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Old Posted Aug 22, 2006, 1:19 PM
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MarkDaMan MarkDaMan is offline
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Allegro | Dead


Air sale
BACKSTORY: Policy set now could decide fate of city's skyline
JIM CLARK / The Portland Tribune

Architects Gary Reddick (left) and Jeff Lamb of Sienna Architecture designed the proposed Allegro tower. A transfer of air rights from the Lloyd District to Goose Hollow helps make the high-rise possible, but many question the crosstown trade.

Hey buddy, want to buy some air?

It’s for sale throughout Portland’s central city. In fact, there’s a growing market, albeit a shadowy one, for developers who know it’s one thing to buy a piece of property, and quite another to buy the air space above a piece of property that will allow them to build larger, more profitable buildings.

In a developer’s world, the air in question is called FAR, short for floor-to-area ratio. In general terms, it helps the city define how to limit the total floor area of a building regardless of the number of stories it has.

The goal: By controlling the mass of buildings, the city can dictate the amount of light and view that filters through neighborhoods.

Land zoned for a 5-1 FAR, for example, means the total floor space of the property’s building, regardless of height, can be no more than five times the size of the property’s dimensions. It means that if builders want to build taller, they have to build skinnier. If they want to build bulkier, they have to build shorter.

What’s new in the past few years is that developers who don’t have enough FAR to construct the bulkier condominium towers they’d like have learned they can buy or transfer FAR from smaller buildings somewhere else — buildings not using all of their allowable FAR.

That’s exactly what M. David Paul and Associates, lead developer of the proposed Allegro Condominiums in Goose Hollow in Southwest Portland, plans to do. They want to nearly double the bulk of the building than otherwise would be allowed.

And as far as Portland’s Bureau of Development Services is concerned, the deal is perfectly legitimate.

But a number of people, inside and outside city government, have begun to question whether the trend is good for the city. And the Allegro, because its developers have proposed a bolder FAR transfer than Portland has seen before, has become the lightning rod for a public policy battle that could shape the city’s skyline for years to come.

Critics say the buying and selling of FAR has gotten out of hand and threatens to undo the way Portland neighborhoods are supposed to look.

“It undermines all the planning documents,” says Patricia Gardner, an architectural designer and chairwoman of the Pearl District Neighborhood Association planning committee. “It really starts messing up the look of the city and the intentions behind everything.”

The Allegro’s proposed transfer of FAR from across the city — instead of from buildings in its immediate vicinity — certainly raises the stakes for developers.

“No one has ever been so brazen as to suggest the law means what they’re saying it means here,” says attorney Jim Francesconi, the former city commissioner who currently is working for developers who own property next to the Allegro site and who want the project stopped. “We’re creating a whole market out there for developers, and the city’s not getting anything for it.”

In the life of a city the ebb and flow of development can take the form of a game of civic leapfrog. Long-range planning documents guide development, setting height limits and zoning designations. Developers familiarize themselves with the rules and push the boundaries. And then a test case appears.

Tomorrow, when the City Council considers an appeal from the Goose Hollow Foothills League neighborhood association on the Allegro plans, it will be considering one of those test cases.

Francesconi, for one, thinks the council must at least impose some sort of temporary restrictions on developers transferring FAR while a larger, more comprehensive central city development plan is considered.

“The council has to act now,” Francesconi says.

The developers of the Allegro, a 21-story luxury condominium planned across the street from Lincoln High School on Southwest 18th Avenue, want to build the most massive building yet seen in Goose Hollow.

But mass requires air rights. And the size of the condo tower Sienna Architecture wants to build requires more FAR than the property’s zoning allows. City planning documents have the site maxed out at 9-1 FAR, and the Allegro is designed at 13-1.

As of two weeks ago, the developers’ solution, approved by the bureau of development services, was to buy 50,000 square feet of FAR from a smaller building in the Lloyd District that had not used all of its air space.

In fact, the Lloyd District building, Cascadian Court Condominiums, was developed and built by the same group that is developing the Allegro. So they in essence bought the FAR from themselves.

According to Matt Sloan, one of the Allegro’s developers, when they finished the Cascadian Court in 2000 they knew the building’s unused FAR would become valuable. The developers sold the Cascadian Court within a year of building it, but made sure the sale stipulated they retained rights to the excess 50,000 square feet of FAR.

