UrbanForm Partnership Expands Across Oregon to Accelerate Housing Production

We're excited to announce a major milestone in our mission to make housing more attainable for middle-income workers: the launch of UrbanForm's digital zoning platform in Coos and Polk Counties. This expansion brings the total number of digitized parcels across our Oregon partnerships to more than 66,000—spanning 16 cities across Yamhill, Polk, and Coos Counties, plus the City of Boardman and unincorporated Yamhill County.

The Hidden Cost of Complexity

When we talk about the housing affordability crisis, the conversation often centers on construction costs, land prices, and financing. But there's another significant barrier: the red tape that can add weeks, and sometimes months, to every housing project.

Every development starts with a fundamental question: What can be built here?

For developers, architects, and builders working in smaller jurisdictions, answering that question can mean wading through dense zoning codes, navigating multiple city websites, making multiple phone calls to planning staff, and still ending up uncertain about what's permitted. This uncertainty doesn't just slow projects down, it adds real costs at every stage, from initial feasibility studies through permit applications.

A Simple Solution to a Complex Problem

UrbanForm addresses this challenge head-on by digitizing zoning codes and making them instantly accessible through an intuitive web platform. Now, anyone can pull up a parcel in Coos County's Bandon, Coos Bay, or North Bend, or in Polk County's Monmouth, Independence, or Falls City, and immediately understand what can be built there.

The platform presents key zoning regulations, data overlays like wetlands and flood plains, and jurisdictional sources in a clear, easy-to-read report. What used to take weeks of research now takes minutes.

As UrbanForm CEO Quang Truong said, "By digitizing zoning codes and streamlining the permitting process for these jurisdictions, we can cut weeks of research into minutes, reducing the time and cost it takes to move from feasibility to construction."

Why This Matters for Middle-Income Housing

At the Missing Middle Housing Fund, we focus on workforce housing, homes for people earning 80-120% of area median income. These are teachers, nurses, tradespeople, and other essential workers who make our communities function but increasingly can't afford to live in them.

Every delay in the development process translates into higher costs. Every week spent deciphering zoning codes is a week that developers are paying for land, financing, and staff time. Every permit revision due to unclear regulations means more consultant hours, more review cycles, and more carrying costs.

For middle-income, workforce housing, where projects are already challenging to pencil, these inefficiencies can mean the difference between a green or red light on critical housing projects.

The Power of Partnership

What makes these launches particularly meaningful is the collaborative approach bringing them to life. In Coos County, we're working alongside CCD Business Development Corporation, Southern Oregon Coast Regional Housing (SOCRH), and leadership from three cities. In Polk County, our partners include SEDCOR and municipal leaders across the region.

This work has been made possible by grants from Business Oregon through the Housing Infrastructure Support Fund created under Senate Bill 1537, a recognition that investing in digital infrastructure is just as important as investing in physical infrastructure when it comes to housing production.

As Theresa Haga, Executive Director of CCD Business Development Corporation, noted, "The port investments and other development opportunities are creating jobs faster than we've historically been able to produce housing. Collaborations between cities, funders, and organizations, like this one, give us new tools to be prepared for growth."

Adding Capacity Where It's Needed Most

One of the most immediate benefits of UrbanForm is how it extends the capacity of planning departments in smaller jurisdictions. City staff can now direct routine zoning inquiries to the platform, freeing them up to focus on strategic planning initiatives and more complex customer service needs.

Nichole Rutherford, City Manager for Coos Bay, captured this perfectly, "This tool has the potential to be a gamechanger for city planning. The real estate and development communities will find the tool beneficial in conducting site analysis and code assessment opportunities. And my team will save time by directing site inquiries to UrbanForm, allowing them to increase their focus on strategic planning initiatives and even better customer service."

A Statewide Model

Since its founding in 2020, UrbanForm has digitized nearly 2 million parcels in major metropolitan areas like Seattle, Los Angeles, and Austin. But we're particularly excited about what this Oregon expansion represents: a model for how technology can level the playing field for smaller communities.

Rural and mid-sized jurisdictions often lack the resources that larger cities can deploy to streamline their permitting processes. By bringing enterprise-level tools to these communities through partnership and grant funding, we're demonstrating that innovation in housing production doesn't have to be limited to major metros.

What's Next

We're already in conversations with other Oregon communities about expanding this work, and we're exploring how to scale similar partnerships across our region.

Solving our housing underproduction crisis requires all hands on deck. It demands innovation at multiple levels, from product design and construction methods to financing structures and regulatory processes. UrbanForm can help by adding transparency to the zoning process and saving time during the build process, helping to get housing built faster and more affordably. For middle-income households, that clarity and time savings in the build process can make all the difference.