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LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
Publisher's note: Welcome to Perlman's Potpourri for November, a roundup of news items from the Gateway and Parkrose neighborhoods of mid-Multnomah County from veteran Beat Reporter Lee Perlman.
Coming up, east Portland gets federal stimulus love in the form of new sidewalks and curb-extension bioswales.
The Portland Development Commission has three major projects coming up; one, at just over one million dollars, the 97th Avenue Green Street Project is in East Portland near the I-205 Interchange on Glisan St.
Also in Perlman's Potpourri this month, due to its complexity, the Citywide Tree Project's timetable for city council approval is delayed.
A second open house on the designs proposed for Gateway Park will be held this month.
The bare site of Gateway Park will host live music next summer at taxpayer expense if Linda Robinson gets her way (and she usually does) through the East Portland Action Plan Neighborhood Grant Program.
The North Powellhurst Park is creating a problem for neighbors the Hazelwood Neighborhood Association was told by residents at its meeting last month.
The Hazelwood Neighborhood Association voted last month to officially ask the Portland Parks & Recreation Bureau to build a trail connecting Cherry Park with Cherry Park Elementary School.
In other HNA news, citing ongoing problems, they also voted to give an unfavorable recommendation for the liquor incense renewal of Gossip Restaurant and Lounge.
After failing to sell the neighborhood on the efficacy of having a WalMart in their Madison South neighborhood, property owner Mike Hashem offers the 26-acre former landfill for sale at auction.
The Portland City Council and Port of Portland Commission will hold a joint hearing on the PDX Master Plan in November at the airport, or not.
Finally, Spirit of Portland Award winners are set to receive their awards this month.
First, to the news about the news about new sidewalks and bioswales…
East Portland gets sidewalks
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| Jim and Christie Larson walk the Glendoveer Golf Course's walking trail parallel to Northeast Glisan Street where federal stimulus dollars paid for curb-extension bioswales and sidewalks along Glisan between 122nd and 148th avenues. At the time these photos were taken the bioswales seemed to be doing their job collecting rain water then returning the filtered, clean water to the water table. MEMO PHOTO DARLENE VINSON |
Critics contended that more sidewalk could have been constructed had not some of the funds been used to create bio-swales along the route which, they said, were poorly designed for their primary task of holding and absorbing storm water.
Tree Project delayed
The Citywide Tree Project, which will set new regulations for the planting, cutting and pruning of trees on all public and private land in Portland, is encountering issues proportionate to its complexity and may be delayed from its original timetable, Project Manager Roberta Jortner told the Memo. A new public review draft will probably not be available until mid to late November. A public hearing before the Portland City Council will not occur before Dec. 8 at the earliest, and project staff is considering putting it off until the new year, Jortner says. More and more up to date information can be obtained online at www.portlandonline.com/bps/treeproject.
More input sought for Gateway Park
The Portland Development Commission and Portland Bureau of Parks and Recreation have scheduled another public workshop and open house to get input on plans for a proposed new four-acre Gateway park. The session will be from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. November 18 at the East Portland Community Center, 740 S.E. 106th Ave.
In September the project team invited input on three development concepts, all of which devoted about three acres of the site to park uses and one to some sort of mixed-use residential-commercial development.
At the public open house Concept C, which devoted most of the streetscape along Northeast Halsey Street to parkland, and divided this parkland between active open space and plantings, was easily the most popular of the three.It was also the most popular in an on-line survey, according to PDC Project Manager Justin Douglas, but not by as wide a margin. There was strong public support for a water feature, contained in all three concepts, and marked public antipathy for one feature of Concept C, an extension of Northeast Clackamas Street into the site to provide access to the development. For more information, call 503-823-4579.
PDC slates east Portland projects
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| Northeast 97th Avenue, from Davis to Glisan Street, near the I-205 Interchange, is slated for an overhaul as part of a $1.157 million Portland Development Commission project. MEMO PHOTO TIM CURRAN |
According to PDC's Project/Program Specialist Sue Lewis, the 97th Avenue Green Street Project will provide a new street, complete with sidewalks, in a previously unimproved right of way between Northeast Davis and Glisan streets. Right now, the only access is by a “multi-use path.” Glisan Care Center Director Paul Wilkes and nearby residents have complained that it is difficult to negotiate. As part of the project PDC will “put in as many planters and remove as many catch-basins as we can,” Lewis told the Memo. They will also install a bike and pedestrian path on Northeast Flanders Street between 97th and 99th avenues on land donated by builder Gordon Jones, who is about to develop an adjacent land parcel.
