A surge of awesomeness is wrapping
itself around me and my inner southeast Richmond neighbors, whether we like it
or not. My husband and I moved into our home right off SE Division Street
17 years ago when the businesses here represented the trades, not the service
sector. A solitary furniture refinishing business remains where once there
was a plethora of quirky, low-brow shops and industrial businesses. Gone
from our main thoroughfare is the flaking red paint of the Laughing Horse
revolutionary bookstore, which housed hippies in all their disorganized glory
on the corner of 37th and Division. It was replaced by Victory, a wine
bar that most nights packs a house full of spiffy, shiny kids in
glasses-without-lenses and a corral full of bicycles. Closed is the metal
engraving and etching shop. Ditto the discount furniture store, Rose City
Reptiles (Owner Thuyen Pham is still one of the best reptile experts in the
country), and multiple resale shops and hodge-podge stores. Division was
a bit down-at-the-heels, but friendly and unique - never snooty.
Now, we brag of the ‘best ramen in the
country’ at Yataimaru by Shigezo on 38th, 2011’s ‘Best Chef Northwest’ winner,
Andy Ricker at the ever-popular Pok Pok Thai restaurant on 32nd, and, my current
favorite, Sckavone's restaurant in the old Ever
Ready Drugs building on 41st near the Japanese Immersion School (even our
public schools are upscale!). There are over 80 places to eat between 11th
and 45th Avenues on our little ‘main street’, many of them expensive and/or delicious.
My bucket list is to try each of them at least once before the owners go out of
business or follow a new creative impulse.
From Ava Gene’s to Lauretta Jean’s,
one will never go hungry in Richmond (unless they go bankrupt first).
There’s Cibo, Xico, Wafu and Roe with the shortest names; and New Seasons
Market (yes, you can get a great hot lunch there), Le Petit Provence Bakery
(Parisian pastries to die for), and Clays’ Smokehouse Grill (even good for
vegetarians), with the longest. The neighborhood makeover is not
panoptic, yet. Even though our family of four can choose our nightly meal
from 30 different international flavors, we still have the grounding experience
of walking by our very own adult theater on our way to dinner, reminding us of
Richmond’s roots.
Apart from the fabulous food
festivities, Division is blossoming with new apartments and condos. Where
once we saw tiny, moss-covered rental homes with hanging gutters and foot-high
weeds, now we witness the placement of large concrete forms and watch as steel
frames grow into mostly well-done, multi-family living places. (One extreme
exception is a particularly repulsive monstrosity on 31st Avenue that
appears to be covered in a claustrophobic chain link fence, giving the entire
street-side façade the impression of a giant jail cell. I wonder if the
renters feel incarcerated?). This building-boom consists of over 12 new
developments within walking distance of our house, with even more in the
permitting stage from what we hear. Portland is making room for hundreds
of new residents in our lovable, and now fashionable, close-in
neighborhood.
One of those developments is
currently underway on SE 37th Avenue. A few years ago, the
only lesbian bar in the entire city, The Egyptian Club, fell on hard times,
changed venues and eventually sold to a developer. The apartment complex
that is now under construction there looks promising; crews recently completed
four floors of steel framing, with nice, tall storefronts for its Division side
and a cozy side-street entrance for residents. The high-quality,
neighborhood-friendly bones of the building are encouraging. I have been
eagerly looking forward to seeing “The 37th Street Apartments” with
its skin on – hopefully a finish more attractive than the penitentiary down the
street - and a lifeblood of customers flowing in and out its Division street
doors.
On March 21st, I was
imagining myself someday walking the half-block to buy something warm and
comforting from one of its future shops, when I read an Oregonian article about
the project that got my hackles up. Our
new Mayor ordered Portland's Bureau of Development Services to stop
reviewing revisions for this specific project’s building permit – one more
twisted chapter in this building’s soap opera.
Perhaps you are aware of it…
The
37th Street Apartments is the largest of its kind under zoning code
33.266.110.B, which allows buildings in certain
zones close to frequent-service transit to forgo off-street parking.
The building includes 81 units, a number of retail storefronts - and no off-street
parking. Some of my neighbors don’t like
this. They are, in fact, outraged.
They formed a coalition - Richmond Neighbors for Responsible Growth (RNRG) – to
combat the threat of losing their customary on-street parking spots to
newcomers. With a potential for 160 new
residents living among us who have no underground parking garage, their
prediction is almost certain to become a reality. But what sets me off isn’t the apartment’s
design – The 37th Street Apartments is the development that City
planners envisioned when they wrote code 33.266.110.B. The bee in my bonnet is the indirect and underhanded
manner the players have acted in this matter.
The
controversy surrounding the parking issue has been a heated topic of debate for
at least a year, but when RNRG appealed the building permit, they were shot
down by the City’s Bureau of Development Services because the builder’s plans
clearly met code requirements. But RNRG
appealed again, this time not on the basis of their true contention – parking -
but on a vaguely-worded land-use requirement for an ‘entrance’ on Division
Street. The building’s residential entrance consists of a quiet,
nicely-designed courtyard on 37th Avenue. Shops will
presumably open their doors onto Division Street.
In a highly unusual move, the Oregon Land Use Board of
Appeals ruled on this building permit, stating that the project did not meet
zoning requirements. They overstepped their customary boundaries and
reversed the Bureau of Development Services’ decision to grant the building
permit. Typically in this situation, when code is written ambiguously and
it bumps up against a decent project that meets the code’s intent without
meeting the letter of the regulation, the code is quickly re-written to clarify
the intent. Typically, projects that meet the code in spirit are allowed
to continue. Perhaps a new building permit is issued, or an exception is
granted, or the code is amended to address an unintended consequence identified
by the court. Typically. But this project is anything but
typical.
