Zoning Confirmation Letters

Please email the relevant page of the state DMV application form to LandUseIntake@portlandoregon.gov (leave the City portion blank).

Please include in your email: 

• Name of Applicant
• Address of Applicant
• Phone Number of Applicant
• Description of business. Whether you sell cars, wholesale, have a home office, or something else, explain it in your email.
• Description of operation. Include:
  • Do you store all vehicles inside a building?
  • Do you store or display vehicles outside?
  • Are there no vehicles at the site?

There is a fee for the City signature on the application form. Once we receive your application, we will contact you with any questions, and then we'll email you how to pay the fee online or over the phone.

Once the fee is paid, we will complete and approve the DMV Location Approval form electronically and email you the approved document as a PDF document.  

If your business is in a residential area, you must include documentation of a nonconforming situation. This documentation explains the City approval you need to operate a business in a residential area. 

1. Complete the Documenting a Nonconforming Situation Application.
2. To submit your application and materials, follow the instructions on the Zoning and Land Use Additional Planning Services page.
3. Pay the application fee. Find current fees listed in “Land Use Services Fee Schedule".

1. Complete the Zoning Confirmation Request Form unless otherwise noted in the descriptions below for specific types of requests.
2. To submit your application and materials, follow the instructions on the Zoning and Land Use Additional Planning Services page.
3. Pay the application fee. Find current fees listed in the “Land Use Services Fee Schedule".

A Tier 2 Zoning Confirmation Letter. Bank letters are used by financial institutions for due diligence purposes. They state the current zoning with a brief description and list the relevant land use history of the property. 

Things to know about bank letters:

• For any number of adjacent properties in the same ownership, you can request a single bank letter.
• Properties separated by rights of way, even if they are in the same ownership, must have different bank letters.
• Properties under different ownership must have different bank letters.

Request a bank letter

Follow the instructions in Apply for a Tier 2 and Tier 3 Zoning Confirmation Letter. 

A Tier 2 Zoning Confirmation Letter. A Land Use Compatibility Statement (LUCS) is a portion of an application for a state-issued license.

LUCS verifies that the use or activity requested in the state license is allowed by local zoning and land use regulations.

Read more about land use compatibility statements.

Request a land use compatibility statement

1. Get and complete the appropriate state form(s) for your project from the state agency.
2. Complete the Zoning Confirmation Request Form.
3. Submit your application request and include the state form(s).

Follow the instructions in Apply for a Tier 2 and Tier 3 Zoning Confirmation Letter.

A Tier 3 Zoning Confirmation Letter. The City of Portland includes some land along the Willamette and Columbia Rivers that may have been home to Native Americans before European contact and settlement. Pre-contact archeological resources have historic, cultural, and scientific value to the general public and the associated Native American Tribes.

In areas with a high probability of these archeological resources, the Zoning Code requires analysis before ground-disturbing activities and development. 

This analysis is completed through a Tier 3 application process before approval of a permit for development.

Apply for an archeological evaluation

1. Contact the BDS archeological resource specialist in Land Use Services for application requirements. Please call 503-823-7300.
2. In addition to the information required for the analysis, you will need to submit the Zoning Confirmation Request Form.
3. Follow the instructions in Apply for a Tier 2 and Tier 3 Zoning Confirmation Letter.

A Tier 3 Zoning Confirmation Letter. Sometimes zoning regulations change, and use or development is no longer allowed at a site. If the use or development was legally permitted or established before City Zoning, applicants can document the right to continue the use or development that is not allowed using standard evidence.

By documenting a nonconforming situation, the site owner is assured of whether the property has vested rights. More information:

Apply to document a nonconforming situation

1. Complete the Documenting a Nonconforming Situation Application.
2. Submit the application using the submittal instructions on the Planning Services page.

Required landscape plantings are intended to enhance environmentally sensitive areas or to mitigate the loss of natural resource values as part of a proposed development.

To ensure the plantings become established, written proof is required at yearly intervals ranging between one and five years after installation of the plantings, depending on the size of the mitigation planting area.

Plants that die must be replaced in kind.

Monitoring of landscape areas is the ongoing responsibility of the property owner.

Specifications on mitigation and restoration plantings can be found in the zoning code on Landscaping and Screening, Mitigation and Restoration Plantings, Section 33.248.090.

