You know you're getting old when you spend a holiday weekend night watching a replay of a City of Portland land use hearing on cable access. But that's what we found ourselves doing a few nights back. The show, which ran on for quite a while, was must-see TV.

At issue was an application by the Holladay Park Plaza retirement center in the Lloyd District to build a 75-foot-tall senior housing project on property it owns just up 16th Avenue from its imposing tower. In the mid-1990's, the block on which this lot is situated had been the object of a land use dispute between the prior owner (a developer) and the Sullivan's Gulch Neighborhood Association. The city's decision at that time allowed for townhouses on much of the block, and a 60-to-65-foot-tall building on the lot now owned by Holladay Park Plaza. Everything's since been built but the big building.

Since the new plan was for a full story taller than the building that had been approved a decade earlier, the retirement home needed city approval to build at that height. And the city gave it to them, both at the bureaucrat level and by a hearings officer. The neighborhood, joined by the Irvington Community Association just a couple of blocks away, appealed to the full City Council. The hearing on that appeal, held last week, was what I watched on the tube.

Only four of the council members were present. Sten was away, doubtlessly counting his mystery money up at the mansion. That left Leonard, Adams, Potter, and Saltzman to hear the testimony. The neighborhood association folks did a masterful job with their case. They and their lawyer had a number of arguments, but three stood out. First, they noted that the block in question was supposed to provide a height transition zone from the massive apartment bunker just west of it, at 15th and Weidler. The block was supposed to provide a mid-level building as a transition to the older single-family homes to its east. The proposed building would actually be taller than the apartment building, and the neighbors wondered what kind of transition that provided.

Second, the neighbors argued, "a deal's a deal." The allowance of the townhouses was part of an intricate plan approved by the hearings officer in 1996. That officer specifically noted that the taller building on the corner (originally meant to be condos, I presume) was approved as part of a package. Charlotte Uris, one of Irvington's volunteer land use gurus and a participant in the original proceedings in the 1990's, pointed out that Holladay Park Plaza was now trying to "cherry pick" the last developable parcel out of the group and ratchet up to a better deal than the overall package of earlier approvals allowed. The neighbors' lawyer noted that since the proposed building did not meet land use rules except by virtue of the 1996 approvals, it could not legally be developed at all except under the terms of the ruling made at that time.

The neighbors' third argument was perhaps the most interesting of all. The retirement company based its application for the 75-foot-tall building in part on a transfer of "density rights" from the parcel on which its giant tower sits. This is one of the "floor-area ratio" (FAR) transfers that have become so popular with the developer weasels and their City Hall puppets these days. The Sullivan's Gulch folks argued that these transfers can come only from a lot adjacent to the property in question, and that there was actually a small lot between the tower and the proposed building site. Therefore, they said, the transfer couldn't be done.

At one point a member of the Council asked the assistant city attorney present whether the neighbors' reading of the FAR transfer rules was correct. She gave a decidedly noncommittal answer.