The Portland Design Commission on Thursday discussed a draft of the .

Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS) staff presented an overview of approximately 18 potential amendments to the comprehensive plan, zoning code maps, zoning code use allowances and development standards that are intended to facilitate housing production and revitalization in the Central City. The draft will be open to public review through Feb. 13.

The project is responsive to other efforts to revitalize the Central City, BPS Chief Planner Patricia Diefenderfer said.

“BPS began to research ways to maximize housing, including the analysis of current density allowances, floor area ratios and maximum building heights, specifically on how to structure bonuses to encourage large multi-bedroom units,” she said.

Amendments to the Central City 2035 Plan could include increasing allowable heights in certain areas, providing additional floor area ratio (FAR) bonuses, and more. Since the plan was adopted in 2018, the downtown area has experienced unprecedented trends in retail and office vacancy, according to the project’s website.

Other possible changes include rezoning parts of the Central City to provide greater development flexibility and encourage new housing, expanding land use allowances in Central Commercial zones to accommodate a broader mix of uses such as light manufacturing, repealing prohibitions of housing in parts of Central Employment zones, expanding allowances for retail and other uses in Open Space zones to support parks, adding a FAR bonus to encourage the development of multi-bedroom units, expanding allowable locations of food carts and pods, and providing more flexibility for temporary surface parking.

Since the pandemic, there has been a desire by the city to let food carts operate outside of surface parking lots, Senior City Planner Troy Doss said.

“The reason food carts have been in surface parking lots for so long is because they are regulated as a vehicle,” he said. “They can only be in vehicle areas or legally created parking lots.”

The food carts in Pioneer Courthouse Square were grandfathered in before provisions were changed, Doss said. The proposed change would be citywide and not just in the Central City.

BPS also proposes changing the requirement of 60 percent coverage of eco-roofs in the Central City to allow a mix of eco-roofs and solar panels, Doss said.

Another possible change would be to reduce the coverage of prohibition of ground-floor housing units. Commissioner Zari Santner expressed concern about potential losses of active uses at ground level. A reduction in the number of streets with prohibition of ground-floor units would need to come something that addresses quality-of-life issues, she said.

Improving livability in a neighborhood requires additions of amenities such as retail spaces and health care facilities, Commissioner Tina Bue added. The main goal of the project is to make sure the zoning code is not standing in the way of such development, Diefenderfer said.

People can submit comments on the discussion draft through Feb. 13. BPS will then create a proposed draft in March.

The Design Commission on Jan. 29 will finalize ideas to incorporate into a letter to the Planning Commission and the City Council with its recommendations. The Design Commission plans to vote on the letter during its meeting on Feb. 5.

A Planning Commission hearing will take place in April. Any revisions will be included in BPS’ recommended draft, which will go before the City Council in late summer or early fall. A final decision on the draft is expected by the end of the year.

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Tensions ran high during a recent briefing before the Portland Design Commission, where the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS) presented proposed zoning code changes aimed at addressing the city’s housing crisis.

“When I read these 16 amendments,” Commissioner Zari Santner said, “it sort of breaks my heart because it negates a lot of the hard work that you all (BPS) put into as part of the 2035 (Comprehensive) Plan and zoning codes.”

The proposed housing production strategy, outlined in the Housing Regulatory Relief Project, includes a temporary five-year suspension of several zoning codes and development standards identified in a Bureau of Development Services (BDS) survey as the top obstructions to housing production. It includes suspending the requirement for ground-floor active uses in areas outside of the central city, removing eco-roof and bird-safe glazing requirements and shortening the development review process.

BPS, which usually writes the design guidelines and zoning codes, is now asking the Portland City Council to amend them within three months. Sandra Wood, principal planner at BPS, said, “This isn’t an easy task for any of us.”

However, the tight timeframe for studying and discussing the effects of the zoning changes has been criticized as “shortsighted” by members of the Design Commission. Santner expressed concerns that some changes could be “detrimental” to the quality of life and well-being of people, especially in maintaining an active ground floor, which has been shown to reduce crime in areas.

