Letters: Mr. Mayor, don’t let developers use you (PMG–Portland Tribune)

Test “missing middle” plan with strong design review, or risk ruining Portland’s character.

Many (if not most) Portlanders are enthusiastic about the departure of Charlie Hales and Steve Novick, and your interview with Mayor-elect Ted Wheeler (Portland Tribune, Dec. 27) reinforces the hopes of Portlanders that new ideas are coming to Portland with our new mayor.

In the interview, Wheeler said he favors promoting the general idea of the “missing middle” of affordable housing (passionately opposed by heretofore ignored neighborhood associations and homeowners). He said he hopes that this opposition can be addressed via good designs. He could be on to something.

In recent years, developers have slapped together designs reminiscent of Soviet-era Russia (see Southeast Division Street) or so outsized for their neighborhoods that they look like castles (we know these developers well).

Wheeler should know that we all wish him well, but if he chooses, like his predecessor, to be a tool of developers, he will lose both the support and respect of neighborhoods who face broad-brush block-busting by building “the slums of tomorrow” in the name of affordable housing.

Instead of a wholesale rezoning, this so-called “missing middle” infill plan should be tested minimally, and with good design review, to see if it really works.

Let’s not ruin Portland’s character by destroying the character that makes this city so desirable, Mr. Mayor, and please attend neighborhood association meetings from time to time.

Frank DiMarco

Southeast Portland

Originally published at portlandtribune.com.