Density without Design

Developers rush to express lane, avoiding design review

Developers bend ears with horror stories about the travails of building in Portland. Complex and contradictory city codes, high fees, endless design alterations … and then angry neighbors block otherwise acceptable projects.

Though often exaggerated, their complaints have some truth.

But few talk about the alternative express lane, a path free of judgment calls, public opinion and obstructionist forces. Follow the black-and-white rules in the code and you’re in. The ever-widening express lane now features privacy, shielding developers from even having to meet affected neighbors.

The objective path is not available in the Central City, where full-throated Type III design review is still mandated. Large parts of the Northwest District have sections—the Alphabet Historic District and much of Slabtown—where design review is triggered, but beyond these areas lies what some have called a “deregulation sweepstakes.” Density is encouraged, while design is in the hands of the developer.

A section of the Housing Regulatory Relief ordinance that was to be voted on by the City Council on Jan. 31 states: “Until Jan 1, 2029, the applicant is not required to schedule or attend a meeting if the development includes a residential use.”

Attendance at meetings of the affected neighborhood association had been required as a matter of courtesy and communication, though public comments could be ignored. Now even occupying the same room (or Zoom call) with possible dissenters may be considered too much of a burden.

Is this what it takes to keep builders happy?

Consider one of the last meetings under the “old system” involving an actual (though in this case virtual) meeting. On Jan. 4, the Northwest District Association Planning Committee heard a proposal for an apartment building near Northwest 23^rd Avenue on Pettygrove Street.

(A link at nwexaminer.com connects to a full audio visual recording of the session.)

The committee has a reputation for being hard on developers, and its thoroughness may be incomparable in the Portland neighborhood system. Stripped of any official leverage, it still got under the skin of a developer who will not be seeking a rematch anytime soon.

Before time was called, the developer’s architect had been called a “terrible” person, that architect then blamed the developer he was working for, neighborhood representatives were called argumentative and irresponsible, and the project itself was so utterly disparaged that not one word of praise was offered, not even by its presenters.

There was agreement, at least, that the whole thing was an exercise in futility.

WDC Properties shared plans for a four-story, 24-unit apartment building necessitating the demolition of a 100-year-old house at 2256 NW Pettygrove St. WDC, founded by Mark Madden in 1989 and based in Northwest Portland, has erected about a dozen apartment buildings in the city, according to its website. Branded as EkoLiving, they have no-frills micro units with no parking and some of the lowest rents for new construction. Examples in the Northwest District include buildings named Grove, Hoyt and Everett.

Studio 3 Architecture, a small firm based in Salem, illustrated plans with black-and-white annotated elevations useful for construction but no color perspective images typically used for public consumption.

“How does it relate to the neighborhood, and what would it be like to experience it from the street?” asked Steve Pinger, co-chair of the committee and former principal of an architecture firm in the Pearl District. “Do you have any contextual drawings?”

“I don’t. We just have this,” replied Gene Bolante of Studio 3.

“I asked Sarah [Harris of Studio 3] a month ago about what would be helpful for us,” Pinger continued. “You’re not helping us very much so far.”

“This seems like a crazy way to show us the project. We don’t have the colors … we don’t know what this is going to look like just based on what you showed us today,” neighborhood resident Bristol Kelley said.

“Well, it hardly matters,” committee member Roger Vrilakas said. “There’s almost nothing we can do about it.”

“That’s kind of the attitude I’m getting,” Kelley concurred.

“They’re required to meet with us and that’s it,” Pinger said.

Pinger focused on the 4-foot wide main hallway, a route required to reach the bike storage room.

“A 4-foot corridor, seriously? Wow!” he exclaimed, noting that bicycles will be “banging around” while their owners attempt to pass in the narrow hallway.

Pinger had other critiques wrapped as questions: “How many units are in this building? Good Lord … and no parking?”

Pinger is no fan of the objective review process.

“There’s really no neighborhood input in this process. This is checking off the box for neighborhood contact,” he said.

Process aside, neighbors didn’t like the project.

“It really doesn’t seem to fit with anything that’s in the neighborhood,” said Jeremy Sacks, a member of the committee, “certainly not the house that’s on the right of it … and it looks like a dormitory.”

“Who is the developer?” asked committee co-chair Greg Theisen.

Hanging low to this point was a voice without a screen image.

“My name is Frank. I’m with WDC. … I’ll answer any specific questions but … typically I don’t get too involved in these issues.”

Frank Stock, who was badgered several times before revealing his last name (he never did show his face to a camera), had gotten the tone of the meeting, and when asked if any of his tenants would have cars, he had had enough.

“I just don’t know what the question is asking. Like I’m not ignorant, but it feels like a softball where you’re asking me a question that can’t be answered,” Stock said.

“We’re building according to the current zoning code, and we have no intention to do anything other than that. Obviously, it’s going to minimize parking, but I don’t want to go into that because that’s where it starts [getting] argumentative.

“There will be tenants with cars. I’m sure they’re going to have to get the parking passes, or they’re going to have to use transit or they use the bicycle parking.”

That response rubbed Sacks the wrong way.