That FAR now has transferred to the Allegro site, which Allegro developers have agreed to purchase from TriMet. But an even bigger chunk of excess FAR to be used by the Allegro is being bought from TriMet, which has plenty of unused air space on another piece of property two blocks away from the Allegro site.

Until now, most if not all FAR transfers in the city took place within a neighborhood, usually among buildings close to one another. But taking FAR from one neighborhood and moving it to another has the potential to change the rules of the development game in Portland, the Pearl District’s Gardner says.

City plans envision that someday the Lloyd District, now undervalued, will become ripe for new development, condo towers and all. So property there is zoned for FAR up to an enticing 12-1. But if property owners in the Lloyd District sell off their FAR now, they may never see the development the city hopes to encourage.

“That’s really changing the lay of the land,” Gardner says. “The Lloyd District is meant to be very dense and high-rise, and you’re taking that ability away from that neighborhood and putting it in another place in town.”
Cross-town transfer got nod

Gil Kelley, Portland’s director of planning, says he has told the City Council that he disagrees with the Bureau of Development Services ruling allowing the FAR transfer from the Lloyd District to the Allegro.

But Kelley thinks the FAR transfer from the TriMet site within Goose Hollow makes sense. Allowing the Allegro to build up to its proposed size might be allowable, Kelley says, because the overall building space within the neighborhood would stay the same.

“You’re not increasing the overall density of a neighborhood; you’re shifting it around,” Kelley says.

The barrage of criticism has the Allegro’s developers reconsidering the Lloyd District transfer. A week after the Portland Tribune first talked to members of the development team about the issue, they said they would be willing to drop the Lloyd District transfer.

“It’s not our intent to shove this down anybody’s throat,” Sloan says.

But whether the Allegro developers choose to drop the FAR transfer from the Lloyd District or not, the precedent has been set. City planners approved the deal.

The developers have been offered not only FAR by TriMet, but land for the Allegro as well. And TriMet’s bottom line on the deals — one deal for the land on which the Allegro will sit and another deal for FAR rights over TriMet land two blocks away — provides an eye-opening look at development value in Portland.

TriMet has agreed to sell the Allegro developers the land for $1. But TriMet has priced the extra FAR needed to build the condo project — which comes from the unused TriMet air space over a MAX station two blocks away from the Allegro, across the street from PGE Park — at $1.4 million. The air, clearly, is more valuable than the land.
At the Casey, views ensured

Jeff Joslin, who oversees Portland FAR transfers as land-use manager with the Bureau of Development Services, estimates that up to 24 FAR transfers have occurred over the past two years, including a number in the Pearl District, where developers have been transferring FAR among their own properties. But Joslin has no way of knowing which involved trades and which were sales.

Developer Mark Edlen of Gerding/Edlen Development Co. says his firm bought FAR on its 16-story Pearl District condominium tower, the Casey. The Casey, at Northwest 12th Avenue and Everett Street, is under construction, right next to the Bullseye Gallery.

Edlen says he wanted to ensure that someday another developer didn’t buy the Bullseye property and erect a tower that could block the view of the Casey’s residents. His solution? Gerding/Edlen not only bought the Bullseye’s FAR, but the Bullseye’s view easement as well, so that nobody would be tempted to buy the Bullseye property and buy back FAR from some other building. Edlen isn’t saying how much he paid for the combination.

The Allegro provides the first glimpse into the cost of FAR in Portland. TriMet has offered to sell its 105,000 square feet of FAR to the Allegro developers for $1.4 million. And TriMet has a great deal of unused air space it could potentially sell, according to Jillian Detweiler, TriMet senior land development planner.

But critics say the prospect of a public agency selling FAR to a private developer raises serious questions of public policy.
Preservation’s made easier

Rick Pruetz, a Hermosa Beach, Calif., specialist in the transfer of development rights, says different cities around the country have different rules governing FAR. But generally, he says, FAR selling has been used as a tool to keep landmark buildings from being bought and demolished by developers.

Short historic buildings can sell their unused air space as a way of warding off the wrecking ball. First, money from the FAR sale can be used to maintain the building. Even more critical, if a landmark building downtown sells off its FAR, it has also sold off the reason someone might want to purchase and develop it. With no air rights, the property loses its appeal as a site for a larger, more profitable building.

