of Pegge McGuire is at 1:33:02].

(Post with video of prior Council approval of Foothills Urban Renewal Plan and Area, from December 4, 2012, is HERE).



Note that file can be viewed on line or downloaded, but that download size is VERY large at 1.7 GB's.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Disconnect in Oregonian Stories on Housing Choice and Foothills.

Last summer the Oregonian did an extensive "Locked Out" series of stories about housing choice, including the absence of housing choice in Lake Oswego and West Linn. 

It was troubling therefore for me to read the only Oregonian story to date on the killing of the Foothills Urban renewal district last Tuesday. The district funding included $6.5 million for affordable housing in Foothills, the first ever local affordable housing funding ever approved by the city of Lake Oswego. The story did not even mention the loss of funding for affordable housing in the Foothills district let alone include any reaction from affordable housing /fair housing advocates.  

I get that the Oregonian story was produced by a reporter in a suburban/neighborhood beat and the Oregonian Locked Out series was produced by the main Oregonian staff.  

While I suppose it is reassuring that the Oregonian has the same "silo" disconnect problems as any large institution, the failure to take note of the significance of Lake Oswego affordable funding last December and the killing of affordable housing funding last week is troubling to me.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

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.

Lake Oswego City Council Moving to Kill Foothills Urban Renewal, Including Affordable Housing Funding.

The Lake Oswego City Council has scheduled a hearing next Tuesday February 5th that includes an agenda item to kill the Foothills Urban Renewal Plan and Foothills Urban Renewal area. 

The existing plan and area had been approved by the prior  City Council on December 18th and included $6.5 million in TIF funding for affordable housing.  (My latest post about that meeting, which includes a link to my December 4th testimony, can be found HERE).

Full materials for the meeting have not yet been posted, but they should be added soon to the web page for the meeting that can be found HERE. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog. 

Lake Oswego City Council Does the Right Thing: Approves Foothills Urban Renewal Plan With $6.5 Million in TIF for Affordable Housing.

By a 4-3 vote the Lake Oswego City Council on Tuesday night adopted an Urban Renewal Plan for Foothills that includes a $6.5 million TIF authorization for affordable housing; this occurred at the end of a continuation of a public hearing that started at the December 4th Council meeting.

While modest given the community wide need and the projected $574 million as completed assessed value of the Foothills project, this committment :

• Is the first ever LO local commitment of (future) funds for affordable housing;  
• Is equivalent to 8.75 times the Clackamas County 2012 HUD HOME allocation of $743k.

The City Council action caps a year long effort that was only successful because of the support of members of the City Council, the Planning Commission, dedicated work from City staff and their consultants, and repeated testimony and support of multiple non profit groups and local citizens. [I count in excess of 10 Foothills meetings in the last year].

My testimony for the December 4th public hearing is HERE; similar testimony was presented by Enterprise Community Partners, NW Housing Alternatives, NOAH, the Fair Housing Council of Oregon, Housing Development Center, and Housing Land Advocates.

Video from Dec. 4th Meeting
During the first City Council meeting on December 4th, I offered oral testimony as did Martha Mclennan from NW Housing. Martha and Michelle Haines from REACH have attended several Foothills related City Council sessions and I very much appreciate their in-person participation.

I have loaded a VERY large video of December 4th public hearing to Internet Archive HERE and embedded it also below. Public testimony starts at 11:50; my testimony and Martha's start at 35:47. You can either view this video on line or download it (1.2GB!).

In a day or so you should be able to view the Dec 18th City Council meeting video on line from the cable access website HERE.

