Agenda Packet 12-12-18 Work Session

Home Browse Search

38 Strategy 1: Remove land use code barriers. Background: Housing Composition in Eugene ● Eugene’s housing stock is largely made up of single-family homes, but it’s more diverse than other places in Oregon. Single family homes are estimated to make up about 55% of Eugene housing units, compared to 63% in Lane County and 64% in the State of Oregon as a whole. Apartments are estimated to make up 26% of housing units in Eugene. “Missing Middle” housing types, such as duplexes, townhomes, triplexes and fourplexes, are estimated to make up just 16% of Eugene’s housing stock. ● The share of apartments has been increasing in recent years, but production of other Missing Middle housing types is lagging. Permits for new single-family homes in Eugene have made up 34% of all housing unit permits since 2008, while permits for apartments have accounted for 55% of the total. Missing Middle housing types accounted for just 9% of permitted units from 2008- 2017. For every Missing Middle unit permitted in Eugene, four single family units are permitted. In addition, permits for ADUs appear to have significantly fallen off beginning in 2015. What We Heard: Barriers to Providing Diverse Housing Types Strategic Economics interviewed people with experience developing a range of housing types in Eugene, including larger-scale housing developers, architects and contractors, and “amateur” developers building their first ADU. We also spoke with City of Eugene staff. What we heard: ● The zoning code is too inflexible. ● While the City of Eugene prioritizes Missing Middle housing types in Envision Eugene and other long-range planning documents, in practice the City’s planning priorities don’t translate into enabling Missing Middle units. The timelines are too long and there are too few financial incentives to build these housing types, which in the end made projects difficult to complete. ● ADU production is severely impacted by zoning language that is ambiguous and site design requirements that are illogical and arbitrary. Barriers include: ○ System Development Charges are based on unit count rather than unit size. ○ Design requirements do not take into account constraints on sloped lots, making it very difficult from a design perspective to make an ADU work on a slope. ○ ADUs can only be constructed if the property owner intends to occupy either the primary unit or the ADU. This was viewed as both arbitrary and discriminatory against renters. ○ ADUs cannot be taller than 15 feet, which makes it difficult to add a loft or second story. ○ Parking requirements for ADUs add to costs and can make it difficult to build. Strategy 1: Remove land use code barriers. December 12, 2018, Work Session - Item 2