From laura.buhl at state.or.us Fri Mar 10 19:22:52 2017 From: laura.buhl at state.or.us (Buhl, Laura) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2017 03:22:52 +0000 Subject: [LandUse-News] Land Use News for March 10, 2017 Message-ID: Welcome to this week's roundup of the Land Use News! The Land Use News is an electronic news clipping service provided by the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD). Land Use News emphasizes local reporting and commentary on land use in Oregon and other states. The links to copyrighted news stories in Land Use News are not archived by DLCD, and the archiving policies of these sources vary. The stories, if available, reside on the site of the original news source. Please direct requests for archived stories, or permission to reprint them, to the original news source. Past Land Use News weekly e-mails may be found here: http://listsmart.osl.state.or.us/pipermail/landuse-news Anyone may subscribe, unsubscribe, or change their subscription to the free service by visiting this site: http://listsmart.osl.state.or.us/mailman/listinfo/landuse-news. ________________________________ Tenants, Landlords Speak Out On Proposed Rent Restrictions Portland Tribune Crespin and more than 100 other tenants called on lawmakers to expand similar tenant protections statewide. Their comments, and testimony from a nearly equal number of landlords, were part of a five-hour scheduled hearing at the state Capitol on a controversial bill to do just that. The legislation, favored by House Democrats, would outlaw no-cause evictions and lift the statewide ban on rent increase limits. Portland's New Housing Stock is Tilting to Accessory Dwelling Units Portland Tribune Portland's new housing stock is getting miniaturized, with builders planning nearly as many accessory dwelling units as regular single-family houses. Newly released data show the city issued 615 building permits for new accessory dwelling units or ADUs in 2016, approaching the 867 permits issued for regular houses. Once a tiny niche in the market, ADUs - also called granny flats or mother-in-law apartments - now are poised to surpass regular home construction in the city. Data from the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability and Bureau of Development Services shows ADUs are growing in popularity each year, while the number of new regular houses seems to have plateaued. Portland Considers Emergency Speed Limit Reduction on SE Division The Oregonian (Portland) Portland is set to declare a safety emergency on outer Southeast Division Street and unilaterally reduce speed limit after a spate of traffic deaths. Oregon's State Parks Shatter Record With 54 Million Visits in 2016 The Statesman Journal (Salem) For the fourth year in a row, Oregon's state park system attracted a record number of visitors. Officials estimated there were 51.7 million visits to the state's parks, historic sites, waysides and natural areas in 2016. An additional 2.7 million camper nights were recorded at the 57 sites where people can camp. Both numbers are records, Oregon Parks and Recreation Department spokesman Chris Havel said. "The upside is that we're serving more people than ever before - and seeing more smiles than ever before," Havel said in an interview earlier this year. "At the same time, we're having problems keeping up with crowding, trash, and the wear and tear on parks." Affordable Housing Need is Greatest in Redmond, Prineville The Bulletin (Bend) - Housing Works analysis studies disparity between need and inventory - The gulf between the amount of affordable housing in Redmond and Prineville and the number of people who could potentially use it is greater than any other city in Central Oregon. Out of the 11,740 households in Central Oregon cities that make 60 percent or less of the area's median income, 13 percent of them are in Prineville and 24 percent are in Redmond, according to a recent Housing Works analysis. And while that's not as many as some of the other cities - 53 percent of those households are in Bend, for example - numbers from Central Oregon's public housing authority show the amount of affordable housing units doesn't adequately address the need in those two cities. State Plans Corvallis Service Center Corvallis Gazette-Times The state plans to consolidate a number of social service offices currently in downtown Corvallis in a new building slated to open next spring in the Sunset Research Park. . . . While the new location will be somewhat off the beaten path, Riddell noted that it is near a free Corvallis Transit System bus route. The No. 8 line stops at the entrance to the Sunset Research Park on Southwest Technology Loop, about 4/10 of a mile from the new building. Hotel Industry Sounds Alarm About Airbnb Portland Tribune The hotel industry is starting to fight back against growing competition from Airbnb. A national hotel trade group released a report last week documenting the dramatic growth of Airbnb operations, with data from 13 of Airbnb's top markets, including Portland. The data showed a substantial increase in Airbnb hosts operating multiple units and renting out entire houses. . . . The