Portland is experiencing an increase in squirrel and rat populations. We've gotten some calls from clients panicked about rodent intruders. While this is a distressing problem, it is also fixable and best handled with swift action. Here is some information to help you get started.
Chamber Music Northwest Summer Music Festival /
Chamber Music Northwest’s mission is to inspire our community through concerts and events celebrating the richness and diversity of chamber music, performed by artists of the highest caliber, presenting our community with exceptional opportunities for enjoyment, education, and reflection.
Their Summer Festival packs an incredible roster of talent into five weeks at venues all over the city–and some of the events are FREE.
Check out the full schedule for their Summer Festival here>>>
Portland PRIDE Events /
Since 1994, Pride Northwest has been encouraging and celebrating the positive diversity of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans communities here in the Pacific Northwest.
Don't fret if you can't make the Pride Parade (Sunday, June 17th) there's plenty more to experience. Pride NW has organized a variety of events including Reading is a Drag–a family-focused event with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and a performance by Resonance Ensemble performing selections from 'Considering Matthew Shepard', and the Portland Gay Men's Chorus performing "The United States of Broadway".
Charity Spotlight /
Basic Rights Oregon
Founded in 1996 as a result of community responses to anti-gay ballot measures that had been cropping up in Oregon over the previous 20 years, Basic Rights Oregon's mission is to ensure that all LGBTQ Oregonians experience equality. Today they are the primary policy advocacy organization for LGBTQ Oregonians.
Areas of focus for Basic Rights Oregon include racial justice, transgender justice, youth justice and efforts to support LGBTQ people living outside the Portland Metro Area. Check out their track record here!
The ABCs of ADUs /
On May 2nd, Portland City Council voted to permanently extend the waiver on System Development Charges (SDC) for Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs). This waiver has one concession: the ADU cannot be used as a short-term rental for ten years.
photo credit: Hammer & Hand
What does this mean?
System Development Charges are fees assessed to new developments which, when collected, help offset the impact the development will have on public infrastructures like storm and sanitary sewer systems, water and street systems, and parks and recreation. In 2010 the City Council waived SDC fees for ADUs. An ADU is a dwelling– attached or detached from the main house–that exists on a lot with another house. SDC fees for an ADU can be as low as $12,000 and go as high as $19,000, so this is a big win for ADU advocates.
We are in favor of the new restriction on offering this waiver for AirBnB type dwellings. Folks are still welcome to create short-term rentals with their ADUs, but there is no reason that we rate/taxpayers should subsidize this enterprise.
Background
ADUs have been legal in Portland since 1981, but few residents were building them until 2010 when the city issued a temporary waiver on SDC fees. The waiver created an ADU boom; the city issued 86 permits for ADUs in 2010, by 2016 that number increased to 615. The recent vote makes the waiver (initially set to expire July 31, 2018) permanent, a change that many believe will spur more ADU construction because it removes unpredictability from the ADU development market. Knowing that ADU development costs are stable may encourage investment and support from financial institutions. Could we see a standalone ADU loan product in the future?
Why is the City giving ADUs a break?
Unless you've been asleep in Portland for the last decade, you're aware of the housing crisis including skyrocketing home prices and rents, gentrification and displacement. Given our urban growth boundary, the City is being forced to explore ways to increase housing density to accommodate the influx of residents. This ADU subsidy also potentially enables more residents to purchase homes because it reduces a financial barrier for those looking to offset housing expenses with rental unit income.
Resources for Homeowners
Kol Peterson is an ADU owner and advocate in Portland offering a wealth of educational content on multiple websites (accessorydwellings.com, pdxadu.blogspot.com, and accessorydwellings.org). He has also written a book "Backdoor Revolution: The Definitive Guide to ADU Development" and offers a course on building an ADU.
If you're interested in having an ADU on your property but don't currently have the capital to build one, you might want to consider partnering with Dweller. They can build and install an ADU, arrange for a reliable 3rd party property manager to rent out the ADU, and then they split the revenues with you, the homeowner, 70/30. Their offering is flexible, for example, you have the option to purchase the ADU over time or rent it out yourself.
Regulations, requirements, and assistance are also available on the City’s website.
Exploring the Lents Neighborhood /
The area that we now know as the Lents neighborhood was well-trafficked before it became a city. In the mid-1880's, Foster Road was a popular route for settlers venturing to the Oregon Territory to establish land claims because many were headed for the Willamette Valley. Foster was also frequently traveled because it intersected with Powell which led to the marketplace and port hub in downtown Portland. Travelers along the Columbia River moved along SE 82nd as a route to Oregon City.
Lents neighborhood began as a self-sufficient town–with its own grocers, bankers, barbershops, and schools–that was considered a suburb of Portland. Named for Oliver P. Lent, an early settler and upstanding individual who built, owned and operated a sawmill and also served as school director, road supervisor, and justice of the peace. It made good sense to name the town in his honor and in 1892 when his son platted the town, he named it Lent. People began referring to the town as Lent's and over time the apostrophe was dropped and the name officially became Lents.
A steam-powered railway began running from Portland to Lents in 1892, transitioning to electric in 1901. The neighborhood continued to grow and by 1912, the year Lents was annexed by the City of Portland, the population had swelled to 10,000. Residents in Lents were generally lower income than those in downtown Portland and the neighborhood was at enough of a distance that it didn't receive much attention in terms of maintenance and services for things like roads and sewers.
