Committee hears bill to convert state lands for affordable housing with five-year tax break

The Oregon House Committee on Revenue held a public hearing May 15 on House Bill 2316A, a measure to authorize use of underutilized state-owned lands for affordable housing and to exempt those “Home Start Lands” from property tax for up to five years.

Representative Kevin Mannix, sponsor of the bill, told the committee the measure would let the state move parcels inside urban growth boundaries into housing production. “We have an opportunity here. The state … has a tremendous amount of land within the urban growth boundary, which could be made available for housing,” Representative Mannix said. He added that the bill requires the land to be “inside the urban growth boundary” and “for housing.”

The bill includes an A-6 amendment that,…