Portland is an amazing city, but our housing shortage is quickly pushing out the folks that make it so special: our teachers, artists, restaurateurs, musicians, and so many others that add color to our lives are being priced out. The only way to preserve our top-tier status as a city is to enable construction of enough homes for us all to live and play and grow together.

One-more-floor Zoning

The core problem in our housing shortage lies with our exclusionary zoning policies that restrict housing development where it is needed most. I propose that the city implements a process by which neighborhood density can grow organically over time. This means rewriting our zoning codes so that neighborhoods are neither preserved in amber nor targeted for massive redevelopment: the city should allow by-right development of incrementally larger buildings relative to adjacent buildings.

For example: a lot adjacent to a 3-story apartment would be allowed to be redeveloped into a 4-story apartment, but a lot surrounded by 1-story bungalows would be limited to a 2-story development. These same incremental growth limitations would also apply to FAR and setback limits.

I call this strategy One-more-floor Zoning and I believe it is a fair and effective development strategy that will lead to healthy, progressive growth throughout the city while minimizing any jarring changes to specific neighborhoods.

Affordable housing is just... housing

There is a mainstream narrative that the city can solve the housing crisis by simply funding more subsidized housing units. However, this approach is counterproductive to the goal of creating more affordable housing options for all.

Our existing 300,000 renters are constantly battling the tides of rising rents, which increase by 5-10% per year. The only way to mitigate this affordability crisis is by building more dense, market-rate housing. While it's easy for politicians to score points by saying, 'We built 10,000 affordable units in the last 8 years,' this is obviously just a drop in the ocean. It doesn't help the rest of our renters who are barreling toward unaffordability themselves!

We need to get the city out of the home-building business. Government spends too much for housing and gets too little actually produced. The city’s Inclusionary Zoning policy mandated that buildings with over 20 housing units must reserve some as 'Affordable.' Guess what happened? The number of buildings constructed with fewer than 20 units doubled. These are projects that could have been much larger! We need density, we need to build upwards, and we need to remove these perverse incentives that continue to hinder our progress.

But the city must still help our low income residents! While government is inefficient at building homes, it is quite efficient at giving out cash. We should put the savings toward rent vouchers or, even better, direct cash payments to low income residents. Cash assistance scales much better than subsidized housing, and it avoids the benefits cliff that causes families to lose their homes when their income eventually increases.

On Growth

West coast cities have clamped down on growth and development in the past few decades, even as more and more people flock here from around the world. I am confident that this immigration pressure will only increase in the coming decades as climate disasters, water shortages, and political tensions become more common elsewhere. The fact is: we need to be aggressively building homes for this new population or our economy will collapse under soaring housing costs. I hope that my daughter can grow up and afford her own home here someday; I wish the same for any hopeful immigrants looking to start their new life, or the new family looking for just a little more room to grow.

Growth is healthy. Rather than fight against it like so many other cities, we can be an example of how to do it correctly, sustainably, and fairly.

Personal automobiles have over-embedded themselves in our culture. Portland traffic deaths hover near all-time highs despite Vision Zero's best efforts. We know how to calm traffic and improve safety, but so far the city has under-invested in these strategies. Covid lockdowns forced us to rethink how we use our street space, but many of these changes have already been rolled back despite "overwhelmingly positive" feedback. Here's how I imagine us repurposing our extra asphalt:

Reclaim street parking

Each and every street parking space carries a heavy opportunity cost. What is now an empty patch of asphalt might instead be a community garden, a rain garden, a tree, or a bike rack that can house ten times as many vehicles. In commercial areas, increased walking and cycling infrastructure at the expense of parking has been shown to be good for small businesses. I'm personally inspired by a program in The Hague that gave homeowners the option to trade out their street parking for a temporary mini-park.

Strengthen the greenway system

Protected bike lanes are great, but we need to strive to separate automotive and non-automotive traffic onto their own streets. This means embracing and extending the greenways we already have, but further limiting car traffic by use of planter boxes, turn restrictions, and creative street spaces as mentioned previously.

Expand public street plazas

Originally developed in response to the pandemic, the wonderful public street plaza program has shown us that we don't need every last inch of street space dedicated to car traffic. These stretches of entire streets are permanently closed to car traffic and enjoy a whopping 86% support rate from the community. Let's get more of these!

