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South Waterfront Code and Design Guideline Update Project

Proposed Amendments

Project Overview

Greenway Development Plan Implementation Plan

Greenway Related Zoning Code Amendments

Greenway Design Guideline Amendments

Additional Code Amendments

Legislative Process

Project Schedule

Contact Information

Proposed Amendments

The package of amendments proposed by the South Waterfront Code & Design Guideline Update Project is now going to City Council for their review and approval:

• The Code and Commentary document presents the proposed amendments to the Zoning Code; and,
• The South Waterfront Design Guidelines present the proposed amendments to the design guidelines.

These amendments will be reviewed and adopted by the Portland Design and Planning Commissions. The next step in this process is a City Council public hearing scheduled for Wednesday, December 2, 2009, at 9:30 AM. This hearing will be held in Council Chamber at City Hall, 1221 SW 4th Avenue, Portland, Oregon. During the hearing City Council will be taking public testimony on the amendments.

Project Overview

The South Waterfront Code & Design Guideline Update Project is a legislative project intended to update Zoning Code and South Waterfront Design Guidelines to address new implementation options for greenway review, to correct an error in the Zoning Code that prohibits the development of hotels in the subdistrict, and to remove a required housing target area requirements that are no longer necessary and add addition procedures for applicants proposing other land uses consistent with the South Waterfront Plan. Each of the specific elements of this effort are explained in more detail below.

Greenway Development Plan Implementation Plan

In December 2004, the Portland City Council accepted the South Waterfront Greenway Development Plan (GDP) schematic and directed the Portland Development Commission (PDC), Portland Parks & Recreation (Parks), and the Bureau of Planning (Planning) to create an implementation plan for the GDP.

As part of this strategy PDC and Parks were directed to create an implementation strategy that addressed governance, maintenance, and capital costs. Planning was directed to amend the Portland Zoning Code and design guidelines to allow smother implementation of the GDP than code allows in its current state. Planning was also directed by the Council, at the request of district stakeholders, not to any changes to the code or design guidelines until the other elements of the implementation strategy were complete.

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Greenway Related Zoning Code Amendments

The proposed amendments addressing the greenway focus primarily on amendments to two Chapters of the Zoning Code (33.510, Central City Plan District, and 33.851, South Waterfront Greenway Review) that reference the Greenway Development Plan option. The amendments are intended to make implementation of the GDP easier to process for applicants and the Bureau of Development Services alike.

It should be noted that applicants are not required to use these amendments as the only way to address required greenway improvements. Specifically, applicants also have the option of meeting the base-line development standards presented in Section 33.510.253 or creating a plan consistent with the approval criteria of Chapter 33.851 of the Zoning Code. However, the City hopes that these amendments and other incentives arising from the Implementation Strategy being developed by Parks and PDC will make this the most attractive of the potential options available to applicants.

The amendments proposed by the Bureau of Planning & Sustainability (BPS, formerly the Bureau of Planning), will be developed in close coordination with the Portland Design Commission and Bureau of Development Services both of whom will be charged with apply these regulations. BPS will also conduct outreach to landowners within the South Waterfront subdistrict and other interested stakeholders to ensure they have an opportunity to shape and comment on the proposed amendments.

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Greenway Design Guideline Amendments

A series of amendments are proposed to the existing South Waterfront Design Guidelines document. Some of these amendments involve the creation of new design guidelines that will be applicable only to land use applications proposing to implement the GDP. However, the Design Commission has also asked BPS to amend the existing guidelines applicable to greenway/design review of all proposals within the greenway overlay zone in the South Waterfront subdistrict. These amendments are intended to better address design related issues that are commonly encountered by applicants and the Design Commission when projects within the greenway and along the greenway interface are reviewed by commission.

Preliminary drafts of the Design Guidelines were created and shared with the Portland Design Commission during a series of briefings between 2008 and 2009. These briefings were used to get the Design Commission's input on whether the preliminary review drafts addressed the right set of issues and were formatted in a way acceptable to the Design Commission. Based on the commission’s input, a final proposed version of the review draft is now available for public review and comment. The Design Commission will hold a public hearing on the proposed amendments to the Design Guidelines and Zoning Code (see below) at a public hearing to be held on Thursday, September 17, 2009.

Additional Code Amendments

In addition to the amendments proposed to address the GDP, the Design Commission, district land owners, and other stakeholders, have asked that a series of additional code amendments applicable to the South Waterfront subdistrict be made as part of this effort.

• Required Residential Development Area. Section 33.510.230 of the Zoning Code requires that a specific amount of residential development occur as part of development actions within a specified portion of the subdistrict identified on Map 510-5 of the code. These regulations were originally adopted to ensure that residential development would take hold in the subdistrict. However, since the adoption of the plan over 1,633 units have been developed, and additional 479 have been approved for development, and an additional 1,500 units are in the planning and preliminary design stage. Thus, with over 2,000 of the 3,000 units projected by the plan either developed or approved for construction, the need for the required residential development area no longer appears necessary.
• Limitations on Hotels. The Zoning Code sets a maximum limit to the size of Retail Sales and Service uses in the South Waterfront subdistrict. Specifically, such uses are entitled to be up to 40,000 sq. ft. by right, and applicants can apply for a conditional use for uses up to a maximum of 60,000 sq. ft. Retail Sales and Service Uses larger than 60,000 sq. ft. are prohibited.
  • This maximum size was established to prohibit the development of “big box” or large format retail because there was a concern that such uses would be out of character with the district and would generate high volumes of traffic that would negatively impact the district. However, one problem with this restriction is that it also prohibited the development of hotels which are defined by the code as a Retail Sales and Service uses and are typically well over 60,000 sq. ft. in size. This is a problem in that hotels were identified by the South Waterfront Plan as one of the desired uses to be incorporated into the district.
  • The proposed amendment will retain the prohibition on large format retail uses while allowing hotels to occur. As hotels generate traffic volumes similar to that of the residential uses common in the district, no adverse impacts are anticipated by allowing this on type of Retail Sales and Service use to occur in the district.
• Active Ground Floor Uses & Required Retail. There is a growing concern by the Design Commission that opportunities are and may continue to be missed to site active retail uses at key locations throughout the subdistrict. To counter this, the Design Commission asked BPS to develop proposed amendments to existing design guidelines to address this issue. The Design Commission also asked BPS to proposed draft code amendments that require retail and other active ground floor uses to be sited at key locations throughout the district, including sites located adjacent to the greenway, Gibbs Street, and the South Waterfront Neighbor Park.

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Legislative Process

The proposed package of amendments will be reviewed and approved by the Portland Design Commission (public hearing September 17, 2009) and Planning Commission (public hearing September 22, 2009) in advance of final adoption by the Portland City Council.

If you wish to be added to a mailing list for this plan effort please send or email your mailing address to us at the addresses below. Also, please contact either of the staff below if you have questions about this plan.

Project Schedule

• August 3, 2009 – Public Review Draft
• September 17, 2009 – Design Commission Hearing
• September 22, 2009 – Planning Commission Hearing
• November 2009 – City Council Hearing*

*This date is approximate and may shift

Contact Information

Project & Code Development Manager
Troy Doss, Senior Planner
troy.doss@ci.portland.or.us
503 823-5857

Design Guideline Project Manager
Lora Lillard, City Planner
llillard@ci.portland.or.us
503 823-7721