The Portland City Council on Thursday agreed to adopt changes to zoning rules that will exempt some affordable housing projects from lengthy Design Commission reviews.

The changes to the zoning rules – Design Overlay Zone Amendments (DOZA) – are meant to accelerate projects through the city’s approval process at a time when city leaders and affordable housing advocates say the city continues to face a housing shortage.

Several affordable housing advocates testified in support of the changes.

“We believe DOZA is poised to greatly improve the design review process and encourage more abundant and more affordable housing that Portland desperately needs,” said Johann Hannesson, a volunteer with Portland Neighbors Welcome, a group that advocates for easing restrictions on building housing.

Perhaps the most significant change is allowing affordable housing project teams to choose Type II or Type III design review. Type II reviews are handled by Bureau of Development Services staff, while Type III reviews go before the Design Commission, which often examines a project during several meetings – a process that can take months.

The new criteria would allow projects with at least 50 percent of units available to renters at or below 60 percent of median family income to choose a design review path.

“The more that we can do to create easy and straightforward paths for people who are trying to provide more of that affordable housing, the better,” said David Binnig, a North Portland resident.

The changes were brought to commissioners by the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability as a package of eight zoning amendments. Commissioners on Thursday approved six of the amendments and withdrew two others.

One of the withdrawn amendments, Amendment 5, would have lowered the threshold for design review from 75 feet to 55 feet, except for projects meeting certain affordable housing criteria. Amendment 7 was also withdrawn; it would have required a ground-floor active use standard along a section of North Interstate Avenue.

Chandra Robinson, a member of the Design Commission and a principal at LEVER Architecture, criticized efforts to limit the scope of design review.

“The impact of a seven-story building … cannot be underestimated; it’s very great on a neighborhood,” she said, adding that she was speaking only for herself.  “Do you really want to see seven-story buildings spring up around Portland when the residents have not had the opportunity to come to a hearing and express their thoughts on how that building impacts the context, character and feel of their neighborhood?”

The Arbor Lodge Neighborhood Association supported Amendment 7. Mark Wyman, a neighborhood association board member, said similar ground-floor active use requirements nearby had not deterred housing development.

“You can see with your own eyes that there’s plenty of new housing coming online, including 100 percent affordable housing,” he said.

Among the other amendments is one that adds optional design standards for main streets. Another tweaks the criteria of Design Commission membership, making natural resource management and sustainability expertise an option for five development-related positions (instead of reserving a separate position for each expertise).

Commissioners also approved Amendment 8, which directs BPS to create character statements for neighborhoods within the design overlay zone. Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty voted against Amendment 8, making it the only amendment to pass by a nonunanimous vote.

“My concern is: Whose character are we going to write into the standard?” Hardesty asked. “I am troubled by (Amendment 8) and not sure if I can support it today.”

Hardesty said she’s open to further conversations about the amendment.

Mayor Ted Wheeler spoke in support of Amendment 8.

“I want to make it clear that these character statements help our city manage how it grows, adding a hyper-local context,” he said.

Kristen Minor, chairwoman of the Planning Commission, said Amendment 8 would add some teeth to the city’s weak context standards.

“Design review cannot rely on zoning street classifications and weak standards alone,” she said. “Those standards are weak when it comes to context, and that’s what this amendment is about.”

The zoning amendments will return to the council on June 23 for a vote on the amended findings and a draft ordinance.

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Design review is coming to more of Portland’s neighborhoods.

The city is reviewing public comments to its discussion draft of the Design Overlay Zone Amendments that would expand design review.

Some neighborhoods, such as Hollywood and St. Johns, have had design overlays for a year or longer. For others, including Slabtown, the Killingsworth-Interstate area and Division Midway in east Portland, the DOZA revamp would add a layer of design review intended to better integrate new buildings into neighborhoods.

“It’s supporting the growth and change we’re seeing,” said Lora Lillard, a senior planner with the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.

The code updates aim to improve building quality and resilience, and ensure compatibility with Portland neighborhoods, Lillard said. Several neighborhood associations have lobbied for design overlays that would give city officials greater influence on building design in neighborhood corridors.

Multifamily architects and developers are wrestling with the implications.

“In many ways it will be good to have the (design) overlay in places where it hasn’t been, just to improve the quality of projects in the neighborhood and fitting into the neighborhood,” said Kurt Schultz, principal at SERA Architects, a prolific multifamily designer.

