Portland City Council convened a work session on Oct. 21 to hear presentations from staff, community leaders and nominees for three East Portland tax-increment-financing community leadership committees that will help shape how TIF dollars are spent in 80 Second Avenue, the Sumner/Parkrose/Argyle/Columbia Corridor area (referred to in the meeting as “SPAC”) and the East 205 district.

The committees, which staff and community leaders described as “community-led” advisory bodies, will cocreate initial five-year action plans and advise on investments from multi-decade TIF districts whose total project investment figures are modeled across the 25–30 year life of each district. Prosper Portland and the Portland Housing Bureau told council the roster of nominees totals 39 people — 13 per district — and that council will consider formal appointments at a full meeting on Oct. 29, 2025.

Why it matters: the leadership committees are written into each East Portland TIF district’s governance charter and will recommend early investments intended to prioritize affordable housing, business stabilization and infrastructure that supports safety and connectivity. Staff emphasized the process was developed with sustained community engagement and that committee recommendations will feed back to council for formal approval of action plans.

Donnie Olivera, deputy city administrator, opened the presentation by stressing the length of the process that produced the nominations: “this has been based on years of work from city staff who have been leading community-led processes and gaining feedback,” Olivera said, describing the work as largely community-driven.

Prosper Portland executive director Cornell Wesley said the agency and the Housing Bureau worked with community stakeholders to design outreach and recruitment. “I’m committed to continuing to lead this work in a manner that delivers on this robust process,” Wesley said, summarizing staff’s description of the districts and the priority areas of investment.

Recruitment and selection

Staff said the recruitment window opened in April 2024, was extended and closed June 16, 2024; outreach materials were translated into seven languages and recruitment tactics included community canvassing, weekly open-house sessions, tabling at events and a mailer to about 69,000 addresses. According to staff, the formal evaluation process produced a vetted slate of 39 nominees (13 per district) that Prosper Portland’s board unanimously approved before submission to council.

Staff also reported total application figures that contain an internal inconsistency: presenters said they “closed the recruitment with 129 applications received,” but also provided per-district counts of 61 for 80 Second Avenue, 42 for the Sumner/Parkrose/Argyle/Columbia Corridor district, and 53 for East 205. Those three per-district figures sum to 156, more than the 129 total staff cited; staff did not resolve that discrepancy during the work session.

Process and timing

Staff and community leaders told council the committees will convene in late 2025 for cross-district orientation, begin district-specific action planning in January 2026, and aim to return draft five-year action plans to council later in 2026. The Portland Housing Bureau also said it will lead a parallel review of the TIF affordable-housing set-aside policy.

On administrative costs and housing set-aside

Councilor Ryan and Councilor Dunphy asked for specifics about how administrative and financing costs affect the share of TIF resources that go to affordable housing. Josh Roper, policy planning director for the Portland Housing Bureau, answered that models the bureau has used assume administrative, program and project delivery costs of about 15% over the life of a district. “The 45% does in fact still include the Portland Housing Bureau administrative and program and project delivery costs. I believe the administrative that we've been modeling is about 15% over the life of the district,” Roper said. Council members asked staff to bring more detailed financial modeling back to a future technical briefing.

Community voices and nominees

Before staff presentations, three community leaders who served on the East Portland steering and working groups described two years of neighborhood-led exploration and expressed cautious optimism that a community-led governance structure could steer TIF investments toward local priorities. Annette Mattson, a member of the Mount Hood Community College board who served on steering and working groups, said she was “thrilled to finally see that we were in a process” where East Portland could get long-promised attention.

The work session then heard two-minute introductions from panels of nominees in each district. Nominees represented a mix of longtime residents, small-business owners, nonprofit staff, affordable-housing practitioners, neighborhood association leaders and people who said they had worked on prior community planning processes. Several nominees cited experience with housing development, small-business ownership or neighborhood organizing; others emphasized lived experience in East Portland neighborhoods and anti-displacement priorities.

Public comment and next steps

Council operations staff reported receiving one piece of written public comment, generally supportive of an appointee from the East 205 district. Council members used the last portion of the work session to invite the nominees to keep in touch and to say they intend to support a community-driven approach. Council members representing East Portland offered to be points of contact for the CLCs and asked staff to pass contact information between council and appointees.

Council will consider formal appointments at its Oct. 29 meeting; staff said nominees do not need to attend that full council meeting in person. If council approves the rosters, the new committees will begin orientation and joint meetings in late 2025, then start district-specific planning in January 2026.

Ending

Staff and council members emphasized that TIF is one tool among many and that early action plans will be modest in scale relative to lifetime district totals. Councilors asked staff to return with more detailed financing and administrative-cost modeling and with plans for ongoing community engagement and metrics to measure outcomes such as housing affordability, small-business stability and neighborhood access to services.

Votes at a glance: none

This was a work session; councilors did not take a formal vote on the nominations at this meeting. The nominations were placed on the full council agenda for Oct. 29, 2025, for consideration and potential appointment.