Santner inquired whether the proposed amendments had been studied to determine potential time and cost savings. However, due to the project’s tight schedule, a comprehensive study was not feasible, according to Wood. She added that each of the regulations likely costs less than 1 percent of a building, in the case of a $26 million project.

“I think what we’re hearing a lot from developers: It’s the cumulative effect of … what we’re trying to balance with this proposal,” Wood said.

Commissioners, however, remain unconvinced that the benefits outweigh the long-term costs of some of these changes. Buildings are constructed to last for 50 years or more, and temporary measures may have lasting consequences.

“My main concern, panic and fear,” Commissioner Jessica Molinar said, “is mostly about ground floors and active use.”

A project’s proposal could temporarily waive requirements for ground-floor active use, height standards and higher window coverage outside the Central City. The intent of the standards are to ensure “mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods.” But survey respondents said it created potential barriers to development and increased costs, especially for affordable housing projects.

Molinar said her primary concern, however, is the blanket approach to waiving ground-floor requirements for all residential areas. She said that ignoring active use on ground floors isn’t the way people experience a city. Suddenly, having sporadic residential sections when walking on a street “destroys the fabric of the public space.”

Commissioner Chandra Robinson likened the situation to what happened downtown. When everyone left the city, businesses struggled to say open, leading to bars on windows, she said.

“That’s why it’s scary downtown, because there are not enough people on the ground floor looking out for each other, making the street a place that you want to be,” she said.

In contrast, Commissioner Sam Rodriguez, who serves as the senior managing director for Mill Creek Residential, said the proposed zoning code changes are “too little.” He said more needs to be done to prevent Portland from ending up in the “doom loop,” where commercial real estate decline affects commerce and local tax revenue.

“We’re losing the value proposition of living in the city of Portland,” Rodriguez said.

Portland lost around 8,300 people from July 2021 to 2022, making it the sixth-largest decline among U.S. cities, .

However, some measures, such as simplifying the development review process and removing parts of neighborhood contact requirements, appear to limit public input on projects, Robinson said.

“What’s actually (the) cost benefit here? Is it going to save time? Is it going to save money for developers?” she said. “Because if you’re talking about 1 percent, that is not worth changing our zoning code and changing our city for 50 years.

“We need housing so badly, but we don’t need subpar housing that’s not going to actually get (built) any faster,” Robinson said.

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New rules adopted by the city of Portland will make it easier for developers to renovate historic properties while keeping the original structures intact.

The changes to city code, which were approved by the City Council on Jan. 26, take effect on March 1. The code changes allow property owners to do more without going before the Historic Landmarks Commission for approval.

“The goal is increasing housing opportunity, enabling adaptive reuse, but also ensuring strong demolition protection,” said Brandon Spencer-Hartle, project manager for the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.

Among the changes:

• Additional housing units (such as ADUs) are allowed in historic districts “by right,” meaning they don’t need special land-use permission.
• Former churches and other historic structures are able to be renovated for other uses more easily.
• Historic homes can be renovated without going through a hearing. By-right work items include solar installation, windows, electrical and mechanical upgrades. Fewer changes will require a hearing by the Historic Landmarks Commission. Minor exterior alterations will not be reviewed, but additions and major exterior alterations are subject to a review – in most cases at the staff level. Some large-scale changes would require the commission’s approval.

The code amendments’ enactment culminates two years of work by city staff, elected officials and the Planning and Sustainability and Historic Landmarks commissions. City officials successfully lobbied for a change in state law that partially decouples local historic resource protections from listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Portland historic landmarks are still protected from demolition, but not changes in design. Previously, Oregon was the only state that automatically conferred protection from demolition and design changes to historic landmarks.

“I’m excited to see tenants, building owners and professionals get creative with the flexibility provided by this code so that our historic places can continue to inform us of the past and better serve the needs of future Portlanders,” Mayor Ted Wheeler said as the City Council approved the amendments Jan. 26 in a unanimous vote.

The code changes should make it easier to do some projects, said Rick Michaelson, president of Inner City Properties, a Portland development firm that often tackles adaptive reuse projects.