 

For their support this past year I want to specifically recognize these individuals and organizations:

Mayor/City Council 
Mayor Jack Hoffman
Counselor Tierney 
Counselor Moncrief  
Counselor Jordan

Lake Oswego Planning Commission

City Staff and Consultants
Brant Williams
Jane Blackstone
Sin Sidaro
Denny Egner
Sara Selden

Elaine Howard; Elaine Howard Consulting, LLC
Abe Farkas, Nick Popenuk; ECONorthwest
Christe White, Matt Brown; Williams, Dame, and White
John Warner, Bluetree Strategies

Housing Non Profits
Pegge McGuire, Fair Housing Council of Oregon
Bill Van Vliet and Rob Prasch, Network of Affordable Housing
Amanda Saul, Enterprise Community Partners
Robin Boyce and Cathey Briggs, Housing Development Center
John Miller, Oregon Opportunity Network
Martha McClennan, Northwest Housing Association
Ellen Johnson, Rebecca Kennedy, Christopher Marin, Jenny Logan; Housing Land Advocates
Michelle Haines and Dee Walsh; REACH

LO Citizens
Tom Brennan, 50+ Board Chair, CAC Member
Scott Bullard, Board member, Northwest Housing Association
Michelle Haines (REACH Housing Development Director)

I am worried that despite my best efforts, I may have forgotten someone; if so PLEASE bring to my attention and I will update the listing in this post. 

The Future; Foothills Benefits Far Exceed 6 Cents a Year Average Annual Cost to LO Homeowner
The changes in Lake Oswego City Council membership effective in January 2013 will no doubt cause a reexamination of the Foothills Plan. As a Lake Oswego resident I am confident that a fair review of the plan will find the benefits from the projects included in the plan (including affordable housing) FAR exceed the costs.

The Benefits:

• 9,000 years of income restricted affordable housing.
• Physical benefits include additional parking, street improvements, a new pedestrian plaza, and significantly better access to Foothills Park and the river.
• Financial benefits include a 10% increase in city wide assessed values and a 4500%+ increase from current Foothills property tax revenue; a $35 million in increased property tax revenue that will be SHARED with taxing districts during the UR Plan; and a $7.6+ million annual increase in property tax revenue after the plan is completed. 

The Costs: An Average of 6 Cents a Year.

• For a LO home with an assessed value of $250,000 the projected cost impact is an average of 6 cents a year during the life of the urban renewal plan. 

The administrative record of the last year is replete with testimony and data on the need for affordable housing in Lake Oswego and the feasibility of financing that future housing without any impact on current property tax revenues.

Sustaining Progress From This Year Will Require Others to Step Up Monitoring in the Coming Months/Years
I will continue to work to try to occasionally monitor Foothills progress but won't be able to make the same time intensive commitment as I did during the past year.

I  am looking to others to monitor planned meetings of the LO City Council, LO Planning Commission, and LO Redevelopment Agency and to alert me so that I can publish related information on the blog. 

Thanks again to all that participated in this important year long effort.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Update: Video+Audio: LO Foothills Framework Plan Inches Forward, No Changes to Affordable Housing Action Plan Items.

Update: I have added a smaller MP3 Audio File (88 MB's) in a new Internet Archive web page HERE. You can listen online or download this file from this web page.
--------------

Local Oregonian reporter story is HERE.

MS Word notes of my oral testimony provided to Council at meeting are HERE.

Council did not adopt any of my recommendations for changes/ additions to affordable housing Framework plan action items. My point about significant projected increases in land costs providing a potential source of private funding for affordable housing seemed to be lost on the Council, but I will continue to follow up on that issue, along with my other recommendations.

Extended 30 minute affordable housing discussion focused on costs of affordable housing, what "is" affordable housing, and consultant view that building TIF funding would take 10 years and require local political will/decision on what role LO wanted to play in providing affordable housing. (No discussion about Metro/state/federal legal obligations for doing so). Was some acknowledgement that "incremental" affordable housing actions could be taken before year 10. By far this was longest affordable housing discussion at City Council since 2005 Housing Task Force.

Video
I created a Iphone/Apple compatible video of entire 2 hour Foothills City Council discussion and posted it on the Internet Archive HERE. My short testimony occurs at 30:30 into video and a 30 minute plus affordable housing discussion starts at 1:03:30 into video. 

