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This month, Clackamas County updated its Land Use Housing Strategies webpage to include the parcel level review memo HBA requested following the county’s 2019 Housing Needs Analysis and Buildable Lands Inventory (HNA and BLI). HBA thanks the county for working with its consultant to develop a layered web map tool and for conducting a parcel level analysis. Using the tool and county’s density assumptions, HBA further discovered that the BLI misclassified 31 parcels in four areas (unincorporated Clackamas County, Happy Valley, Oregon City, and West Linn), representing a loss of 350 housing units. Adding those units to the existing 77-unit deficit within the four areas, the true 427-unit deficit represents a dire picture of housing need over the next 20 years. Because the four areas have a capacity deficit for their projected housing needs across most residential land use designations, this refined parcel-level analysis re-emphasizes the critical need for jurisdictions to consider policies that encourage housing supply. The county’s Land Use Housing Strategies Project is one of four parts comprising the County Commission’s Comprehensive Plan Chapter 6 Housing updates within its 2019-2021 Long Range Planning Work Program. It is specifically designed to address the 2019 HNA and BLI, along with the 2019 Housing Affordability and Homelessness Task Force recommendations, and is broken into three phases. Phase I begins this summer and will consider tiered density bonuses for affordable housing inclusion, and a hierarchy of parking standards tied to transit proximity and dwelling unit affordability. HBA’s ongoing participation will advance strategies that maximize best land uses in order to incentivize housing affordability and choice. To learn more about HBA’s work in Clackamas County, contact Roseann Johnson at roseannj@hbapdx.org.