Springfield planners review code audit identifying state compliance gaps, appoint advisory committees

SPRINGFIELD — The Springfield Planning Commission on Tuesday reviewed a code-and-plan audit for the city's Housing Design Initiative that finds much of the development code already complies with state statutes but identifies specific changes the city must make to meet Oregon requirements and several recommended changes to encourage housing production.

Haley Campbell, senior planner for the Housing Design Initiative code and plan update, introduced the project and said the audit's primary goal is to "bring the city code into compliance with housing related statutes and state rules" while also identifying strategic amendments to support housing production and affordability. Victor Tran, project manager for consultant Cascadia Partners, led the presentation of findings from the code audit and the plan audit.

The audit compared Springfield's code against several Oregon Revised Statutes and related state rules. Tran said the review covered ORS chapters concerning comprehensive planning, permitting and review, and land divisions and that the project team had put the full findings in an appendix in the packet for commissioners. "This first section has to do with legal compliance with state statute. So these are required and mandatory," Tran said during the presentation.

Why it matters: the audit sets the list of mandatory code changes the city must adopt to stay within state law and highlights discretionary or strategic amendments the city can choose to adopt to make it easier to build more housing.

Key findings

- Broad compliance: The auditors reported many code sections already meet state requirements and require no changes.

- Partially compliant items: The report identifies a set of provisions that need tweaks to reach full compliance, including clarifying allowances for residential uses in zones that currently allow single-family housing, allowing manufactured-home parks and prefabricated dwellings in all zones where the allowed density supports them, and ensuring no minimum lot size greater than 1 acre blocks manufactured-home parks.

- Statutory noncompliance: The team identified one code section that does not comply with state statute: local rules on recreational-vehicle (RV) occupancy. Tran said the city must allow RVs to be used for residential occupancy without a time limit in RV parks and…