Video file can be viewed online or downloaded, but if you download, note that file is VERY large at 700 MB's. (On line viewing of video takes a moment or two to start. File loaded readily using Internet Explorer or Chrome browsers but I had some difficulty in getting it to load for online viewing using Firefox or Safari).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Foothills: Current and Projected Land Values Need More Transparency and Updating.

In looking through Foothills related materials it occurred to me that there was little or no data to show 

1. Current land values.
2. How land values were projected to change.  

Significantly increased land values resulting from formation of an urban renewal district and zoning changes could provide a private source of financing for affordable housing (instead of just relying on public subsidies). It seems therefore important for the public and decision makers to know how much the value of land is projected to change as a result of these discretionary city actions.

The PDF document HERE includes my calculation that there has been a 19% DECLINE in RMV land values for 5 properties in Phase 1A of the Foothills Plan from the RMV land values  shown for those properties in prior Framework Plan Appendix B-1. (I do not see ANY discussion about RMV land changes/declines in the Revised Framework Plan from the RMV's land values found in the original Framework Plan and there are no proposed changes to update the data in Appendix B-1).

In this PDF document you will also see MY calculation using data from a April 2012 Johnson Reid market assumptions memo that would result in an estimate of future land value at more than $4 million per acre IF land were developed as 

1. Market rate apartments at $2 a sq. ft 
2. Using Type V podium construction.

To be clear, I do NOT believe this is an accurate number, but the graph in page 4 of the assumptions memo DOES indicate a residual land value of $110 per sq.ft using these two market assumptions (and there are 43,560 sq ft in an acre). Also, there is simply NO OTHER public estimate anywhere that shows a projected per acre value for land developed as apartments using the market assumptions from this memo.

Valuation issues were/are a big problem at the Lake Oswego purchased West End Building and getting clarity about current and projected land values would be a very prudent step. In the last page of the PDF I make several recommendations to increase land value transparency  and also include several IMPORTANT caveats about these preliminary land value estimates and calculations.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Correction/Update: Lake Oswego City Council Gets Comp Plan Housing Policies Next, Following Planning Commission Changes and Approval.

Correction/Update: 
My sincere apologies, I overlooked support letter from REACH and have added them in listing below: 
---------
I attended Lake Oswego Planning Commission meeting on Monday night. With a couple of other agenda items, and then the public hearing and vote on housing Comp plan policies, the meeting had lasted for four hours, and was continuing, when I left.

The seven housing affordability policies were approved by 5-1 vote with some modifications from the CAC recommendations. Policies now move on to City Council for consideration, then will be returned to CAC and Planning Commission and back again to City Council for inclusion in April 2013 submission to the state. (I'm seeing a Portlandia episode here, but it will have to be a multi part show).

Thanks to the 4 non profits who took the time to write letters of support for the housing affordability policies:

• Enterprise
• Oregon Housing Preservation Project
• Oregon ON
• Northwest Housing Alternatives
• REACH

Policy C.1 language on goals was changed from "setting and achieve measurable goals" [with 5 year interim targets] to planning staff idea for 10 year goals with 5 year targets. Revised language will read something like 

"Set broad ten and twenty‐year goals for the production of affordable housing units in Lake Oswego, along with specific five‐year targets based on near‐term conditions and resource availability".

Policy C.4 Setting of minimum percentage of affordable housing in urban renewal zones had NO substantive  changes. Policy reads: 

Work with the Lake Oswego Redevelopment Agency to establish strategies and minimum target percentages of affordable housing units as part of Lake Oswego urban renewal plans. Tailor customized strategies for each plan to reflect the citywide targets required to accomplish affordable housing goals.

Policy C. 5 (No Net loss of affordable housing) was narrowed to focus on government assisted housing [My recommendation].

