Portland officials plan to limit sizes of new homes in much of the city as part of a broader drive to encourage development of more housing units.

The is an ambitious rewrite of residential zoning throughout the city, with exceptions made for a few neighborhoods.

The long-gestating plan is moving closer to enactment. The Planning and Sustainability Commission will take it up in two public hearings in May. Then city planners will make any necessary changes before bringing the project to the City Council in the fall.

Developers and residents are being urged to now.

Planners aim to encourage more middle housing – anything larger than an apartment but smaller than a single-family house. Housing such as townhomes and duplexes can house more residents at lower cost with minimal disruption to existing single-family neighborhoods, city officials said.

As part of the zoning rewrite, city planners are proposing stricter rules on how large newly constructed homes can be. In an R5 zone, which covers 132,000 lots in Portland, homes would be limited to a 0.5 floor-area ratio – for example, a 2,500-square-foot house on a 5,000-square-foot lot. That’s a significant change from current rules that allow 1.35 floor-area ratio, or a 6,750-square-foot house on a 5,000-square-foot lot.

Instead of McMansions, the rules would encourage accessory dwelling units, duplexes and other building types in urban neighborhoods.

Existing homeowners would not be forced to make changes. But any expansion of a nonconforming home’s footprint, or a scrape-and-rebuild, would trigger the new requirements.

The Residential Infill Project allows more building options on residential lots, such as a house with two ADUs or a duplex with an attached ADU. Triplexes would be allowed on corner lots.

“What we’re trying to do is create options that are single dwelling-like, but smaller,” said Joe Zehnder, chief planner with the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.

The rules are likely to prompt developers to build more small condominium projects.

“That’s our expectation; that’s our hope,” Zehnder said.

The restrictions on new, large homes are likely to make existing large homes more attractive, said Mike Nuss, owner of RareBird, a small-scale Portland infill developer. The rules will also make some projects infeasible because of the square footage limits. And developers are likely to be less aggressive in acquiring land for residential projects.

“The building community is in somewhat of an outrage for it, because it does limit what you can build,” Nuss said. “I think the end result will be smaller units.”

Meanwhile, the Portland real-estate market has a low inventory of single-family homes – only 1.6 months in the metro area. Median sales prices continue to rise, up 6.8 percent in March to $395,000.

“The market need is more family-size housing, and this does not address that,” Nuss said.

The infill options – known as “A” overlay – would be available in most Southeast and Northeast Portland neighborhoods, and portions of Southwest Portland. Areas with natural hazards such as landslide risk were excluded. Neighborhoods considered at risk of displacement of existing residents of color, including Cully, North Portland and East Portland, were also excluded. (A map is available at ).

The “A” overlay could be extended to neighborhoods at risk of displacement in future years if conditions warrant it, city planners said.

“This is just being conservative to see how the thing plays out,” Zehnder said.

Some Cully residents have decried being left out of the overlay zone.

Houses would still be allowed as tall as 30 feet – two and a half stories – on standard lots. Rules would be changed to measure height from the lowest point near the house, not the highest point.

Parking would not be required for duplexes and triplexes.

“It’s a little bit of an incentive to build more unit types,” said Sandra Wood, supervising planner at BPS.

The city is also seeking to discourage driveways that access streets, and to encourage alleyway parking where possible.

“For every driveway, it eliminates an on-street parking space that would be used by many people,” Wood said.

The plan has garnered more than 180 public comments submitted online. Among them, Ethan Seltzer, a Portland State University professor emeritus of urban studies and planning, said the project falls short of what’s needed but would improve upon current rules.

“We need a city built for change, not one that is stubbornly committed to a past long since gone,” Seltzer wrote. “I applaud the RIP for moving us into what I think is a much better direction. It could do more, but this is a good first step and I support it.”

Another resident, Bruce Gilley, said the residential infill plan is “unfair to people who chose to buy houses in neighborhoods with the current density limits.”

The Planning and Sustainability Commission will hold public hearings on the Residential Infill Project on May 8 and 15.

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Next to a 117-year-old house in the Irvington historic district, developer Mike Nuss wants to build a three-story apartment building on the same lot.

The development would be about 2,800 square feet – larger than the original 2,367-square-foot house, which Nuss converted into a duplex. He is considering different floor plans for the proposed multifamily building that could yield three to seven units.

Nuss’ development firm, RareBird, is trying to do the sort of infill development that city officials and housing advocates say is desperately needed.

But Nuss’ approach – wedging apartment buildings onto lots with existing homes – is testing the city’s historic review guidelines as well as neighbors’ patience.

It’s a pattern being replicated across Portland as developers move to meet strong demand for rental housing in Portland’s desirable, walkable neighborhoods. Increasingly, lots that already have single-family homes are being targeted for increased density.

Nuss maintains that his methods are more sensitive to historic neighborhoods than the scrape-and-rebuild projects that have become commonplace in Portland’s core.

