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Cherrywood Village’s proposal to build a skybridge traversing Southeast Clay Street, (center of photo) near 107th Avenue between The Gardens housing complex (building on left) and Wynridge housing complex (right) was rejected by Portland city planners.
MID-COUNTY MEMO PHOTO BY TIM CURRAN
City rejects Cherrywood Village skybridge
Resident testimony doesn’t sway Design Commission

Lee Perlman
The Mid-County MEMO

To their chagrin, managers of Cherrywood Village, a retirement community, found that their internal circulation plans included a bridge too many.

Portland City Planner Kara Fioravanti found that a proposed skybridge across Southeast Clay Street near 107th Avenue, linking the Wynridge and the Gardens residential housing complexes at their second story, violated basic city policies. The Portland Design Commission, without taking a formal vote at a hearing in January, indicated clearly that they concurred. The case was continued while Cherrywood Village management decides what to do.

Cherrywood Village includes 362 units on 12 acres on the Portland Adventist Medical Center campus. The housing ranges from independent bungalows to congregate quarters, some operated as assisted living with staff available to help residents do some daily chores. There is also a Village Square building that contains a restaurant, retail facilities, library, chapel, a health club and entertainment facilities. There are trails, sidewalks and roads through the complex, but also a system of sky bridges that allow residents to get from one building to another without venturing outside - with the exception of the Wynridge and Gardens buildings.

During public review the city called on owners Wendell White and Chip Gabriel to dedicate a 50-foot wide corridor for a continuation of Southeast Clay Street. This brought anything built over the new road under the jurisdiction of the city’s skybridge policies - which say that in general they shouldn’t be built.

Gabriel and White indicated at the hearing that they were aware of this at the time they built the project. “Instead of delaying the whole process, we put this off to the very end,” White said.

Inventive logic and last minute calls
They were less than timely in their outreach to potential supporters as well. The Hazelwood Neighbor-hood Association (HNA) recorded its opposition to the proposal as planned. HNA Chair Arlene Kimura told the Mid-county MEMO, “I was amazed that Mr. White called me on the Monday before a Thursday hearing and expected us to provide a letter of support.” Hazelwood had already adopted a letter of opposition, stating that while they found Cherrywood Village a fine development, they opposed the skybridge because of its “poor execution”. More graphically, one board member said it looked like “a railroad car”. As designed, it also had few windows, effectively cutting off some views from the ground. The code requires that where skybridges are built, they be at least 70 percent transparent.

Fioravanti and the Planning Commission took a similar position, but the design was a relatively minor concern. The code discourages skybridges because they tend to shut structures off from the adjacent street, making those streets more isolated and less safe for the people who do use them. Where they are used, they should be available to the public, and provide a “public benefit” which cannot be achieved without the encroachment and “is essential to the project’s function and economic feasibility”. Fioravanti found that the bridge was strictly for private rather than public use. It is clearly not necessary for the project’s “economic viability”, she said, because the Village is already fully rented without it. Further, she said, they had not indicated that they had looked at or considered alternatives, such as an at-grade public walkway.

Cherrywood Village management argued that the project met the code. Attorney Lloyd Summers said there was no legal definition of “the public”, and that it could mean the people of Cherrywood Village. Rob White of Generations, the complex’s parent company, compared the structure to similar ones at Good Samaritan Hospital; anyone can use them but “you have to have a reason to be there”.

Many residents chose to move to Cherrywood Village because of its “safe, secure” connections between buildings, and the promise that the system would be completed, they said. Getting wheelchairs and walkers down to street level, across the open street and back up again would be “problematical”, they added, and having to venture outside during bad weather might discourage some from using the Village Square services. To the issue of the view being cut off, Summers said, “The vast majority of people who would walk by, who would have their views blocked, are residents, and they’re in favor of this”.

Appeals to sympathy
Indeed they were. Some 50 residents were bused to the hearing and gave a show of support for the application before being bused back. Four residents also offered testimony. Hazel Oldenburg, who is wheelchair-bound, said she needed help to get across Southeast Clay Street. Angeline Keys said that crossing the street was “something else, even for able-bodied people”. Ruth Parish said she didn’t want to make the trip at night.

The most emotional testimony came from Patrick Pent. “If we can’t avail ourselves of the services here we get bored, and boredom leads to other maladies,” he said. Referring to his military service he said, “I gave 20 years of my life to fight for freedom. Now I want freedom to move about.”

It seemed clear Cherrywood Village management counted on such appeals to carry the day. The Planning Commission didn’t buy it. Summers’ definition of “public” didn’t fly, and Fioravanti pointed out that precedents for bridges elsewhere, such as Good Samaritan, were built before the current policy.

Planning Commission member Jeffrey Stuhr said it would be “impossible to support this project”. He added, “The bridges downtown were the wrong thing to do, and we have too many of them.” He also called the design “massive”, and “an eyesore”.

Lloyd Lindley, also of the Planning Commission, said he was sympathetic to the residents, and could foresee the day he’d suffer from their physical hardships. However, he said, the request “flies in the face of” the intent of the Hazelwood and Outer Southeast plans. “There’s a lack of proof that you’ve gone through a sincere effort to meet the guidelines”, he said. “You have a 20 foot street to cross that’s relatively flat - I can’t get where the hardship is.”

Loren Waxman and Linda Wisner said they were sympathetic, and hinted that an appeal to City Council might be successful. However, both said there was no way they could vote for it.
Rob White suggested that he could perhaps build a set of stairs to allow the public to use the bridge (although not gain access to the buildings they connected), and add more windows to the bridge. To this commission chair Chris Kopca said, “I don’t think we’re into small tweaks.”

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