No protection: Toxic fallout shows where neighbors sit

I reported on another blog about the proposal by the city auditor and ombudsman to address barriers to Portlanders' ability to exercise their appeal rights, mainly by reducing fees to a nominal amount. In the rallying effort for the proposal there were frequent mentions to the highest fee of all, one that was over $1,300, an amount that not many of us can readily come up with (especially if nonrefundable).

That fee ($1,318 to be exact) is the newly instituted one that neighbors must pay to ask for an additional demolition delay if the subject house could be saved in some way. Since its institution in 1989, this delay has actually helped save some homes, and even after developers recently managed to halve the delay period, from 120 days to 60, it still can be a useful tool for neighborhoods hammered by the mounting costs of trash-and-build development.

City Council loved the proposal, citing the desire to offer all Portlanders, regardless of income, the right to an administrative appeal process. Watch the April 22 proceedings here, starting at 69:15.

At Minute 157 things get interesting with Commissioner Fritz, once a champion for neighborhoods, raising a red flag about whether the reduction in appeal fees would allow more neighbors to attempt to save homes in their neighborhoods, by requesting the additional demo delay for a nominal fee. There is blustering, there are crickets (161), there is wink-wink "Is there a public purpose in dissuading [citizens] from appealing a demolition permit?" (161:30). With "public" seemingly in the eyes of our leaders becoming more synonymous with "developer-driven," the answer would be yes based on what happened at the final vote.

On May 20, City Council unanimously approved the proposal, reducing all appeal fees citywide to a nominal amount—except for one. Guess which one? When asked, Ombudsman Margie Sollinger said the exception of the demo-delay fee (the highest charged by the city for any appeals process, then and now) was demanded by Commissioner Fritz. Never mind that the city seems intent on bungling all details of the new demo-delay rules discussed for close to a year now and instituted last month—neighbors get no relief. Even when well-meaning city staff such as the auditor and ombudsman try to bring justice within reach of all Portlanders, powerful interests will insert a significant exception that strives to keep business as usual, unfettered by those seeking to protect their neighborhoods.

Pictures of a demolition a few days ago in Northeast Portland show no one's in control, including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which claims to enforce rules on protection for workers releasing uncontrolled hazmat in to the air and surrounding yards (click on last two pictures to verify lack of protection). Federal studies show demolition dust can travel up to 400 feet, or about the width of eight standard-size residential lots in Portland. Here Metro Homes Northwest clears the way for another particlebarn, endangering everyone and accountable to none.

Deconstruction would do a lot to solve many problems associated with mechanical demolition, if demolition must occur. This important issue heads to City Council this week, and deserves your study and support.

City may pass the hat ... for developers

Actually, it's better than that. It's possible the city will propose that you and I—as city-funding taxpayers—pay the developers to deconstruct the homes they intend to demolish. Apparently it is not enough that neighborhoods lose their stock of affordable housing full of quality materials and character, mature tree canopy, and access to solar, among other irreplaceable items; now we're supposed to pay the people exploiting our neighborhoods to allow the reuse of old-growth materials?

It's almost as if I hadn't heard it right, but yes that was the report from United Neighborhoods for Reform's rep to the deconstruction advisory group (DAG), Barbara Kerr. Long a champion of reuse, she agreed to attend meetings of the group that was formed to present a deconstruction program to Portland City Council early next month. There are some strong pro-environment leaders on that committee, but neighbors' voice in favor of a deconstruction mandate is being overwhelmed by the numbers and power of developers showing up at the table. (If you are free tomorrow (Wednesday, May 20) from 2:30 to 4:30, please grab a seat at the table in conference room A on the 17th floor of the building at 1900 S.W. Fourth Ave. and ask for mandated deconstruction—paid for by the property owner—if demolition must occur. Developers representing out-of-town business interests are increasingly taking seats at that table and shaping local policy against Portlanders' interests.)

By way of explaining how the idea came about to pay developers to deconstruct, Kerr reported after the last DAG meeting that the developers "stated that if society wants them to do something, society needs to pay them and that if deconstruction is made mandatory, there will be pushback."

