 |
||||||||
 |
MEMO BLOG | |
Memo Calendar | Memo Pad | Business Memos | Loaves & Fishes | Letters | Home |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Editor’s note: For your reading pleasure, we present Perlman’s Potpourri for May 2007 — a roundup of news items from the Gateway and Parkrose neighborhoods of Mid-Multnomah County from veteran Beat Reporter Lee Perlman.
For May, Perlman turns in a short, but always compelling potpourri.
He begins with — what else? — urban renewal, Perlman’s favorite subject. Perlman has forgotten more about Portland urban renewal than most people will ever know.
The urban renewal this month: Central Gateway, or Prunedale as some call it. A study has been completed that outlines the positive and negative aspects of development in this area of Mid-county. Anyone who has ever driven through this area understands how difficult it will be to develop.
The other urban renewal news is about Gateway Urban Renewal Area budget for next year and — guess what — there’s less money than expected.
Wrapping up Perlman’s May potpourri is a report on the highly touted, yet poorly attended, “forum” held last month about the proposed city charter change hosted by one serious set of neighborhood associations. As serious an issue as the NAs think it is, with the poor turnout at last month’s event, the citizenry must think this issue is a snoozer.
LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
Central Gateway study completed
The Portland Development Commission has completed a study of Central Gateway, otherwise known as Prunedale, amid hopes that it can achieve some concrete results.
The area bounded by the I-205 Freeway, Northeast Glisan and Southeast Stark streets, and 102nd Avenue is currently occupied by single-story commercial and industrial buildings, single family residences that in many cases are in poor condition, and at least one wrecking yard. As the report notes — as a potential redevelopment area — Prunedale has much to recommend it: access to highways and mass transit, and flexible zoning that allows for much more intense use than currently exists. On the negative side, the area has little identity as a destination, and to the extent that it does, it is largely negative: an area that’s dirty and unsafe. Land is owned by a large number of people owning small parcels, making it difficult to acquire a parcel large enough to take advantage of the zoning. The area lacks parks, streets and basic infrastructure. The city has a plan calling for future street development; the necessity for providing for this was a frustrating experience for developer Gordon Jones as he tried to secure design review for two new buildings. It would seem natural that in an urban renewal district, tax increment funds would be used to provide streets and infrastructure, but little is available in this district.
Two developers on the Gateway Regional Center Urban Renewal Area Program Advisory Committee, Ted Gilbert and Dick Cooley, took issue with a report that there is no market in Gateway at this time for Class A office space. “The feedback we’re getting is quite different,” Gilbert said. “There are niches. Who would have thought that a company would locate [its] headquarters in, of all places, Lents? It could happen here.”
Cooley said there is a low vacancy rate in the area for such facilities. While large numbers are not likely at this time, “A single developer has a huge chance of success,” he said.
The report suggested various strategies: that PDC help connect property owners with each other and with developers in the interest of creating property assembly. They should look at other sources of financing for acquisition and/or public improvements, including Local Improvement Districts, local assessments for a specific purpose. It also suggested working agreements with public agencies such as Metro, the Portland Parks Bureau and TriMet.
Hazelwood neighborhood activist Linda Robinson said her only concern with LIDs was that the assessments might force low-income owners out of the area. To this Gilbert said, “The larger it is, the more equitable you can make it.”
Noting that Commissioner Dan Saltzman was scheduled to tour the area soon (see below), PDC staffer Justin Douglas said, “Tell him the streets are a real issue for folks out here. Using the general fund surplus for property acquisition would be a good pet project. If development isn’t happening because of the street issue, that will speak volumes.”
Cooley commented, “The best thing to do is to acquire a lot of land.”
Douglas, who was part of the consultant team that developed the strategy before coming to work for PDC, said that the consultant team had largely relied on existing documents to draft its vision statement. “What we heard from you guys was, ‘We’re done with visioning, we want to see some reality,’” Douglas said.
Consultant Sumner Sharpe noted, “People really came and engaged in the discussion.” Several workshops associated with the project drew 50 or more people.
Douglas agreed, “We’ve gotten good momentum from this. We don’t want to lose it.” PDC has had several inquiries from developers interested in projects in Central Gateway, he said.
