How can a city be a home for working families if working families cannot afford to live there?
Our nation is in the grips of a devastating housing, climate, and affordability crisis. And Ashland is no exception.
“It has become too hard to build, and too expensive to live,” notes Ezra Klein in his March 2025 New York Times opinion piece, There is a Liberal Answer to the Trump-Musk Wrecking Ball. “The problem isn’t technical: We know how to build apartment complexes… The problem is the rules and the laws and political cultures that govern construction.”
As the saying goes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If we really want to solve this cluster crisis, we need a new approach.
Oregon’s approach of creating “Climate-Friendly Areas” is a brilliant strategy.
What is a Climate-Friendly Area?
In March 2020, Governor Kate Brown signed Executive Order 20-04, directing state agencies to take urgent action to reduce climate pollution in Oregon while ensuring equitable outcomes for underserved populations. One product of the Executive Order is the state’s Climate-Friendly & Equitable Communities (CFEC) rules adopted in 2022, which require cities to create Climate Friendly Areas (CFAs) where up to 30 percent of our future population can live in mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly areas.
Learn about the steps that Ashland has taken to date to comply with the Climate-Friendly & Equitable Community rules.
Climate-Friendly Areas
Climate-Friendly Areas (CFAs) allow cities to abandon traditional or historical land use patterns (i.e., cookie-cutter zoning) and allow for a mix of uses that make it easier for residents to meet most of their daily needs in their own neighborhood. CFAs will change the look and feel of our communities.
Most notably, they will reduce the need to drive, which is critical to meeting Ashland’s Climate and Energy Action Plan (CEAP) goals. Transportation is one of Ashland’s primary sources of climate pollution.
CFAs also support objectives 1A and 3A of Ashland’s 2013 Transportation System Plan, which call for:
- Reducing the number of auto trips, auto trip length, and vehicle emissions. (1A)
- Developing an integrated transportation and land use plan to increase the viability of active transportation. (3A)
Here are the CFAs that have been designated for Ashland so far.
We’re Off Track
Oregon has a goal to reduce emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050. The 2018 projection, current “plans and trends,” in contrast to the updated 2022 projection, shows how far off we are unless dramatic changes are made.
Source: https://www.oregon.gov/odot/climate/Documents/FINALODOTCarbonReductionStrategy11_9_23.pdf
This also means that Ashland is off track to achieve its CEAP goal of net zero by 2050.
We need to do more to reduce car trips.
Foremost, many more people need to decide that it is more convenient and efficient to walk, bike, or take transit for short in-town trips. That will require the city to make it safe to walk, bike, or roll in town by improving major streets with protected bike lanes (as are on Ashland Street). Additionally, the Rogue Valley Transportation District will need to secure substantially more funding and increase the frequency of buses. Finally, more people will need to buy and drive electric vehicles and pay more to drive (including to park).
By creating more CFAs or applying CFA zoning principles in additional neighborhoods, Ashland can create a more affordable, sustainable, and less car-dependent community. Let’s do it!
What Other Cities are Doing
Excellent models are emerging all over the country.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, has passed dramatic housing reform, “allowing property owners and developers to build up to four stories, with an option for an additional two stories, citywide. The expected results will result in the construction of 4,880 new units, a significant increase from the 350 units previously expected to be built over the next 15 years. (Bloomberg, How Upzoning in Cambridge Broke the YIMBY Mold, 3/05/2025),
Here’s more, from the June 2024 Regional Plan Association report, “How Six Cities are Creating Missing Middle Housing:”
Minneapolis has “revised existing zoning regulations, prioritized more housing units on residential lots, set minimum building height standards in high-density areas, and legalized duplexes and triplexes in residential districts.”
Salt Lake City has changed its zoning regulations: “Duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, and row houses are now permitted in all residential neighborhoods, including on single-family lots where they were previously not allowed. Moreover, the zoning reform enables an increase in building height by 1-3 stories in multi-family housing, streamlining approval processes for housing projects to reduce time and costs, expanding the types of multifamily housing allowed in commercial areas, and reducing minimum parking requirements.”
Houston now provides “opportunities to increase affordable housing by allowing for an increase in the number of multi-family buildings with 3-8 units as well as expanding ADUs. Additionally, the plan introduces a unique housing typology—courtyard-style developments, which allows for the construction of several units around a central courtyard without minimum lot size or maximum density restrictions.”
What Can Ashland Do?
The City Council should direct the Planning and Community Development Department and the Planning Commission to incorporate the following Development Code changes:
- Allow triplexes and fourplexes in residential areas throughout town. ORS 197.758(2) requires communities with a population of more than 25,000 people to allow duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes in their single-family zoning districts (i.e. middle housing). Ashland is only required to allow duplexes, but we could provide more flexibility to increase housing supply and population without expanding its urban growth boundary.
- Promote higher residential densities, flexibility of housing types, and commercial development by applying the CFA zoning standards (i.e., the zoning overlay but not the CFA designation) to additional areas—especially the downtown, “A” Street, and areas between Lithia and A Street. While State standards for a CFA are tightly defined, the zoning standards in these areas could be modified. For example, the Council could decide to exclude housing types that it sees as inappropriate in these areas, such as townhouses.
By aligning the city’s Development Code to be more like that for CFAs, the Council would:
- Grow the number of potential housing units in this very walkable and bikeable area of the city;
- Boost the number of business patrons for Ashland’s two most important commercial districts (downtown and A Street); and
- Increase development in an area where it will be cost-effective for developers, and minimize city infrastructure costs.
Conclusion
This should be an easy decision. The Council has already decided that it supports implementing the CEAP, boosting housing and affordability, improving the transportation system to make it safe and practical to bicycle or walk for short in-town trips for people of all ages and abilities, and boosting economic development. With car ownership now averaging about $1,025 per month, making Ashland a place where people don’t have to own a car will have profound and positive impacts on our community and existing and future residents.