Portland Proposes Temporary Suspension of Design Review to Spur Economic Development

By David J. Petersen

The City of Portland has proposed pausing most mandatory design review for new development in the City for two years. The stated aim of the proposal is to stimulate economic growth and create a review period to comprehensively revise the City’s design review regulations.

Design review is a land use process intended to improve the uniformity and character of urban design. In the City’s words, it “helps ensure that new development responds to neighborhood context, contributes to the public realm, and is built to last.” Design review is often criticized, however, as replacing an architect’s vision with that of regulators, usually at greater cost but with no demonstrable, objective public benefit.

Within the City of Portland, not all new development requires design review. Instead, design review is required only in areas of the City that planners have flagged for specific attention to urban design and conformity with area standards. However, over time, these specific plan districts and other subareas have multiplied to cover about 7.5% of the City, including the central downtown core and other high-density areas. Closely related to design review is historic resource review, which limits redesign options for historic structures and districts, but which is not subject to the proposed suspension.

Given that design review by its nature involves questions of design, its criteria are subjective and sometimes vague. For example, design guidelines applicable in the central downtown core require developers to do things like “emphasize Portland themes,” “use unifying elements,” “design for coherency” and “build active intersections.” One person’s unifying element can be divisive to someone else; what is coherent to me may be incoherent to you. And with individual regulators coming and going over time, it can be difficult to discern a pattern of consistent application of these guidelines.

Subjective permitting criteria such as design review have been under the microscope for some time. In 2019, the Oregon Legislature recognized that many jurisdictions in the state were not approving their fair share of new housing to meet demand, often relying on subjective criteria to deny permits. In response, HB 2001 was enacted to encourage the growth of “middle housing” – duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, townhouses and cottage clusters – by limiting permissible siting standards and design criteria to “clear and objective” standards only.

Subsequently, the Legislature expanded the “clear and objective” requirement for land use criteria affecting housing to apply to all housing types in 2023 and 2024. This rule is now codified in state statute ORS 197A.400. Also in 2024, the state passed SB 1537 requiring local governments to approve “adjustments” (i.e., deviations) from certain design and development standards for select housing proposals to help reduce costs.

This legislative history reflects a growing concern that discretionary, subjective and sometimes vague standards like design criteria have been applied to slow or curtail quality development projects. It is still a bit shocking, however, to see the City of Portland more or less agree with this assertion. But agree it has, since one of the expressly stated purposes of the proposed suspension is to spur economic development. If passed, the pause will hopefully spur developers to reevaluate whether the resulting cost savings can restart a number of stalled development projects across the city.

The proposed draft of the City’s plan to temporarily suspend design review goes to a public hearing before the City Planning Commission on September 22. The public is encouraged to submit written comments on the proposal in advance of the hearing online. Oral testimony will also be taken at the hearing.