The design overlays still provide flexibility, Schultz said.

Developers are wary of any changes that would result in greater delays or added costs. Multifamily development has slowed, and many developers expect the slowdown to deepen because of construction costs, regulatory obstacles and market conditions.

The DOZA process would continue to give applicants the option, as required by state law, to meet community design standards. A points-based system – not unlike those used by environmental certification programs such as LEED – would give applicants several pathways to meeting design standards.

“The intent is interesting,” said Sam Rodriguez, managing director of Mill Creek Residential Trust and a member of the Design Commission. “It’s trying to create a prescriptive path with options. Right now the neighborhood design standards are pretty prescriptive. You do a cornice like this, a window like this … and you get pretty much the same building every single time. They’re trying to do something that has some flexibility. So we’re analyzing it and seeing what are the consequences.”

The DOZA updates would require Type III design reviews by the Portland Design Commission for any project in the overlay zones meeting or exceeding 65 feet in height or 80,000 square feet in building area.

The updates also would create a new Type I design review for small alterations to buildings – a new awning, for example – that would be decided by Bureau of Development Services staff members without the Design Commission weighing in. In essence, DOZA would widen the Design Commission’s oversight throughout the city while letting smaller projects speed through a more streamlined staff approval process.

It remains to be seen how the DOZA updates would affect the workload of the Design Commission, a volunteer board that already meets nearly every week.

After the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability reviews public comments, a proposed draft will be issued this summer. That will be followed by rare joint hearings of the Planning and Sustainability Commission and the Design Commission in the fall. Another draft, known as the recommended draft, would follow during the winter, with adoption by the City Council projected in spring 2020.

The Design Commission weighed in on the DOZA changes in a May 1 letter that was critical of their complexity and lack of requirements regarding neighborhood character. The standards “do nothing to preserve the charming, idiosyncratic character of Portland’s wonderful neighborhoods that have been eager for the expansion of the ‘d’ overlay,” Design Commission Chairwoman Julie Livingston wrote. “The lack of code requiring a response to neighborhood character leaves us vulnerable to losing what makes Portland distinct from other cities.”

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The city of Portland in the next several weeks will host a series of open house events that will allow residents to provide input on two city projects influencing neighborhood growth.

City planners are working on draft versions of Design Overlay Zone Amendments (DOZA) and the Historic Resources Code Project (HRCP). New roles for design overlay zones are being proposed for commercial areas throughout the city, while proposed historic resources code amendments would allow the city to have more control over demolition and major alterations to historic resources.

At the upcoming open house events, city planners will give presentations on both projects and receive public input on both.

The first open house is set for 2 to 4 p.m. on March 16, at Taborspace, 5441 S.E. Belmont St. The next one will be from 4 to 7 p.m. on March 19, at the Center for Architecture, 403 N.W. 11th Ave. A third one will take place from 4 to 7 p.m. on April 9, at Bureau of Development Services offices, 1900 S.W. Fourth Ave. A fourth and final one, not yet scheduled, will be at an East Portland location to be determined.

New rules for design overlay zones are being proposed for many commercial areas. City staffers at the meetings will speak about the purpose of design overlay zones, where they would apply, the review process used for applicable projects, and tools used for evaluation.

Meanwhile, the HRCP addresses Portland’s historic buildings and other resources that heretofore have been protected by federal regulations. Proposed amendments to the zoning code would allow the city to have more control over what should be protected from demolition and major alterations. They’re based on public feedback received during an earlier concept development phase.

More information about the two efforts is available at and .

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As frustrating and time-consuming as Portland’s design review process has been for some project teams, it’s not that bad, according to Paul Jeffreys, a designer with Ankrom Moisan Architects.

“I had a career in Britain and did projects in Bellevue (Washington) and went through the design process in Tempe (Arizona),” he said. “The Portland system is a better system than some I have worked with.”

The ability to present in Portland a design to a commission with architectural experience makes the process easier than in cities like Bellevue, which has administrative review overseen by city staff, Jeffreys said.

“Here, you go for a DAR (design advice request), it’s a quicker process; I like that,” he said. “With the DR (design review) hearing, you can frame it however you want and make your case however you want. You try not to come in with a land use attorney, which is different from some places.”

