Your Neighbour's Experience Will Mislead You
The specific hazard on this side of the river. Housing here went up across a long span, with wartime and post-war construction filling in among earlier stock on the same blocks.
So a neighbour whose damaged house came down with a machine last year proves nothing about yours. If their house was built in 1946 and yours in 1938, you are in different regimes despite being fifty feet apart. The full position is on our page covering deconstruction and the tax basis.
How Do I Establish My Own Year?
The Difference the Year Makes
Where the house is 1940 or earlier, taking it down means hand dismantling by a Certified Deconstruction Contractor, with a Pre-Deconstruction Form required before the permit application is even complete and a Post-Deconstruction Form before it can be finalled.
Where it is later and carries no historic designation, none of that attaches and the demolition route behaves as it would elsewhere. The permit fee itself is the same either way, since the city sets a fixed fee regardless of how the building comes down.
Does Designation Change It?
We publish no build years or designation determinations for individual North Portland addresses. The assessor and the city hold those and both will answer for your property at no cost.
What Does Not Vary
The assessment position. Oregon caps growth in assessed value at 103 per cent a year, ordinary maintenance and repair are not added to assessed value, and new improvements are an exception that is added and carried forward.
That applies whatever year your house was built and wherever in the state it stands. So even on a post-1940 North Portland house, repairing and rebuilding still have different long-term tax consequences, and only the demolition question turns on the year.
Framing Follows the Year Too
Conveniently, the same date that decides the demolition rule broadly tracks the change in construction. Earlier framing of larger dimension chars rather than failing at connections and can often be retained; later engineered assemblies come out whole once heat has reached the connections.
So on this side of the city the build year tends to answer two questions at once: what taking it down would cost, and whether taking it down is even the right route.
North Portland in Context
Where almost everything predates 1940, see our page about Northeast Portland. Where almost nothing does, see our page for East Portland.
The Numbers on Either Side of the Line
The threshold moved from 1916 to 1940 by an amendment adopted on 13 November 2019, effective 20 January 2020 under ordinance 189761. The original ordinance took effect on 31 October 2016 following a resolution of 17 February 2016.
Whatever the year, ORS 308.146 caps growth in maximum assessed value at 103 per cent annually and ORS 308.153 governs new improvements, with designation bringing coverage at any age under Title 33.
North Portland Questions
How Do I Find My Build Year?
The county assessor record is the quickest source and the city works from its own permit records first. Both are free.
My Neighbour Demolished Theirs Normally.
Then their house was probably built after 1940. It tells you nothing about yours, and on these streets that difference is common.
Will You Buy in St. Johns or Kenton?
Yes, across North Portland and in any condition. The build year affects the figure and it does not stop us buying.