The cluster of condos sitting at NW 28th/NW Thurman built in 2021 with a price tag of 1 million dollars, now with a "price cut" to $850,000, over half of those condos are unoccupied. This is not affordable housing, nor are the "Cottage Clusters" affordable housing, and they too will sit.
You can buy a townhouse for 320 and up and there are plenty sitting around (if now just having housing such as a condo isn’t enough, of which many are also sitting vacant and going cheap, thanks to the mayor and city council). But I guess the fact that they are nicer than this, usually built to fit into the neighborhood, and generally have designated parking means they don’t give the “shantytown” vibe the people currently running the city are obviously going for.
lol … the design isn’t great but how else can you have younger families afford this neighborhood? this whole neighborhood is littered with huge houses , all of them over a million, with just one old boomer sitting inside. Sucks. I’m told this area used to be full of families but it honestly feels like a retirement community.
I’ve seen these-- no thanks. Interior finishes range from funky wood imitation plastic to okay. Postage stamp sized exterior space. Stacked like crackers in a box with no “dialogue” between each residence. The comment above nails it: greed. 100%. We hear developers whining about making roi- save it. The roi is buit in: incentives, tax breaks, etc. Value engineering equals daddy’s new boat and a 2 acre waterfront mansion.
Design should do more than 1 thing like making money OR adhere to aesthetics. GOOD design should and CAN do both AND be affordable. Housing USE to be about housing. NOW it’s about wealth creation….’merika.
Lake Oswego recently constructed a large cluster of exactly this type of home in the Alphabet District north of downtown close to the south end of Tryon State Park. Prices started at nearly $1 million and have been dropped to half of that because of lack of demand.
Not sure how we can build more single family starter homes in the inner city without shaking things up a bit. Portland is full of compassionate home owners who acknowledge we have a housing problem but don't think they should be part of the solution. It is a no brainer that we would all like to go back to lovely neighborhoods with starter homes with nice yards and driveway parking. But that is the past. How can we expect young people to come to work in the city when they can't afford to find stable housing that they can raise future children in? We have young workers barely able to afford a 600 sq foot apartment, while there are thousands of homes occupied by retirees enjoying 2 or 3 thousand square foot homes. While these cottage clusters might not be the ideal solution for integrating more housing into our neighborhoods, we should be giving them a try, unless the complaining neighbors have better ideas.
Portland developers could have done what small-scale developers in Vancouver BC did with coveted Kitsilano (think Irvington) starting in the late 70s: take large residences and divide them into multifamily housing. That requires reasonably priced real estate and a populace who cares substantially about the greater good. Except at today's extraordinary prices and with NIMBY ruling close-in desirable neighborhoods, it is not going to happen here.
It is unclear who this project is designed to attract. Seniors aren’t looking for units on multiple levels, young families with 800k to spend can find much better options, even in NW. Buyers who have camping equipment, kayaks, or want their bicycles stored safely will need to find options like mini-storage.
The large condo development a block away at the corner of Thurman stands largely empty after three years. It has larger units with garages and is roughly the same cost.
This house would have been a great home once renovated and the large backyard would have easily accommodated an ADU. Several homes nearby have adapted their properties to include these additional structures and it works well.
The property also included mature trees. The new development will not accommodate more than a few shrubs. So much for the tree canopy argument.
Another Good Old House gone. Welcome to the world of Temu development. There are better options but the city isn’t interested.
The effort to increase density has been deceptive from the beginning, evoking images bearing no relation to the stingy, boring buildings mushrooming in so many of Portland's east side neighborhoods. I've seen existing "missing middle" housing demolished to make way for unaffordable corporate-designed homes. And yet, people think it's virtuous to support policies that enrich developers at the expense of young people who have no choice but to live in homes that aren't designed for living.
