Growing Oregon

August 19, 2022

Oregon Public Broadcasting

Anyeley Hallovà and I are walking in her inner Northeast Portland neighborhood on a drizzly spring day.

We stop in front of an old bungalow. She’s periodically stopped by as a second house was under construction in the backyard. She says she’s impressed by how seamlessly the new house was added to the existing property.

“You might not have noticed it if we walked by,” Hallovà says. “It’s set in the back, beautiful architecture, well-scaled has a beautiful garden in front of it.”

She sees a lot more on the walk that pleases her.

She praises a new eight-unit apartment building that is set back from the street so it doesn’t overwhelm the single-family homes on either side. She even defends an old apartment building that’s seen better days.

“The deal is, the more supply we have, the more affordability. It frees up older buildings to essentially start reducing their pricing because they have competition from new buildings.”

Hallovà seems to see opportunity everywhere she looks. It doesn’t matter if it’s a backyard or a weedy empty lot. She wants to grow more homes in existing neighborhoods — lots of them. She imagines denser urban areas less divided by race and income.

“A big focus of what I’m interested in,” she says, “is how do we unlock the potential of a lot of the vacant land in our cities.”