Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Capital Construction Sb 5702 topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Legislative hearing on SB 5702 spotlights housing preservation, university center and bridge funding
Summary
At the Feb. 13 joint Ways and Means subcommittee hearing on SB 5702, advocates urged Article XI‑Q and GO bond allocations to preserve 15,000 at‑risk affordable homes, fund LIFT homeownership, support OSU Cascades’ $42M student health and recreation center, and maintain a $1M Boone Bridge state commitment tied to federal earmarks.
Co‑Chairs opened a Feb. 13 public hearing on Senate Bill 5702, the capital construction bill that sets six‑year expenditure limits for state agency capital projects over $1 million. Dozens of witnesses testified on individual capital requests and on state financing tools needed to preserve and expand housing and campus and transportation projects.
Cameron Harrington of the Oregon Housing Alliance told the committee that “there are over 15,000 affordable homes across this state that are at serious risk in the next decade,” and urged allocation of Article XI‑Q bonds to preserve existing regulated affordable housing. He said 1,947 homes in committee members’ districts are scheduled to expire from regulated to market‑rate status in coming years.
Karen Sachs of DevNW asked the committee to include LIFT homeownership in bond allocations, requesting $100 million in GO bonds and citing more than $114 million in applications for 2026 LIFT funds. “Homes produced with these funds often sell for 50% of the local median sales price,” she said, describing the program as a lever for new affordable ownership opportunities across Oregon.
Wilsonville Mayor Sean O’Neil urged the panel to sustain a $1 million state commitment tied to the Boone Bridge, stressing the bridge’s regional commerce role and warning that removal of the agency allocation could jeopardize pursuit of up to $5 million in federal earmark funding. “When the bridge slows, commerce slows. When it fails, commerce stops,” he said.
Student leaders and higher‑education representatives also appeared. Whitney McFarland, president of the Associated Students at OSU Cascades, requested $42 million to help remediate land and build a student health and recreation center; McFarland said students had approved $20 million in fees and the university would match $22 million, providing a 1:1 match to the state contribution.
Witnesses asked for technical fixes as well as new funding. Katie Archambault of the Oregon Community College Association asked the committee to correct a prior authorization for Southwestern Oregon Community College in SB 5702, reducing a previously authorized $8 million project to a revised $5 million scope for modernizing welding and manufacturing labs — a technical correction, she said, to preserve the college’s revised project schedule.
The hearing provided the subcommittee with a mix of statewide policy asks — particularly calls to add Article XI‑Q bonds and expand lottery/GO bond resources for housing — and many project‑level funding requests ranging from emergency bridge repair to campus facilities. The committee closed the SB 5702 public hearing before moving to the SB 5701 docket.
