What is happening to my wonderful neighborhood??? (Portland, Hillsboro: rental, condos)

[SyraBrian]

According to Wikipedia, the huge UGB expansion of 2004 did little to stem rising home prices. I believe the last expansion was 2011, and that didn't do much either.

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by PDXNative2Houston

Again as with a lot of discussions I've had with you, I'm not making a moral judgment on the issue. However I am pointing out some of the flaws with having the UGB. It's up to the citizenry to decide if this is palatable to them and what they want on a cost/benefit basis.

This has nothing to do with morals, the people moving to Portland want to live in inner Portland. Houses in exurbs would have some effect on Portland suburbs, but those craftsman and streetcar neighborhoods are still going to be in high demand.

[PDXNative2Houston]

Originally Posted by SyraBrian

According to Wikipedia, the huge UGB expansion of 2004 did little to stem rising home prices. I believe the last expansion was 2011, and that didn't do much either.

The law requires them to expand the boundaries in order to keep a 20 year supply of land within the boundary. It's simply not enough to stem housing prices when legislators only expand the boundaries to keep in compliance with that law.

But as Urbanlife pointed out, PDXer's enjoy their green space and lack of sprawl. That's great, but it comes with consequences.

[PDXNative2Houston]

Originally Posted by urbanlife78

This has nothing to do with morals, the people moving to Portland want to live in inner Portland. Houses in exurbs would have some effect on Portland suburbs, but those craftsman and streetcar neighborhoods are still going to be in high demand.

And I'll quote myself for your viewing pleasure,

"Now with that said of course there will be folks in the demographic spectrum that will value living in downtown/inner PDX so much so that they will look past the opportunity cost of living in the now cheaper and/or new outlying areas in order to be in the urban core. There will just be less of them."

[bler144]

Originally Posted by PDXNative2Houston

But as Urbanlife pointed out, PDXer's enjoy their green space and lack of sprawl. That's great, but it comes with consequences.

I think that's as much myth as reality. What percent of Pdx is set aside for parks? 17%. What percent of Houston is set aside for parks? 14% The climate has as much to do with the green reputation as the actual land-use I'd say.

Strip away the UGB in the Portland metro and the question remains - where would you put new sprawl? A lot of the outlying areas are already sprawled to the extent that infrastructure can manage, and geographic constraints limit where you could build.

It's not like Houston where you could ostensibly just keep building out radially within 270 degrees and distribute traffic across a ring/spoke system. Portland's roadway infrastructure is a mess, and geography and budgetary limitations puts a pretty big crimp in how you might want to modernize it.

Edit: an aside, this report is pretty interesting in terms of park data: https://www.tpl.org/sites/default/fi...yParkFacts.pdf

The one place Portland really does stand out is on the percent of residents with a park in walking distance (80%) compared to Houston (45%). We're moderately high on park acres as a % of total acres, and middling on park acres per 1000 residents. So ultimately the park reputation looks to have more to do with the broad distribution than the raw number.

[PDXNative2Houston]

Originally Posted by bler144

I think that's as much myth as reality. What percent of Pdx is set aside for parks? 17%. What percent of Houston is set aside for parks? 14% The climate has as much to do with the green reputation as the actual land-use I'd say.

Strip away the UGB in the Portland metro and the question remains - where would you put new sprawl? A lot of the outlying areas are already sprawled to the extent that infrastructure can manage, and geographic constraints limit where you could build.

It's not like Houston where you could ostensibly just keep building out radially within 270 degrees and distribute traffic across a ring/spoke system. Portland's roadway infrastructure is a mess, and geography and budgetary limitations puts a pretty big crimp in how you might want to modernize it.

I'll agree here, but caveat that any time one takes away a boundary and developers are allowed to develop...supply goes up. Forestry would have to be cleared, and other painful environmental consequences would be had, but assuming demand remains the same prices should come down in response. This is the basic economic theory that I'm trying to get across. Some posters have posited that Portland doesn't comply with these rules...but they do.

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by PDXNative2Houston

And I'll quote myself for your viewing pleasure,

"Now with that said of course there will be folks in the demographic spectrum that will value living in downtown/inner PDX so much so that they will look past the opportunity cost of living in the now cheaper and/or new outlying areas in order to be in the urban core. There will just be less of them."

And that is why getting rid of the UGB won't make inner Portland cheaper. That is all I am saying, I personally like having the UGB because it gives the metro a controlled boundary for planning and best allocating funds for transportation and development.

[bler144]

Supply/demand has some influence at the macro level, sure. But demand is more than just a mathematically tally since people have wants beyond just "some unit somewhere" or more people would commute from Scappoose or Estacada.

I'm not trying to be difficult in asking where, even hypothetically, if you were a developer, you would plop down a wad of new supply big enough to even puff the market - say even 5,000 new units. Vancouver still has swaths that could be developed, but there are practical reasons not to build in those areas right away to alleviate pressure elsewhere in the metro. If you were building south of Aloha you'd have to figure out how the heck those residents would get anywhere. 20 years from now maybe Molalla is a viable "suburb" with 60,000 strong, but the reasons it sits at 9k now really don't have much to do with parks or the UGB.

There's also the issue, as with the Portland South Waterfront or Vancouver Waterfront developments, which is that the price point where it makes sense for a developer to build doesn't always match where resident demand is. If markets were truly efficient that would quickly sort itself out, but since they're not you can go through long periods of pain where you have both significant development and still have significant price squeezes.

Most of the areas that are undeveloped won't be developed as soon as the UGB expands out; they'll be developed when some developer thinks they can make the economics work. And there are already areas within the UGB that are approved for higher density where it just hasn't happened.

[PDXNative2Houston]

I can agree that it would take some time before pricing would respond. It would also be difficult to tell how much the new developable areas has affected pricing as there is so much other noise that could affect prices.

But in any event, this is all conjecture. The UGB is here to stay and it's something I actually like about Portland, despite its possible consequences.

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by bler144

I think that's as much myth as reality. What percent of Pdx is set aside for parks? 17%. What percent of Houston is set aside for parks? 14% The climate has as much to do with the green reputation as the actual land-use I'd say.

Strip away the UGB in the Portland metro and the question remains - where would you put new sprawl? A lot of the outlying areas are already sprawled to the extent that infrastructure can manage, and geographic constraints limit where you could build.

It's not like Houston where you could ostensibly just keep building out radially within 270 degrees and distribute traffic across a ring/spoke system. Portland's roadway infrastructure is a mess, and geography and budgetary limitations puts a pretty big crimp in how you might want to modernize it.

Edit: an aside, this report is pretty interesting in terms of park data: https://www.tpl.org/sites/default/fi...yParkFacts.pdf

The one place Portland really does stand out is on the percent of residents with a park in walking distance (80%) compared to Houston (45%). We're moderately high on park acres as a % of total acres, and middling on park acres per 1000 residents. So ultimately the park reputation looks to have more to do with the broad distribution than the raw number.

Actually I wasn't referring to the parks within Portland, I was referring to the nature that sits outside of the UGB. I can be hiking a trail to a waterfall in a half an hour, and once you get to the UGB you are in rural land.