Urbanpdx
Feb 14, 2007, 4:18 PM
‘Vintage’ areas could waive modern building codes
by Kennedy Smith
DJC
02/14/2007
Daily Journal of Commerce Photo
The word "vintage" is often thrown around in antique shops to signify something old-fashioned, but the term would come to mean something very new to the development community if a proposed Oregon House bill were to become law.
House Bill 2540 would designate "vintage downtown districts," allowing redevelopers of historic buildings in a downtown area to waive certain modern building codes. For historic property owners, that could mean the difference between razing a building and rehabbing it.
"Some of the building code issues on the books today make it difficult to redevelop properties or get redevelopment going," said Jerry Johnson, principal at land-use consultancy firm Johnson Gardner. "Flexibility is something we've advocated for."
Johnson should know: His firm is on the redevelopment team for the historic neighborhood of Kenton in Portland. He said the proposed legislation would be helpful in getting some redevelopment projects off the ground.
"Seismic and safety codes are some of the big issues we face," he said. "But some codes related to things like spacing between electrical outlets make it expensive to do historic redevelopment. What happens is there is no investment until (the buildings) slowly deteriorate and you tear them down."
The Kenton Business District, located on North Denver Avenue in Portland, is undergoing a range of street and building changes with the help of the Portland Development Commission and a redevelopment team that includes Johnson Gardner. It was designated a historic district in 2001 by the National Register of Historic Places.
"I guess there's two ways to do it: try and go with the minimalist approach and get away with not doing seismic upgrades, but that's dependent on the extent of the work and what you intend to do with the property," said Rick Jacobsen, a developer who rehabbed Kenton Village Shops on North Denver Avenue. "The second choice is to do all the seismic upgrades so that you can have a number of uses in the building."
He said he chose the latter because he wanted to ensure the building could be used in a variety of ways. Kenton Village Shops is currently home to three restaurants.
Tweaking bureaucracy
The most difficult aspect of the Kenton Village historic renovation, Jacobsen said, was coping with the city's bureaucratic process in making changes to the exterior of the building.
"To try and get things done to the outside of the building is a slow process," he said. "We were able to do exactly what we proposed, but we had to go through the process, pay a large fee and get public feedback. Later on there were instances where we could have had a better project, but it would have taken prohibitively long to go through the process of amending the approval. It was very frustrating in that regard."
The bill doesn't specifically outline which Oregon building code standards a redeveloper could waive, but it does state that no code involving "fire or life safety" may be waived. That includes a large portion of the state's seismic codes.
The bill identifies a vintage downtown district as "a downtown area in an adopted city comprehensive plan or land-use regulation" and "identified or described as a downtown area in official records or maps prior to Jan. 1, 1950."
Playing catch-up to Portland
In 2004, Portland City Council adopted amendments to Portland's zoning code that provided incentives to stimulate historic preservation throughout the city. Some of the incentives included financing; revised seismic upgrade provisions; an extension of existing zoning incentives to historic buildings; increased flexibility for commercial uses in industrial zones in the central city; increased maximum parking ratios; a waiver of minimum housing density requirements; and relaxed limitations for bed and breakfast facilities.
"It's often quite difficult in rehabilitation projects to adhere to seismic improvements," said Nicholas Starin of the Portland Bureau of Planning. "Sometimes it's impossible to adhere to the code, so there are appeals granted that allow a reasonable solution to be made. It's intended to make it easier for buildings to be historic and existing buildings to be reused and upgraded in a less onerous fashion."
If Portland has something like code waivers on the books, so should other cities, said Mike Schaufler (D-Happy Valley), chairman of the House Committee on Business and Labor, which is sponsoring the bill.
The bill would give sole authority to the director of the state Department of Consumer and Business Services to provide waivers of state building code provisions.
So far the DCBS has remained neutral on the bill. The department is in talks with the bill's supporters to "figure out what the problems are," according to Joanie Stevens-Schwenger, a spokeswoman for the DCBS.
"At this point," she said, "we can't speculate on what the financial impact would be to our operations."