Of course we can't reimagine car-centric spaces without reimagining our transit systems in parallel. These will be my areas of focus:

MAX Improvements: build the tunnel

Grade-separated transit is an asset that will pay dividends to the city for centuries. MAX planners have been thinking about increasing capacity by way of a downtown tunnel system. However, at an eye popping $1 billion per mile of track, this becomes less attractive. This project is absolutely worth doing, but we should be asking why these costs are 3-4x higher than similar construction in Europe. First: bring the costs down, then: build the tunnel.

In addition to increasing capacity, we should be investing in the station-neighborhoods themselves. In many cases MAX stations are surrounded by parking lots, warehouses, and freeways. These do nothing to promote local commerce. We should put an emphasis on transforming station areas into enjoyable, walkable destinations to get the most value out of our existing infrastructure.

Bus BRT

The city recently developed its first priority bus system (bus BRT) along Division. This is a good start, but the system ended up losing much of its value in a series of compromises along the way. We need a much stronger bus BRT system, complete with dedicated bus lanes and signal priority.

Improve service quality

It is extremely important that we make citizens feel safe and comfortable on transit. I will push for more enforcement of existing ridership rules. That means increasing funding for the Safety Response Team and Transit Police. I am personally passionate about everyone's right to enjoy safe and comfortable spaces while riding transit, and I believe we have the opportunity to reverse course on a worrying trend in this area.

Homelessness is a symptom of larger systemic problems in our economic, housing, and social policies. I would rather the city divert funds away from treating the symptom, and toward solving the underlying problems. In the meantime, however, we must handle our present situation with respect and empathy for both the housed and unhoused alike.

Develop cheap, large-scale, sanctioned camping sites

While Safe Rest Villages offer a semi-permanent housing solution for the homeless, they are relatively expensive to build and operate, and they cannot accommodate nearly enough people. To address this, we should establish large-scale, designated camping sites equipped with essential services like portable toilets and basic sanitation. Constructing specialized tiny homes is unnecessary; an empty lot would suffice to relocate tent campers and their belongings. Anticipating potential protests from residents near these campsites, I propose offering tax abatements as an incentive for them to accept a campsite into their neighborhood.

Enforce unsanctioned camping bans

I will push to create housing solutions for everyone living in camps, but we must still acknowledge that it's a public health hazard to allow people to live in makeshift camps without hygienic facilities, trash removal, or proper fire safety. I do not believe it is ethical nor humane to allow unmanaged urban camping in our public spaces.

The city is effective at removing camps when they are declared sufficiently problematic, but many encampments don't clear this bar. This can leave camps near schools, blocking sidewalks and invading parks. I will push for lowering this threshold so that more residents can enjoy free and safe access to public amenities.

Reduce the bureaucracy

The homelessness management complex has exploded in cost and size in the last few years. Every dollar that goes to bureaucrats is a dollar that doesn't go to solving problems. We need to take a very critical look at both our government (both city and county) and the dozens of nonprofits involved and ask ourselves if these tradeoffs are worth it. It may be that many services should be brought in-house directly under the city rather than run externally.

The tax code is critical for encouraging growth and investment in ways that benefit society most. Sensible reforms to our government and financial systems must be the foundation on which we build all other projects.

Reduce the middle class tax burden

I’m not going to sugarcoat this part: 2025 will be a financially tough year for the city. Decreasing property values, population loss, and business closures are impacting revenue while spending continues to hit record highs. We need to reprioritize our spending with priority on essentials (schools, safety, and infrastructure) and a willingness to cut costs elsewhere.

That said, I firmly believe that the lower to middle class tax burden is too high. Any tax reform the city undertakes must serve to reduce this burden or at least shift it progressively toward higher income households.

Replace the property tax with a land value tax

Our property tax system has led to a distorted market that encourages land speculation and discourages in-fill of useful space. Land value taxes are similar to property taxes, but have proven to be much more equitable, progressive, and effective at encouraging the right kinds of development. Land value taxes have proven beneficial in many countries, and the concept is slowly gaining traction in US cities. I am proudly endorsed by Common Ground, an advocate for better tax policy in the state of Oregon.

