LIVING

New housing, new problem

By Noah Bruce

The folks looking to convert the Nissen building to artist housing have some competition. Peter Bass, a Portland-based developer (though he doesn’t like that term), plans on building eight condominiums at 145-147 Anderson Street, designed to serve as a space for artists to live and work.

Bass currently owns a building of artist studios on Merrill Street on Munjoy Hill in Portland. Though he hopes to make a little cash from the sale of the condos, he says his motives are partly altruistic. “I think it’s a niche that hasn’t been addressed. Artists, everyone wants them around but they don’t want to make a commitment to them.”

Though he won’t say how much the condos will cost, Bass says he plans on keeping them affordable by using cost-effective design and materials and perhaps working with alternate funding. He describes the live-work spaces as having few walls to allow more room for artists to work. “It will look almost like a wide-open, white shoe box, with a bathroom, a kitchen, and a loft space of some sort.”

One potential stick in the spokes of his plan is the referendum proposed by the Campaign for a Comprehensive Plan. Portland City Council voted at its meeting on March 19 to change the zoning for Bass’s property to allow him to build. This causes his plans to fall under the retroactive building restriction of the referendum — it not only bars major development but also zoning changes — on which Portland citizens will vote May 1.

Bass says he doesn’t think the creators of the referendum planned on blocking developments like his, but if their initiative is passed, his project will be suspended. “As well intentioned as they were,” says Bass “they probably had no idea that the referendum would effect projects of this nature.”