Portland officials say a novel law pushing deconstruction of old houses is proving successful.

The city will soon certify a new crop of deconstruction contractors under a law championed by former Mayor Charlie Hales and passed near the end of his term. Additionally, it’s likely that a May progress report will ask the City Council to expand the threshold of houses covered under the ordinance, from those built in 1916 and earlier, to 1920 and earlier, according to Camille Elmore-Trummer, spokeswoman for the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.

Deconstruction is described by proponents as the dismantlement of a structure with an eye toward maximizing material reuse and minimizing environmental and health impacts. Supporters hope Portland’s law, said to be the only one of its kind in the U.S., will help establish deconstruction as a new sub-trade in construction.

Since Portland’s law went into effect Oct. 31, 2016, 22 home demolition projects have fallen under the ordinance.

Twelve “Certified Deconstruction Firms” are registered with the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. All took part last summer in a course facilitated by consultancy Earth Advantage. Among them are startups dedicated solely to deconstruction, small homebuilders and large-material-removal specialists that intended to expand their reach.

Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office last week held a press event at a 112-year-old house at 1909 N.W. Third Ave. in Northwest Portland. He was scheduled to meet with the 15 students of the training course, but canceled.

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Deconstruction – thoughtfully taking apart a building with an eye toward material reuse – is not a new idea. But Portland is preparing to make it the new normal.

The City Council recently passed a law, backed by Mayor Charlie Hales, that requires deconstruction of houses built prior to 1917 and all buildings designated historic. After the law takes effect this fall, only contractors certified by the city will be authorized to handle such projects.

So the city is working with Earth Advantage to prepare a workforce of contractors. The classroom for certification this week is a vacant, 35-year-old, single-family home in the Pleasant Valley area. Signs on windows indicate that the property is used by the Portland Police Bureau for canine training, and debris in the upstairs hallway indicates that it’s also used by the bomb squad.

The city’s instructor is Dave Bennink, a Bellingham, Wash., resident who travels around the country instructing in deconstruction. Portland’s program is indeed unique, he said, though Boulder, Colo., also has a robust one, and Vancouver, British Columbia, has maybe the best program he’s seen.

Bennink has contributed chapters to the authoritative book on deconstruction – the Building Materials Reuse Association’s “Introduction to Deconstruction.” Copies were distributed at the training session earlier this week.

“If you demolish your (building) and send everything to the landfill, you’re paying twice – for the demolition, and for the new materials,” he said.

Monday featured a skills assessment where experienced contractors were able to demonstrate they didn’t need the full course. Tuesday and Wednesday were full instruction days involving lecture and demonstrations.

Most companies were represented by an owner. A few sent more than one representative. Some students were members of firms that perform deconstruction – Rose City Disposal sent three people, and the ReBuilding Center was represented by longtime materials reuse advocate Stephen Reichard.

Most of the other participants this week were members of the city’s Prime Contractors Development Program, which helped enable grants to cover course fees. In the future, deconstruction training will run upwards of $1,700, depending on class size.

One thought behind the training is that graduates will pass on what they learned to co-workers and subordinates. After Oct. 31, when the law goes into effect, only businesses with an employee certified in deconstruction will be allowed to perform the work.

Dan Mohrmann, proprietor of Pelican Deconstruction, Salvage and Design, said he feels the winds of change, and wants to be ahead of the curve with adoption of the city’s deconstruction policy. He’s performed the work before, and wants to ensure he’s able to continue after Halloween.

Mohrmann was one of several students seen yawning during a long lecture.

“A lot of us aren’t used to sitting still for that long,” he said.

When Denise Shaw, general manager of Ruffin Construction, debated which employee to send for the certification training, she had about 10 to choose from. She selected her son and business partner, Patrick, who is expected to take over for her one day. The Shaws expect certification in deconstruction to lead to more work for them, but don’t expect it to radically alter their lives.

“You know, if there’s going to be a list of contractors that do (deconstruction), it will be nice to be on that list,” Patrick Shaw said.

City officials hope that with deconstruction’s relatively low bar of entry in terms of cost and skill, the emerging industry segment will provide women and minorities a foothold for growth.

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Portland is still on track to become the first city in the country to require deconstruction of some structures.

The Portland City Council on Wednesday heard arguments from representatives of the building industry as well as supporters of historic preservation, and in the end remained committed to an Oct. 31 implementation date for a policy that would require deconstruction of structures built in 1916 or earlier and those designated historic.

“The historic resolution adopted by the City Council is tremendously exciting for us,” said Stephen Reichard, executive director of the ReBuilding Center in Portland.

The Deconstruction of Buildings Law, sponsored by Mayor Charlie Hales, is intended to increase salvage of valuable materials, reduce emissions and landfill waste and minimize other adverse effects of standard demolition, such as dust and noise. The Bureau of Planning and Sustainability will have to report back to the council within the first six to 12 months the law is in effect.