Cousin, can you spare a dime? Vic and Wally Remmers can't afford to do the right thing
deconstructing houses instead of throwing them in our landfill, so they want
Portlanders to pay them to do it. Maybe relative Dennis Sackhoff, who's finishing up
his latest so-so Soviet project in Hollywood, can help out the family.

Why is it every time antidemolition activists successfully ask for change, the developer-determined proposal that comes back makes things worse for neighborhoods, and City Council nods along and calls it a compromise?

Every single neighborhood association voting in favor of United Neighborhoods for Reform's resolution supports a deconstruction mandate—as the city likes to remind us, Portland loves to recycle! One neighborhood backed the resolution for the deconstruction element alone. UNR knows that some homes will be demolished; the only way they should leave the landscape, for all sorts of public and environmental health and safety reasons, is by deconstruction. So what if it costs more and takes a few days longer? Call it the price of admission for access to Portland's real estate gold mine.

Gag order silences public's voice in public policy

After pressure from the city's ombudsman office, DRAC's
demolition subcommittee now allows the public to attend
meetings where it decides public policy (even though it is
 not part of its stated mission). The hitch:
You can come, but you can't say anything.

Mostly it's a drag attending DRAC meetings (and I know of at least one member who would agree) but every once in a while an amusing nugget surfaces. For instance, from the minutes for the Feb. 19 meeting of the Development Review Advisory Committee (or DRAC), 

• "Kurt Krueger said that there is an assumption in the community that projects in general are built without enough (or any) review, and this is inaccurate."

At least two state Land Use Board of Appeals cases were brought (and paid for) by neighbors that did find city code was not followed and developers' noncompliance with code (the short film that chronicles those efforts is here). These LUBA rulings have shown that planners do miss items in permitting that have to be removed from the project. 

If it is up to neighbors to perform quality control on permitted projects, then how much faith would we have in the process that gave them a nod in the first place. What about all the projects that weren't appealed? What about the neighbors who did not have the fundraising acumen or organizational ability to bring an appeal? 

Meanwhile, the DRAC subcommittee tasked with the serious matter of hazmat control during demolitions is working hard to come up with another voluntary program. Sound familiar? It devised similar voluntary measures after months of dickering on demo notifications, only to have two huge City Council sessions and months more of negotiating to put teeth to the program and finally get lukewarm measures into code. What a waste of everyone's time this DRAC stuff is—no wonder it has attendance problems by its members.

In introducing that voluntary hazmat-control program, the latest DRAC minutes from the March 19 meeting are careful to point out:

"There is buy-in from the Home Builders Association, and it will protect neighbors from hazardous materials."

Note how much more important it was to get approval from the developers rather than the local people actually being exposed to the lead and asbestos. Note, too, the patronizing assurance of "protect[ion]" for this strictly voluntary program. It's how the profiteers love it: No certification, no accountability, no guarantee of safe disposal of hazardous materials known to cause irreparable damage. No protective measures to apply on the way to yet more fat profits, taken at the expense of neighborhoods and public safety.

As for Commissioner Fritz, who's in charge of the Bureau of Development Services, she has said that neighbors should simply close their windows when demos occur. And we would add that for those residents who leave their home quarantines if they are within 400 feet of a demo site (the distance that the feds have shown the hazmat travels)—Don't inhale.

A rare example of a well-designed, -built, and -scaled building
goes up at Northeast 24th and Fremont. Why is this more of an
exception than the norm in Portland's development scene?

Finally, DRAC seems so bothered by outsiders' attendance at its public meetings that last month it released this protocol. In it, one housekeeping item says that minutes will be posted within seven days of the meetings. But it took weeks, maybe months, for minutes to appear from all the demolition subcommittee meetings that have occurred until now. None appear for the meeting that occurred mid-March (update: they posted today, after I published this). The delays in publishing minutes of meetings where public policy is decided make it hard for the public to engage or respond if it cannot learn about what DRAC is doing.

Again, DRAC—and its overarching Bureau of Development Services—decide what rules you and I have to follow, and what rules they (and their customers) don't. If DRAC doesn't supply minutes as it's supposed to, I think we should bring volleyballs to the meetings.

We still await evidence that DRAC is the "good public process" that defenders claim it is.

