State's Housing Watchdog Office Flags Redmond for 'Livability' Code Changes - The Source

A state office focused on spurring housing production is intervening in a set of code changes proposed by the City of Redmond that developers say would make development of townhomes more difficult and costly.

Redmond is the first city in the state to face this kind of enforcement from the Housing Accountability and Production Office, or HAPO, the body created by Gov. Tina Kotek and the Oregon Legislature in 2024 to help knock down regulatory barriers to housing development. That included making sure local governments are complying with ever-shifting state housing policy encouraging new types of smaller, denser housing in areas historically dominated by single-family lots. It’s one tool Kotek is using in pursuit of her goal to build 36,000 homes per year across the state, aiming to ease high housing costs and homelessness.

City councilors butted heads with the state’s objectives at a March 16 meeting.

“Our frustration is with the micromanagement by the state legislature, plain and simple,” Redmond Mayor Ed Fitch said.

As several townhome-heavy subdivisions moved through Redmond’s planning process in 2025, some City Councilors said they felt lot sizes were too small, off-street parking was inadequate and a lack of wildfire evacuation routes would leave residents out to dry. Councilors told City staff to draft a small set of code changes “primarily focused on livability,” Redmond Planning Director Kyle Roberts told the Source in an email. Among other changes, the City proposed increasing townhome alley setbacks from 5 feet to 20 feet, effectively requiring room for each unit to have two off-street parking spaces. Another change would have required developments larger than 50 units to consolidate at least 6,000 square feet of open space rather than spreading it throughout smaller pockets. Another would require alleys to be 20 feet wide instead of 16.

“This is a production killer,” Garret Mosher, a lobbyist with the Central Oregon Builders Association, told the Source. “It has a serious affordability impact on townhomes.”

Mosher said the builders’ group flagged concerns with City planners, but the two disagreed about whether the proposed code violated state law intended to accelerate middle housing. Those are townhomes, duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes — the type of density the state sees as a key tool to reach housing goals.

Because townhomes have minimum square footage requirements, longer setbacks mean fewer homes, Mosher said, so builders must charge more for each one in order to recoup costs. According to Mosher, the proposed code changes could have resulted in up to 20% fewer homes in some developments.

The builders group filed a formal complaint with the housing office, which issued a “warning notice of potential violation” to the City of Redmond.

Housing Accountability and Production Office Manager Joel Madsen told the City Council during a March 16 he hoped to act as a “collaborative partner” to the City.

“We want to be a resource to local jurisdictions and housing producers to produce more housing across the state of Oregon,” Madsen said.

The housing office’s investigation found problems both with the proposed code changes and other parts of the code not named in the complaint.

Redmond needs to build 10,251 new homes in the next 20 years — or 512 per year — across all incomes to keep up with growth, according to the Oregon Housing Needs Analysis. That report is the primary benchmark state officials are using to gauge whether cities are producing enough housing, Madsen said.

According to a state housing production dashboard, Redmond built an average of 565 homes per year from 2018 through 2023.

Oregon greased the gears for middle housing House Bill 2001, passed in 2019, along with subsequent amendments. Townhomes, duplexes, triplexes and quadplex are now allowed in any residential zone, regardless of density.

Following the changes, townhomes in Redmond could be built on smaller lots, at greater densities, and the City could only mandate one off-street parking space per unit, according to Roberts, the city planner.

Some Redmond city councilors told the state officials March 16 that they felt the push to build homes was out of balance with other goals like the desire for open space and wildfire safety.

“That doesn’t seem like a collaborative effort if we’re not taking in to consideration that not only are we responsible to increase housing production, but those houses have to be in neighborhoods, and those neighborhoods have to be livable,” City Councilor John Nielsen said during the March 16 meeting. “There does have to be a fine line beyond just producing the most houses we can.”

The Redmond City Council was set to hear a presentation on the issue April 7. Roberts told the Source his department has worked with the housing accountability office over the last several weeks and come up with a solution that he believes will work for both the state and the City Council. That includes requiring the 20-foot setback for townhouses, but making garages optional, so only one parking off-street parking space is mandated.

Still, some developers say that may not work. In a letter to the council, developer Hayden Homes encouraged the City to leave codes “flexible.”

“We are concerned that the proposed setbacks are overly prescriptive and will unnecessarily limit the production of muchneeded middle housing in Redmond,” Jenn Kovitz, community engagement and government affairs manager for the company, wrote.

This article appears in the Source April 9, 2026.