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Last week, HBA weighed in on the City of Oregon City’s Housing Choices Code Update. HBA, along with other members of the market-rate development community, answered prompts and offered suggestions to achieve actual production of more middle housing in the city. Recommendations included allowing detached duplex-quadplexes for ease of financing and supporting fee-simple home ownership, while responding to market demand for detached housing choices; allowing a tiered increase in building coverage for each additional unit on a lot; and implementing incentives such as tax abatement and system development charge administrative reform. Join HBA in responding to OC’s targeted middle housing code update survey here. Oregon City is building on its 2019 equitable housing code amendments to fully comply with House Bill 2001 and Senate Bill 458, passed in 2019 and 2021, respectively. HB2001 allows duplexes-quadplexes, cottage clusters, and townhomes in all areas that allow for single-dwelling detached homes. SB458 allows for an expedited land division to create individually-deeded, a.k.a. individual homeownership, for new middle housing dwelling units. Oregon City’s code adoption hearings are scheduled for March-May 2022, while the bills go into mandatory effect as of July 1, 2022. You can join the project email list here. To learn more about HBA involvement in Oregon City, contact Roseann Johnson, roseannj@hbapdx.org.