Wizer plan not Lake Oswego vision

What goes on at City Hall when the meetings are over and the public is gone?  

"Assembler" By Kosmur

DRC was right: Wizer plan doesn't comply 
with code or meet vision for downtown LO

Lake Oswego Review, August 28, 2014  By Jim Bolland  

On Aug. 18, the Development Review Commission adopted findings denying developer Patrick Kessi’s application for a four-story, 207-unit apartment structure. In denying the application, the DRC affirmed the legal position presented by the attorney for Lake View Village and Save Our Village — and supported by the Lake Oswego Neighborhood Action Coalition, the Evergreen and Hallinan neighborhoods and countless Lake Oswego residents — that the revised development application for Block 137 does not comply with Lake Oswego code or the vision for downtown.

The DRC found that the revised proposal that reduces the current commercial use of the property by over 50 percent and consists of over 80 percent residential apartments is not consistent with Lake Oswego’s Urban Design Plan or East End Development Plan, which designate Block 137 as part of a “Compact Shopping District” and require retail/commercial development on that block.

Further, the DRC found that the definition of “village character” set forth in the Downtown Redevelopment District is a legal requirement and provides that proposed structures must be “small-scale structures” to maintain the village character of downtown. The three proposed buildings, each longer than a football field and none of which would fit on a downtown Portland block, are not “small-scale structures,” are too massive and do not meet the definition of “village character.” The DRC stated that before you “dress” proposed structures, they first must meet the legal definition of “village character,” and this proposal did not.

At last February’s DRC hearing, commissioners told Kessi to break up the buildings into smaller structures to meet massing and “village character” requirements. Rather than actually redesign the project, Kessi apparently decided that the legal definition of “village character” didn’t matter and that the Urban Design and East End Development plans were irrelevant. The DRC found otherwise.

The city’s processing of the application for Block 137 became rather surreal. Barry Cain, the developer of Lake View Village, said during the hearing that he felt city staff was holding Kessi to a lesser standard than Cain and others were held to for past developments. As past chair of the First Addition neighborhood, I agree with Cain’s assessment. The proof is obvious by viewing other downtown projects. City staff sacrificed their objectivity when they became advocates for this project. Ultimately, they damaged their credibility through questionable actions by the city attorney and by producing findings after the DRC’s denial that didn’t accurately reflect commissioners’ statements from July 30. On Aug. 18, DRC commissioners had to break for over an hour to rewrite critical sections of the findings themselves.

At the August 2013 City Council hearing for the Design Development Agreement for this proposal, Mayor Kent Studebaker told an already alarmed public that they would have their opportunity to argue against this project at future DRC meetings. Mayor, the public has spoken, the legal arguments have been made and the DRC has affirmed that this application does not meet the legal requirements for “village character” or the “Compact Shopping District.” It would be a legal misstep for the council to consider overturning the DRC denial, no matter how much they may wish to see the project happen, because, to be real here, you cannot argue that these three buildings, each longer than a football field, meet the legal definition of “village character.” Can you?

Jim Bolland is a Lake Oswego resident, co-chair of the Lake Oswego Neighborhood Action Coalition and past chair of the First Addition/Forest Hills Neighborhood Association.