Portland’s North Deering neighborhood, photographed in May.  Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

The Portland City Council met Monday to discuss for the first time proposed changes to the city’s zoning laws that city staff have been working on since 2017.

The city released the proposed changes in April. Staff held public forums throughout the summer and collected input from the public online. They made small revisions based on that input and presented the final version of the proposed zoning changes to the council Monday.

The workshop was held solely for the purpose of discussion; there was no vote on the proposal. Another workshop will be held Oct. 28, when the council can discuss the proposed changes further. The council can propose amendments to the zoning changes before voting on whether to approve them on Nov. 4.

Chris Jenette, a consultant with Camiros, who worked with city staff on the proposal, outlined some of the most substantial proposed changes. The aim of the changes, he said, was to provide a framework for Portland to grow into a denser city with more robust public transportation and easy access to services in the coming decades.

The city’s zoning laws had not been updated in more than 50 years before staff began work on the project.

Among the proposed changes discussed was eliminating minimum parking requirements for developers in favor of maximum limits in an effort to use less city land for parking and to encourage other modes of transportation around Portland.

All the zone names would also change with the new zoning, as well as what type of building is allowed in each zone. For example, what’s currently known as an R-3 zone, which allows single-family homes and some existing apartment buildings, would become an RN-2 zone, allowing single-family homes, duplexes, triplexes and quadruplexes.

Staff also proposed increasing maximum building height downtown and in some major corridors, such as Forest Avenue and Congress Street. Right now, the tallest structure in Portland – the new 18-story mixed-use building on Federal Street – stands about 190 feet.

Under the new zoning, buildings in some parts of downtown could be nearly twice as tall, up to 325 feet, while the height limit along sections of Forest Avenue would rise from 45 to 65 feet.

The new maps would create coastal flood resilience overlay zones, which would require certain types of developments like housing, schools and hospitals to be elevated, lifting their first floors above ground level.

Transit-oriented development also plays a key role. Many urban planners believe that facilitating growth around major transportation hubs helps a city become more resilient and easier to negotiate. A city designed with this in mind might have a day care center, grocery stores, coffee shops and dense housing clustered around certain key bus stops around the city and in the downtown area. Under the proposed changes, several parts of the city would be designated as transit-oriented development zones.

Several councilors asked clarifying questions about what certain zone changes would mean.

When Jenette explained that the new code would eliminate parking minimums and replace them with maximums around the same capacity, with the exception of lower maximums in transit-oriented development zones, Councilor Kate Sykes asked if it would be possible to lower that maximum for anywhere in the city within a quarter mile of a bus stop.

“That would be a more aggressive way of handling parking maximums,” Jenette said.  “We’ve tried to a certain extent to not be too harsh with these maximums … we want to be generous.”

Councilor Roberto Rodriguez expressed support for Sykes’ idea to impose harsher maximums for parking, but Mayor Mark Dion said he was concerned about limiting parking infrastructure too severely.

“This idea that we’re all gonna jump on metro seems like a good idea but … if we’re going to get rid of parking there’s no transition from one world to another,” he said.

The council also discussed how it might mitigate noise concerns around new allowances for child care centers in residential neighborhoods.

“I’ve raised kids and I know a hedge separating a yard is not going to be enough to mitigate the noise,” Dion said.

Councilors could come forth with amendments to the proposed zoning changes in the coming weeks before the Nov. 4 vote on whether to approve them.