After 14 months of meetings, proposals and more meetings, the City Council is set to rezone 2.5 miles of N Interstate to high density and commercial land. At a packed meeting last night, the Council applauded the work done on the project and unanimously approved a part of the plan, setting the stage for the final decision next Wednesday. This is big news for Interstate because it means the currently rough-and-tumble strip of motels and gas stations may soon be home to fancy condo towers and their accompanying storefronts.
The whole rezoning plan is built on the idea that since the MAX Yellow Line opened along Interstate in 2004, the area has huge potential as a new place where people can live, work and spend money while orienting their lives around public transit. A guiding idea behind the plan is to encourage non-car travel (a funny for a community built on a highway) and to improve bike-pedestrian-MAX links. The entire plan is 98 pages long, so here’s a super fast bullet point list of what it does:
– Rezones large sections of N Interstate from single-family homes to high density housing (think: condos)
– Rezones other sections of N Interstate from a patchwork of uses into commercial and central employment
– Makes that section of Interstate into a historic “Neon Sign District” where new businesses are encouraged to put up neon signs like the ones on the 1950s and 60s era motels along the road.
– Allows buildings up to 100 feet tall to be built near the Prescott MAX station on Interstate, buildings up to 75-85 feet tall along the rest of Interstate and up to 65 feet tall in a “transitional buffer” zone between interstate and the swaths of single-family homes just east of Interstate.
– Builders in the 85-100 foot height limit areas can apply to build up to 125 feet
So taking this:
But mixing in a lot of this:
Those are photos of from the plan of condos in other places that the City sees as examples of The Future of Interstate. 6-10 story buildings that get lower toward the neighboring single-family homes.
There’s a lot of questions to debate about the best way to build condos in North Portland, so there was enormous public process on this plan and, at the meeting, the 13 neighbors who signed up to talk to the Council were overwhelmingly positive. It seemed like everyone agreed that the City had done a lot of outreach, with flyering and community meetings — some neighborhood associations in the area have discussed the rezoning at at every one of their meetings for the past two years.
So communication was great UNTIL the plan was drafted in June and suddenly the maximum height possible jumped from 85-100 feet to 125 feet. This change upset some neighbors because the most contentious part of the plan — the parts analyzed, rehashed and torn apart for two years at endless meetings — were the height limits. “Neighbors were shocked after a year and a half of discussion to see these ‘height opportunity areas,'” testified Overlook Park Neighborhood Association member Eric Gale. “This seems like bad process,” said another neighbor.
More on the plan – and the alarming absence of discussion over gentrification – below the cut.
It’s not that neighbors think 100-125 feet is too high for the area, though, they just want more time to debate it. Even those who complained about the City’s “last minute change” acknowledged the benefits of allowing six, seven and eight story buildings in the area. Tall buildings will create real density in an area which has been losing population for the last 20 years and also attracts developers who will be willing to spend lots of money to make a really quality building. So, tall buildings means big projects and a big boost to Interstate’s economy.
Another concern about the rezoning is that North Portland will turn into a “mini-Pearl” with no unique neighborhood elements of its own. Planners are hoping to avoid that by establishing the whole strip as the Neon Sign District, turning the existing motel and bar signs into an intentional look for the whole area via pro-neon sign ordinances.
Missing from the discussion was any debate over development leading to gentrification of the area. When a few blocks of Killingsworth just east of Interstate were rezoned last week, the neighbors’ concerns revolved around what kind of businesses would move in – they’re very vocal about wanting locally owned, multi-ethnic stores. But at last night’s Interstate meeting, neither the council nor neighbors raised any questions about what kind of stores will be encouraged to move into envisioned 2.5 miles of mixed-use condo towers. Issues about the new condos’ impact on the affordability of the neighborhood were only briefly mentioned at the tail-end of the two hour meeting, when a council member asked about the development’s effect on home prices in the area. Afterward, I asked Eric Gale why gentrification of the area wasn’t a big issue during the rezone. Gale wasn’t sure either, but said the discussions the neighborhood had for the last two years were so caught up on the contentious height issues that gentrification were never at the center of debate.
