PORTLAND, Ore. – An 87-year-old home in the Beaumont-Wilshire neighborhood will be razed and replaced with multiple new houses, a plan that would seem to be contrary to the property’s zoning but which is allowed by underlying lot regulations.
Located at 3416 NE Alameda St., the house was built in 1928. It is 2,100 square feet on a 9,000-square-foot lot.
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City and county records list Janis and Clark Williams as the owners of the property with no recent sales transactions on record.
But on May 27 Zillow recorded a sale of the property for $815,000. This is nearly $80,000 more than Zillow’s estimate of the property’s market value and more than $100,000 higher than the city’s estimate of its real market value in 2014.
It is also about $35,000 higher than the seller’s asking price.
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Since the city and county have not recorded any transfer yet, no new ownership information is available through public records. However, Redfin lists Jennifer Tran of Everett Real Estate Group as the buyer’s agent, and two days after the sale went through the Bureau of Development Services received an application for demolition of the 87-year-old house with Diana Catron of Everett Custom Homes as the applicant. Everett Custom Homes is registered in Beaverton to Vic Remmers.
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The real estate listing for the house suggests it was not intended to be sold for demolition.
“Grand Tudor on one of Portland’s nicest streets,” it says. “Plenty of room for a growing family. Sunny garden featured in Sunset Magazine on an oversized lot is the ideal space for play & growing vegetables. 2 garages plus a work/storage area offer space for cars, tools & toys.”
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The demolition delay expires July 7.
While there are no construction permits filed on the site, a lot confirmation application offers some insight into the developer’s plan for the property. The lot is located within an R5 zone, meaning there can be one residential unit per 5,000 square feet of land in future land divisions, and the lot is 9,000 square feet, indicating it is too small to be subdivided into smaller new lots.
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But on May 20 — prior to the sale being recorded by Zillow and therefore far prior to the city or county recording the transfer — the city received an application for lot confirmation, a process that allows historical lots that have lain dormant underneath the current lot configuration to be reopened for development. There are four such lots on record for the property at 3416 NE Alameda St.
Additionally the reopened lots do not have to conform to current zoning codes but rather are grandfathered in provided they were originally platted prior to 1979, which means there can be development on lots that are smaller than the now-minimum size requirements within a particular zone.
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In an R5 zone the reopened lots must be at least 3,000 square feet in size (rather than the 5,000-square-foot minimum for new partitions), which would suggest this lot could be sectioned into three new parcels for new houses. But another stipulation is that the lots must be 36 feet wide (unless the current lot is vacant for more than five years, essentially implementing a five-year moratorium on development on lots of record if a house is demolished).
The property is 100 feet wide, meaning there is not enough room for three 36-foot wide lots. Accordingly, the lot confirmation application seeks to “confirm lots 21 & 22,” suggesting that two lots will be reopened for development of two houses.
Besides the house, an accessory structure and a garage will be demolished. There are a number of trees on the property, the fate of which is not detailed in permit records.
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