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LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
Editor’s note: For your reading pleasure, we present Perlman’s Potpourri — a roundup of news items from the Gateway and Parkrose neighborhoods of Mid-Multnomah County from veteran Beat Reporter Lee Perlman.
This month Perlman turns in a long, comprehensive effort — a news potpourri with something for everybody. Rather than slow you down with a long intro — here you go.
Planning class advises Parkrose
For their master’s theses, students from a Portland State University Graduate School of Urban Planning class are telling the Parkrose community it can reach its potential.
The final product of their efforts will be a 50-plus-page book that describes the strengths of the community; its challenges and specific steps members of the community can take to improve it. They will present the finished document at a public gathering at 7 p.m. on June 5 at Parkrose High School and Community Center. The booklet is addressed to Parkrose neighborhood and business associations. “We’re trying to help them become more organized and more focused,” PSU team leader Todd Johnson said.
“We’re including economic and demographic trends for this area. We’re also including a list of recommendations and strategies, people who will be responsible for carrying them out, and resources available to help them do it.”
The list as of mid-May, still subject to some revision, was as follows:
1. Expand the Vision Committee (see below).
2. Improve neighborhood communication.
3. Market the business district.
4. Enhance the appearance of Northeast Sandy Boulevard.
5. Expand community-policing activities.
6. Support Sandy Boulevard as the Parkrose neighborhood center.
7. Host a neighborhood event on Sandy Boulevard (“There are a lot of events and activities in the neighborhoods around it, but not in the downtown area,” Johnson said.)
8. Create community design guidelines to guide future development.
9. Partner with local business support systems, such as resources at PSU and the Association of Portland Neighborhood Business Associations.
The first five are considered the strongest and most realistic measures and could at least be started immediately, Johnson said. The others might take more work and, in some cases, require buy-ins by the city and the larger community.
The thesis requirements call for the students to take a multi-disciplinary approach to a community problem. They have the skills to do it. Johnson’s training is in land use and design. Laura Butler has training in land use and community development. Erik Rundell’s specialties are community development and computer modeling through geographic communications systems. Sean McCusker’s strengths are in transportation and real estate development. Brian Monberg is also a transportation planner, while Doug Bruchs is trained in land use, marketing and economic development. City planner Barry Manning served as their adviser on the project.
They worked with a Vision Committee that included Gordon Boorse and Brian Ableidinger of the Parkrose Business Association, Marcy Emerson Peters and Mary Walker of the Parkrose Neighborhood Association, Valerie Curry of the Argay Neighborhood Association, and Pastor David Walmer of Foursquare Church. The class began with a walking tour of Sandy Boulevard with the Vision Committee pointing out strengths and issues. Students continued to meet with the committee every two weeks. They went on to conduct interviews with local school children, business owners and “old timers” — a term referring not so much to age, per se, but duration of community involvement. They held a focus group with a class from the Parkrose High School alternative school. They rode along with local police officers. They did research of their own. Finally, informally, they hung out in the area.
“We can attest that there’s some really good food in Parkrose,” Johnson said. “We learned what Parkrose is about — its challenges, the gems you’d have to dig to find there.”
“It’s a strong community and a great place to be. It has a vital business district. Right now people don’t visualize the Sandy strip as the community’s downtown,” Johnson continued.
The group received more input at an April 24 meeting at Parkrose High School, attended by about 40 people from the business and residential communities. Manning said the meeting was a chance to “assess common needs, issues and concerns.”
“The intent is to plan before the city plans for us,” Peters said.
Johnson hopes Parkrose leaders do more than plan — that they look at the PSU study as a first step. “We’re concerned that when we walk out of the room they say, ‘Okay, we’re all done,’” he said.
At April’s planning workshop the class asked those present to answer three questions:
1.What would bring you down to Sandy Boulevard more often?
2. What would you like other people to think of Sandy Boulevard ten years from now?
3. Name three things that you think would make Parkrose better.
The overwhelming favorite for the first answer was “a grocery store”; others were, “greater dining options,” specific stores such as a book store or bike shop, “less prostitution, crime and drugs,” and “improved neighborhood appearance.” There were closer scores for answers to the second question, which were, “a multi-cultural area,” “safe and well-maintained,” “family-friendly,” “prostitution-free,” and “local business-oriented.” For the third question, there was a large score for two related responses: “fewer adult-oriented businesses,” and “decrease prostitution, drugs and crime.” Other answers were, “encourage neighborhood unity, communications and involvement,” “improve neighborhood appearance,” and “prioritize children.”
