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Population growth is coming to the Portland-metro area – that much is known.

Though projections vary, the number of residents in the region could increase from 2.2 million to 3.2 million within the next two to three decades.

The question of how to plan for that growth while protecting environmental assets and making investments in public transit and housing density was discussed by six panelists Thursday at an event hosted by Society for Marketing Professional Services.

For the construction industry, that could mean finding ways to create more diverse housing types and make them financially feasible, said Lauren Golden Jones, development manager at Capstone Partners LLC.

“We’re going to need to provide more housing,” she said. “The question is: How do we fund this?”

New multifamily construction is becoming more difficult because of system development charges that can amount to between $15,000 and $18,000 per unit, Jones said. Reducing charges on developments that provide housing closer to transportation links and parks would give builders more incentive to build more affordable housing with higher density in those places, she said.

“It’s really difficult for us to be able to build apartments that are not on the high end of the market,” Jones said. “We can build apartments where 1,500 bucks per month is average.”

Neighborhood resistance to proposals of “micro-apartments” or reduced tenant parking can challenge projects too, she said.

Developers also are saddled when trying to build on industrial brownfields, said Brian Vanneman, principal at Leland Consulting Group. Those sites within city limits could ultimately be used to handle projected growth, he said.

“There are brownfields out there,” he said. “If we can encourage those to be developed, it would create jobs for construction and it could save us from having to build additional infrastructure.”

But brownfields carry a risk that comes from the unknown. A buyer could be on the hook for cleaning up anything not discovered during the initial due diligence period, Vanneman said.

That risk could be offset, he said, by creating a regional fund (a kind of insurance) that every builder or developer would pay into and draw back from in the event unforeseen contamination is discovered.

Use of brownfields would help cities and counties meet increasing demand for services, said Bob Stacey, a Metro councilor. But a lack of federal funding has shifted cleanup costs to the developer, who also gets stuck with long-term maintenance costs, he said.

“Growing more industrial employment in our region will add to the state income tax,” he said. “It’s our public responsibility to clean up these sites.”

Also evident is a lack of funding for the region’s transportation network, which has a projected $10 billion to $14 billion shortfall in terms of what can be bonded and what the region needs.

The cost of infrastructure is growing and the failure to keep up will saddle the region in the future, Stacey said.

“We have to get out the Ouija board to make funding work and find a way to make a federal match,” he said. “We’re not going to be able to do that anymore. That model is broken.”

TriMet‘s financial resources also are limited, especially in the wake of a state audit released last month that revealed the agency has $852 million in unfunded liability for retiree health care. The agency also must address delayed maintenance and other costly issues, according to the audit.

As the agency gains financial strength, it will steer projects in the direction of planned growth, said Alan Lehto, TriMet’s director of planning and policy.

“The region has created a vision for where growth should happen,” he said. “It doesn’t mean we’re going to change everything. It means growth where it makes sense.”

Planning challenges also include the unknown – for instance, what would happen in the event of prolonged drought in California and the Southwest, said Jason Jurjevich, assistant director of Portland State University’s Population Research Center. The influx of new residents to the Portland area could be double because of climate change, he said.

“What if the number is two million?” he said.

As more people come to the Portland area seeking a closer natural environment and other assets, the greater the challenge becomes to protect those assets, said Jurjevich, who calls this the “Amenity Paradox.”

“We want to plan to accommodate growth in a way that doesn’t threaten the very reason people find the Portland-metro area a great place to live,” he said.

The region will need to improve its roads and bridges, public transit and education, but not ignore important concerns such as social justice, income inequality and affordable housing, Jurjevich said.

While a million new residents may sound like a lot, they actually would be fewer than those the region has gained in the past decade, Stacey said.

“It’s foolish not to be prepared for it,” he said. “But don’t panic. It will be a challenge, but one that we’ve met before.”