Portland’s system, in place for more than three decades, is in flux. Design review is evolving through implementation of changes from Design Overlay Zone Assessment (DOZA) recommendations.

So far, the Bureau of Development Services (BDS) has tackled administrative, nonlegislative reforms. The bureau has increased training and public notifications, and attempted to accelerate design review hearings.

Soon, the city will begin tackling thornier issues that could have far more serious consequences. One of the biggest challenges will be revising the standards and guidelines that govern the process.

Reforms have potential to streamline the process, give consistency to guideline interpretations and make the system more effective. Such advancement demands outreach, according to Neal Schwartz, founding principal of Schwartz and Architecture in San Francisco.

“I think it is important for the planning departments to see as part of their mission the education of the public about design,” he said. “If they are just reactive or only listening to the voices reluctant to allow cities to evolve, they will never move forward.”

San Francisco’s design review process has become what some architects describe as a Kafkaesque quagmire, in large part due to efforts in the 1990s to reform a small part of the process.

San Francisco’s process runs through its planning department; there is no single design commission. There also is an aspect called discretionary review, which allows nearly anyone in the city to demand review for any project for any reason. As a result, nearly all projects became subject to design review, creating an enormous backlog.

“Portland has a fair amount of public involvement, but nothing like San Francisco,” said Jeff Joslin, San Francisco’s director of planning. “Neighborhoods are extremely engaged. It takes a lot of time and effort.”

Efforts to reform the discretionary review process resulted in creation of the Residential Design Team. But problems began to spring up as the team began trying to interpret guidelines about neighborhood character. Squabbles also erupted between city planners, the historic resource commission and Residential Design Team members. Complicating matters was the fact that, unlike Portland, few city staffers had architectural experience.

“In 15 years, I never had a problem,” said Schwartz, who has worked for more than 20 years in the city. “Then a project that seemed fine got sent to this committee I had never heard of and we got a letter saying we have to change things. A lot of architects didn’t realize what was happening at first.”

Another change in San Francisco required all buildings 50 years or older to be reviewed by a historic review board. The problems intensified as architects began getting contradictory evaluations from the board and the Residential Design Team.

Now, navigation of the process takes projects at least a year. Costs have spiraled and architects have become so frustrated that some refuse to do work within the city.

Three years ago, San Francisco again initiated system reform. Many of those changes are now beginning to take effect, such as bringing on board city staffers with architectural experience.

“Part of what we are doing is professionalizing the process,” said Joslin, who previously spent 12 years with Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. “The goal of high level of design is not easy and not for amateurs. It requires specific and skilled personnel.”

Keeping Portland’s DOZA process on track and avoiding mistakes will depend largely on involvement of all stakeholders. So far, that has been happening. City staffers have held numerous meetings with architects and neighborhood groups.

“There seems to be more balance in Portland talking between staff and the (design) commission,” Jeffreys said.

Meanwhile, Denver and Seattle have systems have evolved so that they’re able to accommodate major construction sprees. Those systems are similar to Portland’s, with the notable exception that both have multiple commissions that govern specific geographic regions or districts. Denver has three commissions, while Seattle has seven boards, each staffed by five commissioners.

“Part of the reason we have developed into more commissions is it’s tied to the district and preserving the character of the district,” said Alexandra O. Foster, Denver communications program manager for community planning and development.

The DOZA report recommends Portland look at creating multiple commissions. The idea has received mixed reviews from stakeholders.

“I think it would reduce their workload,” Jeffreys said. “The goal is to make the process simpler to follow.”

Finding people to staff a second commission could be a major obstacle.

“How can you ensure equitable review?” Portland Design Commission Chairwoman Julie Livingston said. “That has always been what the conversation has come back to: transparency and equitability.”

The changes that are made now will be part of a system that the city’s building industry will have to live with for decades.

“Every city is a function or victim of its own evolution,” Joslin said. “When you make changes, you have to do so in way that is flexible so that they have a long shelf life. I still believe, after studying, working in, and developing numerous design review processes, that Portland’s is among the very best, if not top of the heap.”

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By all rights, Julie Livingston shouldn’t have ended up in the lead seat of the Portland Design Commission – at least, not yet.

When then-Chairman David Wark announced he would step down from the design panel in July, the reins of the commission should have gone next to Tad Savinar, vice president of the group and the commissioner with the longest tenure after Wark.