First,
RNRG attacked well after construction started – too late for any meaningful
discussion of major design changes. The ensuing shenanigans looked
republicanesque in their ‘ends over means’ approach. Second, the land use decision was
unintelligible because the shops on Division will obviously have entrances on
Division Street. Third, when the City
bureau that oversees building permits began to re-review the permit, Mayor Hales
put on the executive brakes. He even
suggested that new code may be hurriedly written while the project is on
hold. That new code would be a
requirement for the development to continue, even if it means ripping down the
half-done building and starting from scratch.
This
circus is not what I would call fair and responsible behavior. Many of the NIMBYs involved are my
well-intentioned neighbors and friends.
But these actions may end up causing large financial losses to a single
property owner, and I see where this is headed, friends – a lawsuit against the
City, which is expensive for all of us. The
last thing I want to see at the end of my block for the next ten years is an
unfinished skeleton of a building, wrapped in fluttering sheets of yellow Tyvek.
Some
of my neighbors cling to the status quo – they got theirs, so to hell with the
rest of y’all – and cannot see the benefits that accompany the inevitable
parking inconveniences. They are not
appreciating what lies at the foundation of this issue: equity. Without required onsite parking, property
owners can build apartments that can be rented at more affordable prices. Affordable prices allow people with less
money to live in Richmond, close to all of those fab new eateries I
enjoy. But more importantly, the new residents will be close to our
world-class bus system; our-soon-to-be, very own, inner SE lightrail station; a
drugstore, six public schools and a grocery store. These community
resources are important to upper-middle class residents who have been here for
years. But they are especially important to the lower-middle class people
who work at The Hedge House, Division Street Hardware and Tom’s Restaurant. Richmond should not be reserved for the rich.
But
the rich actually benefit directly too. Affordable
prices mean more people who work at New Seasons or Division Coffee can live
close to work. It means more young people will be our neighbors; more
families with children, more diversity. It also introduces a new look and
feel to our mostly caucasian community, many of us in our 40’s and 50’s.
Integrating well-done affordable housing into the fabric of a successful
community brings variety that goes beyond international restaurant fare.
Our rich-in-amenities Richmond neighborhood will be richer with a wider array
of cultural and racial representation. Our kids especially will benefit
from the broader spectrum of people passing through their daily lives as they
grow into adults who respect peoples’ differences.
Sadly,
throughout its history, the City lacked incentives for different economic
groups to live side by side, and this in part, has led to Richmond’s blinding
whiteness (it doesn’t help that Portland is 76% caucasian - most neighborhoods
face this same problem). Lucky for us, the 90’s brought both a
progressive shift that fed the booming foodie and creative community, and
created building codes that financially allow different people to mix and
mingle.
Professional
planners have carefully thought these things through and purposefully allowed
buildings like the 37th Street Apartments. People smarter than
I have decided that the extra effort of walking a half-block from car to home
is a small price to pay for the planned, inclusive density that this kind of
project promotes. Density is coming, Portland, like it or not. With
the flurry of new establishments lately, Richmond will perhaps someday feel
like a mini-NW 23rd Avenue, with all the same parking conflicts and
traffic issues – and rising property values.
The
bottom line for Richmond is that change is a-comin. There is no way
around it. And believe it or not, it doesn’t have to lead to neighborhood
in-fighting over limited street parking. Most people don’t realize that
the true ratio of available long-term spots to cars will shift from both sides
of the equation. Some residents of the 37th Street Apartments
won’t own cars. But, as RNRG rightly submits, many will. The
complex, in and of itself, will increase demand for street parking. But
the forgotten elements in this formula are the changes that will be made by
nearby home owners, most of whom also own cars and park on the street.
This ingrained habit (hypocritically begrudged to the newcomers) is already a
lifestyle of choice for far more than 160 of us. We may need to
re-examine this habit.
It
may surprise folks to know that most of the single-family lots in Richmond
actually do include off-street parking. It may not look like much, but
those tuck-under garages, shared driveways and cramped, one-car garages from
early in the century are intended for cars, not ladders, table saws, flower
beds and recycling bins. If home-owners grow weary of searching for spots
on the street, they have options. Uprooting sentimental plants and
getting rid of years of accumulated junk will be hard, but using our lots as
they were designed to be used shouldn’t be a shocking concept, and it’s only
fair. We have grown entitled to space, considering the street as our own
personal resource. In reality, it belongs to everyone. But a
driveway is truly a reserved space, just for its owner!
Another
way current residents will affect the car-to-space ratio is by choosing to own
fewer cars. Maybe teenagers will have to share dad’s car when they get
their licenses. Perhaps families will carpool more often, use car-sharing
services (prolific in our neighborhood), or junk their junkers instead of
leaving them on the street for ‘just in case’. In this close-in,
alternative-transportation-friendly neighborhood, what household really needs
three or more cars? With the many benefits of a hipper, cooler, more
equitable Division Street comes change for us old-timers. That change can
and – yes – should be made.
The
development on 37th and Division will negatively impact me and my family in the
short term. But I am willing to share my little slice of this wonderful
neighborhood with others – families that can’t afford a car, environmentalists
who choose to eschew driving, young people who don’t mind walking a few blocks
from front door to car door... In the spirit of the big picture, I try my
hardest not to say, “Not in My Back Yard.” I trust that the City and the
State have a well-defined set of planning regulations and procedures to ensure
that Portland will grow in ways that are better for all of us. In the
end, the spirit of the code must be upheld.
Change and compromise are required in order to handle Portland’s
population-expanding popularity with poise and equity.
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