Oregon Capital Chronicle
City of Bend needs millions for two large sewer projects
By Julia Shumway, Oregon Capital Chronicle
SALEM, Ore. (KTVZ) — Oregon cities will push the state Legislature to give them more money for roads, water and sewers, more power to remove homeless camps and more flexibility to spend hotel tax revenue on basic services.
City officials from around Oregon laid out those goals during their biannual City Day at the Capitol earlier this week, though it was quickly overshadowed by an announcement, delayed by court orders, that the Trump administration planned to immediately cut funding relied on by states and cities.
Some city priorities, including increased infrastructure spending, are shared by Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature. Others, including attempts to roll back a state law that limits cities’ ability to remove homeless camps, will be a tougher sell in Salem.
Anti-homeless camp laws
Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the city of Grants Pass by upholding a city law that banned homeless people from using blankets, pillows or cardboard boxes to protect themselves from the elements while sleeping outside.
A panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals previously concluded that the ordinance amounted to cruel and unusual punishment for people who lack shelter and violated the Eighth Amendment, but the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court rejected that ruling and said it was up to cities to regulate homelessness.
After that Supreme Court ruling, cities around the country passed new homeless camping bans or made their existing laws more restrictive. But Grants Pass and other cities in Oregon still needed to follow a state law, championed by Gov. Tina Kotek when she was speaker of the Oregon House in 2021, that limits their ability to ban sleeping outside.
Under that law, cities can only restrict people from “sitting, lying, sleeping or keeping warm and dry outdoors on public property that is open to the public” if those restrictions are “objectively reasonable as to time, place and manner with regards to persons experiencing homelessness.”
It also allows homeless people to sue cities over restrictions that aren’t objectively reasonable, as Disability Rights Oregon and the Oregon Law Center did on Thursday on behalf of five disabled homeless people in Grants Pass.
Since August, Grants Pass has allowed homeless people to stay in only two designated campsites, and earlier this month it closed the larger campsite and restricted hours at the other — leaving hundreds of people no option but to crowd into a site with space for 30 tents each night and pack up all their belongings by 7 a.m.
North Bend Mayor Jessica Engelke, president of the League of Oregon Cities, said the league wants to “clarify” the state law, but not criminalize homelessness.
“Rather, we aim to address the critical concerns about clarity and consistency in the law,” she said. “‘Objectively reasonable’ is subject to varying interpretations by cities and localities, resulting in a patchwork of regulations that can lead to confusion for all community members, including those experiencing homelessness.”
Alexandra Ring, the league’s lobbyist for housing and land use issues, said conversations are ongoing about how to define “objectively reasonable,” and how cities can regulate camping in areas including parks, flood plains and other environmentally sensitive areas.
They also want to tweak a requirement in state law that currently requires anyone who sues to give 90 days notice of a lawsuit to mandate that the person planning to file a suit tells the city what about its ordinance isn’t objectively reasonable so the city has a chance to fix the problem before a lawsuit is filed.
Three bills — Senate Bill 593 from Sen. Mark Meek, D-Gladstone; Senate Bill 645 from Senate Minority Leader Daniel Bonham, R-The Dalles, and House Bill 2432 from several House Republicans — have been introduced to repeal the 2021 law but none has a hearing scheduled. Bonham announced those bills to scattered applause at the League of Oregon Cities forum.
Infrastructure funding
Cities also will lobby for more funding for local infrastructure, especially water and wastewater improvements needed before new homes can be built within city limits. The Legislature last year approved close to $100 million for infrastructure improvements, but the list of projects that needed funding far exceeded that sum.
Bend Mayor Melanie Kebler said her city needs to come up with $66 million for two really big sewer pipes — one in the southeast part of town and one in the city center. It’s more expensive to build underground infrastructure in Central Oregon than in other parts of the state because Bend sits on top of lava rock.
The city hopes to get some of that money from the state. Once the southeast sewer interceptor is done, Bend can move ahead with plans that would add more than 1,200 homes and 2,800 permanent jobs.
Other cities around the state have similar planned developments that have been on hold for years because of water and sewer needs.
“The connection between infrastructure and housing cannot be overstated,” Kebler said.
Gov. Tina Kotek and top Democratic legislators told city leaders that they’re also prioritizing infrastructure funding.
“I know you have other infrastructure issues that are not directly related to housing and housing development, but we need to prioritize that as we all know more housing supply in our communities,” Kotek said. “So in my budget and with the Legislature, I’ll be working on a program to make sure we can continue to invest in infrastructure in your communities to build more housing, because we know how critical that is.”
House Speaker Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, agreed that infrastructure funding, especially to spur housing construction, will be a priority for lawmakers.
“We also know in cities like mine in Eugene, there is land within the (urban growth boundary) that could be developed for hundreds of units of housing, but the city lacked funding for infrastructure for water and wastewater,” she said. “I think that is critically important, and we’re going to continue that work this session.”
Hotel tax changes
More than 20 years ago, the Legislature passed a law requiring 70% of any new local lodging taxes be spent on tourism marketing — meaning if a city charges a 10% hotel tax and collects $10 from a $100 room stay, it needs to use $7 to attract more tourists and can spend the other $3 on other needs.
That may have been necessary to grow tourism 20 years ago, Toledo Mayor Rod Cross said, but now the restriction hobbles city budgets. He said cities, especially tourism hubs on the coast, want more flexibility to use taxes from hotels and short-term rentals to blunt the impact of tourism on city services.
For instance, Newport’s permanent population is around 10,000, but it swells to 40,000 people in the summer and as high as 50,000 on summer weekends, he said. The city’s police department has 28 employees, which isn’t enough for the summer.
“When you have a huge rush of tourists who come over into a community for a weekend, and that population doubles, or for some communities, quintuple, the numbers become overwhelming to a city’s infrastructure,” Cross said. “For some communities, roads wear out a lot faster. Water systems are strained. Tourists come to parks because they have children.”
He said allowing cities to use some of their tourism tax revenue to improve basic services will actually attract more tourists, who will want to return year after year to visit cities with good roads, parks and other amenities.
“If local jurisdictions can better maintain and enhance necessary infrastructure and provide the services and amenities necessary to support tourism, in turn, it will make our communities even more desirable for visitors, and they will come back repeatedly,” Cross said. “Seems like a win for everyone involved.”
