Project Overview

Housing affordability and availability is a long-standing and growing problem in Eugene. There is a need for a comprehensive, coordinated approach that considers the spectrum of tools and strategies available to the City to promote more housing affordability, availability, and diversity.


At the May 2018 Work Session, Eugene City Council passed a motion to have staff implement a process to identify barriers to housing affordability, availability, and diversity, and to suggest, evaluate, and recommend possible strategies and tools to address the barriers. The process that resulted was the Housing Tools and Strategies (HTS) Working Group.


Two Work Sessions were held in December 2018 to share the results of the City's developed process with the Working Group to identify barriers. Those Work Sessions can be accessed here and here.


In March 2019, staff returned to City Council for a progress update on HTS. Staff used this work session to identify priority items to complete that resulted from the HTS Working Group process. Staff identified two key actions to prioritize next, in addition to the items already in progress:  

1.Complete and adopt the Housing chapter of the Comprehensive Plan.

2.Complete and adopt the Comprehensive Plan Map, with parcel-specific data.


These two items will ultimately lead to the alignment of the Zoning map with the Comprehensive Plan map, which will clarify citywide policies about housing and reduce uncertainty about allowed housing types throughout Eugene. Implementing these items lays a foundation that will make it simpler to implement many other actions identified in the HTS Action Inventory. Completing and adopting these policy documents will reduce the need for some administrative processes, which will reduce costs for building housing. 


City Council Meetings and Materials