The project's $1.157 million cost will be paid for with $417,000 in grants from the Bureau of Environmental Services, $300,000 in tax increment funds from the Gateway Urban Renewal District, and the balance by a Local Improvement District assessment on adjacent landowners that they have voted to support. In the event of unforeseen cost over-runs, LID assessments are capped at 59 percent of the project, Lewis says. “We hope to complete engineering by the end of the year,” she says.
Lewis is also overseeing streetscape improvements along Southeast Foster Road and Woodstock Boulevard between 88th Avenue and the I-205 Freeway, in the Lents neighborhood. The third project, the Johnson Creek Industrial Revitalization Study, is intended to deal with issues such as the perennial flooding of Johnson Creek in order to “set the stage for robust development along the MAX Green Line,” according to PDC Staffer Byron Estes. As part of the project, PDC will conduct a $150,000 study, paid for with Lents urban renewal funds, of a possible future streetcar route along Southeast Foster Road.
Park concerts and movies planned
No matter what the new Gateway Park eventually looks like, Hazelwood neighborhood volunteer extraordinaire Linda Robinson wants to show movies there next summer.
Robinson secured Hazelwood Neighborhood Association backing for a $1,000 Neighborhood Grant application to have the land become part of the Portland Bureau of Parks and Recreation's summer Movies in the Park program. At the free event, the public is given live entertainment, and the opportunity to purchase food from vendors, until dark, at which time a film is projected upon a screen. For $1,000 raised by the community, Parks will supply two bands and three food vendors in addition to the film; for $500 you get one band and two vendors. “I'm going for the deluxe package,” Robinson said.
There is strong competition for the program between communities and venues throughout the city but Robinson said, “I'm confident we'll get it. It's a first-time for this space, and an early application.”
Robinson was instrumental (no pun intended) in making Ventura Park part of the Bureau's Concerts in the Park summer free live concert series, the first east Portland park to be included. They staged three concerts there last summer. Next year Robinson is hoping for four. She says she begins her fundraising for the event with a $2,000 surplus from last season.
Undeveloped land causes problems
Several residents took advantage of last month's Hazelwood Neighborhood Association board meeting to complain about crime and public safety problems near their homes on Southeast 139th Avenue near Main Street. There are “problem” residents in two nearby homes, in one case adult children still living with the owners, but a major factor is North Powellhurst Park, nearly four-acres of unimproved open space shared by the Portland Bureau of Parks and the David Douglas District at Southeast 135th Avenue and Southeast Main Street.
According to Kathi Krueger, young people regularly gather in the street to drink, do drugs and “party” into the late hours. “One morning I got up and the street was littered with limes from the margaritas they had been drinking,” she said. When police come the partiers scatter into the park, which provides a ready-made hideaway.
A neighbor who declined to give her name said, “I've felt like moving, but I've worked hard for the place I have.”
Among the advice offered was a suggestion by Hazelwood Chair Arlene Kimura that the residents work for positive improvements in the park, thus making it less inviting as a gang hangout. East Portland Neighborhood Office AmeriCorps Worker Mike Vander Veen, said that he has heard similar complaints from residents living on the other side of the park space. Hazelwood Board Member Linda Robinson said that some park land, especially in Mid-Multnomah County, was acquired because of tax foreclosures, not necessarily because it was an ideal park site.
Cherry Park trail requested
At the request of Board Member Linda Robinson, the Hazelwood Neighborhood Association Board voted last month to ask the Portland Bureau of Parks to build a trail through its land to Cherry Park Elementary School. The trail would run through a four-acre former gravel pit recently added to the 10-acre Cherry Park, Southeast 110th Avenue and Stephens Street, on its north side. The route would save school children a long walk, Robinson said. Another Board Member, David Hampsten, said it could be part of a bike route to Powell Butte.