Rose City registers some comings and goings

Today the producers behind Portlandia and Grimm announced they are moving operations out of Portland because the city's neighborhoods no longer feature a preponderance of well-built period homes that the shows are known for and that used to be one of the Rose City's trademarks.

In other news, Paul Scaralot has decided to take a sabbatical and install Wally Reamers as interim director of the Bureau of Development Services. "This just formalizes the great relationship we've had all along," said Reamers between licks of Salt & Raw's latest seasonal ice cream flavor, vanilla flecked with lead and asbestos particles.

"All we have to do is keep the permits coming, and count the money," his son said, who will be filling in full time for his father. "Basically, it's business as usual."

Los Angeles leads the way

At a time when the hearings for the proposed new Comprehensive Plan verge on the farcical—neighbors talk of their desire to see new construction sit back from the street as original homes do, and preservation of open space that allows for mature trees to keep on growing, while city planners nod respectfully and take little of it to heart or the plan itself—it's become clear that the mostly out-of-town developers have the city's ear more than Portland residents do.

Los Angeles is instituting another round of rules on new home
construction after the first "McMansion laws" allowed
developers to go even bigger. Last week the City Council there
voted unanimously for a two-year moratorium on building 
and demo permits in five districts. Portland should look south
for inspiration.
Photo from www.beverlygrove.org.

Proof: The recent push to add "bonuses" in building height if developers do something right by the neighborhood (this approach backfired in Los Angeles, where the first round of so-called "McMansion laws" failed because those bonuses led to even bigger homes, the opposite of what the new rules had intended). It's almost as if developers working over Portland can't be counted to make good buildings anymore, ones that contribute to their environs instead of merely exploiting them. Let's raise expectations for those building here.

More proof: City planners stage meetings in already great neighborhoods with the stated purpose of engaging neighbors in "capacity building"—trying for some kind of Stockholm syndrome, I guess. These meetings aren't about "improving" a neighborhood; it's about squeezing as many people in as possible, providing more profit for trash-and-build developers, and fueling the record-breaking number of home demolitions to make way. On this block alone in Northeast Portland, I've seen what "capacity building" does—it turns a leafy narrow street into a parking lot for an out-of-code project that externalizes costs (i.e., parking) to the detriment of a neighborhood's earliest investors. Seniors and families on this street no longer are assured easy access to transportation, spots for caregivers to park, and other services.

An in-depth study of three cities (Seattle, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.) by the National Trust for Historic Preservation proves the many benefits of keeping original "first-growth" construction.


From the summary:

"Based upon statistical analysis of the built fabric of three major American cities, this research finds that established neighborhoods with a mix of older, smaller buildings perform better than districts with larger, newer structures when tested against a range of economic, social, and environmental outcome measures."

Further:

"Neighborhoods containing a mix of older, smaller buildings of diverse age support greater levels of positive economic and social activity than areas dominated by newer, larger buildings."

The study mentions particular benefits of neighborhoods with older, small buildings:

walkability

nightlife is most alive

increased number of entrepreneurs

a creative economy

businesses with two times women and minority ownership

more non-chain establishments

more jobs in small businesses

Before Portland turns into Anytown, USA, let's hope city planners look at the wide range of research available, even their own studies; the one excerpted below points out that Portland has enough available vacant land to meet its projected housing needs twice over without demolishing a thing. So please no more blaming demos on the urban growth boundary.

Thanks to Amber Leonard/Stop Demolishing Portland Facebook group for the research.

Serious matters call for serious action

A single image shows all that's wrong with
current Portland planning/permitting. Photo by Fred Lifton.

The best news I heard this week is that David Mullens, one of the right-hand men in the Sackhoff-Remmers juggernaut that rules Portland's trash-and-build-to-the-max construction scene, said the new guidelines proposed for the city's Mixed Use districts are so onerous he and other developers just may pull out of Portland.

Please do!

If a business model is predicated on the destruction of well-established neighborhoods full of open space, mature trees, and unique well-built homes, then perhaps Portland no longer is the fertile ground for profits that it once was.

