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Gov. Tina Kotek today knocked down speculation that she would push for new sources of revenue in 2024.
That speculation springs from a document produced by Kotek’s Housing Production Advisory Council, a group she convened to tackle Oregon’s persistent shortage of places for people to live. This week, HPAC circulated draft documents with its recommendations for how the state could reach Kotek’s goal of generating 36,000 new housing units per year (nearly double recent production levels).
Included in the draft: a list of potential revenue sources for the state’s part in reaching the production goal.
Here’s a snapshot of those ideas (pages 16 and 17 in the document linked to above):
The panel said those ideas were ways (along with a slew of tools such as tax incentives, fee waivers and expedited permitting) to build the housing Kotek wants and the state needs.
The Oregon Catalyst, a conservative political blog, summed up the new potential revenue sources in a Jan. 10 story titled ”Alert!! Kotek Floats $3B New Taxes.”
Elisabeth Shepard, a spokeswoman for Kotek, says the reality is slightly less scary. Shepard notes that Kotek encouraged the Housing Production Advisory Council to think independently and big. That does not mean, however, that the panel speaks for the governor, nor does it mean Kotek, who recently encouraged metro-area leaders to implement a three-year prohibition on new local taxes to aid the area’s recovery, will ask the Legislature for new taxes in the 30-day session that begins Feb. 5.
“The governor’s housing production proposal for the 2024 session is separate from the Housing Production Advisory Council recommendations,” Shepard says. “She looks forward to hearing the council’s final recommendations on Jan. 17.”
But in the meantime, Kotek is seeking to calm fears about what cranking up housing production would mean.
“The governor’s 2024 proposal does not contain any tax proposals,” Shepard says, “or changes to tree codes and wetlands.”