Making MUPTE measurable – and building public trust

The city of Eugene has made no secret of its goal: build more housing downtown.

But with the city’s Multi-Unit Property Tax Exemption, or MUPTE, capped at 1,500 units, the public still can’t easily see whether approvals of tax breaks actually turn into apartments.

“Starts” — whether a project has broken ground — are the leading indicator of the program’s success. Right now there is no simple public readout showing how many projects reach the first permit that allows above-ground construction, or how long that takes.

I’m not writing this as a spectator. I serve as co-chair of the city of Eugene’s MUPTE Review Panel (I’m writing in my personal capacity, not on behalf of the panel or the city). I see the same problem repeat: the pipeline from MUPTE approval to construction is hard to follow.

Eugene can fix it with one simple move: publish a quarterly scoreboard, and a clock that tracks each project from City Council approval to the first permit that allows above-ground construction.

At its best, MUPTE is a bargain: build the apartments, meet the public-benefit rules, and the city exempts the new building value from property taxes for up to 10 years.

You can see that bargain clearly at the Hayward downtown apartments at 13th and Olive. After coming off its MUPTE exemption, city staff estimates put the project’s total property taxes at roughly $1.8 million a year across all taxing districts. Before redevelopment, the same site generated only a few thousand dollars annually. Only a portion of that total goes to the city itself, but the point is the same: once the exemption ends, the tax base is dramatically larger than what existed before—and that payoff only materializes if approvals actually turn into completed buildings.

But MUPTE is not a blank check. State law and city code treat it as a time-limited tool to help projects work financially. Once a project is built and the exemption ends, the full value goes back on the tax rolls.

Projects must provide public benefits. Developers can choose one of two affordability paths: pay a 10% fee into a city affordable housing fund, or set aside 30% of the units as rent-restricted. Many projects choose the fee, which funds affordable housing construction, instead of building those units on-site.

As of June, Eugene city staff reported that about 1,052 units had approved under standard MUPTE, with about 402 units completed. That leaves roughly 650 approved units still unfinished. If MUPTE is a feasibility bridge, this is the gap we should be tracking in public.

To speed up projects in the downtown core, the city launched an Accelerated MUPTE program last year, designed to be a faster path for qualifying proposed developments. Yet as of October, city staff told the MUPTE Review Panel they had not received a single application. That is a clue about downtown feasibility, not proof the idea is wrong.

A dashboard won’t perfectly sort what is market-driven from what is city-controlled. But it will put the same basic facts in front of everyone, every quarter, and require clear explanations so we can trade hunches for facts.

The tax breaks’ job is to push viable projects over the finish line, not to subsidize developer windfalls. When approvals sit for years without moving, the gap between promise and reality grows. The city also delays the point when the project returns to full taxation.

Here is the deliverable Eugene should publish each quarter: an “approval-to-apartment” dashboard — a scoreboard plus a clock. The city already tracks approvals, construction milestones and certificates of occupancy to run the program and complete annual reports. The dashboard would simply put those pieces in one place the public can see.

Baseline (must-have):

• Scoreboard: approved, started, completed and cleared for move-in
• Clock: City Council approval to the first permit that allows above-ground construction

To make it real, include a short quarterly note — what changed, what is stuck and what the city will do next — and name who is responsible for publishing the update. Especially as Eugene brings on a new city manager.

Keep the breakouts simple and consistent. At minimum, split the numbers by:

• Standard vs. Accelerated MUPTE
• Downtown core vs. other areas

Define terms once and keep them auditable. “Started” should mean the first permit that allows above-ground construction, not a permit pulled and parked. “Cleared for move-in” should mean a certificate of occupancy.

Add-ons: If space in the dashboard permits, add:

• Which affordability option was chosen (affordable housing fee or rent-restricted units)
• Exemption sunsets: which projects return to full taxation in the next one, three, five or 10 years
• Metrics the city already collects behind the scenes, like post-occupancy energy performance, so people can see not just whether projects get built but how they perform

A fair concern is that a scoreboard sounds like a blame game. It must not be. Some projects will stall for reasons the city neither causes nor can fix. The point is to separate those stalls from the bottlenecks we do control, then make fixes obvious.

More add-ons: The dashboard can also include two apples-to-apples comparisons:

• MUPTE-backed projects vs. similar non-MUPTE projects in similar zones
• Downtown core projects vs. projects outside the core

If downtown projects are consistently slower, that is a clue. The city can work to streamline steps, adjust eligibility or change what it asks for.

Most important, the City Council should make the dashboard actionable with two simple decision triggers.

• If approvals are not converting to starts within a set timeframe, use the dashboard to name the main city-controlled delay points and fix at least one of them by the next quarterly update.
• If Accelerated MUPTE shows zero applications for multiple quarters, run a short downtown feasibility check-in with developers, lenders and neighbors, then report what was learned and what, if anything, could be changed.

A dashboard should show what is stuck, where it is stuck and what the city controls at that stage.

That is why this matters now. With the 1,500-unit cap approaching, approvals that do not convert into starts waste more than time. They waste trust. And in a city trying to put more homes near jobs, services and transit, stalled approvals also mean more pressure to sprawl and to drive.

When projects come off the tax exemption rolls, the dashboard should also publish the first year of full taxes paid, so people can see the bridge turn back into a tax base.

Eugene already requires an annual review of MUPTE’s effectiveness. Annual reviews should be the minimum. A quarterly scoreboard would be how the city catches problems early and builds trust in real time.

In short, transparent tracking is not bureaucratic overhead, but how the city shows the bargain that MUPTE offers — in public, and with proof of its results.

Publish the quarterly dashboard (scoreboard plus clock), and judge MUPTE by whether approvals become apartments.