“The code amendments are a step in the right direction,” Michaelson said. “They are simplifying processes; they are allowing more options for adaptive reuse.”

State building codes need to be further changed to allow for more flexibility, Michaelson said. For example, if a building owner converts a single-family home to a duplex, it falls under one section of the building code. But if the owner opts for a triplex, it falls under a separate section.

Sarah Stevenson, executive director of Innovative Housing Inc., said she supports any changes that make expensive and difficult adaptive reuse projects easier to accomplish.

Spencer-Hartle predicted the code changes will result in a spike in solar installation in historic districts, garage-to-ADU conversions and second ADUs on properties that already have one additional unit. “There is a long list of people who have been waiting to install solar,” he said.

The updated rules no longer require onsite parking. And residential units are not limited within a historic structure.

Design guidelines – including height limits in historic districts – were not changed. Likewise, a state law that requires the property owner’s consent to designate a historic landmark remains.

City officials hope the new rules result in a generation of well-loved adaptive reuse projects, similar to those done by McMenamins at historic structures in Oregon and Washington. The zoning code “would essentially give Kennedy School-like flexibility to our historic landmarks city-wide,” Spencer-Hartle said, referring to the popular Northeast Portland elementary school that was turned into a McMenamins movie theater, brewery and restaurant venue.

Portland leaders have also worked to diversify historic landmarks, adding protections to the Billy Webb Elks Lodge, an institution in North Portland’s Black community, and the Darcelle XV Showplace, a well-known downtown drag club.

Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty has pushed for greater recognition of landmarks from communities that have been excluded from historic preservation.

“We have been clear that the status quo around historic preservation cannot continue without an acknowledgement of all of the people left out – all of the cultural, institutions and neighborhoods who just aren’t reflected today,” she said.

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Portland City Commissioner Dan Saltzman wants the city to do more to increase affordable housing.

To that end, Saltzman directed the Portland Housing Bureau and the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability to study the feasibility of a new and streamlined bonus system to foster inclusion of more affordable housing in the multifamily mix.

A public hearing on the study, released last week and posted online at www.portlandoregon.gov/phb/article/535099, will take place July 9. Later, city commissioners will vote on a resolution to accept the study and give more guidance to city staff to develop a new and streamlined bonus system for affordable housing in the central city.

The summary of the study states that the basic idea of a bonus system is to allow developments to have additional square feet in exchange for public benefit. To date, the Central City District Plan has 18 bonus options and six FAR (floor area ratio) transfer options.

Some bonus options, such as bike lockers, have been used often, Saltzman said. Others, however, have been used rarely, if at all, so tightening the guidelines was necessary, he said.

“We have about 18 bonuses on the books right now for things like green roofs, bike parking and on-site day care, which are all good things, but not as important as increasing the supply of affordable housing,” he said.

During the next 20 years, Portland’s city center will gain about 30,000 new households, according to the housing bureau. Saltzman said new bonus guidelines will be “an important tool” to encourage the private market to be part of the solution to the city’s affordable housing crisis.

The new bonus guidelines are “incentives instead of mandates,” Saltzman said, and will include both cash and design incentives.

Incentives for commercial developers who don’t include housing in their developments could include a contribution to the city’s housing investment fund, he said. Contributions to the housing fund would be used by the city to create affordable housing for people with income levels below 60 percent of median family income.

According to the housing bureau, if all bonuses were earned through the payment option, they could generate $120 million to $200 million more for affordable housing or redevelopment over the next 20 years.

Key recommendations of the study include keeping the 3:1 cap on the bonus for floor area ratios for a single site. Also under the proposed guidelines, developers would be able to earn bonus points by including units with rents at 80 percent of the median family income for 60 years.

The study was the topic of a recent work session of the City Council, Saltzman said, and it was determined that bonuses for affordable housing could potentially save developers as much as $32 to $38 per square foot of construction costs.

“It’s worth it to the development community and we found it is a feasible approach,” he said.

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Multnomah County Health Department officials are seeking city of Portland approval and neighborhood support for construction of a taller building in Old Town Chinatown than zoning allows.

