2022 Legislative Wrap-up

Lasting only five weeks, Oregon’s 2022 Legislative Session packed a lot of action into a short amount of time. We were able to help push several land use priorities over the finish line, resulting in a wide range of bills that passed, from support for farmers and ranchers to technical fixes on Oregon’s much-needed comprehensive wildfire legislation, to more opportunities for affordable housing. During the session, we met with partners and legislators to drive forward land use policies, submitted written comments, testified in committees, and mobilized advocates to ensure the land use planning system was bolstered from every angle.

This session also brought the news that at least 30 legislators were either retiring or running for other positions. Such a monumental change means that the 2023 (nearly six-month-long) Legislative Session will see more fresh legislators than at any time in recent history. We see this as an opportunity to get in front of the new legislators to let them know why Oregon's statewide land use planning system is critical to the state’s economic, equity, and environmental prosperity  and to create lasting relationships that persist beyond the boundaries of legislative sessions. 

We wouldn’t be able to celebrate these victories without our partners, land use activists, and the support of our members — thank you!

SIGNIFICANT WINS

  • $5 million to fund the Oregon Agricultural Heritage Program, designed by agricultural and conservation groups to protect farm and ranch land, keep it in production, and enhance its natural resource value.
  • Establishment of the Oregon Broadband Advisory Council, a group that will plan, implement, and oversee how over $200 million of federal funding for broadband access will be used. A lack of fast and reliable internet access particularly affects rural communities, farmers, and businesses.
  • The creation of the Environmental Justice Council within the Department of Environmental Quality to support the work of all natural resource agencies. 
  • More affordable housing options in all neighborhoods through more options to site manufactured/prefabricated homes. 
  • The defeat of legislation allowing urban growth boundaries to be expanded more easily.

Below is a more comprehensive outline of our legislative priorities

LEGISLATION WE SUPPORTED


Equitable Housing

HB 4064: Expanding Affordable Housing Options | Passed!

HB 4064 opens up more affordable housing opportunities in all neighborhoods. The bill clarifies existing and expands opportunities for siting of manufactured/prefabricated homes. It also modifies some definitions and clarifies that local governments must allow siting of manufactured and prefabricated homes in single-family dwelling zones inside urban growth boundaries (UGBs). It prohibits local governments from applying standards to prefabricated and manufactured homes that are located outside mobile home parks, other than standards applicable to single-family dwellings on the same land. 

Finally, HB 4064 expands the manufactured dwelling replacement program to borrowers whose manufactured home or prefabricated structure was destroyed by a natural disaster and allows an eligible replacement home to be located either inside or outside the natural disaster area.  

HB 4037: Under-used State Land for Transitional Housing in Salem | Passed!

HB 4037 requires the state of Oregon to use reasonable efforts to lease unused or underutilized state property to the city of Salem for use as transitional housing for people experiencing houselessness. This bill is a pilot project, and 1000 Friends looks forward to expanding this concept to other cities and to permanent housing.

Working Lands

SB 1532: Supporting Oregon's Farmers, Ranchers, and Foresters | Did Not Move Forward

Oregon State University provides support for all Oregonians, and especially for the Oregon families who depend on our working lands, through several programs that include the Forest Research Laboratory, the Agricultural Experiment Station, the Extension Service, and the Center for Small Farms and Community Food Systems. HB 1532 would have provided $2.2 million to backfill existing programs and grow some new ones. 1000 Friends was part of a 40+ member statewide coalition of organizations that supported this budget allocation. Unfortunately, while the bill passed one committee,  it did not move through to the full legislature.

Oregon Agricultural Heritage Program Funding | Passed!

We are thankful that the 2021 Legislature allocated $5 million for the Oregon Agricultural Heritage Program (OAHP). In 2017, the legislature created OAHP with significant bipartisan support; however, it was not funded until this session. OAHP was designed by agricultural and conservation groups to protect farm and ranch land, keep it in production, and enhance its natural resource value. The program is designed to provide voluntary incentives to farmers and ranchers to support practices that maintain or enhance agriculture and natural resources, such as fish and wildlife, on agricultural lands. OAHP is administered by the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, which has been standing ready to implement it. 

The $5 million allocation will allow OAHP to leverage a federal match for 50% of the value of a project with a state contribution of just 25%, providing a powerful and supportive tool to current land use protections for working lands.

Climate

SB 1534: Oregon Global Warming Commission Natural & Working Lands Bill | Did Not Move Forward

SB 1534 was brought by the state’s Oregon Global Warming Commission, based on its Natural and Working Lands Proposal

The proposal recognizes that Oregon’s natural and working lands — including forests, grasslands, rangelands, farmlands, tidal and subtidal wetlands, and the parks and open spaces in urban environments — provide significant opportunities to increase carbon sequestration and storage. However, while the bill passed one committee, it did not move through the full legislature during this short session.

