The future of transportation and zoning improvements in Brentwood-Darlington, Woodstock, and surrounding neighborhoods was spelled out in a new plan approved by Portland City Council in early May.
The “Lower Southeast Rising Area Plan” lays out an agenda for rezoning properties along main corridors, to allow for denser residential, commercial, and mixed-use development.
“When I was growing up, Brentwood-Darlington was known as ‘Felony Flats’. Even today, Brentwood-Darlington is still relatively disadvantaged,” said Pam Hodge, a member of the neighborhood association board and the plan’s advisory committee, speaking in front of the Portland City Council at an April 25 meeting. “Brentwood-Darlington has lower household income, higher social vulnerability, less tree canopy, and more industrial pollution.”
Brentwood-Darlington was annexed into the city in 1986. “Like many residents, I believe that until very recently, annexation gave us sewers but little else,” Hodge added.
Adopting the Lower Southeast Rising Area Plan is a crucial step in city leadership “continuing its momentum to address decades of neglect”, and “will, almost 40 years after annexation, finally establish the framework for becoming a complete neighborhood with amenities common to most city neighborhoods,” Hodge said.
The plan also includes changes in the Woodstock, Mt. Scott-Arleta, the City of Portland’s portion of the Ardenwald-Johnson Creek, and Lents neighborhoods. After more than two years of work, the plan was approved by Portland’s Planning Commission in November of 2023, and was sent to the City Council for final approval.
“The plan does an excellent job of expanding access to opportunity in an area of town where this has been lacking, while taking a nuanced approach to changes to support community stability,” commented Valeria McWilliams, a Lents resident and a member of the Plan Advisory Committee. “The plan’s expansion of multi-dwelling zoning will allow for a greater diversity of housing types, including apartments that a broader range of households can afford.”
While most of the public testimony was in support of the plan, some residents have raised concerns about the potential of the plan resulting in the displacement of long-time residents. Some lots that are currently zoned to allow townhouses would be rezoned to allow small multi-family buildings, if the properties are redeveloped.
Critics also worry that the rezoning would encourage large developers to buy up aging owner-occupied homes and replace them with dense rental units, as has happened in other areas of the city already. The Inner Southeast currently has a higher proportion of owner-occupied housing than does the rest of the city. Only 34% of households in the plan area are renters, compared to 47% city-wide.
But rezoning to allow small multi-family development “is not going to spur a land rush for the properties, because the townhouses already allowed in that current zone are already attractive to builders,” Bureau of Planning and Sustainability project manager Bill Cunningham assured the City Council.
The plan also lays out plans for future transportation improvements and expanding the available bus service.
“Because complete neighborhoods require both local services and the ability to safely travel to destinations, this plan was – from its inception – both about land uses and transportation, and was therefore a joint effort of the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability and the Bureau of Transportation,” Portland City Commissioner Carmen Rubio said, adding that The Lower Southeast Rising Area Plan “is intended to help realize a community’s vision of becoming a complete neighborhood where people can meet more of their daily needs locally and can afford to live in their communities.”
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