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Oregon Housing Needs Analysis (OHNA)

Aerial of housing types among trees
In 2021, the Oregon Legislature directed the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD), in partnership with Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS), to prepare a set of recommendations to modernize how local cities and counties plan for housing in a manner that results in more affordable, fair, and equitable housing outcomes. The department must publish comprehensive and community-informed recommendations on how to implement the OHNA before the 2023 Legislative session.

Oregon Housing Needs Analysis Legislative Recommendations Report: Leading with Production

Published on November 10, 2022, this report offers recommendations on how the state of Oregon, and its communities, can work together to make real progress in addressing Oregon's housing crisis by balancing regulatory authority and shared accountability with incentives and public resources to create housing solutions. If implemented, these reforms would advance the following outcomes:

  • Increased overall housing production
  • Increased publicly funded and affordable housing production
  • More inclusive and integrated communities

Graphic Explainer

This graphic explainer breaks down the central elements of OHNA Recommendations Report, and is available in Chinese, English, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

Graphic depiction of OHNA recommendations

Public comments already received by the department are provided in the table below:

Public comments on the recommendations should be submitted to DLCD staff by email (housing.dlcd@dlcd.oregon.gov).

If you would like to receive future notices, virtual meeting links, and meeting materials for working group or engagement events related to the OHNA, please sign up to the OHNA GovDelivery list.

Work Groups and Engagement Activities

DLCD and OHCS engaged a broad base of stakeholders in developing the OHNA recommendations. This process includes facilitating two working groups and statewide engagement process. The purpose of the working groups is to review specific implementation issues and work with staff to develop and provide feedback on legislative recommendations that address those issues. These meetings will be recorded and open to the public, and meeting materials and summaries will be published to this page.

To inform this work, the project team led six stakeholder focus groups with partners from nonprofit, development, government, and fair housing organizations. The project team held three additional meetings with these groups to report back how their input had shaped the draft recommendations document.

DLCD held fourteen regional forums with local government planners, developers, elected officials, and advocacy groups around the state to further inform the draft recommendations.



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DLCD and Communitas Consulting facilitated a working group to inform the draft recommendations. The work group met seven times between October 2021 and December 2022. Meeting agendas, materials, presentations, and summaries can be found in the list below.

Work Group Members​ (updated November 12, 2021)

​Meeting 1 (October 28, 2021)​ ​ Meeting 2 (December 9, 2021)
Meeting 3 (April 21, 2022)
Meeting 4 (June 16, 2022)
Meeting 5 (August 18, 2022)
Meeting 6 (October 20, 2022) [Joint Meeting between Housing Needs and Housing Capacity Work Groups]
Meeting 7 (December 15, 2022)
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In March 2022, the Oregon Legislature directed DLCD staff to "support work on regional housing needs and land supply issues" (2022 House Bill 5202-1, section 444), by establishing a new Housing Capacity Work Group focused on a specific set of land supply questions. Legislators provided direction that this work should intersect with, but be distinct from, the Housing Needs Work Group.

The specific issues the Housing Capacity Work Group should address include:

  • How land within Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs) can be better utilized to increase housing types and units, including the reduction of restrictive or outdated zoning regulations and the appropriate conversion of commercial and employment uses to residential use.
  • How the process and level of data necessary to establish the need for UGB adjustments can be streamlined, while considering the protection of resource lands.
  • How the regulatory review of UGB adjustments can be streamlined, while considering the protection of resource lands.
  • How to fund additional capacity in cities below 10,000 to plan for and work to facilitate the development of housing in their communities.
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To review the detailed roles and responsibilities of the Work Group, please reference the Work Group Charter.

On August 24, 2022, DLCD published a draft Housing Capacity Work Group recommendations report​ highlighting over a dozen specific refinements that could be made to the growth management process.

Work Group meeting agendas, materials, presentations, and summaries can be found in the list​ below.

​ ​Meeting 1 (May 5, 2022)
Meeting 2 (May 23, 2022)
Meeting 3 (June 30, 2022)
Meeting 4 (July 26, 2022)
Meeting 5 (August 31, 2022)
Meeting 6 (September 26, 2022)
Meeting 7 (October 20, 2022) [Joint Meeting between Housing Needs and Housing Capacity Work Groups]

Initial legislative direction for the OHNA was provided in HB 2003, passed in 2019. This bill charted a new direction to more fully and equitably meet housing needs as required by Goal 10: Housing, of Oregon's statewide land use planning program. House Bill 2003 led to multiple reforms, including a requirement for local adoption of Housing Production Strategies (HPSs) and the development of a new pilot methodology for estimating statewide housing need. In House Bill 2003 and the pilot methodology the model to estimate statewide housing need was called the Regional Housing Needs Analysis (RHNA), but it is now called the Oregon Housing Needs Analysis (OHNA).

OHCS and DLCD each published reports in 2021 describing the results and technical elements of the proposed statewide methodology for calculating housing need (the OHNA) and recommending legislative action to implement it (OHCS summary report, OHCS technical report, and DLCD report).

In a budget note in House Bill 5006 (2021), the Legislature then directed Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS) and the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) to deliver recommendations on how to implement the OHNA in advance of the 2023 Legislative Session.

In early 2022, OHCS and DLCD developed an initial framework, titled Meeting Oregon's Housing Needs: Next Steps for Equitable Housing Production, which outlined this effort to recommend policies on how the state can implement the OHNA into Goal 10 processes.

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To inform these draft recommendations, DLCD and OHCS' lead consultant, ECONorthwest, conducted best practices research into what is working in other states and reviewed an audit of California's housing planning system to inform how Oregon's system could work.

The University of Oregon conducted a literature review and a survey of planners, developers, and local governments regarding barriers to development and published a preliminary summary of their results​. Full results will be available in late fall 2022.

Portland State University's Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative provided research and engagement regarding long term engagement on housing production issues. Full results will be available in late 2022.

 

Stay Connected

Please continue to revisit this page frequently, as information will be updated as the legislative recommendations progress. Questions or comments about OHNA recommendations and implementation can be directed to DLCD at housing.dlcd@dlcd.oregon.gov.

If you would like to receive email updates on DLCD housing work, sign up to the Housing GovDelivery list.

Local planners should contact their DLCD Regional Representative for more information.

More Resources

Information about House Bill 2001: a related housing bill from the 2019 legislative session.
Local governments can access the Housing Portal to complete any annual or project-based housing report requirements.

Contacts

Sean Edging
Housing Planner
sean.edging@dlcd.oregon.gov
Phone: 971-375-5362

Ethan Stuckmayer
Senior Housing Planner
ethan.stuckmayer@dlcd.oregon.gov
Phone: 503-302-0937