But Savinar said he felt the position he was already in was the best fit with his schedule, which contains a high amount of travel. That meant that Livingston, who is third in terms of duration on the commission, was next in line.

“I went for drinks one night with David and Tad, and they both looked at me and said, ‘You know it’s you, right?’” Livingston said. “It’s just the way the cards fell.”

Livingston comes to the chairwoman role having previously worked as an architect in her own private practice as well as at Bora Architects. She is currently working with Home Forward, where she serves as an owner’s representative on affordable housing projects. She steps into the Design Commission’s leadership position at a time when the city is seeing some of its most explosive growth.

“It has just been crazy since the day I started, which means it was crazy before I got here,” Livingston said.

While the commission chair position has limited power, the person in that seat can lead commission discussion and form talking points about a project during hearing discussions.  Some who attend Design Commission meetings regularly have noted that the first couple of meetings under Livingston’s leadership have had a more structured format than the freewheeling style of her predecessor.

Wark isn’t surprised that Livingston’s style differs from his. While pace was a concern when he led the group, making sure everyone’s opinion was heard was always his priority.

“My role was to give everyone a voice,” Wark said. “It made for some long commission meetings, but time shouldn’t be the primary concern.

“As chair, it’s a balancing act to give concise feedback but make sure it’s beneficial,” he added. “Every commissioner has their own opinion. It’s like herding the proverbial cats.”

A few of the changes Livingston has already implemented include a clock for those testifying, and breaking discussions into various subjects in an effort to give more structured feedback and speed up hearings.  Structure is one of the most prized aspects applicants say they want in a commission leader.

“I like a chair that can manage the commission to stay on track and adequately give the applicant clear direction, as well get through their docket in a reasonable timeline,” Greg Mitchell, an LRS Architects senior associate, said.

One goal of the city’s Design Overlay Zone Assessment (DOZA) process, aimed at streamlining design review, is speeding up the process while still making sure everyone has their say. One of Livingston’s biggest challenges will be balancing those competing interests.

“It’s a little influence from DOZA,” Livingston said. “We are working to get to a time-certain agenda. I don’t think we will ever get there because of the nature of the beast.”

In addition to applicant and staff testimony, commissioners also hear from local stakeholders such as residents or neighborhood associations during meetings. Then there is time added for rebuttals, and discussions from the commissioners before any decision is ever made. It’s not uncommon for hearings to last more than three hours for large or controversial projects.

“There are a lot of people in the hearing room that are not familiar with the process and they show up at 1:30 and don’t realize their chance of testifying will not happen until 6,” Livingston said. “People just sit there and get more and more frustrated.”

Part of lessening that frustration begins with more public outreach and advocating for the process, Livingston said. Better communication with those new to an intricate process is a big part of trying to lessen frustration.

For the first time, the leader of the Design Commission has a twitter handle – @PortlandDCchair. It’s a sign of the times that the commission is leaning on social media to get its message out.

Livingston’s hope is that using new methods of communication will increase awareness of a process that could reshape many neighborhoods. She takes over as chairwoman at a time when many parts of Portland are changing, leading to more public interest in what the Design Commission does – and how it does it – than ever before.

At the same time the DOZA process, which has been under way for more than two years, will be making revisions to the design guidelines that oversee how buildings in the city will look.

“Rolling out new community design guidelines is going to be a big thing,” Livingston said.

Her hope is that the process will lead to guidelines that will be easier for developers to understand and the Design Commission to enforce. Livingston said the changes the city has gone through in recent years require refreshing guidelines that were written 35 years ago for a city that bears little resemblance to the metro area of today.

Getting those new guidelines right will be a major part of creating a process that is more effective.

“Not everyone gets it the way that people who created it 35 years ago did,” Livingston said. “People who move here say it’s a fantastic city. Why do I need people looking over my shoulder? The guidelines are the most basic building blocks of good urban design.”

She credited those guidelines for creating the urban experience that makes people want to live in Portland.

“The process works, it’s why people want to move here,” Livingston said.

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Issuing recommendations is easy. Implementing them can be hard.

A team of staff members from Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability and Bureau of Development Services is facing a tall order: implementing ideas proposed in the Design Overlay Zone Assessment (DOZA) final report that the City Council accepted earlier this year.

“We are looking at realigning the steps,” said Kathryn Hartinger, city planner and DOZA implementation coordinator.