Some people who testified at Wednesday’s rule-making session asked the council to push up the cutoff date from 1916, to include more buildings. Others from the building community said October was too soon for implementation.

Paul Grove of the Home Builders Association can accept the ordinance; however, he expressed concern about a possible insufficiency of firms certified by the city to perform deconstruction. He said the practice could also add to the cost of projects, and thus, the cost of homes.

“I think the last thing we want is to raise housing prices,” he said.

Under the , after October, some projects in Portland will require certified firms to carry out deconstruction. The city will offer training in July.

Deconstruction – i.e., taking apart a structure with an eye toward reuse of materials – doesn’t require special equipment or skills, and most demolition-focused firms can perform either process for a client. But because of the time required for deconstruction, the practice usually costs an owner thousands more dollars per project, up to 80 percent, according to the city.

So to encourage owners and help cover the gap, the city in September 2015 established a grant program divvying state Department of Environmental Quality dollars. To date, it has funded 11 projects up to $2,500 each. The Bureau of Planning and Sustainability plans to seek additional dollars from DEQ.

In February, the council approved a resolution to draft rules to get the ball rolling.

In 2015, 337 single-family homes in Portland were demolished. Of those, 30 were deconstructed. The city estimates 4,800 tons of material from those razings ended up in a landfill, and material worth $5 million was not repurposed.

A different effort by Hales to raise revenue for affordable housing by supporting deconstruction was met with harsh criticism. He planned to charge $25,000 for “one-for-one” demolitions of old homes, but the idea was sunk before a formal vote.

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One construction sector is being heavily disrupted because of changing attitudes and new laws: demolition.

Builders and developers in the Portland area are being pressured to . Proponents of deconstruction (i.e., taking a structure apart with recovery of reusable materials in mind) have a host of arguments in their favor: environmental stewardship, salvage, historical considerations, public health and aesthetics. Now Portland Mayor Charlie Hales wants to make the practice the norm.

Hales’ long-term goal, according to spokeswoman Sara Hottman, is to require deconstruction for some structures – starting with houses age 100 or older. The Portland City Council on Wednesday will hear a proposal that would get the ball rolling. The potential ordinance would require deconstruction for structures built in 1916 or earlier, or if designated as historic resources.

The 1916 date was chosen because one-third of homes demolished in Portland were built before that year, and the city’s Deconstruction Advisory Group, which prepared the proposed resolution, set one-third as a target for reducing demolitions.

The DAG was established by the council last summer to devise a plan to incentivize deconstruction. Its meetings were a “lively” affair due to the diversity of the interests represented on the committee, said DAG member Stephen Reichard, who runs the .

“We ran the gamut from folks who would like every single home in Portland deconstructed to those who would like none deconstructed,” he said.

Hales’ support for deconstruction is part of his larger agenda to address the negative effects of demolition, which are said to include harm to health and the environment. Another tool he’s looking at to address this is revising residential infill development standards, according to Hottman.

The group United Neighborhoods for Reform recently issued a statement declaring reluctant support for the Hales’ resolution.

“We are supporting the resolution as written,” the statement reads. “However, we ask the (Portland City) Council to amend the resolution to compress the timeline and more quickly expand the date requirement to affect more houses.”

Last year, approximately 300 single-family homes were demolished in Portland, and the mayor’s office is worried that number will rise as the economy improves.

One barrier to the advancement of deconstruction is that it typically costs between $3,000 and $6,000 more than demolition. To help, the city has offered grants to homeowners. So far, eight projects have received $25,000, and the city has applied for additional grants from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

This is occurring at a time of drastic change in waste recovery. of the SP Fiber Technologies paper mill in Newberg in November set off a chain reaction, according to Wood. The mill burned wood – mainly treated or processed wood – for energy, and received about 85 percent of the Portland-metro area’s wood waste. Wood formerly sold for use as fuel now goes to the landfill, and the cost to dispose of treated or processed wood is significantly higher.

Andy Webber, president of Konell Construction and Demolition Corp., called it a “real game-changer.”

“We went from being able to dispose of wood for free to paying $97 per ton for disposal,” he said. “And that just gets passed right down the line.”

Webber’s business performs both deconstruction and demolition. He said many more downtown clients are now asking to keep materials like timber beams for reuse.

“We started out just doing (deconstruction) for the environmental aspect of it,” he said. “But obviously with the dump fees being what they are in Portland right now, and not being able to get rid of wood waste, I mean that’s obviously a driving factor in this.”

A year ago, approximately 50 to 60 percent of a demolished house in Portland was burned as fuel, said Shawn Wood, the city’s construction waste specialist. “Today it’s closer to 0 percent.”

