Sell a Fire Damaged House in Northwest and Southwest Portland

Designation Reaches Past the Date

The distinction that matters most on this side of the river. The deconstruction requirements attach not only to primary dwelling structures built in 1940 or earlier, but also to those designated as a historic resource subject to the demolition review or 120-day delay provisions of Title 33, regardless of when they were built.

So a designated house from the 1950s is covered where an undesignated one from the same year is not. The year threshold is the common route into the ordinance and it is not the only one. The full position is on our page covering deconstruction and the tax basis.

How Would I Know If My House Is Designated?

The Delay Is Its Own Cost

Where a designated property is subject to demolition review or the 120-day delay provisions, the timeline lengthens before any work starts. For an owner that is carrying cost. For a buyer pricing a rebuild it is months of holding before the site is even clear.

It is one of the reasons offers on designated property are lower and one of the reasons that repair, which does not engage demolition review at all, tends to win on this stock more often than owners expect.

Does Designation Stop Me Repairing?

We publish no designation determinations, review outcomes or terrain assessments for individual west side properties. The city holds the first two and the third requires somebody on the site.

Terrain Affects Everything Physically

Much of the west side is steep, and properties above or below their street or served by narrow access change the cost of demolition, deconstruction and construction alike.

Hand dismantling on a sloping site with constrained access is slower again than on a flat one, and material has to come out the same way it would go in. It is a genuine line in a budget rather than a footnote, and it is not visible in photographs.

The Assessment Position Is Unchanged

Whatever the age or designation, Oregon caps growth in assessed value at 103 per cent a year, treats ordinary maintenance and repair as not adding to assessed value, and treats new improvements as an exception that is added and then carried forward.

On the higher values found on this side of the city, that difference compounds into a larger absolute sum than almost anywhere else in the metro.

West Portland in Context

Where the build year alone usually decides it, see our page about Northeast Portland. Where mixed eras make the year unpredictable, see our page for North Portland.

The Provisions That Reach the West Side

Designation brings coverage under Chapter 17.106 at any age, through the demolition review or 120-day delay provisions of Title 33. The year threshold of 1940 took effect on 20 January 2020, having been 1916 since 31 October 2016.

ORS 308.146 caps growth in maximum assessed value at 103 per cent a year, ORS 308.153 values new improvements, and OAR 150-308-0110 deals with reduction after fire or act of God.

West Side Questions