Bend has a housing problem—or, more precisely, with rental vacancy rates less than half a percent, an affordable housing shortage.
And some city leaders believe that loosening up the Urban Growth Boundary could provide some relief from that chokehold. It is a basic theory that makes sense: Opening up more land for development will provide more housing which, in turn, will drive down property prices.
But is the answer so simple?
“In a holistic view,” explains Jim Long, affordable housing manager for the City of Bend, “anytime you free up more land you’re going to hopefully drop the prices down and that should make it affordable to do more affordable housing.” But, he warns, “It’s not a cure-all.”
A lesson in supply and demand
The city’s Urban Growth Boundary hasn’t changed since before 2004, although the population has grown at a steady average rate of 1 percent each year. When the City last submitted its UGB proposal to the State in 2009, it was sent back for revision in large part because it failed to sufficiently address the efficiency with which the existing land supply is used. It’s sort of like parents telling their kids they can’t have more food until they clear their plate.
Over the past year, as housing prices have steadily climbed and availability continues to decline, the City has been busy working out scenarios that will increase the number of available housing units. The overarching question: What role the UGB will play? And will change come soon enough?
Some of the recent changes put forth by the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, on which Long sits, help the City meet the requirement to more efficiently use the existing land within the UGB. Ultimately, density bonuses and code changes that facilitate the development of accessory dwelling units and cottage-style communities are aimed at diversifying the local housing stock and, hopefully, freeing up more low-cost housing options.
But creating more efficiencies within the current boundaries, or expanding the UGB, are not the only considerations.
“There are many factors affecting the price of housing,” explains Brian Rankin, the City planner leading the UGB process. “The UGB expansion does not address all the complex factors which [affect] the price of housing, but does impact some of these variables. The UGB expansion project will create new housing policies, supplies of land in the expansion area, changes to zoning on land inside the current UGB, and new development codes.”
Location, location, location
The City is currently considering three different expansion scenarios, with the growth occurring in different configurations.
“I think the location of the expansion likely has less to do with the price of future housing than the type—and pricing—of development which is mostly determined by private developers,” Rankin explains. “Part of our analysis of the expansion areas will try to assess how the location of the expansion may affect housing affordability.”
While the regulatory framework created by the City will require a greater diversity of housing types, there’s no guarantee that annexed land will be used for housing that is accessible for people at or below the median wage. And while City staff would like to see affordable housing near amenities, the more an area has going for it, the higher a price it’s likely to fetch.
“Expansion into lower cost areas will make it easier to build affordable housing,” explains Housing Works Executive Director Tom Kemper. “It is complicated because you have to take into account availability of transportation, utilities, sewer, etc. in that determination. For example, the availability of nearby sewer will make development much more cost effective than sites without access to sewer.” But, Kemper says, “expansion of sewer is expensive.”
Bottom line: There is no obvious win-win location where UGB expansion can happen, and, in the process, create affordable housing.
Timing is everything
Though Rep. Knute Buehler introduced legislation aimed at making the UGB process more efficient and less time-consuming, it will still take years for the expansion to go into effect and its impact to be felt. That long timeline begs the question: Is it too late for the UGB to do anything for affordable housing?
“The UGB project is not a silver bullet and will not immediately reduce housing prices; rather, it is one of many things that can and should be done to provide more affordable housing options,” City planner Rankin says. “It is interesting to me that the market is responding to the need for more multi-family units as we speak without the UGB expansion. More multi-family units have received planning approvals in the last year or so than previous five to ten years, which suggests the city hasn’t reached a point of no return.”
Still, it’s too early for self-congratulatory pats on the back. Housing Works’ Kemper says that while there about 1,500 multifamily units in various stages of development in Bend, that doesn’t mean 1,500 low-income families will have housing options.
“Hopefully more than half will get built which will relieve some of the pressure. The problem is that they are priced with high rents, which will not create affordable housing. It is all relative,” Kemper says. “The point of no return? No. A major problem impacting Bend in significant ways? Yes. We are probably three years away from an UGB expansion. That assumes no appeals of the decision. The real implementation of the expansion is probably five years away. It feels like it will get worse before it gets better.”
But even if present prospects are grim, local affordable housing experts says things seem to be trending up overall.
“I think we’re going to start seeing [an increase in affordable housing] sooner than you think. We’ve got people knocking on the door for the density bonus,” Affordable Housing Manager Jim Long says. “As a very cynical person, I’m feeling slightly optimistic.”
This article appears in Aug 5-12, 2015.
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What makes #inbend so great is the very things that attracted families and businesses to this area. When the number of people becomes an “issue”, the answer is NOT MORE HOUSES — or MORE AFFORDABLE HOMES for that matter. Face it, what brough YOU here was not the sheer volume of “affordable housing”. So … Let’s work together to strengthen our local economy to put those previously “unaffordable” homes within reach of our valued populace.
