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PORTLAND, OR-The Portland Development Commission, the city'surban renewal agency today will hear preliminary ideas for arevised tax exemption program for new urban multifamilydevelopments that include an affordable housing component. Asix-month moratorium on applications for the existing programs wentinto effect inmid-October; the city council extended it through July earlierthis month.

The moratorium was instituted two months after the city councilwent against PDC and planning commission recommendations anddenied anapplication for a 10-year property tax waiver by Trammell CrowResidential. The company wanted the break for a 22-story, 319-unitproject that would have been the first apartment building in theSouth Waterfront, where thousands of mostly for-sale units areplanned. It was the first time the Council had ever denied such anapplication that met the minimum requirement that 15% of the unitsbe affordable to people making less than 80% of median income.