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At the November 18-19 Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) Meeting, staff informed commissioners of concerns raised by local governments regarding the administrative rules found in OAR 660-046, specifically the minimum density assumption for master planned communities in larger cities. Larger cities are defined in HB 2001 as “Non-Portland Metro Cities over 25,000 population and Portland Metro Cities and Counties over 1,000 population”. To provide a reasonable expectation for local governments on how to adequately plan infrastructure in these greenfield areas, OAR 660-046-0205 specifies the amount of planned infrastructure capacity a Large City could anticipate in a Master Planned Community: fifteen dwelling units per acre (du/ac) for cities outside of the Metro urban growth boundary (UGB) and twenty du/ac for cities within the Metro UGB. Local jurisdictions are concerned that this rule is an imperfect measure to address the issue of infrastructure planning in a greenfield context and may make it hard to adequately plan and pay for infrastructure costs associated with new development. Staff have highlighted four rulemaking outcomes for LCDC to consider to address these concerns. 1. Proceed with OAR 660-046-0205(2)(b) as written. 2. Reduce the Dwelling Units Per Acre Infrastructure Planning Requirement. Staff would bring amended OAR language that would functionally maintain the already established process of using density as a proxy for infrastructure capacity plan intact but would reduce the minimum planned infrastructure capacity requirement from 15 du/ac outside Metro and 20 du/ac inside Metro. 3. Establish a minimum middle housing expectation threshold in new Master Planned Communities. This option would amend the underlying basis of OAR 660-046-0205(2)(b) as it is currently written. Whereas the current rules require cities to plan for a certain number of dwelling units per acre, this option would amend the rules to set minimum middle housing thresholds in new Master Planned Communities. For example, the rules under this option might establish that a minimum of XX% of units in a Master Planned Communities be triplexes, a minimum of XX% be quadplexes, XX% be cottage clusters, and XX% be townhouses. 4. Define middle housing-type infrastructure impact safe harbors. Similar to Option 3 above, this option would amend the underlying basis of OAR 660-046-0205(2)(b). This option would require the rules to establish reasonable expectations for the increased infrastructure demand that may result from each middle housing type. The result would be a series of unique middle housing-type “multipliers” that can provide local governments with informed estimates of true infrastructure demand of each middle housing type. View the full staff report here The OHBA team is working on this issue and opportunities for industry participation in the rulemaking process will take place next year. A tentative timeline has the rulemaking starting in the first quarter of 2022 with final decision at the end of the second quarter or beginning of the third. If you have concerns or questions regarding this issue and the process or wish to participate in rulemaking through committees or testimony, contact Ryan Makinster, ryanm@hbapdx.org.