Initial plans for the health department’s new headquarters called for a six-story building that would not exceed the 75-foot height limit on a vacant lot east of Bud Clark Commons. But the proposed $46 million building would not be able to provide the approximately 120,000 to 150,000 square feet of office space the county anticipates it needing. The only way that the constrained half-block site could provide that much space would be in a building nine or 10 stories, county spokeswoman Julie Sullivan-Springhetti said.

“We have learned a six-story building is not enough space,” she said. “It’s critical that when we invest this type of money in public funds that we have the capacity, and that’s what we’re coming up against with the height limit.”

The revelation has led county officials to put on hold plans to break ground next month on a six-story building that would replace the department’s current downtown Portland headquarters, Sullivan-Springhetti said.

“We paused on that six-story (concept) and we are working with the city of Portland and the Portland Development Commission to look at what we can do to try and utilize the site,” she said.

Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability staffers are reviewing the county’s revised plans and are developing a proposal to change the height allowance on that block, bounded by Northwest Hoyt and Irving streets and Broadway and Sixth Avenue, city planner Nicholas Starin said. A city staff report on a proposed amendment to the height limit is expected to be released by the end of this week, he said.

“They need a fairly large building that wouldn’t fit within the 75 feet,” he said. “The number we’re working off is to get the height to 150 (feet).”

To achieve this, city planners propose increasing the base height allowed on the planned site to 120 feet and offering the county height bonuses in exchange for including building features that are considered a public benefit, such as an eco-roof. Currently, the site is not eligible for such floor-to-area-ratio bonuses.

The proposed height allowance and FAR bonuses require approval of the Portland Planning and Sustainability Commission and Portland City Council, Starin said. A Planning and Sustainability Commission public hearing for the proposal is scheduled for April 28. If the commission were to approve the height allowance, a City Council hearing would likely take place in June, he said. The project would then have to enter the city design review process.

County and city officials earlier this month met with neighbors of the site to discuss plans to construct a taller headquarters building. This includes seeking the support of the Old Town Chinatown Community Association and Pearl District Neighborhood Association.

When county officials last week presented the proposed height increase to the OTCCA’s Land Use and Design Review Committee, members expressed concerns about the taller building blocking views of the Union Station clock tower as well as inconsistency with the shorter surrounding structures. The neighborhood association’s board is scheduled to review the proposal on April 1.

Health department officials more than a decade ago began looking for options for relocation from the Gladys McCoy Building in downtown Portland. The 12-story building, constructed as a department store in 1923, had outlived its usefulness as the hub for one of Oregon’s largest federally qualified health centers. The new headquarters will allow the county to consolidate health department functions currently spread out across multiple buildings. It will house the department’s leadership, public health emergency services, a communicable disease program, specialty clinics, a pharmacy and electronic health records. About 350 health professionals would work out of the building.

In 2013, health department officials brought on Home Forward, ZGF Architects and JE Dunn Construction to formalize a building plan for developing the half-block site owned by the Portland Housing Bureau west of Northwest Sixth Avenue, between Irvington and Hoyt streets.

The department has since undergone a leadership transition. Former department head Lillian Shirley left in fall 2013 to lead the Oregon Public Health Division. The county’s former chief operating officer, Joanne Fuller, took over as interim director of the health department. The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners this past June appointed her health department director.

Sullivan-Springhetti said county officials still believe the Old Town site is a prime location for the health department’s new headquarters and hope to make the proposed project pencil out there.

“We have this great site (but) because it was limited to the 75-foot height for the investment we would not be able to fit the professionals and services in that for the cost,” she said. “This was the option we were hoping to go with and now we’re in the process to see how we make this work.”

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An updated plan to reduce carbon emissions in Portland and Multnomah County seeks to encourage the construction of more highly efficient buildings.

City and county officials this week released a draft of their joint 2015 Climate Action Plan, an update of one created in 2009, and are seeking public comment. The plan outlines a strategy to put Portland and Multnomah County on the path to achieve a 40 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 and an 80 percent reduction by 2050. This includes various goals that pertain to the design and construction industries, such as reducing the total energy use by all new buildings and homes, and ensuring that major remodels can adapt to the changing climate.

