Laurelhurst is a progressive Portland neighborhood, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 14 to 1, Bernie Sanders won 46 percent of the vote last spring, and where, in theory, residents share values that are part of the Oregon liberal DNA: smart land-use planning and dense neighborhoods. 'The city won't do anything about it unless we do.'īut Laurelhurst's effort may be for naught: The state Legislature is currently considering a bill that would deny neighborhoods the right to use historic designations to block housing developments.
'The whole street-it will look like Beaverton by the time they're done,' says John Deodato, a longtime Laurelhurst homeowner who says he gets 20 letters a month from developers seeking to buy his home. The average home price here is now $750,000-and one house sold this month for $1.6 million.īy seeking to make the neighborhood a historic district, Laurelhurst residents are taking aim at what they see as the neighborhood's greatest enemy: a real estate developer with a backhoe, bent on tearing down 100-year-old houses to replace them with apartments, a duplex or a huge new house. Laurelhurst is one of many central eastside Portland neighborhoods where housing values have soared since the recession, and where developers are snatching up scarce vacant lots and a few modest homes they can demolish and replace.
