McMinnville City Center Housing Strategy

  • Marcy McInelly

    Erika Warhus

    Pauline Ruegg

  • Cascadia Partners

    ECONorthwest

    Anderson Kim

Type
Action Plan

Year
2005

If you visit McMinnville today, you will find its main street bustling with life. Part of the reason for the hustle and bustle is the presence of trees, people, thriving small businesses, and an ever-increasing number of people living in and near downtown. In 2019, as McMinnville was experiencing a drastic increase in housing demand due to regional growth, the city took proactive steps to position its downtown to take advantage and direct growth into high quality urban housing. The Urbsworks team conducted a comprehensive analysis to identify opportunities to incentivize the kind of growth the city wanted to see and to remove barriers.

The view of the McMinnville City center from the middle of the street. A banner hangs across the street advertising an upcoming neighborhood events. Various businesses line the left and right sides of the street.
A downtown mixed-use building with awnings and cars parked on the street in front
A single-story residential building with a sign nearby
The upper floor of a red building and a sign
A house and an accessory dwelling unit in a fenced in garden with trees and bushes

The Central City Housing Strategy set about articulating and implementing a bold plan for housing variety and density in the city core.

A succinct, one-page action plan introduces a fully integrated set of actions that incentivize the types of housing desired in downtown while making the downtown a delightful place through people-first design, downtown amenities and convenience, and

A succinct, one-page action plan introduces a fully integrated set of actions that incentivize the types of housing desired in downtown while making the downtown a delightful place through people-first design, downtown amenities and convenience, and connectivity.

Urbsworks’ central city housing strategy resulted from a robust process drawing on spatial analysis, 3D modeling, community engagement, historical research, and development feasibility analysis.

Urbsworks’ central city housing strategy resulted from a robust process drawing on spatial analysis, 3D modeling, community engagement, historical research, and development feasibility analysis.

Project Purpose

Remove barriers to desired housing in city center

Provide incentives and support to desired development

Improve street character, connections, and walkability

Align enforcement and programming efforts with City Center Housing Strategy

Urbsworks’ combination of code expertise and design approach grounded in architectural knowledge allowed them to bring a unique approach to our projects, one that was particularly context-sensitive in nature. I appreciated their ability to analyze and understand the unique characteristics present in the McMinnville community, and to incorporate that local understanding into their work and recommendations. Urbsworks was able to develop “McMinnville-specific” code that fit both our community’s values and the City’s current regulatory systems.

Chuck Darnell, Senior Planner, City of McMinnville

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Read the full McMinnville City Center Housing Strategy Report.

A Deeper Dive

The cover image of the McMinnville City Center Housing Strategy Report. The cover features the title in the upper left with a site drawing in the lower right of the page.
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