If you live in a multi-unit building in Portland (or, for that matter, anywhere in Oregon) chances are good there is no secure place outside your unit to park your bike.
And if you live in a nice downtown condo, chances are just as good that you’re not allowed to bring your bike indoors.
There is a real, black-and-white reason why this is so: the Portland building code.
There's a loophole big enough to ride a bike through in Chapter 33.266 of Portland's building code. (Click to download the bike parking section.)
Back in the 1990′s, the BTA and local advocates pushed the city to require short term bike parking (outside businesses and buildings) and long term bike parking (in commercial and residential buildings) by code. The Task Force assigned to write the code did a great job, detailing how much long-term bike parking must be provided in residential buildings, and where it must be located, and what form of security would suffice.
But at the eleventh hour one member (a housing developer) pushed for a loophole: Secure bike parking can be provided “in a dwelling unit or dormitory unit. If long-term bicycle parking is provided in a dwelling unit or dormitory unit, neither racks nor lockers are required.”
Bike parking infrastructure is one more cost to developing a building, and this loophole gives a builder an opportunity to cut that cost, and assume that residents will keep their bikes in their units. Rarely are these units designed with a bike parking area or hook.
Street racks are not meant for long-term parking, and they are certainly not secure.
This might be problem enough, but add to it the fact that developers seldom manage their buildings once all of the units have sold. How is the manager to know that bicycles are supposed to be stored in apartments or condos? And, faced with dirtied carpet and scuffed-up elevator doors, managers have an incentive to ignore that technicality.
Thus, I receive fortnightly phone calls from frustrated apartment or condo residents, who have nowhere to store their bicycles. Sometimes it is even the Homeowners’ Association or the building manager calling, trying to figure out how their building ever got built with so little bike parking. Those with the will and the means dip into their own pockets (or assess the residents) to fix it. The rest either live with the annoyance or move out.
With no secure bike parking, and banned from bringing them into their units, building residents have to get creative.
In 2007, the BTA and a few building residents put in requests for a revision to Chapter 33.266 that would remove this very loophole, and we were promised that the Planning Bureau would eventually get to that section of the code and contemplate our proposed revision.
This year, they did, and they have released a “Discussion Draft” that strikes the loophole. (You can download the 5 MB draft here, and turn to page 129.)
This requirement wouldn’t be retroactive (so if you’re managing a downtown condo building, don’t freak out), and it is a shame that this is happening after and not before the condo boom of the last few years. But going forward, this code change will start to address the mismatch between Portland’s bike friendly streets and terribly bike unfriendly buildings.
Because this is a “Discussion Draft,” we need your help to make sure it sticks. Some building developers and managers who don’t have to pay for the bike parking retrofits and restrictions we see residents enacting may very well push to maintain the loophole – and perpetuate the problem.
There is a Planning Commission Public Hearing on August 25, 2009 and we’d like you to testify! If you can speak on behalf of your HOA, business or building, even better.
Public Hearing on Code Changes
Portland Planning Commission
Tuesday, August 25, 2009 7:00 – 9:00 pm (get there early to sign up and you’ll get out early!)
1900 SW 4th Ave, Room 2500A
Prepare 3 minutes of testimony, and bring a written copy for the clerk
Contact me (at michelle[at]bta4bikes[dot]org) if testifying at a Public Hearing sounds intimidating but you want to help somehow.
You can also send written comments to the Planning Commission at 1900 SW 4th Ave, Suite 7100, Portland, Oregon, 97201, attn: Joan Hamilton. Reference the proposed deletion 33.266.220 (B)(2)(d)(7).
For existing condos, almost all have parking spaces assigned or available. Right now, most associations forbid any permanent structure on that space.
If the law required associations to allow condo owners to build permanent secure bike parking in their parking space, then that would fix that. More realistically, at a group of bike minded tenants could propose aggregating their purchased parking spots to create a permanent secure bike storage facility.
That would be cost effective for the association and for the residents.
Bicycling is a significant part of the answer to climate warming — far better for the planet than using fossil fuel powered transportation. Many people see this but are not as likely to use bicycles because it isn’t easy to find adequate parking for them.
To promote cycling the city needs to change some codes (such as Chapter 33.266 to allow safer bicycle storage for condo owners).