Jacksonville TAC puts housing report on hold after stateanalysis shows larger allocation

Jacksonville's Technical Advisory Committee paused further action on its housing needs report after the Oregon Housing Needs Analysis (OHNA) produced a housing allocation that committee members said is materially larger than they had expected. Josh Lebombard, representing the state's Land Conservation and Development office, presented the OHNA results and told the committee the allocation is higher than prior assumptions; because Jacksonville's population is under 10,000 the city is not on a routine update cycle but must use the OHNA allocation for this planning effort.

Planning Director Ian Foster told the committee the draft report needs several updates before it is finalized. Members flagged the income and housing-affordability section as possibly relying on an outdated source and urged staff to replace or update that data. They also said the draft should more clearly explain how the OHNA's higher housing allocation affects earlier conclusions, including employment-need estimates.

Committee members pressed for a clearer distinction in the report between OHNA allocation figures and population forecasts produced by Portland State University, and suggested adding or revising the overall employment-need language to reflect the new allocation. Members also recommended the report expand its Efficiency Measures section to include a more comprehensive treatment of production-strategy tools, and asked that final recommendations be presented as bullet points and include an explicit economic element.

As an immediate procedural step, the committee agreed to keep its membership intact but place its work on hold while staff revises the draft. Foster said the updated draft will be emailed to TAC members for final comment and then presented to City Council. The city indicated it hopes to hire a consultant to assist with the further analysis and modeling necessary to reconcile the OHNA allocation with the committee's prior work.

The committee did not take a formal vote on policy changes during the meeting. The next procedural step recorded was circulation of the revised draft to committee members and a presentation of that draft to City Council, with any further scheduling or consultant engagements to be determined by staff.