January 2008
The Southwest Portland Post. • 3
NEwS
St. Luke’s plans construction of new and larger church
By Mark Ellis
The Southwest Portland Post
St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in South-
west Portland has plans for change
on the drawing board. At December’s
meeting of the Maplewood Neighbor-
hood Association, Jon Erickson offered
up details of St. Luke’s building expan-
sion and street-vacating plan for the
corner of Southwest Vermont Street and
45th Avenue.
The church has purchased the house
formerly owned by the Lehr family,
and plans ultimately to tear it down to
provide room for expansion. Currently
the church is having trouble getting its
congregation parked and then to Sun-
day morning services.
The new plan would create parking
by either partially or wholly vacating
two ancillary Portland streets, South-
west 46th Avenue and Southwest
Florida Street.
The demolition of the Lehr house
would presage the construction of a
new and larger church. Erickson shared
photos of the cramped conditions in the
present building, with essential storage
items clogging up usable floor space.
“We are looking to develop a contigu-
ous campus,” he said.
Several questions from neighbor-
hood association members highlighted
neighborhood concerns about the plan.
Land use chair Chris Mays wanted to
insure continued pedestrian access
through church grounds. Co-chair Jill
Gaddis had concerns about a tributary
creek, which runs through the property.
Association co-chairperson Anne-
Marie Fischer directed that a letter be
drafted by the association to the effect
that the provision for a trail or some
other pedestrian access element had
been put forth by St. Luke’s.
Erickson noted that the church “was
open to public access, quite open.”
Revealing St Luke’s plan to christen
the low ravine around the creek a peace
park, he assured the association that
“we are committed to protecting the
habitat and environment of the creek.”
Next on the run-down Gaddis gave
a brief SWNI report. Notable was her
mention of how certain courtyard style
housing developments could create
insular “villages.”
According to Gaddis, “These little
courtyards could become neighbor-
hoods unto themselves.” “How do
we reach these groups,” Gaddis asked,
“and bring them into the neighbor-
hood as a whole?”
Gaddis also spoke about the associa-
tion’s citizen-initiated plan to revital-
ize and protect April Hill Park. Appar-
ently city coffers will not be opening
up for this endeavor any time soon.
Work party generated ivy pulls,
plans for the construction of board-
walks, and requests for a full-time
portable toilet are all part of the strat-
egy to protect creek, habitat and trails.
Parks chairperson Bill Rector
MAPLEwooD NotEbook
brought discussion of a new devel-
opment fee proposal to the agenda.
Currently developers pay 25 percent
of expected impact costs of anything
they build.
The new proposal calls for this
amount to be increased to 75 percent,
and stipulates that monies collected by
the fee would be dedicated as to the
neighborhood where the impact was
felt. “Developers don’t like it,” Rector
summated.
When the inevitable subject of out-
reach came up, transportation chair
Vern Krist suggested a door-to-door
poll to ascertain community concerns
with regard to the proposed halo local
improvement district.
Krist said that once tax issues make
it onto public radar he’ll “have no
trouble getting folks interested.”
Maplewood School liaison Alexan-
der Ben-Israel reported on two ongo-
ing fundraising efforts, Portland Roast
coffee drive and SCRIP. “Our goal is
to raise forty-five thousand dollars,”
said Ben-Israel, “for music, libraries
and computers.”
Fischer convened the meeting with
a thought about getting more folks
from Maplewood to come to the
meetings and get involved, “People
need to understand that we do have
the power to make change.” Contact:
www.maplewoodna.com
S.W. community divided
over park fee increase
(Continued from Page 1)
the process question. “There has been a
significant amount of outreach on this
issue,” she said. “It’s time for better
equity” in the placement of parks.
Clearly businesses benefit from parks.
I ask that we not choose between afford-
able housing and parks. I don’t want us
to increase the deficit we already have.
We need a healthy park system for all
Portlanders.”
Linda Laviolette, chair of the Portland
Parks Foundation, called the increase
(Continued on Page 4)
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