John Schuberg bought his house in 1984 when he was a young chef managing a restaurant. He’s grateful he bought his home when he did because he couldn’t afford to buy it today, he says. He and his wife Maggie Skenderian love their home and neighborhood, and the close proximity to transit and shopping. They converted their garage into a guest house, so they could have options to age in their home.
"We really want to stay in this neighborhood that we love and be surrounded by young families and older couples like we are," Maggie Skenderian said.
Metro: What qualities about the neighborhood keep you here?
Maggie Skenderian: We love the neighborhood for a lot of reasons. One predominant reason is we feel connected to our neighbors. It's a multigenerational neighborhood. We have folks with young kids. There are some folks our age across the street. In addition [we like] the proximity to the drugstore we can walk to.
John Schuberg: Now the grocery store.
Skenderian: Now the grocery store. So it's just it's a great location. We're close to Mount Tabor. We can walk to things. And we hope we can stay here for as long as we want to.
Metro: How do you get around the region?
Schuberg: I've done everything from ride my bike for many years into Portland as a commuter. I've used the bus as well. We're within walking distance of three bus lines. We've had to take the keys away from one of my parents and will probably have to do the same for the other. Someday that's going to happen us. So having access to public transportation is really important.
Metro: How do you anticipate your housing needs changing over time?
"One of the reasons that we felt converting our garage into an accessory dwelling unit was to have an opportunity to stay in the neighborhood, so we could live in that unit or have a caretaker live in that unit and take care of us in the house," Schuberg said.
Schuberg: Our current house is not set up to really age. If we needed to be in a wheelchair or walker in our later years we wouldn't be able to do that in the house. One of the reasons that we felt converting our garage into an accessory dwelling unit was to actually have an opportunity to stay in the neighborhood so we could actually live in that unit or have a caretaker live in that unit and take care of us in the house. We felt this gives us an option to age a little more gracefully.
Skenderian: The house will probably either paid for or close to paid for by the time we're in our early 80s. But the cost of care as you age is really expensive. Those costs are a really significant factor in thinking about how we're going to manage ourselves and our finances and lifestyle as we age. We could live in in the guest house and either rent out our home to supplement our income or offer it to caregivers.
Metro: How are you using your guest house since you built it?
Skenderian: The guest house was completed in January. And we got it all outfitted and furnished and started renting it as a short term rental in March. We hope to use it as a short-term rental just for maybe a year or two so we can recoup some of the costs. And then would really like to be able to offer it as a reasonably affordable long-term rental home, unless we decide to get ourselves sooner rather than later.
Metro: What other factors influenced your decision to build your guest house when you did?
As the region grows and more people move here, I think that it's important to have the option to maximize density within people's own properties to try to accommodate their own needs for aging," Skenderian said.
Skenderian: So at the time that we were thinking about building the accessory dwelling unit there was some discussion going on about whether the waiver that the city had in place for the system development charges [on accessory dwelling units] would be extended. So we really wanted to get our permits in hand by the end of June of 2016. So that waiver saved us between $10,000 and $17,000. Without it, building the guest house would have been completely unaffordable for us.
Those fees are very important. We want people to pay them. It's how our parks get paid for. It's how our city infrastructure gets paid for. These units, especially ours - 380 square feet - is a relatively small. It puts a relatively small demand on the services. That waiver is an incentive to add another unit of housing. So I think it's a really fair trade as far as the city is concerned.
Metro: What do you want decisionmakers to know about you and people like?
Skenderian: It's very expensive to live in Portland these days and I suspect many people as they age may not be able to afford to continue to live here. We want to be able to stay in this neighborhood that we love and be surrounded by young families and older couples like we are. And without an option to build a small granny flat on our own property, you know we just have less options. As the region grows and more people move here, I think that it's important to have the option to do this sort of thing and for people to be able to maximize density within people's own properties to try to accommodate their own needs for aging or the needs of their parents or grandparents or children.
Correction: This post has been updated to reflect the correct spelling of Maggie Skenderian's last name. We regret the error.