Chamber releases 2026 Regional Policy Agenda

The Portland region must adopt a competitive mindset. The region can no longer count on population growth alone to drive economic and revenue growth. Recent years have seen the precipitous decline of  the region’s core strengths which fueled decades of growth — relative affordability to our peers, livability, vibrancy, and public safety. With tepid voter support for new or increased taxes, the Portland region must immediately prioritize growing the tax base as its top revenue generation strategy With virtually all local governments funded primarily by business and property taxes, urgent strategic priorities include supporting our entrepreneurs, growing our businesses, and recruiting large employers. As revenues continue to decline, the public sector at all levels will need to advance public-private partnerships to meet our shared goals.

Priorities:

• Make downtown the best place to sign a lease
  • Extend and strengthen the Downtown Business Incentive Tax Credit beyond its current restriction to downtown by expanding it to districts such as Lloyd, Old Town, Central Eastside, and Pearl, and pair this program with Multnomah County Business Income Tax relief for qualifying leases. This will make it more affordable for companies to lease space in the city’s core, helping fill empty offices, support local jobs, and increase future assessed property values and general fund revenue.
  • Develop a public-private program with City of Portland to develop an empty storefronts program that brings local artists, pop-up businesses, and other entrepreneurial opportunities to empty retail storefronts. Design the program based on proven models in Denver and Minneapolis.
  • Make renewed return- to- office push focused on public sector employers to bring their employees back to office at least three days a week. Develop a clear, data-based understanding of the remaining opportunity to grow downtown employee foot traffic with existing employer base.
  • Partner with Made in Old Town to strengthen its ties and coordination with Athletic and Apparel Industry leaders and align it with industry goals.
• Expand Enterprise Zone competitiveness to the entire Central City
  • Simplify the Enterprise Zone program by eliminating the extra payments to local school districts currently required by participating businesses in the fourth and fifth years of their property-tax exemption period, for new agreements and where feasible, adjusting existing agreements.
• Expand the Business Expansion Program to support job growth and align county and state incentives
  • Commit to steady, multi-year funding for the City of Portland’s Business Expansion Program, with clear and transparent criteria for awards that reward businesses for creating new jobs and investing in tenant improvements.
  • Work with the state to allow Portland to use the Strategic Investment Program for major mixed-use or redevelopment projects in the city.
• Help small and growing businesses thrive
• Raise the City’s Business License Tax and the County’s Business Income Tax gross-receipts exemption to $150,000 and index the threshold to inflation. This will reduce paperwork and costs for startups and small businesses, strengthening the city’s business ecosystem and future tax base.
• Develop a public financing solution to tackle the significant deferred maintenance and modernization of Portland’s iconic sports and entertainment venues, including the full renovation of the Moda Center, which is the oldest NBA arena to have never undergone a major renovation. State and City leaders must take all necessary public finance, policy, and infrastructure actions to guarantee the Portland Trail Blazers franchise continues for future generations of Oregonians and continues to support other Portland sport franchises like the Portland Fire, Thorns and Timbers.
• Advocate at the state level to reform System Development Charges (SDC) to be used for deferred maintenance and address our crumbling city assets.
• Permitting and development services should meet predictable and competitive timelines for permit approval. The City of Portland and all local governments must adopt plans to make optimal use of all industrial lands and ensure we have the necessary land supply to accommodate economic growth.
• The city should continue to take all necessary actions to rapidly advance a series of generational economic development opportunities that pass the Central City onto future generations: Broadway Corridor, New Albina/Rose Quarter, Future OMSI District, Zidell Yards, Lloyd Center, PSU.
• Government partners at all levels should continue to advance both the I-5 Bridge Replacement project and Rose Quarter transportation infrastructure projects.
• Continue to collaborate with Cascadia Mega Region partners to advance Cascadia high speed rail.
• The City of Portland must continue to be a full partner with the Portland Diamond Project and bring Major League Baseball to the Rose City.
• The City of Portland, Multnomah County, and the State of Oregon should partner to stabilize and invest in our historic festivals, performing arts venue infrastructure and operations, and the future of the Expo Center and Moda Center.
• The City of Portland must make economic growth the highest and best use of Tax Increment Finance district funds aligned with the Advance Portland economic development strategy.
• Multnomah County must expand its partnership with Oregon State University extension and the OSU Food Innovation Center as one of its core economic development investments. Extension matches the county’s financial contributions 3:1, leveraging additional state and federal dollars to ensure support for small farms, gardens, and urban agriculture; support for the food and beverage industry sector including the James Beard Public Market, and youth development efforts.

