State historic preservation officials once again have nominated Portland’s Eastmoreland to the National Register of Historic Places, this time with the state’s stamp of approval.

The Eastmoreland Neighborhood Association first spearheaded the nomination in 2016 as a way to spare the neighborhood from home demolitions at the height of a construction boom in Portland but became mired in controversy.

The latest nomination notes Eastmoreland’s eclectic collection of colonial, Tudor and English cottage revival homes, along with American-style bungalows and craftsman designs. It claims historical significance from 1910 to 1961, a span that covers 1,030 of its 1,277 buildings.

If the historic district is recognized, Portland would require a formal hearing process before any historically significant building could be demolished.

The original nomination split the neighborhood, with more than half of respondents in a neighborhood poll opposing the effort. The organized opposition said the historic designation could lead to new restrictions on renovations and repairs.

It also raised concerns among housing and land-use activists about whether a well-to-do enclave in the central city can use the costly nomination process to exempt itself from the city’s growing pains and subvert the city’s density goals.

The controversy in part led the city government to draft rules that would reduce Portland’s reliance on the National Register as a primary arbiter of what to protect from demolition or radical renovation.

Opponents launched a campaign attempting to collect notarized objections to the nomination from the majority of property owners in the proposed district, which would preclude its listing on the National Register.

But the state couldn’t provide an accurate count of how many property owners live in the proposed district and declined to give its stamp of approval. So, the National Parks Service rejected the first nomination on that basis. The discrepancy took a turn last year when a handful of homeowners opposed to the district split their ownership stake into thousands of trusts, swaying the count in their favor.

The Oregon Court of Appeals weighed in last month, ruling that trusts don’t count as property owners. As a result, opponents of the district haven’t reached the majority threshold required to stop the nomination.

The National Park Service, which maintains the National Register, will decide whether to accept the nomination. The federal agency’s timeline is uncertain.

If the nomination is approved, “non-contributing” properties -- in Eastmoreland’s case, any home built after 1961, for example -- would initially have no constraints. And new buildings would not have to fit in with the rest of the neighborhood.

Rules for all properties aimed at preserving the architectural character of the neighborhood could come later, though, drafted through a land-use process that would require City Council approval.

-- Elliot Njus

enjus@oregonian.com; 503-294-5034; @enjus

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