If we are going to create “affordable” housing in a new culture where we learn to normalize housing that at once serves a need for comfortable, secure, durable, easy to maintain and has access to basic walkable services and safe open spaces or affordable transportation networks to get there. If this can be done in an aesthetically pleasing way, that allows for demand to grow. Context matters. This is neither the location nor the housing type for this normalization to occur. We have become enamored with larger and larger everything fo we can live our lives inside or own home, our own car, our own yard. If we are wealthy enough, we want multiples of this combination in other places we like to visit. In cities we want to see how high above the masses we can be. In rural locations, it is how big a perimeter we can create. In the sea, it is our yacht, or so. For these who don’t have the wealth, they aspire to it. For those who acknowledge they will never achieve the promoted pinnacle, we get the mess we have today. One big part of creating “affordable” housing is lowering expectations from the top to the bottom. Our human footprint is already way beyond this planet’s carrying capacity. Change will require some painful expectation changes for us all.
This corresponds to an idea I got after reading Alain deBotton's "Status Anxiety". Younger generations are finding it difficult if impossible to live up to the expectations instilled in Boomer suburban households. We might scoff at "status", but the kids are no different than the rest of us in internalizing the economy. They have to fight against seeing themselves as failures. Our culture has been brainwashing all of us, probably since the industrial revolution, to equate personal worth and integrity with economic success.
Cultural ideas about who is admirable could move away from this. If everyone starts visibly living more frugally and adopting non-financial indicators of adulthood and self-agency, then the psychological burden on the young will lessen. They'll have more energy for doing whatever it takes to create satisfying lives. Cultural expectations about success and lifestyle could experience a sea-change. This may already be happening as face-to-face community groups and civic participation are on the rise.
So the houses? Maybe young families can learn to live together long-term in smaller spaces like these. This housing model could be the start of a new, younger segment of the middle class that's urban, uses public transportation, takes their kids on the trails as soon as they start walking, shops locally, PLUS can still raise their kids and maybe even send them to college.
(Historical examples are available. How did my grandfather maintain his sense of integrity after losing all the valuable beachfront property in California that he had built by hand and sold, during the depression? Even among Boomers, I know some who grew up in the Craftsman houses in SE Portland, which I don't think were very spatious.)
So, are these tall skinnies, renamed?
yep. Cute names makes them cuter? Nope
On what planet is $700-$800k “affordable”? This is a developer’s dream, handed to them by the city.
The cluster of condos sitting at NW 28th/NW Thurman built in 2021 with a price tag of 1 million dollars, now with a "price cut" to $850,000, over half of those condos are unoccupied. This is not affordable housing, nor are the "Cottage Clusters" affordable housing, and they too will sit.
You can buy a townhouse for 320 and up and there are plenty sitting around (if now just having housing such as a condo isn’t enough, of which many are also sitting vacant and going cheap, thanks to the mayor and city council). But I guess the fact that they are nicer than this, usually built to fit into the neighborhood, and generally have designated parking means they don’t give the “shantytown” vibe the people currently running the city are obviously going for.
Please share a Zillow link for a $320k townhome in Northwest.
lol … the design isn’t great but how else can you have younger families afford this neighborhood? this whole neighborhood is littered with huge houses , all of them over a million, with just one old boomer sitting inside. Sucks. I’m told this area used to be full of families but it honestly feels like a retirement community.
And young families can swing $700K - $800K? MAC club kids maybe, but regular Portlanders?
Make a mess of a nice block because a property owner is greedy. Then have the city call it building a better future for all.
I’ve seen these-- no thanks. Interior finishes range from funky wood imitation plastic to okay. Postage stamp sized exterior space. Stacked like crackers in a box with no “dialogue” between each residence. The comment above nails it: greed. 100%. We hear developers whining about making roi- save it. The roi is buit in: incentives, tax breaks, etc. Value engineering equals daddy’s new boat and a 2 acre waterfront mansion.
Design should do more than 1 thing like making money OR adhere to aesthetics. GOOD design should and CAN do both AND be affordable. Housing USE to be about housing. NOW it’s about wealth creation….’merika.
Lake Oswego recently constructed a large cluster of exactly this type of home in the Alphabet District north of downtown close to the south end of Tryon State Park. Prices started at nearly $1 million and have been dropped to half of that because of lack of demand.