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The city of Portland has around $25,000 remaining in grant money available to people interested in deconstructing their home.

The grants are offered to promote the salvage of reusable materials and discourage the waste associated with mechanical demolition.

The previous funding period ended Dec. 31. The Bureau of Planning and Sustainability has accepted applications for the current funding period since September, and about half the allotted money has already been awarded.

The maximum grant size is $2,500 for full deconstruction, and $500 for partial projects. Applications are limited to houses or duplexes within Portland city limits. People interested in grant money can apply online by visiting .

Though the current funding period doesn’t have an end date set, the money could run out by spring, said Shawn Wood, the city’s construction materials specialist.

BPS has applied for an additional $50,000 for deconstruction grants from the state Department of Environmental Quality. DEQ will announce the grant recipients next month.

As part of a push to address long-standing issues related to housing and homelessness, Mayor Charlie Hales recently proposed and then dropped a plan to charge developers $25,000 for “one-for-one” home demolitions.

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When Northeast Portland resident Margaret Davis last week saw clouds of dust coming from a nearby house being demolished, she worried about what the dust contained.

“If you lived nearby, your home, any play structure or barbecue in your yard and your vegetable garden would be covered in the dust emanating from this demolition,” she said.

Davis made her statement to the Portland City Council at its June 3 meeting as it considered a resolution to encourage deconstruction over mechanical demolition in instances when both are options. During deconstruction, a house is dismantled piece by piece to recycle as much as possible – as opposed to mechanical demolition that can produce more waste and clouds of possible toxic dust.

The resolution, introduced by Mayor Charlie Hales, promised to “provide incentives, training and technical assistance to promote voluntary deconstruction as a viable alternative to mechanical demolition.”

The resolution, which passed unanimously, will focus on residential demolition beginning with a pilot program this fall. The Deconstruction Advisory Group, which conceived the resolution, will report back to the council with pilot program results in January 2016.

Davis, a member of United Neighbors for Reform, said federal studies have shown that dust from demolitions can travel up to 400 feet.

“The house (being demolished) was under 600 square feet, but the dust kept coming all day long and continued this week,” she said.

Davis told the council she would like to see an even stronger resolution.

“Make deconstruction mandatory and fast-track its implementation,” she said. “And in doing so, you will put a stop to the toxic clouds no one should have to ingest.”

In addition, dismantling a house piece by piece for recycling means less waste in landfills, said Shawn Wood, the city’s construction waste specialist.

Wood said the pilot program would include a two-day training in September, technical assistance on job sites and promotion in the community. Because deconstruction takes longer and costs more than mechanical demolition, short-term financial incentives could come from $50,000 in the city’s Solid Waste Management Fund Reserve, he said.

The pilot program will be the first phase, Wood said; ensuing phases will be determined after pilot program results are weighed by City Council.

“We will figure out how to measure salvaged materials and issues related to compliance,” he said.

Participation in the deconstruction program will be voluntary, Wood said.

Commissioner Nick Fish said he would like the advisory group to look at prior deconstruction projects to see how they work.

“There are lots of experts,” Wood said. “Seattle uses hybrid deconstruction where they use an excavator to lower walls (to be deconstructed) for more speed and lower costs,” he said.

The value of recycled construction materials is great, said Joe Connell, vice president of retail operations for Habitat for Humanity. Retail operations for the nonprofit last year brought in $3 million in sales, raised $1 million to build new homes, produced 10 million to 12 million pounds of recyclable materials and created 33 new jobs, he said.

“This was all made possible by reused (building) materials and has tremendous impact,” he said. “I support this resolution because we know we can do more. This is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Maryhelen Kincaid, chairwoman of the city’s Development Review Advisory Committee, said that although some people want to see deconstruction become mandatory, she “doesn’t want to see anyone demonized” for not using it, because she believes it will eventually catch on.

“We heard a lot of complaints about curbside recycling, but now it’s a community event to get the garbage cans out,” she said. “This is a good way to teach people how to do good things. It will create jobs and save precious resources.”

Alando Simpson of City of Roses Disposal & Recycling told the council that the resolution will create more “green collar” jobs.

“As someone who lives and breathes recycling, this resolution will enable our firm to expand,” he said.

When deconstruction is used, according to the resolution, it “allows for the systematic discovery and further abatement of hazardous materials such as asbestos, lead and mercury, which can go undiscovered when using mechanical demolition.”

Before the meeting, Dave Nielsen, CEO of the Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland, said he was glad the resolution encouraging deconstruction was not made mandatory. The HBA conducts training on both waste and health issues related to residential construction through its sustainability education programs and lead-based paint certification classes.

Nielsen sent a letter to City Council supporting the resolution, but he said concerns over health issues tied to mechanical demolition were overblown.