Children’s Center celebrates four years
The Children’s Receiving Center, celebrated four years of operation in April. At a celebration marking the occasion ChristieCare, the non-profit that operates the facility at 10305 E. Burnside St. for Multnomah County, released some statistics about its operation. In its first four years, the facility provided temporary shelter to 1,126 children; projections show that this year the facility will serve 450, making it the biggest year ever. Although it serves children needing protective custody as old as 16, most of the children who use the facility are between 4 and 11 years old. The most common reasons for placement at the center, in descending order of frequency, are neglect, illegal activity in their home, abuse and safety issues.
Skatepark opens
Though some have doubted it lately, Mayor Tom Potter is a politician, or enough of one to give his public what it wants.
Potter was the third speaker at the April 26 official ribbon cutting for the new Glenhaven skatepark. Turning to 100 young people fidgeting and clutching their boards, the mayor said, “Well, how about it? Do you want to hear me talk or to start skating?” The reaction left no doubt, and within seconds boards were flying over the scooped concrete surface.
The new 10,000-square-foot facility is the second skatepark, behind a larger one in North Portland’s Pier Park, of a citywide network of such parks. This is located on Northeast 82nd Avenue at Siskiyou Street, immediately north of Madison High School.
Portland Parks Bureau Director Zari Santner and commissioner in charge Dan Saltzman preceded Potter. The latter gave thanks to the Madison South and Roseway neighborhoods, to the Skatepark Liaison Advisory Team (SPLAT), the Dreamworks Company that designed the facility and others.
Central Gateway may have park site
At a briefing on their Central Gateway — or Prunedale as some call the area — strategy, Portland Development Commission staff and consultants revealed to the public that they have found a potential site for a park, one of the amenities the area lacks.
The proposed site, along Northeast 102nd Avenue north of East Burnside Street, is both big enough for this purpose, at 4.5 acres, and is available, PDC staffer Justin Douglas said. The problem is that, at $9 million, it is prohibitively expensive.
A lack of basic infrastructure, and a lack of public funding to provide it, are two problems with developing this area, bounded roughly by Northeast Glisan and Southeast Stark streets, the I-205 freeway and 102nd Avenue. The area has great potential, Douglas, PDC’s Byron Estes and consultant Sumner Sharpe said. Central Gateway’s zoning, including CX and EXD designations, are flexible and allow for high intensity. It is served by two freeways, two light rail lines with a third under construction, and is close to Portland International Airport. Land costs are relatively low. However, it is divided into 139 different ownerships and a series of smaller and irregular parcels that can’t take advantage of the zoning. Indeed, the zoning is a mixed blessing, pushing land prices up beyond what potential developers can pay. “There is a gap between what the market can do and [owner] expectations,” Sharpe said.
A bigger problem is a lack of infrastructure, leading to a road system that is “inadequate to nonexistent,” Sharpe said. There is also a lack of public resources, including urban renewal funding, to provide public improvements. One potential solution to this last problem is a so-called “super” Local Improvement District, in which an assessment for public improvements such as roads would be shared by not just abutting property owners, but by all owners in the district.
Dorene Warner, chair of the Gateway Program Advisory Committee reminded the commission that millions of dollars in urban renewal funds were siphoned off to two projects — the Multnomah County Children’s Receiving Center and the I-205 Light Rail Project — not directly related to the district’s mission. “We’re disappointed and concerned about the level of progress so far,” she said. “I’m afraid that in 20 years we’ll still have an area that’s suffering from blight.”
The potential park site is owned by a limited liability trust, Estes later told the Memo. Several office buildings occupied by doctors and dentists currently occupy it.
The presenters said it would be necessary to create a new master street plan for the area. An existing plan, done in the 1990s, is “probably not developable at this time,” Estes said, in part because structures sit across the right of way.
“You mean the city gave a permit to build on rights of way that they don’t own?” commission member Sal Kadri asked incredulously.
“Yes, there are ways to ignore the street plan,” Estes said.
Sharpe added that the existing plan was “done very quickly. Even the people who did it admit that it needs to be refined.”
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