The report was compiled by a team led by Mark Hinshaw, an urban planner in Walker Macy‘s Seattle office. The recommendations are intended to streamline Portland’s 35-year-old design review process, and include reworking design guidelines as well as running design hearings more efficiently.

“We gave them this report with a list of things that could be done,” Hinshaw said. “As soon as I mentioned them, they started working on them.”

The changes have been divided into three separate “baskets” – administrative, tools and process. Each one is overseen by a manager.

The likely least controversial of those baskets, administrative, will include changes such as increasing staff capacity, improving public notices and developing new tools and training for commissioners and staffers. Administrative items can be instituted without changes to city ordinances.

“One of the things they have already implemented is changes to the notices that are sent out,” Hartinger said.

City code requires that property owners be notified about projects in their area. Renters are now receiving notices as well.

“Code sets the minimum we have to do,” Hartinger said. “We can do more.”

Another change already in place is highly visible to regular attendees of design commission hearings. A large clock now counts down exactly how much time people have to give testimony before the commission. Previously, they only had three small lights that counted down their time allowed.

“Administrative changes will be ongoing,” Hartinger said.

Those changes will likely be the easiest to make. The audience they affect is smaller and the parties largely agree on what should be done. Few people oppose quickening the pace of design hearings or increasing public engagement.

Changes in the tools and process baskets will be trickier to implement. The tools basket will involve changes to city standards and guidelines.

“A lot of the standards were written over 20 years ago,” Hinshaw said. “Some need simplified and updated.”

The challenge in updating standards and guidelines stems from the fact that over the years, the city has simply added items instead of reviewing and revising. The result has become a morass of sometime conflicting ideas between guidelines used by the design commission and objective standards used by city staff.

“(The standards and guidelines) are kind of old,” Hartinger said. “They were written and then things got added. The city kept packing on things. They should relate to each other. They shouldn’t be doing different things.”

Design Commissioner David Wark, who has served through the entire DOZA process, said he sees a golden opportunity to make the city’s process clearer.

“I have confidence that the outcome will be good and the process will go smoothly,” he said.

Clear definitions of nebulous phrases such as “integrating the river” and “Portland character” will help everyone in the process, Wark said.

Implementing such changes means merging the needs and desires of a diverse group of interests. Developers and architects want a system that is efficient, clear and where projects don’t languish for months. Neighborhood groups want rules that don’t require architecture or construction licensure understand.

“It’s so complex and hard for the average person,” said Linda Nettekoven, a community activist and member of the Hosford-Abernethy Neighborhood District Association. “That makes it hard to keep citizens engaged.”

The pace and the depth of the changes coming to the city’s building process makes tracking them difficult.

“We still don’t know what they are going to implement,” Nettekoven said. “There are so many moving parts right now. We just don’t know how those are going to fit together.”

The DOZA recommendations combined with other city efforts to revamp the standards are leaving neighbors confused, Nettekoven said. The city will hold open houses during the implementation process to help educate citizens, Hartinger said.

“We are looking at public workshops,” she said. “One of the main tenets is context in terms of what matters in different parts of the city. Going out to neighborhood coalitions and talking to them is a big part of this process.”

Wark is confident that the city will be able to incorporate all stakeholders’ concerns.

“Portland is good at being inclusive and incorporating a spectrum of opinions,” he said.

In the process basket, changes include amending the purpose statement for design review and realigning the steps. While the new rules will affect commissions differently, they will require coordination between the Design Commission and Planning and Sustainability Commission.

“I think the commissions are aware of what their role is,” Hartinger said. “They are going to be doing some joint meetings. We have been trying to get both commissions on the same page. There is going to be a lot of agreement.”

Once early stages of implementation are completed, changes that require revisions to city ordinance will trigger another lengthy process. First, the city will launch this month a new, public website detailing many of the proposals.

A discussion draft for process changes will be released for public comment in November. Those comments will result in a proposed draft from BPS that will be released in February 2018. The Planning and Sustainability Commission will hold hearings on the proposed draft to process changes and give BPS more changes to make. Once those revisions are made, a recommended draft will go before the City Council next summer. The council will then vote on the draft and any amendments, and the final set of rules will take effect 30 days later.

Changes for the tools will follow the same path with one exception. Changes to the standards will go before the Planning and Sustainability Commission while the guideline changes will go before the Design Commission. The recommended draft is expected to go to the City Council in June 2019.