Wildfire

SB 1533: Technical Fixes to SB 762 on Wildfire Resilience | Passed!

SB 762, passed by the 2021 Legislature, was a comprehensive bill impacting many aspects of wildfire resilience and preparedness and impacts almost a dozen state agencies. 1000 Friends advocated diligently for this bill and is now engaged in its implementation. As the bill is now being implemented by these agencies, a few non-controversial technical fixes were identified: SB 1553 covers these fixes.

Equity & Environmental Justice

HB 4092:  Expansion of Broadband Access | Passed!

Many parts of Oregon — especially rural areas — still do not have adequate broadband access, a disparity that has been highlighted during the past two years of remote school and work. Lack of connectivity also hampers farmers and rural businesses. Recent federal legislation allocates broadband funding directly to the states, and Oregon is poised to receive more than $200 million to invest in building these services. HB 4092 will ensure that a system of robust, sustainable and statewide broadband services connects all Oregonians.

HB 4077:  Governor's Environmental Justice Bill | Passed!

HB 4077 creates the Environmental Justice Council within the Department of Environmental Quality, which would support the work of all the natural resource agencies by:

  • Creating a centralized data and information hub to inform environmental justice.
  • Directing the creation of a mapping tool to measure environmental science and health data with socioeconomic information.
  • Assisting in developing a community engagement and outreach plan to inform the development of a statewide environmental vulnerability assessment tool.
HB 4093: Genuine Progress Indicator | Did Not Move Forward

HB 4093 did not move forward in this legislative session, but it had a very supportive hearing and we expect it to be back!  Brought by Rep. Pham, HB 4093 would require Oregon state agencies to collect data on Oregon's economic, social, and environmental gains and losses, which the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis would research and compile into a report on Oregon’s Genuine Progress Index (GPI) on an annual basis.

Standard economic metrics like the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) are used by the government as a primary measure of economic health, but these narrow metrics do not reflect the true environmental, social, and economic well-being of our state. The GPI would add to this, by quantifying such things as aspects of public health related to air and water quality, the costs of lack of affordable housing or lack of access to transit, progress or lack thereof in protecting working lands and natural resources, and more.


LEGISLATION WE OPPOSED

HB 4118: Bypassing Land Use Laws to Expand Urban Growth Boundaries | Failed!

This bill was well-intentioned: to provide more “workforce” housing.  However, the proposal unnecessarily pitted two good things against one another: housing and farmland. And, it establishes new mechanisms that are not practicable to actually deliver housing for middle-income Oregonians.

HB 4118 would have allowed a private landowner to request that a city expand its urban growth boundary (UGB), into a city’s urban reserve, by up to 100 acres for “workforce housing” and/or “workforce commercial” uses without going through the land use planning process.

HB 4118 would make it easier to expand a UGB into an urban reserve. Today, urban reserves exist to be used after the current 20-year land supply of a UGB is utilized. Normally, expanding into an urban reserve is through a UGB expansion when a city determines, through a public process, that there is a need. Under this current process, some or all urban reserve lands may never actually be incorporated into a UGB, or might not be for many years,  and will continue to be used for their original zoning  — often farming. Urban reserves have been designated in many areas, including around the Metro Portland UGB and around the cities of the Rogue Valley, as well as other cities.

1000 Friends opposed HB 4118 for several reasons:

  • These UGB expansions would be driven by individual private landowners, not a public process.
  • HB 4118 would override the community process by which urban reserves were originally designated. 
  • Urban reserve areas often contain substantial expanses of farmland, in addition to forests and natural areas. These are areas providing food, fiber, habitat, and carbon sequestration, and should not be paved over without going through the land use evaluation process.
  • HB 4118 creates a new structure that makes it unlikely it can even deliver on what it promises. The bill requires that cities hold a covenant on the land brought into the UGB so the land is used solely for workforce housing or workforce commercial.  This is not something cities typically do and would require cities to set up and staff a system to oversee and enforce these covenants.

HB 4118 risked distracting cities from taking real actions to increase diverse and affordable housing options where people need and want to live, inside UGBs — near work, school, shopping, and more.

SB 1537: Undermines Legislation on Wildfire Preparedness, Energy Efficiency, and More | Failed!

SB 1537 would have expanded what must be included in a housing cost impact statement required for proposed rules, by adding burdensome and nebulous assessments, and expanding the state agencies required to prepare this statement. The bill required the analysis only for single-family homes, looked only at short term costs to individual houses, required hard to assess evaluations, did not take into account benefits to either the resident or to the community at large from the proposed regulation, and did not look at long term benefits. It requires expensive assessments that seem to be aimed at undermining efforts to make homes and communities more energy efficient and wildfire resilient, among other things.  1000 Friends and many other organizations opposed this paperwork bill. Oregon needs real solutions to providing more, and more affordable, housing in every neighborhood.