St. Helens planners outline code changes tied to state housing law; councilors voice concern over allowing manufactured homes citywide

City Planner Clayton Grisham told the St. Helens City Council on Jan. 15 that proposed code amendments and a modest fee-schedule change respond to 2024 state housing legislation and to new administrative tools the state created for housing projects.

"What that does is it creates this avenue for developers to seek adjustments," Grisham said, describing an administrative-level variance created by Senate Bill 1537 that would let staff grant up to 10 adjustments for eligible housing projects without a Planning Commission hearing.

The package the planner described includes four main components: an administrative-variance fee category tied to SB 1537 (the planner said the item is temporary), detached multifamily (allowing three-or-more-unit configurations as detached units where multifamily is already permitted), new local standards for single-room-occupancy housing, and changes to align local rules with state requirements that manufactured and prefabricated homes be allowed where single-family…