Say goodbye to two houses and easy street parking.

My neighbor who knows what’s going on in the neighborhood told me the sad news.  There’s going to be a development of mixed-use apartments like we saw with the site of the former City of Roses Motel.  I don’t have specifications yet, but I’m guessing there won’t be parking, or much parking included.  Given that this is one block north of our house, Matt and I can probably say goodbye to easy street parking.

And we shall soon say goodbye to three structures including this beautiful duplex, which is still in great shape.  No word on if the tree will survive.IMG_5187

Here’s the duplex from the other side.  One of the tenants, now long gone, was the first person to welcome me to the neighborhood, back in 2007.IMG_5188

The commercial building will also go.  I had some plans to tear it down and make a big garden. 🙂  But that won’t be happening.IMG_5189

And this pretty little house, which my neighbor says is also really nice inside.IMG_5190

Which means we will also lose this lilac tree.IMG_5192

Again, I must be careful in my lamenting as my current duplex residence also replaced a single family house.  And it didn’t include parking either.  I’ve been thinking more about this issue lately because the City Club just did a study about affordable housing and the membership voted to amend the report to re-zone single family neighborhoods to increase density.  And there was this very intriguing interview with Sonja Trauss of SF BARF saying yes, big projects should be built.  I found myself agreeing with her logic, but also resisting because I hate to see houses that are well cared for destroyed for something big and ugly and usually hugely over-priced.

2 thoughts on “Say goodbye to two houses and easy street parking.”

  1. Not the lilac tree! That makes me so sad. I don’t know, I’m sort of starting to feel like all Portland is anymore is restaurants and apartment buildings. And having recently left an area with high population density and lack of parking, I can’t say that I’m behind the phenomenon.

    1. It’s a tenuous time to be an existing-housing lover. Or a lover of small houses on big lots. Or a lover of well-preserved houses that deserve to keep living as well-preserved houses.

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