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Portland’s city council has set a new bar for North American housing reform by legalizing up to four homes on almost any residential lot. It’s the most pro-housing reform to low-density zones in US history.

Portland’s new rules will also offer a “deeper affordability” option: four to six homes on any lot if at least half are available to low-income Portlanders at regulated, affordable prices. The measure will make it viable for nonprofits to intersperse below-market housing anywhere in the city for the first time in a century.

The “Residential Infill Project,” as it’s known, melds ideas pioneered recently by Minneapolis and Austin and goes well beyond the requirements of a state law Oregon passed last year.

Photo: Vitor Pinto