Housing Land Advocates just uploaded some of their videos from their 2023 annual conference!

Ben Schonberger, board member at Housing Land Advocates and one of our talented Senior Planners, moderated a panel discussion (see video below) on System Development Charges. An SDC is a per-unit charge on new development that is used to pay for public infrastructure.

The panel discussion covers how SDCs work, how they impact affordability and production of housing, if they drive development decisions, and asks “how critical are they for a source of funding for the infrastructure that we all use?”

The panel discussion grew out of interest surrounding a report published in January by the Oregon Housing and Community Services. The study was led by ECONorthwest, and titled “Why SDCs Matter and How they affect housing. The study states that it is explicitly “not intended to pit SDCs agains housing production or affordability, but rather to clarify how they interact.” The panel discussion below, similarly, is simply exploring the relationship between SDCs, and housing production and affordability: