Coos Bay Mayor Joe Benetti release – Addressing housing and homelessness are among the City Council’s top goals. The homelessness crisis is not just a local issue, but statewide here in Oregon and across the western United States. According to a recent article in the Oregonian, Oregon’s recent growth in homelessness is among the largest in the nation. During a two-year span (2020 – 2022) the number of people experiencing homelessness grew nearly 23%. During the same period, Washington experienced a 10% jump and California a 6% increase. All of which is many times higher than the national average of less than 1% growth in individuals experiencing homelessness. As to housing, according to a 2022 housing supply report from ECONorthwest, Oregon needs over 110,000 homes to meet current needs and an additional 550,000 to meet anticipated housing demands over the next twenty years. At this week’s Council meeting, the City Council adopted strategies aimed at working to address homelessness and to increase housing development. As both issues are complex and volumes could be written on each topic, I thought I would devote this week’s article to the work being done to increase housing stock in the City and next week’s article to focus on the work being undertaken related to addressing homelessness and its impacts. Oregon requires cities with populations greater than 10,000 to adopt Housing Production Strategies (HPS) to facilitate housing opportunities throughout Oregon for individuals and families of all incomes. A HPS considers data in a city’s Housing Needs Analysis (HNA). The Coos Bay 2020 HNA was adopted in September 2020.The HNA looked at market trends and forecasts in an effort to identify housing needs and to determine if the buildable land supply within the city limits is sufficient to accommodate a twenty-year need. Through the collective work of the Planning Commission and the City Council, several policy actions have been taken and/or explored in an effort to allow for increased housing development. Those actions include but are not limited to the following: Streamlining ADU/duplex regulations; Innovative partnerships with private and nonprofit developers; Engaged with Community Housing Action Team (CHAT) on housing trust fund; Limits on short-term vacation rentals; Authorization and standards for cottage clusters; Allowance for Tri/Quad-plexes in single family zones; Multi-unit residential development standards for citywide use; Minimum density standards in all residential zones; Reduction of minimum lot sizes; Allowance of Single Room Occupancies; Streamlined land use permit processing requirements. Last year, the City embarked on creating a state required Housing Production Strategy (HPS). The HPS is intended to expand on prior housing studies completed for the City. After much work, and a number of public meetings by the Planning Commission and the Council, the Council adopted the 2023 Coos Bay Housing Production Strategy. The HPS identifies new strategies and timelines to facilitate housing along with how and why each strategy has been formulated. The identified strategies include: Develop / continue partnerships with nonprofits for housing development; Encourage medium/high-density development in medium/high-density zones; Provide pre-approved middle housing designs; Develop criteria and process for identifying land to up-zone; Ensure that the development code is clear and objective; Develop criteria to allow single unit and duplexes on small commercial lots; Amend minimum lot line and building setback requirements; Consider property tax abatement incentives; Now with adopted strategies, the City staff, Planning Commission, and Council will roll up their sleeves to undertake the necessary work / process to implement the strategies.
