North Tabor Neighborhood Association
July 19, 2016 General Meeting Minutes
Board present:
Keith Mosman, chair
Terry DublinskiMilton
Max Goldenkranz
Joel Meulmenas
Michael Andersen
Board not present:
Beth Sanders
Devlyn Keith
Others present:
Mireaya Medina, Southeast Uplift
Ofc. Chris Gilbert, Portland Police Bureau
Marty Stockton, Bureau of Planning and Sustainability
Carol Smith
Sam Fuqua
Cathy Riddell
Adam Cornell
David Mosley
Joshua Carey
Chuck Tubens
Cory Poole
B Mos
(several others)
Past minutes
Revised June minutes reviewed and approved without objection.
Our budget
Max gave a treasurer report. We had $4,974 in the bank; this has been more or less unchanged in either direction for the last year. The last major change was a revenue bump from the 2015 neighborhood cleanup.
Police
Ofc. Gilbert and his PPB partner discussed challenges faced by the police force. The bureau's ongoing labor shortage has been compounded by a recent order to do neighborhood work in pairs, responding to the recent slaying of officers in Dallas. This has led to slower response times for routine calls. They had no major crime trends in the area to report.
Land use
Marty from BPS offered an update on the new comprehensive plan as it relates to North Tabor. Among other things, this plan determines what sort of buildings are legal on which lots. It was approved by the city council in June and will probably take effect in January 2018, but could be delayed by lawsuits.
Marty explained the city's various landuse designations – including R5 for the common 5,000 sqft lot with up to three stories, R2.5 for a 2,500 sqft lot with up to three stories, R2 for a duplex or rowhouses of up to three stories, R1 for 35 attached units and up to four stories on a 5,000 sqft lot, CS for commercial storefronts (and up to fourstory apartments), RH for larger fivestory apartment buildings like Center Commons at 60th and Glisan, EX for very big mixeduse buildings like on North Williams or the Central Eastside.
We talked a fair amount about the Glisan84 “pocket” east of 60th, where about 10 blocks (between 60th and 64th) are currently zoned R5 (even though many buildings are actually smaller). They've been designated to be rezoned to a combination of RH and R1 since MAX arrived in the mid1980s. But due to various twists and turns detailed by Marty, this zoning was only halfway approved. The result of this has been that it's been fairly easy for professional developers (or anyone else who can afford a lawyer, basically) to get the remaining half of permission for an upzone, but difficult for nonprofessionals to do so.
The new comprehensive plan:
1. Eliminated the highestdensity RH designation along the east side of 60th, leaving only R1 and (on a few blocks) R2.5.
2. Other than that, will complete the R1 zoning process left hanging since the 80s. This would slightly reduce the barriers for professional developers to build duplexes, triplexes, small walkup apartments and so forth and significantly reduce the barriers for nonprofessional developers to do so.
The new comp plan will also legalize mediumsize apartment buildings along Glisan (52nd to 61st) and Burnside (53rd to 60th). We talked about the problem of spillover parked cars from such buildings.
There was a question about what to do about runoff and vibration from construction. Marty said it was important to contact the city about this during any construction rather than afterwards. The city has no recourse after vibrations are complete.
Terry discussed the city's upcoming residential infill project, which among other things has proposed to reduce the maximum internal size of a house on an R5 lot to 2500 square feet (not counting basements) and to make accessory dwelling units and duplexes legal in more locations. As part of this, he has been preparing an alternative concept for neighborhoods inside I205 (an “R1.5 overlay”) that he thinks would allow more density on R5 (up to three units as long as trees and original construction are preserved) but less on R1. This will be discussed at the August land use meeting.
Terry said he's learned that traffic calming on Thorburn Street, the curving road on the north side of Mount Tabor, has been approved for private funding.
Terry said he's learned that the city has funded a new flashing crosswalk beacon across Glisan at 62nd.
A developer has proposed to convert a house and duplex on 58th between Burnside and Davis to six condo units with parking. This will also be discussed at the August land use meeting.
Board membership
Joel formalized his resignation from the board because he'll be out of the country for a few months in advance of a new job in December.
We discussed inviting new members onto the board. Sam Fuqua, Cathy Riddell, David Mosley, Joshua Carey and Chuck Tubens all volunteered. Michael noted that the July block party had been conceived in part as an outreach activity and asked for consensus that the board plan to continue outreach to other members, particularly tenants since none of the new members are tenants. There was agreement that more outreach is needed, and also that the loss of the North Tabor News had been a major blow to neighborhood communications, despite several issues of the North Tabor Note. The board voted unanimously to induct the new members.
Block party
We decided to hold a “Sunday Brunch” block party on Everett and 53rd on Sunday, Sept. 18. Among other activities we could repaint the intersection mural there. Michael volunteered to handle the permitting for this.
Communications
David volunteered to join a communications working group as long as other folks jump into it with him. Chuck is very interested in rebooting a mailed print newsletter and has experience selling ads for the one his auto club published.
We discussed the need to repair "North Tabor" banners that have been damaged. We deferred this last year to save money on lift rental, and there are several banners to repair. The board approved $1,040 for repairs.