The changing face of Portland’s Central Eastside

240 Clay

In 1922 Euclid, Ohio adopted a zoning ordinance that included six classes of use, intended to preserve to the village character of the Cleveland suburb. Industry would be kept away from residential uses, and building heights would be limited. While Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City and Le Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse are probably more famous examples of city planning based on separation of uses, Euclid’s zoning ordinance ultimately became the more influential. A large landowner sued the municipality, arguing that in limiting the development potential of their site Euclid had unconstitutionally deprived them of their ability to develop their site with an industrial use.

The case made it all the Supreme Court. In the 1926 case Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. the court sided with the village, establishing the broad precedent that single-use zoning was permissible. While there are other types of zoning used in the US, the model used by Euclid is by far the most common, and is often referred to by planners as Euclidean zoning.

Around the same time, Portland was writing its first zoning code, firmly based on the emerging Euclidean tradition. The 1924 code didn’t regulate many of the things we now expect to find in a zoning code, such as heights, setbacks or density. It did separate the city into four zones, based on use: Class I-Single Family; Class II-Multi-family; Class III-Business-manufacturing; and Class IV-Unrestricted. Many of the decisions made almost a century ago are still evident in the way Portland is developing today. The 1924 code applied the Business-manufacturing zone to the streetcar lines and arterial roads, while limiting the areas in between them to single or multifamily development. The Class I-Single Family zone was generally applied to the most prestigious neighborhoods, such as Eastmoreland, Laurelhurst, Irvington and Alameda. Plus ça change…

…continue reading our guest post at Portland Architecture.

Going tall: new projects complete the north Pearl District

July 11, 2013 LU 13-139762 DZM AD - Applicant Presentation - 05

There are few neighborhoods in Portland that have seen more changes in recent decades than the Pearl District.

Today the Pearl has evolved from what The Oregonian described in 1994 as “a decaying portion of Northwest Portland once devoted to industry and transportation” into a mixed-use neighborhood with thousands of residents, large offices and numerous shops and restaurants. Despite the huge changes, architects and developers working in the early phases of large development in the neighborhood were often responding to the historic context of one of Portland’s older neighborhoods: Couch’s Addition was platted in 1842; the North Park Blocks were acquired by the City in 1869; and many of the warehouses in the NW 13th Ave Historic District date back to the early 20th Century. Developments such as the Brewery Blocks or the Ecotrust incorporated historic buildings, while new condominiums mimicked their aesthetic. While little of the industry that once defined the area is left today, one of the charms of the neighborhood is the juxtaposition of high rises such as the Casey and historic low rises such as the Bullseye Glass Building.

Further north in the Pearl there was less context to respond to. Much of the developable land was former railway yards, and the warehouses along NW 13th Avenue were more often single-story concrete structures rather than charming brick buildings. As development started to cross Lovejoy—once an elevated ramp leading to the Broadway Bridge—planners and neighborhood activists started to wonder if the North Pearl might develop in a different way. Instead of the bulky full block developments that had been built on some blocks south of Lovejoy, it was proposed that the developers might be allowed to build taller, but narrower.

In 2008 the Zoning Code was amended to incorporate a provision that exists nowhere else in the City: in the North Pearl Height Opportunity Area there are no maximum building heights for buildings with narrow floor plates.

…continue reading our guest post at Portland Architecture.