91视频

A master plan for a one-of-a-kind neighborhood around the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry is on the verge of gaining the Portland Design Commission’s approval.

A straw poll taken of commissioners at the end of a land use hearing on Thursday indicated that all would approve the proposed master plan 鈥� if the project team were to make some slight tweaks.

At full build-out, as proposed, the 34-acre area of Southeast Portland would hold an approximately 3.4-million-square-foot mix of institutional, commercial, retail, and residential development 鈥� including up to 1,200 units of housing. There would also be a third-of-a-mile waterfront park along the Willamette River.

鈥淲e want it to truly be a manifestation of the mixed-use district with a lot of different opportunities for people to come here but also to live here and work here,鈥� OMSI CEO Erin Graham said.

The site spans over 10 city blocks from Clay Street to Caruthers Street and includes Portland Community College’s CLIMB Center and the Hampton Opera Center.

In the previous hearing for the proposed master plan, in August, commissioners expressed concerns over whether the uniquely shaped developable tracts would create a 鈥渧isual wall鈥� between the city’s Central Eastside and the river. If approved, the master plan would create eight new tracts with total allowable building heights of 250 feet with bonuses, and podium heights of 50 feet.

Due to the area’s location between Union Pacific Railroad tracks to the east and the Willamette River to the west, the building sites are larger than most Portland city blocks 鈥� ranging in length from 230 feet to 750 feet. That led to two notable changes being made: The massing envelopes at Tract C and E (southern end of the master plan) now step down to the river and additional upper-story step-backs are proposed.

Most of Thursday’s hearing was spent ironing out the finer details while the master plan continues to be reviewed by city bureaus, including transportation, water, and parks and recreation. Commissioners, project team members and city planners treated the hearing more like a work session than a formal affair, methodically going through each condition of approval and striking redundancies and fixing nuances to the written code 鈥� so conditions did not read as suggestions but rather requirements.

A debate surfaced between commissioners and project team members during a discussion about heights of building passageways on whether it is sufficient for a condition to have more qualitative parameters such as saying it should be 鈥渋nviting,鈥� 鈥渟afe,鈥� and 鈥渨ell activated,鈥� rather than being tied to a numerical value.

The difficulty with a qualitative parameter, Design Commission Chair Sam Rodriguez said, is 鈥渉ow do phrase this in a way that you know as a commission 鈥� 10 years from now (we) can interpret it without having to have 10 lawyers in the room.鈥�

Commissioners settled on inclusion of at least a minimum dimension within the condition as a best practice. All future developments in the master plan would be required to go through either a Type II or Type III design review process 鈥� where more specifics can be determined.

The next hearing date for the OMSI Central City Master Plan has been tentatively scheduled for early February 2023. Then the city bureaus’ reviews of the site will be discussed and a vote on potential approval will likely be called.