It’s a long process that has taken many cities years to complete. Hinshaw said it’s pushing for change that can be realistically achieved.

“It’s almost like therapy,” he said. “We are trying to find a mix of things that are easy and some that are tougher. We want to push people without going too far off the edge and raising too many issues.”

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Recommendations deriving from Portland’s are beginning to be put into action by city staffers. The on Monday got its first briefing on how implementation may affect its work.

The recommendations were the result of more than a year of work led by Mark Hinshaw, an urban designer at Walker Macy. Hinshaw and his team studied ways the city could streamline the review process for projects that fall within the city’s various design overlay zones.

Staffers with the Bureau of Development Services (BDS) and Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS) have grouped the recommendations in three different areas.

One area will focus on process and continue through August 2018. BPS will look to amend the purpose statement for design review and adjust the project size thresholds for design review. Also, the review process will be realigned and public notice requirements will be improved.

A second area will focus on administration. BPS staffers will look for ways to increase staff capacity, better manage commission meetings and improve public notification and involvement. Also, staffers will aim to develop tools to support commission deliberation and institute new training for staff.

In the third area, BPS will also spend the next two years studying ways to improve the guidelines and standards that are used by the landmarks and design commissions.

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An effort to analyze the Portland city design process that began more than a year ago culminated with Mark Hinshaw, an urban designer at Walker Macy, submitting his team’s report to the Portland City Council on Wednesday afternoon. The council voted unanimously to accept the report.

“Sometimes people from outside don’t appreciate the passion with which people care about this place,” Hinshaw said. “There are other places where that is less so, frankly.”

The Design Overlay Zone Assessment (DOZA) team spent more than a year on its analysis. City officials hope that the recommendations can be followed to accelerate development of projects subject to review.

“There are certainly very thoughtful development teams that are sincere in their efforts,” Hinshaw said. “Then there are those that are simply getting a project in the ground.”

The city’s goal is to streamline the review process, but also ensure that it continues to improve projects’ designs. To that end, the DOZA team formed nine primary proposals.

The most controversial idea calls for changing the threshold at which projects would go before the full Design Commission rather than face a lower level of scrutiny. New projects could be classified for review by size while alterations would be classified by dollar value. Other possible criteria included height or sensitivity of the site.

“It would allow more time to be spent on higher-impact projects,” Hinshaw said.

Some commissioners expressed concerns that basing thresholds on those criteria would betray earlier promises the council made when height rules were increased last year during zoning discussions.

“I am concerned about bait and switch,” Commissioner Amanda Fritz said. “The whole of last year when we were discussing heights and appropriate zoning, there was the fail-safe that things would go through design review.”

The Design Commission’s option to refuse to allow a building to reach the tallest height allowed by city code benefits the city, Fritz said.

Another proposal would reduce the number of factors that the Design Commission could consider in its decisions. The recommended changes would help reduce the workload burdening city design staff as well as the commission, Hinshaw said.

“We are not trying to point the finger at the commission,” he said.

City commissioners also voiced concern about the impact of design review on affordable housing projects. Hinshaw said that while the review process did add to the cost of affordable housing, it was not the primary reason why housing costs continue to rise in the city.

Some of the DOZA team’s proposals regarding process can be enacted without legislative action. Those that require changes to city code could take up to 18 months, according to city staff.

That drew the ire of Commissioner Dan Salztman, who criticized that estimate and pushed for quicker action.

“I hate to be skeptical, but sometimes I think we do these projects because we want to keep people employed and keep people busy,” he said. “I’m really going to be disappointed if this is dragging out 18 months, and two years from now and we are still talking about ways to improve the design process.”

The full report is available .

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Explosive growth in Portland has brought with it numerous challenges. One is management of the pace of projects’ movement through the city’s often glacial design review process. A team working on a project planned within a design overlay zone that requires a Type III review can find itself in a laborious process before any shovel gets into the ground.

“If I have a client that has gone through the process, they know what to expect,” said Leslie Cliffe, an associate principal at Bora Architects. “If I have an out-of-state developer, in those cases, they are super surprised at the level of input the city gets.”

Even in normal times, the process can be slow. These are not normal times for development in Portland.

“Prior to the 2008 recession was the first wave of hyper-development,” Portland Design Commission Chairman David Wark said. “The last three years, it’s just gotten busier and busier.”

