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Neighbors of the Hazelwood Hydro Park, the four-acre Portland Water Bureau property that now houses the East Portland Neighborhood Office, received their number one wish last month. City crews paved Northeast 117th Avenue, making it a fully useable city street for the first time ever.
Following a meeting last month, the Water Bureau tentatively decided to pursue a less universally desired course — turning part of the park into a community garden. Neighbors have been divided on this issue since planning for the park began a year ago, with some saying it is an important community resource while some immediate neighbors said private yards fulfill this function and outsiders aren’t needed or wanted. However, although some division remains, officials said there is enough support for the idea that they intend to proceed with planning at least.
Development needs more work
Once again, the Portland Design Commission has sent an architect/developer back to the drawing boards.
Dan Glennon scheduled a Design Advisory session (a voluntary informal discussion in advance of a formal application) with PDC last month concerning his plans to develop a 95,000-square-foot parcel he owns at 11300 N.E. Halsey St. The site has two existing buildings on it. Glennon wanted to add two more, a one-story office building and a three-story residential structure.
The commission asked Glennon to better address Northeast Halsey Street and to provide more ground-floor activity. Commission members suggested that instead of seeking to subdivide the property, as Glennon proposed to do, that he develops some kind of condominium arrangement. Finally, they encouraged him to pursue more intensive, higher development on the site, noting that the property’s height limit is 75 feet.
ONI budget: half a loaf
Mayor Tom Potter, who has direct responsibility for the Office of Neighborhood Involvement, released his budget recommendations for this and other city bureaus last month. The ONI budget did not call for cuts in services for the first time in years and did include some, although not all, of recommended increases suggested by ONI Director Amalia Alarcón. It did include a $350,000 increase for staff salaries among the staff of the city’s seven neighborhood offices, more funds for crime prevention and public safety activities, and funds to continue last year’s $200,000 Neighborhood Grants Program. It did not double the amount of this program or include more funds for neighborhood or district coalition communications, as Alarcón had requested.
Project seeks tax abatement
The Portland Planning Commission last month endorsed the granting of 10 years of tax abatement for the Ash Court Condominiums, a 54-unit structure proposed for Southeast 122nd Avenue and Ash Street. Planner Barbara Sack said that the exemption means that the owners of the units will be required to pay taxes only on the land, rather than the building that sits on it, for the first 10 years after the project is built; thereafter they will be taxed in the same way that other properties are. The exemption is part of the Transit Oriented Development program, intended to encourage just that in high-density areas near MAX stations and other locations served by public transit. The units will be affordable for people earning $66,900, and 22 of the units will have two bedrooms, making them potentially useable by families with children.
Meetings, events in June
At 7 p.m. on June 11, there will be a meeting to discuss possible park development, and use of park property, at Shaver School, 3701 N.E. 131st Place. The Park Bureau owns the Beech property, two parcels north and east of the school. The bureau has been leasing the land for farming, but the Bureau of Environmental Services has determined that the activity contributes to water runoff and has asked them to stop. In addition, Metro has funds available for the acquisition of new parkland and has targeted the Argay, Centennial and Cully neighborhoods as appropriate places for such development. Argay Chair Valerie Curry has suggested that a location near Northeast Sandy Boulevard and 125th Place would be ideal for housing in the area as well as the school. However, she told the Memo, she doesn’t have a specific site in mind.
Portland Police Bureau’s East Precinct, 737 S.E. 106th Ave., will have an open house from noon to 4 p.m. on June 23. There will be tours of the precinct, visits by the mounted and K-9 patrols plus the bomb disposal unit, giveaways, and a chance to meet your neighborhood officers.
Shepherd’s Door open for true change
Shepherd’s Door offers shelter to formerly homeless women, including some with children, but it is not just a soft place to land. It is a base for the hard work of changing their lives.
A program of the Portland Rescue Mission, the facility at 13207 N.E. Halsey St. provides space for 30 women plus some children. It is not an emergency facility that these women can simply walk into, Facilities Manager Holly Hummel told the Russell Neighborhood Association last month. They must submit a letter stating their plans and desire to turn their lives around, provide two references and go through a background check. Although many are still struggling with substance abuse issues, they must be clean and sober for 30 days before they enter. Many are fleeing from domestic violence situations, and they must be committed to leaving this behind. They may not have serious mental illness issues.
“It’s a very intense, life-changing program,” Hummel said.
The women do receive a lot of help along the way. They receive case management and assistance in obtaining vocational training or education. Some have been declared unfit parents and had their children taken away by the state Children’s Services Division; in such cases Shepherd’s Door can arrange for the children to be placed in their own certified childcare facility, so that at least regular mother-child contact is re-established. They can also bring children they have custody of, provided that boys are not older than 8 and girls are not older than 10 when they arrive. There have even been children born at Shepherd’s Door. The facility offers parenting classes.
“Aside from the Salvation Army, there are so few shelters for women and children,” Rescue Mission spokesperson Marty Sturdivant told the Memo later.
Length of stay can range from nine months to two years, and is geared to the individual. “It depends on how impaired they are and how motivated they are,” Sturdivant said of the clients.
“They don’t leave until they are ready to leave,” Hummel said.
The program was started in 1994. Originally it was housed in a former doctor’s office with very limited capacity that was ill suited to the purpose. In the early years of this century, Portland Rescue Mission began a capital campaign to raise funds for a new facility, eventually amassing $7.5 million. They spent a year discussing the plans with neighbors who were wary of the project. Since the building’s completion in 2003, by all accounts, Shepherd’s Door has been an excellent neighbor. The only issue has been smoking. Initially forbidden to smoke on premises, residents would do so in front of other properties. Shepherd’s Door now provides outdoor smoking facilities while encouraging its residents to quit.
Russell Association Chair Bonny McKnight considers Shepherd’s Door a model residential treatment program. “For us to have this in our neighborhood is amazing,” she said.
Even more impressive is its professional success rate. Clients have dropped out and left but, according to Hummel, no one who has graduated from the program has ever relapsed and returned to addiction, or had her children removed from her care a second time.
Community support, in the form of money, other donations or volunteer time, is welcome, but staff asks you to call first. “People show up after a yard sale to donate what’s left, what they couldn’t get rid of, and we have no place to store such things, so we wind up throwing them away.”
Shepherd’s Door can be reached at 503-256-2353 or visit the Web site at: www.portlandrescuemission.org/women-and-children/
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