Lila Kohrman-Glaser is chair of the Portland Tenants Union. Collin Baker is chair of DSA for a Livable Portland.

Portland has experienced a boom in new affordable housing units in the five years since more than 23,000 voters (59%) passed the Green New Deal, which included an affordable housing  requirement that 25% of new units developed by private developers charge reasonable rent.

Now a few developers are calling for a repeal of that affordable housing provision (the same developers who opposed it in 2020), and they are lobbying Portland city councilors to take up their cry for increased profits.

From 2021-2025, Portland built 620 units of affordable housing. The five years prior? 272. For units approved and about to be built, the numbers are even starker: 514 affordable units were approved before the Green New Deal passed and 1,558 since. Triple the output! 

While there are certainly multiple factors influencing housing development, it’s clear that the affordable housing provision of the Green New Deal is a driving force, as hundreds of these units are directly attributable to it, including more than 200 about to be built in Bayside.

But to hear the developers talk about it, you might think something very different was happening. In a recent Press Herald article, one for-profit developer falsely claimed that the law has “dampened” housing development and “is just not working.”

In response, members of the Portland City Council have announced they plan to try and roll back the will of the voters. Mayor Mark Dion says he wants to go back to the original requirement of only 10%. Councilor Ben Grant wants to go even further, perhaps bringing it to zero. No compromise. Just repeal, or worse.

In truth, the only thing that’s changed is that developers are building more than just luxury apartments. A for-profit developer’s goal is to maximize their profits, very different from a goal of writing public policy that benefits the residents of the city we love. So why would our elected representatives let a few developers write our housing policy?

As representatives from two of the most powerful groups in Portland representing tenants and the working class, our first suggestion would be to let the Green New Deal stand in its original form for another five years before changes are considered. However, we are always willing to discuss ways the law could be more effective.

For instance, right now the affordability limit in the law allows landlords to charge $1,817 a month for a one-bedroom apartment. At that rate, a full-time worker making $40,000 will spend over half of their take-home pay to meet that rent. That’s still too high.

We actually think it might be productive for the council to create a commission, as it has with social housing, that would bring landlords, tenants, housing advocates, workers and city staff together to look at ways we could make our affordable housing law work even better for the people of Portland. 

A few other ideas a commission could consider:

• Pass a significant bond to fund affordable housing that can help projects meet the affordability requirements and build social housing.
• Add additional tiers for required unit creation to add flexibility and create deeper affordability rates.
• Eliminate the 10-unit threshold and apply affordability requirements to all developments over four units.
• Give the council flexibility on a per-project basis to tweak the formula.
• Implement new state zoning mandates to allow for denser unit creation.
• Expand allowance of off-site units.

Dividing the community by gutting a law that an overwhelming majority of Portland voted for will cause unnecessary fights in the coming months and possibly at the ballot box. But, more importantly, it will dramatically slow the accelerated affordable housing production that we have achieved, at a time when workers in our city continue to be priced out.