The draft 2015 plan came out of a project that involved reviewing the current plan and identifying actions that should continue, be dropped or added. Proposed changes include applying an equity lens to the policies and plans, and adding a section on how consumers help and hinder carbon emission levels.

In June, following a six-week public comment period that ends April 10, the 2015 plan will be considered for adoption by the Portland Planning and Sustainability Commission, the Portland City Council and the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners.

There are a lot of similarities between the 2015 and 2009 plans, said Michael Armstrong, senior sustainability manager with the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. Strategies outlined in the current plan appear to be working because carbon consumption in the city and county has decreased even as population has increased, he said.

“A lot of key building blocks (in the 2015 plan) are pretty similar,” he said. “We are making progress.”

It’s encouraging, Armstrong said, that sustainable construction strategies like those employed to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards have become mainstream in Portland and Multnomah County. However, he added, the updated plan sets the higher goal of promoting new construction and retrofit projects that achieve net-zero energy usage. This could include providing incentives for the construction of net-zero energy buildings, demonstration projects and educational efforts.

“Let’s get more people looking at these net-zero buildings and see what’s possible and what the challenges are,” Armstrong said.

City officials also hope to raise awareness and promote green building certifications that have more stringent energy efficiency requirements than LEED, such as the Living Building Challenge and passive house, he said. Other BPS actions outlined in the 2015 Climate Action Plan include involvement in revising the state building code to achieve net-zero energy performance in all new buildings by 2030 and establishing minimum energy performance targets for new construction and major renovations in Portland.

Along with promoting more efficient new construction, the plan sets the goal of reducing total energy use of all buildings built before 2010 by 25 percent.

“The biggest challenge is 80 percent of the environment that’s going to be around in the next 20 years is already built,” said Kent Snyder, co-chairman of a steering committee that assisted with the plan update. “You’ve got to retrofit.”

In April, the Portland City Council will consider adopting an energy tracking and reporting policy for large commercial buildings. If approved, city officials will work with building owners and managers to improve the energy performance of commercial buildings that are larger than 20,000 square feet.

The draft plan outlines a similar goal for residential buildings, requiring energy performance ratings for all homes so that owners, tenants and prospective buyers can make informed decisions about energy costs and carbon emissions.

Another goal calls for doubling the number of solar installations in Portland and increasing the rate of home weatherization projects.

An important part of updating the plan involved ensuring that benefits of reducing carbon emissions and responding to climate change are evenly distributed, Armstrong said. The plan calls for city and county officials to establish a clean energy fund to invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy projects and expand financing tools that increase the accessibility of such upgrades to the owners of commercial and residential properties in underserved communities.

“We tried to be more deliberate and engaging in communities that aren’t normally at the table,” Armstrong said. “We need to develop new financing tools to encourage clean energy retrofits.”

One goal will be providing clean energy financing that helps owners of smaller commercial properties afford efficiency upgrades, said John Wasiutynski, director of the Multnomah County Office of Sustainability.

“How do we make that process easier for those commercial property owners so they can lower energy usage?” he said.

Also important will be investing in creating more efficient affordable housing, Wasiutynski said.

“We’re building a green economy,” he said. “Let’s make sure we’re making smart investments that are going to make us safer and happier moving forward.”

The updated plan emphasizes investing in projects that support active transportation and anticipate the environmental impacts of climate change, such as hotter summers and more precipitation in the winter and spring, Armstrong said. TriMet’s Tilikum Crossing demonstrates this goal because when it opens this summer it will carry only public transit, bicyclist and pedestrian traffic, he said. The bridge’s height was designed to accommodate a potential rise in the level of the Willamette River.

“The new bridge is a really good idea of what we’re looking for,” Armstrong said.

2015 Climate Action Plan

City of Portland and Multnomah County officials are seeking public comment through April 10 on the draft plan. A copy of the draft plan and online comment form is available at .

