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Portland’s design review process should be expanded or revised to better respond to surging development in the city, according to a Portland Design Commission report.

The notes the number of applications for developments currently seeking city design review approval has eclipsed the volume seen in the mid-2000s. As a result, the seven-member Design Commission has returned to the era of more than six-hour bi-monthly meetings and has been scheduling additional hearings to help move projects through the pipeline.

Design Commission Chairwoman Guenevere Millius last week gave the report to the Portland City Council. In the report, design commissioners request that the City Council consider a number of measures to better respond to the concerns of the Portland residents living in rapidly changing neighborhoods.

This includes updating Portland’s Community Design Standards. In many of Portland’s design districts, developers use the design standards to design their projects and avoid design review. The standards were developed in the 1980s and don’t adequately address today’s developments, commissioners said.

“We grow increasingly concerned about poor quality projects that have proliferated by following the prescribed Community Design Standard path,” the report said. “We strongly believe it is time to, at minimum, review and revise Community Design Standards to reflect the changed nature of the neighborhoods to which they apply.”

Commissioners suggested expanding design districts or offering a trigger that would require design review anywhere in the city, such as projects on main corridors or other areas where design oversight would be beneficial.

“It is worth considering whether enough of our city enjoys the benefits of design review,” the report said.

As design review is expanded into new areas, the report said a second design commission should be formed or one assigned to each quadrant of the city.

Based on neighborhood feedback during design commission meetings, commissioners advocated in the report for the elimination of split-zoned blocks because of the stark contrast created between single family homes and apartment complexes.

“Portland needs to address areas where split-zoned blocks exist, and work toward creating a more comfortable fit between new, denser development and the existing fabric of neighborhoods,” the report said.

Even through few of the city’s design districts require parking on new developments, it’s often a frequent concern brought up during public testimony at Design Commission hearings.

“Neighbors and neighborhood associations continue to visit us in droves and with parking counts in new projects ranking high among their concerns, and they are frustrated that we can’t talk about parking,” the report said. “Often, the parking issue looms so large for them, that issues with the architecture – the stuff we can talk about – [are] nearly ignored.”

Design commissioners requested that Portland Bureau of Transportation officials develop a long-term approach to transportation development for an increasingly dense city. The issue should also be addressed in a new city comprehensive plan that is being developed, they said.

“Excellent architecture deserves excellent transportation systems,” the report said.