Historic Preservation Committee makes final recommendations before Tuesday hearing

By Craig Breon for Ashland.news

Plans to tear down a sprawling house-like apartment structure at 431 N. Main St., split its lot into four lots and build three single-family units and a six-unit structure at the corner of Main and Nursery streets are up for review by the Ashland Planning Commission Tuesday night.

The Historic Preservation Advisory Committee reviewed the proposal at its meeting of Wednesday, Feb. 4. Members set about redesigning by committee what they saw as the most troublesome aspect of the proposal, a six-unit single room occupancy (SRO) building at the corner of North Main and Nursery streets.

Committee members hovered around the PowerPoint display screen, dabbling with moving this element, adding another, shrinking or expanding still more. Architectural terms such as gables, trusses and dormers flew vigorously around the room. At one point, a petticoat was mentioned.

By the end of the meeting, however, the committee unanimously approved recommendations to forward to the Planning Commission meeting of Tuesday, Feb. 10.

This was the committee’s second go-around at the proposal to tear down an existing seven-unit apartment complex in poor condition and replace it with three single-family homes and a nearly 5,000-square-foot SRO building. The SRO would sit at a prominent corner in the Skidmore Academy Historic District, passed by thousands of cars and pedestrians daily.

Single-room occupancy housing typically provides individual bedrooms, in this case each with a small bathroom, and shared common facilities, here a shared kitchen and laundry room. In an effort to increase affordable housing stock, Oregon state law now mandates that SROs be allowed in many residential zones.

In their first encounter with the proposal on Jan. 7, committee members voiced unanimous disdain for the SRO building, with member and architect Jud Prest summing concerns up in saying, “This is just one monolithic box.” The committee ended that meeting with initial recommendations, but nothing specific enough for the Planning Commission to act on at its meeting of Jan. 13.

The Planning Commission agreed with the direction of the committee’s comments and asked that a revised proposal go back to the committee before returning to the commission for a decision on Feb. 10.

Presented with revised illustrations for the SRO, committee members agreed that progress had been made. Nonetheless, comments portrayed it as still too much of a box – now a box with some pleasant features.

Some larger revisions were initially explored by committee members. Could the building be two stories, thus reducing the footprint? Project representative Amy Gunter responded, saying that two stories would be cost prohibitive and present accessibility problems.

Could the SRO be moved to the back of the property, further up Nursery Street, and the single-family units moved towards North Main? Gunter pointed out that the property narrows as it goes back, thus precluding that option for a building of such size.

Resigned to the overall size and location, committee members launched into a rapid-fire back and forth consideration of more modest revisions. Member Prest focused on the “really massive roof,” noting that one side of the building would look “almost like a billboard” for drivers heading towards downtown from the west. For that side, the committee settled on recommending a wider entrance, wider and higher gables, shingling and siding changes – all designed to reduce uniformity and massing.

Struggling to harmonize the SRO with the surrounding neighborhood, additional changes to the front entrance, columns, gables, dormers and sidings were discussed and then settled upon for a final motion. So many options were considered that committee member Katy Repp warned her fellow members, “This is like jewelry. You don’t want to overdo it.”

Providing momentum, Derek Serverson, Ashland’s planning supervisor, urged the committee towards specificity and unanimity in their recommendations to the planning commission. Those recommendations as well as the project developer’s responses and graphic renderings can be found in the agenda packet prepared for the commission.

In a second letter to the planning commission regarding this project, Adam and Susan Lemon, innkeepers of Abigail’s Bed and Breakfast Inn, reiterated concerns. Abigail’s sits directly across Nursery Street from the SRO site, and the Lemons worry about construction noise as well as the lack of street parking in the area during the summer tourism season. While the proposed single-family homes would include off-street parking, no parking spaces are proposed for the SRO.

The Planning Commission hearing for the three single-family units and SRO development at 431 North Main St. is set for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 10, in the council chamber at 1175 East Main St. The meetings can also be seen online. Public comment is encouraged.

Email Jackson County resident, consultant and former environmental law instructor Craig Breon at [email protected].

Related stories

Ashland Historic Preservation Advisory Committee pans North Main project headed to Planning Commission (Jan. 12, 2026)

Planning Commission approves Scenic Drive subdivision, delays Ashland Street commercial buildings (Dec. 10, 2025)