Complete · 2021
The Mary Ann
54 affordable homes at SW Main Avenue between 1st and 2nd Streets in Old Town Beaverton.
Metro project page ↗Beaverton · Livable City → Housing Options
Beaverton is building more housing. The harder part is making it affordable.
The city knows it needs thousands of additional homes and has adopted a plan to get there. New housing is being built, especially in South Cooper Mountain. The bigger question is who those homes work for—and whether rents and home prices are becoming easier to manage.
Sources linked throughoutPlans + permits + projectsRegional context
9,887additional homes forecast as needed from 2022–2042 in the Housing Needs Analysis.
1,600+homes reported built in South Cooper Mountain by early 2026, with thousands more approved or underway.
374Metro-bond-eligible affordable units committed or underway in Beaverton’s 2024 bond portfolio, compared with an original 218-unit local target.
1 · The need
Beaverton needs thousands of new homes, especially at prices more people can afford.
The city’s 2023 housing analysis estimates that nearly 9,900 additional homes will be needed by 2042. But the number alone does not tell the whole story: many households could not afford the homes being sold, and the biggest rental shortage was for people with the lowest incomes.
Forecast housing mix · 2022–2042
The city expects growth to come in many different kinds of homes.
Source: Beaverton Housing Production Strategy / Housing Needs Analysis. These are planning forecasts, not completed-unit counts.
Affordability mismatch
Building more homes matters. So does what they cost.
The adopted analysis found a median recent sale price of $518,500, with 77% of recent sales above $400,000. The largest unmet rental need was among households earning under $35,000.
So there are two questions worth watching: Are enough homes being built? And are more people actually able to afford them?
2 · The strategy
Beaverton has a housing plan. Now the work is carrying it out.
Beaverton adopted its Housing Production Strategy in 2023, and the state approved it. The plan lays out code changes, funding tools, partnerships, land actions and ways to track whether the work is making a difference.
1 · NeedHousing analyzedScale, type and affordability needs are documented.
2 · StrategyActions adoptedRegulatory, financial, partnership and land tools are identified.
3 · DeliveryProjects and permitsHousing moves through separate permitting, funding and development systems.
4 · OutcomesResults on the groundProduction, affordability, accessibility and stability reveal whether housing choices expand.
Measures named in the Housing Production Strategy
The HPS calls for monitoring development applications and building permits by housing type, location or zone, density or lot size and bedrooms; regulated affordable units added and lost; city-supported affordable housing; accessible units; certain tax-abatement projects if adopted; and partnership projects that produce or stabilize housing.
Those measures help answer a basic question: is the plan producing real changes, or are we mostly seeing activity on paper? Some parts can move faster than others, so progress should be tracked measure by measure.
3 · The pipeline
Permits give an early look at how much housing may be coming.
The Census Bureau tracks the number of homes authorized by building permits. The count can jump from year to year when a large apartment project is approved, so the longer trend is more useful than any single year.
Residential units authorized by building permits · Beaverton
3922019
8902020
1102021
6012022
3302023
1612024
Data note: permits are an early sign of activity, not completed homes. A single large project can change one year sharply, so the multi-year pattern matters more than a one-year grade.
Source: U.S. Census Building Permits Survey4 · Housing on the ground
These projects show where plans and public funding have turned into actual homes.
The map highlights selected verified affordable-housing projects and the South Cooper Mountain growth area. It is a selected project view, not a complete inventory of all housing development in Beaverton.
Selected affordable-housing projects
Complete · 2024
Amity Orchards
164 affordable homes at 17895 SW Higgins Street in South Cooper Mountain, regulated at 30%, 60% and 70% AMI.
Metro project page ↗Complete · 2024
Altura
75 affordable homes at 12495 SW 172nd Terrace, including 14 homes affordable at 30% AMI.
Metro project page ↗Construction · 2026–2028
Meadowlark Place
104 affordable senior homes at the former Beaverton Community Center site, including 69 homes at 30% AMI and 30 permanent supportive housing apartments.
Metro project page ↗Growth-area context
South Cooper Mountain: 1,600+ homes built.
In January 2026, the City reported more than 1,600 homes built in South Cooper Mountain, thousands more approved or underway, and more than 240 affordable units for lower-income families and older adults. The area is expected to reach up to 3,500 homes.
Public investment checkpoint
Beaverton has already exceeded several of its original Metro housing-bond targets.
The bond is one funding program within the broader housing system. Beaverton’s 2024 progress report showed its committed or underway portfolio above the original local implementation targets in total eligible units, deeply affordable units and family-sized units.