Daren Duke, a commercial broker at Colliers International, who brokers FAR for Portland clients, says TriMet’s selling FAR undermines the city’s goal of protecting landmarks and shelter hotels. If developers can buy their FAR from a public agency, Duke says, they won’t have to buy from the buildings that need protection.

“What’s to stop ODOT (the Oregon Department of Transportation) from transferring all the FAR from all the properties it owns under bridges and rights of way, and moving it all around?” Duke says. “If the city is going to create incentives, it has to create protections for incentives.”

Duke says one of his clients currently has 100,000 square feet of FAR rights that were retained when an old single-resident-occupancy hotel downtown was bought and renovated. His client retained the air rights and he’s looking to sell, Duke says.

As for the cost of FAR, Duke says TriMet’s price tag on the Allegro FAR sounds reasonable. “Ten bucks a square foot, that’s in the ballpark,” he says.

According to Duke, the shadowy aspect of FAR selling is at least partially intentional. “Buyers don’t want sellers to know (the FAR price) because they don’t want the price to go up,” he says. “It’s a hard-to-define market at this point.”

The intention of FAR zoning is fairly clear.

FAR and other types of zoning are meant to encourage development according to a citywide vision. The central city master plan for the west side of the Willamette River calls for smaller buildings along the river growing larger toward the heart of downtown and receding again toward the West Hills. So, for instance, some property downtown is zoned 12-1 FAR, but toward Goose Hollow 6-1 and 4-1 designations are more common.

At 13-1 the Allegro defies that overall plan. But its developers say the Allegro site is ideal for such a dense urban project — right on the MAX line. The Bureau of Development Services agreed when it granted the equivalent of a zoning variance to the developers.

Joslin at development services sticks by the bureau’s decision to approve the Allegro plans to transfer FAR from the Lloyd District. “The code reads pretty simply,” he says. “FAR can be redistributed.”
Shadow, precedent rankle

Opponents think the planned structure is very inappropriate, claiming it will dwarf its Goose Hollow neighbors.

Jerald Powell, who chairs the neighborhood association planning committee, worries that the Allegro’s shadow will cover the neighborhood. And he is concerned that if the Allegro is allowed to develop at 13-1 FAR, the owners of three other blocks nearby could be allowed to do the same.

According to Powell, four blocks at 14-1, which is Powell’s estimate of the Allegro, would add up to nearly 6 million square feet of development. Powell says the neighborhood doesn’t have the infrastructure to handle development on such a large scale.

Developers of the Allegro say their building emphasizes exactly what the city claims as its priority — urban density. Jeff Lamb, designer at Sienna Architecture, says the Allegro is likely to be the first of many such high-rises in Goose Hollow.

“It’s time this neighborhood grows up with the rest of Portland,” Lamb says. “It’s coming, and it’s going to be good because it’s going to keep people downtown and along the MAX line.”

Detweiler, TriMet’s planner, thinks the final chapter in the Allegro story has yet to be written.

But Wednesday’s City Council hearing will certainly advance the plot.

“Precedents are set in cases like this,” she says.

peterkorn@portlandtribune.com
http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/...20805173944600
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Old Posted Aug 22, 2006, 1:56 PM
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Sorry about the double post. We read the Tribune about the same time.
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Old Posted Aug 22, 2006, 6:52 PM
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The only thing that really bothers me about all of this is the transfering away from the Lloyd District. I don't want to see that area to continue the way it is while all its air space is used elsewhere in Portland. As for the trimet part, that sounds fair. I think they can design and build a good size building with that.
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Old Posted Aug 22, 2006, 7:20 PM
zilfondel zilfondel is offline
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So if a developer buys a property with a building on it that has sold its FAR to another project, can you then raze the old building and build a taller one, and 'use up' the FAR that was transferred before? This would be a 'what-if' with new owners/developers. From what I've read, only the original developers can transfer FAR rights, so what happens if they no longer own the property? Can I transfer FAR rights above my single family residential house to a skyscraper? =D
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Old Posted Aug 22, 2006, 10:51 PM
pdx2m2 pdx2m2 is offline
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If you have a one story building and sell the extra FAR then your 'site' is forever limited by the amount that you didn't sell...say one story. You tear down your old one story building and you can only build a one story building in it's place.

if your house is in the central city you can sell your extra FAR if you can find a buyer. The FAR transfers are only within the Central City and currently can be transferred from any site in the central city to any other site.
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Old Posted Aug 23, 2006, 4:00 AM
zilfondel zilfondel is offline
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I thought the Lloyd district wasn't considered part of the central city?