The public can provide feedback in person during two open houses this month:

• March 19, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., at Velo Cult Bike Shop, 1969 N.E. 42nd Ave., Portland

• March 24, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., at June Key Delta Community Center, 5940 N. Albina St., Portland

Also, comments can be emailed to climate@portlandoregon.gov or mailed to RE: 2015 Climate Action Plan, City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, 1900 S.W. Fourth Ave. #7100, Portland, OR 97201

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There is still time to weigh in on the future of Portland’s Southeast Quadrant before the Stakeholder Advisory Committee completes its draft recommendations on how to best accommodate the growing district.

On Thursday the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability will host an open house to report on its goals, policies and proposed actions. The draft report will be published for SAC members in March and for the public in late April, according to Southeast Quadrant Project Manager Troy Doss.

“We’ll release an early version of the plan to the Stakeholder Advisory Committee, take their comments and use them to refine the plan,” Doss said. “Once the plan is released to the public, we’ll take comments and suggestions, and plan to take the final draft to the planning commission for hearings in late May.”

If all goes as planned, Doss said the plan could go before City Council for a vote in July.

“The period after the draft is released in April will be part of the public comment process,” he said. “We’ll share all public comments with the SAC, and those comments will help influence what the final plan looks like.”

Doss said there shouldn’t be many surprises at the open house, because the draft report will organize and outline issues that the SAC has been addressing for months.

“There’s some controversy in terms of land use because we’re planning to expand the definition of industrial zoning to include newer industries that have come along since the (Central Eastside Industrial) District was created,” Doss said. “But most of the growth that will come about because of the zoning changes will be centered in the south part of the district near the new rail stations.”

In addition to zoning, the draft will address transportation, parking and riverfront uses.

The open house Thursday will go from 4 to 7 p.m., at the Oregon Rail Heritage Center, 2250 S.E. Water Ave.

People unable to attend the open house will be able to access information the day of the event at .

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Portland planners this month will host two public meetings to share potential revisions to city mixed-use zoning designations, development and design standards.

The meetings, part of the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability‘s , will take place on Feb. 25 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. and Feb. 26 from 7:30 to 10 a.m. at 1900 S.W. Fourth Ave. in Room 2500. Each session will begin as an informal open house, and follow with a presentation by city staffers. On Feb. 25, the presentation will start at 6:30 p.m.; on Feb. 26 it will start at 8 a.m.

The Mixed Use Zones Project stems from efforts to update the city’s comprehensive plan and encourage development of mixed-use centers for more walkable urban neighborhoods. Currently, the city uses commercial and central employment zones that were created in the 1990s, when car-centric developments and lower-density commercial projects were more common.

In a briefing on the project last week, senior planner Barry Manning told the Portland Design Commission that a preliminary zoning concept was released last fall and that city staffers are in the process of developing the new codes. Plans call for consolidating the current nine zones that relate to mixed-use buildings down to four zones catered to the size of the development, he said.

Planners have also used community feedback to craft potential revisions to development and design standards along the city’s commercial corridors, Manning said. Standards could relate to building articulation and massing, and require windows on a certain percentage of the ground-floor space.

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Some Irvington residents want their properties’ inclusion in the Portland historic district reversed; next month they’ll have a chance to plead their case.

The Oregon State Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation on Feb. 20 will consider an application to decrease and redraw the boundaries of the Irvington Historic District, excluding an approximately 27-block area in the northeast quadrant.

The area in question – bounded on the north by Northeast Fremont Street, on the south by Northeast Knott Street and to the east and west by Northeast 21st and 27th avenues – shouldn’t be considered part of the Irvington neighborhood at all, according to longtime resident Jim Brown. He is chairman of the Alameda Neighborhood Association‘s land use committee, and is heading the Alameda-Irvington Overlap Committee‘s efforts to get the boundary changed.

The area Brown and his supporters want removed is in an “overlap area” shared by the Alameda and Irvington neighborhoods.

Kirk Ranzetta, a senior architectural historian with AECOM who in 2010 compiled and submitted the application to establish the Irvington Historic District, said official neighborhood boundary lines were drawn in the 1970s as a way to organize areas for ease of citizen participation in local governing issues. Prior to that, boundaries were less static and formed organically.

