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| Urban renewal report card (continued) City planner Ellen Ryker retires Ellen Ryker retired last month after 11 years with the Portland Bureau of Planning Ryker came to the position after working for several years as a planning specialist with the Southeast Uplift Neighborhood Program, a nonprofit contracting with the city to provide services to Southeast Portland neighborhoods west of 82nd Avenue. As a city planner she participated in the creation of the Outer Southeast Community Plan, and created neighborhood plans for the Centennial, Hazelwood, Lents, Pleasant Valley and Powellhurst-Gilbert neighborhoods. She later helped do a study of the Johnson Creek watershed, helped create the Outer Southeast Business Plan, and was project manager for the Gateway Rezoning Project. When she first started working in east Portland, “Some of the area hadn’t even been annexed yet, and there was a lot of resentment against the city,” Ryker told the Memo. “I didn’t know the history of the area, but neither did anyone else at the Planning Bureau. What I learned over time was that people here really, really care about where they live. If they’ve bought into an area, it’s because they like it. When you propose changes to an area, it’s inevitable that people will be upset. If you understand that people have a reason for their positions, you’ll do a better job.” Ryker credits Sharon Owen, Bonny McKnight, Linda Bauer, Bill Bitar, Dick Cooley, Beth Baltz, Alice Blatt, Gayland German and Anne Pico, along with the late Jane Baker, among others, with helping her understand east Portland or their part of it. “I didn’t always agree with them, but I sure learned a lot from them,” she says. Her plans include some travel, “seeing more of my children and grandchildren, and an opportunity to give back for what I’ve received,” she says. Urban renewal report card The Opportunity Gateway Program Advisory Committee last month took stock of the urban renewal district’s progress so far, and began gearing up to prepare next year’s budget. At the meeting, Portland Development Commission Senior Project Coordinator Sara King told the Gateway PAC this year’s accomplishments included the Northeast 99th Avenue and Glisan Street intersection re-alignment, the new Oregon Clinic headquarters building and new parking garage now under construction on the Gateway Transit Center, and business loans to Physicians’ Hospital, McTavish Shortbread Company and Cedar Point Graphics. A committed part of the 2006-07 budget will be a $5 million contribution to a new light rail line to Clackamas County, and additional work at the transit center, King says. Banfield Pet Hospital headquarters nears completion The new corporate headquarters for the Banfield Pet Hospital chain is set to open Dec. 5 at its new location on Northeast 82nd Avenue at Tillamook Street. The new 150,000-square-foot building, with 400 employees, will serve some 500 veterinary hospitals throughout the world. The site, purchased from the Portland School District, had been home to the Vocational Village alternative high school program. Part of the purchase price was used to retrofit the vacant Meek Elementary School to absorb Vocational Village’s programs. As a gesture toward the surrounding community, the land immediately adjacent to 82nd Avenue is being made into a 1.7-acre public off-leash dog park. Owners who can certify that their dogs are properly inoculated and safe will be allowed free use of the park. The park should be ready for use by next fall, Banfield spokesperson Dana Peterson says. Originally started in Portland, the Banfield Corporation had been seeking a replacement for its current, overcrowded headquarters, and had considered bids from places such as Kansas City. Former Portland Mayor Vera Katz fought aggressively to keep the facility in Portland, and helped to smooth the redevelopment process. Since the new site was zoned for residential use, Banfield needed to obtain a Portland Comprehensive Plan map amendment. It also had to meet the city’s No Net Loss Housing Policy, which holds that if residential land is rezoned, the development capacity it contained must be replaced somehow. As part of the rezoning, Banfield pledged to develop housing on part of the site if its current use is ever discontinued. The site in question is the dog park. Gateway Towers gets tax abatement On Oct. 26 the Portland Development Commission approved 10-year tax abatement to Gordon Jones and Andy Kelly’s Gateway Towers, now under construction at Northeast 100th Avenue near Glisan Street. The action means that the future owners of the 42 units in the four-story building will pay property taxes only on the land, rather than the building, for the next 10 years. PDC staffer Dan Williams told the PDC commission that the units, 14 of which will have two bedrooms, will sell for from $100,000 to $167,000 apiece. The Portland City Council recently denied tax abatement to the Alexan, an apartment proposed by the Trammel Crow Company in the south end, because they felt that providing 48 studios at $809 a month was too high a price for too low a public benefit. Council later voted to put a six-month moratorium on the abatement program to allow it to be studied. PDC’s Andy Wilch explained the Gateway Towers abatement would come under a different program that would provide “direct benefit to homeowners” rather than developers. The moratorium applied to “higher-end residential units in the central city,” and was based on “the perception that they could be absorbed by the private market without abatement,” Wilch said. Jones told the commission that 90 percent of sales in the building so far have been to first-time homebuyers. “We won’t sell to investors who intend to rent the units under any circumstances,” he said. He acknowledged that the units would be small, ranging in size from 650 to 875 square feet. |
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