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LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
For years Joe Rinella and his neighbors on Northeast 103rd Avenue north of East Burnside Street have worried about the zoning immediately west of them and how it could affect their lives. Now, it seems, their worst fears are about to be realized.
Developer Andy Kelly is working on a project on the east side of Northeast 102nd Avenue, north of Davis Street. Current plans call for it to be six stories high, containing 90 housing units.
The 103rd Avenue neighbors, led by Rinella, have complained for years that the zoning immediately to the west of them would allow oversized buildings that would loom over them, overload their streets with traffic, and render their residential area unlivable. In a review of Gateway zoning three years ago, the height limit for this part of 102nd Avenue was reduced from 100 feet to 75, largely in response to these concerns, but the neighbors remain unsatisfied.
At a design advisory session (a voluntary, informal review prior to a formal application) with the Portland Design Commission last month, architect Craig Monaghan, indicating that he was familiar with the issues, said his plans were designed to make the project look “more like a village than a single development.” The units will be concentrated into two towers, one on the north end and one on Northeast Davis Street. Between them there will be an open courtyard with a fountain. There will be some decks on the east side, but he said he had “tried to minimize the opportunities for (them) to be imposing or to be looking down into” the houses to the east. There will be landscaping and trees on the east side to create a buffer. Siding will be a mixture of galvanized metal and cedar. The roof will have a slight incline and pronounced eaves, Monaghan said. There will be an enclosed garage accessed from Davis.
Rinella told the commission that Kelly and Monaghan had met with him and other neighbors twice.
Kelly “was very cordial, but he feels handcuffed by city actions,” Rinella said.
The proposed redesign of 102nd Avenue has left Kelly with lots just 70 feet wide, forcing him to build higher to meet density goals, he said. Neighbors would like development on 102nd Avenue to “match the height of existing buildings, no more than three stories high,” Kelly said. The building seems likely to deprive residents of sunlight, which they now enjoy as late as 9 p.m. in the summer. He found the landscaping plans inadequate, “especially with a noisy fountain.” As to traffic and parking, he said, “We already have parking problems” due to neighbors such as the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization on Northeast Glisan Street, and with a new development planned, “We won’t be able to park in front of our own homes.”
Asked if neighbors had participated in community planning activities, Rinella said he found the Gateway Urban Renewal Program Advisory Committee to be “a very nice group of people, but they each have their own agenda, and business is heavily represented. Given its makeup, I saw no chance to influence their decisions.” (At a session following the hearing, Gateway PAC members expressed interest in being involved in the project’s review process.)
Another neighbor, Andrea Heckman, said that despite Kelly’s efforts to lessen the impact of his project, “It’s still massive, too massive for a transition zone.” In a seeming contradiction, she said the architecture “really needs to stand out, and this is the same, boring cookie cutter you see around Gateway.”
The commission expressed sympathy for the neighbors, but did not side with them on the height and density issues. “It’s no surprise that this is the messenger showing what the zoning allows, the leading edge,” Commission member Mike McCulloch said. “It’s not the Design Commission’s purview to change zoning and height.” He suggested a series of changes, especially at the project’s ground level. Providing an interesting view at the ground level means “the neighbors get something back in return for what is taken away,” he said.
Commission member Gwen Millius thanked the neighbors for their input and Kelly for being willing to work with them. She too spoke about the need for work on the courtyard. “I would hope it would be a gathering space; otherwise it will be a dead space,” she said. “It depends on who lives there.”
Commission member Andrew Jansky conceded, “The mass is pretty big, but the zoning is set. This is a transition from a single family area to what the zoning allows, and it’s the first one through.” Landscaping is one way to “help the building blend in, and address neighbors’ concerns.”
Commission Chair Lloyd Lindley complimented neighbors on their “constructive criticism,” and Kelly and Monaghan on their “diplomacy. Keep it up; this will be a better project for it.”
It was not clear whether Kelly would seek another advisory session before submitting an application.
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