It’s early, but the city of Portland’s moratorium on development fees appears to be moving some multifamily developers off the sidelines and into building, according to permitting data and interviews.

In fact, it led one developer to propose a new project. Joe Westerman on May 1 requested early assistance from Portland Permitting & Development for a four- to five-story mixed-use building with 158 apartments in 213,644 square feet at Northeast Sandy Boulevard and 52nd Avenue.

If the project were to advance, it would represent a rare boost of supply to Portland’s tight housing market.

“I’ve been building apartments in Porland for 30 years, and I kind of got away from it when working with the city got so unruly,” Westerman said.

So, what changed?

“Portland is incentivizing developers with not having to pay the system development charges,” he added. “It’s probably going to be $3 million that you don’t have to pay. That’s – that’s nice.”

System development charges fund city infrastructure through various city bureaus, but the fees have drawn blame for discouraging housing proposals by increasing costs.

SDCs average about $20,000 per unit; they can range from $15,000 to $35,000 per unit, according to a City Council document.

Only 818 market-rate housing units were produced in Portland in 2024 — the lowest rate in more than a decade. In response, the City Council last summer approved a moratorium on SDCs that will last until Sept. 30, 2028.

The development fee moratorium is helping keep projects alive, said Ezra Hammer, a land-use attorney at Ballard Spahr.

“For a pro forma that has seen compression over an entitlement period, the SDC waivers are helping with that compression,” he said.

Hammer said he’s also fielded increased interest from “out-of-town folks who are pleasantly surprised about the tonal shift we’re hearing.” That’s after Portland’s reputation soured amid pandemic shutdowns, protests and regulatory obstacles.

“The city appears to want to attract investment in multifamily housing,” Hammer said. “I haven’t seen those projects materialize yet, but it’s a big shift from the world we were in before where capital had absolutely no interest in Portland.”

Portland Permitting & Development is tracking an uptick in building permits issued since the fee moratorium began in August 2025. Some projects that had apparently stalled were given building permits.

As of Jan. 15, 265 new housing units complied with the program for a total of $6.68 million in SDC exemptions — an average of $25,221 per unit. An additional 207 units have had their permits issued and are on track to receive $4.17 million in development fee exemptions but have not yet completed compliance in the program, according to the agency. The city ordinance that created the exemptions requires new housing projects to pour a concrete foundation within 12 months of permits being issued.

PP&D is expected to present a full report on the program to the City Council after Aug. 15, when the exemptions will have been in place for a year.

“We see indicators that the SDC exemption is helping new housing units get developed,” PP&D spokesman Ken Ray stated in an email. “It is early in the program, and we expect we’ll have a clearer picture this fall after we’ve had a year’s worth of activity to review.”

The moratorium and builder-friendly vibes could even be enough to get someone like Westerman — a longtime Portland investor — off the sidelines. His JMW Properties owns four multifamily properties in Portland, one in Vancouver, Washington, and one in Medford. Westerman has brought on board Koble Creative to design the Sandy Boulevard project, which is named Rose City Mixed-Use in early planning documents.

“This could be a really amazing project,” Westerman said. “It has a beautiful southern exposure. You could have on the second floor an atrium, and … units on the inside. You could have fresh air in there; you could have skylights in there.”

Westerman said he wants to build relatively roomy studios and apartments with one or two bedrooms rather than the micro-units that some developers have built to boost rental rates per square foot.

Westerman owns the entire block, including the building at 5137 N.E. Sandy Blvd. that hosts the discount store Friday Deals. The larger building at 5201-5223 N.E. Sandy Blvd. includes G.O.A.T. Bar and Hollywood Fitness, a longtime neighborhood gym owned by George Camalli.

Westerman said he hopes Hollywood Fitness will be the anchor tenant in the new building, in a 10,000-square-foot storefront space. “I like that — having to deal with one tenant,” he said.

The project could also affect the Rose City Food Park. But the food carts may be able to move to the block’s west end, Westerman said.

Koble Creative previously designed Westerman’s Cedar Commons development in Medford.

“They’re a good local architect,” he said.

Westerman, a contractor, expects to perform the construction in-house.

A new outlook in the city government gained Westerman’s attention, he said, in contrast to what he considered an anti-developer stance when the permitting agency was overseen by former city commissioner Chloe Eudaly.

“The permits center became an area of ‘no,’ and I think that’s changing,” he said. “We are going to early assistance to find out all of the issues if there are issues, and then we’ll do a cost model and a pro forma model. And we’ll see if it papers out.”

Westerman also owns a large swath of land in Gateway that he’s so far been unable to redevelop. He also suggested he’d be happy to take on investors for the Sandy Boulevard development.

“Anyone who would like a partnership, give me a call,” he said.

Portland needs more housing, and it also needs some good news, Westerman said.

“It’s easy for me not to be happy with Portland,” he said. “But the bottom line: I would like to be part of the solution.”

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