OAR 660-008-0075: Contextualized Housing Need

The contextualized housing need is an analysis relating a city’s allocated housing need and housing production target, as provided in ORS 184.451 to 184.455 and OAR 660-008-0045(7), to local qualitative and quantitative information. This analysis uses current and future housing needs, along with population and market trends, to evaluate fair housing choice and identify fair housing issues within the city’s planning boundary to affirmatively further fair housing. A city must work interdepartmentally to the extent possible in developing and implementing its contextualized housing need, including but not limited to collaboration across the planning, permitting, public works, and community development departments. The analysis must include consideration of protected classes and named communities in needed housing as provided in ORS 197A.018, with particular focus on communities of color, low-income communities, individuals with disabilities, and tribal communities. The output of the analysis is a determination of the needed housing types, characteristics, and locations of housing within a city’s planning boundary. A city must plan for such needed housing in its six- or eight-year housing capacity and production cycle and in its twenty-year planning period in order to mitigate and remedy the identified fair housing issues. The contextualized housing need determines the needed housing types, characteristics, and locations and informs subsequent housing capacity analyses, development-ready land inventories, any land use efficiency measures and resulting urban growth boundary amendments, as well as the housing production strategy and all actions therein. To the extent it exists, a city may utilize information, data, and analyses from other housing planning efforts completed in the last five years within the city including, but not limited to, equity analyses and other reports conducted under OAR chapter 660, division 12 and consolidated plans for any of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s Community Planning and Development formula grant programs including Community Development Block Grant Entitlement Communities. (1) At a minimum, the contextualized housing need must include: (a) An affordability analysis including, at a minimum, a review of market conditions affecting the provision of needed housing including existing and expected barriers to the development of needed housing; (b) An analysis of past discriminatory actions or practices related to land and housing access including, as practicable given information and resource availability, mapping of the geographies impacted by these actions and comparing those geographies’ relationship to current patterns of segregation as well as affluence and poverty, as illustrated in the housing equity indicators. Once initially completed, a city must update the past discriminatory actions analysis for future housing capacity analysis and housing production strategy cycles, incorporating new information and resources and make comparison to current conditions; and (c) An analysis of fair housing choice across the following issue areas for communities of color, low-income communities, individuals with disabilities, and tribal communities that concludes with the identification and evaluation of fair housing issues within a city’s planning boundary. (A) Housing tenure and wealth building opportunities; (B) Permanent housing to resolve homelessness; (C) Accessible and adaptable housing; (D) Access to community assets and mitigation of exposure to harms; (E) Housing stability, anti-displacement, and displacement mitigation; (F) Addressing and disrupting patterns of segregation, and their correlation with concentrated areas of affluence and poverty; (G) Any issue areas the city is required to address in other requirements or regulations, including cities subject to OAR 660-012-0315(1) and cities within Metro with Region 2040 centers, as defined in OAR 660-012-0005(24); and (H) Any other issue areas that appear to exist based on occurrences of disparate housing needs in a city across protected classes and named communities in needed housing as provided in ORS 197A.018; (d) A detailed justification, if a city concludes that there are no fair housing issues in one or more of the identified fair housing issue areas listed in subsection (c). This justification must include: (A) A comprehensive analysis from subsection (c) that demonstrates the absence of disparate housing needs or barriers in the issue area(s) and the presence of fair housing choice and stability for all community members, and (B) A plan for ongoing monitoring to ensure that fair housing issues do not emerge in the future, including a commitment to re-evaluate the issue area(s) in subsequent contextualized housing need analyses and housing production strategy adoptions. (e) An evaluation of whether acknowledged urban growth boundary expansion areas added within the time period equivalent to three housing capacity analysis cycles have urbanized to accommodate the identified residential need(s). (A) This analysis must be based on the following information, pertinent to the approved urban growth boundary expansion areas and time period specified in this subsection (e): (i) All post-acknowledgement comprehensive plan map designation changes and additions responding to identified residential land needs; and (ii) Urban zoning applied to the applicable areas. (B) If a city concludes that land within the applicable areas has not been annexed or zoned for residential urban development, the city must include