Portland’s Housing Permits Hit a 12-Year Low — And the New Fee Waiver Program Isn’t Yet Reversing the Trend

The numbers coming out of Oregon and Portland tell a stark story for residential contractors and developers. Oregon issued building permits for only 4,800 multifamily housing units in 2024 — the lowest total in 12 years — and preliminary data shows 2025 will barely exceed that figure with approximately 4,400 permits issued through October. To put that in perspective, multifamily permitting in Oregon hit a recent high of 10,500 permits in 2019, meaning the state is now permitting roughly half as many multifamily units as it was just six years ago, even as the housing crisis has grown more severe.

Portland alone issued permits for just 656 multifamily housing units in 2025, according to a Portland Metro Chamber report — and overall the city issued permits for only about 1,400 total housing units in 2025, compared to roughly 5,400 units in 2021. Mayor Keith Wilson’s new system development charge waiver program, which suspends approximately $20,000 per unit in city fees for three years with the goal of creating 5,000 new homes, has produced mixed early results — generating 531 new unit permits in its first five months, which is actually 338 fewer than the same five-month period the previous year. City officials called the early results “encouraging” but acknowledged the data is inconclusive, while Oregon’s broader housing crisis continues to outpace policy responses, with the state needing 95,000 housing units according to a recent state report just to compensate for years of underdevelopment and address the homeless population.

Source: Willamette Week / Oregon Journalism Project, OPB, Axios Portland Read the full story: https://www.wweek.com/news/state/2026/02/28/amid-a-housing-crisis-oregon-issues-building-permits-for-multifamily-units-at-the-slowest-pace-in-12-years/