91视频

In the last few years the city has spent a lot of time and resources to revise both its design review process and its design guidelines and standards. This has been a long time coming and was much needed. The guidelines (applicable to larger projects going through Design Commission review) and standards (mainly applicable to smaller projects going through a staff approval process) had not been revised since the 1990s, and the process had some serious flaws. The Design Overlay Zone Amendments (DOZA) are now being considered by both the Planning and Sustainability Commission and Design Commission, with unified recommendations from both due to the City Council in the next couple of months.

Running parallel to that citywide effort, an organization called PDX Main Streets has been working with various groups within neighborhoods with historic business districts that have seen a lot of redevelopment in the last few years. This nonprofit has raised money and engaged professional designers and planners to work with these local groups to help produce what they call specific 鈥渄esign guidelines鈥� for 鈥渕ain streets,鈥� as well as a variety of other resources for these groups to use.

While the city has acknowledged that these independently produced documents have value for those neighborhoods, officials have been reluctant to incorporate them into DOZA, primarily because they perceive the neighborhood guidelines to be largely rooted in historical development patterns. They consider the DOZA guidelines and standards to be more people- and future-oriented. Both have a lot of merit. As things stand now there鈥檚 a lot of justification for moving DOZA through to final approval. The big question is if the finer-grained neighborhood guidelines should be incorporated into the city鈥檚 design review process directly 鈥� and, if so, after what process and on what timeline. Meanwhile, the main streets will continue to redevelop. Hopefully the new DOZA standards will be helpful in minimizing impact on the neighborhoods until an agreement is worked out with the city.