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Parkway event comes to east Portland

Editor's note: Welcome to Perlman's Potpourri, news items from across the Gateway and Parkrose neighborhoods of mid-Multnomah County from veteran Beat Reporter Lee Perlman.

Coming up, the East Portland Neighborhood Office announces the recipients of its earmarks.

East Portland will get one of five Sunday Parkway events - a circular route five to eight miles long on low-traffic streets is declared off limits to auto traffic for six hours, leaving it to be used by bikes and pedestrians. Also in this month's Potpourri, Perlman reports the mayor, at his own request, addressed a special meeting of the Citywide Land Use Group to discuss the Portland Plan process.

RICAP 5 - a package containing more than 60 zoning code amendments on a variety of subjects - took up three hours of east Portland activists' time at a hearing held last month before the City Council.

And finally, the Portland City Council will review and act on the proposed Bicycle Master Plan next month. The plan proposes 900 miles of new bike routes throughout the city.

But first, let's follow the (earmarked) money ...

LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO

Community groups get earmarks
The East Portland Neighborhood Office last month awarded a total of $31,775 for 14 grass roots projects under the Neighborhood Small Grants Program. Now in its fourth year, the funds are allocated from the city general fund by City Council through the Office of Neighborhood Involvement, and distributed by EPNO and the city's six other neighborhood offices and coalitions. Grants are awarded for projects that "increase the capacity" of community groups, encourage the involvement of "under-represented communities" such as ethnic groups and tenants, and encourage partnerships among community groups.

The grants were selected from among 19 applications requesting a total of $52,371. Nine requests received full funding. Five of the grants given were for less money than had been requested; there were five groups that received nothing. Among the grants were $3,500 for an IRCO-IRIS Share Fair, $2,700 for a Parkrose Heights National Night Out party, $1,100 for Movies in Wilkes Park and a total of $5,500 in two grants for an East Portland Exposition.

East Portland gets Sunday Parkway
This year the Portland Bureau of Transportation will put on five Sunday Parkway events, and one of them - on July 18 - will be in east Portland. During the event, now in its third year, a circular route five to eight miles long on low-traffic streets is declared off limits to auto traffic for six hours, leaving it to be used by bikes and pedestrians. The routes typically link parks and school grounds; meanwhile entertainers, community groups and dispensers of information are encouraged to lead activities on this day. Businesses on or near the route are encouraged to hold sales or special events to feed off the energy. Organizer Rich Cassidy said the exercise component of the event is secondary to the opportunity to show off a neighborhood.

The event began in 2008 with a single Sunday in North Portland. Last year it was expanded to include Northeast and Southeast. This year there will be Parkway events in Northeast Portland on May 16, North on June 27, Southeast on Aug. 15 and an event somewhere on the west side, either the Northwest District or the Pearl, on Sept. 26.

The east Portland route hasn't been fully determined yet, but Cassidy said it will be south of Southeast Powell Boulevard and touch on Ed Benedict Community Park. Organizers are considering scheduling the second edition of the East Portland Expo to coincide with the Parkway. Last year the Hawthorne Boulevard Business Association rescheduled its Hawthorne Street Fair to match the Parkway event, and the festivals drew a combined 20,000 people.

Adams assures Portland Plan critics
At his own request, Mayor Sam Adams addressed a special meeting of the Citywide Land Use Group to discuss the Portland Plan process. The project is an updating and rewriting of the 1980 Portland Comprehensive Plan, which sets zoning, regulations and policy for the city in several areas. A series of public workshops last year drew a total of more than 1,800 people to participate in an electronic poll and in small group discussions.

Some participants have criticized the process so far for being too superficial with insufficient time to discuss important and complex topics and for using a multiple choice quiz that they found somewhat manipulative. In addition, the city was scheduled on Jan. 26 to hold a hearing on nine lengthy White Papers on specific topics; critics complained that hard copies of the documents were next to impossible to obtain, and that the lengthy documents with complex graphics were difficult for even experienced Web users to download.

Adams told about 50 people that the process so far has been driven by a desire to satisfy activists' requests to be involved early. "That's why we're doing an initial round of half-baked ideas and solutions," he said. People have had a chance to take the first survey by mail or online, and the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability staff is prepared to come to local neighborhood associations if asked. "We will never either exclude neighborhood associations or rely totally on them," he said. Adams also said that hard copies of the White Papers are now available for reading at all public libraries and neighborhood offices.

Lore Wintergreen of the East Portland Neighborhood Office staff urged Adams to incorporate the East Portland Action Plan into the Portland Plan. Adams replied that there were 47 other neighborhood plans created before EPAP that deserve the same consideration.