Even the commissioner in charge of the Bureau of Development Services, Amanda Fritz, seems to be having misgivings about the homogenization and humongous-ization overtaking the city's built landscape. Not coincidentally, she's launching a reelection campaign, ironically trying to woo back the neighbor base that got her into office in the first place. With this latest move, she's fooled some people with her late plea on behalf of Portland neighborhoods, but not those long appalled at her years-long BDS-can-do-no-wrong stance and defense of nonconforming and noncontributing projects.

Suddenly Commissioner Amanda Fritz (middle) says she cares
about neighborhoods, per a recent Oregonian story. But at
City Hall on Feb. 12 she was adamantly opposed to
effective hazmat control during demolitions (start watching
at 75:28 here to hear/see for yourself).

She's not the only one having a credibility crisis. The entire City Council also veers toward one when it goes along with an idea to give the serious measures of hazmat control during demolitions and mandating deconstruction (if demolition must occur) to the folks who help perpetrate it: the Development Review Advisory Committee, or DRAC. DRAC hasn't bothered to follow Oregon's Public Meetings Law, fill vacancies on its board that would add more diverse voices, or keep its paperwork up to date, as it is supposedly required to do. With such lack of transparency, accountability, and equity, it is not the right body to decide far-reaching policy—and, to be fair, it's not part of its stated mission to do so.

By the way, when sifting through the DRAC minutes that are available, I was amused by the following explanation for how BDS deals with complaints, as explained by bureau director Paul Scarlett:

"Mr. Scarlett said that because BDS wasn't able to respond to a lot of complaints during and after the recession, people stopped calling to complain."

Next time a BDS staffer talks about a "complaint-driven system" for construction-practices accountability, you'll know why they smile.

When the Exxon Valdez spilled its cargo, no one asked Exxon how best to clean it up. Giving DRAC, many of whose members represent the very folks poisoning our neighborhoods' air and properties, the ability to regulate lead and asbestos fallout from demolitions smacks of folly and lack of commitment to fixing the problem. Anyone who gardens, eats what they grow, or has children should care very much about the demolitions occurring within 400 feet (the width of about eight standard-size yards) of where they live—that's how far the asbestos and lead particles have been shown to travel.

If City Council was serious about public safety and environmental responsibility, then hazmat control and deconstruction deserve better scrutiny by a wider variety of stakeholders, and positive impartial action. Now.

How do you "redo" a meeting? We're about to find out

Is the bloom off the Rose City? Not if the
mayor's words turn into action.

The Bureau of Development Services, its Development Review Advisory Committee (DRAC), and so-called "business partners" (i.e., developers) have operated above the law for so long that I about fell out of my chair receiving this message yesterday from city ombudsman Margie Sollinger:

"The Bureau of Development Services has indicated they are going to re-do the January 8, 2015 demolition subcommittee meeting."

Further, Sollinger wrote: "Going forward, it's my expectation that all subcommittee meetings will comply with the Public Meetings Law, including proper notice and providing minutes 'within a reasonable time after the meeting.'"

The redo is scheduled for 8 to 10 a.m. Feb. 3 at 1900 S.W. Fourth Ave., Room 4(A). This time the public can come to observe, and possibly participate in, matters of the public's business.

As recently as Jan. 15, DRAC was proclaimed as "good public process." Is it? Now that the bureau and DRAC plan to follow Oregon's Public Meetings Law, that could begin to be true. But DRAC still has vacancies; among others, the spot for "low-income housing developers" remains empty, tellingly so during much of this demolition mess.

In the State of the City speech today at the City Club of Portland, Mayor Hales came out with support (starts at 22:19) for "new rules on neighborhood infill" and for making "demolition a less attractive option." He reasoned, "We should take care of what we have and invest in the plans and hopes of Portland neighborhoods that they've established for themselves." Hopefully the rest of city leadership and staff was listening—and is willing to help make these neighborhood-centric goals a reality.

Rumor has it developers already are threatening legal action, presumably to the delight of their high-dollar lawyers. It seems like the time and effort could be better spent sending thank-you notes (or apologies) to the neighborhoods where they trashed local heritage and affordable housing for fat profits that usually went straight out of town. The gravy train may be coming to an end; trash-and-build developers ought to be grateful it came, and neighbors will be grateful when it's gone. For a city that prides itself on sustainable, thoughtful planning, we can—and the mayor says we should—do better.