The rich, the poor, and everyone in-between—they’ve all come to look for Portlandia (apologies to Paul Simon). Well at least it seems that way, and Portlanders are understandably anxious about the fallout: where are these newcomers going to live, in what kinds of dwellings, and how will neighborhood livability be affected? After months of committee deliberations and public input that culminated in Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS) recommendations, the ball is in City Council’s court to adopt new ordinances that will shape the character of our neighborhoods for decades to come. And the buzzword throughout? Density.
Of course the process of accommodating more folks in Portland has been well underway for some time now, especially on the east side, where ubiquitous construction of large and increasingly expensive apartment and condo complexes has become the norm, not to mention record-setting demolitions of viable single-family homes to make way for construction of million-dollar-plus replacements that tower above the rest of the block and do little or nothing to increase density and effectively price entry-level families out of the market. Passions run deep, and a good number of Beaumont-Wilshire residents have put up “Stop the Demo!” signs in their yards (purchased for $5 each from the BWNA-inspired grass-roots preservation organization United Neighborhoods for Reform, UNR) only to find their signs repeatedly stolen. Dozens have vanished to date, including one cemented into the ground by an exasperated resident, but so far no leads. Are these lone wolf heists? Is there complicity by developers? Either way, the intimidation factor is real.
Yet another concern in the density debate is “missing middle housing.” (What? you didn’t know housing was missing from the middle? You’re not alone.) According to middle housing proponents, what’s missing from many of our residential areas is a sufficient number of smaller affordable housing units. Think duplexes, triplexes, and accessory dwelling units or ADUs (e.g., a guest house in the backyard). The argument goes that building more of these units will mitigate the housing shortage as well as relieve demand for apartments, condos, and single-family homes, which in turn will help reduce the overall cost of housing. But skeptics warn of an unintended consequence: demolition of even more single-family homes to make way for these new units. With a proposed middle housing zone extending ¼ mile from main corridors, thousands of homes would be in harm’s way, vulnerable to teardown—tantamount, contend middle housing opponents, to destroying the village to save it.
BPS’s stated Residential Infill Project goal was to revise the city’s building code “so that new infill housing can better meet the changing needs of the current and future generation…” To that end, a Stakeholder Advisory Committee of preservationists, neighborhood association leaders, and homebuilders was created last year, on initiative by UNR and Mayor Hales, to explore ways to regulate scale (i.e., height and footprint limits on newly-built homes in single-dwelling zones), expand affordable housing (possibly via middle housing), and regulate historically narrow lot development (i.e., placing limitations on skinny houses with front-loaded garages). As always, the devil is in the details. City Hall hearings begin in November.