Hazelwood opposes Nightclub re-licensing
The Hazelwood Neighborhood Association Board last month agreed to send a letter to Portland Liquor License Coordinator Theresa Marchetti asking her to make an unfavorable recommendation on the license renewal for Gossip lounge.
The bar at 11340 N.E. Halsey St. has been the subject of complaints by the Portland Police Bureau and other regulatory agencies. They were accused of becoming a hangout for gangs, and being the scene of several violent incidents. In the spring owners Tony Truong and Yung Nguyen held several negotiating sessions with City officials, Marchetti reported that they were “making good progress” toward a compliance plan to deal with their problems, and that there had been no incidents between June and August.
However, last month Hazelwood Chair Arlene Kimura charged that the bar continues to make a practice of “over-serving” patrons (giving them drinks after they have become visibly intoxicated), that there have been several fresh incidents, and that they never concluded a compliance agreement. Worst of all, Kimura said, “They say there's nothing they're doing that's wrong.” This last is consistent with statements Truong and Nguyen made to the Memo for a story published in our September issue.
Marchetti says that there have been a few fresh incidents at Gossip since August, “but they've been right on top of them.” She does confirm that the owners refused to sign a compliance agreement.
82nd landfill property to be auctioned
Siskiyou Place, a 26-acre former landfill on Northeast 82nd Avenue across from Madison High School, will be sold at auction on Nov. 17 according to a brochure supplied by Realty Marketing. At one point Mike Hashem, the property owner, asked $7.2 million for the total property.
Hashem confirmed the auction sale, which is being managed by Realty Marketing Northwest. The land is divided into two parcels. Parcel A, which is 12.52 acres and is concentrated along 82nd Avenue, has a minimum bid of $3.4 million. Parcel B, which contains 13.75 acres and half-surrounds Parcel A to the north and east, has a minimum bid of $1.250 million. Both are zoned EG2HB, a light industrial zone which allows a broad array of uses. Residential living is one possible use, but would require a conditional use permit and permission from the Department of Environmental Quality.
Two years ago, Hashem proposed to sell the property to a Canadian developer who planned to build a big box retail project there. Volunteers from the Madison South and Roseway neighborhoods organized Friends of 82nd Avenue and fought the proposal, which they said would drive out local retail and flood the area with traffic. They also claimed there was evidence that the occupant would be Wal-Mart. Eventually the developer withdrew.
The brochure suggests that the property could be developed as either an office park or a campus for a religious or educational institution. It also mentions a 2008 study by a Portland State University graduate Urban Planning class done in cooperation with Madison South.
More information is available from Realty Northwest at 503-228-0567 or 800-845-3524.
Airport plan hearing at airport
The Portland City Council and Port of Portland will hold a joint hearing on the draft Portland International Airport Master Plan beginning at 6 p.m. Nov. 3 at the new Port headquarters at the airport. The draft plan will set out future improvement and expansion projects for the airport. It also specifies traffic improvements it must make on approach roads when passenger levels reach specified points; sets environmental restoration projects the Port must perform on Government Island or the Columbia Slough as mitigation for future development, and establishes a permanent Citizen Advisory Committee to monitor airport activities and provide a forum for issues.
In what has proven to be its most controversial feature, the Plan also sets new environmental restrictions on development for private lands adjacent to Port property, notably in the East Columbia neighborhood. Late note: Due to a dispute among participating agencies, the hearing was cancelled at the last moment.
Catch the Spirit
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| Spirit of Portland winner Lee Po Cha, right, Executive Director of the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization's Asian Family Center, shares a light moment at community budget hearing held in March at IRCO with Schools Uniting Neighborhoods Service System Coordinator Peggy Samolinski and IRCO's Hongsa Chanthavong. MEMO PHOTO TIM Curran |
Winners this year include the Powellhurst-Gilbert neighborhood volunteer Tom Barnes, Lee Po Cha of the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization, Brian Wong of the Montavilla Neighborhood Association, Kristan Knapp of the Portland Bureau of Parks and Recreation, outgoing David Douglas School District Superintendent Barbara Rommel, and the Parkrose Business Association.
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