Land Use Report

September 12, 2001

Albina Fuel Co. site rezoning:

Albina's traffic consultant has completed his revised report and submitted it to the City reviewing agency, OPDR. Peter Fry, Albina's planner reported that he has asked for a meeting with the OPDR reviewer, members of the Albina team and our neighborhood to go over the newly revised report. This meeting should take place later this month.

From several sources we are hearing reports that a probable buyer is working with Neil Arnston to come to an agreement to acquire the site. All sources report that the proposed development would well-fit our neighborhood's stated goals for the site.

Steve Erickson, neighbor and METRO planner has supplied us with demographic data for the area which might prove helpful in advocating a MAX stop at this location.

After we have reviewed the revised transportation report and have specifics as to next steps in the process, we will be back to the board/neighborhood for an update and possible response.

Report from Pre-Application Conference regarding properties in the 2100 block of NE Multnomah: As noted earlier, this is an on-going case involving four contiguous properties on the south side of the street. Three parcels front the street, and a fourth, larger parcel lies to the south and runs into the Gulch. All together there are 1.1 acres, which could allow up to 18 units of attached housing.

At the conference the City encouraged the applicant to look at a planned unit development (PUD)of condos in place of the 18 separate lots that he was proposing. The proposed private street did not meet city standards; also, in calculating the number of units, the developer must use the net acreage after the street right-of-way has been subtracted.

A PUD application is a Type II application (subdivisions are Type III). As a type II review gives only two weeks for a neighborhood response, I phoned the applicant's representative, Brad Schleining, W.B. Wells & Associates, to get a better sense of his client's intentions and urgency.
I was assured that the developer would be talking with the neighborhood when he had revised his proposal. I sensed no urgency. OPDR typically sends out an alert to the neighborhood prior to the formal filing of a type II review request; I believe that we are covered.

In looking at the site and talking with two neighbors I learned that the properties around the site are now predominantly owner occupied. The site is a bit of an eyesore with parked (junked) vehicles. At loss would be two major trees--and some delicious blackberries!

We will report to the Board any contact from the applicant and welcome any observations from neighbors regarding future development.

Preliminary Meeting Regarding Development on Farrell's block:

The land use committee and Doug Fick of Broadway Florist met with Alan Kravitz and Greg Miller of the Aiyana Group. Aiyana has an option to buy the Farrell's property and is negotiating with the other owner of property on the block. Fick has declined to sell his parcel, but will join Aiyana in making the streetscape improvements so that the entire block will be brought up to the planned improvements.

Kravitz, architect on the Avalon Hotel project and the recent Hawthorn project, is testing the neighborhood's interests before committing resources to this project.

The property is zoned CS (storefront commercial). As-of-right a development may have ground floor of commercial with housing above. The height limit is 45 feet. If a development provides housing, the code allows for a conditional, additional height. Kravitz is looking to go as high as 65' on a portion of the site and wants our response.

Kravitz is proposing to provide below-grade parking--an important--yet costly feature. The challenge here is to achieve a building design which both enhances this area of the neighborhood and pencils out economically.

Aiyana reacted positively to the idea of incorporating a neighborhood "gateway marker" at 16th and Weidler. Such an idea is in the Broadway Weidler Corridor report. This might very well take care of our need to site, design and erect such a marker (Marriott settlement).

We are remaining in contact with Doug Fick, will take this to NEBBA, and have alerted John Wolz of Irvington Community Association. There will be a pre-ap conference on October 3. We will keep you informed; meanwhile let us know your thoughts.

Lloyd District developments FYI:

For the past year SGNA has been a part of the Lloyd District Development Strategy Steering Committee under the auspices of the Portland Development Commission (PDC). PDC which administers the area's urban renewal district believed that a revised development strategy was in order. Hank Ashforth of Ashforth Pacific was appointed to chair the steering committee--charged with development of that new strategy. Our work has been completed and approved by the Portland Development Commission. It now goes to City Council.

The original strategy had focused on the Oregon Convention Center and commercial development; the new strategy places an emphasis on making the district a neighborhood with a significant increase in the amount of housing and a more pedestrian-friendly infrastructure. (This emphasis was supported by the more than 80 Sullivan Gulch residents who took the time to complete an extensive questionnaire.)

As the Lloyd District was being considered, a parallel committee was looking at the Rose Quarter. Throughout the process we kept abreast of each other's work. A third planning project, a bi-state look at the I-5 corridor is also being integrated. The emerging vision, if we have the foresight and public will to achieve it, would transform this part of the inner northeast. The Rose Quarter plan, which also goes to Council next month, calls for (in its preferred version) a return to the street grid with mixed-use development that supports a Ò24-hourÓ community. Reconfigured streets would support pedestrians, connect to the Pearl District--further out, a tunneled rail line would open up the east side to the Willamette.

SGNA is represent on the Lloyd District Housing Strategy Group, which has been appointed to advise PDC on the allocation of resources. There are currently about 15,000 jobs in the Lloyd District with only about 1000 housing units. Our goal is to make housing available for more of the district's employees, and, to leverage the public's very substantial transportation investment.

Sullivan's Gulch in the larger picture:

This summer Dave Brook, Peyton Snead and Lynne Coward met to look at how our neighborhood sits among all that is going on around us. Our adopted neighborhood plan is 14 years old. While a review of it last year found much of the plan is still relevant, we have seen issues arising around the "edges" that call for new consideration--e.g., Albina rezoning, the adoption of the Broadway Weidler Corridor Plan (which negates our plans for Weidler), and the tortuous rewrite of Chapter 34 of the Zoning code. All around our borders, new planning has occurred in the past few years--the Lloyd District, the Hollywood Plan, the Broadway / Weidler Corridor Plan and the Albina Community Plan. This leaves Sullivan's Gulch alone as an outdated "hole" in the planning map.

Based on this recognition we decided to explore two courses.

In July, Peyton, Dan Delany and Lynne met with staff from the Planning Bureau. Timing was opportune as the Bureau is revamping its neighborhood planning process. The bureau wants to focus on more than one neighborhood at a time and is particularly interested in business districts that frequently received less attention because they fell on the edges of neighborhoods.

We asked for assistance in re looking at Broadway--especially in the "planning gap" between NE 24th and 33rd. We also noted the need to reconsider the blocks between Broadway and Weidler--how the business district should integrate with the residential. There is the potential for a Quick Response grant from the State, and we would use Planning's support to apply for it.

Our other course is to explore an ad hoc coalition with surrounding neighborhoods based on common interests--especially around Broadway. Lynne has talked with John Wolz of Irvington and he is up for an exploratory gathering to see if we can identify such interests.

Please let the committee know if you have specific ideas we should include. After this informal gathering, our committee will come to the board with a report and any formal requests.