Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The Southwest Portland Post. (Portland, Oregon) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 2008)
6 • The Southwest Portland Post October 2008 NEwS Garden Home: Flower plantings planned for Oleson Road islands By Don Snedecor The Southwest Portland Post On October 18th, the Garden Home Crossing Committee vol- unteers will plant daffodil bulbs, shrubs and trees in six new pedes- trian refuge median islands con- structed as part of the Oleson Road project. Volunteers will also add 3000 daffodil bulbs and plants to the new Oleson streetside gardens planted last May. These gardens will be part of Washington County’s new “Adopt- a-Landscape” program that allows community volunteers to add and maintain landscaping within the street right-of-way. Following the planting which starts at 9:00 a.m., a community celebration including dedication of the new gardens and lunch (Charles and Janice Moss’ Texas Pit BBQ) will be held outside at the Garden Home Recreation Center’s lower level. Everyone is invited – just let the leaders know if you’ll be there. A voluntary donation will be re- quested to help pay for the lunch. The dedication will include thanks to the Citizen Participation Organi- zation Special Projects Fund and all the individuals and businesses that provided money for plants in the 12 new Oleson Road gardens. Volunteers and donations are needed. To volunteer for the plant- ing and fall clean-up and to RSVP for lunch, please call Carol at 503- 290-6728 or Terry at 503-244-3489 or go to www.gardenhomecrossing. org to donate for plant purchases. Please respond by October 11th. The Garden Home Crossing Committee is a group of local gar- deners and supporters who plant and maintain the median islands at the intersection of Garden Home and Oleson Roads and provide the hanging flower baskets at the in- tersection and at the Garden Home Recreation Center. They also planted the new gar- dens at 80th and Oleson and near the Portland Clinic last May. Ac- cording to Terry Moore, this is their 12th year of “weeding, watering, and working to keep the garden in Garden Home!” Flowers are planted and maintained in the islands at Southwest Garden Home Road and Olsen Road intersection by members of the Garden Home Crossing Committee. (Post photo by Don Snedecor) South Waterfront development regulations considered by design commission By Lee Perlman The Southwest Portland Post Autumn Special! ¼ Page ½ Price Full Color! Call Don or Harry at 503-244-6933 for Details The Portland Planning Bureau staff last month gave a preview of proposed new South Waterfront design regulations to a skeptical Portland Design Commission. As planners Troy Doss and Lora Lillard explained, the Bureau is making minor modifications on a vision for the area adopted in 2004. Among other things, they are removing code incentives for the development of housing as unnec- essary, since such development is occurring at a rapid rate. The planners also proposed to exempt hotels from a provision that prohibits any commercial use larger than 60,000 square feet; this provision was intended to keep out “Big Box” retail, Doss explained, and was not intended to apply to hotels. The biggest addition, and the source of the most commission comment, regarded the 100-foot wide area west of the top of the Wil- lamette River bank designated the Greenway. The City has a detailed plan for the greenway, Doss said, but property owners have the right to deviate from this to some extent as long as they retain features such as public bike and pedestrian trails and habitat restoration. If the owners adhere to the city’s plan, the city will assume respon- sibility for maintenance of the gre- enway once it is created; otherwise the property owner will retain that responsibility. Regarding this last, commission chair Lloyd Lindley asked, “Sup- pose a property owner elects to go his own way, and then the property is sold? You’d have a 100-foot swath that goes to seed.” “I can’t give you any more cer- tainty than that the city has an en- forcement process,” Doss replied. Two other commission members, Tim Eddy and Andrew Jansky, found the existing plan very de- manding, and questioned how many owners would adhere to it. “There’s a whole lot of good stuff in here, but (what) if only a couple of people do it?,” asked Jansky. Doss replied, “At the end of the day it’s their decision how to make that call. We hope it will all fit to- gether and not look like a Franken- stein’s monster of disjointed parts.” Another provision governs “ac- tive ground floor uses,” a zoning code goal throughout the city. Commission member Jeff Stuhr pointed out that the draft regula- tions require such uses to be “ori- ented toward the river,” but there were no requirements that develop- ers have such uses. “A developer could say, ‘Well, this doesn’t apply to me,’ and just ignore it,” he said. Eddy said, “I wonder if we could put more teeth into this? We’ve long had an absolute requirement that new development downtown have ground floor retail, with no consideration of whether there’s any market for it. Here we’ve spent time designing every square inch on the greenway side of the path, and on the other side it’s left up to the development community and the public space absolutely stops at the property line. This is a step in the right direc- tion, but we’d like it to have more teeth.” The commission will have a second review of the proposal later this year.
