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LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
Editor's note: Welcome to Perlman's Potpourri for December, a roundup of news items from the Gateway and Parkrose neighborhoods of mid-Multnomah County from veteran Beat Reporter Lee Perlman.
Coming up, Siskiyou Square, a 26-acre former landfill at Northeast 82nd Avenue and Siskiyou Street, went up for public auction, but had no acceptable bidder.
A second open house on the designs proposed for Gateway Park will be held this month.
Of the $43.50 out of every $100, the City receives in collected property taxes, over half that amount goes to urban renewal and to servicing the police and fire pension system. Perlman breaks down the figures with help from prolific blogger Jack Bogdanski.
Speaking of Urban Renewal, Perlman reports on how the stewards at the Portland Development Commission spent $28 million dollars in the Gateway Regional Center Urban Renewal Area.
Also in this month's Potpourri, who wants another plan? Apparently the city, for they are undertaking a new Neighborhood Economic Development Action Plan, with a vow to “live by this plan.”
The Citywide Tree Project approval has a delay in City Council approval, again.
The new Goodwill Donation Center and retail store being built on the busy intersection of Northeast 122nd Avenue at Halsey Street is on schedule.
And finally, the Friends of Gateway Green admit progress is slow, but are holding a symbolic Gateway Green Declaration of Cooperation signing next month.
First, to the news about the attempt to sell the 26-acre former landfill at the foot of Rocky Butte…
Auction fails, but landfill may have buyer
Last month, owner Mike Hashem put Siskiyou Square, a 26-acre former landfill at Northeast 82nd Avenue and Siskiyou Street, up for public auction. The parcel, split into two pieces, has a combined asking price of $4.65 million.
At mid-month John Rosenthal of Realty Marketing/Northwest told the Memo, “We did not receive an acceptable bid.” However, he adds, “We're in serious negotiations with a party that has a strong interest in the property, and has the horsepower to make something happen there.” He declined to be more specific.
The property, across the street from Madison High school, is zoned EG2HB, a light industrial zone that would allow a wide variety of commercial and industrial uses. Conceivably, housing could be allowed, but would require approval from the Department of Environmental Quality because of the property's history and continued methane generation below the surface.
Three years ago, Hashem attempted to sell the property to a Canadian developer who proposed to create a Big Box retail development there. The Madison South and Roseway neighborhood associations organized neighbors to oppose the project, which critics said would probably be a Wal-Mart. The sale eventually fell through.
Lion's share of property taxes reinvested in pension, urban renewal funding
In a recent posting on the blog bojack.org (http://tinyurl.com/37phhb5) the author, Jack Bogdanski teeing off on property taxes - everyone's favorite enemy - notes that according to new tax statements, the city of Portland now gets $43.50 sent to the city's general fund out of every $100 in property taxes collected. This is an increase of $.13 from last year, while Multnomah County's share was $22.34, down $.13 and Portland Public Schools was $26.84, down $.03.
Of this year's $43.50, $11.12 goes for urban renewal, and $10.92 goes to the police and fire pension system. Those two items alone add up to more than half (50.78%) of what the city takes in.
The biggest increases went to urban renewal, which now consumes “48 cents of every hundred tax dollars,” while police fire and pension take up another $.32.
Bob Alexander of the Portland Development Commission says the figures at face value seem “about right.” He does note that you have to watch the decimal points - U.R. is not 48 percent of the budget, but .48. This is true about the city budget in total Mr. Alexander, but we asked about the percentage of property tax collected by the city that ends up financing urban renewal.
By state law, the total land area for all urban renewal districts active at any one time cannot exceed 15 percent of a city's total land area, and outside these boundaries, its effect on property taxes is zero. Within the district, only a portion of the funds goes to Tax Increment Financing. When a district is established, the total property tax revenues within it are calculated and established as the base, and this base continues to go to the general fund. Everything above this - all property tax increases - is diverted to TIF for the life of the district. The percentage of a district's taxes that go to TIF vary with the district - much higher in a River District, where a Brownfield became a Pearl, than in a Gateway, where proportionately not much has happened and there is no property value bonanza.
The theory is that when a district is retired, 100 percent of the revenue goes to the general fund and they get the benefit of tax increases from development that, so the theory goes, would not have happened without the help of urban renewal. New streets and other public infrastructure do not generate taxes, but they may make an area more attractive for private development that does. An exception is the East Bank Esplanade, paid for with TIF intended to revitalize an industrial district.
One of the biggest theory-practice disconnects is that city officials are often reluctant to retire a district on schedule, especially if it is as lucrative as those downtown. As the Oregon Convention Center nears its end, the North-Northeast Study is recommending that hundreds of its acres be transferred to the adjacent Interstate District, which has years to run, and the study has yet to take up its most controversial piece - the Rose Quarter.
The Central East Side community argued that their district's life should be extended because its core mission was largely ignored (see Esplanade above). This happened with the support of Mayor Sam Adams, who helped assign millions from the district to the Burnside-Couch Couplet and the Portland Streetcar extension.
