Condo Survey

Early one morning looking out my kitchen window I saw a man in the woods with a bright orange vest, he was part of a survey crew. About one week later before heading to work I saw another man, part of a survey crew. I spoke to him briefly and he confirmed that his firm was surveying the lot directly behind my house, possibly in preparation for a building site. The next morning I saw that each tree in the lot behind my house had an orange tag with a unique number on it, placed there by the survey crew.

Behind my house are the apartments at 1500 SW Skyline Blvd. These apartment were sold in 2005, converted to condos and have been on the market for the last two years. When the apartments were sold the land was divided. Ninety percent of the frontage on SW Skyline Blvd stayed with the apartments/condos. A small access point was maintained on SW Skyline for the contiguous land behind the apartments/condos. The survey crew was surveying this second piece of property, the subdivided piece.

What is this second piece of property like? The county, when it was divided valued at approximately $20,000, as they considered the lot unbuildable because the land is very unstable and has a very steep incline both to the south (where the office buildings are below) and to the west. The most level ground is closest to the single family residents lots on Highland Parkway.

In speaking to neighbors I discovered that when the apartments were build in the middle 1960's it was controversial. The neighborhood opposed these apartments. Those who lived in the neighborhood then told me of a compromise agreement had been reached with the county. The agreement was that the apartments, zoned R2 could be build with the provision that a thirty foot buffer be maintained between the apartments and the R10 single residents. With this provision most of the people in the neighborhood felt that their concerns had been met.

In 1975 these apartments and the office buildings near the Sylvan exit of Highway 26 were annexed into the city of Portland. At that time the recommendation was made to the City Council to annex the area and maintain the zoning established by the county, including the thirty foot buffer between the R2, apartments and R10, the single occupancy residents. For unknown reasons this provision does not appear in the final Portland City Council Annexation document, although there is a note attached that recognizes this omission.

Now we move forward to the surveyors in my back yard. The question is: Will the thirty foot buffer zone agreed to by the neighborhood and the county and referenced in the annexation document be maintained?

We would like for the Sylvan Highland Neighborhood Association to support the prior agreements that were made with the neighborhood and to write a letter to the City of Portland, referencing this particular piece of property, 1500 SW Skyline, and the agreement that was made in 1965 to maintain the thirty foot buffer zone between the R2 Apartments/Condos and the R10 single family housing in the neighborhood.