Piece by piece

Historic First Addition home is dismantled

By Rebecca Randall

The Lake Oswego Review, Jul 29, 2010

Jaime Valdez / Lake Oswego Review

The home at 595 Sixth St. is being deconstructed by hand by DeConstruction Services of Our United Villages in conjunction with the ReBuilding Center, who will salvage and re-use the materials in other buildings.

In most scenarios, bulldozers and wrecking balls topple old, unwanted buildings and clear the land for the next generation of construction. But last week in the First Addition workers dismantled a historic home piece-by-piece.

Mark Ritter, a local resident and big proponent of deconstruction compared the process to watching a film of construction on rewind.

Earlier this summer, owners of the home — referred to as the Marion Platts house — were granted the right to destroy the historic house only under the condition that it be deconstructed. Decon-struction is a process in which wood, nails, glass, appliances, cabinets and other materials are recovered and reused. In older homes, often clear vertical grain lumber from old growth trees that don’t exist anymore is recovered. The lumber is worth four to six times the market value of regular lumber.

The Marion Platts house, a simple, 1,000 square-foot home built in 1900 at C Avenue and Sixth Street, was listed on the city of Lake Oswego’s historic landmark list. At the time of the designation, the Platts House was in good condition, but the property fell into serious disrepair. Michael and Stephanie Muro purchased the home in dire condition in 2008 with plans to resell the property as a great site to build a new home.

Their plans were delayed when they found out that the house was on the historic landmark list. Now clear of the approval of the Historic Resources Board, the Muros are moving forward with their plans.

But Ritter, a volunteer at the ReBuilding Center in Portland, is using the opportunity to inspire the city planning department to champion the deconstruction process. He is hopeful that the city will write development code that would cause builders to consider deconstruction as a way to deal with construction waste.

Members of the city’s planning department visited the site Monday to learn from Shane Endicott, executive director of Our United Villages — the parent nonprofit of DeConstruction Services and the Portland ReBuilding Center.

Johanna Hastay, an associate planner for the city, said that many communities are looking at ways to incorporate sustainability into their development code.

The city is currently undergoing a community development code audit (See story on page A1), and planners are interested in seeing if there is a way to incorporate an enhancement of sustainability standards. “(Decon-struction) is becoming more economically viable,” said Hastay. “It’s a good time to explore the options.”

Residents of the Evergreen Neighborhood had wanted the city to find a way to require Our Lady of the Lake to use deconstruction for its new school project. The current school is scheduled to be taken down next summer. But Hastay said the city had no way to do that.

Ritter knows plenty of examples of cities that have already blazed a trail in sustainable code requirements. The city of Boulder, Colo., requires developers to explain what they are going to do with waste from their project (Hint: the answer isn’t demolition). The city suggests a variety of options that would be more sustainable.

“It doesn’t force you to do one thing, but is forces you to think about it,” said Ritter.

He added that any solution the city comes to has “got to make economic sense as well as environmental sense.”

Costs of deconstruction can be offset by receipt of tax deductions, however, the process can range in cost from less to more expensive than demolition.

If you ask Endicott, the most environmentally sound option is deconstruction. On average, 85 percent of materials are reused in buildings that are deconstructed. Clients who choose deconstruction can choose to donate the items to the ReBuilding Center and earn a tax deduction. Endicott’s crew is taught to itemize and inventory everything, including photo documentation. Then, a third-party assessor puts a value on the materials.

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