2026 Local Platform
Local elections are coming up again, and we are publishing our annual platform for Portland issues. If you are familiar with our platform from last year, a lot has stayed the same. The biggest changes this year are a new position on the former Midtown lots, support for bonding for social housing, and some updates to our positions on Inclusionary Zoning and the potential Amtrak station relocation.
Housing
Housing is the most important issue to the Urbanist Coalition and we believe it is the most important issue for cities, especially as we face a housing affordability crisis. A city is made up of its people and without room for us to live we will lose the people that make Portland what it is. In order to make housing more affordable Portland needs to build enough housing for everyone. Our region has grown significantly and continues to grow, but Portland has not grown at the same rate. Portland should grow along with the region so everyone in the Greater Portland Area can benefit from dense, complete neighborhoods, served by transit instead of car-dependent suburban sprawl. Adding more homes in Portland benefits the city and is critical for us to remain the cultural and economic center of our region. Every department in the City should be working together in support of this goal.
Zoning
Portland has made a lot of great progress on zoning recently. LD2003 and ReCode have been important steps in the right direction. However, they are not sufficient to address our housing crisis and allow for dense walkable neighborhoods that can support great transit. In particular, ReCode focused a lot on upzoning transit nodes and corridors. This is great, but many residential areas within walking distance to these corridors still don’t allow for middle density housing that will make these corridors succeed.
Our platform:
Buildings with more than four units should be allowed in all residential zones by combining Portland’s five separate uses for housing (1, 2, 3, 4, and 5+ units) into a single use.
Dimensional standards like height, density, and setbacks should be updated in the residential areas near transit (current RN-3) to allow for middle density housing options such as low rise apartment buildings.
The building length limit added to Portland’s only multifamily residential zone during ReCode is a barrier to multifamily housing and should be removed.
Small scale neighborhood businesses should be allowed in residential zones to foster complete neighborhoods.
More projects should go through the simpler minor site plan review rather than major site plan review.
Lodging houses and co-living spaces should be legalized in residential zones.
Building Codes
Building codes are important but there are cases where they make it more difficult to build the housing we need. In Maine, building codes are mostly set by the state. The Urbanist Coalition has some state-level building code priorities like allowing more single stair buildings, but our local platform focuses on removing or tweaking a few areas where Portland’s building codes go beyond the rest of the state.
Our platform:
Portland is unusual in its requirement of sprinklers in a single family home or ADU. This adds over $10,000 to the cost of a project and it can make building an ADU unaffordable. Portland should not have sprinkler requirements in excess of the State building code.
Often ADUs require a separate sewer line from the street, even if it might be possible to share a line with the house that is already on the lot. This can also add to the cost of an ADU and make building one unaffordable. We should make sure we are requiring sewer lines based on capacity and not an inflexible rule.
Inclusionary Zoning
Our analysis finds that Portland’s current inclusionary zoning requirements make housing less affordable overall. The policy has produced few affordable units, and many construction projects are now stalled despite the zoning changes in ReCode. Conceptually, inclusionary zoning adds a cost specifically to multifamily homes while exempting single family homes and places the costs of building affordable housing entirely on renters and new homebuyers. Rather than tune a policy that has not worked well for us we instead propose allowing market rate development and capturing the tax revenue it generates to build mixed income affordable housing.
Our platform:
Portland should eliminate its inclusionary zoning requirements.
We favor a policy of investing a share of property tax revenue, ideally tied to how much development happens in Portland within a given year, into the Jill Duson housing trust fund to be spent on social housing projects.
Social Housing
Though we emphasize the importance of housing supply, the market will not be enough to provide housing to everyone who needs it. Portland recently convened a Social Housing Task Force and we support their mission of identifying non-market alternatives to address housing affordability. Robust investment in social housing keeps housing affordable and ensures that no one is left behind. Social housing and market rate housing are not mutually exclusive, in fact they support each other. Market rate development provides the economic growth and tax base we need to invest in public programs, and social housing puts downward pressure on market rents by providing a lower cost alternative. Both kinds of buildings are constructed by the same contractors and laborers, and our whole economy benefits from keeping that supply chain healthy.
Our platform:
Portland should make robust public investment in building new social housing.
There are a lot of social housing models, but we feel that social housing is best set up for success when:
Social housing is mixed-income where possible to get the most housing out of our investment and help foster diverse communities.
Social housing remains permanently affordable.
The City or agency investing in social housing retains at least some ownership to keep it affordable and leverage the investment to fund future projects rather than providing public subsidies for projects that end up under private ownership.
We use general obligation bonds to build a fund that the city can use to provide below market rate construction loans to projects.
Prioritizing social housing should not include restrictions on other forms of housing development.
Transportation
Transit
Public transportation is critical infrastructure that people rely on every day. Investing in transit helps people who use it but it also benefits our whole region, even people who never set foot on a bus. As Portland continues to grow the only way to keep traffic under control is to give people a realistic alternative to driving that they choose to use. Public transit is also one of the biggest things we can do at the local level to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Portland should prioritize and invest in a great public transportation system.
Our platform:
Portland should continue to invest in and prioritize Greater Portland Metro.
When investing in improving public transportation, Portland should focus on increasing frequency and reliability. These have been shown to be great ways to increase ridership which helps us get the most benefit from our public transit investment.
Portland should increase transit ridership and funding by encouraging transit-oriented development. This means encouraging denser development along transit corridors and in transit nodes.
Portland should leverage funding tools like Transit Oriented Development Districts to capture some of the value of new dense development and use it to fund transit.