"Our professional staff will do their best," he said. "I hope your strategic needs are translated into goals for each part of town. Don't flip out with the first translation if we get it wrong, which we will."

Bonny McKnight, who chairs the Citywide Land Use Group, later said, "I think it was an excellent session. I think the mayor heard the concerns we wanted him to hear. We'll be continuing our review of the data."

Council reviews multiple code amendments
RICAP 5, a relatively little noticed legislative action, is a package containing more than 60 zoning code amendments on a variety of subjects. Taken together, they consumed three hours of City Council and citizen discussion at a hearing last month.

Mid-county activists were particularly concerned with a group of proposed amendments dealing with courtyard housing. The city is looking at this housing type as a way to introduce increased density into existing neighborhoods in a way that fits in and is aesthetically pleasing. In courtyard housing, multiple units are grouped around a common open space. As part of this process, it has proposed code changes that would make approval for such projects easier for developers. One of these would relax existing requirements for landscaped buffers between parking areas and common courtyards.

Powellhurst-Gilbert Neighborhood Association Chair Mark White was concerned that the amendment could "jeopardize the safety of children." Further, he said, some amendments could allow courtyards to be substituted for landscaping, with the result: "green space will be sacrificed." In other words, if you don't have a landscaped buffer, people could use the open space for parking, jeopardizing the safety of pedestrians, including children.

Citywide Land Use Group Chair Bonny McKnight seconded this concern, saying, "Common courtyards and shared greens are treated as the same thing, and they are not." She also complained that the final version of the document was not released until late November, leaving interested parties to study and discuss it during the holiday season prior to a hearing on Jan. 6.

Planner Eric Engstrom retorted that the document had had extensive public review, with three public hearings before each of the Design and Landmarks commissions and two with the Planning Commission; it was the final version with edits made by Planning that was released in late November.

Among other subjects touched on by RICAP 5:
• Skinny lots. Since 2002, developers in some parts of town have been subdividing lots, zoned and developed for single-family homes on 5,000-square-foot properties but legally platted in the early 1900s as 2,500-square-foot lots, and built at twice the allowed density. City Council has refused to forbid the process, but did decree that such development could only take place on lots vacant for at least five years; this was intended to discourage the demolition of existing sound housing. In recent years, Engstrom said, developers have in fact been tearing down older homes and biding time until the waiting period expires; in the meantime the resulting vacant lots have become eyesores and nuisances. He proposed allowing development sooner for builders willing to undergo design review.

Commissioner Amanda Fritz commented, "We decided to allow skinny houses in R5 zones, but with each amendment it gets more convoluted. In the Portland Plan we should look at where R2.5 development is suitable and where it is not."

Commissioner Randy Leonard, who has consistently supported skinny house development, said he would be willing to look at the design of skinny houses but added, "This cannot be a debate as to whether we have narrow lots. You can't be for affordable housing and against the provisions that make it possible."

• Accessory dwelling units. Currently owners of single-family-zoned properties can subdivide part of their homes into small satellite apartments, convert garages to this purpose or build small subsidiary structures in their yards. However, developers complain that regulations governing such units, sometimes called "granny flats," are too rigid to be practical. Among other things, proposed changes would allow such units to be equal to 75 percent of the size of the primary house (the current limit is 33 percent), or 800 square feet, whichever is smaller.

• Bicycle parking. Currently the code requires that new multi-family structures provide bicycle parking at the rate of .25 spaces per unit. Bicycle advocates complain that this is insufficient, especially since many building owners and managers forbid occupants to store bikes in their units. A proposed amendment would increase the required bike parking to 1.1 spaces per unit.

• Small energy devices. As Engstrom noted, the current code treats solar panels and small wind turbines as industrial uses, with regulations that make placing them on single-family properties difficult. Proposed amendments would, among other things, make such devices exempt from maximum building heights and from design review in historic districts.

• Eaves. A proposed amendment would allow eaves on the sides of homes to extend up to two feet into the required five-foot setback, double the current limit.

City Council tentatively scheduled a second public hearing on the package for Feb. 3. at City Hall, 1221 S.W. Fourth Ave.

Bike Plan goes to Council
The Portland City Council will review and act on the proposed Bicycle Master Plan at 2 p.m. Feb. 4 at City Hall, 1221 S.W. Fourth Ave. The plan proposes 900 miles of new bike routes throughout the city. These would include bike boulevards, low-traffic streets where bikes and cars informally share the road; off-road trails; and separated in-road facilities where bike lanes are physically separated from auto traffic by a barrier such as a lane of parked cars.
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