A state land use policy board agreed to tweak the rules of a 10-year-old affordable housing experiment that should help lift a 450-home development in northeast Redmond off the ground.
Utilities are set and new streets will be paved this spring at a 40-acre site in northwest Redmond, slated to become a new community called Northpoint Vista. But much of the home building has been held stagnant by lack of state funds for affordable housing. After a petition from the City of Redmond, the Department of Land Conservation and Development will allow developers to build a larger portion of market-rate housing before building those restricted to lower incomes, clearing the way for construction to begin sooner.
It’s the latest change to the Affordable Housing Pilot Program created in 2016 to test whether loosening urban growth boundary restrictions could be a tool to combat the state’s housing crisis.
“Providing the City this flexibility helps ensure we can deliver on building a quality mixed-income neighborhood,” Redmond Mayor Ed Fitch said in the press release.
A March 6 press release said Gov. Tina Kotek’s office and nine state agencies identified the rule change as a way to increase housing production. It was ultimately approved by the Land Conservation and Development Commission, the policy board for the state’s land use agency.
According to the City, the state’s main funding source for affordable housing is tied up until 2027, and waiting on the funds would delay construction of multifamily affordable homes — and the rest of the development — by several years.
Northpoint Vista location
At Northpoint Vista, developers are required to have at least 30% of the homes be restricted for people making less than 80% of the area median income, or about $84,000 in Redmond. They also required developers to build those homes at the same pace as the ones not restricted by income, or before the second half of market-rate homes.
Under the new rule, developers can build 85% of market rate housing before completing the affordable housing.
“We’re still very committed to affordable housing,” Linda Cline, a housing program analyst for the City, told the Source.
Lynne McConnell, executive director with Housing Works, the local housing authority, told the Source the state has more than $1 billion in affordable housing funding requests, and a single developer can only apply for two projects at a time. Next in the application queue is the 132 affordable rental units Housing Works plans to build at Northpoint Vista. But even then, it’s uncertain when the funding will come through, McConnell said.
“The cost of developing a multifamily building is too high for the rents we are able to collect at affordable rates, so we need ‘gap’ financing from the state or other sources in order to move forward,” McConnell said in an email.
According to Cline, another affordable housing developer, Rooted Homes, is building affordable homes for purchase.
For market rate units, Redmond is in talks with Bend-based regional builder Pahlisch Homes to build the single-family portion, and Boise-based deChase Miksis for the multifamily portion. A spokesperson for Pahlisch said the company plans to start construction in 2027 at the earliest.
Local elected officials, developers and housing advocates have touted urban growth boundary carveouts as a creative solution for boosting supply, while some local land use watchdogs say it’s less sustainable growth and a step toward suburban sprawl.
Led by Kotek, then speaker of the house, the legislature passed HB 4079 in 2016, creating a pilot program for one bigger city and one smaller city to add land to their urban growth boundaries without going through the lengthy planning process normally required, in exchange for mandatory affordable housing mandates. Bend and Redmond were the only applicants. Both qualified as larger cities, and the program was awarded to Bend. But a few years later the legislature passed another bill — HB 2336 — to allow Redmond to participate.
The first results of the affordable housing program surfaced last year when Bend broke ground on a 350-home development in east Bend just south of U.S. Highway 20 called Parkside Place, with homes hitting the market below $500,000 as the city’s median home price hovers above $700,000.
The legislature passed a third urban growth expansion bill in 2024, allowing cities to expedite a 100-acre land addition for the same percentage of affordable housing. Bend is in the process of using the bill to add land for 700 new homes in the southeast part of the city.
According to a state housing needs analysis, Redmond will need more than 10,000 new homes in the next 20 years to keep up with growth and historic underproduction. Nearly 4,400 of those will need to be restricted to 80% area median income earners and below.
Meanwhile, the state is looking to close the gap on aggressive housing goals, of which it’s fallen short in the last few years.
Home building will begin at Northpoint Vista in the shadow of what could be a much larger eastward expansion in Redmond. Fitch recently told the Source he hopes the legislature will provide a special exception for the City to bring in nearly 1,300 acres for housing, parks, schools and businesses.
Special urban growth boundary legislation has allowed Bend to add about 400 acres of land over the last decade outside of the traditional planning process, teeing up thousands of new units.
This article appears in the Source March 26, 2026.
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There’s your problem right there; the people most in need of affordable housing aren’t at the household income of 80% of $84,164 ($67,331.20), which is $32.37 per hour (or two incomes at $16.19 per hour). Most of the folks needing homes are the single people (classified as “Non Families”), especially single parents, where the median annual wage is $55,963 (or $26.21 per hour). I can guarantee that the local non-commuters are not making $26.21 per hour, and their housing is getting eaten up by people fleeing Bend as outsiders flood into the region. No bank or non-bank lender is going to underwrite a loan to a single person making $19.00 per hour. So for whom are those homes being built? It sure as hell isn’t for the people who already live there.