Pedestrians and Cycling
Everyone is a pedestrian at some point and walking and cycling are some of the most affordable, pleasant and environmentally friendly ways to get around. Portland is a great walkable city but we should always be prioritizing the needs and safety of pedestrians and cyclists when making transportation decisions. Portland recently passed a Vision Zero resolution, which is a great step and we would like to see more prioritization of pedestrians and cyclists.
Our platform:
Pedestrian comfort and walkability should be prioritized above the speed or throughput of motor vehicles within Portland.
State and High Streets should be returned to two way traffic. This will slow down drivers and make these streets easier and safer to cross.
Exchange Street should be closed to vehicular traffic other than deliveries like it was in the summer of 2020 to make for a vibrant pedestrian experience.
A complete network of physically separated bike lanes should be built to let cyclists of all levels navigate Portland safely with minimal motor vehicle conflicts. Painted “bicycle gutters” are not complete infrastructure.
Parking
Portland could be managing its public parking better to help manage traffic, raise city revenue, and make the parking we already have more available. Downtown parking is expensive but most of that money ends up in the hands of private lots managed by UPP. Portland isn’t charging for public parking at all during some peak times. Aside from leaving some revenue on the table, this can lead cars to circle for a long time looking for parking, increasing traffic and local particulate emissions.
Our platform:
By enforcing parking meters until 9pm instead of 6pm Portland can get more revenue from people coming in from out of town instead of property taxes from Portland residents. This should also improve safety and traffic flow during these hours.
The Temple and Elm Street garages are closed on Sundays. People come to downtown Portland on Sundays and opening garages can give them a place to park and bring in revenue for the city while remaining a fraction of the cost of private parking lots.
Portland should enforce parking meters on Sundays to encourage turnover and raise revenue.
Parking meter prices should be set so that a typical block has one or two empty spaces, to reduce cruising.
Portland should investigate incentives for converting downtown surface parking lots into mixed-use developments, especially housing.
City Projects
Franklin Street
Franklin Arterial is a relic of Urban Renewal. Homes were demolished to make room for a wide road through the heart of our city so drivers could travel at high speeds. It is unsafe. A pedestrian was recently killed there and it is not the best use of our limited downtown land. The plan to narrow Franklin Arterial and make it a city street instead of a high speed road has been in the works for decades. Recently, Portland was awarded a grant to make a plan to move forward with this project and the planning is already underway. Portland should prioritize this effort and make sure we have a plan that we can actually deliver that emphasizes housing, safety, and transportation connectivity.
Our platform:
Portland should prioritize the Franklin Street redesign and focus on creating a realistic plan so we can move forward on the project.
The design should prioritize new housing opportunities as much as possible. Housing was destroyed to create the Franklin Arterial we have today and building some housing back will help to address our housing crisis. Housing could even be used to help fund the project.
Public transportation, pedestrians, and cyclists should be prioritized over level of service for single occupancy vehicles.
Lincoln Park should be expanded to be close to its former size and street trees should be planted and maintained along the new Franklin Street sidewalks.
Franklin Street should be lined with street trees on either side to provide shade and traffic calming.
Franklin should not have any sort of center median that could widen the road, making it more difficult to cross and removing opportunities for housing.
No new street parking should be added along Franklin Street.
The speed limit on Franklin should be lowered from the current 35 mph.
Former Midtown Lots
To settle a lawsuit, Portland recently bought back the lots that were formerly the site of the proposed Midtown project. This project would have included a parking garage as well as 800 units of housing. Though the circumstances are not ideal, this public land close to our downtown represents a huge opportunity to build something great. Portland should prioritize housing, social housing, revenue, and retaining ownership of this shared resource. We feel that our proposal strikes a balance between these priorities.
Our platform:
Ground-lease parcels between Elm Street and Chestnut Street:
Select a lessee that will build the most homes with a minimum of 120 per acre.
Set a rate around 3-6% of property value annually, recalibrated to the property value every 15 years.
Lease is terminated if project timeline goals are not met, reverting the land back to the city.
Social housing on the parcels between Chestnut Street and Pearl Street:
Construct in phases.
Finance initial construction with a general obligation (GO) bond.
After the first phase of construction, pay back the GO bond, replace it with a long-term loan, and reuse the GO bond money for a second phase.
Amtrak Station
Portland’s Amtrak Station is a vital resource for both our city and our region. Unfortunately, we demolished our historic Union Station and now trains must stop at the Portland Transportation Center. This requires each train to take a detour and backtrack every time they stop in Portland. Not only is this a problem for passengers traveling to or from stations north of Portland, the time wasted on this maneuver prevents NNEPRA (the operators of the Amtrak Downeaster) from improving service, such as by adding a 7th and 8th daily trip on the route. Work on these improvements will take years and cannot begin until Portland’s station is moved somewhere along the main line, eliminating the backtracking. In the past, we opposed moving the station unless it was to a location that was closer to Congress Street and the multiple bus routes that run along it. We have since changed our view because the improvements that can be made to the Downeaster as a whole are too big to ignore and NNEPRA has a realistic plan they can get started on right away. Delays now will lead to even more delays on critical improvements to the Downeaster in years to come. The benefits of moving the station to the main line as soon as possible outweigh any possible benefit of an extended debate over the exact location.
Our platform:
Portland should have a clear plan to relocate our Amtrak station to the main line as soon as realistically possible.
Mixed-use development and particularly housing should be actively encouraged around Portland’s new station.
