Frequently Asked Questions

In a nutshell, PDC helps make Portland a great place to live and tries to keep it that way. We call it sustained livability for our city and region. We share a vision with others of a city with a vital economy, healthy neighborhoods and quality jobs for all citizens. We've also provided some useful related links to additional PDC resources and partner organizations.

Specifically, PDC has three major service areas our staff focuses on and they are:

• Housing

  We finance and develop multi-family housing for a variety of income levels throughout the city. We also provide single family home purchase and home repair loans to help stabilize neighborhoods and keep people in their homes.

• Neighborhood Revitalization

  PDC realizes healthy neighborhoods and neighborhood businesses are the backbone of a great city. We work with residents, business owners, owners of rental housing and nonprofit organizations to increase affordable housing and small businesses in the city to keep neighborhoods active and vibrant. This involves taking areas of the city that are distressed and providing market analysis, district planning, developing opportunity strategies and site planning to spruce them up. PDC develops housing, retail, office and other projects. We help bring together the public/private partners needed to accomplish projects. We help find the financial resources needed too.

• Business Retention, Expansion and Recruitment

  PDC offers a full range of direct and indirect assistance to businesses looking to expand or locate in the Portland area. This may include business loans or assistance in locating the right site for a business expansion or relocation. We also work to keep local businesses and jobs here. We provide small business loan programs and local incentives for locating businesses and jobs in target areas.

You can use our "How Can We Help You?" page to find information, or contact a staff person listed by department or service area on our PDC Contacts page.

Additionally, use PDC's "QuickReference" Guide with links to easily access information online. This publication (in Acrobat PDF format) provides easy-to-remember web addresses which link directly to content on the PDC web site.

The structure of the organization can be viewed in the PDC organization chart.

If you have questions or comments about our PDC website, you can email us.

In 1958, the citizens of Portland voted to create the Portland Development Commission (see the City Charter, Chapter 15). The Commission's day-to-day functions are carried out through its Executive Director, six departmental directors, managers and support staff. The Agency is a department of the City and its Executive Director reports to the Commission. You can read more about PDC leadership including photos and brief bios.

The Commission, as a whole, is governed by a five-member board of Commissioners (often referred to as PDC’s Board) who are all local citizens appointed by the Mayor and approved by City Council. Following approval by the PDC Commission, urban renewal districts, bond sales, major projects and program changes are also reviewed and approved by City Council. PDC's Board of Commissioners is governed by these by-laws.

PDC’s structure is unique nationally, offering a greater degree of coordination than other major cities where urban renewal, housing, economic development and redevelopment issues are dispersed among several agencies. (See the PDC organization chart.)

PDC’s reporting structure—to PDC’s Board rather than directly to the Mayor or other City Commissioner—was created to allow the agency to implement programs and focus resources independently and not at the direction of any one city Commissioner.

PDC’s projects and programs have been funded primarily by federal and other grants, program income earned on asset management, contracts for services, tax increment financing, City of Portland General Fund allocations, and private sector donations and lending agreements. The agency’s main goal is to use public funds to stimulate private sector investment, job creation and expansion of the tax base. PDC’s first major urban renewal project, the South Auditorium Project, is an excellent example. The project replaced 110 acres of blighted downtown property with a spectacular development of new, high-quality offices, housing, and beautiful fountains and plazas.

You can learn more about PDC's funding sources here.

PDC’s role was to put in place the appropriate infrastructure that would allow private development to go forward. In the final analysis, 97 percent of the funding for the South Auditorium Project came from private sources. During 1992 alone, the value created in the South Auditorium District development generated an additional $9.6 million in property taxes.

Why does an urban renewal line item appear on property tax statements? Urban renewal is a state-sanctioned program designed to help communities improve and redevelop areas that are physically deteriorated, unsafe, or poorly planned. The Portland Development Commission (PDC), the city’s urban renewal agency, uses urban renewal as a tool to help specific areas of the city realize capital projects—parks, streetscape improvements, community centers, and the like—that would not happen on their own. Read more about this tax line item.

The Urban Renewal line item shown on tax statements received by property owners within the City of Portland represents the amount collected for urban renewal activities. This amount is a combination of PDC’s share of taxes assessed by taxing jurisdictions including the city, the county, and schools, and an urban renewal tax assessed by the City of Portland against all taxable property within the City of Portland. The urban renewal line item on your bill is not a new tax.

For more information on urban renewal. For more information on your property tax bill, contact the Multnomah County Property Tax Assessment and Taxation office at 503-988-3326.

