Salem staff outline zoning changes to speed middle-housing, streamline trees and permit rules
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Summary
City staff presented a housing code project intended to implement the city's Housing Production Strategy, proposing expanded cottage clusters, exemptions for small lots, streamlined tree removal permitting for certain housing types, shared utilities for middle housing, and boundary-street exemption for 3- and 4-unit developments.
City planning staff presented a package of proposed zoning and process changes Dec. 8 aimed at increasing housing production and affordability.
"The housing production strategy includes 17 actions," Eunice Kim, the city's long-range planning manager, told councilors. She said the code update aims to promote single-family infill, 'middle housing' (two- to four-unit homes, townhouses, cottage clusters) and multifamily development, and to align the city's rules with a state-required Housing Production Strategy.
Highlights presented by Kim included a proposal to increase the maximum size of cottage clusters from 12 to 16 units and to allow attached as well as detached cottage-cluster units; an exemption for small lots in multifamily zones from minimum density requirements so owners can add a single unit without triggering larger minimums; changes to mixed-use design standards to better accommodate ground-floor residential; and a proposal to switch tree removal for single-family and middle-housing development from a public tree-variance process to an administrative tree-permit process with mitigation and replanting requirements.
Kim also said staff would propose allowing shared utilities for middle housing land divisions (a change made possible by recent state law), and would exempt new 3- and 4-unit middle-housing projects from some boundary-street improvement requirements so that, "if the curb is there, we would require the sidewalk" but otherwise certain street improvement triggers would be lifted to reduce development costs.
Councilors asked detailed questions about the tree thresholds and the timeline for drafting code language. Kim clarified that a "significant tree" was defined in the presentation as roughly 20 inches diameter at breast height for Oregon white oak and 30 inches for other species, and said staff will include mitigation and replanting requirements if the administrative process is adopted.
Robin Dahlke, development services division manager, described parallel work on permitting-process improvements and said staff expects to return in January with a status report on process reforms and will seek additional development-community input before finalizing code language and taking ordinances through the adoption process in 2026.
Staff said the code amendments will return through the planning commission and the council with required findings and public hearings, and that some permitting-process improvements could be implemented sooner as administrative changes.
No final ordinance was adopted Dec. 8; staff was directed to proceed with drafting code amendments and to continue community engagement.
