Strategic policymaking for housing solutions

What does it take to get quality, reasonably-priced homes in every Oregon community? It can be more complicated than you might think. In this section, we explain the policy and planning tools that local governments can use, including six overarching strategies that every community can benefit from.

 

View planning tools      Check out the 6 strategies

 

Planning for a more plentiful future

Our land use planning system, established in 1974 with SB 100 and 101, is the reason Oregon looks like Oregon. Oregon’s land use system has 19 statewide planning goals, including goals 10 and 14, which require cities to plan for and accommodate needed housing types.

A multiplex with sunflowers, corn, and an evergreen tree growing outside
Goal 10: Housing

Oregon's land use planning Goal 10 specifies that each city must plan for and accommodate all needed housing types, from single detached to multifamily to manufactured housing. It requires each city to inventory its buildable residential lands, project future housing needs, and plan and zone enough capacity and buildable land to meet those needs. It also prohibits local plans from discriminating against needed housing types.

 

Learn more about Goal 10

Sunrise over urban growth boundary
Goal 14: Urbanization

Requires cities to estimate future housing, employment, parks, and other needs over the next 20 years, and then plan and zone enough capacity and land to meet those needs. It calls for each city to establish an urban growth boundary (UGB) to "identify and separate urbanizable land from rural land." Goal 14 specifies seven factors that must be considered in drawing up a UGB. It also lists four criteria to be applied when undeveloped land within the UGB is to be converted to urban uses.

 

Learn more about Goal 14

Read next
Middle housing being built (all plywood frames/walls) with a worker placing a panel on the farthest home (on the right).
Housing planning tools for city officials

These curated resources provide a clear path towards providing more housing for your community.

Row of duplexes with arid hills beyond
Six strategies for Oregon cities

1000 Friends of Oregon has identified six core strategies to improve housing for all Oregonians.