The PDC is scheduled to review the strategy on May 23.
PAC Chair Dorene Warner told Douglas and Sharpe, “You’ve done good work here. The issue is what’s next. I don’t want this to be another booklet sitting on a shelf. When we talk to [the] council about Gateway’s needs, there is so much more in their heads about their own agendas that we can’t get through. We have to pick one horse in this race and put everything on that horse.”
Cooley agreed, “Right now no one is listening, so giving them more than one message is a problem.”
Urban renewal budget moves forward
The Gateway Urban Renewal District Program Advisory Committee reviewed its draft budget last month and received an all too familiar surprise: there’s less to spend than committee members had thought.
Portland Development Commission budget analysts Angela Cadena and Kris Nelson said that the city probably will not be issuing bonds — the usual way of borrowing against anticipated future tax increment income — so there will be less money for urban renewal districts across the city, and the indebtedness will be higher. Over the course of five years, she said, Gateway will have $100,000 less for development (including public improvements), $300,000 less for economic development (aid to existing businesses), and $600,000 less for housing. However, housing will remain the biggest part of the budget, at about $11 million, for this period, compared to $3 million for economic development and $4 million for development. The City Council-mandated set-aside money reserved for affordable housing development and maintenance is largely the reason for this situation. For Gateway the mandatory set-aside is 30 percent of the budget, with 35 to 50 percent of this earmarked for rental housing for people earning 30 percent of median area income or less, and just 20 to 40 percent for potential home ownership for those earning 61 to 80 percent of median. City Council unanimously adopted the set-aside guidelines last month despite calls in several districts, and by two members of the PDC, for giving more money to home ownership opportunities.
The commission has begun to hold hearings on the budget and is scheduled to pass it in June.
Charter reform “forum” draws 60
Parkrose High School was host to a “forum” on Ballot Measure 26-91, the so-called charter reform restructuring of city government. Sparsely attended considering the buildup and promotion, the debate between proponent Mayor Tom Potter and opponent Commissioner Randy Leonard was co-sponsored by four of the city’s seven district coalitions: the East Portland Neighborhood Office, Central Northeast Neighbors, Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods, and Southeast Uplift Neighborhood Program.
The measure, the product of Potter’s Charter Review Committee, would place most decisions about the running of the city in the hands of a chief administrative officer hired and fired by the mayor. The City Council, no longer involved in the running of the city’s bureaus, would be charged with passing the budget and setting policy.
Potter argued that the reform is necessary to elimination duplication, waste, lack of an overall direction and lack of cooperation between bureaus serving different masters. Leonard countered that the change “gives too much power to one man.” The exchanges were spirited but cordial, with both men lightening the proceedings with jokes.
Leonard complained that the proposal would leave the mayor a member and in charge of the council, thus not providing for a true separation of powers. He said it would, for instance, give the mayor too much authority in the sensitive matter of selling parkland and other resources to private parties. Potter said a majority of the council would first have to declare the resource surplus, while Leonard said this would mean the council would have less, not more, say than it now has.
Leonard said that whereas citizens now have multiple means of accessing city government, the change would mean they would have only one. On the contrary, Potter said, commissioners would now be more free to talk to citizens, and in fact the new charter would call on them to do so. Asked what check there would be on the power of the mayor and his CAO, Potter said the council would have the power to hold hearings and to shape the budget. Leonard replied that the mayor would begin every council debate with one of the three votes necessary to win.
The two men drew different lessons from the Oregon Health and Sciences University Aerial Tram, a public project that began with a projected price tag of $15.5 million and ultimately cost the city $58 million. Potter said this happened because, due to current city structure, authority over the Portland Office of Transportation changed hands several times and no one was accountable. Leonard said the problem was that even under the relatively weak central administration the city now has, the rest of the council didn’t have the means to see what was happening until it was too late.
Potter said Portland is the only city still using the “antiquated” commission form of government. Leonard asked Potter to name a city with a structure similar to the one proposed; he was not satisfied when the mayor said there were thousands that had arrangements “like” it.
MEMO Advertising | MEMO Archives | MEMO Web Neighbors | MEMO Staff | Home