Portland oversight committee debates releasing studio units from preference policy to speed lease-up

Portland housing staff and nonprofit developers raised concerns at the Sept. 11 North Northeast Neighborhood Housing Strategies oversight committee meeting about slow lease-up at several new affordable buildings and proposed limited waivers to allow some studio units to be rented outside the bureau's preference policy.

The proposal came after staff reported persistent vacancies in newly built properties subject to the preference policy, and after development partners told bureau staff that studios in particular were difficult to lease to preference-policy households. Leslie Goodlow, Equity and Business Operations Manager for the Portland Housing Bureau, said the bureau had issued a temporary waiver in August allowing owners to fill certain vacant units quickly while staff address longer-term fixes.

Why it matters: preference policy gives priority to households displaced by government action; it is central to returning households to North and Northeast Portland. Committee members said they did not want to undercut that purpose but acknowledged the bureau must balance filling units and the financial viability of developments that rely on rental income to convert construction loans to permanent financing.

Details and debate

John Trent, Neighborhood Housing Preservation manager, presented homeownership and wait-list statistics that framed the discussion: the bureau reported about 131 households have purchased homes under the preference policy to date; the program's demographic breakdown was described as 87% Black/African American. The bureau has a stated goal of 200 preference-policy homeownership households by 2029; staff said the Carrie Boulevard project (about 50 units) is a key contributor to that target.

Goodlow and staff reported roughly 4,000 people on the preference-policy wait list and described outreach results: response rates from targeted outreach to higher-point households have been about 44% after reminders. Staff also listed development partners that asked for waivers to lease units outside the policy, naming Songbird, Renaissance, PCRI and IHI as entities that had submitted waiver requests.

Multiple committee members and staff said most preference-policy households seek larger units. At the meeting, several speakers argued studios are not matching the stated program goal of restoring family-sized housing to historically displaced populations. John Washington and committee members said studios were not favored by the households the program was intended to serve.

Developers and some committee members countered that long vacancy periods damage the financial stability of projects. Jillian Siraj Hilton noted vacancies reduce community stability inside buildings and urged any waiver policy to be applied evenly across projects, not just to help one developer with a high number of studios.

Staff proposals and conditions

Bureau staff said options under consideration included: temporarily releasing a share of studios to general-market leasing, time-limited waivers (for example, a multi-year window), or giving developers waivers for a fixed percentage of units per building rather than by unit type. Leslie Goodlow said the current waiver process returns a unit to the preference policy the next time it becomes available after a tenant leaves; staff also said they would track and report demographic data on who leased waived units.

Requests for more data and next steps

Committee members asked for more detailed, unit-level information before approving broad policy changes: several asked for a breakdown of waivers and vacancies by building, unit size, and the demographic outcomes of any waived leases. Jillian and others asked staff to provide the points composition for households (how many households are at 6 points, 5 points, etc.) and to show which buildings and unit types are driving vacancies. Staff said they would return with additional data at a later meeting.

No formal vote or binding policy change was taken at the meeting; committee members asked staff to bring more detailed vacancy, waiver and demographic data and to propose limited, time-bound conditions for any studio waivers so the bureau could monitor impacts on preference-policy goals.

Ending

Committee members emphasized the program's equity goals and asked staff to balance those goals against lease-up realities. Staff committed to follow up with the requested data and to report back with a narrower proposal rather than a blanket policy change.