You know what is going to happen 20 years down the road, when Portland's population is at 3 million, land prices are 3 times higher than today, oil is gone, and we have a bunch of 1-story buildings in the central city with no available FAR - the city is going to scrap the program and let everyone build higher.

My prediction, anyway. Interesting way to land bank.
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Old Posted Aug 23, 2006, 5:01 AM
Drmyeyes Drmyeyes is offline
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I read the posted Peter Korn story and also the accompanying story in the tribune: "Cost of prime site with MAX access: $1". The initial reading of that headline is a shock. In reading the story, Tri-met's, logic in setting that price has some basis in reality, but it's convoluted. It would have been better to say up front that the property was being sold for $4mil, discounted, etc., etc.

Discounting this property seems to be a highly questionable decision despite its problems and flaws. Tri-met's excuse for making such a deal is to gamble on increasing light rail ridership from the building. Really, are they so naieve about the increase in value of land close to downtown that's going to occur as the population continues to expand?

The biggest question is whether this building is what this area needs, and unfortunately, that decision so far has been largely driven by a developer instead of the neighborhood. The neighborhood, represented by the Goose Hollodevelopment should occurw Foothills league, now has to hustle and to catch-up to have some effect on the decision rather than vice versa.

If the value of property in this area were realistically perceived; not just for the current economic cycle but for years down the road, developers might be obliged to approach the neighborhood with their plans in a different manner; with consideration for quality of life for residents, and the character of the neighborhood.

As someone else more or less said, the use of the FAR formula has gotten out of hand. This out of hand use is end-zoning the responsible process that the formula was designed for: to decide how development should best occur for a healthy city of the future.
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Old Posted Aug 31, 2006, 3:07 PM
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Wider appeal
by Alison Ryan
08/31/2006

Challenges to approvals - or denials - of building projects have long been a part of the development process in Portland. But as planned projects rise in the central city and infill development continues to boom in outlying neighborhoods, many projects are ending up facing dispute in council chambers - as evidenced by last week's derailing of a proposed 21-story condo tower planned for the Goose Hollow neighborhood.

Going through the process

In 1988, the city zoning code underwent its first significant overhaul in 30 years, and revisions expanded both the appeal and notice processes as well as pushed more reviews into the administrative realm.

Type II land review procedures - most residential infill projects not in the central city fall under this banner - are decided by staff and can be appealed to local hearing bodies such as the landmarks or design commissions. Type III procedures, required for more complex reviews as well as projects within the central city, are decided by the review body. Appeals are made to City Council, and appeals of decisions made by the council are then made to the state Land Use Board of Appeals.

On Type II procedures, says Portland city planner Kristen Minor, "anybody can appeal. You don't have to have any type of standing like you do with a Type III process."

The most common appellants in a Type III process are the developers or the neighborhood organizations. Unlike with Type II procedures, for which the appeal fee is nominal, appeal of Type III decisions costs half the price the developer paid to go through the review in the first place - and the price is steep.

Individuals who have spoken, either orally or in writing, on a project can also appeal - though the cost typically keeps this from occurring.

But it has. In 1997, development rights for downtown's Fox Tower were appealed by an anonymous group that ponied up almost $8,000 to challenge the design commission's approval of the project. The appeal was ultimately withdrawn.

Far more common are appeals by neighborhood associations.

Last week, Portland City Council approved an appeal by the Goose Hollow Foothills League neighborhood association that halted development of the Allegro, a proposed 21-story condo tower planned for Southwest 18th Avenue. The design commission had previously approved the Allegro plans.

And in July, the Historic Landmarks Commission denied a neighborhood association appeal of the Mississippi Avenue Lofts, a planned four-story mixed-use project proposed for North Mississippi Avenue that had previously been approved by Bureau of Development Services staff.

Though it may seem like more projects are being appealed these days, Minor said, that's likely just perception.

"Percentage-wise, it's probably not much of an increase," she said. "There may have been a slight up-tick."

But, she said, much of what's being developed is property in the middle of existing neighborhoods.

"They're more and more becoming infill sites," she said, "which are going to have some issues."