The Design Commission’s job is to make sure that proposals for new construction and modifications to existing structures meet the city’s design guidelines. They apply to approximately 5 percent of the city, but some of its most prime real estate.

In hopes of accelerating the process, the commission, consisting of seven volunteers, has increased its workload from meetings twice a month to at least three times a month. Each meeting consists of four or more hearings, which last between one and three hours, depending on the size of the project. The meetings start at 1:30 p.m. and can last well into the night.

“It’s a minor celebration if we are done by 7:30,” Wark said. “We try to get them done (by then), but often we go past that.”

It’s a far cry from five years ago.

“During that recession, sometimes we didn’t have a commission meeting because there weren’t any projects,” Wark said. “We came out of that around 2012 and 2013.”

That recovery has resulted in a building boom, and the city has strained to keep pace.

“We have hired seven new employees since August 2015,” said Kara Fioravanti, supervising planner with Bureau of Development Services. “It is a significantly bigger boom than any I have experienced in my 20 years here.”

According to state law, a project has to navigate the review process within 120 days of submittal. A project’s first hearing has to take place within 51 days of submittal. But architects can sign waivers releasing the city from the state obligation.

“Every project gets a 120-day waiver,” Cliffe said. “We always sign the waiver.”

By signing the waiver, architects can return before the Design Commission if it denies a project proposal at its first appearance. The waiver also protects appeal rights.

If architects don’t sign the waiver, they can’t provide new or changed information later in the process. Also, if the project were denied, the team would have to start the process over.

Fees for the review process are dependent on a project’s size and range from a minimum of $5,250 to a maximum of $27,000.

“We hit that 51-day mark pretty regularly,” Fioravanti said. “The waiver just allows them to come back. It’s when the applicant chooses to come back for another hearing. That is when the timeline gets extended. They aren’t signing the waivers because the commission is too busy.”

The problem is that few projects receive approval on the first try. Of the seven projects scheduled for a full review by the end of May, four were on at least their second trip before the Design Commission.

None of that includes the time and money spent on a design advice request (DAR). The Design Commission advises architects and developers to seek a DAR, which costs an additional $2,520, before the review hearing. During the DAR hearing, the commission informs a project team of aspects that could pose problems meeting the guidelines. This hearing takes place early enough in the process so that changes can be made without incurring large costs for developers.

While most architects seek a DAR hearing, scheduling can cause problems. Developers usually have a strict timeline. A long wait for a hearing can force contractors to delay when they seek bids for construction services.

“I had a project that it was going to be 11 weeks before they could schedule a DAR,” Cliffe said. “It required me to eliminate design advice because it would shift the hearing into the construction document phase.”

Commissioner Tad Savinar said that applicants can look to their colleagues for tips on navigating the process quickly.

“We have a lot of firms that get through on one DAR and one hearing,” he said. “Why are those groups getting through? There is a host of things that the applicant can do to improve their performance within this hearing.”

The city is trying to address developers’ issues. The number of staffers devoted to producing reports and making recommendations to both the Design Commission and the Historic Landmarks Commission has increased by seven since August 2015.

Also, in 2016 the Design Commission published “A Guide to the City of Portland Design Review Process” to serve as a best practices document for area developers and architects.

Project teams also can help accelerate the process, Wark said.

“The biggest thing that helps is if applicants are more responsive to the guidelines,” he said. “That way we don’t have the same project coming in time after time and taking up the spot of another project.”

Some architects are taking the advice to heart. More projects are gaining approval on their first hearing. Hacker’s recent Ladd’s Addition project received approval at its first hearing and won commissioners’ praise for meeting guidelines.

On the other end of the spectrum is developer Landon Crowell’s Ankeny Apartments. The project appeared before the Design Commission five times before denial was granted and an appeal was made to the City Council.

The delay, now several months, has cost Crowell and his investors nearly $120,000, he said. Crowell and Yost Grube Hall Architecture, for their initial proposal, decided to rely on information from a pre-application meeting instead of a full DAR.

“Our idea was to have the superstructure in place by March (2017),” Crowell said. “You are always trying to get six or seven people to agree. Then they switch in the middle of the discussion or discuss things that aren’t in the guidelines.”

Keeping meetings on point and strictly focused on the guidelines is a major suggestion of the Design Overlay Zone Assessment (DOZA), which is intended to streamline the development review process.

