Portland committee hears community calls to reform tax-increment financing, weigh alternatives

Portland’s Arts and Economy Committee on March 25 opened a broad discussion of tax-increment financing, a financing tool city and regional agencies have used to fund development projects, as community groups urged changes to prevent displacement and to increase public oversight.

The committee heard sustained testimony from three community presenters—Amanda Pham Haines of Unite Oregon, Joy Elise Davis of Imagine Black, and Duncan Juan of Oppano (Jade District)—and from several public-comment speakers who called for enforceable community benefits, changes to state law, and local alternatives such as land banking and workforce investments.

The discussion centered on two competing framings of TIF. Amanda Pham Haines, statewide housing justice manager at Unite Oregon and director of the Anti-Displacement PDX coalition, told the committee that without meaningful oversight TIF “can and will reinforce the same cycles of displacement that Portland’s urban renewal policies have historically created.” She said the statutory framework and program materials are difficult for the public to access, and singled out Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS) chapter 457 as the source of…