Such issues are already starting to emerge. As smaller mixed-use retail-housing projects pop up across Portland, a city code requirement for an on-site loading zone has been successfully sidestepped by developers. But the requirement has been a grasping point for appeal by several associations.

The Clinton Condominium project, developed by Randy Rapaport, was appealed by the Hosford-Abernethy Neighborhood Development association to the City Council and then to the Land Use Board of Appeals, which ultimately rejected the appeal. The basis for the appeal, Rapaport said, was the loading zone.

Neighborhood reactions vary by location, he said. But a tendency is rising, he said, to block projects through appeals to prevent neighborhood change.

"A vocal minority has the ability to skew the leadership within a land-use group within a neighborhood, and perhaps not have the best view of what should be," he said. "It tarnishes the neighborhood, and it hurts in the regard of appropriate density on these transit streets."

The existing appeals process, Rapaport said, slows project development and can increase costs for both the state and developer.

In the case of the Clinton, Rapaport said, the process cost the city of Portland and the state of Oregon about $50,000, and it raised his costs by another $50,000, he said. Those increased costs can lead, he said, to lower-quality projects.

"What ends up happening is the developer value-engineers, or takes even more quality out of the building," he said.

More on city's plate, too

As the number of projects under development throughout the city increases, the approval process in certain cases has slowed.

Staff in some departments has been added, Minor said, but finding people with proper backgrounds and fitting them into the specialized role required by the Bureau of Development Services is tough.

"It's been kind of a slow growth process, and it takes a long time to bring people up to speed," she said. "It's sort of a combination of us all working some overtime, and added some staff."

More cases have also meant a tough schedule for the design commission. In January, the commission pushed its start time to 1:30 p.m. from 3 p.m. Still, Minor said, scheduling cases has been difficult, and agendas have bulked up.

"We try not to give them too many things on an agenda," she said, "but it's hard when we have pressure from developers to get stuff on."

http://www.djc-or.com/viewStory.cfm?...27819&userID=1
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Old Posted Sep 1, 2006, 9:52 AM
Drmyeyes Drmyeyes is offline
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Guessing from what the article says, apparently the Mississippi Avenue Lofts appeal was a Type II land review process, and the Goose Hollow Allegro appeal was a type III. I suppose this means that the Goose Hollow neighborhood association, in addition to many hours of volunteer time and effort, had to pony up some serious bucks to appeal faulty details of the Allegro condo design to City Council.

It’s kind of alarming that neighborhoods would have this additional burden to shoulder in their efforts to take responsibility for ensuring a certain degree of livability for the neighborhood in the future.

Poor Randy. He’s the 46 year old guy, applauded for his satisfying design of the Belmont Street Lofts. On the other hand, he also has a certain notorious distinction for his obnoxious imposition of the Clinton condos on 26th and Division. Rapaport signifies some of the best benefits that a developer can represent to a community, but he also represents a disturbingly unhealthy portion of the worst consequences a developer can represent to a neighborhood.

Such developers are leftovers from the old urban planning mentality that likes to favor developers ambitions over the concerns and needs of the people to be most affected on a long term basis by the developers project: the residents of a neighborhood where developers projects will be sited.

Anybody who wants to get a sense of what Randy is all about might choose to check out the following article with accompanying comments at PorltandArchitecture.com via the following link:

http://chatterbox.typepad.com/portla...rt_high_o.html

Read some of the above article and comments, and decide for yourselves how they jive with things Rappaport is quoted as having said according to Alison Ryan’s article, “Wider Appeal”. Randy’s comment:
"A vocal minority has the ability to skew the leadership within a land-use group within a neighborhood, and perhaps not have the best view of what should be," he said. "It tarnishes the neighborhood, and it hurts in the regard of appropriate density on these transit streets."
He's wrong to simply and negatively characterize neighborhood residents who appeal developer project designs. They’re not hicks from the sticks. They’re hip to the need for increased density in neighborhoods, but they also are smart enough, experienced enough, and sufficiently educated to recognize good resources their neighborhood has, and threats or undesirable and damaging effects that the entry of an architectural design poorly suited to their neighborhood can pose. This reality seems to be lost on developers such as Rapaport.

The reason those speaking out to new development are a minority is that active participation in neighborhood associations and attendance at design review meetings is a labor and time intensive activity that usually only a small number of vocal neighborhood residents can commit to.