PDC's office is located at 222 NW Fifth Ave in Portland's Old Town/Chinatown district.

Portland Development Commission (see PDC office map) 222 NW Fifth Ave Portland, OR 97209-3859 503-823-3200   Fax: 503-823-3368

Use Google's Transit Trip Planner for detailed public transit directions to our office. Directions from Portland International Airport (PDX).

You can view a map to help you locate our offices in Portland's Old Town/Chinatown district. An additional map shows all of the parking facilities located near our offices. (PDC may provide validation for parking that meets specific criteria.)

All PDC activities are guided by a budget developed by staff in conjunction with citizens, City Council, and various community partners. The budget spells out the specific work program of the 11 urban renewal areas of the city.

The 11 urban renewal areas of the city PDC focuses its staff and resources are:

• Airport Way (retired)
• Central Eastside
• Downtown Waterfront
• Gateway Town Center
• Interstate Corridor
• Lents Town Center
• North Macadam
• Oregon Convention Center
• River District
• South Park Blocks
• Willamette Industrial

If you would like a copy of PDC’s budget, you may download it from our Publications area of our web site, or contact our Public Affairs Department at 503-823-3296.

PDC has a staff of approximately 200.

Members of each department work in teams to deliver the full range of services PDC offers in ten geographic areas of the city. We also deliver housing and job development programs throughout the region.

PDC’s five citizen commissioners are:

• Mark Rosenbaum
  President, Rosenbaum Financial
• Sal Kadri
  Owner, ValueCAD
• Bertha Ferrán
  Senior Mortgage Consultant, Windermere Mortgage Services
• John C. Mohlis
  Executive Secretary-Treasurer Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council
• Charles A. Wilhoite
  Managing Director Willamette Management Associates

PDC conducts business at public meetings held twice monthly; the second Wednesday of the month at 3:00 p.m. and the fourth Wednesday of the month at 8:00 a.m. held at PDC offices, 222 NW Fifth Ave., in downtown Portland. For more information on PDC’s monthly meetings, contact the Public Affairs office at 503-823-3296, or view the online Commission Meeting schedule.

PDC offers a variety of housing and business loans.

PDC's Neighborhood Housing Preservation (NHP) section provides a variety of home loans to help with repairs, purchase and rehabilitation and even refinancing options. Some funds are restricted to targeted areas of the city, but others can be used city-wide. PDC has been working for over 40 years to help people maintain their homes which strengthens Portland neighborhoods. For more information contact PDC's NHP staff at 503-823-3400. (See Housing Finance)

PDC also offers a variety of loans to help businesses grow and expand. PDC loans can be used for items such as purchase of plant and equipment, building renovations, tenant improvements and working capital. Companies unable to obtain adequate funds from private lenders may be eligible for a PDC loan. For more information about business loans through PDC take a look at our Business Financial Services brochure online, or you can contact loan officers at 503-823-3320 or 503-823-3321.

PDC is headed by Executive Director, Bruce Warner.

PDC has a total of seven departments that all report to Bruce Warner. The department directors are:

• Chief Financial Officer — Julie Cody
• Economic Development Director — Ms. Erin Flynn
• Human Resources Director — Ms. Sandy Reina
• Special Projects and Resource Development — Mr. Robert Alexander

PDC projects are some of the most well-known in the city:

• Development of Museum Place, Eastbank Esplanade, Portland's Rose Quarter, Light Rail to the Airport and North Interstate Avenue, The Classical Chinese Garden, Pioneer Place, Pioneer Courthouse Square, Walnut Park Retail Center, RiverPlace, Chinatown Gateway, renovation of historic Union Station, and the redevelopment of the North Park Blocks.
• Renovation of historic and underutilized buildings downtown into affordable housing. Examples include the Sally McCracken Building, the Golden West, Mark Hatfield Building and Swindells Building.
• Thousands of loans to Portland homeowners to make needed repairs to their homes. These loans not only ensure that these houses remain up to code, but are also safe to live in.
• Over 7,000 loans to owners of rental housing to fix substandard rental units and maintain affordable rents. Notable projects include 333 Oak, Rose City Village and the Maya Angelou. Loans for construction of new affordable rental housing include the St. Francis, Kafoury Commons, Betty Campbell, Rosemount Commons and Lovejoy Station.
• A variety of significant Economic Development projects including the recruitment of Qwest Communications International customer service center, Watermark Sports, the re-opening of Physicians Hospital and the expansion of Harris Soup Company (Harry's Fresh Foods).

