The Portland City Council will hear the annual “State of the City Preservation Report” from the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission on Thursday, July 31st starting at 2:00PM. A number of historic preservation issues, successes, and challenges are included in the very thorough report. We hope you will help fill City Hall with supporters of historic [...]
At the Wednesday, March 7th, 9:30AM meeting of the Portland City Council, historic preservationists from around the city are planning to gather in support of reforms to the historic design review process and fee structure. This comes in the wake of recent concerns raised in the Buckman neighborhood (and elsewhere) over the exorbitant fees for even minor exterior changes to a building in [...]
The Bosco-Milligan Foundation owns and operates the Architectural Heritage Center in Portland, OR whose mission, in part, is to inspire people to conserve the art, craft, and context of historic buildings and places. In their latest venture, the AHC has teamed up with the developers of the smartphone app Tagwhat, to continue in their quest to help [...]
Written public comments for the draft Portland Plan must be submitted by December 28th. Bosco-Milligan Foundation executive director Cathy Galbraith presented testimony at a recent public hearing on the Portland Plan, expressing concern that nowhere in the document is the term historic preservation even mentioned. In fact, there is only one reference to "historic resources" to be found in the draft document - a big disappointment to those who [...]
A few weeks back the Historic Preservation League of Oregon sent out a call for nominations for their first ever Most Endangered Places of Oregon list. During the HPLO’s Preservation Roundtable on historic districts last summer, participants brought to the HPLO’s attention a number of threatened historic places around the state in need of additional visibility [...]
For more than a year, the all-volunteer Buckman Historic Association has been working on the preliminary phase of a National Register of Historic Places nomination for the oldest portion of this southeast Portland neighborhood. During this time they've criss-crossed every street within the proposed historic district, probably more than twice, in an effort to effectively survey the [...]
It's good that Historic Preservation "made the cut" and is included in the latest draft objectives for the Portland Plan. However, the subject is buried rather deep within the nine so-called "Action Areas" of the plan. It is clear that if preservation is going to gain any teeth, we'll need to draw more attention to [...]
The National Trust for Historic Preservation recently published a series of recommendations for preserving community centered schools. Their suggestions might come in handy for those advocating to preserve Portland area high schools and for anyone interested in keeping their neighborhood schools open and active. These schools are so often a major part of neighborhood fabric. [...]
It's been a few months now since one of Portland's most intact historic schools was badly damaged in a fire. Now comes word that plans are in the works to restore and upgrade the building. In today's Daily Journal of Commerce, this article mentions plans to restore the building, maintaining much of its historic character [...]
This Oregonian editorial draws attention once again to the connections between sustainability and historic preservation: "Use what we have". In recent months Metro has begun talking about this concept, albeit more broadly. Last September, Metro COO Michael Jordan announced his Strategies for a Sustainable and Prosperous Region. We can only hope that these actions lead to positive results in [...]