those lands under the identification of needed housing locations under subsection (f). (f) Description and identification of the housing types, characteristics, and locations needed to remedy or mitigate the fair housing issues identified in subsection (c) and to meet the city’s allocated housing need and housing production target while affirmatively furthering fair housing and achieving fair housing choice. (A) Description and identification of needed housing types must include a quantification of each needed housing type which may be expressed as a percentage of the total allocated housing need and housing production target, respectively. (B) Description and identification of needed housing characteristics and locations must include specificity including quantification to the greatest extent possible. Where quantification is not possible, this requirement may be satisfied by representation of these needs in relative magnitude or narrative form. (g) For cities subject to OAR 660-012-0310, the number of housing units needed for the city to make proportionate progress towards accommodating 30 percent of all housing in climate-friendly areas in pursuit of the greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets as provided in OAR 660-044-0020 and OAR 660-044-0025, including affordable and accessible units. Cities with additional residential mixed-use zones may also report on housing development in those areas, and may evaluate the relative success of measures supporting housing development in both areas. (2) At a minimum, the contextualized housing need must be informed by the following information: (a) The housing production dashboard; (b) The housing equity indicators including socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of households living in existing needed housing, disaggregated by race and ethnicity; (c) Equitable engagement as provided in section (5); and (d) Any statewide, regionally, or locally applicable information provided in section (3). (3) The department may host a repository of information organized by state and regional applicability for use in the contextualized housing need. The department may update this repository as new information is available and obsolete or outdated information needs to be removed. Any information in this repository shall be considered to be “available” for the purposes of section (4). (4) The contextualized housing need must be informed by the additional information listed in this section as it is available and recent within the last five years. One way that additional information may be deemed to be available under this section is if it is listed in the department-hosted repository as provided in section (3). (a) The State of Oregon Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice; (b) An estimate of quantified housing need by the state, regional, local, or tribal government for individuals experiencing homelessness, protected classes, named communities in needed housing as provided in ORS 197A.018, and tribal communities; (c) The HUD Annual Homelessness Assessment Report; (d) The applicable HUD Point-in-Time count conducted by the Continuum of Care that the city is located within; (e) The applicable McKinney-Vento Homeless Student Data for all school districts that overlap with the city boundary; (f) Fair housing complaint data from federal, state, or local agencies; (g) Rental and homeowner vacancy rates; (h) Change in gross or net property values or rent over time; (i) Data collected by local coordinated care organizations; (j) Data collected by the Community Action Partnership of Oregon and its community action agencies; (k) Data collected by the Continuum of Care that the city is located within, in addition to subsection (d); (l) Trends that may negatively impact preservation of affordable naturally occurring market-rate units, such as redevelopment rates and changes in market conditions; (m) A comprehensive inventory of existing housing units by housing types, characteristics, and locations; (n) Data from organizations that advocate on behalf of protected classes, named communities in needed housing as provided in ORS 197A.018, low-income communities, and tribal communities; and (o) The department’s Community Assets & Harms Mapping Tool. (5) The contextualized housing need must be informed by equitable engagement feedback that prioritizes and actively seeks to center communities of color, low-income communities, individuals with disabilities, and tribal communities, to ensure these perspectives are meaningfully incorporated. (a) In compiling existing engagement feedback for use in this section, to the extent it exists a city must utilize feedback from other housing-related engagement within the city conducted within the last five years including, but not limited to, consolidated plans for any of HUD’s Community Planning and Development formula grant programs including Community Development Block Grant Entitlement Communities, transportation system plan updates under OAR 660-012-0120 through 660-012-0135, and public engagement for severely rent burdened households as defined in OAR 813-112-0010. Except for the requirement to center tribal communities by coordinating and consulting with tribal governments, if the city has comprehensive housing-related engagement feedback completed within the last five years that sufficiently informs the contextualized housing need requirements and the city finds that additional equitable engagement would not align with best practices in the Equitable Engagement Toolkit, the city may rely entirely on existing engagement feedback and must include