Concordia being aggresivly built by Everett Custom Homes...

It's been a long few weeks for us here in Concordia. Though we lost the tree on 22nd Ave. We are not done with trying to prevent the building of a skinny home in it's place.

Vic Reemers has agreed to discuss selling the lot to a neighbor. We will see if this is something he will truly do or if it's just a game to waste more of our time while he quickly swoops in and builds against all of our best efforts.

We still have a lot of questions with what happened on our block. Why did they show up with unmarked trucks with no company affiliation whatsoever. Why did they refuse to show they were license bonded and insured? Why was the tree taken down when the lot hasn't even been confirmed as a build-able lot, why are they building a sewer line right now when the lot is still not confirmed as build-able?

Though the uniting force for our community was to save the tree, we found ourselves entrenched in a much larger and more troublesome problem here in Concordia and Portland at large.

In the last several weeks, Vic Reemers and Everett Custom homes has aggressively descended upon Concordia to stamp their cookie cutter homes in our beautiful community taking down several old growths for no real reason. There are at least 5-6 builds in our immediate area that I know of and probably more.

All of the homes that have lot splits are bought under LLCs, split then purchased by Everett Custom homes. One must have to ask, how on Earth did Vic get this many properties in such a short amount of time?

One block over on Highland St. Vic took these amazing tall Doug Firs down for a parking pad, yes I said that right, a parking pad for another skinny home...

                  

Last week, I was notified about another cut down of an old growth for yet another skinny home. This beauty was on 27th Ave.... 

What we find so troublesome in Concordia is that all of this work is being done long before the lots are legally confirmed. The build on our block seems far too small to build and when taking a tape measure to their markings of the lot we don't get a full 25' which is what is required for a minimum to build... 

Upon asking more questions we come to the biggest one of all. Concordia is zoned legally as an R5 residential zone but somehow we got downgraded to an R-2.5 for micro lots. No one in the city has any real answers. 

Why is this happening and all over Portland? Eastmoreland has had to resort to protests...

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2014/07/east_moreland_residents_protes.html

Beaumont-Wilshire is under attack too...

http://bwnrg.blogspot.com/

Are we as a city really going to sit back and let these builders destroy the character of our beautiful city?

They are calling it infill as a nice way of making Portlander's think this is good for growth but it's not. It's greedy land grabs that are focusing on well established communities to make a faster buck and destroying their character in the process.

There are several blocks of this area that could use "revitalization" but that is not what Renaissance Homes and Everett Custom Homes are doing here. They are bullying their way into communities that have high value and building to make a quick buck off of established communities and destroying the neighborhoods character in the process.

Portland is rapidly being developed by only three builders. All of the new condos, skinny homes and giant "loomer" homes are being built by Wally Reemers, Vic Reemers (Everett Custom Homes) and Renaissance Homes. Why is the city giving such preferential treatment to just these three builders?

Do we really want suburbian builders to decide the fate of our city?