 |
||||||||
 |
FEATURE ARTICLES | |
Memo Calendar | Memo Pad | Business Memos | Loaves & Fishes | Letters | Home |
Residents favor porches, traditional trim, not prominent garages
LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
If they have porches rather than garages in front, new buildings in old neighborhoods will be better accepted. In East Portland, they should have enough parking and not be too big.
These are the results of a “visual preference survey” conducted as part of the city’s Infill Design Project. Initiated by City Commissioner Randy Leonard after negative public reaction to the building of “skinny houses” on small lots. It is an attempt to develop prototypes for new infill development that would fit in with the feel of older neighborhoods.
Photos of infill projects built within the last few years were displayed at public open houses in various parts of the city, including one at the East Portland Community Center. Those present were asked to rate the pictures they saw, as well as the relative importance of a series of values. A total of 91 people citywide responded, including nine in east Portland.
Overall, those responding said the most important factors were pedestrian-friendly street frontages, and orienting windows to the street. Important everywhere, compatible buildings scale and patterns and minimizing environmental impacts, were even more so in East Portland. Adequate off-street parking, not highly rated elsewhere, scored high here. Low construction costs and affordable housing was not regarded as important.
The ratings of the photos coincided with those of the values. Buildings or projects with porches and other traditional-looking features received high ratings; those with blank walls and prominent parking lots or garages ranked low. A cluster apartment complex with units surrounding common open space rated well.
Project manager Bill Cunningham told a review meeting that it wasn’t easy to make broad generalizations. The city used to require that row house developers use architectural details to make each unit distinct and relieve monotony; in contrast, one highly rated design used multiple conjoined units to look like a large single-family house, he said. Another project was ranked fairly negatively despite having a front entrance and no front parking.
One possible lesson from this, he said, was that design standards “don’t guarantee good design, but can prevent the worst of the worst.”
One participant said, “It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.”
“People tended not to like large projects, but when you explained that they were along major streets, the opinions tended to change,” Cunningham said. “You need to decide what’s appropriate in a given neighborhood,” one observer said, “not just plop something down.”
 |
 |
| Design Preferences Survey Results – Top Two Rated Images. | |
 |
|
 |
 |
| Design Preferences Survey Results – Two of the Most Negatively Rated Images | |
MEMO Advertising | MEMO Archives | MEMO Web Neighbors | MEMO Staff | Home