North Main Village, a housing complex, was built on redeveloped property in downtown Milwaukie. Since 2007, 46 percent of new residential units in the Portland region have been built on redeveloped property.
"Oregonians hate two things: Density and sprawl." That aphorism, widely credited to former Metro Executive Mike Burton, neatly sums up the challenges the Metro Council faces with its coming urban growth boundary decisions.
The ink is still damp on the region's latest land use bargain, a deal that awaits the governor's signature and finalized Metro's 2011 UGB expansions, and it's already time for the Metro Council to start thinking about its next look at the region's edge.
Councilors got an early glimpse of that decision, expected in 2015, at a work session Tuesday, when planning staff started laying the groundwork for the region's population and employment forecast.
By law, Metro has to keep 20 years worth of developable land available within the urban growth boundary. But to reach that conclusion, it has to assume that a certain amount of redevelopment and infill – called the re-fill rate – will take place within the UGB.
And that's where we have our paradox. Poll after poll shows that Oregonians value the state's land use planning system, which makes it hard, and in some places impossible, to pave over farmland for subdivisions. But anecdotal evidence shows some fatigue of skinny houses and low-rise apartments across the region.
Oregon goes for a refill
You don't have to go far in the Portland region to see signs of the refill boom in residential housing. From Orenco Station in Hillsboro to the apartments on inner Division Street and Williams Avenue to the flag lots in East Portland, there's a surge of denser residential development under construction all over the region.
The market prefers those areas for development, said Metro planner Ted Reid. From 1998 to 2012, 94 percent of new homes – houses, condos, apartments and townhomes – were built within the original 1979 urban growth boundary. That's about 112,000 homes permitted for construction.
"There are challenges in existing areas, and the market is finding ways to overcome those challenges," Reid said. "We have infrastructure needs… and the developer needs to make a profit in order to go forward with redevelopment. We have brownfield challenges, site constraints, land assembly challenges.
"In some places, the demand is such that those challenges are being overcome," Reid said.
Since 2007, 58 percent of new residential growth in the Portland region has taken place as either infill, where a home or homes is added to a preserved home on a tax lot, or redevelopment, where an existing building is torn down or replaced.
Infill and redevelopment are collectively referred to as refill.
The rest of the residential construction in that time, about 42 percent, has been on vacant land.
Refill on this scale is new for the Portland region. From 1997-2001, only 30 percent of new residential growth was in refill areas. From 2001-06, 33 percent of new homes were in refill areas.
Gauging public sentiment
At Tuesday's work session, Metro Council President Tom Hughes wondered whether there was an actual increase opposition to more density in the region, or whether there was merely more of a discussion about it.
"In Clackamas County, they used to refer to Portland Creep, and it turns out Portlanders don't like Portland Creep any more than they do in Clackamas County," Hughes said. "How do we measure additional neighborhood opposition to some infill?"
Councilor Shirley Craddick, who represents Gresham and East Portland on the council, wondered whether there is a greater need for development standards to improve the way new development fits into existing neighborhoods.
"Are there design guidelines where a neighborhood can ultimately be assured that whatever comes in is going to blend into what that neighborhood is already like?" Craddick asked.
Metro Councilor Bob Stacey, who lives near the Division Street development boom and represents southern Portland, said he was sympathetic with Craddick's concerns. He also said that he's excited about the growth on Division Street, in part because density is already coming to other parts of the region.
"It's a positive manifestation of providing additional housing opportunities in a part of the region that needs to do our fair share of keeping up with what's happening in East Portland, and the boom that's been happening in the central city," Stacey said.
He said many of the developments under construction now have their roots in decades-old zoning decisions that people never really paid attention to until the cranes showed up. But, he said, the region should be wary of refill everywhere.
"I don't want to see us follow the pattern of trying to accomplish the same things we're trying to accomplish in inner Portland … on a residential land fabric that has cul-de-sacs or dead-ends and we bootleg in little half-streets to open up the inside of super blocks," Stacey said. "It's been very harmful to much of the fabric of neighborhoods like Powellhurst-Gilbert and Hazelwood. I hope we don't keep expecting that kind of development pattern."
Metro Councilor Kathryn Harrington, who represents northern Washington County on the council, suggested that more community input can be helpful in working with developers to get projects that fit into neighborhoods.
With a planning commission review, "there's some subjectivity that is allowed through that process, versus, say, a hearings officer looking at what is legally allowed," she said. "You can end up with very different results from two processes with the same application."
Harrington pointed out that discussions about refill don't necessarily indicate problems with the system.
"Being active and involved and paying attention is the best solution there is," she said. "It's a democracy, after all. Maybe one of the reasons we're hearing about some concerns, and perhaps it could be characterized as NIMBYism, is we've been encouraging people to practice their voice. Hey, you do have a voice here. Use it or lose it."