Vic Remmers to Raze Residence, Slash Sequoias in Eastmoreland

PORTLAND, Ore. – A prominent Beaverton-based development company will demolish a 93-year-old home in the Eastmoreland neighborhood, remove several large trees on the property and replace it with multiple new houses.

The house is located at 3646 SE Martins St. and was built in 1922. It sits on a 5,000-square-foot lot and is 1,424 square feet itself.

Photo credit: Portland Chronicle

An adjacent 5,000-square-foot lot does not have any structures built upon it. There are no lot division applications on record for either property, suggesting they have been separate parcels for some time.

On April 1 the city recorded sales of both lots. Both properties and the house, formerly owned by Betty Q. Hansen, were sold to Vic Remmers‘ Everett Custom Homes for a total of $326,500. The sale was handled by a “family trustee,” according to Zillow. An ad on that website states that the house contains “some wonderful older features” including high ceilings, a large sunroom, a workshop, the original fir floors and cedar siding.

Photo credit: Portland Chronicle

The sale price is about $92,000 less than the city’s estimate for the real market value of just the west lot and the house. It is nearly $200,000 less than Zillow’s “Zestimate” of the lot’s market value.

Developers purchasing homes for less than market value is a now–common occurrence. Buyers looking for homes to live in, meanwhile, have recently been reported on by InvestigateWest, which found they are increasingly unable to purchase homes for much higher than market value, losing out to developers paying cash.

Nine days after the city recorded the sale, the Bureau of Development Services received an application for demolition of the 93-year-old house. Because this application was received prior to new demolition code rules taking effect, Everett Custom Homes took advantage of the delay and neighbor notification exemption allowed when a single new house on the property was applied for.

Although the developer submitted two applications for new construction that day, because they are on separate lots (parcels which were both owned by the same owner previously and were sold to the developer as a package) the city considers it a single house replacing the 1922 home, and the delay and notification requirement was waived.

The exemption has since been banned in residential zones.

Both new houses will be two-story single-family homes, each with an attached garage.

Everett Custom Homes will cut down three sequoias and a number of other trees to make way for the new development, KOIN News reported Tuesday. The sequoias lie along the boundary between the two lots to be developed.

Photo credit: Portland Chronicle

The Zillow ad for the property states that the soon-to-be-demolished house’s foundation has been damaged by the trees’ roots.

In April the Eastmoreland Neighborhood Association sent a letter to City Commissioner Amanda Fritz and other city staffers regarding the three 100-year-old sequoias, stating “it appears that retention of the trees is feasible in developing two houses on the lots” and asking the city to withhold issuance of tree removal permits until redevelopment plans were submitted.

Photo credit: Portland Chronicle

The association also asked the city to “please exercise your discretion to prevent the destruction of these trees.”

KOIN News reported that neighbors were notified Tuesday of impending tree-cutting activities, suggesting the developer plans to go through with removing the three 100-year-old sequoias and other assorted trees on the property.

Photo credit: Portland Chronicle

Everett Custom Homes is registered to Victor E. Remmers at 732 SW 158th Ave. in Beaverton.