“The attitude we’re getting from the presentation is really a bit of the finger,” he said. “It’s very disappointing, and I haven’t seen this with a lot of other developers in the years I’ve been on the committee.

“This building could have been plopped down anywhere. … It just does not fit into this neighborhood, and I don’t suspect that anything we say is going to change this. … You haven’t given us enough information to even know what it looks like, and that apparently is the attitude that you’re going to be going forward with.”

If Bolante thought the committee was rough on him, the next-door neighbor to the project went further.

Brock Roberts, an architect with Portland’s leading architecture firm, ZGF Architects, said, “This is an embarrassment. As an architect, I’m completely embarrassed for you guys, for your terrible presentation.”

Bolante, whose career highlight was designing a dormitory at the Oregon School of the Deaf that was featured on ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” had an excuse.

“I would love to tell you something,” he told Roberts. “My hands are being tied by the developer that’s controlling the process.”

“Then don’t do the project,” Roberts fired back.

“All I understand is what they’ve told me to do,” Bolante said. “In fact, I’m not supposed to be in this meeting. So I understand your frustration with the process, but I don’t know what else to tell you. It’s what we were told to follow. It’s what the guidelines say. It’s what the city outlines.”

“You’re terrible. … As an architect, you have a responsibility to do something worthwhile,” Roberts said. “Why are you wasting your time doing this work?”

Stock was now taking fire from all directions, the committee, neighbors and now his own architect.

It was his turn to feel cornered.

“Is this where you just dig at people? This doesn’t have anything to do with the building. I haven’t heard anything but a hundred things of dislike. There’s no positives … Please don’t yell at me or interrupt me. I’m just here listening.

“And to put Gene in that corner like that. He’s a great guy. ... Just to put him down—it’s irresponsible. If you want to yell, yell at me if that makes you feel any better. We didn’t try to do something bad. It’s the zoning code. If you want to be mad, be mad at the city.”

All was not lost. As the fusillade petered out, Stock agreed that the 4-foot hallway was narrow and will be reconsidered.

Objectivity rules

Who designed such a system of community engagement, and how did it descend into this?

That’s a longer story, but Sandra Wood, co-development manager for the Bureau of Planning & Sustainability, said the nonbinding meetings fulfilled a purpose in letting neighbors know what’s ahead and possibly offering ideas before building plans are set in stone.

In 1981, the Oregon Legislature prohibited local jurisdictions from rejecting certain kinds of housing on grounds that they were “not compatible” or required mitigation of negative impacts on surrounding properties. The law was intended to protect “needed housing,” such as residential care facilities, halfway houses or residences for ex-offenders. In time, all housing was considered needed.

Portland adopted Better Housing by Design in 2019, with a goal of boosting maximum density for residential infill complying with standardized design criteria. That was followed in 2021 by the Design Overlay Zone Amendments, further reducing the share of housing subject to discretionary aesthetic or livability considerations.

“Our intent was that the standards would achieve the same results as discretionary review,” Wood said.

Hardly anyone in the development industry believes that has happened. Instead, there is a two-tiered system in which high-end buildings have high-level architects to guide them through a design process now typically taking two years and a series of hearings before the Design Commission. One local developer said design review costs add about $50,000 in city fees while driving building and architecture costs up many times that amount.

On the other hand, the Design Standards path is fast, involves less architectural creativity and results in standardized buildings of lower-cost materials while tending to fill every square foot of allowable height and density. Off-street parking is not required on either track, but buildings targeting moderate incomes are more likely to cut corners wherever they can.

Developers are increasingly availing themselves of the cheaper option. The city is not measuring results or even counting the share of development applications choosing objective standards. The Bureau of Planning & Sustainability referred this reporter to the Bureau of Development Services, which advised that the information requested would involve a laborious project-by-project count.

The apartment building proposed at 2256 NW Pettygrove would abut a similar design-light building directly east built in 2015, both replacing vintage single-family houses.

The Northwest District Association Planning Committee sees the share of new construction tilting toward the standardized design option. More concerning, a number of substantial buildings are not even coming before the committee.

“Except for the Conway Master Plan area [generally synonymous with Slabtown], we don’t have any Type III projects in the district anymore,” said Pinger, who logs pending developments for the committee.

His concern is that economizing on design affects not only the specific buildings going up but the wider public realm.

“While I have been frustrated by the design review process through the years, I think it’s a necessary evil because without it nobody is going to like what gets built,” said Tom DiChiara, principal in Cairn Pacific LLC, the primary developer in Slabtown.

“Just take a drive out Sandy Boulevard where the design review zone drops off and look at the parade of horrors out there. Total garbage gets built without a robust design process.

“Portlanders really can’t have it both ways,” he said. “You can’t water down design review in the name of affordability, for example, and still get great, enduring buildings. It’s just not going to happen.”

Kurt Schulz, principal and director of housing for SERA Architects, said his firm has designed some projects using objective standards but was only satisfied with them because they went beyond the minimum standards.

“I don’t love using standards, as there is not a lot of flexibility to be creative, and you have to spend a lot of time checking boxes,” Schulz said. “My personal opinion is design review helps create better buildings and a better urban environment.”