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Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Neighborhoods Should All of Buckman Declare Itself Historic?

Posted by Sarah Mirk on Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 1:44 PM

Southeast Portland's Buckman neighborhood is facing a big decision: Should the entire neighborhood be declared historic?

A group of neighbors are petitioning the city to become a historic district. Portland has numerous historic districts, including the eastside residential neighborhoods of Ladd's Addition and Irvington, and the designation is a mixed bag. Basically, if a neighborhood is a historic district, people who want to change their houses or build new projects have to go through extra-serious design review that's intended to make all new development have the same "character" as the existing neighborhood.

City planner Tim Heron spelled out the positives for me: Historic districts increase property values and protect historic buildings. "It's all about what you see when you move into a district," says Heron. "Historic districts preserve a certain look that some Buckman residents clearly want to preserve."

The extra design review comes with a steep cost, however, and some neighbors are rallying against the change. To stop the designation, critics need to get 50 percent of property owners in the area (plus one) to sign a notarized letter of dissent.

Buckman resident Greg Moulliet hosted a notarizing party in his home late last month. He turned against the historic district idea when he found out that, under the proposed rules, removing the asbestos from his Victorian-era house would cost $1900 in permits and require a 54 day review. Currently, there's no permit needed. There are some exemptions to the new permit rules, but many home-improvement projects that currently require no sign-off from the city would require at minimum 54 days of waiting and $1,050 in permit fees.

Northeast Portland's Irvington neighborhood became a historic district in 2010—it's a point of pride for many neighbors, but now the design review fee for something as simple as replacing a door or window starts at $1,050. The city is currently looking into rewriting the code to potentially grant more exceptions to the fees.

For now, it's up to neighbors to hash out the pros and cons.

 

Comments (11) RSS

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1
HISTORIC? THERE ISN'T ONE THING IN PORTLAND OLD ENOUGH TO BE HISTORIC.
Posted by Graham on February 8, 2012 at 2:06 PM · Report
2
You mean aside from historic level egos?
Posted by frankieb on February 8, 2012 at 2:15 PM · Report
3
You mean aside from historic level egos?
Posted by frankieb on February 8, 2012 at 2:15 PM · Report
4
Oooooh, good one frankieb! You're kind of historic yourself, right?
Posted by That burn was tops, gramps on February 8, 2012 at 3:14 PM · Report
5
Ooooh, that burn was so hot I gotta move to Alaska.
Posted by frankieb on February 8, 2012 at 3:18 PM · Report
6
Fuck everybody else who might ever want to move here, we already live here, and we want our property values to go up!

This is just one more way rich people go out of their way to fuck over poor people.
Posted by eldepeche on February 8, 2012 at 4:13 PM · Report
7
@5, four minutes?!?!?! That's a bit of a slow turnaround time for you on here. Get your head right. Zzzzzzzzzzz.
Posted by Frankly, D. on February 8, 2012 at 6:13 PM · Report
8
Keep those damnéd designators out of Horsephone Abercrombie or whatever the hell my neighborhood is called.
Posted by Todd Mecklem on February 8, 2012 at 7:11 PM · Report
9
they are building an 80-room condo on the corner of 20th and belmont right now. that is the 5th condo to go up in buckman in the past 10 years. i think the historic designation is a self-preservation idea.
Posted by ebag on February 8, 2012 at 9:49 PM · Report
10
Yes, yes it should. It should also be declared" Yuppie Self Entitled Douchebags and their "special "children who one day grow up to equally douchey"
Posted by The Showstopper on February 9, 2012 at 1:04 PM · Report
11
I live in Ladd's Addition and yes it is true - when I wanted to replace the old single pane aluminum and glass sliding door from the 1950s ON THE BACK OF MY HOUSE with a wooden door with single pane windows (a french door) the permit cost more than the door and all of my neighbors were mailed pictures of the door and allowed a public comment period.
Posted by OregonMike on February 9, 2012 at 2:55 PM · Report

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