City Administrator Branden Dross and Mayor Hilary Malcomson on hand to accept the award
City Administrator Branden Dross and Mayor Hilary Malcomson on hand to accept the award
Leadership across the county accepting their award
Leadership across the county accepting their award

City of Lafayette Wins An Award at the Mid-Willamette Valley Council of Governments Annual Dinner

Regional Cooperative Project Award 

The collaboration was conceived following a Let’s Build workforce housing solutions summit that took place in Newberg, OR, in the Spring of 2023. The summit was led by the Missing Middle Housing Fund (MMHF), a workforce housing development non-profit, in partnership with the Strategic Economic Development Corporation (SEDCOR) and the Newberg Workforce Housing Consortium (NWHC), which consists of area employers such as Providence Healthcare, Friendsview Retirement, A-dec, Newberg-Dundee Public Schools, and George Fox University, with support from the City of Newberg. The goal of the summit was to find innovative solutions that reduce the time and cost to build to address Newberg’s workforce housing needs with $3M in support awarded by the State of Oregon at the request of Oregon State Representative, Anna Scharf. Yamhill County, like the rest of the State of Oregon, is experiencing a housing production crisis. The NWHC employers alone need hundreds of units to support their growth.

This project was born out of the Yamhill Mayoral Housing Group, originally led by Mayor Bill Rosacker, and featured a partnership between the cities of Yamhill County; SEDCOR; The MMHF, and UrbanForm, an innovator in digitizing zoning codes. This partnership is the first of its kind nationwide between private, public, and non-profit sectors to digitize 41,500 parcels of land across all 11 jurisdictions of Yamhill County. Quickly, city managers and planners, including the Mid-Willamette Valley Council of Governments’ (MWVCOG,) McRae Carmichael, got engaged. The initiative was partially financed through an investment from the Workforce Housing Investment Fund (WHIF), established by SEDCOR and managed by the MMHF with the $3M State grant to invest in innovations that address the workforce housing needs of Newberg, OR employers.

One website now serves as a unified portal to access zoning information for all 11 jurisdictions in Yamhill County. This website application, developed by UrbanForm, presents key zoning regulations for any given parcel, streamlines access to jurisdictional zoning texts, and summarizes everything in an easy-to-use report. Yamhill County’s 41,500 digitized parcels can be accessed and evaluated more easily by developers and architects to identify potential home building sites and submit proposals for permits with greater accuracy. Municipal staff can do the same thing, as well. This in turn improves the speed and capacity with which municipal staff can respond to citizens and developers alike.

The initiative empowers the County’s cities with an easy-to-use tool that streamlines access to jurisdictional zoning codes, improves permit application quality, and saves time for applicants and reviewers.

I’d like to present this Regional Cooperation Award to the group who collaborated on Zoning Code Digitization Across Cities in Yamhill County!

Special thanks to these jurisdiction partners who carried the work forward:

  •          Nathan Frarck, City Administrator, City of Amity
  •          Rachel King, Mayor, City of Amity
  •          Linda Watkins, Mayor, City of Carlton
  •          Rochelle Roaden, Former City Manager, City of Dayton
  •          Dave Rucklos, Ec. Dev. Director, City of Dayton
  •          Branden Dross, City Administrator, City of Lafayette
  •          Hilary Malcomson, Mayor, City of Lafayette
  •          Heather Richards, Planning Director, City of McMinnville
  •          McRae Carmichael, Community Development Director, Mid-Willamette Valley Council of Governments
  •          Bill Rosacker, Mayor, City of Newberg
  •          Clay Downing, Former planning Manager, City of Newberg
  •          Leanne Wagener, Assistant Planner, City of Newberg
  •          Cale George, Mayor, City of Sheridan
  •          Marianne Thomson, Former Mayor, City of Sheridan
  •          Bridget Meneley, City Manager, City of Willamina
  •          Yvette Potter, Former Mayor, City of Yamhill

Additional gratitude goes to the following team for providing valuable feedback during the QA process:

  •          Scot Siegel, Community Development Director, Newberg
  •          Jeremy Caudle, City Manager, City of Dayton
  •          Curt Fisher, Associate Planner, MWVCOG for City of Dayton
  •          Evan Hietpas, Associate Planner, City of McMinville
  •          Andrew Castro, GIS Specialist, City of McMinville
  •          Michelle Long, Administrative Assistant, Planning Clerk, City of Willamina
  •          Vickie Hernandez, Mayor, City of Willamina
  •          Shannon Beaucaire, City Manager, City of Carlton
  •          Aimee Amerson, City Recorder, City of Carlton
  •          Julie Brandao, Office Specialist, City of Carlton
  •          Christy Martinez, Assistant City Manager, City of Carlton
  •          Scott Whyte, Associate Planner, MWVCOG for City of Carlton
  •          Shelley Reimer, City Administrator, City of Yamhill
  •          Shea Corrigan, Mayor, City of Yamhill
MWVCOG Regional Collaboration Award