Laurelhurst Historic District Campaign Kicks Off
The Laurelhurst Historic District campaign kicked off on November 20, with the first rally and organizing event. The campaign is asking Laurelhurst residents to sign a Declaration Of Support for Historic District. With neighborhood support, the campaign will pressure the LNA board to officially take action to seek historic district status. Go to the SUPPORT page to sign the online Declaration of Support. Every adult in your Laurelhurst household should sign their own declar
November 29 LNA Meeting: Q&A On Historic District
The next LNA meeting, November 29 at 7:00 pm, will include a Q&A session on Historic District and related topics. Among the attendees will be the city's Historic Resources Program Manager, Brandon Spencer-Hartle. Mr. Spencer-Hartle came to the city from Restore Oregon, and is very knowledgeable about historic districts in Portland. The chair of the LNA's Exporatory Historic District Committee, John Liu, will also be present. We've heard someone involved with the Residentia
The Truth About RIP From The Inside - A Minority Report Is Issued
Something very unusual has happened. As regular readers know, the Residential Infill Proposal (RIP), that is now before the city council, was developed by the Stakeholders Advisory Committee (SAC). A third of the RIPSAC committee, the "RIPSAC 7", has now issued its "minority report". This report tells the truth about RIP, how the developers hijacked the process, and why RIP will destroy Portland's neighborhoods without producing affordable housing or any of the other promi
Recent Reporting On Residential Infill
The Residential Infill Project (RIP) has kept a fairly low profile during its advance to the city council. The city and RIP SAC has held public meetings, but only a tiny fraction of Portland residents knew of or attended those. The city has received about 1,500 comments on RIP, which represents only 1/4 of 1% of city residents. Until recently, there was little coverage of RIP in the local media. After all, most people think "zoning" is just boring bureaucratic stuff. Have


What's The Real Reason For RIP? Part 2. (Hint: Its Not To Produce Affordable Housing.)
In Part 1 we saw that RIP isn't needed to accommodate Portland's growth. "What is very clear, from the city's own reports, is that even if we did want Portland to grow so hugely, the city has enough buildable land to add all the housing necessary without RIP-ing down its historic single family residential neighborhoods." Turning to the next story that is being used to sell RIP: "affordable housing". Few disagree that Portland needs more housing that is affordable to families