Tell Portland City Commissioners that Our Historic Places Matter!

Take Action: Testify on the Historic Resources Code Project at Portland City Council on November 3, 2021, at 2pm

The Historic Resources Code Project (HRCP) is the biggest rewrite of policies governing the management and protection of Portland’s historic resources in over a generation, and the Recommended Draft is scheduled for a public hearing at City Council on November 3rd at 2pm.

This regulatory update will pave the way for how the City will govern older properties.

Properties that should and can play a role in Portland’s future to help advance equity and social justice, meet carbon reduction goals, and address housing stability and affordability. Yes, historic preservation does have a positive role to play in all those issues! For far too long, the City has been hampered and unable to undertake the basic preservation steps, such as conducting an inventory of older resources or diversifying recognition and designation of landmarks to reflect the incredibly diverse histories of Portland’s communities. This code update is the first step. Implementation and funding for much-needed work will come next.

Code and regulation are the bases upon which to build from, and much is at stake. It is imperative that the City Council hears loud and clear that Portland’s historic and cultural heritage is important to you, to us, and to the entire City. Now is not the time to weaken protections that open the door to more demolitions. As we learned with our recent advocacy efforts to save the Yamaguchi Hotel, our elected officials need more education about why history and cultural heritage are important, and support in understanding how vital historic preservation is citywide.

Historic resources are a vibrant part of the solution to our most pressing challenges. Let’s all work together on:

Racial Equity: Let’s push to recognize, celebrate and protect a wider variety of places and spaces that reflect the diverse communities of Portland.

Climate Action: Let’s preserve and reuse existing older neighborhoods all over Portland to reduce our carbon footprint. The embodied carbon of our existing buildings is an underutilized resource. Re-use is Climate Action!

Housing Affordability and Anti-displacement: Let’s continue to encourage the City toward a more equitable model for funding historic preservation efforts for all older housing, regardless of designation.

Cultural Heritage: Let’s tell the full and complete story of the people and places of Portland.

How Can You Help?

Get Informed

Learn more about the process, how to participate, and where to find information to educate yourself about this important issue.

Make YOUR Voice Heard to Portland City Council on Nov 3, 2021

There are two types of advocates/supporters that City Council most needs to hear from:

Advocate 1:  You care about preserving important pieces of Portland’s history in our built environment but you are NOT an expert on the HRCP, and may not have time to dive deep.

Action:  Write and submit your support for historic resources (any older properties that might be important to you and your neighborhood). This does not need to take more than 15 minutes. Perhaps you might also sign up to “testify” on Nov 3. All that really means is sharing your comments out loud via Zoom. Let’s work together to remind Portland City Council that PEOPLE, PLACES AND HERITAGE MATTER. 

Advocate 2:  You care about Portland’s historic resources and like to read regulations and/or have been participating in the HRCP process over the past few years.

Action:  You’ll want to read the Recommended Draft, review the positions of the local Portland preservation community, and then get ready to submit written and oral testimony. Restore Oregon is currently preparing our own testimony and will send out more information regarding our position in advance of Nov 3rd. Overall, we support the HRCP Draft as presented by staff, with some recommendations.

On July 28^th, the Portland City Council voted unanimously to approve the demolition of the historic Yamaguchi Hotel (former Blanchet House), a rare and very significant building to the Japanese American/AAPI community and a contributing building in the New Chinatown-Japantown Historic District.  Restore Oregon opposed the demolition request because other options had not been fully explored and because it sets a very bad precedent in this small and fragile district.  

We initiated a coalition of preservation and legal experts to join in support of the Japanese American Museum of Oregon and 14 other Japanese American organizations to propose an alternate win-win solution , but the Council’s vote demonstrated an unwillingness to invest any resources to pursue it.

Chisao Hata, Board member of the Japanese American Museum of Oregon, said “this feels like yet another slap in the face to our community that has endured successive waves of prejudice, loss, and erasure over many decades.”

The importance of this building lies not in its architecture, but in its rarity and deep connection to the Japanese American community.

Only three historic resources are associated with AAPI cultural heritage in all of Oregon: the Kam Wah Chung State Heritage Site, the Salem Pioneer Cemetery, and Portland’s New Chinatown-Japantown Historic District where the Yamaguchi Hotel is located. The hotel was operated by Shigezo and Masaye Yamaguchi and is one of only a handful of buildings still standing in the district that was operated by Japanese Americans at a time when people of Asian heritage were ostracized and afforded limited rights, and then lost virtually everything when interned during WWII.

Also, according to the National Register of Historic Places district nomination, Masaye Yamaguchi served as the midwife for the Asian community, and is said to have delivered babies as far away as Hood River. This untold and under-appreciated chapter of Oregon women's history has deep cultural significance.

The City Council did vote to create a "stakeholder" committee to recommend ways to document and incorporate the Japanese American history of the site into the future development.  But no provisions were made to ensure those recommendations would be carried out.