Not sure how we can build more single family starter homes in the inner city without shaking things up a bit. Portland is full of compassionate home owners who acknowledge we have a housing problem but don't think they should be part of the solution. It is a no brainer that we would all like to go back to lovely neighborhoods with starter homes with nice yards and driveway parking. But that is the past. How can we expect young people to come to work in the city when they can't afford to find stable housing that they can raise future children in? We have young workers barely able to afford a 600 sq foot apartment, while there are thousands of homes occupied by retirees enjoying 2 or 3 thousand square foot homes. While these cottage clusters might not be the ideal solution for integrating more housing into our neighborhoods, we should be giving them a try, unless the complaining neighbors have better ideas.
Portland developers could have done what small-scale developers in Vancouver BC did with coveted Kitsilano (think Irvington) starting in the late 70s: take large residences and divide them into multifamily housing. That requires reasonably priced real estate and a populace who cares substantially about the greater good. Except at today's extraordinary prices and with NIMBY ruling close-in desirable neighborhoods, it is not going to happen here.
That’s a good idea! Big-ish condo buildings all around Wallace Park could add a lot of families for Chapman.
It is unclear who this project is designed to attract. Seniors aren’t looking for units on multiple levels, young families with 800k to spend can find much better options, even in NW. Buyers who have camping equipment, kayaks, or want their bicycles stored safely will need to find options like mini-storage.
The large condo development a block away at the corner of Thurman stands largely empty after three years. It has larger units with garages and is roughly the same cost.
This house would have been a great home once renovated and the large backyard would have easily accommodated an ADU. Several homes nearby have adapted their properties to include these additional structures and it works well.
The property also included mature trees. The new development will not accommodate more than a few shrubs. So much for the tree canopy argument.
Another Good Old House gone. Welcome to the world of Temu development. There are better options but the city isn’t interested.
They lost me at $700,000.
The effort to increase density has been deceptive from the beginning, evoking images bearing no relation to the stingy, boring buildings mushrooming in so many of Portland's east side neighborhoods. I've seen existing "missing middle" housing demolished to make way for unaffordable corporate-designed homes. And yet, people think it's virtuous to support policies that enrich developers at the expense of young people who have no choice but to live in homes that aren't designed for living.
If we are going to create “affordable” housing in a new culture where we learn to normalize housing that at once serves a need for comfortable, secure, durable, easy to maintain and has access to basic walkable services and safe open spaces or affordable transportation networks to get there. If this can be done in an aesthetically pleasing way, that allows for demand to grow. Context matters. This is neither the location nor the housing type for this normalization to occur. We have become enamored with larger and larger everything fo we can live our lives inside or own home, our own car, our own yard. If we are wealthy enough, we want multiples of this combination in other places we like to visit. In cities we want to see how high above the masses we can be. In rural locations, it is how big a perimeter we can create. In the sea, it is our yacht, or so. For these who don’t have the wealth, they aspire to it. For those who acknowledge they will never achieve the promoted pinnacle, we get the mess we have today. One big part of creating “affordable” housing is lowering expectations from the top to the bottom. Our human footprint is already way beyond this planet’s carrying capacity. Change will require some painful expectation changes for us all.
This corresponds to an idea I got after reading Alain deBotton's "Status Anxiety". Younger generations are finding it difficult if impossible to live up to the expectations instilled in Boomer suburban households. We might scoff at "status", but the kids are no different than the rest of us in internalizing the economy. They have to fight against seeing themselves as failures. Our culture has been brainwashing all of us, probably since the industrial revolution, to equate personal worth and integrity with economic success.
Cultural ideas about who is admirable could move away from this. If everyone starts visibly living more frugally and adopting non-financial indicators of adulthood and self-agency, then the psychological burden on the young will lessen. They'll have more energy for doing whatever it takes to create satisfying lives. Cultural expectations about success and lifestyle could experience a sea-change. This may already be happening as face-to-face community groups and civic participation are on the rise.
So the houses? Maybe young families can learn to live together long-term in smaller spaces like these. This housing model could be the start of a new, younger segment of the middle class that's urban, uses public transportation, takes their kids on the trails as soon as they start walking, shops locally, PLUS can still raise their kids and maybe even send them to college.
(Historical examples are available. How did my grandfather maintain his sense of integrity after losing all the valuable beachfront property in California that he had built by hand and sold, during the depression? Even among Boomers, I know some who grew up in the Craftsman houses in SE Portland, which I don't think were very spatious.)