The reason development project approval is costing more and taking longer these days, is due in large part to a refusal on the part of developers to sufficiently work with neighborhoods in helping to decide its evolving architectural character and quality of life it needs. When developers try to end-zone urban development savvy citizens, the result may increasingly be faulty designs with insufficient relevance to neighborhood needs.

If developers really want to speed up the process and save everyone money, they can think about giving up the old world mentality of domination by way of property rights, and work with the neighborhood to get the project details nailed down on a mutually satisfactory level before submitting them to design review, thereby avoiding the appeals process entirely.
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Old Posted Sep 1, 2006, 2:35 PM
Urbanpdx Urbanpdx is offline
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Just because you happen to live in a neighborhood at the current time does not, imho, give you the right to "nail down" the details of someone else's place. Randy and others do not try to come over to your house to make sure you plant the right kind of flowers out front or paint your house a color that has the "right effect on the neighborhood". If you want to design a building go put some investors together and buy a property and hire an architect.
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Old Posted Sep 1, 2006, 2:39 PM
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Allegro snub puts builders on edge
Commissioners clarify position in wake of rejected FAR transfer
By Peter Korn
The Portland Tribune

Developers seeking concrete policy direction from the City Council’s rejection of a Southwest Portland condominium project last week are finding that for now, they will have to settle for guidance rather than hard and fast rules on development transfers.

City commissioners offered a number of reasons for denying approval for the 21-story Allegro condominium, which was to be situated in Goose Hollow across from Lincoln High School.

The Allegro’s proposed transfer of development rights defined as floor-to-area ratio, or FAR, from sites across the river in the Lloyd District and from a TriMet plaza two blocks away, clearly contributed to the rejection. Local developers have been increasingly buying or transferring FAR for proposed projects from other smaller buildings that did not use all of their allowable FAR development rights.

But according to at least three commissioners, their intention was not to unilaterally declare that no future long-distance transfers of development rights will be allowed.

Another hot debate at City Council was the Allegro’s exceeding its zoned FAR. The Allegro already had been approved by the city’s Bureau of Development Services. That approval allowed the building to be built at a FAR ratio of 12-1, instead of the 9-1 FAR that the property’s zoning allowed.

But Commissioners Randy Leonard, Erik Sten and Sam Adams this week said that approval might be given to future projects that exceed their zoned FAR – if developers can demonstrate enough public benefit to sway commissioners.

That’s what the Allegro’s developers failed to do, according to Leonard.

“They (the Allegro’s developers) somehow thought just building this high-end condominium next to a light-rail MAX station was a public benefit,” Leonard said. “But for who?”

Commissioner Dan Saltzman prefaced his vote against the development by commenting the Allegro was “just too big and too bulky.” But interviews this week indicate that too big and too bulky in Goose Hollow might not be too big or bulky in other areas of the central city.

Adams says the Allegro’s location in Goose Hollow, with a number of single-family homes nearby, made its size an issue.

In existing residential neighborhoods, Adams said, taller, skinnier buildings that block less light are more likely to get approval, even if they exceed their zoned FAR.

“What we were saying was, We will accept density with pointed towers, but we won’t accept capsized cruise ships,” Adams said.

Tall and skinny may be a goal
Adams said the overall message to developers was not intended to discourage inner-city residential buildings.

“We’re going to have to grow up,” he said. “We’re going to have to grow taller. Hopefully as we grow taller we’ll try to keep it as skinny as possible.”

Paul Krueger, lead developer for the Allegro, thinks the council’s decision holds long-term implications for the city. “The City Council is setting a precedent regardless of whether they want to or not,” he said.

The Allegro’s developers might still build their condominium tower, Krueger said, but at a reduced size. And that, according to Krueger, will result in a net loss for the entire neighborhood.

Krueger said that the Allegro’s size and FAR transfer made possible a design and materials that he won’t be able to afford in a smaller building. The 12-1 FAR Allegro was designed with two landscaped gardens, rooftop observation decks and a large recreation room.

“We can’t put all that area in there,” Krueger said, citing the need to maximize profitable space in a smaller building. “We can’t recapture it in a smaller project.”

