|
Fight brewing against high-rise condo plan
Thursday, April 19, 2007
By Fred Leeson
Portland's next great neighborhood land-use controversy is brewing on a steep 6.4-acre site along Southwest Sam Jackson Park Road, barely a half-mile from downtown.
A Coral Gables, Fla., developer hopes to build 279 condos in two buildings that could climb to 18 stories.
Although plans are preliminary, three neighborhood associations fear complications from added traffic on the narrow, twisting road, which climbs to Oregon Health & Science University.
Friends of Terwilliger, a nonprofit preservation group, also contends that high-rise buildings would violate the recommended "small scale" outlined in a 1983 city plan for the scenic corridor.
"If this is small scale," says Doug Weir, president of the group, "what is large? When I first saw the design, I was shocked. This goes right to the heart of the Terwilliger Parkway character."
Representatives of the Homestead, Southwest Hills and South Portland neighborhood associations are preparing to fight the development.
Anton Vetterlein, a Homestead resident, says the condos would add at least 2,200 car trips a day to Sam Jackson Park Road, the main access to OHSU. Coming into town, the cars would worsen a bottleneck on Southwest Sixth Avenue, where rush-hour traffic already stacks up for blocks waiting to enter Interstate 405.
If the new housing is intended to serve the medical complex, "It doesn't connect to OHSU in any meaningful way," Vetterlein says. There's no uphill transit or sidewalks, and Jackson is too steep for bicycling. "They'd have to drive," he says.
Portland's Myhre Group Architects has presented two options for the condos in advisory meetings with the Portland Design Commission. The first featured three buildings of eight to nine stories sitting flush on Jackson.
After comments from the commission, the architects returned with a concept showing two towers set back 30 feet from the street. Both buildings would be terraced in stairstep fashion into the steep slope for 10 or so stories, then rise eight more stories.
The two-tower plan would cover 1.6 acres of the 6.4-acre site, leaving the rest vacant as a drainage easement and protected open space. However, to achieve the maximum 279 units allowed under city zoning, the towers would rise more than 210 feet -- more than four times Jackson's 45-foot height limit -- and would clearly stand out in the Terwilliger corridor.
Some design commissioners questioned the height. "Suffice to say, this would be the most exceptional height allowance in the history of Portland," says Tim Heron, a city planner.
Mike McCulloch, a design commission member, says the solution may be to reduce the number of condos. But architect Jeff Myhre seems resistant.
"We do believe in density and verticality," he says. "This is a city. That's it for me."
The architects can return for more public discussion before submitting a final plan for a design commission vote.
The commission's decision can be appealed to the Portland City Council. Given the views of neighbors and Friends of Terwilliger, it looks as if that's where it's headed.
__________________
A mind that is expanded by a new idea can never return to it's original dimensions.
|
Prev
Linear Mode
