

The Albert Apartments, Williams Avenue (image via Ruben J. Menashe, Inc.)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Today perhaps like no other street in Portland, Williams Avenue embodies the ups and downs of density and development in historic neighborhoods.

The one-way, two-lane street, part of a north-south couplet with Vancouver Avenue where North and Northeast Portland meet, is surrounded by neighborhoods of single family houses and single or double-story commercial storefronts. As development has ramped up here both before and since the recession, tension has increased over just how dense Williams and Vancouver should be and how tall its new buildings should be allowed to go.

In past years, as Williams in particular has attracted a host of mixed-use development with new restaurants, bars, cafes and other businesses, these have principally occupied single or two-story buildings. Yet over the past year, as the real estate economy has recovered from the Great Recession and even seen a boom of apartment construction, the newest generation of buildings on Williams has been significantly bigger, up to five stories.

Leaders of the Boise neighborhood have begun the process of creating voluntary design guidelines for developers to follow, similar to what happened in the Pearl District when it was experiencing rapid growth in the 2000s.

"The neighborhood’s been overwhelmed by developers and their proposals. And every time a project came, the neighborhood had to start from scratch," says realtor Daria Crymes, co-chair of the Boise Neighborhood Association's Land Use and Transportation Committee.

The ire of neighborhood activists has been focused on projects like The Albert, a 72-unit apartment project developed by Jack Menashe; the Boise neighborhood association appealed Bureau of Development Services approval of the design in 2009, arguing it was too big based on the size of the surrounding houses and that its design, by LRS Architects, was not pedestrian friendly. The appeal was denied, but LRS and Menashe voluntarily made some slight modifications, such as shortening the building’s southeast corner by two feet, changing the northwest corner from a square-edge to a bevel, and adding planters.

Earlier this year neighborhood leaders also opposed another Menashe development designed by LRS, the 84-unit Williams and Mason apartments. "The Albert was his first and this is his second. Neither has been well received," says architect Diana Moosman, Crymes' Boise neighborhood co-chair, "but we had another Menashe duplex presented [to the neighborhood association] by William Kaven Architecture, and we liked it a lot. There's just a series of developers who have traditionally done single-family residences."

Indeed, The Albert's language on its website is all about fitting in. "Given the choice, wouldn't you rather live in a community that's aware of the world around it?" it reads. "In a home to rent that's true to the Portland scene? The Albert is just that." It also advertises the building's proximity to Williams, a "bicycle highway." The design, although perhaps unremarkable aesthetically, doesn't seem overly monolithic. What's more, The Albert has a Gold LEED rating; in many ways it aspires to be responsible, sustainable, transit oriented development and succeeds. It's also fully leased out.

The building just happens to be taller than neighbors would like.

Unlike comparable major neighborhood streets such as Hawthorne Boulevard or Alberta Street, which are zoned CS ("Commercial Storefront") and allow buildings up to 45 feet (about four stories), Williams is largely zoned EX (for "Central Employment"), which allows up to 65 feet - generally five stories.

Williams zoning is defined by the circa-1993 Albina Community Plan, which sought to preserve the industrial jobs that had lined Williams and Vancouver in generations past. Hence the EX classification, which was intended to maintain jobs in the center of the city; from the 1960s into in the 1980s and '90s, these neighborhoods were losing much of their employment base.

According to Debbie Bischoff, senior planner in the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability who oversees the Northeast district, the city may be reviewing the Albina Plan within two years or even as soon as this summer if given a grant from Metro. But due to budget cuts, she says there is a backlog for amending zoning codes. "There are neighborhoods that haven’t been revised in 30 to 40 years," she says. "We’re behind. All plans, we hope every 20 years or so we can go back and revisit. But we haven’t had adequate staff."

What's more, the EX zone code is subject to state law, which requires what's called a two-track system, in which a developer can either chose to meet zoning codes or, if seeking exception for some kind of innovative design that violates the code, go through a discretionary design review process open to public comment. But as long as they meet the zoning code standards, there's no staff overview.

"It’s been frustrating to community members," Bischoff adds. "If a developer wants to work with them voluntarily, that’s great. But he can also say, 'I’m meeting the zoning code standards, so I don’t have to make the changes that you’re asking.' It’s not until the last three to four years we’ve seen development maxing out to that full build out. I’m hearing what the community’s saying, and we know there are problems, and we want to try to address them. "

Crymes says the neighborhood association would actually be open to the existing 65-foot height limit "as long as it’s not done continuously in huge mass so it totally contrasts with what’s here." If this were downtown, mandatory design review for projects of a certain size would help assure something compatible with the existing urban fabric is built, but it doesn't apply here. Boise neighborhood leaders suggested perhaps it should be expanded to major streets outside downtown, but that would still require a change from EX to CS zoning to avoid the state law.

Even if the city does change the code, "There's going to be a lot of build out in the next few years," says architect Diana Moosman, Crymes's co-chair. "Williams may be done by the time anything changes."

Beyond the issue of height, neighborhood leaders also say there's a difference between much of the past decade's multifamily housing in established neighborhoods like Belmont or Hawthorne and what's going up along or near streets like Williams or even Division Street in Southeast Portland.

"It just seems like there’s a little bit of degradation of material quality," says architect Diana Moosman, Crymes's co-chair. "On Belmont I’m sure those buildings were controversial. So each one has a nice material quality." Now, she adds, "It feels like something’s shifted: four story buildings are accessible now, so the developers are saying, 'We’re not going to pander. We’ll just put in HardiPlank,'" referring to the inexpensive cladding material made of cement and cellulose.

The group cautions that they're not against all high-density development. They cite the work of developers like Ben Kaiser, who has been responsible for infill projects on the street such as the Williams five and an upcoming mixed use office building. "I think some developers want to invest in the neighborhood and some people just want a make a dollar," says Stephen Gomez, co-chair of the Boise committee and board chair of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance.

Boise neighborhood leaders say more projects are coming, such as the former Oregon Association of Minority Entrepreneurs property that was recently sold to a Seattle developer. If the guidelines can be put in place, they can work with developers and architects to avoid costly redesigns.

"We’re hoping we’ll inspire developers to work with us first," Crymes explains. "I think Menashe would have been interested in it. They’ll be able to save money working with us. We don’t want conflict with developers. We really don’t."

Given Portland's multi-generational effort to curb sprawl with the Urban Growth Boundary, multi-family housing has to be allowed to happen, especially along major streets. Many of these developments are good for the neighborhoods they inhabit, increasing street traffic and investment, and some of it even has been amongst the best architecture being created in the city during this boom-and-bust era of the 200s and 2010s.

Williams seems to have the wrong zoning, especially given how it's set to be transformed from two automobile lanes to one, with an expanded bike lane. Yet city bureaus are by nature deliberative, slow-moving bodies that take years to enact changes to zoning or other guidelines. This isn't going to happen right away.

While design guidelines created by the Boise neighborhood would lack teeth, it would solve a key problem: that by the time news of potentially monolithic projects reaches neighborhood residents and leaders, it's already relatively late in the pre-construction period, when it will cost the developer to go back to the drawing board. The design guidelines Boise leaders are creating, while certainly no panacea for either side, can at least get everyone talking and thinking about these issues earlier in the process.