With their ruling, the City also set aside its own policy that a historic building cannot be demolished without first approving the replacement structure.  The intent of this policy is to provide a means to assess that the public benefit of the proposed new development is greater than the public benefit of preserving and reusing the historic structure.  In this case, the owners claimed economic hardship and liability due to the deteriorated condition of the building - which occurred under their ownership - and asked the City to grant demolition with no proposal for what would replace it other than a vacant lot.

The owner, the Blanchet House, stated their hope is to create a low-income nursing facility.  The community benefit might well outweigh the historic value of the building, and provide some comfort to the Japanese American community that the loss of their cultural heritage had achieved some other good.  However, no plans for such a facility have been presented and no provision made in the conditions set for demolition to ensure that such a community benefit would be created on the site in exchange for this great loss. 

Further, no consideration or mitigation was made for the loss of this contributing building on the historic district as a whole.  Portland’s New Chinatown-Japantown Historic district is only 2 blocks wide and 5 blocks long.  Nearly half of its historic buildings are already lost, so losing another one has a major impact that should be mitigated to some degree by investing in the rehabilitation of other historic buildings or other district improvements.

The City of Portland bears significant responsibility for this sad state of affairs. The current “new” Blanchet House was built on land occupied by the historic Kiernan Building (also known as the Dirty Duck Tavern) in a deal orchestrated by the Portland Development Commission (now Prosper Portland). The Kiernan Building was demolished to make way for the new Blanchet facility and the important social services it would provide.  It did not have cultural ties to the AAPI community and demolition was not allowed until the new Blanchet House design was approved. The city agency arranged a “land swap” of the new site for the old, giving Blanchet House the new site with a provision that the PDC could exercise an option to take ownership of the old Blanchet House/Yamaguchi Hotel when the new Blanchet House was completed.  The understanding was that the PDC would assume responsibility for stewarding the Yamaguchi Hotel building along with redevelopment of the rest of the block.  But when the PDC/Prosper Portland walked away from this commitment, the Blanchet House was left to deal with the now-empty historic building. 

Restore Oregon remains gravely concerned that Portland City Council has now set a precedent that other property owners in the historic district who have been engaged in demolition-by-neglect may try to seize upon: let your building deteriorate, then claim economic hardship and seek demolition approval. Recent zoning changes that allow increased heights in the district provide further incentive. We are concerned about the entire district and its vulnerability to be de-listed from the National Register of Historic Places. 

The willingness of Portland’s City Council to permit the demolition the Yamaguchi Hotel exposes an alarming shift on City Council away from the Comprehensive Plan's goal of stewarding historic resources, a disconnect on “walking the talk” of respecting the cultural heritage of minority 

communities, and a willingness to set aside its own policies on demolition of historic buildings.  We will continue to support the Japanese American and AAPI community and are exploring potential next steps, including further appeal.

A primary contributing building in the Portland New Chinatown-Japantown Historic District, the historic Yamaguchi Hotel/former Blanchet House has seen better days, and now stands alone surrounded by surface parking lots.  

A demolition application has been filed with the City of Portland which Restore Oregon and a coalition of organizations plan to oppose. Why? The importance of the building lies not in its architecture, but in its deep connection to the Japanese American, Asian American, and Pacific Islander communities. 

Statewide, as far as we can assess, there are only three historic resources associated with AAPI cultural heritage: the Kam Wah Chung State Heritage Site, Salem Pioneer Cemetery and Portland’s New Chinatown-Japantown Historic District where the Yamaguchi Hotel is located. Stricken by demolitions in earlier decades, this small, 10-block district cannot afford to lose another key historic resource.   

Built around 1905, the Yamaguchi Hotel is one of only a handful of buildings still standing in the historic district that was owned by Japanese Americans at a time when people of Asian heritage were ostracized and afforded limited rights. According to the National Register of Historic Places district nomination, Mr. Yamaguchi’s wife served as the midwife for the Asian community, and is said to have delivered babies as far away as Hood River. This under-appreciated chapter of Oregon’s women's history is crucial to preserve for its cultural significance. Also according to the nomination, the hotel became the Old Ship Zion Seaman’s Mission in 1934, launching many decades of providing social services for Portland’s most needy citizens. This history, too, deserves to be recognized and valued.

We believe there is an alternate solution that could retain the structure and incorporate its important and and untold stories into planned development for the rest of the block. Future development has not yet been approved, so now is the time to find a “win-win” solution.

Restore Oregon, working with the Japanese American and AAPI community, can offer our deep expertise in historic redevelopment planning, design, financing, and creative problem solving required for historic projects.   

The building’s demolition application will be reviewed at a Landmarks Commission meeting next Monday, June 14th (register to attend and/or give testimony).  Currently, the application is scheduled at the City Council for a vote on June 30th. (Submit testimony by emailing cctestimony@portlandoregon.gov).  

It's not every day that a historic place embodies so many different aspects of Oregon’s cultural history:  AAPI history, women's history, and social services history. Those who want to see the Yamaguchi Hotel live on are encouraged to make their voices heard!