Gateway funding cuts put key projects on hold

 

Lee Perlman

The Mid-county MEMO

 

 A citywide hold on urban renewal projects may endanger some key goals in the Gateway district.

 A court decision earlier this year brought by Shiloh Inns owner Mark Hemstreet has outlawed the way that some property taxes are collected in some urban renewal districts. The city is appealing the ruling, but in the meantime the Portland Development Commission is limiting the implementation of new projects, at least until the impacts of the ruling can be assessed and priorities decided. This process, expected to be completed in March, was still up in the air in April.

 In the case of Gateway, there are two added complications. Under a deal made last year with Multnomah County, $900,000 of the district’s budget are pledged to the county’s Children’s Receiving Center at East Burnside and 102nd Avenue. Another is that Gateway, being a new district, hasn’t had a chance to generate new tax revenues that would comprise urban renewal funding. In a Catch 22 situation, the lack of funds prevents public improvements that could make possible new private developments that could generate urban renewal funds.

 A case in point is developer Ted Gilbert’s proposed project on a 13-acre parcel bounded roughly by Northeast Glisan and Halsey streets, 102nd Avenue and the I-205 Freeway. Although most of the specifics are unknown, the project would combine housing, retail, open space, and an Education Center featuring satellite adult education facilities from Mount Hood Community College. Gilbert says the land and the financing are available. The key missing ingredient is $2.5 million in streetscape improvements to Northeast Pacific Street. “Given how pioneering this project is for this area, I think this is essential,” Gilbert told the Memo.

 Another matter is acquisition of the “Bingo Site,” a long- vacant property at Northeast 105th Avenue and Halsey Street, identified as a possible future park. The Ukrainian Bible Church, which owns the property, is willing to sell to PDC, but the latter currently has no money to buy. Needing more space than it has at its existing facility, at 7232 N.E. Glisan St., the church has indicated that it will soon have to build on the Bingo property, or sell it on the open market to acquire the funds to find another home. Opportunity Gateway advisory committee chair Dick Cooley is reportedly trying to raise money to acquire the property temporarily, until PDC is in a position to repurchase it.

 In a related issue, the Gateway area surfaced last month in an informal City Council discussion of the urban renewal budget. Some have questioned the amount of property PDC has acquired. Commissioner Charlie Hales defended the practice in Gateway, saying, “One reason to buy property is to change the character of a district. If we didn’t do site acquisition in Gateway, developers would build single story buildings and strip malls indefinitely.” Hales later added, “We need to take a long, hard look at Gateway soon.”

 Commissioner Jim Francesconi characterized Gateway, as well as Interstate and North Macadam, in north and southwest Portland, respectively, as areas where there is now “high expectations and no money.”