There won’t be anything left in this town in a few years. God, I hate this yuppie bullshit. And it’s not even Young Urban Professionals– it’s fucking old-ass rich folks. As I write this, I’m being forced out of Northeast in the name of house-flipping and condos and upscale restaurants. And I’m by no means “poor”. But I can’t afford to buy a house because assholes think $300k for a piece of shit is a steal– “why, it’s by an oyster bar!” How fucking novel.
I wonder if the tanking condo market will rebound on this news?
Oh that’s right, we shouldn’t be allowed to have yards and property in the glorious green future.
Come on up retired Californians! You can live in faux east Berlin too!
Yeah, ever notice how the median age of people coming-and-going from Pearl District condos is something like 63? How’s a boatload of wealthy retirees ten years shy of the coffin going to “revitalize” anything?
Is moving to a “hip”, “cool”, “up-and-coming” neighborhood some kind of atonement for spending your entire life doing something unbearably bland and predictable?
Hell, if Interstate loses its dive bars, dive motels and classic neon, let’s fucking rename it Cesar Chavez already so the nutsacks moving in can feel “in touch” with the Latin community.
While you write that neighbors at the meeting were generally supportive of the rezoning….exactly which sorts of neighbors were present?
Correction: The MAX Yellow line opened over 4 years ago, in May of 2004 (early and under-budget), not 2 years ago as stated in the post.
I understand that we all SAY we want locally-owned and ethnically diverse retail, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. The New Seasons* parking lot is filled to overflowing every night of the week, but I’ve never once seen another patron inside Fiji Emporium when I’m shopping there. The Panda Express is always packed, while I never have trouble getting a table at Thai Orchid or Ukiyoe on a Friday or Saturday night.
Doesn’t seem as though we’re consistently voting with our dollars when it comes to supporting local, diverse businesses.
* Yes, I know New Seasons is locally owned by Portlanders. It’s not a uniquely North Portland store, though.
ambrown – thirteen people signed up to speak during the city council’s public comment period, most of them representatives from official neighborhood associations (like Arbor Lodge, Overlook Park and the Interstate Business Asc.) who had been involved in the planning process. Only one guy spoke against the project in general, saying that the process “wasn’t legitimate” and the City was only looking for neighbors input to tweak their plan, not search for novel options.
Everyone else who spoke supported the rezoning, though several were unsure about the new potential 125 foot height limit. If you want to see the neighbors who spoke for yourself, the meeting will replay at 4pm Saturday on Portland Community Media television.
Bob R – thanks for pointing that out! I’ll change it.
Sarah’s question on gentrification was a great one. I realized that, at least for me, I was always resigned to the fact that it will all be market driven and there’s nothing we can do about what comes in. It does tie into my main beef (the last minute “height opportunity areas”). Maybe it is a great idea but those heights are experimental (if someone knows a similar example of that density in an existing residential neighborhood, I’d love to see it) and no one has really had a chance to discuss what it would mean. The Design Commission repeatedly used the phrase “unintended consequences” to describe the dangers of not allowing greater height but I see a strong potential for an unintended consequence of taller buildings leading to greater gentrification (higher building = more expensive construction = higher prices). Maybe not, but we’re just going for it full speed and I’m left being told I need to be more “forward thinking”. Another example of what I think is the lack of thought that went into this scheme is that with the way the floor-to-area regulations are, developers would have to leave 2/3 of their land empty to get to that height. So what was the point, other than leaving a giant window open for developers to get a variance and put in buildings at a scale that was never “intended”? And how hard could it really be to push through an obscure floor-to-area ratio variance?
Why are we in such a hurry to make our city look like a big turd?
Interstate neighbors and their precious process, sheesh. Real estate development is very complex financially and that means flexibility is the key to attracting investment. Who knows what will or will not “pencil” in 5, 10, 30 years.
Sarah, maybe you can tell us what developers have to do in exchange for additional height. It’s usually affordable housing or amenities.
Eric, no variance to FAR will ever be obscure in Portland. FAR is the hottest issue out there, aside from height.
