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Real Estate Forecast Looks At Housing Need

BEND, OR -- Central Oregon's housing market is booming, once again. Ten years after the recession deflated the region's real estate market, home prices are now back to pre-recession levels. Improvements were celebrated at the Bend Chamber's 20th annual Real Estate Forecast Breakfast, which took place Thursday at the Riverhouse Convention Center. The panel also addressed the need for more workforce and "affordable" housing.

 

Deschutes County Community Development Director Nick Lelack was on the panel. He tells KBND News, "We really need to talk about what it means in our community to provide it or not provide it. For example, if it's provided either within our existing neighborhoods or in close proximity, in some cases it can mean greater congestion. If we put it on the periphery, it can mean greater transportation costs for those living in those units and/or greater traffic on our streets." But, he says the community needs to reconcile public opinion with reality, and decide how to address the issue. "We do support private property rights; we do support the market economy; we do support workforce housing. But when the private property owner or the developer is proposing to meet that market demand with workforce housing in our neighborhood, suddenly there's a lack of support. I think we need to come to grips with that. As a community, we need to support those taking the risks to propose those projects."

 

Bigger cities like Portland and Seattle have imposed rent control and mandatory zoning to address the need, but Lelack says there are other tools available, like providing incentives and removing barriers. "There will be consequences to those decisions. If people can't live here, and we're paying them more to travel from outer lying communities or rural subdivisions, the businesses are going to have to pay more to attract that labor. And we're going to have to recognize our cost of services - our cost of a cup of coffee, or whatever service we're purchasing in Bend or Central Oregon - they're going to go up."

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