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League debates Portland neighborhood associations

LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO

Editor’s note: The following is veteran beat reporter Lee Perlman’s compendium of news items from the Parkrose and Gateway neighborhoods of Mid-Multnomah County.

In November’s compendium, Perlman reports on the prestigious League of Women Voters debate, part of a yearlong examination of Portland’s neighborhood association system and how well it works, or doesn’t.

Perlman also reports on new infill design rules, the new Portland Police Bureau’s East Precinct commander meeting local business folks at the Parkrose Business Association’s monthly luncheon, the 122nd Avenue Study is seeking zone changes and 102nd Avenue gets its own study moving forward.

Perlman also tells us how the East Columbia underpass project construction set for spring will not disrupt traffic, an Ikea super store coming to CascadeStation near the airport and a slice of the Gateway area known as Prunedale searches for a new moniker.

McKnight stars in debate
Mid-County activist Bonny McKnight contributed the insight and pithy comments she is famous for during a discussion of neighborhood associations sponsored by the League of Women Voters last month.

The panel discussion is part of a yearlong examination of the Portland neighborhood system by the League, which had previously published a six-page history based on interviews with 25 people. Other panel members were former Portland city and county commissioner Gretchen Kafoury, former Neighbors West/Northwest director and Office of Neighborhood Involvement staffer Joleen Jensen Classen, and Northeast Coalition of Neighbors Director John Canda.

As the panel members pointed out, the Portland neighborhood system was born through the combination of issues in various parts of the city inspiring the creation of local groups - the Model Cities program in inner Northeast, the proposed Mount Hood Freeway in Southeast, urban renewal activity and plans in Southwest - coupled with the city’s need for ongoing citizen involvement to qualify for federal grants. McKnight pointed out that in east Portland there was a parallel history based on land-use planning.

Participating in this process, and the community groups that were set up to accomplish it, was “the most exciting thing I was able to do,” McKnight said. “We could plan what we wanted for an area of 35,000 people. We set policies and collected dues at the end of the meeting. It worked well without any funding from government.”

Lack of reliable funding from the city for its own system was a sore point for most of the panel. Classen said this was the root of much of the trouble with the current system.

“The real basic factor is that there just isn’t enough funding for what needs to be done,” she said. “Do we fund functions downtown or in the coalition offices?”

Canda added, “If I get a new task from my board I have to ask, ‘What do I leave in or leave out’” from the existing work program.

Offering a different perspective, McKnight said, “I don’t mean to imply that neighborhood offices don’t need money, but we tend to get sloppy. When people need speed bumps or a safe route to school we tend to think we have staff people to do that when it’s our responsibility.” Individual residents need to take responsibility for their communities, she said. “Neighborhood associations are a conduit to do that, but not a substitute. The system is there; we need to make it work.”

McKnight had criticism for the east Portland version of the system. The East Portland Neighborhood Office is one of two such institutions that answer directly to Office of Neighborhood Involvement and city government; independent non-profit corporations that contract with the city to provide these services run the other five. It has an advisory committee consisting of the chairs of the neighborhood groups it serves, but they have only an advisory role.

“Our office has two bosses, us and the city,” she said. “At times we’ve come close to having a problem. We should be a nonprofit.” The barrier to this is the stormy history of the East Portland District Coalition, and peoples’ memories of it. “We became dominated by a group of people we couldn’t deal with,” McKnight said. “But the system works.”

Kafoury, who was sometimes at odds with neighborhood associations over her push for more affordable and special needs housing, said the system’s biggest weakness is “when we need to look beyond the neighborhood. Special needs housing, infill and density are regional issues that can’t always be addressed at the neighborhood level. I could give 50 cases where there was neighborhood opposition to a project, but it vanished when the facility opened.”

McKnight responded, “By the time we’re consulted we feel frustrated and ignored. We see people cutting down trees to get in one more housing unit, and there’s a natural tendency to oppose.”

Asked to name significant accomplishments, Kafoury named planning efforts such as the Albina and Outer Southeast Community plans. Canda spoke of community advocacy for schools and parks, and both he and Classen mentioned volunteer foot patrols. Classen said that potlucks and special events that bring people together “are among the most valuable things neighborhoods do.”

McKnight mentioned the Citywide Land Use Committee, which she has coordinated in recent years.

“We have the support of the mayor and Commissioner Adams,” she said. “We may not win every time, but we do affect policies.”

A perennial issue is the degree to which neighborhood associations reflect the wider community. Canda said, “Race is an issue, and something we’re still uncomfortable talking about. We need to make more room at the table.”

McKnight said, “Some neighborhoods have people in power who would keep others out, but most are not that way. But we have no way to reach people who don’t speak our language, who don’t understand why they should be there in the first place.”

New infill design rules set
The Portland Planning Commission last month adopted, and in one case added to, new regulations designed to make infill development more compatible with its surroundings.

The new rules are part of the Infill Design Project started by Portland City Commissioner Randy Leonard. The project previously developed a pair of model housing designs that could fit on small lots and meet city codes, yet fit in aesthetically in older neighborhoods. The new code amendments are intended to prohibit some bad development practices and encourage good ones.

On one hand, the code amendments would limit the land devoted to garages and driveways to not more than 50 percent of a property’s street frontage, and require that windows take up at least 15 percent of any street-facing building façade. On the other hand, the language would provide more flexibility to developers who used narrow driveways, shared driveways, driveway access to the rear of the house, and multi-family development that utilizes courtyards or common green space.

One provision would require developers to at least offer to come to neighborhood associations to present their plans on projects involving 20 units or more. In response to 10 speakers, the commission adopted the provision, but lowered the density trigger to five units.


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