PORTLAND, Ore. – While one appeal of a demolition for the maximum 60-day delay extension has been approved, another has been denied following a Wednesday afternoon hearing at the city of Portland hearings office.
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A house located at 3030 SE Rex St. in the Eastmoreland neighborhood received an application for demolition in May by Lake Oswego contractor Renaissance Custom Homes following an April sale of the property to Tualatin company Eden Enterprises LLC for $645,000.
Photo credit: Portland Chronicle
Renaissance Custom Homes is registered to Randal Sebastian, while Eden Enterprises LLC is registered to Charles Thomas and Dean A. Reynolds.
The demolition delay on the house expired June 11. That afternoon, Eastmoreland Neighborhood Association president Robert McCullough delivered a demolition delay appeal on behalf of the neighborhood association to BDS.
While the Portland Chronicle initially erroneously reported that the appeal was approved by BDS due to information on PortlandMaps that stated the “maximum delay period ends August 10, 2015,” the appeal was actually subject to a hearing at BDS held yesterday to determine whether the neighborhood association’s application met established criteria under new demolition delay ordinance amendments.
At the hearing the appeal was opposed by Renaissance Homes representative Jeff Shrope, McCullough stated. Opposition was focused on a lack of information in the application.
“Renaissance Homes argued that we failed to meet the burden of proof since our application did not include a pro forma,” McCullough said, a requirement of the new demolition delay appeal regulations that the appellant submit a budget plan along with evidence of funds to carry out that plan. “We had not prepared a pro forma, of course, since we had no price from Renaissance Homes to base a pro forma on. The hearing officer allowed me to provide a verbal version of the pro forma into the record and found in our favor.”
Photo credit: Portland Chronicle
While the PortlandMaps entry for 3030 SE Rex St. remains unchanged, the hearings officer finding in favor of the Eastmoreland Neighborhood Association’s appeal would suggest the intake information is now accurate and that the delay period will now expire August 10.
But although the Eastmoreland neighborhood found success with the delay appeal, the Multnomah neighborhood did not fare as well at a hearing the same day appealing a demolition by the same developer.
A single-family home at 8330 SW 45th Ave. in the Multnomah neighborhood was purchased by Renaissance Custom Homes in April for $351,000. It sits on a 9,500-square-foot parcel of land.
In early May the developer applied for two lot consolidation processes that would take the complicated current underlying lot setup of four historic lots as well as the west 15 feet of four other historic lots, and would turn those into two lots for new construction.
Lot lines in blue. Photo credit: PortlandMaps
The property is located within an R7 zone, meaning there can be one residential unit per 7,000 square feet of land in future land divisions. This also means the only way to split the 9,500-square-foot lot for multiple new units is to reopen the underlying lots of record, which allow the developer to circumvent current zoning regulations and use the underlying lots that are grandfathered into the current code.
These underlying lots are more and more frequently utilized in residential developments around Portland.
In an R7 zone, underlying lots must only be 4,200 square feet in size to be buildable under current zoning regulations.
On May 6 Renaissance Custom Homes applied for demolition of the 1949 Multnomah home.
The demolition intake for the Multnomah house states that an appeal was filed and that the permit is “OK to issue” on August 9. However, at a hearing for the demolition appeal held yesterday prior to the Eastmoreland hearing, the appeal was denied by BDS, McCullough said.
“Multnomah Village lost the first appeal this morning on item 4, the reasonableness of their plan to fund preserving an existing house scheduled for demolition,” he said.
Zoning code chapter 24.55.200 subsection H point 4 requires an appellant to have “reasonable potential to consummate the plan within 95 days of the date the Bureau accepted the complete demolition permit application by providing a pro-forma budget and either evidence of funds on hand or a fund raising plan sufficient to meet the financial requirements of that budget.”
As Renaissance Custom Homes applied for the demolition permit May 6 and at this point the standard 35-day delay has run out, it would seem the permit could be issued imminently despite PortlandMaps still referencing an “OK to issue” date in August.