The Portland City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved a resolution to study the city’s design review process, including possible reforms and a moratorium.

The resolution struck a compromise between the status quo and some critics who urged the council to suspend design review immediately.

“The time of stopping your neighbor’s housing development from going forward because you don’t like the color of the glass that they’re using — I think that should be over,” said Eric Zimmerman, a District 4 councilor and co-sponsor of the resolution alongside Angelita Morillo.

City Administrator Raymond C. Lee III now has 120 days to prepare a report with recommendations for the City Council.

Lee was confirmed by the City Council on Wednesday to serve as the city’s first administrator, the city government’s top nonelected position. He most recently served as city manager of Greeley, Colorado.

Zimmerman said it’s important to distinguish between design review and zoning, as he sought to quell fears of tall buildings in residential neighborhoods. He added that reform of design review will be more successful after engaging with city staff and other stakeholders.

“I think we get to win this message better if we do it in this collaborative, staff-supported way,” he said.

Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney thanked Zimmerman and Morillo for not seeking to immediately dismantle design review.

“I want us to be able to have a comprehensive discussion about design review that moves beyond a binary choice between the status quo and abolishing the system completely, and what you’ve brought us today gives us that opportunity,” Pirtle-Guiney said.

Others, however, urged the council to move faster. Councilor Jamie Dunphy said he “would have brought a resolution forward and just suspended it, personally.”

“I personally want to live in a city that is filled with interesting, vibrant buildings that are not dated by the time they are open,” he said.

Robert Pile, principal at Oakleaf reDevelopment in Portland, urged the council to consider a design review moratorium.

“This is a key opportunity to help expedite entitlements and lower production costs — two things we need to stimulate more housing supply,” he said.

The design review study, which will be due in April, is intended to complement other measures that seek to spur development, including a three-year system development charge waiver that was approved in July.

The push comes amid state and local goals to build more housing.

“We really do have to change the way that we build in Portland, and this is our opportunity to get that information so that we can make those tough choices,” Morillo said.

Councilor Dan Ryan encouraged the study to shine a light on the Historic Landmarks Commission, which he said practices a “de facto override of zoning review processes.”

Councilor Sameer Kanal said the study should consider a design review exemption for conversions of offices to housing units.

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Two Portland city councilors are pushing a resolution to reform the city’s design review process and perhaps provide a temporary exemption for housing proposals.

The effort represents a serious challenge to design review, which is overseen by Portland Permitting & Development. Developers have long blamed the process for delaying construction and adding costs, but supporters say it improves the design of proposed buildings that go through review and allows the public to weigh in on what’s built in the city.

Councilors Angelita Morillo and Eric Zimmerman are sponsoring the resolution, which will be discussed during Wednesday’s meeting. It directs the city administrator to deliver a report to the council within 120 days. The report would:

• include an overview of the types of design review, along with design overlay zones, design districts and historic districts to which design guidelines apply, and
• offer an economic impact analysis of design review on commercial and residential development timelines during the past five years, and projections for the next five years.

The city administrator would then provide options for a temporary exemption from design review and propose potential changes to the city code that underpins the design review process.

Design review “gets talked a lot about as a barrier, but what is the barrier gets a little fuzzy,” Zimmerman said Monday.

The report will “allow us to cut to the chase,” he added. “I would like to hear from the staff – what do they think are the most attackable problems?”

The design review study dovetails with other efforts to facilitate development in Portland. In July, the City Council approved a three-year waiver on system development charges for housing projects.

It’s still an “open question” whether a moratorium on design review would affect commercial projects as well as housing proposals, Zimmerman said.

He expressed concern that design review could deter unique proposals.

Local developers “know what gets through design review,” he said. “That worries me a little bit, because I want to see someone push the envelope a bit as far as awesomeness or uniqueness or density.”

Permitting & Development is open to discussing design review reform, according to agency spokesman Ken Ray.

“We look forward to working with the City Council on ways to bring more flexibility into design review to ensure the process supports thoughtful growth and investment in Portland’s buildings that meets the needs of the people who live, work and do business in them,” Ray stated in an email on Monday.

Design review has come under fire in other cities, including Seattle, where the process has become a roadblock to development.

“We can all agree that nice-looking buildings are a good thing and probably make it more popular to build stuff, but we can’t agree on what nice looking means,” said Michael Andersen, who studies cities for the nonprofit Sightline Institute. “It’s not something you can achieve from regulation.”

Portland’s design review process isn’t as dysfunctional as Seattle’s was before the Seattle City Council suspended design review requirements in September, Andersen said.

“F�ǰ��ٳܲԲ��ٱ����, Portland Design Commission hasn’t been utterly ridiculous,” he said. “But anytime you introduce discretion, you introduce risk.”

Bruce Studer, president of the Pearl District Neighborhood Association, said there’s an appetite to streamline design review in Portland.

“I think people would want a little bit smarter way to go through design review,” he said. “I don’t think just being able to block things by stalling it out is something we want to have. You want developers to be able to build things that are smart, sustainable and create lasting growth.”

The Design Commission is composed of seven members who serve staggered four-year terms for up to eight years. Members hail from architecture, development, landscape architecture, arts and related fields, along with a member representing the public at large.

Zimmerman and Morillo’s resolution passed the council’s Climate, Resilience and Land Use Committee on Nov. 13 by a 4-0 vote.

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