A Practical Housing Playbook Starts With Listening

By Charlie Kokernak

Public and private stakeholders gathered in Portland to talk about reigniting production. Here are the key takeaways.

In major cities across the nation, unmet housing demand is sparking a renewed interest in a public-private sector dialogue on where common ground can be identified to motivate future development.

Case in point: A recent roundtable hosted by Oregon Governor Kotek and Portland Mayor Wilson brought developers, equity partners, lenders and civic leadership into the same room to ask a simple question: How do we restart meaningful housing production in Portland’s core?

I was at the table and did not come away feeling like it was a press rollout. It was an active listening session and a productive one. Civic leaders engaged, asked pointed questions and gave the private side space to outline what is working, what is not and where a practical partnership could move the needle.

The discussion didn’t shy away from Portland’s challenges—public safety, process friction, rising taxes that are pushing some businesses and investors away, and the lingering perception of instability—but it also highlighted the city’s strengths. Portland still has the fundamentals to build on: strong geography, a motivated private sector, and now some signs of momentum brought about by novel policy. A temporary System Development Charge waiver (Portland’s label for the developer fees that fund growth related infrastructure) is helping restart projects and the city’s Permit Review Dashboard plus the Permit Improvement Project are beginning to shorten review times. None of this solves high interest rates or climbing build costs, but it begins to close the gap on projects that are close to penciling.

What The Conversation Surfaced

Progress hinges on confidence in process and follow-through. Developers and lenders can price risk—they struggle with uncertainty. Here are some of the takeaways:

1. Safety is key: A safe, clean, walkable spine lowers risk premiums and supports leasing.

2. Anchor employers where you want housing: Jobs pull households. Tie enterprise zone benefits and other incentives to target corridors in the core so employer location, new units, and ground-floor activation reinforce each other.

3. Governance alignment is not a footnote: The session was productive, and it would have been stronger with every jurisdiction present. City, county, state, and regional bodies need to row together if you want permits, incentives, and services to reinforce each other. Getting all parties in the same room, early and often, is not ceremonial, it is the work.

4. Temporary cost relief should tie to starts, not headlines: The SDC waiver program adopted in July 2025 is a pragmatic step. Programs like fee holidays, SDC exemptions, and targeted abatements work when they are simple, time bound, and linked to actual permits and commencements. Developers and lenders can underwrite that.

5. Permitting certainty is the cheapest incentive a city can offer: Delays are pricey. Time risk bleeds through every pro forma and pushes equity to other metros. Portland has begun streamlining, but continued and dedicated case management, early completeness checks, and predictable milestones will do more to unlock starts than any new slogan.

Historical Baseline

Portland’s production engine has slowed since the recent cycle peak. On the multifamily side, local reporting pegs 4,100 units permitted in 2022; 2,142 in 2023; and 820 in 2024. Early estimates for 2025 track about 650 units for the year. Different sources vary slightly; the trend is down.

For where we are today, the City’s Permit Review Dashboard shows current application inflows, issuances, and review times by permit type. It is a live source developers and lenders can use to benchmark active cycle times and pipeline status.

One Tool Among Many

Separate from the meeting itself, large portions of Portland’s downtown and adjacent districts lie within federally designated Opportunity Zones, including much of the CBD spine and nearby districts. OZs are tract-based, so not every block is covered. Portland counts 11 OZ tracts citywide, and the core has a relatively contiguous cluster compared with peers like Seattle and San Francisco, where downtown coverage is more limited.

Within an urban growth boundary, almost every deal is infill. That dynamic supports land values and concentrates reinvestment. OZ benefits can amplify those economics, but they cannot replace fundamentals. Treat OZ as a potential multiplier when paired with clean entitlements, predictable schedules, and districts people choose. OZ capital is typically long hold. It wants the same basics as any investor: realistic costs, believable timelines, and secure execution. If those foundations are present, the tax advantages can tilt capital toward the core. If they are not, the perks will not save a weak deal.

Here’s how the takeaways can be applied to other cities:

• Start with a candid, closed-door forum so both sides can map constraints without posturing.

• Publish a shared scorecard, permit cycle times, SDC timelines, starts, and visible safety benchmarks on core blocks.

• Target early wins where incentives and governance actually align. Example: a transit corridor plus a public parcel to lower basis, all supported by a focus on a safe environment.

• Tie every cost relief to a measurable outcome, ideally shovels in the ground.

• Keep city, county, and state at the same table. Misalignment kills momentum.

What Portland Can Own

Portland’s brand has always been more than a tagline. A decade ago, the city had one of the strongest reputations in the country for creativity, livability and design. No one assumes that reputation automatically returns, but the energy that built it is still here. The people who believe in Portland were in that room, and they want it to work. Reclaiming that identity will come not from marketing but from visible proof that the city can execute.

Portland should be known for a clean process and credible first moves. Publish timelines, deliver early wins under the SDC program, activate the core blocks where projects will rise and show a simple scorecard anyone can read. That transparency and follow-through becomes the new brand—one built on performance.

Pair that renewed civic confidence with what has always set the city apart: access to nature, deep design and tech talent, and a walkable, human-scale core. Together, those qualities give Portland a story that capital can underwrite, and residents can believe in.

Closing Thought

This roundtable was a catalyst rather than a cure. The path forward is simple and hard: Listen, act and align policy to what communities need. Get safety right, simplify the tax and fee picture and make the process predictable. When that foundation is visible, employers follow, households follow, and capital follows. With demand firming on the horizon, we can develop with confidence. That is how Portland moves from meetings to permits to places people choose.