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Under Portland Mayor Wheeler’s Fiscal Year 2019-2020 Proposed Budget, the City would spend $60,004 to hire a third party consultant to establish and implement a citywide development review strategic plan. The study would highlight the inefficiencies in development review and permitting and would explore the need for better alignment and coordination between the bureaus. Currently, the City lacks optimal service levels to review and permit new housing and the existing siloed system prevents the implementation of consistent policies, procedures, and processes across interagency partners. The study would build on efforts over the past several years to better align priorities and establish governance of the development process throughout the City. The HBA commends the Mayor’s efforts to better facilitate coordination between bureaus that manage development services and thanks him for working to ensure that builders can produce new housing in a timely and efficient manner. To support this critical consultant work, you can submit a comment on the Mayor’s proposed budget here. Please be sure to reference the Citywide Development Review Strategic Plan when leaving a comment. Contact Ezra Hammer at ezrah@hbapdx.org to learn more about the HBA’s efforts in the City of Portland and how we are working to reduce the cost of providing housing across all income levels. Next Article