Chamber unveils 2025 Policy Agenda

Signs of Progress: Successes Worth Building On

When the public and private sectors work together, problems can be solved urgently and effectively. Recent progress includes:

• Downtown foot traffic continues to rise year over year, with an overall 3% increase from 2023 to 2024 highlighted by a growth in daily employee traffic of 8%.
• After the formation of the Auto Theft Task Force in 2023, vehicle thefts have declined to 2014 levels after reaching record highs in 2021-22.
• Reported crime in the central city is down a whopping 84% year over year, and public perception of safety in downtown has improved by 20%.
• Multnomah County has opened its first-ever drug deflection center and is on track to open a 24/7 drop-off sobering center in the first half of 2025.
• The City of Portland has laid the groundwork for strong future economic growth with significant foundational policy actions taken by the city over the past four years.

An Economic Foundation to Build Upon

It will be incumbent on the new generation of leaders at the City of Portland to build off of these accomplishments and continue Portland’s economic revival.

• Consolidated permitting services into a single bureau.
• Required that all new proposed fees and fee increases undergo an economic impact analysis.
• Approved two new Tax Increment Finance Districts in East Portland and the Central City.
• Adopted the widely praised Advance Portland economic development plan.
• Created partnership agreements with the entire family of historic development opportunities in the Central City: New Albina, Rose Quarter, OMSI District, Broadway Corridor, and Major League Baseball (MLB) to PDX.
• Approved fully modernized Enhanced Service District policies that will allow this global public-private best practice to flourish and spread to neighborhood business districts.
• Adopted one of the most aggressive downtown leasing incentives in the nation.

Working Together for Portland’s Future

In recent years, voters have sent a clear message that they expect our elected leaders to return to the basics, restore Portland’s livability, and take steps to get Portland’s cost of living under control. A new city council and county leadership have been elected, pledging to address these issues. Governor Kotek has followed through on her commitments to housing production and the Portland region’s success. The City of Portland Mayor Wilson has pledged to end unsheltered homelessness by the end of 2025. Multnomah County has an entirely new commission that is united in its promise to make the county more urgent, effective, and transparent.

Facing Economic Realities

Since 2020, Portland has faced a cascading series of crises that have measurably damaged our city’s reputation and spurred the realization that the quality of public services is not commensurate with record-high taxes. After decades of growth, Portland has lost population for four consecutive years. The region now faces one of the largest unsheltered homeless populations in the nation and record levels of drug overdoses. The extremely high tax burden, combined with housing costs that are 30% higher than the national average, continues to drive population loss and undermine our tax base. Job declines across nearly every industry sector, plummeting commercial property values, and businesses relocating outside the region threaten the general funds of cities, counties, and school districts across the region. The City of Portland alone faces a $100 million budget deficit.

Understanding Portland’s Challenges since 2020:

• Population loss, driven by high housing costs and taxes, is eroding the region’s economic stability.
• Following a staggering 82% increase in business taxes in just the past five years, businesses are
  relocating and reducing the size of their workforces.
• Commercial property values have dropped precipitously resulting in governments struggling to
  fund basic services, while dedicated specialty taxes continue to have surpluses.
• Unsheltered homelessness and record drug overdoses strain public services.
• Housing production in the Portland region is at a virtual standstill, threatening to deepen the
  region’s housing and economic challenges.

Portland and the region must grapple with three key economic truths:

1. In the next decade and beyond, the Portland region must compete with other metropolitan regions for population growth, businesses, events, and jobs.
2. The region’s housing crisis is at a breaking point with housing production virtually ground
   to a halt.
3. We must incentivize and accelerate the growth of businesses to ensure we have the revenue we need to fund the state and local services that our residents expect and count on. New or increased taxes will only dig our region into a deeper hole. We must look for ways to reform or reduce our tax burden to put the region back on a competitive growth trajectory.

What Portland Needs Now: Collaborative Solutions, Not Division

Collaboration will be necessary to get through an extremely difficult budget and kick-start economic growth. This is going to be challenging work and will involve changing the way we do business based on best practices learned from our peer metro regions.  Success will require the public sector to work with business and community leaders from across the region. We cannot afford to be divided or distracted by performative proposals or novel policies that put us at a competitive disadvantage with our peers.

Our 2025 Policy Priorities

The Chamber urges local leaders to support and implement Governor Kotek’s Central City Task Force recommendations to drive our city’s recovery. We encourage action on the following policy agenda.

Download 2025 Policy Agenda (pdf)

Coalition Partners