The City of Creswell and ECONorthwest have moved forward with drafting potential housing policies for an update to the city’s Comprehensive Plan Housing Element (CPHE), as well as an action plan to implement these policies.
The Housing Needs Analysis meeting on Nov. 2 followed up on the previous meeting in October, when the committee recognized Creswell had a land deficiency that wouldn’t accommodate expected housing growth.
This meeting incorporated those findings within the draft for the CPHE update; the CPHE has not been updated since 1982.
As written, there are five new policies that were drafted for the CPHE. These potential policies are as follows, and may be subject to change or reorder:
▲ Policy One – Land Availability: Plan for a 20-year supply of suitable land for Creswell to meet housing needs within the existing urban growth boundary to the extent possible;
▲ Policy Two – Provide opportunities for housing development to meet the City’s identified housing needs: Provide opportunities for development of a range of housing types that are affordable to households at all income levels as described in the Creswell Housing Needs Analysis. These housing types include (but are not limited to): single-family detached housing, accessory dwellings, cottage housing, manufactured housing, townhouses, duplexes and apartments;
▲ Policy Three – Housing Affordability: Develop policies to support affordable housing by lowering the costs of housing development for low-income affordable housing and/or middle-income affordable housing;
▲ Policy Four – Infrastructure Planning: Plan for infrastructure development to support residential development;
▲ Policy Five – Funding: Develop funding sources to pay for the cost of implementing the affordable housing programs described in policy three.
Under each policy are objectives and actions to help keep the City on track and maintain the policy’s goal. At the moment, the objectives and actions are a work in progress.
The update to the CPHE would also revise existing policies to fit with the newer objectives in the draft.
Along with policy changes, the memorandum also laid out two Appendixes to provide the City a list of strategies for managing residential land and increasing housing production, as well as possible funding tools.
The next CPHE community advisory committee meeting will be on Dec. 7.