“Most developers just want to go in and tear down a home and maximize the building,” he said. “We want to keep as much of the existing resource as possible without demolishing, and add density with creative design.”

Nuss is working on a similar project at 2715 N.E. Flanders Ave. That proposal calls for a two-story, four-unit building with a rooftop deck. Construction on the project should begin this summer, he said.

Nuss also owns a property at 5734 N.E. 27th Ave., a few blocks north of Alberta Street’s burgeoning commercial district. He plans to build six units on the lot, which he acquired for $675,000 in March 2016, according to city records. The R2.5 zoning allows for 10-foot setbacks from the property’s edge and a maximum height of 35 feet.

In Irvington, Nuss will have to grapple with the area’s powerful neighborhood group: the Irvington Community Association.

“We’re opposed to the current proposal and we’re entitled to say so in the discussion (with the Historic Landmarks Commission),” said Dean Gisvold, chairman of the neighborhood group’s land-use committee.

Gisvold has lived in the neighborhood since 1967 and said residents are wary of cheaply built infill housing that doesn’t fit Irvington’s historic character.

“My experience with folks in Irvington is the developers come in and they don’t fully understand the historic district, and they want to put up something quickly, not very well-designed and cheap,” he said.

Most Irvington homes were built from the 1890s to the 1940s.

“In Irvington, they built houses to last,” Gisvold said.

The neighborhood offers leafy, walkable streets near the center of Portland. Home prices in the neighborhood, as in other desirable areas, have shot up.

“It’s got trees; it’s got houses,” Gisvold said. “It’s pleasant to walk around and be in.”

Nuss isn’t the only developer doing this type of building. At 718 N.E. Dekum St., Thomas and Michele Juon have applied for early assistance to build a six-unit apartment building on the lot holding their own single-family home.

The Juons own the property and live in the residence, a 2,400-square-foot home built in 1916. Their proposal would add a three-story mixed-use building, with ground-floor retail space and two stories of apartments above.

“I think the land is worth almost more than the house,” said Dave Spitzer of DMS Architects Inc., which is designing the project.

Spitzer acknowledged that the project would have a significant impact.

“The house will get a little more crowded, for sure,” he said. “They have this beautiful yard, which will totally be gone.”

Thomas Juon owns Four Hammers Construction, and would build the project himself, Spitzer said.
Spitzer has experience increasing density to fast-gentrifying Dekum Street in the Woodlawn neighborhood. He added a restaurant-brewpub and three apartments at 820 N.E. Dekum Street. The property is now home to Breakside Brewery, a popular neighborhood destination.

As infill developments have become increasingly popular, the city has wrestled with how to regulate them. So called “middle housing” types such as duplexes and accessory dwelling units (ADUs) don’t fit neatly into existing zoning.

The city expects 123,000 new households in Portland by 2035, and 20 percent will be in single-dwelling residential zones.

In December, the City Council adopted a concept report for residential infill. The city is moving toward allowing more housing types in certain overlay zones, particularly in highly trafficked corridors. The plan would also make it easier to do internal conversions – for example, the renovation of a large house into several smaller apartments.

Such projects often stir neighborhood opposition. Gisvold said the Irvington Community Association has supported ADU projects that add small dwellings onto lots with single-family homes. But the association is balking at Nuss’ proposal. One reason: the new apartment building would be larger than the existing house. Gisvold said that violates the city’s historic review guidelines, which state that residential additions should be “subordinate” to existing structures.

Irvington and Portland’s other close-in historic neighborhoods aren’t the answer to solving Portland’s housing needs, he said.

“It’s not our inner-city neighborhoods’ responsibility to solve the housing problems for everybody moving into Portland,” he said.

Newcomers must be willing to live elsewhere, Gisvold said.

“We’re going to try to house them, but not everybody is going to be housed in an inner-city hip neighborhood that is close walking distance to everything,” he said. “Some people are going to have to live out in neighborhoods out by (Interstate) 205 and even beyond, and we’re going to have to spend more money on transit.”

On Monday, a planned Historic Landmarks Commission discussion on Nuss’ project was postponed when other agenda items ran late. Nuss’ design advice request has been rescheduled for March 20. The commission received three letters from neighbors opposed to the project. The residents expressed concern about the project’s size and modern design. They also voiced support for preserving an old-growth tree on Nuss’ property.

“Mass structures not only do not belong in our community but also create a space of chaos in a neighborhood which is already maxed out from inch to inch,” one resident, Kena Noel, wrote to the commission. “Along with adding more cars to the streets without adding more parking spaces, this structure will be taking away the natural light by blocking the historic buildings near it while also tearing down a very old tree which is an important element in our area.”

Nuss said he expected resistance from the Irvington Community Association, but is willing to be patient.

“Irvington will be a fight,” he said. “There’s going to be some people in the neighborhood that appreciate it, and some people in the neighborhood that don’t. We have a long-term outlook –whenever we get it built, it will be a great product for the neighborhood.”

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