The cost of living and doing business in Portland has become uncompetitive. Portland’s cost of living is 12% above the national average, driven largely by the cost of housing and an uncompetitive tax burden. Portland now has the nation’s second-highest marginal personal income tax rate at 14.7%, the highest corporate rate at 20.9%, and business taxes have increased 81% since 2019. Portland has lost approximately $1 billion in taxable income annually since 2020, primarily to Clark County in SW Washington. The continued loss of taxable income and population stagnation signals that Portlanders are voting with their feet in response to high costs, declining service quality, and lagging return on taxpayer investments.

With voter tolerance for new revenue at historic lows due to dissatisfaction with poor government performance, regional and local leaders must shift away from relying on additional taxes to fund basic services. We must urgently shift to a competitive strategy that grows the tax base by attracting high and middle-wage employers and families, as well as private investment. With government revenues projected to decline precipitously for the foreseeable future, local leaders must collaborate to lower the tax burden, prioritize essential core services and programs that bring returns on investment, and cut non-essential spending and reform or eliminate specialty taxes.

Governor Kotek’s Central City Task Force Tax Advisory Group (TAG) has developed a roadmap for fiscal reform that, if fully implemented, will achieve the goal of making Portland more competitive with our peer cities.

Priorities:

The Portland Metro Chamber strongly supports adoption and implementation of all 19 recommendations for fiscal reform advanced by the Central City Task Force TAG. The Chamber calls for urgent action on the following five top priorities in 2026:

• Refer to voters a choice between maintaining PCEF’s structure or using revenues above original projections for selected general fund priorities
  • Preserve the Portland Clean Energy Fund’s (PCEF) current funding structure, dedicating all surcharge revenues to climate-related and community-focused programs, or
  • Authorize the City to allocate revenues collected above the original projected range (i.e., above $90 million annually) to support a limited set of urgent general fund priorities, as identified in the referred measure.
• Index local Income tax thresholds to inflation to preserve fairness and policy integrity
  • Amend the Preschool for All (PFA) and (Supportive Housing Services (SHS) tax codes to include an annual inflation adjustment for their income thresholds, using a widely accepted measure such as the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U).
• Support the Governors call to reevaluate the Preschool for All Program to ensure long term viability, while aligning to voters’ expectations.
  • Substantially reduce reliance on a local income tax to fund the Preschool for All program and explore statewide solutions for universal preschool.
• Institutionalize “soft sunsets” and structured reviews to ensure accountability without sacrificing stability
  • Establish a “soft sunset” framework for all new local tax measures. Each measure would be authorized for a 10-year period, with a structured performance review conducted at year five. Programs demonstrating progress and alignment with goals would continue without interruption. Measures with unresolved delivery or governance concerns could be re-evaluated and adjusted before reaching their full term.
• Raise signature thresholds and require Economic Impact Statements for tax-raising initiatives
  • Raise the signature threshold for ballot initiatives that establish, increase, or dedicate tax revenues. This could mean requiring a higher percentage of voter signatures or tying qualifications to turn out in a recent high-participation election, like during a presidential cycle.
  • In parallel, require all tax-related initiatives—regardless of origin—to be accompanied by an independent Economic Impact Statement.

The City of Portland must refocus its resources and efforts on delivering essential core services—public safety, infrastructure maintenance, and basic city operations.

The Portland region’s extreme housing shortage must be treated like a true crisis. In 2023, Portland’s cost of housing was 30% higher than the national average, and that number continues to grow. This continues to be a significant hinderance to the region’s economic competitiveness. Virtually all data and research agree that the primary driver of homelessness and economic instability is high housing costs.

The region’s high housing costs were created by historic levels of underproduction in the last decade, while the population, driven by migration, grew rapidly. With housing production in Portland at a virtual halt, emergency action must be taken to adopt policies, incentives, and deregulation to ignite housing production of at least 6,000 units annually. New housing production needs to include all types of housing and promote homeownership opportunities to protect against displacement and to build generational wealth. Governments in the region must also adopt policies to spur adequate supply growth in the multifamily housing market, while leveraging public infrastructure, prioritizing new investments, and making land available for housing.

