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Thanks to community activists Bonny McKnight and Amanda Fritz, some zone changes will still have their day before City Council.
The Portland Comprehensive Plan describes what each piece of public or private property in the city should be used for as a matter of public policy. In most cases, the zoning regulating the property’s use corresponds to this. However, in some areas, including parts of east Portland, there is a difference between the zoning and the less restrictive Comprehensive Plan designation. In such cases, developers or owners seeking a zone change must go through a Type III process. This includes a mandatory public hearing and a chance to appeal to City Council. However, the only grounds for denying the change are that urban services such as streets, sewers or fire protection are not in place or are not adequate to handle the proposed use.
Last month, as part of an overhaul of city zoning regulations, planner Cary Pinard recommended that the procedure for these zone changes be changed to a Type II process. Under this procedure a city planner decides the matter. The case can be appealed, but to a paid hearings officer rather than City Council.
Pinard argued that the Type III procedure involves needless time and expense for both the city and developers. Of 46 such zone changes applied for in the last five years, only five have been appealed, and in only one case did council reverse the decision, she said. At the same time, she said, the process is frustrating to neighbors because they can only discuss the urban services issue.
McKnight argued, “This process is all that’s available to us now when there’s a disagreement on the adequacy of infrastructure. It’s important to have a process by which we can bring policy gaps to City Council...A hearings officer decides based on what the code says. A Type III allows our policy makers to interpret the code.”
Fritz, a southwest Portland volunteer and former Portland Planning Commission member, said that although the city had already made a policy decision in such cases about what the property should be used for, “It’s very difficult to envision what that decision will look like on the ground. You shouldn’t take away this avenue (to look at urban services) until there’s something to replace it. Otherwise, you’re taking a big chunk out of the public process.”
Pinard reminded the commission that in such cases, “We’ve already made a decision that sooner or later this area should go in this direction. The question is, is this the time and are the services adequate? I realize that this is now the only way for people to appeal and get in front of council, and there should be one, but you shouldn’t penalize developers who are relying on the Comprehensive Plan” to plan their projects.
Retired associate editor and Oregonian Editorial Board member Larry Hilderbrand, who is the Planning Commission Policy and Communications Advisor, took this argument to heart. “There’s a cost involved here, not just to the city but to developers. They’re losing projects on technicalities on matters already decided. I’m sympathetic to citizens, but I don’t want to give them false hopes.”
Planning Commission member Tim Smith, Vice President Director, Urban Design and Planning, SERA Architects countered, “I’m concerned with losing part of the safety net (for citizen involvement). In the absence of (an alternative process), I’m uncomfortable eliminating this.”
Portland Planning Commission member Don Hanson, Vice President and Principal, Development Services, Otak Inc. added, “In our tour of east Portland (see article page 1), I saw places where this kind of discussion would have been helpful.”
The commission eventually voted seven to zero to remove the proposed change from what it will forward to City Council.
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