Cully Grove

A home and community garden at Cully Grove, a sustainable community in Northeast Portland developed by Eli Spevak and Zach Parrish. Spevak was one of the speakers at Wednesday's Portland for Everyone event.

(Luke Hammill/The Oregonian)

An emerging coalition of housing activists is calling on Portland leaders to increase density in single-family residential neighborhoods, strengthen renter protections and put a general obligation bond on November's ballot that would fund affordable housing.

Calling itself Portland for Everyone - intentionally modeled after a Seattle for Everyone coalition that recently came together around an ambitious set of housing goals in that city - the group held the first in what it said will be a series of meetings Wednesday night at Revolution Hall in Southeast Portland. Hundreds attended, clapping and cheering in support of a range of policy ideas.

The event - billed "Let's Do More Than Talk: Housing, Land Use, and Affordability in Portland" - was co-sponsored by Portland Forward, a group with similar aims founded by the Portland architect Bing Sheldon, who recently died and to whom Wednesday's event was dedicated.

Portland for Everyone is being funded by the advocacy group 1000 Friends of Oregon. Mary Kyle McCurdy, a policy director and staff attorney at 1000 Friends, said Portland has "the opportunity to do it right or do it wrong, and wrong would be becoming San Francisco."

The coalition is similar to Seattle for Everyone in that it is composed of developers, social justice advocates, environmentalists and urbanists. The group in Seattle came together when Mayor Ed Murray convened a 28-member committee to come up with a compromise after developers threatened to sue the city over affordable-housing mandates. The developers and advocates found common ground and eventually supported the committee's 65 recommendations.

Mike Westling, a member of the City Club of Portland's housing affordability committee that recently released a report calling for "action now," successfully convinced the club to adopt a minority version of that report, taking a stronger position in favor of increased density in single-family neighborhoods. He helped facilitate the Portland for Everyone meeting and said there is a momentum in the air that wasn't here even four or five months ago.

"I think it starts from the shared recognition that the city is changing really rapidly," Westling said.

The high level of interest in the issue coincides with the ongoing efforts at Portland City Hall to rewrite the comprehensive plan and decide on new rules for infill and multifamily housing.

"It's exciting that the planning process is aligning with the need to make sure that if our city is changing, then it's changing in a positive way," Westling said.

The proposals could attract opposition from some neighborhoods. Many in Portland are feeling angst about home demolitions, massive redevelopment, rising prices and heavy population growth.

During the event's opening session, the biggest applause went to Eli Spevak, a local developer and a member of the Portland Planning and Sustainability Commission. His company, Orange Splot LLC, focuses on smaller, affordable homes with sustainable environmental footprints.

Spevak advocated for more so-called "missing middle" housing - such as duplexes, triplexes, rowhouses, accessory dwelling units and garden apartments. He noted that in 1923, much of Portland was zoned for multifamily housing. Now, it is zoned for mostly single-family neighborhoods.

"Portland is being relatively timid, confronted with the housing crisis we face right now," Spevak said.

Following Spevak was Jes Larson, of the Welcome Home coalition. She said writing new zoning rules to provide more market-rate housing would help ease affordability for middle-class Portlanders, but that more needs to be done for the low-income residents, too. Her group is helping push a bond measure that would raise money from taxpayers to build affordable housing. She asked attendees to fill out a card urging public officials to support the measure.

"This housing crisis is affecting all of us," she said.

-- Luke Hammill

lhammill@oregonian.com

503-294-4029

@lucashammill