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Tuesday, May 12, 2026

In the Rush to Build Housing, We Cannot Forget Who It’s For.

Five years after Portland voters approved the Green New Deal changes to the city’s inclusionary zoning ordinance, the Housing and Economic Development Committee is preparing to debate whether to roll back those requirements. If you follow local housing politics at all, you are probably about to hear a lot more about “IZ.”

Inclusionary zoning, or “IZ,” is a city policy that requires developers building larger market-rate housing projects to include a percentage of affordable units within those developments.

The conversation has already become too technical for the average person to follow, with different groups trying to out-data each other to “prove” their arguments.

Developers argue that Portland’s current inclusionary zoning policy is killing development across the board. Some of them have projects in the pipeline, and they’re pressuring councilors to make changes quickly so those permits can move forward. They have been successful in convincing some councilors that repealing or dramatically weakening the current Green New Deal IZ is the best path forward.

Livable Portland, the group that championed the Green New Deal ordinance, is understandably wary of any changes that could weaken affordable housing requirements for or reopen the door to exclusionary development patterns that have caused displacement of lower income people in high profit opportunity areas like Bayside.

The Urbanist Coalition, meanwhile, has plunged us deep into the financing details of IZ, trying to show just how much public subsidy, tax credit financing, and layered funding it actually takes to make affordable housing financially viable, and prove that the affordable housing built under the Green New Deal would have been built anyway through other State programs.

Meanwhile, most Portland residents want something very simple: a city where working people can still afford to live near the jobs, services, restaurants, parks, and schools that make Portland one of the best small cities to call home.

All sides are right about part of the problem, and all sides are also missing something really important about where we are right now as a city.

Inclusionary zoning is not, by itself, an engine capable of producing the scale of affordable housing Portland ultimately needs. But, under the right conditions, it is capable of siting a small percentage of affordable housing within market-rate developments, ensuring that when new housing is built, some portion of that housing remains accessible to working people.

That matters enormously at this moment in Portland.

Over the last several years, Portland intentionally reshaped zoning through ReCode to encourage growth along public transportation corridors and village centers called “Transportation Overlay Districts.” We made a conscious decision as a city that these are the places where we want additional density and housing growth. ReCode allows for tremendous growth potential in these areas on a scale we have never seen before in Portland. The market has yet to respond, in part because developers are waiting to see what the council will do with Inclusionary Zoning.

These are neighborhoods where there is already some naturally occurring affordable housing. They are neighborhoods where residents can live closer to jobs, transit, services, schools, and daily needs without relying as heavily on cars. And they are exactly the places where working-class Portlanders should still be able to live as our city grows.

Right now, Portland’s IZ policy mandates that a quarter of all units in large new developments are affordable to households earning 80% of Area Median Income. In practical terms, that means housing intended for working people making something closer to a teacher, nurse, restaurant manager, tradesperson, or city employee salary.

Some councilors are now seriously considering repealing those Green New Deal changes and reverting back to the old policy, which required only 10% affordable units at 100% AMI, essentially housing priced much closer to the regular market. Their reasoning is that any housing is better than nothing.

This concerns me because if we severely weaken inclusionary zoning right now, we risk touching off a wave of gentrification, creating exactly the kind of exclusive, high-cost neighborhoods Portland has spent years trying to avoid.

At the same time, I do believe that the policy needs recalibration in what has become, over the last five years, an inflationary high-cost construction environment.

The good news is that we already have the information to do that, and other cities are helping show us what a smarter version of this policy can look like.

The city commissioned a study at significant public expense last year, and we now have years of market data showing that rigid, unfunded mandates can suppress housing production during difficult financing conditions. But we also have growing examples from other cities showing that when affordability requirements are paired with targeted subsidy tools like tax abatements, financing assistance, and public investment, inclusionary zoning can do exactly what it is supposed to do: preserve mixed-income neighborhoods in areas where market pressure would otherwise drive rapid gentrification.

That is the direction Portland should be moving in. Not backward to a weaker policy designed for a completely different housing market, but forward toward a smarter system that preserves strong mixed-income requirements in transit-oriented growth areas, pairs them with targeted public subsidy, and adjusts intelligently to changing market conditions over time.

When I was elected to serve you, I made a commitment to speak plainly about the issues facing our city. And beneath all the policy jargon, financing formulas, and political fighting, the question most Portland residents are really asking is very simple:

As Portland grows, will ordinary working people still be able to live in the neighborhoods we are building for the future?

I believe the answer must be yes, and that is the principle I will bring into this debate at the next scheduled Housing and Economic Development Committee meeting on May 19th.

ksykes@portlandmaine.gov 207-558-5764

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