Portland, Oregon, is celebrating its progress in adding new housing options to neighborhoods where historically only single-family homes were allowed to be built.
The city permitted 1,400 homes that are not single-family between August 2021 and June 2024. The homes include accessory dwellings that sit next to or behind larger homes and buildings that have room for six separate units, according to a report the city issued this month. Individual homes in the new housing types are typically more affordable than single-family houses because they’re smaller, while still offering homeownership opportunities in many cases.
Following a trend that’s occurring in cities across the country, Portland implemented the Residential Infill Project in 2021 to allow greater housing variety in single-family neighborhoods that make up 75% of the city’s land where housing is allowed. Developers taking advantage of the rule change have favored fourplexes or cottage clusters, which are groupings of small homes on a single lot. The city already allowed accessory dwellings prior to 2021.
“The tool is working exactly as intended,” the city said in a statement about its findings.
This development is happening largely in areas east and north of downtown Portland where public transit, stores and other services are most accessible. It’s helping to offset a decline in housing development in areas where larger apartment buildings are allowed, the report said. Historically, single-family areas only accounted for about 20% of new homes in a typical year, but that jumped to 43% of new houses permitted in the first half of 2024.
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While Portland allowed more types of homes in a variety of neighborhoods, it also capped the size of new houses and small multifamily buildings. That incentivized smaller, more affordable houses. The city also reduced taxes and fees for developers who agreed to price homes to serve people making no more than 120% of the area's median income.
The average sales price of homes built under Portland's zoning changes was between $250,000 and $300,000 less than a single-family house over the past two years, the city said. The annual income a three-person household needed to buy a home in a new triplex or fourplex was $116,000 in 2024, compared to $233,000 for a new detached, single-family home.
“In other words, the income required to afford the average sales price for [this] housing is roughly half of what is required for new houses,” according to the city’s statement.