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Gateway zoning regulation battle heats up

Ron Tonkin appeals to press and politicians for zone changes

LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO

The Gateway Planning Regulations Project has gone public, with the debate carried live from City Hall by the press. The project calls for a thorough and complex overhaul of zoning regulations for the Gateway urban renewal district, and a corridor between Northeast Glisan and Southeast Stark streets stretching eastward to 162nd Avenue. A new draft of the recommendations will be available starting August 29 at 1900 S.W. 4th Ave., the East Portland Community Center, or the Midland Branch Library. There will be public hearings with testimony taken, before the Portland Design Commission at 3 p.m. Thursday, September 18 and the Portland Planning Commission at 7 p.m. Tuesday, September 30. Both hearings will be at 1900 S.W. 4th Ave. Note that the times listed above are for the start of the commissions’ meetings, not necessarily when this particular item will be heard. For information on that, call 503-823-7700.

Not enough change
Of those affected by the changes, the most prominent and most vocal is the Ron Tonkin auto dealership empire, and their complaint is not what the changes do but what they fail to do. Their location on and near Northeast 122nd Avenue puts them within the “pedestrian districts” near MAX light rail stations. Here the regulations push for new development to have “pedestrian-oriented design,” and discourages auto-related uses. As a pre-existing use the car dealerships are allowed to continue their operations indefinitely, but additions and expansions - such as Tonkin is seeking for its Honda dealership -are subject to the regulations.

The changes give Tonkin some of the things they have asked for. They divide the plan area into the Gateway Regional Center and the East Corridor, and give the latter less severe restrictions on development. They eliminate a requirement that those developments on sites larger than 80,000 square feet have a housing component. In what can only be seen as a direct concession to Tonkin, they allow vehicle repair and maintenance as an accessory use to car dealerships.

However, the regulations still prohibit outdoor vehicle sales and display, still require new structures to be built at the property line, still require public open space to be a part of large site development. Again, this doesn’t affect the current operations of Tonkin or any other existing business, but does put hurdles in front of renovation or expansion.

The press and the bully pulpit
Frustrated, the company has appealed to the public tribunes, as it were. In a recent issue of another local paper, company vice-president Ed Tonkin threatened to take the business out of the city. Commissioner Randy Leonard, who had previously been critical of the Planning Bureau, jumped to Tonkin’s defense, calling the bureau “anti-car” and “unrealistic.” Hazelwood Neighborhood Association chair Arlene Kimura spoke of the need to defend zoning integrity and planning goals designed to make the area more urban and pedestrian-friendly.

Tonkin was quoted as saying that the car dealerships were “there first,” and city planner Ellen Ryker, chief author of the revision, retorted that pig farmers were there before Tonkin.

Another local leader, Bonny McKnight, shares Kimura’s concerns for process, but agrees that some of the regulations may be unrealistic in terms of current reality. However, she scoffed at the suggestion that the Tonkins would flee. “Where could they go?” she asks.

Tonkin consultant Peter Finley Fry says the probable answer is to set up new dealerships in Vancouver or Beaverton. “We’re not saying we’d move all these dealerships,” he told the Memo. “More likely, we’d stop investing in them and let them deteriorate.”

Fry complains, “122nd Avenue is a big, ugly street, we’re the only active use on it, and the city is coming down on us.” Senior planner Joe Zender doesn’t see it that way. “These are long-range plans that are intended to bring about change incrementally, over 35 or 40 years,” he says. Regarding Tonkin he says, “We’d like to sit down with the car dealers and hear what they would be willing to do to advance the goals of making this a pedestrian-friendly area.”
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