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LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
Portland planner Joe Zehnder got an early taste of what he was in for when he visited the East Portland Neighborhood Office last month to discuss the pending Portland Comprehensive Plan process.
“Where was this part of town in 1980?” Zehnder asked.
“Free!” Bonny McKnight chortled. She was part of an abortive attempt to form the city of Columbia Ridge from the unincorporated land between Portland and Gresham in mid-Multnomah County.
“Deprived of the privilege of being part of our city,” Zehnder said after a brief pause for breath. Less facetiously, he said that since Mid-county wasn’t part of the city when the 1980 Portland Comprehensive Plan was created, it did not even mention the area. Since then the city has adopted policy documents dealing with the area, such as the Outer Southeast Community Plan of 1996, but these are “add-ons,” he said.
His point was that the 1980 Comprehensive Plan, which sets overall public and private development policies for the city in accordance with state law, is hopelessly outdated, and nowhere more so than in east Portland. Indeed, even at the time it was adopted, the plan was intended to be updated after 20 years, and the process is well overdue. State land use law says that each local jurisdiction must have an up-to-date Comprehensive Plan, and that these plans must deal with things such as land use, transportation, housing and natural resource protection, “but they don’t tell you how you must do it,” Zehnder said.
The new planning effort, expected to take about three years, will attempt to deal with the following issues:
• Climate change
• Energy generation
• The economy, including the potential job-development sector of new technology
• Creating a city of good quality neighborhoods across the economic spectrum, i.e., affordable living
• The cost to getting around Portland, with and without a car
• Education
• Growth and expansion
• Social equity, so that some social groups receive good treatment at the expense of others
• Health, safety and social services
• New development design
He added, “Somehow, we have to build into the plan a filter that lets us get from here to there. That’s not something we dealt with in the last plan.”
With regard to the organization of the plan, Zehnder said, “One principle we have is that one size does not fit all.” The city’s community will be divided into at least five categories treated in different ways: the inner city, industrial areas, the west hills, the streetcar communities developed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and east Portland.
Linda Bauer of Pleasant Valley was distressed at the failure to reference neighborhood plans, long a mainstay of Portland planning efforts.
Zehnder replied, “I don’t have a straight answer, but much of what is in (existing) neighborhood plans will bubble up in the larger plans.” During the final stages of the planning effort, “we’ll see how we get down to the neighborhood level.”
“But you’re destroying the basis of neighborhood planning,” Bauer protested. “Our neighborhoods have special qualities that need to be preserved.”
Terry Parker of Rose City Park asked if the effort would be “bottom up or top down.”
Zehnder replied, “I don’t want to start with a blank slate, but I won’t try to solve issues before you come and talk to us. You’ve been to meetings where time was wasted, and we can’t afford to do that here.”
Although the planning process is still being developed, some parts of it have already proved controversial. The bureau has designated the Portland Planning Commission as its principal citizen review body. Some neighborhood leaders have called for creation of a special committee with representatives from neighborhoods and other interest groups. To this Zehnder said, “It’s (the Planning Commission’s) job to look out for the interests of the city, and the interests are carefully balanced. For us to create another body that duplicates the commission’s function doesn’t make sense.”
The official kickoff meeting will be 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday, June 6 at the Oregon Convention Center. It was pointed out that many people who might like to attend this function would be unable to do so because of work schedules. Zehnder and Eden Dabbs, the project’s outreach coordinator, said the time was dictated by the availability of the meeting space and the keynote speaker. They promised that there would be many other opportunities for people to become involved.
Several people said that some issues, especially infill development, couldn’t wait for a lengthy process to play itself out.
Sharon Bohan of Mill Park disparaged the type of new development her neighborhood has seen: “We’re getting two- and three-story palaces that can’t be lived in by the elderly and the disabled, with three bedrooms but no place for children to play. They’re not building livable homes; they’re building showy places with high ceilings and wasted space. People live in them for three years, then move on. It’s not very serviceable, but people are buying them because it’s all that’s available.”
McKnight added, “When will ... the rules ... that are destroying what we have now (get changed)? We’re losing properties to land divisions that we can’t ever achieve again. When do we bring this up? Where do we bring this up? Ten years is too long.”
Louise Cody of Centennial said, “We spend all these years developing plans and getting them passed, and then someone proposes something that violates all the plans.”
Zehnder agreed, “It can be just awful.” He said that the Portland Comprehensive Plan would not encompass all planning efforts, that some projects would move ahead on a speedier timeline and that his “gut reaction is that this has to be done in advance of the plan.” However, he added, “Some of this is about change,” which is sure to come.
McKnight commented, “There’s a lot of emphasis on youth, and I understand that. But it’s a mistake not to get the senior factor on the table.”
Cody said, “Some neighborhoods are getting new play equipment for their parks, and some have no parks at all.”
“The ability to have open space is part of the bundle (of issues) that must be addressed,” Zehnder said. “There are deficiencies, especially in east Portland, with open space, streets and sidewalks. They don’t even meet current needs, let alone growing ones.” The Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on the proposed plan process beginning at 7 p.m. April 22 at 1900 S.W. Fourth Ave.
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