Priorities:

• Complete data-driven study of existing landlord-tenant regulations to determine what policy changes are needed to promote abundant housing production, which in turn improves housing affordability. Study must include input from housing production investment organizations.
• Implement a moratorium on adding new rental regulation policies until the study is complete.
• Adopt statewide reforms to inclusionary housing that require local jurisdictions to regularly analyze, calibrate, and fully offset the cost of the affordability requirement.
• Advocate to implement a 120-day building permit review deadline for housing projects.
• Request a parking management and regulatory study city-wide to adopt parking best practices that make Portland the best city to park in America.
• Reinstate MULTE (pre-IH) program to make it available for new projects with rents to 120% AMI.
• Advocate for all Metro cities to actively adopt technologies that streamline and improve public accessibility and understanding of zoning and permitting processes.
• Advocate for all public entities to actively move publicly-owned appropriately zoned land into housing production.
• Advocate for Metro to create a region-wide landbank to opportunistically acquire distressed properties and then swiftly move them into housing production.
• Partner with local jurisdictions, universities, and the state to establish a revolving loan fund for off-site housing construction companies.
• Support common sense wetland regulation revisions for Willamette Valley communities to speed up permitting processes and replenish the State’s wetland fund.

Restoring and sustaining public safety and quality of life must be viewed as an essential strategy for Portland’s long-term economic competitiveness.

Every Portlander deserves to live in a community that feels clean, safe and healthy. Restoring that basic promise must be the city’s top priority. We must bring funding for public safety services across all regional government to levels on par with peer cities, while building a system that is transparent, coordinated, and accountable.

Homelessness should be a rare, brief, and non-recurring. To achieve this standard, we must fund an outcomes-driven coordinated system including sobering centers, service navigation, crisis response, and drug deflection programs that help people heal, stabilize, and succeed. This must be partnered with enforcement of unsanctioned camping laws to move people off the streets and into the system of recovery.

Portland’s arts, culture and entertainment industries, neighborhood storefronts, internationally-recognized restaurants, and world class parks are essential elements to recruit and attract employers, families, visitors, and private investment.

We must advance policies and funding decisions that support these core economic strengths that drive economic vitality and build a thriving community.

Priorities:

• Support Mayor Wilson’s initiative to end unsheltered homelessness in Portland.
• Continue to move forward with planned opening of Multnomah County’s 24/7 sobering center.
• Continue to push for an overhaul of Oregon’s failed mental health and addiction policies and services by supporting expert partners such as Central City Concern and New Avenues for Youth.
• Push for funding of the Portland Police Bureau, Multnomah County District Attorney, jails, courts, and all public safety services to be on par with peer cities. City and County budgets must be balanced without reducing public safety.
• Continue to push and support increased activation of arts, creative sector, and small businesses in our public spaces.
• Support and grow the sports, arts, and entertainment economy through the expansion of private-public partnerships, including redevelopment and enhancement of our facilities and venues.
• Transform the Willamette riverfront and waterfront parks into active, modern, and sustainable economic and cultural drivers.
• Support/advocate for public events within the city through sustainable funding and streamlining the regulations, permitting, and approval process.
• Advocate for safe, equitable, and clean transit options.
• Ensure continued funding for graffiti abatement, especially on main routes in and out of the city, and ODOT infrastructure.
• Bring Oregon into compliance with Supreme Court decisions and neighboring states by repealing or reforming HB 3115 to allow for local enforcement of unsanctioned camping laws.
• Hold city accountable for financial reform to the Parks Bureau and deliver on levy promises.

We believe climate action and investing in the industries that are leading the clean energy transition can be a rising economic tide that is a core part of Portland’s economic revival. Investments in clean energy, green buildings, workforce training, and sustainable infrastructure can expand economic opportunities while reducing emissions and supporting clean air and water. We must advance climate policies with accountability, collaboration, measurable results, and a clear understanding of the costs and trade-offs. Portland can set a standard for what a thriving, sustainable, economically vibrant, climate forward community looks like.

Priorities:

• The future use of the Portland Clean Energy Fund should prioritize economic development, office-to-housing conversion, employer recruitment, job growth, and resiliency.
• Adopt policy and financing strategies that will support and enhance the Portland Clean Industry Hub’s mission of decarbonizing industrial businesses and igniting the growth of the clean industry sector in the Portland region.
• Monitor Multnomah County’s Climate Plan development to ensure strategies remain balanced, achievable, evidence-based, reasonable in cost, and actionable within their scope. Participate in public forums to advocate on behalf of our members.
• Of critical importance to the regional economy, monitor the Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub developments at the city and state level but push for oversight and rules to come from the state level.
• Continue to monitor Commercial and Multifamily Residential Building Energy Reporting Requirements that would change code requiring reporting of climate and health information to prospective tenants in multifamily buildings.