Schaufler said that thus far there's been no real opposition to the bill but that it still has a long way to go. It has been referred to the House Workforce and Economic Development Committee and awaits a hearing.
by Kennedy Smith
DJC
02/14/2007
Daily Journal of Commerce Photo
The word "vintage" is often thrown around in antique shops to signify something old-fashioned, but the term would come to mean something very new to the development community if a proposed Oregon House bill were to become law.
House Bill 2540 would designate "vintage downtown districts," allowing redevelopers of historic buildings in a downtown area to waive certain modern building codes. For historic property owners, that could mean the difference between razing a building and rehabbing it.
"Some of the building code issues on the books today make it difficult to redevelop properties or get redevelopment going," said Jerry Johnson, principal at land-use consultancy firm Johnson Gardner. "Flexibility is something we've advocated for."
Johnson should know: His firm is on the redevelopment team for the historic neighborhood of Kenton in Portland. He said the proposed legislation would be helpful in getting some redevelopment projects off the ground.
"Seismic and safety codes are some of the big issues we face," he said. "But some codes related to things like spacing between electrical outlets make it expensive to do historic redevelopment. What happens is there is no investment until (the buildings) slowly deteriorate and you tear them down."
The Kenton Business District, located on North Denver Avenue in Portland, is undergoing a range of street and building changes with the help of the Portland Development Commission and a redevelopment team that includes Johnson Gardner. It was designated a historic district in 2001 by the National Register of Historic Places.
"I guess there's two ways to do it: try and go with the minimalist approach and get away with not doing seismic upgrades, but that's dependent on the extent of the work and what you intend to do with the property," said Rick Jacobsen, a developer who rehabbed Kenton Village Shops on North Denver Avenue. "The second choice is to do all the seismic upgrades so that you can have a number of uses in the building."
He said he chose the latter because he wanted to ensure the building could be used in a variety of ways. Kenton Village Shops is currently home to three restaurants.
Tweaking bureaucracy
The most difficult aspect of the Kenton Village historic renovation, Jacobsen said, was coping with the city's bureaucratic process in making changes to the exterior of the building.
"To try and get things done to the outside of the building is a slow process," he said. "We were able to do exactly what we proposed, but we had to go through the process, pay a large fee and get public feedback. Later on there were instances where we could have had a better project, but it would have taken prohibitively long to go through the process of amending the approval. It was very frustrating in that regard."
The bill doesn't specifically outline which Oregon building code standards a redeveloper could waive, but it does state that no code involving "fire or life safety" may be waived. That includes a large portion of the state's seismic codes.
The bill identifies a vintage downtown district as "a downtown area in an adopted city comprehensive plan or land-use regulation" and "identified or described as a downtown area in official records or maps prior to Jan. 1, 1950."
Playing catch-up to Portland
In 2004, Portland City Council adopted amendments to Portland's zoning code that provided incentives to stimulate historic preservation throughout the city. Some of the incentives included financing; revised seismic upgrade provisions; an extension of existing zoning incentives to historic buildings; increased flexibility for commercial uses in industrial zones in the central city; increased maximum parking ratios; a waiver of minimum housing density requirements; and relaxed limitations for bed and breakfast facilities.
"It's often quite difficult in rehabilitation projects to adhere to seismic improvements," said Nicholas Starin of the Portland Bureau of Planning. "Sometimes it's impossible to adhere to the code, so there are appeals granted that allow a reasonable solution to be made. It's intended to make it easier for buildings to be historic and existing buildings to be reused and upgraded in a less onerous fashion."
If Portland has something like code waivers on the books, so should other cities, said Mike Schaufler (D-Happy Valley), chairman of the House Committee on Business and Labor, which is sponsoring the bill.
The bill would give sole authority to the director of the state Department of Consumer and Business Services to provide waivers of state building code provisions.
So far the DCBS has remained neutral on the bill. The department is in talks with the bill's supporters to "figure out what the problems are," according to Joanie Stevens-Schwenger, a spokeswoman for the DCBS.
"At this point," she said, "we can't speculate on what the financial impact would be to our operations."
Schaufler said that thus far there's been no real opposition to the bill but that it still has a long way to go. It has been referred to the House Workforce and Economic Development Committee and awaits a hearing.