Basic HTML Version
Your
Industry
LEGISLATION • GOVERNMENT RELATIONS • POLITICS •
AUGUST, 2013
• PAGE 11
HBA
News
HOME BUILDING
HBA
PDX
.
ORG
PROTECTING
Officials tour MODS
Elected officials and
jurisdictional development
staff, included Metro Councilor
Sam Chase, got an education
in modular building
—See page 12
Around the Region Online
Your source for real-time HBA
Government Relations and Updates
is available online.
—See hbapdx.org/government-relations
If you work in this industry long
enough, you will eventually hear
something about SDC’s. I recently
attended a City Wide Land use
meeting in Portland which was
also attended by people from the
neighborhood groups, including
many of their land use chairs, City
personnel from the Bureau of De-
velopment Services, a City Com-
missioner and some builders. In
this meeting while going over
neighborhood issues a gentle-
man from one of the neighbor-
hood groups commented that
he didn’t understand why we
couldn’t use SDC funds for things
like maintenance of the existing
streets and as the conversations
wore on, it became clear to me
that there are a lot of people that
do not have a real good under-
standing of what SDC’s can be
used for.
SDC is an acronym for System
Development Charges for which
the basic rules and requirements
of use are set out in ORS 223.297
to 223.314. SDC’s are charges by
local governments to provide
equitable funding for orderly
growth and development in Ore-
gon’s communities and to estab-
lish that the charges may be used
only for Capital improvements.
The ORS define Capital improve-
ments as facilities or assets used
for the following:
a) Water Supply, treatment and
distribution;
b) Waste water collection,
transmission, treatment and
disposal;
c) Drainage and flood control;
d) Transportation or
e) Parks and recreation.
Keep in mind that Capital im-
provement does not include
costs of the operation or rou-
tine maintenance. Among other
things this statute also sets out
the methodology for determin-
ing the amount of the SDC’s.
There are two parts to a typical
SDC, the reimbursement fee and
the improvement fee. The reim-
bursement fee is a fee new de-
velopment pays to reimburse the
local government for the already
existing capacity in the current
system, and the improvement fee
goes to pay for infrastructure yet
to be built needed solely for new
development. The building com-
munity helped to establish the
rules that became law to have a
See INSIDE LINE/ page 12
Know your SDCs
By Laurie Butler,
Land Development / Builder
Services, First American Title
Inside
Line
The legislature adjourned on
July 8; this was far short of the
longest session in Oregon histo-
ry but was plenty long enough.
I haven’t had time to do a full
analysis of the session yet, but
wanted to let you all know the
high points and update you
on some of the almost 500 bills
we’ve been tracking all session.
All in all, it wasn’t a bad session
for us in terms of outcomes. We
didn’t expect much going in, but
what we wanted, we were able
to get. We had to work like hell
to keep bad things from happen-
ing, but when they adjourned,
they hadn’t passed anything we
strongly opposed.
Key accomplishments
included:
We were able to get our con-
tinuing education bill passed in
more or less the form that we
wanted
We were able to expand shop
classes and other vocational
training for high and middle
school kids
We helped push through some
good changes to the way UGBs
are calculated and expanded
We killed mandatory inclusion-
ary zoning. Three times.
We fought back several at-
tempts to cap/means test the
mortgage interest deduction
We were able to kill or amend
several bills that targeted con-
struction for specific regulatory
or tax attention
And just to recap a few of the
specific bills, here they are in
numeric order, starting with the
Senate:
SB 77:
This bill started out as
a set of good LUBA reforms, got
badly amended in the
Senate committee, and got re-
amended in the House to turn
it into a data-gathering exercise
for LUBA. Not optimum, but not
harmful.
SB 498:
The Career & Tech-
nical Education (or shop class)
legislation passed with almost 5
times the funding from 2011. This
bill will allocate money to high
schools andmiddle schools to re-
establish or grow CTE programs,
with the objective to get more
kids exposed to and potentially
interested in construction as a
career. This was a joint effort be-
tween primarily OHBA, AGC and
the Building Trades unions.
SB 783:
This is our continuing
education bill; it passed easily. It
makes a number of changes to
the CE program, most significant-
ly being a reduction of required
hours for more experienced con-
tractors and additional Core of-
ferings to replace the BEST class.
And now the House bills:
HB 2253:
One of the land use
bills from the interimworkgroup,
this one will put Portland State
University in charge of popula-
tion forecasting for the entire
state, rather than leaving it to the
counties.
HB 2254:
The big land use
bill of the session, this will sig-
nificantly change how UGBs are
studied and expanded.
HB 2464:
After way too much
work, we were able to turn this
bad bill – which targeted con-
struction for special attention by
the Department of Revenue and
added a bunch of new require-
ments – into a tax enforcement
bill that applied to all businesses,
not just construction. A good
win.
HB 2801:
This bill took up
way too much time this session
relative to its import. It deals with
energy efficiency and does sev-
eral things: changes how the PUC
looks at energy efficiency mea-
sures; creates a training and licen-
See OREGON UPDATE/ page 12
Oregon Update: Your legislative recap including the
high points from the over 500 Bills the OHBA follows
Jon Chandler
OHBA
Save the Date
September’s Lunch.Learn.Link. on 9/12 will feature
NAHB Chief Economist and Senior VP, David Crow.
David will be presenting the results of the “Does
Growth Pay” study for the Portland Metro Region.
Members and elected officials will obtain valuable
information on how much housing construction
contributes to the local economy and tax base both
during initial construction and on an ongoing basis.
This is a very informative presentation and it should
sell out so please secure your spot early. Register at
www.hbapdx.org/calendar.
This special Lunch.Learn.Link. is generously
sponsored by FLOFORM Countertops