Simplify the tax process

Our local tax payment system is an absurdity. We pay various different taxes to several different local jurisdictions all independently. This increases administration costs and makes the process confusing to taxpayers. I propose that we consolidate these all into our existing tax structures (income and property) so they are easy to understand and administer. I will call out the Arts Tax in particular as a badly designed regressive tax that should be reformed and paid via the general fund.

Covid-19 has pushed us to rethink how a downtown core should look. Remote work is here to stay for many office workers and has drastically changed how many of us move throughout the city. This is our chance to embrace these changes and plan for the future.

Reinvent downtown office space

Portland’s downtown office vacancy rate is the highest of any city in the country. City government is desperately trying to lure business back with lavish tax incentives, but this will just prolong the inevitable: remote work patterns are here to stay and they will kill the 20th century notion of monolithic central business districts. Office workers do not need to battle daily commutes downtown, why should they? The city should not be spending money to prop up a dying workplace model. Instead, double down on converting office space to more valuable space.

Invest in our neighborhoods

Downtown’s troubles can also be seen as an opportunity. We can liberalize zoning in our neighborhood commercial corridors to accommodate small-scale mixed-use offices. We should be relocating the commuter-driven economy of downtown out to the neighborhoods. This saves commuter time, invigorates local small business, and strategically positions the city as a unique and special place to live and work.

LVT, LVT, LVT

I mentioned land value taxes in a previous section. Replacing property tax with a land value tax is the single most impactful thing the city can do to ensure our urban resiliency with no net cost to taxpayers.

The city needs to develop a more effective police force with an emphasis on community policing. To achieve this I will:

Reform PSR

Portland Street Response is an innovative alternative to traditional policing, and I believe it may develop into a strong alternative to police where a sworn officer is not strictly necessary. However, the program needs some changes before I would fully endorse its efficacy. For example, PSR agents have strict limitations on where and how they can intervene, and they also do not have authority to place a psychiatric hold on somebody behaving dangerously (this can only be granted by Multnomah County, which has refused to authorize this). PSR walks a fine line between enabling and reducing street-living; I would like to see a greater focus on reduction, and less on enablement.

It is also worth noting that the county already runs a succesful mental health response unit: Project Respond. It may be that the most effective solution would be to move PSR under the purview of the county - which is responsible for mental health and homeless services already.

Encourage civilian hiring

PPB has a hard time hiring, training, and retaining officers. To help alleviate this, we should open various "desk jobs" to civilians in order to free up police for more intensive police work. This has the two-fold benefit of bringing the community closer to everyday police work, and closing the hiring gap.

Restore community trust

We must continually invest in initiatives like body cameras that give citizens more transparency into the policing process and builds trust with the community.

I have included some bonus opinions below so you can get to know me a bit better. Some of these map directly to policy positions, and some are just closely held personal beliefs.

Noise pollution

I believe in a right to peace and quiet. And yet, there are many unnecessarily loud machines that we encounter every day - notably gas leaf-blowers and obnoxiously loud vehicles. It has taken the city a full 7 years to begin to address gas leaf blowers, but they have done nothing to enforce illegally-modded overly-loud vehicles.

Street cleaning

PBOT has largely scaled back regular residential street cleaning. This is unacceptable as road maintenance is one of government's most important functions.

Traffic enforcement

I regularly spot vehicles driving without valid registration or plates. I regularly witness drivers speeding through red lights, blocking bike lanes, or failing to yield to pedestrians. We don't need to be making traditional "traffic stops" to enforce these laws, and can in fact mostly be done via automated license plate readers and speed cameras. I'm also intrigued by NYC's explorations in allowing citizens to report traffic/parking offenders in realtime.

District 3's waterfront

Our district's waterfront runs from the Ross Island Bridge in the south to the Steel Bridge in the north. It breaks my heart that nearly the entire expanse is eclipsed by concrete and racked with traffic noise. In my lifetime I dream we can reclaim the waterfront as a green space for the people by tearing down this stretch of I-5 and rerouting traffic through I-405.

Repeal the bottle bill

Notably, this is a state law so our city council has little influence. The Bottle Bill was good legislation for its time. But 50 years later, it has outworn its usefulness. Oregonians don't need special incentives to recycle, and we don't need opaque bureaucracies like OBRC soaking up unclaimed deposits from everyday consumers. Remove the deposit, cut out the middleman, and save money for consumers.