The live stream of the City Council hearing on the Residential Infill Project reinforced many themes raised in my examination of the meeting minutes of RIP. Having followed the process for nearly two months now, the arguments presented were broadly familiar, reflecting the countours of divisions within the Stakeholder Advisory Commission. Those opposed to the proposal argued for “Truth in Zoning,” worried primarily about demolition and rapid neighborhood change, called for a limitation of the proposed middle housing to select neighborhoods, saw the effects of densification in single family zones as broadly negative, and doubted that the proposal would help with affordability. Those broadly supporting the proposal lauded the allowance of more “housing choices,” generally interpreted densification as improving neighborhoods in terms of business vitality and walkability, called for spreading middle housing across the whole city, were direly worried about affordability and pricing younger generations/the working class out of the city, and saw RIP as a meaningful way to combat affordability.
Many of those giving testimony were members of SAC—Teresa St. Martin, Eli Spevak, Maggie McGann, David Sweet, Mary Kyle McCardy,Alan DeLaTorre, Jim Gorter, Michael Molinaro, and Barbara Struck all spoke, together comprising a significant portion of the overall public testimony. For their testimonies, they divided neatly into the pro-densification “housing choice” (St. Martin, Spevak, McGann, Sweet, and DeLaTorre) and anti-densification “Truth-in-Zoning” (Gorter, Molinaro, and Struck) factions highlighted by the City’s summary of the RIP process. The testimonies by others predominately followed this pattern, representatives of most nonprofits (except the Urban Forestry Commission and Restore Oregon) and developers aligned in support and representatives of neighborhood associations in opposition, with nonaffiliated citizens roughly evenly split. Polarization was furthered by the presence of Portland for Everyone’s “I <3 Housing Choices” buttons, meant to express endorsement for the urbanist understanding of middle housing infill as part of a program for increasing equity, neighborhood vitality, and sustainability. These buttons rendered the positions immediately visible, signifying which viewpoint you were to hear next. Support of or opposition to infill were constituted as part of internally-consistent and mutually-exclusive ideologies. These notions of people talking past each other and being polarized (along a general generational gap) were noted by two citizens testifying.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, for those closely involved with the RIP process, perceptions of the virtue of the process itself aligned with perceptions of the virtue of the outcome. RIP SAC members in support of the concept spoke of a difficult but productive dialogue, culminating in a surprising consensus between nonprofit housing providers, disability rights advocates, home builders, community-based groups, and neighborhood associations. A developer testified that he was initially skeptical of the process, but had been pleasantly surprised by the level of common ground between nonprofits and developers, supposing that this might form the basis of a durable coalition. Gorter, Molinaro, and Struck, voicing the opposition faction, had a rather different take on the process. They very consciously identified themselves as a marginalized opposition, terming themselves part of the “RIP SAC 7.” The opposition saw the process as having been hijacked by developers for their own profit, identifying a drift of the project away from what they perceived as the initial guiding principles. Based on my investigation so far, I believe the former point certainly has some merit, though the relation of the City planners to this process must be accounted for. However, I see very little evidence of a drift from the guiding principles. The City’s presentation to the very first RIP SAC meeting contains almost all of the elements of the concept report, with modest changes to the proposed types of middle housing and numbers assigned to the issues of scale. Whatever one may think of the process and the proposal, it has been prefigured from the beginning.
Regarding the proposal itself, members of the RIP SAC 7 decried the widespread inclusion of middle housing, calling for testing the proposal in limited areas first and directing the Council to read their signed minority coalition letter. I was surprised to find out that I had missed this data while combing through the documents on the RIP subsite; as it turns out, unlike the “housing choices” faction letter, the RIP SAC 7’s letter was not published in the summary report and was instead buried within the hundreds of pages of letters received from individuals. In the letter, they broadly agree with the proposals for scale, while calling for the strict limitation of middle housing to areas zoned R2 or R2.5 within a block of corridors and two blocks of centers and restricting narrow lot development to R2.5. While everyone giving testimony remained civil, there was a striking emotional undercurrent to many of the testimonies. One of the community activists opposed to the proposal said that her “heart is broken” by the RIP process, going on to characterize it as blindsiding the community with last-minute shenanigans and stating that moving forward with the concept report “would be a mortal sin.” Others opposed to the proposal expressed strong qualms about violating the sanctity of single-family housing, seeing infill densification as encouraging the destruction of their beloved environments and as a betrayal of the promises embedded in zoning by the City. Likewise, everyone who supported the proposal foregrounded housing prices and equity. They expressed anxieties that, without this action, Portland would inexorably become a class exclusive place, displacing not only the working class but also their own children.
Presiding over this meeting were the Councilmembers. Amanda Fritz’s opposition and Steve Novick’s support were relatively clear, based on the pointed questions they asked of those supporting and opposing the RIP concept report. Fritz expressed skepticism about the proposal’s ability to improve affordabliity and raised demolition concerns, while Novick pointedly asked those against the proposal if they would prefer seeing a 3,300 square foot house or two 1,250 square foot homes replace an older, smaller home (no one gave a firm answer, either refusing to choose or saying it depended on context). Charlie Hales and Nick Fish were more equivocal, making it somewhat difficult to tell what their ultimate leanings are. Hales expressed concerns with demolitions at many points, highlighting that issue as a central one to address through this process. Though Hales pushed back on the hyperbolic doom of some opponents to the proposal, stating that the City had allowed corner duplexes for years with no evident mass replacement of corner houses with duplexes, and calling for specific alternatives to the proposal, their engagement seemed legitimate. The issues of the scope of the Housing Opportunity Overlay Zone and accounting for neighborhood context in terms of form and density appear to be up in the air, subject to definite debate and possible revision.
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