How it all started

 Prior to 2012, the Eastmoreland Neighborhood Association (ENA) was a typical sleepy neighborhood association.   A few neighbors met regularly to work on neighborhood issues like tree care, garden maintenance, the 4th of July parade and the neighborhood cleanup day.   All neighbors were welcome to join the board, and those who wandered into a meeting were sometimes added to board on the spot, such was the desire and need for new people, ideas, enthusiasm, and help.

But around 2012, a few board members were annoyed by the changes they saw in Eastmoreland housing and sought protection using City of Portland zoning and statutes.  Interactions with the City grew strained and angry as the ENA tried to avoid new city codes and zoning which sought to ensure that every neighborhood had more diverse and smaller housing types to meet the needs of all Portlanders.  Unable to convince the city to change the zoning and regulations to their liking, the ENA board decided in early 2016 to create a national historic district (HD),  but without asking the residents if this was actually something the neighborhood wanted.

Various ENA board members have publicly explained why they pursued a historic district for Eastmoreland.

"Our feeling is that the density should be where it belongs. You're talking about lower income people or younger people who want to rent or need to rent and they need to be where there's good transit, and there is not good transit here. This is a little oasis because it's down here, and it's just not appropriate." 

Can A Stranger Designate Your House as Historic? In Oregon, They Can, compiled by Randy Gragg with OPB October 23, 2016, updated October 24, 2016

"We have reached now for a tool...the historic preservation district, that's an imprecise tool, it was designed for something else...but it is, as we have over a five year period learned, our only option to slow down...it doesn't prevent demolition in some ways...but if you look at neighborhoods that become historic districts, they don't have our problems."   Id.

"The board's worked hard for about three years to try to get the city to deal with this through coding, zoning, and through the comprehensive plan. While we had considered historic district designation in the past, we had thought the other mechanisms were more appropriate to work through the city. But when they were not fruitful, we then moved to considering historic district designation."   Id.

Being a historic district is usually purely honorary in nature, the type of award which is memorialized on a sign or plaque.  But one state in the nation, Oregon, has tied specific protections and restrictions to an area which is designated a historic district by the National Park Service (NPS).

Even better, there was an odd rule which allowed anyone to nominate a historic district and see it passed into existence without anyone's permission.

This quirky law lets anyone (anyone, anywhere, not even a resident) petition the NPS to create a HD.  If the application is all in order, the entire neighborhood will automatically become a historic district, even without the consent of even one homeowner.   

Strangely, there is no requirement that any owner actually be in favor of being part of a historic district.  The only criteria that matters for the NPS  is that most owners do not object to it.  And the only way to object to a historic district process is to have the majority of all homeowners in the district file statements of objection.  

The process is heavily weighted in favor of those seeking the historic district; all they need to do is file the nomination paperwork and wait for approval from the NPS.  Those opposing the historic district need to inform and educate the individual homeowners about the HD, have them fill out and sign an objection form, and which must be signed in the presence of a notary, who also attests to the signature.   Then the objection letter must be sent to the state office (SHPO) to be counted as an objection.  If a homeowner fails to meet any of these criteria, SHPO considers them to be in favor of the historic district.

For the ENA (and other wealthy neighborhoods), a historic district represents a dream solution to limit unwanted change and development.  

1. It can be put into effect without the permission of the homeowners
2. It lasts forever.  There is no limit to the duration of the HD.
3. It restricts home, appearance, remodeling, alteration, modification and demolition.
4. There will some form of design review, which oversees the process of approving home renovation projects.  As the official city organization representing Eastmoreland, that task will be fully or partially controlled by the ENA.

To pass and enact the historic district, all the ENA has to do now is sit and wait.  And hope enough Eastmoreland homeowners don't send in an objection.