Decades later, in the late 1970's Lents became the site for construction of Interstate 205 when residents of Laurelhurst effectively lobbied to not have the freeway run along the originally planned route of 39th Avenue. The City acquiesced and planned to build I-205 along 52nd Avenue but by the time plans were being finalized it was determined that the freeway needed to be repositioned to a less dense area and was moved to 95th Avenue. When the freeway was constructed, it effectively split the Lents neighborhood in half. Hundreds of dwellings were removed and there was a considerable impact to the commercial corridor that had evolved around the intersection of SE 92nd Avenue and Foster due to the construction of an access route to the freeway.
These impacts did not go unnoticed by the City; in the 1990s there was a strong focus on renewal in the urban center of Lents, including, "creating new family wage jobs, offering assistance to new and existing business, making improvements to local infrastructure such as streets and parks, construction of new housing and improvements to existing housing." Today the Lents neighborhood is vibrant and diverse with property values that reflect the positive changes implemented by the City along with the neighborhood association.
Amenities
Lents residents have great access not only to I-205 but also to numerous Max railway stations positioned along the freeway's route. Trimet bus routes 9, 17, and 14 also offer regular service to downtown Portland.
There are two elementary schools in Lents, Kelly Elementary and Oliver P Lent School. Ron Russell Middle School is in the northeast corner of Lents, and Lane Middle School is just west of the neighborhood's western boundary. Grant High School is in the northeast corner of the neighborhood.
Points of Interest
Lents Park is a wonderful resource for the neighborhood. Founded in the early 1900s, the park began as a 5.2-acre plot that was formerly a gravel quarry. During the 1940s and 50's the city purchased adjacent lots to the park as they became available to assemble all of the lands between SE 88 & 92 and SE Holgate & Steele for park purposes. Today, the park is over 38 acres! The park has tennis and basketball courts, an off-leash dog area, soccer and football fields, horseshoes, picnic areas, and a renovated children's play area. There is also a baseball stadium called Walker Stadium that is currently home to the Portland Pickles, a collegiate wood bat baseball team that had its first official season in Walker Stadium in 2016.
The Springwater Corridor is a twenty-mile, multi-use recreational path that runs through the lower part of the Lents neighborhood, connecting the town of Boring, Oregon to the Ross Island Bridge in SE Portland. Formerly a rail corridor, the Springwater line stopped running in 1958, most of the land was acquired by the City in 1990 and Metro has acquired some additional plots since then. Construction began in the mid 90's and will continue for decades to come. This corridor is part of a larger vision for a 40-mile loop that would form a ring connecting many of Portland's neighborhoods, and encompassing numerous natural recreation areas.
Bloomington and Earl Boyles Parks are smaller properties (12.95 and 7.85 acres respectively), both in the northeast quadrant of the neighborhood. They are lovely neighborhood parks with picnic tables, large trees, open spaces, and courts/fields for various sports.
Ed Benedict Park & Skatepark is located at the very northern boundary of Lents and is truly a unique recreational area in Portland with 18,000 square feet of skateboarding terrain. The skatepark is also considered the first enviro-sensitive skate plaza because of the use of recycled materials, native plants, and on-site stormwater treatment.
Culture
Lents has hosted a vibrant farmer's market, the only one of Portland's markets with a strong international focus, since 1999. The products at this market are a wonderful, true representation of the members of the community as are the Hmong, Latino, and Russian farmers. The market is located at the intersection of SE 92nd and SE Reedway. This area used to be a vibrant commercial center in the neighborhood and has become the center of redevelopment efforts in the past few years.
With the opening of Zoiglhaus–a 200-seat German-style beer hall serving German food, German-style Pilsners and Lagers, and the odd Pacific Northwest beer–in 2015, and promise of food cart pods Collective Oregon Eateries, and Flipside Bar and Carts (both slated to open in 2018) in a four-block radius, this area could become a center of pedestrian traffic and commerce again. Bella Italian Bakery & Market is also slated to open in June 2018 at SE 91st and SE Woodstock.
There are other culinary standouts in Lents, many that are representative of the ethnic diversity in the population, including HK Cafe for incredible dim sum, and El Pato Feliz and Taqueria el Cazador and El Nutri taco cart for Mexican fare–the Portland Mercado, a Latino public market and food court, is also nearby in the adjacent Mt Scott-Arleta neighborhood. Just blocks beyond the northwestern boundary are three unique Asian and SE Asian restaurants, Kenny's Noodle House serves Cantonese food, Chungdam Korean Fusion (self-explanatory), and Best Baguette the Vietnamese/French sandwich counter serving fantastic Bahn mi. If you're more inclined to cook at home, JC Rice Noodles is a fantastic resource for fresh tofu and rice noodles in addition to other packaged Asian specialty items.
If you're looking for arts and culture events grounded in the Lents community, keep an eye on the calendar at the Team Events Center located at SE 92nd and SE Foster. It is an events space dedicated to offering a space for community or private meetings and events. Coming up later this month is a series of performances of an original play about gentrification called Repulsing the Monkey.