“It’s been a scare tactic, about lead and asbestos in the air,” he said. “(The Department of Environmental Quality) already regulates that and our most well-attended class is our lead-based paint certification class.”

According to an impact statement from the Deconstruction Advisory Group, deconstruction can help the local economy because it creates six jobs for every one in mechanical demolition. It also creates more work for contractors, retailers, designers and carpenters, the report states.

“Deconstruction also reduces the likelihood of neighboring properties and material recovery facility workers being exposed to hazardous materials such as asbestos, lead and mercury,” it states.

Brandon Spencer-Hartle of Restore Oregon, who served on the advisory committee, told City Council that mechanical demolition of a typical 1,200-square-foot house generates 138,000 pounds of waste. He suggested that the city phase in a disincentive landfill tax on mechanical demolition.

Hales responded that options are being explored.

“I’ve already talked to staff about drafting disincentives to mechanical demolition – a logical next step,” he said.

Commissioner Amanda Fritz asked Wood about a regional approach to encouraging deconstruction.

“We are working closely with Metro staff and talked to them about additional funds,” he said. “And we have interest from Clackamas and Washington counties and Seattle and Puget Sound.”

Hales closed the meeting by reminiscing about reusing building materials personally.

“We have miles and miles of great old streets with great old houses,” he said. “Forty years ago this summer I was helping my mom and dad build a house with a floor of 150-year-old heart pine. The beauty of the old material was part of the joy of that house.”

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About 85 percent of the materials from the deconstruction will be reclaimed for reuse, according to Shane Endicott, executive director of The ReBuilding Center.

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Two old apartment buildings on the corner of Northeast Sixth Avenue and Couch Street are disappearing slowly. The vanishing act is the painstaking work of The ReBuilding Center, which provides deconstruction services as a sustainable alternative to demolition.

Developer Brad Fowler of acquired the buildings – one with four stories and one with two and a half – in 2006. He has since planned for the half-block between Couch and Davis streets to be transformed into a mixed-use development. But he didn’t want to sacrifice historic materials in the process.

While deconstruction does cost significantly more – up to 50 percent more, according to Fowler – than traditional demolition, the existing buildings’ character led to the decision in favor of the six-week-long deconstruction project.

J.D. Elder, president of , estimated that a traditional demolition would have removed the buildings safely in less than two weeks and would have cost about five times less. Materials would have been recycled rather than salvaged.

Fowler noted that the buildings were constructed in the early 1900s, and had systems and an envelope that were in disrepair. However, he added that many fixtures, trim work and even functional pocket doors with original stained finishes were worth saving.

“It was the right thing to do,” Fowler said. “Our feeling was that it would be a shame to waste all of the old-growth lumber (approximately 105 years old) that could be reclaimed.”

The tax benefit of deconstruction also can shrink a cost gap substantially, depending on the value of reclaimed and donated materials. They will be appraised at the end of the process, Fowler said.

“Given the size of the new project, our feeling is that, although it won’t be easy, we can absorb this difference – especially if the majority of materials can be reclaimed,” he said.

Fowler contacted Shane Endicott, executive director of , to begin deconstructing the combined 11,439 square feet. The team is working backward from the way the apartments were built, systematically removing materials from the roof to the foundation by hand. Salvaged items are then loaded onto custom racks, inventoried and either donated to community projects or transported to the reuse warehouse on North Mississippi Avenue, where visitors can browse through sinks, tubs, tile, lumber, doors, windows, trim and more.

The Couch Street apartments is the largest single project The ReBuilding Center has taken on in the past seven years, said Endicott, who expects that 85 percent of materials from the deconstruction will be reclaimed for reuse.

“Doing this is definitely not the fastest way to get the buildings down, but it’s going to yield the most environmental benefits,” Endicott said. A poster near the work site displays the approximate benefits that the nail-by-nail, board-by-board removal will yield. According to The ReBuilding Center, because deconstruction was chosen instead of demolition, the project is saving the equivalent of 189 mature trees, 2,860 pounds of greenhouse gases from being released and 13,727 gallons of fresh, clean water from being used.

Despite a longer process and larger expense, Fowler was committed to making it work, Endicott said. The sustainable deconstruction is making way for contractor to start work this fall on eight live-work units, 62 market-rate apartments and 3,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

The modern exterior of the building will update the look of the Northeast Portland corner, and will feature a common rooftop deck, rooftop-mounted solar panels to assist in heating hot water and generous bicycle storage. Plus, the Vallaster and Corl Architects team incorporated turn-of-the-century recovered materials into the design.

“It’s a close enough equation where it really makes sense to look at it,” Fowler says of opting for deconstruction. “If you go by the site, you can see how much is being salvaged. It’s remarkable.”

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