City weighs affordable housing funds in urban renewal areas

By Joanne Zuhl, Staff Writer

It’s been six years since Portland voted to dedicate 30 percent of the city’s urban renewal funds toward affordable housing. It was a controversial decision at a time when the city’s housing concerns were divided between City Council and the Portland Development Commission, with business, neighborhood and affordable housing interests each weighing in on how the money should be divvied up.

Since its creation in 2006, the policy has generated more than $152 million for housing affordable to low-income and workforce residents, accounting for one-third of tax increment financing expenditures in the city’s nine neighborhood urban renewal areas, or URAs. The money has helped fund the Bud Clark Commons, veterans housing in the South Waterfront district, the Blanchet House reconstruction, and preservation efforts in existing low-income housing buildings.