I’m constantly frustrated by the assumption that creating new housing is bad for working people. As long as Portland is an attractive place to live, transplants will keep coming in. Both the people and government of Portland made a choice to limit sprawl and encourage inner city development. If developers can’t build outwards they’ll have to build up. If neither occurs housing prices will rise even faster than normal, and renters (like me) will be turned out in order to make room for newcomers. NIMBY measures like limiting building height are designed to keep ajacient property values high and preserve ambiance, not help the poor. These facts were pointed out in the Mercury’s coverage of the Mississipi Street condo project:
I’ll quote it:
Portland, like many other US cities, can’t afford to let housing prices rise unchecked. According to an analysis by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 29 percent of people living in Multnomah County have income twice below the federal poverty level. The Economist recently named Portland as the third least affordable city in the US, because our incomes can’t keep up with rising costs of living, including housing. Homes in Portland are appreciating at the rate of 19 percent a year. The median Portland home price is currently $269,500.
The conflict over the project on Mississippi is another example of the sort of neighborhood-level anti-development fight that’s happening all across Portland over tall mixed-use projects, skinny houses, and infill. And the Lofts certainly aren’t a panacea for housing prices—a low-income family in Portland will not be able to afford a home there. But building more housing like this—dense, and in neighborhood commercial zones—is one way to keep the cost of housing in surrounding areas from rising exponentially.
There are other things that city leaders can do to ensure that Portland’s working- and middle-class families aren’t pushed out of the city. For starters, political leaders can make sure schools, public safety, parks, and other basics are well funded, while taxes remain affordable.
But the one thing residents can do is look at the big picture: Accept the idea of a four-story building—even if it will block the light and views in your adjacent city lot—for the sake of your neighborhood and the city at large.
Nuff Said
OMS,
Your right, to a degree, but most of the new housing being built is over priced and god-ugly; it’s chewing up the scenery.
Most Portlanders can’t afford to live in these places, and wouldn’t want to if they could. There are over 7,000 empty condos in this city right now. If the owners were forced to rent or sell these places, then yes, they’d help the working man–but in reality, they’re just going to sit there for two years, until some rich out of towner comes in a buys them up.
Plus, they keep destroying existing housing to build this stuff, when there are god knows how many empty lots around town.
And the city keeps using your tax dollars to pay for it!
i live less than a block off interstate near the funky ol’ motels.. and the frightening one that has hot tub sweets and only exists to front for the sale of sex and drugs. about a year ago i bought a home here and then quit my day-job to play music full time.. shortly after the purchase people like me became an NPR hot-topic (think sub-prime). i’m new to the neighborhood, but my monthly income is about $700 and i rent out two rooms to pay my mortgage… i am by no means rich, old, californian, or anything else implied to be undesirable (the only one of those things i don’t hope to be someday is from california.. cause i can’t change that now). anyway, i don’t have a huge amount of knowledge about urban development.. but i do have a legitimate resident feeling about the whole thing…
my two cents: as a neighborhood resident who’s only asset is a home with a questionable mortgage and interest only payments i am very excited about the high density plans. if my property doesn’t at some point create some equity (which immediately prior to the housing slap i had anticipated) it will only be a matter of time before i find myself in the same position i was in 7 years ago when i graduated from college: renting a room in a house with 4 roomates, with no money, loads of debt, and looking for a job and a better living situation.
High Priced condo’s and/or luxury apartments keeping the price down in the surrounding neighborhood? That’s an idiotic claim. Where is there a neighborhood in Portland that has seen tons of rehabbing and development that has, therefore, kept prices of what was already there lower? There isn’t. The new development raises the prices by raising the desirability, and average income level, and average monthly price for living there, of the place that existed before. People like it because the value of their homes gets to go up. People who don’t like it get to go find somewhere cheaper.
If someone wants to assert that the exact opposite of this process is in fact the case, I think some examples ought to be shown. Good luck finding them anywhere new development in old neighborhoods like Belmont, Division, etc. As soon as the higher-priced housing goes in, the landlords know it’s time to raise the rent on the cheaper stuff too. Basic.