The City of Bend better be thinking about the infrastructure required to support increased density. It is already a pain driving through residential streets on the west side, with cars parked along nearly every street. Traffic around Southern Crossing (Reed Market near Old Mill) is gnarly during rush hour. The college is only going to make this worse.
This isn’t a big city with great infrastructure for all this density. We can’t just cram more and more people and cars into our already congested roads. What is the City’s plan to deal with this?
To me “affordable housing” means crime and trash. I moved here for the reason of nature and pretty land. Why are we not cleaning up the areas that look run down already? Why are we needing to clear more land? Makes no sense and now with a 4 year college uugg traffic and parties here we come!!!!! Even Prineville and La Pines housing is going up up up!!!!
Greed greed rules Bend. Good hard working, civic, community and environmentally minded people can’t afford to live there. Been trying to move to Bend for over a year and have watched rents skyrocket to absolutely ridiculos prices. I might as well start looking at Portland.
I have been following the UGB process and University siting, and the “affordable” housing issue. Bend is currently a great place to live. This can change quickly if we institute new goals without looking at unintended consequences. Density increases bring traffic gridlock. Our roads were not designed for increased density. They fail at full buildout at current density. The UGB mandates of increased density do not take into consideration quality of life. The density goals mandated by the UGB are actually administrative rules created by State staffers, and are not reviewable by the Legislature. The “rules” have moved quite far from the intent of the original goals in the original “Farm and Forest Practices Act” which caused the creation of the UGB. I am a supporter of mixed use development and true smart land use design. But this aberration, does not take into consideration that Bend absorbs a 30% increase in traffic from tourists, in addition to its residents. The density goal becomes an unfunded mandate from the State, leaving the City with declining quality of life, and the citizens are left to try and pay for a dramatic increase in road capacity. Just how do you change the Glen Healy Bridge and the Reed/Bond/Blakely round about to 4 lane? We voted in in 2 lane roads because they are sufficient for current density. Now we will be stuck with gridlock or huge tax increases and Bond issues, or leave town. The high density is supposed to improve the environment? I have not seen how 3000 sq ft lots, with no yards, instead of 6,000 sq ft lots is going to save the Deschutes river, or save some endangered species. We are creating an artificial boundary to create “smart growth” which is not smart when you look at the cost and the consequences. The UGB was meant to lower the costs to local cities, by limiting sprawl, which at the time was developments being place many miles from a city, and then the city had to provide services. 6,000 ft lots is not sprawl, based on the original definition and use at the time the law was created. Now density, with its outcome of gridlock which is a cost to the citizens in lower quality of life, or extreme dollar costs to totally redesign the road system, is far more costly than “sprawl” ever was. Contact your State Legislator and ask them to pass a bill that allows Cities to have more say in their own destiny, and allow Bend to factor in its existing road capacity and the tourism 30% influx of traffic, when determining proper density. Sign the Truth in Site petition to require OSU to come clean on the total traffic created by their phase II plan which they did not include in the application for their phase I. OSU is paying an option fee on the land for phase II, so they can say they do not own the land, which is a loophole, in the process. The OSU traffic will totally create gridlock on Reed Market Road, all the way from the Parkway to the West Side, pushing traffic onto Colorado and Newport. As a developer OSU should have to pay for a New East West road and bridge, or relocate to Juniper Ridge where there is room to grow and not screw up the whole West side of Bend.
Let’s remember that the State turned down the plans Bend had for Juniper Ridge because of the traffic probs. that occur NOW at the Empire/hwy 20/hwy 97 junctions. Truth In Site has been trying to point out that OSU and Bend have tripled the problems with the Westside OSU location
Unfortunately, the State, the city and OSU refuse to acknowledge what they’ve wrought.
The American Pnzi scheme is slowly coming to an end . It worked for a while but declining birth rates meant less people to pay into SSI . So the increased immigration which increased crime which led to white flight . Now all we have is a broken social contract – Public employee pension funds buying illegally foreclosed properties ? That includes Judges pensions and police .Waht can you do to stop an illegal foreclosure in this country NOTHING . If you study some of Elizabeth Warrens work you will find where they are hiding all the inflation – IN REAL ESTATE – eventually the fighting amongst the different classes will escalate as it gets worse .
Bend was so nice when we moved here 12 years ago. The traffic has gotten so much worse with the increase of so many people. We don’t need to build more houses and have more people live here. We want to keep the small town feel we came to love. Why do we need affordable housing? If you can’t afford to live here there are many other places to live. Affordable housing unforuanetly does bring more undesirable issues. Why can’t the city council see that?