Evan Schueckler has been hired as the Historic Preservation Program Manager for the City of Portland.  Formerly, he worked for the city and county of Denver, Colorado.  Mr. Schueckler has an undergraduate degree in architectural history and a master’s degree in historic preservation and conservation.  His salary is $74,527. annually and he began work for the city on June 13, 2022.  He replaces Deb Andrews, who retired earlier this year after serving as program manager for over 30 years.

Underway prior to his arrival at city hall was a Historic Preservation impact study authorized by the Portland City Council in April of 2021.  The study is currently underway with a draft study expected later this fall or winter according to Christine Grimando, Director of Portland’s Planning and Urban Development Department at Portland’s city hall.

During the course of the Munjoy Hill HIstoric District designation process, many questions arose about preservation relationship, citywide, to housing costs, sustainacbility, economic development and other cidty goals.  Property owners expressed concern about the costs they would incur to repair and replace improvements to their properties.  At the same time, renters expressed concern about how these more expensive improvements to properties would affect the cost of rentals on Munjoy HIll.  Assurances by the HP Program personnel that this designation would have no affect on these costs were based on no demonostrable information.  That’s because the data collected by Historic Preservation was incomplete.  As a result, the Council directed staff to initiate a study to address a series of six questions.  One of those six questions focused on the effect of historic districts on property values and rents with those districts as compared to non-historic districts.

In January of this year, “PlaceEconomics” was selecdted as the projecdt consultant, with actual data collection stardting in March.  In April PE  conducted a site visit.  Then in May and June, PE continued to conduct interviews with stakeholders, collected and analyzed data and released a community survey gauging community perceptions of historic preservation.  Since July, work has focused on preparation of the draft report.

An advisory group of local entities was formed.  It is heavily weighted with people from the real estate industry, questioing the subjectivity and impartality of their advice.  The cost for the study is $65,000.  In order to keep apprised of the progress study, please visit Civil Space Page.

For background information on the matter, please visit posts herein dated September 14, 2021 and December 30, 2021.