Apartment building across from City Hall

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Salem’s Housing Needs Analysis

Salem is growing and with that growth, comes a need for more housing.

By 2035, nearly 60,000 more people are expected to live in the Salem area, which is Salem’s portion of the urban growth boundary (UGB), according to the Salem Housing Needs Analysis (HNA). This projected population growth and Salem’s demographics trends are expected to result in the need for additional housing and more diverse housing types.

How the City is Addressing Housing Needs

The City is developing a Housing Production Strategy (HPS) that will outline how Salem plans to encourage housing development. This will include tools and actions to promote the development of a variety of housing types. The HPS is expected to be completed in 2025.

This work follows the completion of the Our Salem project where the City rezoned and redesignated land throughout Salem to accommodate the community's projected housing needs. Prior to that, the City also implemented a multi-year work plan to address Salem’s projected deficit of land for multifamily housing. This included changing regulations to allow accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in Salem and revising regulations to make it easier to develop multifamily housing.

Summary of the Housing Needs Analysis Study

In 2014, the City conducted the HNA along with the Salem Economic Opportunities Analysis (EOA). The purpose of the HNA was to develop strategies to provide enough land to meet Salem’s housing needs through 2035 and to inform policy decisions related to residential land.

The HNA found the following:

  • Salem has a projected 1,975-acre surplus of land for single-family detached housing (9,131 dwelling units)
  • Salem has a projected 207-acre deficit of land for multifamily housing (2,897 dwelling units)

The HNA, together with the EOA, confirmed that the existing UGB does not need to be expanded.

In 2022, as part of the Our Salem project, the City redesignated land to accommodate Salem's projected housing needs, including more land for multifamily housing. This allowed the City to adopt the HNA.

Project Documents