Ian Johnson, who’s been handling the issue for the State Historic Preservation Office, said boundaries of historic districts change as buildings are added or removed or as more information is learned about the area.

“Historic district boundaries can change over time, and minor boundary adjustments aren’t unheard of,” Johnson said. “But this is unusual. It’s the first time in my eight years here that I’ve seen this come up.”

Prior to approval, SHPO posted the required notice in local papers.

“It’s a little bit like yelling into a windstorm,” Johnson said. “When you have a district of that size it’s hard to get every resident’s attention, and per national registry regulations, folks are considered to be in favor of the district unless they submit a notarized letter saying they want to opt out.”

Oregon considers applications on behalf of the National Parks Service, Johnson said. Addition to the national registry has no impacts on personal property rights. On the other hand, addition to the national registry triggers local land use regulations through the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability – something that doesn’t sit right with Brown and his supporters.

“Pocketbook and property rights issues are (a) concern for homeowners,” Brown said. “Changes to exteriors of homes and garages over 200 square feet require historic resource review, involving fees and delays. Minor alteration review fees can be as little as $250, but major changes can run many thousands of dollars.”

Brown and about 20 volunteers in 2013 canvased the overlap blocks, surveying property owners’ desire to remain in the Irvington Historic District. Of the 707 property owners in the area, 563 responded, Brown said. Of the respondents, nearly 80 percent said they wanted their property out of the historic district.

“I started getting letters from people because they weren’t able to make changes to their homes because of the historic designation,” he said. “I wound up with a list of about 75 people who wrote to me, so we decided to try and do something about it, to find out what people want.”

Inclusion or exclusion from the historic district, at this point, isn’t just about what people want, Johnson said.

“They have to do more than just say they don’t want to be in the district,” he said. “They have to prove that the nomination was in error.”

Irvington Community Association President Steven Cole – whose home sits in the overlap area that would be excluded if the boundaries are redrawn – and Ranzetta are confident their original boundaries are appropriate.

“I’m pretty confident we can rebut their technical arguments,” Cole said.

The committee wanting the overlap excluded argues that Ranzetta erred in his claim that the 26-block area meets two of the four requirements: that the area is “a good example of a streetcar suburb,” and that the structures in the area “show significant examples of architecture typical to that period,” Ranzetta said.

When researching the area, Ranzetta considered historical record, platting information for the original Irvington neighborhood, architectural similarities between buildings and development timeframes. The overlap committee contends that Ranzetta’s findings were wrong.

“During my 14 years growing up in Irvington in the 1950s, nearly all of the overlap area was referred to as Alameda,” Brown said. “And that is how most property owners see it today; a matter of neighborhood identity.”

The public is invited to submit comments prior to the Feb. 20 meeting by emailing Johnson at ian.johnson@oregon.gov.

After the meeting, the State Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation has 45 days to make a recommendation to the National Parks Service, Johnson said. The parks service then has 90 days to announce its decision; Johnson expects that to happen in mid-July.

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Every year, Americans throw away enough steel to rebuild Manhattan, enough aluminum to rebuild the nation’s entire commercial air fleet four times over, and enough wood to heat 50 million homes for 20 years, according to Edward Humes in his 2012 book “Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash.”

Locally, officials at city and regional levels say developers and builders aren’t recycling half as much as they think they are. Portland requires that at least 75 percent of materials from construction projects valued over $50,000 be recycled. But that isn’t preventing a lot of items from landing in landfills.

“The big, shocking component is … around 20 to 25 percent of our landfill material is related to construction and demolition activities,” said Shawn Wood, construction waste specialist for the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. “It’s even more in some areas. In some areas it’s as much as half related to it.”

Wood said people’s false notions about sustainability are helping to build that mountain of waste. For instance, Portland’s 75 percent requirement allows builders to dump various materials into the same bin. Some people might think that when all project materials go into one recycling bin, all are being recycled – but they aren’t.

