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In the past I’ve written quite a bit about the reliance the city of Portland has placed on its 鈥渃enters and corridors鈥� strategy to absorb most of the new residential growth the city is anticipating in the future. It’s a strategy that has its roots in the city’s 1972 Downtown Plan, has been enshrined as the cornerstone of Metro’s regional growth strategy since the adoption of the 2040 Growth Concept in the mid-1990s, and is a major element of the new draft Comprehensive Plan.

In the last few years we have begun to see a major surge in three-to-five-story buildings with commercial space on the ground floor and apartments on the upper floors, especially in many parts of inner east Portland such as Southeast Division Street and North Williams Avenue. These areas are changing dramatically as a result, and there has been a good deal of controversy, particularly about potentially increased traffic and taller buildings adjacent to single-family houses. As part of the new Comprehensive Plan and accompanying zoning code revisions, the city has been working on the Mixed Use Zones Project, which aims to completely overhaul the way it regulates these types of projects.

The new Comprehensive Plan proposes to revise what’s been allowed in most commercial areas, creating a vibrant mix of uses throughout the central city, in smaller commercial centers, and along major transportation corridors throughout the city. The MUZ project directly addresses concerns about how these mixed-use projects will integrate into the fabric of existing neighborhoods. The early concept work looks very promising, with major attention to building heights and transitions to adjacent housing, basic design standards, and incentives for community benefits such as affordable housing, historic preservation, and key community services such as grocery stores, day care and publicly accessible outdoor space.

As this work progresses I’ll be commenting further about how it will be helping to transform Portland as it grows.