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| New Portland Police Bureau East Precinct Commander Mike Crebs speaks to members of the Parkrose business community at the Parkrose Business Association monthly meeting held in October. |
| MEMO PHOTO: TIM CURRAN |
Though badly understaffed, the police are trying to rid east Portland of criminal activity, Portland Police Bureau’s East Precinct Commander Mike Crebs told the Parkrose Business Association last month. They have just 125 employees to patrol the city east of 82nd Avenue, he said.
Residents and business owners can help by working with the police, particularly with regard to trespass agreements, he said. These allow the police to arrest people who are on private property and can’t give a satisfactory reason for being there.
“If we see someone on your property, there’s not much we can do unless we see them breaking the law,” Crebs said. “If we have a trespass agreement with you, we can tell them to leave or arrest them.”
Prostitution- and drug-free zones are also useful to deal with “the same people who keep coming back over and over and over. We would like all the tools we can get,” he said.
Conversely, he said, “Sometimes road blocks from residents or groups of citizens makes our job more difficult. Without you, the Portland Police Bureau is dead in the water.”
Unlike predecessor commanders Cliff Jensen and Greg Hendricks, who retired shortly after being assigned to command Portland Police Bureau’s East Precinct, Crebs expects his stay to be a long one. “I can’t retire until 2017, so unless the chief tells me to be elsewhere, I’ll be here awhile,” he said.
122nd Avenue study seeks changes
The 122nd Avenue Study, scheduled for a hearing before the Portland Planning Commission on Tuesday, Nov. 22, is proposing a series of zone changes to back its policies.
The study, which covers the avenue between Northeast Weidler and Southeast Washington streets, trying to allow auto dealerships to function in on the strip while upholding policies to promote high-density transit and pedestrian-oriented development near light rail. The strategy they are leaning toward is to insist on strict design standards for new development, including new dealerships or expansions, at the designated “nodes” of Stark, Burnside and Glisan streets, while substantially loosening these restrictions in the areas between.
Within the nodes, the storefront commercial (CS) zoning would be changed to CX, which has less restrictive design standards. CX usually allows the highest density of any zone in the Portland code. However, in Gateway, it is governed by an overlay that determines height and density. Under either designation, there would be a maximum height of 100 feet, a maximum floor area ratio of four to one. This last means that for every square foot of lot area there has to be four square feet of floor area.
Elsewhere, CS zones would become CG (general commercial). Land with the restrictive CO (local commercial) zone and the RH (high density housing) zone would be changed to CS on several small properties to better reflect what is actually built there. Finally, some properties zoned R3A for residential development will receive the higher density R1D multi-family zone, with a design overlay.
Project manager Barry Manning told the Hazelwood Neighborhood Association that for large redevelopment projects there would be compulsory design review. “That’s the only way to go if this is to work,” he said.
Gayland German, a Hazelwood board member and critic of auto dealerships, asked, “How much influence did Ron Tonkin have on this?” Manning said the auto sales empire was represented throughout the process.
One of Tonkin’s representatives, consultant Peter Finley Fry, told Hazelwood, “We would have preferred not to have the nodes at all, but the Bureau of Planning said that wasn’t acceptable. We’ve agreed to design review, and that’s a major concession by us.”
102nd Avenue study moves forward
The 102nd Avenue Study is nearing completion. The Opportunity Gateway Program Advisory Committee endorsed the plan last month, City Council is scheduled to review it at 10:15 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 9, and construction should begin by late 2007, according to project manager Dan Layden.
The plan calls for four lanes of traffic, some center islands at strategic locations interspersed with left turn lanes, bike lanes, wider sidewalks as development occurs and opportunity arises, and street furniture and street trees.
Most on-street parking will be removed. There will be artwork, including aluminum arches at Northeast Halsey Street and a sculpture at the “jug handle” to the north. A new addition is a series of bioswales to catch stormwater runoff.
Some committee members had reservations about this last. Aleta Woodruff commented, “The one on 122nd is always full of leaves.” Layden assured her property owners would not be responsible for maintaining the swales.
PAC member Duke Shepard said, “Stormwater has a long and brutal history in this part of the city. It’s a great idea, but not all promises have been honored here before.”
Despite such reservations, the group gave the project its unanimous support.
The total cost of the project is $6,575,000. Of this, $4.2 million comes from a recently passed federal transportation appropriation bill.
Underpass project construction set
The East Columbia to Lombard Connector Project should be under construction by next April, project manager Rob Barnard told the Parkrose Neighborhood Association last month. The project will build a new railroad underpass linking Northeast Columbia Boulevard to Lombard Street. Access roads, each with a signal, will connect to westbound Lombard at 89th Avenue, and eastbound 87th Avenue.
Traffic disruption during construction will be minimal, Barnard said. “Fortunately, (due to business relocation), most of the work is adjacent to property we now own,” he said. “We’ll be by the side of the road, working.”
Ikea comes to Cascade Station
In a long hoped-for coup, CascadeStation LLC has secured the Ikea home furnishing company as a tenant for the CascadeStation development. The developers, as well as city planners, have hoped the Swedish retailer’s presence can be a catalyst for the long-stalled 120-acre project east of Portland International Airport. It was out of consideration for Ikea that the area’s plan district regulations were amended to allow commercial buildings of up to 275,000 square feet in three locations. The original plan district, in an effort to keep out standard big box retail, limited retail buildings to 60,000 square feet.
A regular name for Prunedale
If you were about to invest your life savings, would you put them into a place called Prunedale? The Portland Development Commission thinks maybe not. That’s why, as part of its Prunedale Development Strategy, it wants to give the area a new name.
Prunedale is bounded by Northeast Glisan and Southeast Stark streets, 102nd Avenue and the I-205 Freeway. According to Hazelwood’s Linda Robinson, part of it was once a prune orchard, hence the name.
“Of all Gateway it’s the most under-utilized area,” Opportunity Gateway Program Advisory Committee Chairwoman Dorene Warner said at last month’s meeting. “There’s a great contrast between what’s there now and what we would want it to be, what the zoning would allow.”
Alesia Reese of Woodland Park said, “I’d like to keep the name, but it has a residential, rural sound to it.”
Frieda Christopher, who owns property in the area, said it has “small businesses, some residences, and a lot of very blighted property.” As to the name she said, “It doesn’t bother me one bit.”
Committee member Dann Wonser suggested as an alternative, “Dryprunedale.”
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