Meanwhile, in the Gateway Regional Center Urban Renewal Area …
The Gateway Urban Renewal Program Advisory Committee took up the district's upcoming budget last month, and began with a retrospective.
Portland Development Commission's Program Manager Justin Douglas told the PAC that since its inception in 2003 the Gateway district has spent $28 million, of this, $20 million has gone to infrastructure. This includes $1 million for the defunct Children's Receiving Center (now the Gateway Center for Domestic Violence Services), $5 million for the MAX Green Line, and additional funds for the Gateway Transit Center garage and costs associated with the proposed, unfunded Gateway Park. Regarding street construction he said that in view of the expense involved, and the lack of resources available, “We think it makes more sense to time this with property development rather than to build a new street and hope development happens there.”
Some of the most popular urban renewal programs are “revitalization” projects that aid individual business enterprises. Among these are Storefront Improvement grants and Development Opportunity Services program. The DOS program provides free advice on what can be done with a piece of property, and what the potential pitfalls are standing in the way of such projects. For fiscal year 2009/2010 (July 1 2009 – June 30, 2010), there was $100,000 budgeted for Storefront Grants ($123,023 in expenditures), and $50,000 budgeted for DOS grants ($8,011 spent). So the total budget was $150,000 and $131,034 in total expenditures. An obvious problem is the economy. Another is that urban renewal dollars must be spent within the boundaries of the district where they were generated, a source of controversy and frustration to some officials. Further, Community Economic Development Manager Kate Deane told the PAC, “Many people say, 'Sticks and bricks are 'okay,' but what we really need are operating costs,” money to get a new business through its critical first year. TIF cannot be used for this. Deane said that lately PDC is spending proportionately more money on individual development projects. The theory was that TIF would provide gap financing in partnership with private lenders, but since private lending is now much harder to obtain, PDC is taking up the slack.
Frieda Christopher, PAC member and David Douglas School District Board member, has long complained that TIF funds are used to fund low-income housing in a part of town that has far more than its proportionate share. The Urban Renewal Set-Aside policy, pushed by former commissioner Eric Sten, earmarks 30 percent of all district's funds for this purpose. Last month Christopher called for the Set-Aside to be set-aside for three years.
(New-New) Business Plan proposed
The city is undertaking a new Neighborhood Economic Development Action Plan, a strategy intended to produce 10,000 new jobs in five years in designated business districts and commercial corridors, PDC's Community Economic Development Manager Kate Deane told the Gateway Regional Center Urban Renewal Area Program Advisory Committee last month. To those who might be skeptical she said, “There have been previous plans, and we put a lot of work into them and then put them on a shelf. This one we're going to live by.”
Arlene Kimura, PAC member, argued that existing local businesses need support. Deane agreed, “It's a lot easier to retain and grow what we have than to create something new.”
Frieda Christopher, PAC member, commented, “It doesn't matter what kind of programs you have if local people don't know they're there or how to access them.” She also said that even when PDC and other city bureaus seek “local input,” the voices of the Pearl District and Downtown drown out those of smaller business districts. Dean responded, “We know we've been pretty paternalistic with our partners in the past, and we want to change that.”
Tree project delayed
Making sense of the city's myriad tree regulations continues to be a challenging undertaking, and it continues to take its toll on the schedule of the Citywide Tree Project. At one time, the project's recommendations were to go to the Portland City Council in Dec. According to Project Manager Roberta Jortner, the latest estimate is that a new public draft of the recommendations should be available by December 10, and the first council hearing should happen in late January. The project would set new regulations for the planting, cutting and pruning of trees on all public and private land in the city. It would also make the regulations more understandable and available, and make the reporting of violations easier.
For more information, you can visit www.portlandonline.gov/bps/treeproject.
New Goodwill underway
Construction began late last month on a new Goodwill store on the former Albertson's site at Northeast 122nd Avenue and Halsey Street. According to Spokesperson Dale Emanuel, the 24,000 square foot building should be complete by May.
Gateway Green planning continues
A Stakeholders Committee formed to manage Gateway Green, the 35-acre open space at the confluence of the I-5 and I-84 freeways is finding progress excruciatingly slow, says Linda Robinson, co-chair, as ODOT will only allow the project under a specific set of conditions.
Volunteers have drawn up plans for the recreational use of the area by bicyclists and others when, and if, the Oregon Department of Transportation, which owns the land, agrees to have it used in this way. Meanwhile, according to Robinson, the Oregon Department of Parks has indicated it would be willing to add 20 acres of open space it owns on the east side of Rocky Butte to the Green.
On Friday, Dec. 10 from 4 to 6 p.m. Robinson and her group, Friends of Gateway Green, are hosting a signing ceremony for the Oregon Solutions Gateway Green Declaration of Cooperation at Aloft Hotel in Cascade Station, 9920 N.E. Cascades Parkway.
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