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LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY Memo
The city last month officially “accepted” the applications of six sets of community groups, including four from east Portland, to form Neighborhood Prosperity Initiative Districts or mini urban renewal areas. Now, the real work for them begins.
The districts take in commercial streets and the area a block or two adjacent to them. The four districts in mid-county are Parkrose (Centered on Northeast Sandy Boulevard between 100th and 121st avenues); Rosewood (169th Avenue between Northeast Flanders and Southeast Stark Streets, and Stark between 139th and 169th avenues); and two districts on Southeast Division Street, one between 117th and 148th avenues, and the other forming a T with 82nd Avenue, extending north to Lincoln Street, south to the existing Lents urban renewal district, and east to 94th Avenue.
The other two districts are on Northeast 42nd Avenue and Cully Boulevard, both in the Cully neighborhood.
According to John Jackley of the Portland Development Commission, the six were selected because they contained commercial streets that are “lagging behind the rest of the city in commercial investment,” have adjacent residential neighborhoods whose residents have below the average Portland median income, have “organizing capacity” in the form of an active neighborhood and/or business association, and are not within an existing urban renewal district.
As with conventional urban renewal districts, the annual increase in property taxes within the boundaries, over and above those now being collected, go into a special tax increment fund exclusively for projects within the district. This will continue for ten years, or until the district has generated $1 million in TIF funds, whichever occurs first.
In order to qualify, volunteers within each district had to finalize their boundaries, draw up a mission statement, do additional community organizing and outreach, and find five or ten people willing to serve on a steering committee that is likely to demand at least 20 hours a month of their time.
At a gathering last month at Portland Adventist Medical Center, Mayor Sam Adams announced that all six groups had passed the tests. The initial selection of the areas was “an opportunity, not a guarantee,” he said. “It involved a lot of due diligence we'd never asked of you before. We made you work for it, and you succeeded beyond our wildest expectations.”
But the work is not done, by any means. None of the districts can expect any TIF funds in the critical first year. PDC will provide up to $30,000 per district, but this must be matched by local fundraising; to begin with, each district had to secure pledges of contributions totaling at least $3,000 by the end of February. It is time now, as well, for each steering committee to start deciding just what they will do.
Joe Rossi, active in the Parkrose district, says that there, at least, this has yet to be determined. Jean DeMaster, executive director of the non-profit Human Solutions, says the steering committee for the mid-division area has no hard plans either, but a high priority is to return some commercial activity, hopefully including a market, to the major properties zoned for this.
Rosaline Hui, owner of the Portland Chinese Times and a member of the inner division district, said that she had been in business in the area for almost 15 years, had contributed to its well-being, and that “it's time for the city to do its part.” Speaking of the outreach efforts she said, “people are excited to learn, in their own language, that the city cares about them.”
Scott Andrews, chair of the PDC board, said, “Just getting people organized around these ideas is a big step in itself.” He noted that most of PDC's activities are funded by TIF and that “without a district, we can't help very much. Although there will not be a lot of money here, there will be seed money to start new businesses, to support existing businesses, and to fund some catalytic projects. This was a very easy sell for the Commission.”
Justin Zeulner, board chair of Venture Portland (formerly the Alliance of Portland Neighborhood Business Associations), said, “thriving communities require a connection between businesses and neighborhoods. This is the right approach to start building that thriving community. Sam has promised that he'll deliver.”
Adams noted that the median household income in east Portland is $34,000 a year compared to $42,000 for the city as a whole, and that this was an issue of economic equity. “We're finally putting investments behind our good words in east Portland,” he said.
Find out more information about the NPI and the city's Neighborhood Economic Development Strategy at: www.pdc.us/bus_serv/npi.asp.
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