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Portland councilors take vacancy fee off the table after city study
KATU • • business
Key Points:
- Portland has decided not to pursue a proposed fee on owners of long-vacant commercial properties, despite record-high office vacancy rates downtown.
- A recent study found that vacancies are mainly due to weak demand and costly build-out barriers, and that a vacancy fee would be expensive to implement and unlikely to reduce vacancies significantly.
- The study highlighted that a vacancy fee could disproportionately impact small or local property owners and is not the right tool for Portland’s current vacancy challenges.
- Recommendations from the study include making the permitting process faster and cheaper, easing rules for converting vacant spaces to different uses, and focusing on targeted enforcement for nuisance or elective vacancies.
- City officials, including Council President Jamie Dunphy and Councilor Sameer Kanal, have expressed concerns about vacancies but currently do not plan to move forward with a vacancy fee.
