The state of Interstate

Zoning proposals stress transit usage, higher densities

By Lee van der Voo

The Portland Tribune, Aug 24, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (44 Reader comments)

L.E. BASKOW / TRIBUNE PHOTO

The neon-lit Palms Motel is a marker of North Interstate Avenue’s history as a traveler’s route. Now the city planning bureau is plotting the future of the stretch, which saw big changes when the MAX Yellow Line opened in 2004.

Taller buildings, more people, more businesses, fewer cars. That’s the aim of a proposal that would rezone North Interstate Avenue over the next 10 months and test the city’s goal of transit-oriented development along major transit corridors.

Acting at the request of the Portland Development Commission, which oversees the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area, the Portland Planning Bureau has drafted a new zoning plan intended to realize a vision for the street created while the Interstate MAX Yellow Line was being planned.

The strip’s sluggish economy, limited housing and ill-fitting zoning all provide opportunities for the new land-use rules along Interstate between North Greeley Avenue and Columbia Boulevard.

The PDC wants new rules to put people closer to the Yellow Line to boost commerce, encourage walking and use of public transportation and allow for denser housing.

The proposal – now being considered by the Interstate Light Rail Corridor Zoning Project Community Advisory Group, put together by the planning bureau – would increase building heights along most of Interstate Avenue, allowing up to nine stories near MAX stations. It encourages mostly retail businesses topped by housing and discourages auto-related business.

As officials brace for future population growth in Portland, Interstate Avenue will be the test case for a policy that aims to house the most people along MAX lines.

Similar plans in the Gateway area along the Red Line, and along other areas of the MAX light rail, are expected to follow.

So far, controversy has stayed at bay. Although the advisory group weighing neighborhood concerns against business and development interests has played a key role in crafting new rules, few others have seen the plan.

Shooting for a public unveiling in October and public testimony in November, the advisory group will meet twice more to resolve its toughest problems.

Among them: how to best place tall buildings in existing neighborhoods, balance density on both sides of Interstate Avenue and create transit-friendly zoning without causing problems for existing businesses.

Lawrence Nath at Pooja International, a market that imports spices, grains and juice, said the proposed new zoning on Interstate will benefit business owners who want to develop retail stores with residential units on top. His family recently paid to rezone its Interstate Avenue lot to erect a new building topped with residential units.

“It’s what we were looking for and the kind of business we’re looking for on Interstate,” Nath said. “If all of the zoning changes on this side of Interstate, it benefits growth for businesses, it’s going to attract more people and maybe it will invite more resources for people.”

Some homeowners are more cautious, however.

Amy Altenberger, who represents the Overlook neighborhood in the advisory group, said the prospect of tall buildings looms large in neighborhoods, where many feel the nine-story height limit will be too tall to abut single-family homes.

“It’s a residential neighborhood currently; it feels residential. You have a lot of people concerned it will lose that,” Altenberger said.

Each side is different

The last time the area was rezoned was 14 years ago, before Interstate Avenue was chosen as the route for the light-rail line. As a result, the current zoning does not allow the most dense development where the City Council wants it.

The last plan, called the Albina Community Plan, came at a time when no one knew for sure where light rail might land.

It plopped an anything-goes zone – one that allows the same mix of high-density housing, manufacturing and commerce now in use in Portland’s Pearl District – next to Interstate 5 east of Interstate Avenue between Mason and Emerson streets, where fewer property owners lived in their homes and property was less desirable.

In a fit of interest in housing, the Albina Community Plan also rezoned much of Interstate Avenue as residential. Along the old highway route to Washington – still dotted with neon signs advertising food and lodging for travelers – motels and businesses alike were converted to residential in 1993.

Today those patterns work against city goals and existing property owners. Some business owners have been forced to spend thousands of dollars changing their zoning just to expand existing operations.

Developers planning the mixed-use buildings that the PDC now advocates also can’t move ahead without applying for zoning changes.

“We’re getting a lot of folks who want to locate their businesses here, but they’re not finding the zoning to open up their shops,” said Kevin Cronin, the PDC’s senior project coordinator for Interstate Avenue rezoning.

Officials at work on the plan also want to address the basic inequities between the east and west sides of Interstate Avenue created by the Albina Community Plan.

At the time of the plan’s crafting, more west-side property owners lived in their homes and opposed zoning changes, while east-side homes mostly were rentals, many of them blighted, and residents there offered little resistance.

“A lot of these apartments that were just these awful, end-of-life, drug-infested apartments in the ’80s have been ‘condo-ized,’ and now they’re quite desirable,” said Doug Hartman, a real estate agent who also serves in the advisory group.

Properties on the west side of Interstate Avenue are likely to see the most change in the next 10 months as officials work to balance both sides of the street.

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