The City Club of Portland has endorsed building more “middle housing” in Portland’s established neighborhoods, after a committee had earlier narrowly rejected the measure.

City Club members overwhelmingly endorsed the minority report April 15 after a committee rejected adopting the recommendations by a 6-5 vote.

Mike Westling, who wrote the minority report, said construction will be an important ingredient in the effort to ease Portland’s housing crunch.

“If we’re serious about addressing the housing crisis in Portland, we need to take steps that we know are effective, and that means creating more supply,” he said.

Middle housing refers to structures such as duplexes, townhomes, small apartment buildings, accessory dwelling units and homes that have been divided into apartments. Those types of developments can’t be restricted to Portland’s outer edges, Westling said.

“Proximity is really becoming the equivalent of opportunity in our city,” he said.

Westling said Northwest Portland is a good example of a healthy and affordable housing mix.

“You can see all that vibrant mix of single-family home next to a duplex, next to a larger home that’s been broken into five units, next to commercial,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be this massive, gross box dropped into a residential neighborhood.”

But zoning in some established neighborhoods such as Eastmoreland, Concordia and Laurelhurst doesn’t allow for such mixes.

Some residents have voiced concerns that more middle-housing development would harm the character of existing neighborhoods.

However, the City Council is considering allowing more middle housing in areas along Powell Boulevard, Hawthorne Boulevard, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and areas that serve as town centers, such as 42nd Avenue and Killingsworth, and Lents.

“That still leaves out massive areas of the city from this type of housing,” Westling said. “In my opinion, they’re not going quite far enough, but we’ll see where they end up.”

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Portland’s housing affordability crisis is as bad as the media makes it out to be, the City Club of Portland says in a new report.

“The fact that this is a complex problem that resists an easy, comprehensive solution should not dissuade Portland and Oregon from acting,” the report states.

The report sets forth a number of recommendations, including for the city of Portland to set aside money to buy distressed properties and then rent them out at affordable rates, according to an embargoed draft that was shared with media.

“There’s no one factor that got us into this mess that we’re in,” said Nels Johnson, who served as chairman of the City Club committee, citing cash offers for housing and increased population.

“There’s no single solution that’s going to get out of this, either,” he added.

The City Club formed the committee last summer to study affordable housing in Portland. The committee widened its mandate to consider the larger question of housing affordability, not just the narrow definition of affordable housing used by the city.

The committee’s findings will be presented at the City Club’s Friday Forum.

Local and state governments have become more involved because of a lack of federal housing dollars, creating a patchwork of regulations and incentives.

Overall, the report calls for a striking amount of intervention from local government.

“Our conclusion was the city should do more than it’s doing,” said Johnson, a lobbyist for Thorn Run Partners.

Many of the committee’s conclusions are not likely to be embraced by multifamily developers. The city is already pursuing some, such as streamlining design review for some projects.

The recommendations include:

• exploring rent control and rent stabilization on a “limited, local basis;”

• the city of Portland banning no-cause evictions;

• instituting measures to encourage voluntary inclusionary zoning;

• the city implementing a rental registration system to aid data collection; and

• the city, Portland Development Commission and Metro salting away money to purchase distressed properties during the next downturn.

Johnson acknowledged there was a “robust back and forth” during committee meetings. A minority report recommends changing Portland’s zoning to encourage greater housing diversity within neighborhoods.

Mike Westling, a communications consultant and committee member, will present the minority report on Friday.

“This isn’t the final word on housing in Portland,” Johnson said of the committee’s work. “This is an important step in the larger discussion.”

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