Policy C. 6 (Partnering with other agencies) was changed from "Partner" to "Participate"

Testimony at the hearing by others included lack of notice and limited time to reply, opposition to "density" and a belief that LO was trying to establish a city level Housing Authority. During my testimony I responded to Commissioner question to say that was not the intent, and pointed out the Housing Authority of Clackamas County was Oregon's oldest housing authority. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Repost: $395 Million in Government Assisted Loans in Lake Oswego, CY 2010; 1 in 6 Homeowners with Mortgage Received Government Assisted Home Loan.

In case some of my readers may have missed this post from earlier this year, check out the post HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Exclusive: Revised Drafts of Lake Oswego Foothills Sources and Uses and Financial Feasibility Analysis.

At the Foothills Oversight Committee meeting on Thursday, the members of the committee were presented for the first time with revised DRAFTS of a sources and uses statement and the financial feasibility analysis for the Lake Oswego Foothills redevelopment plan.  

I attended the meeting and my understanding is that some figures in the sources and uses table may not agree with the financial analysis document, so when the FINAL financial feasibility analysis is posted prior to the City Council meeting on July 10th, I expect to see some changes to the financial feasibility analysis presented at the Thursday Oversight Committee meeting.  That post may not occur until sometime next week.

With the caveat that this is still a DRAFT,(but still the only feasibility analysis update available since April) I have scanned these two documents into a single PDF file HERE. 

(Revised draft affordable housing language for the Foothills Framework Plan report was also presented at this meeting for the first time, but still lacked specific action items; I will address the Framework Plan affordable housing sections once I see a final version). 

The revised affordable housing language, the sources and uses statement, and the financial feasibility analysis were not available to the Foothills CAC members at their meeting on June 21, 2012.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Lake Oswego Housing Comp Plan Docs Posted for July 9 Planning Commission Public Hearing on Housing Policies.

Agenda, and document package for PC public hearing on housing policies is HERE, and includes revised housing needs analysis. 

I will be studying over next several days to see changes from earlier drafts. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Ironically, Hollyfield Village Lake Oswego Affordable Housing Story Ran 30 Years Ago Friday in Oregonian.

Text of June 22, 1982 story (via Multnomah County library) ,reporting June 15, 1982 Council action, is pasted below as an image:

Click to Enlarge

BTW....The Dow Jones closed that day at 789.85.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

New Lake Oswego Foothills Framework Plan and Affordable Housing, Three Strikes: No Action Items, No Unit Commitment, No Financial Commitment.

LO has published HERE the draft Revised Foothills Framework Plan for review by the Foothills Citizen Advisory Commission [CAC] for a Thursday June 21st meeting.

Following a Foothills Oversight Committee meeting on June 28th, the LO City Council is scheduled to act on this plan on Tuesday July 10th.

The draft revised plan, for the first time, includes an affordable housing section; that's pretty much where the Foothills affordable housing good news ends.

The draft revised plan contains no affordable housing action items, no affordable housing unit goals, and no affordable housing financial commitment.  This is especially disappointing given that a recent front page Oregonian story pointed out that Lake Oswego (and West Linn) had virtually no affordable government assisted rentals and had long delayed implementing prior affordable housing recommendations and production targets. 

Because of these omissions and because the Foothills Plan would increase the total Lake Oswego rental housing stock by 27%, the questions I asked previously remain relevant today: 

• If not Foothills , Where? 
• If not Now, When? 

My detailed comments sent to the City for transmittal to the CAC prior to the meeting are HERE. 

In the absence of any affordable housing production goals in the Framework Plan I constructed a table on the last page of my comments. It shows an estimated number of  affordable rental units by phase at the 60% and 80% median family income levels using the current LO housing needs analysis that indicates that 35% of LO rental housing need is below 60% MFI, and 10% is between 60-80% MFI.

I am hopeful that the Foothills CAC will be as responsive to improvements as has the Lake Oswego Comp Plan CAC, and will be attending the Thursday meeting to try to assist in that process.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.





 

Lake Oswego Affordable Housing Related Meeting Dates Keep Slipping.