After being twisted, compacted and crunched into recycle bins, those “recyclables” go to a material recovery facility – or MRF – and are dumped onto a conveyer belt and sorted by line workers. By the time they get through the jumbled mess, Wood said, they’re typically able to save only about 25 to 40 percent. The rest goes to a landfill.

Some MRFs claim to recycle 80 percent of the materials they receive, but Wood said that’s because they’re counting the residual stuff pulverized in the demolition and delivery process, and used instead of soil for landfill cover. Omit that “alternative daily cover” material and their recycling rates are closer to 25 to 40 percent.

“Recycling is almost at the bottom of the waste hierarchy pyramid,” Wood said. “It’s ‘reduce, re-use, recycle,’ and recycle is at the end of the list for a reason. Other than it going straight to the landfill, it’s the least desirable outcome.”

That is unless contractors separate the waste by material, in which case the amount recycled jumps to 95 to 100 percent. An even more sustainable option is deconstruction – methodically dismantling buildings in the reverse order they were built, and then reusing the materials.

DeConstruction Services – a contracting arm of the ReBuilding Center on North Mississippi Avenue – can typically salvage 85 percent of a building’s major components for reuse. The rest gets recycled.

“Someone was quoted from a construction company saying, ‘That’s great if you want to pay 15 times the amount (of demolition),’ ” ReBuilding Center Executive Director Shane Endicott said. “But we (cost) barely more than the demo.”

Deconstruction can actually be more cost-effective than demolition in some situations, he said. As a general rule, deconstruction of an average house costs about 15 percent more, but that’s not taking into account for donating building materials.

“When you take in tax subsidies, we have clients that come out way on top,” Endicott said.

For instance, DeConstruction Services once gutted a Northwest Portland house for $5,000. The value of the resulting tax write-off was more than $20,000.

Another benefit of deconstruction, Endicott said, is that because of overhead-related costs, it can support eight jobs while demolition may rely on one excavator. He believes this presents an opportunity for excavation companies to grow, and said he would speak with anybody interested to learn more.

Deconstruction was actually commonplace in the first half of the 20th century, but fell out of favor in the 1970s, according to Endicott. He said that’s a shame because there’s a huge market for used building materials. Today, the ReBuilding Center moves an average of eight tons of materials per day. People from all over the world buy its materials; a few weeks ago, a man from Japan purchased 150 light fixtures.

In the past, companies paid the ReBuilding Center to take their large timber beams. Now the nonprofit can’t buy them because they’re in such high demand.

“By simply changing our relationship with (waste) and getting it into reuse, (the ReBuilding Center has) been able to change that same material into an asset that’s benefited the community – socially, economically and throughout the whole spectrum of sustainability,” he said.

The ReBuilding Center sells those used materials for 25 cents on the dollar, and since 1998 has saved customers approximately $75 million, according to Endicott. The self-sustaining nonprofit has totaled approximately $25 million in sales in that time, providing full benefits to roughly 35 employees off of what the community formerly was paying to throw away, he said.

Some ReBuilding Center employees have left to create their own for-profit models, and Endicott said that if others want to do the same he’ll gladly share his business plan.

Other than tax subsidies or resale of materials, however, local municipalities don’t have a lot of carrots they can dangle in front of developers to convince them to choose deconstruction, Wood said. But there is one more benefit. As demolition activity grows in Portland, so does neighborhood opposition. Wood said deconstruction can be a powerful olive branch.

“It’s like capital punishment – we care how things die,” he said. “Standing in front of 20 rifles is different than injection, and it’s kind of the same thing with deconstruction.”

Demolition and waste

According to data compiled by Shawn Wood, construction waste specialist for the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, the city in 2013 received 273 applications for single-family home demolitions. That is up from 209 in 2012 and just 140 in 2011. Through June 3, the city received 135 applications, so this year’s total is on track to exceed 300 (not counting remodels, which Wood says account for 85 percent of construction waste).

An average Portland home is approximately 1,119 square feet, and every square foot produces close to 115 pounds of waste, according to Wood. So, if all 273 of those demolitions planned last year were to move forward, they would produce roughly 17,565 tons of waste – with at least 10,539 tons going into landfills (assuming a 40 percent recycle rate).

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