Urban renewal exists for the purpose of removing, preventing or reducing blight or blighting factors that are detrimental to the safety, health or welfare of the community. A blighted area is characterized by the existence of one or more conditions including deteriorating buildings, inadequate streets and utilities, depreciating values and many more defining conditions.

Typically, cities designate an urban renewal agency with the authority to raise and leverage money to help revitalize neighborhoods. The Portland Development Commission is that agency for the City of Portland. PDC was established by City Charter in 1958.

The urban renewal process, very simplified, involves:

• Working with the affected communities to draw a line around the urban renewal area thus establishing an Urban Renewal Boundary.
• Working with the affected communities a list of desired improvements is created. This is the Urban Renewal Plan.
• Finally, PDC coordinates the difficult task of locating and combining various funding sources to accomplish the work in the Plan.

Read more about urban renewal and its history.

The Portland Development Commission utilizes a variety of funding sources to finance urban renewal. These sources include federal grants, local bond sales, local improvement districts, user fees and working cooperatively with private lenders. PDC's housing and economic development programs are funded primarily by federal grants.

One of PDC's primary sources of urban renewal funding is tax increment financing (TIF). PDC has been using this tool since the late 1970s.

TIF works in this way:

When the city defines an urban renewal boundary, the county assessor "freezes" the assessed value of real property within the urban renewal district. As the city and others invest in the urban renewal area, property values go up. The property taxes above those that were collected when the values were "frozen" are used to pay for the improvements in the urban renewal area.

One of Portland's newspapers, The Oregonian, has also penned a good description of how TIF works:

Urban renewal districts raise money by borrowing against future growth in property taxes. The city uses the borrowed money to pay for capital improvements, which spur more development. The city then uses the incremental increase in property taxes from the district to repay the loan. When the urban renewal district expires in 20-25 years, the intent is to return a much higher property tax base to the tax rolls.

In accordance with Oregon State Law, PDC records are available for inspection and/or copying by the public, unless specifically exempted from disclosure by state statute.

A public record is defined by Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS) 192.005(5) as,

… a document, book, paper, photograph, file, sound recording, machine readable electronic record or other material such as court files, mortgage and deed records, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made, received, filed, or recorded in pursuance of law or in connection with the transaction of public business, whether or not confidential or restricted in use.

How do you go about obtaining PDC records?

1. If the records requested are produced by PDC and otherwise intended for general public distribution (i.e., program brochures, meeting agendas and minutes, project plans, etc.) and are readily available, they may be provided directly, without charge, by the appropriate PDC staff person.
   If such record or document is out-of-print, or the request is for multiple copies of a document currently in-print, a fee may be assessed to cover the cost of reproduction (see below).
2. If the request is for records not generally intended or available for public distribution, then you need to follow these procedures:
   1. All requests must be made in writing on the PDC Public Records Request Form (PDF) and forwarded to PDC Legal Section (Attn: Legal Admin.)
   2. You will be contacted by the PDC Legal Section, usually within five (5) working days to:
      1. Seek clarification on your request to narrow the search; and/or
      2. Provide you with information as to:
         1. Whether or not the records you requested exist.
         2. Whether or not any of the records you requested are exempt from disclosure.
         3. A tentative schedule for producing the records for you.
         4. The estimated cost, if any, to you to comply with your request.
      3. If you agree to pay PDC for the cost to produce and/or copy records, Legal staff will make arrangements with you to inspect or copy the records. NOTE: PDC records will not be physically released to any other party.
         • A PDC representative must be present during any inspection.
         • Only a PDC representative will be permitted to actually make copies of specified records.

What will this cost?

State Law provides that a public agency may recover its “actual cost” of producing the records, including the time of the person(s) locating and copying the record and for the time spent in separating exempt and nonexempt material, plus administrative overhead.

A fee for PDC Staff time and administrative overhead costs will generally be assessed for other than a ‘nominal’ search (i.e., less than one hour) and be calculated at current established rates.

Reproduction fees will vary.

• Fees for photocopying of black and white documents up to 11 x 17 inches is $.15 per single-sided page; or $.25 doubled-sided page.
• Fees for reproduction of microfilm, photographs, oversize documents, colored copies, or electronic files, etc. shall be at actual costs.

PDC Legal Counsel will determine what fees, if any, are applicable and whether fees are due in advance or at the time records are inspected or delivered.

Note: If you have any questions about making a public records request, please feel free to contact the PDC Legal Section at 503-823-3217.