HB 2003 – Putting Some Teeth Into the State’s Housing Goal: HB 2003 is a good housing bill that had a bad start but was fixed through amendments. The bill requires larger Oregon cities to adopt a “housing production strategy” and submit it to the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC). LCDC is then required to ensure that the city follows through with the strategy and makes land available for enough housing to meet their 20 year needs.
The bill is aimed squarely at those communities that don’t want to make housing available in their community, but also oppose any efforts to expand the UGB. While some would argue that a city should get to decide for itself whether it wants to grow or not grow, but Oregon’s land use system removed a city’s right to choose how to grow decades ago, and it is not right to give cities the right to choose not to grow while not allowing them to choose the right to grow. It’s long past time for the state legislature to tell LCDC that they are going to start paying attention to the need for cities to allow growth, even when they don’t want to.