Bond-eligible homes
374 / 218Goal: 218172% of goal
The meter is scaled to 180% of target so performance above the goal remains visible.≤30% AMI homes
129 / 89Goal: 89145% of goal
The goal marker shows where 100% falls on the same 180%-of-target scale.2+ bedroom homes
141 / 109Goal: 109129% of goal
“Committed or underway” includes projects at different delivery stages; it is not the same as completed homes.5 · Housing KPIs
Are housing costs and choices improving in Beaverton—or simply moving with the rest of the region?
The trend explorer separates changes in Beaverton from wider regional movement. For ACS-based measures, compare Beaverton with Washington County and the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro metropolitan area. The permit series remains Beaverton-specific because it is a different annual reporting system.
Year-over-year housing indicator explorer
Regional comparison uses ACS 5-year estimates.
—Latest Beaverton value
—Change across period
—Beaverton vs selected regional comparison, latest year
What the strategy says to monitor
Official HPS measure
Production + housing mix
Applications and permits by type, location or zone, density or lot size and number of bedrooms.
Sources: City permitting + DLCD annual reporting
Official HPS measure
Affordable additions + losses
New regulated affordable homes and regulated affordable homes lost, including incentives used.
Sources: City + OHCS affordable inventory
Official HPS measure
City-supported affordable housing
Regulated affordable homes receiving Beaverton funding or tax exemption, including funding source.
Sources: City budgets/program files + Metro bond
Official HPS measure
Accessible homes
Accessible homes constructed or rehabilitated to enhance accessibility.
Sources: permits + housing-program/project records
Official HPS measure
Tax-abatement use
If a housing tax-abatement program is used: projects, units, affordability, unit mix, rents where available and public benefits.
Source: City program records
Official HPS measure
Partnership outcomes
Projects that produce or stabilize housing for priority groups; units built, preserved or rehabilitated and people served.
Sources: City + partner reporting
6 · What the evidence shows—and where it is incomplete
The largest information gap is action-by-action accountability.
Need, strategy, selected projects and several production indicators are documented. The evidence is much thinner for losses of affordable housing, citywide accessibility production, and a single public table connecting every HPS action to its owner, funding, output and outcome.
Total units permittedTrackableCensus, DLCD and local permit sources provide recurring production signals.
Units produced / completedTrackableDLCD reporting distinguishes permitted units from units receiving temporary or final certificates of occupancy.
Housing type + geographyPartialPublic data exist, but the available series are not presented as one consistent citywide longitudinal view.
Affordable homes addedStrong project dataMetro, OHCS and City project records document individual projects well; citywide annual totals require reconciliation across programs.
Affordable homes lostData gapThe HPS calls for tracking losses, but a clean recurring public citywide loss series is not readily available.
Accessible homesData gapThe HPS calls for tracking accessible construction and rehabilitation, but a recurring public citywide series is not readily available.
HPS actions + fundingFragmentedAction status, owners, appropriations, spending and outcomes are spread across different records rather than one public implementation table.
Resident outcomesLagged indicatorsACS and OHCS track burden, tenure and some equity outcomes, but these measures lag and require uncertainty-aware interpretation.
Thrive interpretation
A city can add many homes and still leave its highest-need households with too few realistic choices.
The housing story therefore keeps two questions side by side: Are enough homes being built? and Are the homes people most need being built and preserved?
7 · Participate
Housing decisions happen through many different public processes.
Permits, code changes, public funding, major development decisions and neighborhood planning each create different points where residents can follow an issue, participate, or organize around a project.
Follow
Track housing implementation, hearings, funding decisions and major project milestones.
See civic activity →Participate
Find neighborhood, planning, housing and advisory pathways where decisions are open to public input.
Find a pathway →Build
Explore partners, funding and project-development pathways for locally rooted housing ideas.
Explore project pathways →Sources & methods
Primary sources: Beaverton Housing Needs Analysis and Housing Production Strategy; Oregon DLCD HPS reporting; City of Beaverton permit statistics and South Cooper Mountain update; Metro Affordable Housing Bond progress reports and project pages; U.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey and ACS 5-year estimates.
Regional trend comparisons use the same ACS tables and 5-year release for each geography. Adjacent ACS 5-year estimates overlap substantially, so the trend lines show directional movement rather than independent annual samples. The project map is selective rather than comprehensive. Census Building Permits Survey authorized-unit counts are a leading activity measure, not completed homes.
Why not one housing score?
Housing performance is multidimensional. A single score can hide tradeoffs between total production, affordability, accessibility, displacement, location and tenure. This story instead presents separate indicators and identifies where evidence is incomplete.