A smaller Allegro also will look different from the outside, Krueger said. “We had granite, we had terra cotta, we had wood and brick. The skin of the building will be changed. We can’t afford to put all those materials in.” He said steel and glass construction is cheaper and now more likely if the Allegro gets built.

The clearest message to emerge from the Allegro decision is that neighborhood associations hold the power to scuttle large-scale developments. The council’s rejection of the Allegro was prompted by an appeal by the Goose Hollow Foothills League neighborhood association. Commissioner Randy Leonard said the developer’s inability to get the neighborhood association on board might have cost them his vote.

“If anything sealed their fate it was that,” Leonard said.

In future cases of developers seeking to exceed their zoned FAR, Leonard said, “if you come in here without consensus, you’ve got a problem.”

Commissioner Erik Sten concurred. “I don’t think the neighbors get a veto on these things,” Sten said. “But if it’s acceptable to the neighborhood association it’s likely to go through.”

But Mark Edlen of Gerding/Edlen Development Co. said so much neighborhood control might not be a good idea.

“I would have some concern about that because we get the ‘Not in my backyard’ syndrome,” Edlen said. “And that really holds our urban growth objective hostage.”

Two FAR transfers await nod
According to Jeff Joslin, who oversees FAR transfers as land-use manager with the Bureau of Development Services, the city has two pending requests for approval of FAR transfers. Both involve large downtown condominium projects and one, the Ladd Tower, presents a situation with some similar aspects to the Allegro – a large building that would cast a large shadow.

Next week developers of the Ladd Tower will come before the Design Commission with a request to shift FAR within one block of their property, in essence constructing one larger building rather than two smaller ones. The Ladd Tower is proposed at 21 stories, larger than any of its neighbors on the South Park Blocks.

Another FAR transfer has been submitted by developers of the proposed Delano Building at the northwest corner of Southwest Salmon Street and 10th Avenue. The Delano would require a shift of 50,000 square feet of FAR to a tower that would stand at 17-1 FAR, some of which would come from an adjacent site and some from another site within the downtown area.
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  #12  
Old Posted Sep 1, 2006, 3:12 PM
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Quote:
Adams says the Allegro’s location in Goose Hollow, with a number of single-family homes nearby, made its size an issue.

In existing residential neighborhoods, Adams said, taller, skinnier buildings that block less light are more likely to get approval, even if they exceed their zoned FAR.

“What we were saying was, We will accept density with pointed towers, but we won’t accept capsized cruise ships,” Adams said.

Tall and skinny may be a goal
Adams said the overall message to developers was not intended to discourage inner-city residential buildings.

“We’re going to have to grow up,” he said. “We’re going to have to grow taller. Hopefully as we grow taller we’ll try to keep it as skinny as possible.”
this is good to hear!
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Old Posted Sep 1, 2006, 6:06 PM
Urbanpdx Urbanpdx is offline
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Perhaps council will help to reduce the code barriors to skinny towers and increase hight limitations.
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Old Posted Sep 1, 2006, 7:26 PM
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^they made some progress when changing some fire codes to make point towers feasible in SoWa, although the Benson is the only real point tower. Now they need to raise the allowable height.
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Old Posted Sep 1, 2006, 9:38 PM
zilfondel zilfondel is offline
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Blame the earthquakes. Once you go over around 300', you need an upgraded structural system. Point towers much shorter than that are kind of rare fro what I've seen.
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Old Posted Sep 2, 2006, 12:13 AM
Drmyeyes Drmyeyes is offline
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Unless they move around a lot, it's logical to assume that developers don't live in many of the neighborhoods in which they build their projects. Does Rapaport live in the Hosford Abernethy neighborhood? Has he ever? Yet as many successful developers do, he rushes to buy property, and through traditional right of property, place upon it some kind of project calculated to generate the most amount of profit with the least amount of capital investment or regard for neighborhood concerns.

Realizing that developers likely do not live in the neighborhood they build in, or may not have had family that grew up there, or even friends who have lived there, helps to explain their indifference to neighborhood concern in regard to negative affects of their projects.

Yes, by law, it's his property, and the law gives a property owner certain leeway to do with it whatever they choose. As we are beginning to see, developers taking this principle to its literal limit by failing to incorporate neighborhood needs and concerns into their projects, provoke expensive and time consuming appeals.

