A new pilot program will use opioid settlement funds for a Wilsonville peer support specialist.

During a Monday, June 2 meeting, the Wilsonville City Council adopted its plan to address Wilsonville’s housing needs in the coming years.

The council adopted the two finished products completed through its Housing Our Future Project: the Housing Needs and Capacity Analysis outlining the city’s housing needs through 2045, and the Housing Production Strategy, a six-year action plan to meet those needs.

Strategies highlighted in the latter document include rezoning land to allow more housing or a wider range of housing types, searching for additional opportunities to build a variety of housing types, incentivising accessible housing, streamlining the administrative process for housing development and preserving income-restricted housing.

Other actions included as foundations for the future were creating a housing specialist position in the city and searching for new funding sources for housing production. These foundational steps will help support strategies that were not included in the final product because they cannot be completed in six years as required by the state, such as a rental housing inspection program, community land trust, homebuyer assistance and land disposition.

A staff presentation at the June 2 meeting outlined the implementation schedule for each action point, each requiring approval from City Council before moving forward. Land rezoning is scheduled to be the first strategy implemented after a council approval in 2027, with strategies to find funding sources for affordable housing development, create requirements for the housing specialist position and “support the preservation of affordable rental housing” set for consideration in 2028 with implementation the following year.

Strategies to facilitate housing type variety, streamline the administrative review process and incentivize accessible housing design are scheduled to be considered by the council in 2029, with implementation following.

City Councilor Katie Dunwell, who chaired the Housing Our Future Task force, thanked the staff and consultants who worked on the project during her comments, while noting the state required cities to develop the housing needs analysis and six-year action plan without providing funding.

“I just want to make sure that all of our citizens know that what we ended up with what the culmination of some really deep conversations about what the future of housing is for our city,” Dunwell said, adding although the task force was able to reach “good compromises” with a representative from the Department Land Conservation and Development on developing strategies that meet state requirements.

Dunwell also highlighted the importance of the proposed inspection program for rental housing, which is also mentioned in the City Council’s two-year goals, to ensure good housing conditions. She said strategies aimed at helping those who wish to purchase a home were important to building generational wealth.