data shows Airbnb and similar companies are not competing on a "level playing field," with the hotel industry, said Greg Astley, government affairs director of the Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association. Airbnb and other short-term rental companies are only lightly regulated in Portland, he said, and "they're not following the laws and regulations that are in place." Oregon's Wineries Are Thriving-And Demanding a Million-Dollar Subsidy Willamette Week (Portland) - The Oregon Wine Board seeks a marketing handout from a state that's broke - By any measure, Oregon's wine industry is a great success. In 2000, there were 122 wineries in Oregon. Today, there are nearly six times that many-702 wineries, bottling varieties from albari?o to zinfandel. Oregon grape harvests continue to break records, with annual volume increasing nearly 40 percent between 2013 and 2015, and now totaling just under 85,000 tons. Yet industry representatives are seeking a hefty subsidy at a time when the state is broke. Oregon, Idaho Onion Industry Rebuilds Following Winter Damage Capital Press (Salem) - Onion growers and shippers in Idaho and Oregon have begun rebuilding following this winter's heavy weather-related damage, and the race is on to be ready for the 2017 harvest - Many members of the region's vibrant onion industry are rushing to rebuild their storage and packing facilities after four feet of snow and ice crushed the buildings and destroyed the onions and equipment inside. The damage is extensive - most estimates place the total at $50 million to $100 million. That includes about 100 million pounds of onions - about 7 percent of the year's crop - that were lost. ODOT Unveils Highway Messages to Warn Against Distracted Driving Mail Tribune (Medford) State transportation officials in Southern Oregon are test-driving a new way to combat distracted driving - get motorists to glance at an electronic message telling them to pay attention. What may sound like a textbook study in irony is actually a way for Oregon Department of Transportation officials to wrestle themselves away from the monotonous "don't text and drive" mantra and put a little oomph behind their lifesaving message. Canal Sections Nominated For National Historic Registry The Bulletin (Bend) - Canals in Redmond, Powell Butte were integral to early development - To preserve the history of its local canals, the Central Oregon Irrigation District recently proposed two segments for the National Register of Historic Places. The State Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation approved the irrigation district's request in February and sent the nominations to the National Park Service, which will decide within three months if the historic canal sections should be added to the national register. OSU-Cascades Reveals Bend Campus Construction Plan The Bulletin (Bend) - Material from landfill will fill pumice mine - Although OSU-Cascades hasn't acquired the old Deschutes County landfill yet, it has a cleanup and restoration plan so it can build facilities, parking lots, sports fields and more. The university plans to use cleaned material from the 76-acre landfill to partially fill an adjacent 46-acre former pumice mine it bought a year ago. Using material from the landfill will eliminate the need to have fill delivered from elsewhere and will prepare both properties - the pumice mine and the landfill - for construction of the university's expanding campus. Thousands of Irrigators Could Be Eligible to Join 'Takings' Suit Herald and News (Klamath Falls) Irrigators who owned or leased land in the Klamath Reclamation Project on April 6, 2001, are urged to join a class-action lawsuit in order to receive compensation, pending a decision in the so-called "takings" case. Elon Musk to Dig Tunnel to Ease Traffic in LA, But He Doesn't Yet Have Permission The Guardian (U.S. Edition) Elon Musk announced plans to start digging a traffic-easing tunnel under Los Angeles "in a month or so", but city planning bodies say he doesn't yet have permission. The SpaceX and Tesla CEO has been mulling the idea since December, when he revealed his frustrations with congestion in the city. "Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging," he said on Twitter. Opinion: There's Only One Way to Fix L.A.'S Traffic, and it Isn't Elon Musk's Tunnels. We Need Tolls - Lots of Them Los Angeles Times Things have gotten so bad that billionaire futurist Elon Musk recently promised to "just start digging" tunnels underneath L.A. With enough layers of tunnels, says Musk, any amount of cars could be provided for. With all due respect to Mr. Musk, this plan encapsulates everything that's wrong with how we think about traffic. Instead of building our way out of the problem, there is a proven solution to fighting traffic, one that's much easier, more effective and less costly than our current approach. It's putting a price on the use of our roads. Self-Driving Cars Can't Cure Traffic, But Economics Can The New York Times But there is one problem autonomous driving is unlikely to solve: the columns of rush-hour gridlock that clog city streets and freeways. If