Housing Comp Plan Changes

The Planning Commission was supposed to review Citizen Advisory Committee housing comp plan recommendations on June 25th, but the agenda for that meeting no longer includes housing comp plan policies as an agenda item. The next scheduled date for the Planning Commission is July 9th. 

There is still not posted for public review a final version of the May 23, 2012 CAC approved housing comp plan recommendations, or a revision to the draft May 2011 Housing Needs Analysis (My Feb 2012 doc HERE pointed out a number of significant problems with the May 2011 Draft CNA). 

The next CAC meeting is scheduled for June 27th (Materials for that meeting are now promised by June 22nd).

Foothills

The Foothills Citizen Advisory Committee meetings for June 7th and then June 14th were cancelled, and the Foothills CAC meeting is now scheduled for June 21st.  

The June 14th Foothills Oversight Committee meeting previously scheduled for June 7th and June 14th has yet to be rescheduled. 

The Lake Oswego City Council meeting on the revised Foothills Framework Plan is now scheduled for July 10th.

The revised Foothills Framework Plan has yet to be posted for public review. (The prior version, without appendices, was close to 200 pages).

The LO Community Calendar HERE is a central place to keep track of Lake Oswego meeting times and places. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Lake Oswego/West Linn and Metro Council Make Oregonian Front Page for Exclusion of Affordable Housing, Multiple Planning Failures.

Tuesday June 5th Lake Oswego/ West Linn Portland Metro Council front page story is HERE; link to all four stories in series, and background materials, is HERE.

Snip of front page is to the left and PDF of front page is HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

4 Day Series of Stories on Metro Portland Location of Affordable Housing /Fair Housing Begins in Sunday Oregonian.

PDF of full front page of Sunday Oregonian is HERE with snip of above the fold pasted to the left. 

Initial story in 4 day scheduled "Locked Out" series of stories is now posted on Oregonian website HERE.    

Their web page HERE also has links to all stories in the series, scheduled to run through Wednesday (4 currently posted):

Part 1, Failure to support Fair Housing Act leads to subsidized segregation
Part 2, Portland’s Section 8 clients are shifted east of 82nd
Part 3, Low-cost housing shut out amid riches of Lake Oswego and West Linn
Part 4, Homebuilders block efforts by Washington County leaders to include affordable housing

I will likely have comments once I get a chance to read and fully digest stories, and also look at print copy of the Sunday Oregonian. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog. 

Lake Oswego Review Story on City Council Advancement of Revised Foothills Proposal and Missing Affordable Housing Component.

Story is HERE. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Lake Oswego Foothills Streaming Video now Posted; My Timeline for Key Affordable Housing Discussion Items.

Streaming video of April 24, 2012 Lake Oswego City Council meeting that included Foothills redevelopment (and affordable housing) is available on line HERE: 
mms://208.71.205.11/TRMSVOD/8185-1LOCC042412.wmv


[If link about does not work when you click, copy and paste URL link into your browser to open the video file]

Foothills portion runs for 1 hours 59 minutes; entire video is 3 hours and 43 minutes.

Affordable Housing Key Bits and Video Start Times
My quick bullet descriptions below have start times when key affordable housing discussion items began (times are from start of video in hours:minutes:seconds). Use slider at bottom of your media player to advance to start time shown. 


Combined together, the affordable housing discussions are probably in 10-15 minute range. 

I encourage you to watch/listen for yourself instead of relying just on my quick bullet descriptions below.

00:21:40+ Mayor Hoffman asks about feasibility of regional funding included as funding source.

00:29:55+ Councilwoman Mocreif asks whether federal funding for transportation has affordable housing requirements. LO Economic Development Director Williams says generally no....

00:31:30+ ...Councilwoman Jordan adds that social equity is now a key element for federal funding and including affordable housing may be a step toward getting funding in a competitive process.  She also indicates she was surprised to learn that policy requiring affordable housing in urban renewal areas has not been implemented and says that city needs to determine how they are going to incorporate affordable housing if proposal moves forward. 

