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LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
Sometimes, when city officials and developers forget the promises they’ve made, longtime community volunteers are there to remind them.
Such was the case recently with regard to a pedestrian path that once cut across Portland Adventist Medical Center property, between the nursing school parking lot and Cherrywood Village, along the edge of the Sunnyside Seventh Day Adventist Church. According to Hazelwood Neighborhood Association president Arlene Kimura, the path was obliterated in 1997 when the nursing school lot was expanded. The understanding at the time was that the path would be restored, in a roughly similar location, when the work was done.
In the course of building Cherrywood Village, Southeast 106th Ave. was extended from Main to Market streets. “The city assumed the street took the place of the path,” Kimura told the Memo. “When they signed off on the permit, we didn’t realize that a new path wasn’t part of the plan. It took awhile before people realized that the path wasn’t there.”
One who did notice was longtime activist Anne Picco. “I woke up one day and the pathway was gone for new development,” she said at a recent Hazelwood meeting. “Pedestrian access is a condition for Adventist’s development. It’s in the hospital’s master plan, the Hazelwood Plan, the Outer Southeast Community Plan and the Gateway Plan.”
Another resident said, “I’ve been watching this pathway since construction began.(The late) Jane (Baker) said she thought she’d been had. It’s important to me and my husband, and I want it back.”
The matter came to a head recently when Adventist requested a minor structural adjustment for one of Cherrywood’s buildings. Hazelwood agreed to the request, but used the occasion to call for restoration of the path, Kimura says. “They said, ‘Well, you have 106th.’ We felt definitely it was not a substitute; walking on a four-foot sidewalk next to heavy traffic is not a pleasurable experience. It took awhile, but the city now agrees the path needs to be restored.”
According to Kimura, the hospital has agreed to put in a path at a slightly different location. Hazelwood agrees to this but, as compensation, is asking that the path be of a hard surface. Negotiations are continuing.
Adventist spokespeople did not comment at press time.
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