decades of urban planning and economic research are any guide, the solution is unlikely to come from technology but from something similar to Uber's surge pricing: charging people more to use driverless cars at rush hour. News Release: Study Sparks Debate Over Relationship Between Compact Development and Driving American Planning Association Compact development is often recommended as a way to get people to drive less and create more sustainable communities. However, different studies over the years have yielded different outcomes, leading to a muddled understanding about the true impact of compact development. After using meta-aggression analysis, Mark R. Stevens of the University of British Columbia, concludes that planners should not rely on compact development as their only strategy for reducing driving, as it doesn't have much of an impact. Stevens's research has ignited a passionate debate over compact development's true impacts. Reid Ewing and Robert Cervero, professors at the University of Utah and the University of California, Berkeley, co-authored one of the most cited JAPA articles about compact development. They comment that their greatest concern is that Stevens has overreached in his conclusions. Great Idea: Cottages for Emergency and Permanent Affordable Housing Public Square: A CNU Journal - The cute Katrina Cottage has proven the versatility and usefulness of cottages that are designed to fit into complete neighborhoods - The Katrina Cottage came out of the Mississippi Renewal Forum, perhaps the largest on-site, multidisciplinary design charrette in history, held in Biloxi, Mississippi, after the devastating 2005 Hurricane Katrina. Designed as a better alternative to the ugly "FEMA trailer," then used as standard temporary emergency housing but sometimes placed in communities for more than a decade, this cottage won design awards and influenced housing design nationwide because of its versatility and simple beauty. How 'Infill' Housing Is Blossoming in the Lower Mainland The Tyee (Vancouver, B.C.) Adding new structures to vacant or unused land in an already developed area, versus building a new subdivision, is what's known as 'infill' in urban planner speak. It's a kind of "gentle density" that can take many forms, from building in-house secondary suites, to adding laneway homes, town/row houses, duplexes, triplexes, and quadplexes to a single family home lot. Some municipalities even allow single family lot subdivisions to create smaller lots, and thus more housing, or move your heritage home to accommodate infill while preserving local history and neighbourhood character. Successful Buildings for a Better City Streetsblog LA In L.A., we think of a city as a vast region of single family houses with skyscrapers in the middle, but to the rest of the world, those two building types represent only the extremes to be used in their cities rather sparsely. Those cities mostly consist out of what we call "the missing middle buildings". This article is devoted to two examples out of the vast catalog of those building types, because they create so much urban fabric elsewhere but do not exist in SoCal; even worse, they may be illegal for us to build at this time. Why Aren't We Building Middle Income Housing? Rooflines In a previous Shelterforce blog post, I argued that we cannot give up hope that the market will build middle-income housing. Granted, over the past decade, most new housing has been built in the luxury segment of the market, yet some argue that this isn't a problem because the luxury housing naturally "filters" down and eventually offers everyone the benefit of lower rents and prices. I agree that refusing to build luxury housing (in the face of rising demand from wealthy households) will only make the housing problem worse for everyone else, but exclusively building luxury housing is no strategy for addressing the housing problems of low-income or even middle-income people. For low-income residents in high cost areas, there is no substitute for public sector action to provide below-market rate housing, but for middle-income households, the market really should be able to provide appropriate housing without government subsidy. It is not doing that now, but we shouldn't give up on the idea because ultimately it will bring more benefit to a wider segment of the population than luxury housing can. So why doesn't this happen? Chief Environmental Justice Official at EPA Resigns, With Plea to Pruitt to Protect Vulnerable Communities Inside Climate News The head of the environmental justice program at the Environmental Protection Agency has stepped down, departing the government with a lengthy letter to Scott Pruitt, the EPA's new administrator, urging him not to kill the agency's programs. Laura Buhl, AICP, CNU-A | Land Use & Transportation Planner Planning Services Division | Transportation & Growth Management Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development 635 Capitol Street NE, Suite 150 | Salem, OR 97301-2540 Direct: (503) 934-0073 | Main: (503) 373-0050 laura.buhl at state.or.us | www.oregon.gov/LCD/TGM -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: