The Oregon legislature passed HB 2001 which profoundly changes laws in regards to the majority of homes in the state of Oregon. The vast majority of home owners in the state of Oregon are affected by it.

 HB 2001 effectively eliminates the designation of a single family dwelling in most cities in Oregon. It was signed into law by Governor Brown on August 8, 2019.

What was once designated for a single family can be remade into a property that allows multiple families to dwell on the property. For cities larger than 25,000, this means cities that allow detached dwellings much support Middle Housing (see below) on these lots. For cities with populations of 10,000 to 25,000, single family dwelling lots must allow duplexes. If you live outside of an urban growth boundary or in a city of less than 1,000 people, you are not affected.

 Problems with HB 2001

HB 2001 is a complex piece of legislation that affects most home owners. Instead of allowing counties and municipalities to decide how best to respond to housing issues, the state legislature forced a single plan on any town or city of size. Counties and municipalities have been given about a year to update their developer codes.

More than Duplexes

The legislation title is misleading in that it refers only to duplexes, but the actual legislation covers many more types.

• Cottage clusters, meaning groupings of no fewer than four detached housing units per acre with a footprint of less than 900 square feet each and that include a common courtyard.
• Middle housing,  meaning duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes
• Townhouses,  meaning a dwelling unit constructed in a row of two or more attached units, where each dwelling unit is located on an individual lot or parcel and shares at least one common wall with an adjacent unit.

Imagine the changes in your neighborhood if each property adds a detached unit, adding occupancy within, and adding an internal division forming the equivalent of a duplex. If you have ever experienced service outages based on over use of the infrastructure, electricity, water and the like, you will be impacted by this.

No Consideration for Traffic Impact

The legislation contains no provisions based on traffic impact. Many cities in Oregon suffer from growing congestion and traffic related problems that impact pedestrians and lack dependable public transportation that is accessible to the elderly.

Imagine the changes in your neighborhood traffic if the numbers of cars parked on the street and the number of car trips on the same streets triple.

Bogus Emergency Legislation

"This 2019 Act being necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health and safety, an emergency is declared to exist, and this 2019 Act takes effect on its passage."

This was passed under a state of emergency, a tactic now employed to avoid public feedback and response by the Oregon initiative system.

Portland Hegemony

This legislation serves primarily the interests of the city of Portland. If Portland alone implemented HB 2001 but neighboring cities and counties did not, Portland could have experienced housing flight, which would have negatively impacted home valuations in Portland.

What is good for Portland isn't necessarily good for Beaverton.

How Beaverton Legislators Voted on HB 2001

It is telling that the only member of the legislature representing the interests of Beaverton, Mark Haas, voted against HB 2001.