To ensure the required written proof of survival, you must provide us with a Landscape Monitoring Report Application before you can get a building permit.

When a Landscape Monitoring Report Review is required

• When new development or alterations to existing development that exceed the nonconforming development threshold are requested within the Greenway Overlay zone in South Waterfront Subdistrict and South Waterfront Greenway landscaping improvements are required.
• When new development or alterations to existing development within the River Environmental Overlay zone require mitigation plantings.
• When a correction to a violation within the Environmental or River Environmental overlay zones requires mitigation or restoration plantings.
• When submitting monitoring reports for review, which were required by a condition of land use approval, to document the survival of mitigation plantings. These conditions are typically found in Environmental, Greenway, and River Review land use decisions.

Fees

The fee is based on the number of monitoring reports required.

Find current fees listed on our Current Fee Schedule page. In the document, Land Use Services Fee Schedules, search for Landscape Monitoring Report Review (per annual report).

Apply for a landscape monitoring report review

1. Complete the Landscape Monitoring Report Application.
2. Optional: Use the fillable Landscape Monitoring Report form to complete a monitoring report:
3. Submit the Landscape Monitoring Report Application using the instructions on the Zoning and Land Use Additional Planning Services page.

A Tier 3 Zoning Confirmation Letter. In permit reviews that prompt zoning upgrades, there is an option to defer those upgrades to a later time. In exchange, all zoning upgrades that apply to the property must be completed later.

With this option, the property owner signs a covenant with the City to complete the work later. The upgraded work does not need to be shown in the individual permit(s). These reviews are assigned to the planner reviewing the building permit(s).

More information:

Apply for a nonconforming upgrades option 2 review

1. Complete the Nonconforming Development Option 2 Application.
2. Submit the application using the submittal instructions on the Planning Services page.

A Tier 3 Zoning Confirmation Letter. The Zoning Code classifies land uses and activities into categories of use.

"Use" is based on common functional, product, or physical characteristics that include:

• The type and amount of activity
• The type of customers or residents
• How goods and services are sold or delivered
• site factors

It is beneficial to know the use category of a proposed business or project before you apply for a permit, so you can understand the Zoning regulations that apply.

Use determinations before permits or land use reviews can be requested through a Tier 3 application.  In this review, a planner will evaluate information that you submit, describing the nature of your business or activity, and determine the use.

You will need to provide information to determine a use category. This includes:

• A description of the activity(ies) in relationship to the characteristics of each use category
• The relative amount of site or floor space and equipment devoted to the activity
• Relative amounts of sales from each activity
• The customer type for each activity
• The relative number of employees in each activity
• Hours of operation
• Building and site arrangement
• Vehicles used with the activity
• The relative number of vehicle trips generated by the activity
• Signs
• How the use is advertised
• Whether the activity would be likely to be found independent of the other activities on the site

Apply for a notice of use determination

1. Provide the information listed to determine a use category.
2. Follow the instructions in Apply for a Tier 2 and Tier 3 Zoning Confirmation Letter.

A Tier 3 Zoning Confirmation Letter. The Portland Zoning Code allows property owners to transfer a part of the development potential from their property to other properties in some situations. This includes residential density allowances or building Floor Area Ratio (FAR) allowances.

These are available in:

• commercial/mixed-use zones
• employment and industrial zones
• multi-dwelling zones

Who can request a transfer?

Property owners can complete density and FAR transfers, but you may want to get help from private legal counsel.

The Transfer Covenant template will need to be reviewed and approved by Land Use Services and, in some cases, the City Attorney’s Office. After approval by the City, the property owner(s) record the covenant form against the property titles of the sites, sending and receiving the development rights.

Apply for a transfer, and the application process

1. Complete the FAR/Density Transfer Request Application Form.
2. Submit your completed form. Use the instructions on the Planning Services page to apply.
3. Complete the Transfer Covenant template. When we receive your application, a city planner will contact you and send you a Transfer Covenant template that you'll fill out with your project information. The template describes the property sending the development potential and the property receiving it. It also notes how much development potential will result at each property after the transfer.
4. The Transfer Covenant template will be reviewed by Land Use Services and, in some cases, the City Attorney’s Office.
5. Once approved, the property owner(s) record the covenant form against the property titles of the properties sending and receiving the development rights.