The Portland Comprehensive Plan is a long range 20 year plan for land use and infrastructure in the city. The plan is currently undergoing an update as mandated by the state of Oregon. Last fall, the deadline was extended for input so you still have time to submit written comment on the plan until March 13th 2015. The easiest way to comment is using the Map App.
The repeated appeals from Demand Redesign to developer Dan Neal of Eugene-based Paradigm Properties to scale back his project at 7th and Russell have fallen on deaf ears. Mr. Neal is not willing to reduce the height of the building or alter its shape by creating setbacks on the south and west sides. If the project goes forward as designed, it will be an out-of-scale eyesore that will impact infrastructure, compound the parking problems in our neighborhood, and create traffic safety issues and congestion for residents in Eliot and Irvington.
If you are a property owner, you probably received this notice in the past month. Normally, a notice like this is cause for alarm, but not in this case. Two major changes are proposed in Eliot as part of the Comp Plan; changing R2 (one residence per 2000 sq ft) zones to R2.5 (one residence per 2500 sq ft) and changing all C (commercial) and E (employment) zones to “Mixed Use.”
The second Draft Comprehensive (Comp) Plan is out for review. As noted in previous columns, the State requires Portland to prepare a 20-year plan to accommodate expected future growth. The current Comp Plan was adopted in 1993 and is showing its age. The Draft Plan is expected to be adopted by City Council next summer. City planners are accepting comments on the plan through the end of October and a discussion of the Plan will be part of the General Membership meeting October 13th. This will be your best chance to comment before the final plan. Two public hearings are scheduled in October (the 14th and 28th), and comments can be submitted anytime using the “Map App” and other links on the Comp Plan web site.
All around Portland signs are showing up in front yards with the purpose of stopping the demolition of Portland homes. With the upturn in the economy developers are in full swing looking for any opportunity they can to tear down a house and build something new. Now is the time for residents to act to save our historic homes.
At the July Eliot Land Use and Transportation Committee meeting Paradigm Properties, along with a designer, architects and a lawyer presented plans for a 8 story building on the corner of 7th and Russell. The packed room, filled with residents from both Eliot and Irvington neighborhoods, universally agreed the building is way too tall and large for that location. Impacted residents have started a petition.
The next milestone for the Comp Plan is July 21st. This is the day the next draft of the Plan and the interactive “map app” will be posted by Planning staff. The “map app” allows users to browse a Portland map with proposed zone and other changes to review and comment. The draft Plan will, I assume, expand on the text from the previous draft, which had whole sections yet to be written. Public outreach will follow posting of the plan including “open houses” and “notices of proposed zone change” to property owners. Assuming the next draft includes the Eliot Land Use Committee’s proposed zone changes, most property owners in Eliot will receive such a notice.
There isn’t much to report on but things that are pending may fill the entire fall issue of Eliot News! The “big” issues are the pending Williams and Rodney bike projects and the next version of the Comprehensive Plan (Comp Plan) proposal. Also, there are two developments proposed, one at Williams and Fargo and another at 7th and Brazee.
Zoning Out
Eliot is one of the oldest areas in Portland and the best representative of a pre-automobile, streetcar neighborhood. The resulting intimate scale is one of the top reasons residents give for living here.
Unfortunately, Eliot’s Historic Conservation District designation does little to preserve our history or character. The primary threat to Eliot is the existing zoning. Most people see zoning as something that interferes with the design and use of their property; however, its real purpose is to protect property owners from the designs and uses of their neighbors. No one wants to have a dirty, noisy industrial plant for a neighbor and zoning is there to prevent that.
The Comprehensive Plan process continues. The second round of plan comments ended December 31. The Comp Plan, as it is called, is a 20-year blueprint for how the City of Portland envisions its growth and development in the upcoming two decades. It will affect how all of Portland’s neighborhoods and streets evolve, especially close in neighborhoods like Eliot. Some of the plan’s outlines were already agreed upon in the NE Quadrant Plan that was covered in the Eliot News previously. That two year effort proposed a number of changes to zoning along Broadway and into Eliot and west of Williams south of Russell.
The current Comprehensive Planning process provides city planners with a once every 20-year opportunity to rethink planning processes and tools. It is evaluating two tools that are important to Eliot as part of that process; the Ex zone and “institutional” (hospitals and colleges) land uses and users.
Eliot Neighborhood Association Proposed Comp Plan Zoning Amendments
Submitted by Mike Warwick, Land Use Chair
Our purpose is to protect and preserve the historic properties and character of the former City of Albina, to better align zoning to the prevailing development preferences of residential infill developers and to address underutilization of property over the past 20 years due to inappropriate zoning, both too high a residential density for single lots under separate ownership and parcels along MLK.
Continue reading Eliot Comments on Portland’s Comprehensive Plan
By SmartGrowthPDX
It was with high hopes that residents of the Eliot and Boise neighborhoods took time out of their days to be active participants in the Design Advice Request (DAR) on Thursday. This was likely our last chance to voice our concerns over the development of the lot at NE Williams and Fremont and the future development of the overall neighborhood that each one of us has invested quite personally in. When City Council approved the zoning change from R1 to RXd, it was stated that the DAR hearing would be our guarantee of finding that middle ground where neighbors and developer would meet. This was not that place. It felt more like being stuck on a boat in the middle of the ocean, trying to yell for help to the mainland. And we only get to yell for three minutes.
Ben Kaiser’s proposed 85 foot tall building on the SE corner of Williams and Fremont went for a “design advice review” by the Design Commission October 24th. The Design Commission only reviews projects upon appeal or through Type III permit procedures. Ben could have avoided this review but he agreed to it during the Council hearing on his zone change request. Exactly what he agreed to is in dispute. I believe he agreed to Design Commission review and approval but the Planning staffer assigned to the case, Hillary Adam, told the Commission he didn’t need to consult them further. We are seeking clarification. Decisions of the Commission can be appealed to City Council, otherwise it is Hillary’s call and Type II permit reviews don’t provide much protection to neighborhoods.
A group of neighbors that are most impacted by a proposed development on the corner of Williams and Fremont have filed an appeal with the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) in opposition of a zone change made in June. They have also started a website for their cause.
Eliot Neighborhood 