Portland, Oregon has long been plagued by a state of decline and there is a clear culprit: the government The city enacted broad reforms that essentially decriminalized many crimes, and as a consequence crime skyrocketed. So is the case with illegal narcotics. Today, the degradation of the standard of living has resulted in a sea of vacant storefronts, unsafe streets, and a general feeling of malaise.
In short, Portland has a host of problems that need to be seriously addressed.
Adding insult to injury, Oregon is also experiencing a historic housing crisis due to population growth, lack of affordable housing, and land use restrictions among other factors. The state must build about 29,500 more homes each year, mostly in the Portland region and Willamette Valley, to emerge from a housing shortage that has been years in the making.
With these roadblocks in mind, it’s laughable that the Portland City Council has instead decided to focus on an ordinance against rent pricing software. Introduced by Councilor Angelita Morillo, who claims “This could be our one and only chance to protect Portlanders against corporate landlords who are price-fixing,” the ordinance will only delay the process of spurring new homebuilding. It also sets a dangerous precedent for anti-tech legislation throughout the state and prove a costly headache for a city that cannot afford to follow through on potential litigation should they ban rental software.
The same government that brought crime and drugs in order to make the city safer, now wants to push burdensome housing policies to address the housing problem. Portland residents are smart enough to realize that more government, not less government, will exacerbate the housing issue.
Portland should remember that data-driven technologies have seamlessly integrated into our everyday lives. Just thinking of the wide variety of good and services we rely on regularly – like ridesharing, tickets for travel and entertainment, and lots more – we benefit from smart process in place that lineup our interests with what’s available. In other words, we’re all given a fair shot at consistently and reliably getting what we need at the going market rate.
Likewise, property managers also utilize software systems to gain valuable insights into the market, encouraging them to grow the number of properties available for rent. In the absence of this approach, limited knowledge could leave property managers in a place where they are inadvertently creating an unlevel playing fields for some prospective renters versus others, and also could prevent all sides of transactions to capitalize on soft spots in the market.
The city of Portland has experienced significant financial burdens, with a recently predicted $27 million gap for the budget year that begins July 1. For a city that has long struggled with financial woes, it’s questionable how Portland can even afford to follow through on litigation that may follow, as we’ve seen in the city of Berkeley, California.
Instead of opening the door to litigation, which will be expensive in the long run, the Portland City Council should chip away at solving actual problems the city faces, such as its housing crisis. The solution to Oregon’s housing crisis lies in correcting market failure. We simply cannot expect prices to fall when the demand for goods exceeds the supply. Local lawmakers should run the numbers on its housing predicament and work to find new avenues for more construction of single and multifamily homes.
Further, anti-tech legislation also has the potential to hurt Oregon’s reputation as the Silicon Forest. With a cluster of high-tech corporations that call Silicon Forest home, there are more than 6,000 high-tech businesses statewide that provide more than 81,000 jobs. Many individuals are attracted to the state because of its high quality of life and innovative jobs, and corporations enjoy doing business in Oregon because of its lower operational costs. The tech industry remains a leading driver of the state’s economy and a significant contributor to the state’s way of life.
Oregon’s housing affordability problem requires motivating our engines of housing development by working with the private sector to construct more housing. Doing so may have a desirable effect on related crises the city faces. The Portland City Council would be wise to not fall down the rabbit hole of expensive litigation and instead support builder-focused initiatives.