From the Peter Korn/PTribune article, Allegro lead developer Krueger's comments are disturbing . He relys on the old domination by ownership strategy when he threatens the neighborhood by suggesting the Allegro may still be built, but more cheaply, out of steel and glass and without rooftop gardens, and quality detail materials.

Who do these people think they're kidding? First of all, it's arguable that the Goose Hollow neigbohood doesn't need any new tower in the neighborhood at this moment. Secondly, if something needs to be built, it makes no sense to do so unless a sufficient market exists to build something of integrity that will be a benefit to everybody for the long term. Cut the construction budget by letting the MAC build their own parking. (or charge them a healthy fee to provide it to them).

I agree with most of the comments from city council members in regards to the Allegro as reported in Peter Korn's article. There may very well be a good place in Goose Hollow for a bulding as tall as the Allegro was meant to be, perhaps even taller as some council members have said. Even the additional mass the Allegro design represented may be called for at some point in time.

The big problem with the Allegro developers, is that they did not responsibly research the need for such a building at this point in time in co-operation with the neighborhood. That was a recipe for extra expense and a waste of time in regards to their project.
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Old Posted Sep 2, 2006, 3:44 AM
Urbanpdx Urbanpdx is offline
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I've spoken to Rapaport and don't believe he makes a very fat return on the dollars, risk and time invested. It may look glam but the suburban tract house route is much less risky yet pays a substantially higher return than this infill high rise development in a much shorter time period.

You really should have some facts to before disparaging someone for making a living with his creativity and guts.

I've seen the numbers and a Buena Vista Custom Homes, Arbor Homes, JLS, Don Morrisette, Centex, DR Horton, GLS, Keyes, etc. type of developer makes a MUCH better return on investment. Be glad that they understand the numbers and won't put up with the risk/return tradeoff in our neighborhoods.
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Old Posted Sep 2, 2006, 5:37 AM
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^^ I agree. I don't think that Randy makes a huge return on his projects, so far. Partly because he goes all out materials-wise and really cares about what he's doing. I remember him sitting in my living room (then in Hosford Abernethy) about 5 years ago, and he was excitedly talking about how he had just purchased a vacant lot on Belmont and wanted to do something beautiful with it, and maybe he'd even sell the coffee shop... too bad I can't quit my job and do that.

drmyeyes, I do agree that developers should work with the neighborhoods they're building in during the design process, and the monolithic Allegro was the perfect example of how not to do it. On the other hand, I shudder to think of the ridiculous extremes of NIMBYISM, and the horrible things that can result design-wise.
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Old Posted Sep 2, 2006, 8:00 AM
Drmyeyes Drmyeyes is offline
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I appreciate what you two are saying. I could very well be somewhat wrong about what I'm observing in terms of the kind of interaction that seems to be going on between developers and neighborhoods. It is true though isn't it, that Rapaport took on the Clinton project for profit, rather than out of an altruistic desire to benefit the neighborhood and the city?

So yes, suburban developers may haul in more cash, but the fundamental operating strategy they employ shares some parallels, correct? This is what I'm trying to address. This is the specific thing that pointlessly complicates the process of arriving upon mutually acceptable development design.

In fact, I don't really care how much a developer makes from his project as long as the end result is beneficial to the neighborhood, the city, and is brought about fairly.

Of course there is always the potential for the nimby factor, and this is something that has to addressed with the onset of an era where involvement in design development decisions on grass roots level may be on the increase. Amongst neighborhood populations, especially as they become more dense, the likelyhood is that there will be people with the intelligence, experience, and bearing to responsibly and realistically monitor the designs of construction slated for their neighborhoods.

Certainly, it's ridiculous to allow some hysterical, ignorant, neighborhood bully to dominate all other residents of a neighborhood into killing a legitimate project, just because it diminishes that person's personal property. I don't think this is what happened in regards to the Mississippi lofts or the Allegro, yet judging from developers reaction to those situations, it would seem that they believe it was what happened.

Even though the nimby's are present, I believe cooler, rational heads on both sides can work to keep them in check in order to move legitimate projects forward.

Anyway, that's what I'm seeing. I think everything is going to start running a lot more smoothly when developers begin to realize that they're going to get an intelligent response from the neighborhood, thereby allowing them to feel they can put the plan on the table up front as a means of expediting projects in the most favorable way to everyone.
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Old Posted Sep 5, 2006, 3:45 PM
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Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C.S. Lewis
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