00:58:20+ Councilwoman Olsen returns to affordable housing discussion and asks for WDW response about inclusion of affordable housing; LO Economic Development Director Williams indicates that up to now LO has provided no policy guidance to developer and there is no affordable housing requirement in existing predevelopment agreement, developer has indicated they would look at affordable housing if city adopts as policy; CouncilmanTierney indicates there are two things that need to be included in refinement of direction if proposal moves forward: affordable housing and small office space with increased parking; WDW offers view of cost of Block 49 housing financing in Portland.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Lake Oswego City Council Foothills Meeting Summary; Thanks to Three Non Profits Who Submitted Comments.

Three Non Profits Submitted Pre Meeting Comments to the City Council on Need for Affordable Housing

Before the meeting several non profits provided comments to the City Council on the need for affordable housing as part of the Foothills development plan.

A BIG thank you to the three non profits who I am aware of who took the time to submit comments (HERE) prior to the meeting:

1. Enterprise Community Partners.
2. REACH Community Development.
3. Housing Land Advocates.

At the Meeting 

I will provide a link to the Council meeting video at a later time but below are my quick observations from the meeting.


Observations from the meeting:

1. By 4-3 members agreed to proceed with Option B.
2. There was significant discussion about affordable housing at the meeting. Members discussed whether social equity concerns/affordable housing provisions would increase the likelihood of receiving transportation funding; the need to assess costs of affordable housing in financial feasibility assessments moving forward, and the need to move forward on long delayed policy on requiring affordable housing in urban renewal districts.[There was no assertion at the meeting that statewide inclusionary zoning prevented adoption of affordable housing requirements in urban renewal districts].
3. Next steps include finalization of a pre development agreement and framework plan by mid June and (by end of year) approval of urban development district; approval of code amendments; and approval of development agreement.

Not mentioned at meeting: 

In looking at ECONorthwest financial feasibility analysis (p.2) posted late on Monday it appears to me that there is a significant difference in  the count of total housing units (2,614 units) vs what appears in table 2.2.2 of the April 19, 2012 Foothills Revision Process memo (1,594 total housing units). 

The upshot may be that my projected need of 458 affordable rental units affordable <60% MFI may be understated. I will be exploring reconciliation of the two different total unit counts with city staff in the future; 35% of total rental units affordable <60% MFI remains my goal for Foothills.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Foothills Plan Would Expand Lake Oswego Rental Housing by 25%, but Include No Affordable Family Rental Housing.

I have prepared and submitted comments for the Tuesday evening Lake Oswego City Council session that includes consideration of redevelopment alternatives for the Foothills area, sans the trolley. 

The conclusion of my comments: 

"If not Now, When?; If not Foothills, Where? "

Some key points from my detailed comments are HERE:

1. The planned new "senior" [rentals] and "apartments" in the preferred Concept B option (1,309 units) would expand the total stock of rental housing in Lake Oswego (5,283 units) by 25%.  
2. The options document prepared for City Council does not include any reference to "affordable housing".
3. The share of all new residential housing in the Concept B plan coming from senior and apartment housing increases to 82% from the 70% share in the former plan (I.E. condos represent a smaller share of residential construction in the new plan).
4. My count is that Lake Oswego has or is planning for a total of 3,257 units in their 2 Town Centers and 3 existing/planned Urban Renewal areas. There are a total of ZERO family income restricted rental housing units in those areas. 
5. The ECONorthwest financial feasibility analysis indicates $3.8 million [Option B] to $9.4 million [Option A] in funding from Federal/State/Regional sources are necessary; it is unlikely that funding will occur without any LO commitment to affordable housing.
6. In contrast to a statement made by a representative of the developers at the Nov 29, 2011 Council meeting on the former Foothills plan, the Oregon statewide ban on local inclusionary zoning requirements does NOT prevent Lake Oswego from adopting affordable housing targets in the Foothills plan. In fact the law provides a specific exemption when voluntary contracts are entered into by cities and developers that include affordable housing. There also is no requirement in that law that a city wide policy must be in place.

 Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.