an explanation for this determination in the equitable engagement summary. (b) If the city does not have comprehensive housing-related engagement feedback completed within the last five years that sufficiently informs the contextualized housing need requirements provided in section (1), a city must solicit direct feedback regarding all required analysis as provided in section (1) for which it does not have recent feedback. A city may refer to the department’s Equitable Engagement Toolkit or OAR 660-012-0130 to employ best practices regarding equitable engagement. (c) A city must provide an equitable engagement summary as part of its contextualized housing need. The equitable engagement summary must include: (A) A list and description of the types of interested parties and communities who comprise community members of needed housing including protected classes and named communities in needed housing as provided in ORS 197A.018, especially with regard to communities of color, low-income communities, individuals with disabilities, and tribal communities; (B) As of the initiation of the contextualized housing need or later, the most recent list of tribal governments with ancestral connection to land within the city’s jurisdiction or approved expansion areas from the Oregon Legislative Commission on Indian Services, and engagement with tribal communities is required through direct communication with all such identified tribal governments. A city satisfies the engagement requirement to center tribal communities in this rule when: (i) Notice has been made to all tribal governments as identified in paragraph (B) by inviting government-to-government consultation and staff coordination in the development of the city’s contextualized housing need, and (ii) Follow up communication, consultation, and coordination as requested by the tribal governments regarding the contextualized housing need is complete. (C) A summary of how the city engaged interested parties, communities, and tribal governments identified in paragraphs (A) and (B), including why they were engaged, engagement methods used, a list of each engagement effort or event being used to develop the contextualized housing need, and the interested parties, communities, or tribal governments identified in paragraph (A) or (B) who the city believes may still be underrepresented in this process; (D) A summary of feedback received from each engagement effort or event, as well as a description of the major feedback themes attributed to the interested parties, communities, and tribal governments identified in paragraphs (A) and (B). A city must determine whether each major feedback theme either influenced the identification of fair housing issues and determination of the needed housing types, characteristics, and locations in the city in alignment with program principles or not. If a major feedback theme influenced these determinations, the specific fair housing issues or needed housing types, characteristics, and locations identified as a result of the feedback must be documented. If a major feedback theme did not influence the identification of specific fair housing issues or determination of needed housing types, characteristics, or locations; the city must provide a rationale explaining why. (E) An evaluation of how to improve equitable engagement practices for future housing engagement efforts conducted by the city, including but not limited to affirmatively furthering fair housing and tribal coordination and consultation. (6) As a safe harbor, a city may use the methods described below to satisfy the requirements of subsection (1)(f) in determining the relevant housing needs. A city is required to identify all housing needs including those not identified in this section pursuant to section (2). (a) Needed multi-unit housing identified as at least 40 percent of the city’s housing production target and allocated housing need, (b) Needed middle housing identified as at least 20 percent of the city’s housing production target and allocated housing need, (c) Needed accessible housing identified based on the housing equity indicators as at least whichever is greater: (A) the percentage of households in the city with ambulatory difficulty multiplied by 1.2 applied as a percentage of the city’s total housing production target, or (B) the percentage of households in region with ambulatory difficulty multiplied by 1.2 applied as a percentage of the city’s total housing production target. (d) Needed adaptable housing identified based on the housing equity indicators as whichever is greater: (A) The elderly dependency ratio in the city applied as a percentage of the city’s total housing production target, or (B) The elderly dependency ratio in the region applied as a percentage of the city’s total housing production target. (e) Needed larger household housing identified based on the housing equity indicators as whichever is greater: (A) The percentage of households in the city which are family households applied as a percentage of the city’s total housing production target, or (B) The percentage of households in the region which are family households applied as a percentage of the city’s total housing production target. (f) Needed homeownership housing identified as, at a minimum, the relevant percentage per HB 2698 (2025) and applied to the following income brackets of the city’s housing production target: (A) Households making 0-80 percent of median family income as provided in ORS 184.453(4)(a) to (c); (B) Households making 81 percent of median family income and greater as provided in ORS 184.453(4)(d) and (e).