The term “Infill Development” is common in Portland’s vocabulary, as new buildings arrive on the streetscapes of neighborhoods across our city and region. Typically, one thinks of “infill” as filling a vacant space between buildings, but instead we see the demolition of long-standing buildings, replaced with new or “mega” structures that don’t take their surroundings into consideration. During our late 2008 Portland Historic Preservation Needs Assessment meetings, an overwhelming majority of people identified “new large-scale infill construction in older neighborhoods” and the need for “better fit” as the city’s most pressing preservation challenge.

This workshop will feature a panel of seasoned neighborhood land use activists, Dean Gisvold (Irvington), Dean Smith (Irvington, Multnomah), and Linda Nettekoven (Hosford-Abernethy), along with Bill Cunningham, Portland Bureau of Planning & Sustainability, who will frame the Infill issue as today’s dominant neighborhood concern, outline the rules that influence infill outcomes, and discuss how people can better influence them. Multiple infill project images (the “good”, the “bad”…) will help us all better talk about this timely topic, discuss how conflicts can be better resolved, and processes to get to tangible and action-able solutions.

This program is assisted by a Partners in the Field challenge grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Time: 10am-noon

All Tickets: $10