Suggestions in the final DOZA report included imposing new thresholds of when projects would have to go through the full review process. Smaller projects would go through Type II reviews requiring only staff approval.

The report also suggested revising community design guidelines and narrowing the focus. That suggestion met with Wark’s approval.

“We need to simplify the design guidelines with the same level of flexibility,” he said. “The biggest things to aid the process are the design guidelines need to be updated and the community standards need to be updated.”

The report also suggested looking at adding a commission for areas outside of the Central City. That proposal got a mixed reaction.

“It sounds like a good idea, but then you get into all kinds of specifics,” Wark said. “How do you find seven qualified people consistently? How is it set up? We’re open to something refined.”

It could also affect the way that city staff does its job. Currently, the BDS staff manages cases seen by both the design and landmarks commissions.

“It’s a lot of work,” Fioravanti said. “It would be managing with seven more people and would be very important to coordinate among the two commissions.”

Stephanie Fitzhugh, a project manager at DiLoreto Architecture, said that long waits to appear before the city’s commissions are adding to delays and increased project costs.

“Everybody is feeling it; everyone is frustrated,” she said. “Basically, it comes down to: Does the city really want to prevent people from building their projects?”

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The Portland Design Commission gave the Design Overlay Zone Assessment (DOZA) a mixed review during its Thursday meeting.

“There are things we are in disagreement on,” Design Commission Chairman David Wark said.

Mark Hinshaw, a Walker Macy principal urban designer who authored the report, said that the city’s attitude is generally upbeat about what the process is trying to accomplish. He also found that there is a collective shared value system about what the system should accomplish.

“You are in the pool of cities that is dealing with very rapid pace of development,” Hinshaw said. “A lot of development is of a greater magnitude and scale, density and intensity than is around it. It’s a different form of development than we have seen in the past.”

The review process for that development has generated conflicts and project delays. Walker Macy, a Northwest landscape architecture, urban design, planning and sustainable design firm, was tasked with determining how the process could be streamlined.

The DOZA project took more than a year and involved interviews with residents, city staffers and commissioners who oversee development within design overlay zones.

“I worked in a lot of communities where there is a widespread negativity,” Hinshaw said. “It’s a negative sour attitude that things are out of control and how do we stop it. I didn’t see any of that here.”

Parts of the process can be improved, Hinshaw said. One of the top recommendations of the assessment is to adjust the thresholds for design review. As proposed, larger projects would get a higher level of review and smaller projects would get a lower level of review. That recommendation bothered many commissioners.

“Reducing review of projects based on size is a recent lesson learned,” Wark said. “I don’t think we should reduce the review just because they are small.”

Neighborhood activists also took issue with that recommendation. Linda Nettekoven, who serves on the Hosford-Abernethy Neighborhood District Association‘s board and works with the Division Design Initiative, said that reducing review simply because of a project’s economic value wouldn’t make sense.

“For one thing the thresholds are concerning,” she said. “Basing them on geography, size or on economic threshold is a problem. Under that threshold, most of the things built on the (Division Street) corridor wouldn’t get reviewed.”

Another issue stemming from the report for commissioners was the possibility that certain low-income housing projects could be removed from the design review process. Many of the commissioners felt the report affixed too much blame to the commission to for driving up costs, delaying projects and driving affordable housing out of the design overlay region.

“The document lacks what the applicant can do to improve,” Commissioner Tad Savinar said. “The low-income thing came up today. It’s a real hot issue right now. I think it needs to be clarified.”

Other recommendations that were less contentious focused on streamlining and focusing hearings, and improving communication with neighborhoods. The report also recommended considering creation of a second design commission. Nettekoven favored that possibility.

“Set up a second design commission now,” she said. “That would help stop the worst of the worst and encourage the best of the best. People are wishing for something sooner rather than later.”

The final report will be presented to the City Council on April 26. Several commissioners had hoped to first incorporate their input; however, they will instead submit a group letter responding to the recommendations.

“Isn’t there a way we can make our comments in time that our remarks can be folded into the document so that the commission can say we are so in favor of this thing?” Savinar said. “Now my fear is the Design Commission is kind of a whipping post. Us having to testify against it is a bad thing.”

Hinshaw said he wasn’t surprised by the commission’s reaction.

“This has been their bailiwick,” he said. “Everyone needs to make changes and rethink what the process is about.”

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