INSIDE:
SERVING
Burlingame • Capitol Hill
• Garden Home • Glen
Cullen • Hillsdale
• South Portland
• Multnomah Village
• Raleigh Hills • Vermont
Hills • West Portland
Check out our
Southwest Portland’s Independent Neighborhood Newspaper
Volume No. 18, Issue No. 2
www.multnomahpost.com
Portland, Oregon
Complimentary
Holiday
Guide
on Page 4
December 2009
Negotiations and lack of stimulus money delay Capitol Highway Project
By Allison Voigts
The Southwest Portland Post
While several segments of the Capitol
Highway Project have been completed,
others, including the Garden Home seg-
ment and Hoot Owl Corner, are facing
new delays, according to the Portland
Bureau of Transportation’s (PBOT) Ross
Swanson.
Swanson, the project manager for the
segment from the Multnomah Boule-
vard viaduct to Southwest Taylors Ferry
Road , had hoped to deliver a modified
version of the plan, which was first
proposed in 1996, by early next spring
(“PBOT aims to deliver modified
Capitol Highway Plan in six to nine
months,” The Southwest Portland Post,
September 2009).
But bureaucratic red tape has delayed
work on the design as PBOT, the Oregon
Department of Transportation, and lo-
cal consultants The Parametrics Group
negotiate the details of the contract for
the project. Swanson said he hopes de-
sign plans will resume this winter, but
was reluctant to give another estimate
for when the modified plan would be
completed.
“I hope the community will be patient
with us while we work through the
red tape,” he said. The project would
add sidewalks and bicycle lanes to
Southwest Capitol Highway between
Garden Home and Taylors Ferry roads,
requiring the city to use most of its
right-of-way.
The original proposal, estimated at a
cost of $12 million, cites narrow traffic
lanes, uncontrolled intersections, and
the lack of sidewalks as dangerous
problems along the 1.1 mile stretch of
road.
Swanson told the Multnomah Neigh-
borhood Association in August that the
new plan would include meetings with
a citizen’s advisory committee to try to
save significant trees and homeowners’
landscapes that have been developed
into the public right-of-way.
The new plan would also require
storm water to be treated at its source
according to environmental mandates
established in the 13 years since the
project’s conception.
The Hoot Owl Corner, named after
the convenience store located at the
intersection of Southwest Capitol High-
way, Vermont Street, and 30th Avenue,
was reworked in the original project
design to eliminate its curve, creating
(Continued on Page 6)
Walking along Capitol Highway toward Multnomah Village can be a tricky thing with
no sidewalks. (Post photo by Don Snedecor)
HAP submits grant application for Hillsdale Terrace housing project
VI program to redevelop the Hillsdale
Terrace public housing complex in
Southwest Portland.
Since HAP’s announcement in March
On November 17 the Housing Au-
that it would be pursuing a complete
thority of Portland (HAP) submitted
redevelopment of the low-income
their application for a $17 million grant
apartments (“Hillsdale Terrace to
from the federal government’s HOPE
apply for HOPE VI redevelopment
funds,” The South-
west Portland Post,
April 2009), rather
than selling the site
or improving the
existing structure,
neighborhood resi-
dents and organi-
zations have both
volleyed criticism
at and pledged sup-
port for the project.
Critics argue that
the total cost of the
project, estimated
at $41 million, is too
much to spend on
115 units (housing
Pictured is one of the buildings of the 60-unit Hillsdale Terrace 237 people) in an
housing project built in 1970. (Photo courtesy Portland Archi- isolated location that
tecture)
is poorly integrated
By Allison Voigts
The Southwest Portland Post
Don’t forget to renew your subscription. Form on Page 2.
The Southwest Portland Post
7825 SW 36th Ave Suite #203
Portland, OR 97219
with the surrounding neighborhood.
“Building a segregated, dense com-
munity of low-income families is ex-
actly what HAP should not be doing,”
wrote retired builder (and former HAP
board member) Ray Hallberg in an
opinion letter to The Oregonian. “Such
projects have been identified nationally
as social failures since the 1960s.”
Some critics, like Hallberg, say the
money would be better spent on Section
8 vouchers to help Hillsdale Terrace
residents rent apartments in private
housing, while others, like Hillsdale
activist Rick Seifert, have suggested
buying up housing in the depressed
real estate market.
“If Portland’s public housing’s left
hand, the development commission,
had any idea what the right hand,
the housing authority, was up to, the
two agencies would rush to redirect
the Hillsdale Terrace money to South
Waterfront,” Seifert wrote on his blog,
The Red Electric (theredelectric.blogspot.
com).
But the project’s supporters argue
that rebuilding Hillsdale Terrace is the
only way to offer low-income families
access to the neighborhood’s excellent
schools and services.
Neighborhood House director Rick
Nitti wrote to The Oregonian in response
to Hallberg,
“At the tail end of the housing bubble,
Southwest Portland lost much of its
affordable rental housing inventory to
condo conversion and increasing rents,”
wrote Nitti. “Lower-income households
are increasingly closed out of our com-
munity. A new Hillsdale Terrace would
preserve and expand housing choices
for families with less means.”
HAP officials say connecting the
residents of Hillsdale Terrace with the
community is one of the primary goals
of the redevelopment, a strategy to
end their need for public housing by
providing resources in education, job
training, and healthy living. $2 million
of the HOPE VI grant would be spent on
community and support services, and
39 agencies including Neighborhood
House, Big Brother/Big Sister, and the
Multnomah and Hillsdale Neighbor-
hood Associations have offered another
$6 million worth of services.
John Keating, Assistant Director of
Strategic Partnerships at HAP, said
that workshops and surveys held over
the summer with Hillsdale Terrace
residents and neighbors revealed a need
for mentoring, tutoring, and youth em-
ployment programs for the complex’s
138 children.
Residents also expressed a strong
desire for a community garden, which
the neighboring Hillsdale Community
Church has offered space for, where
they can grow their own food.
“This isn’t a ‘bricks and mortar’ ap-
proach,” Keating said. “We want build-
ings that will last a hundred years, but
it’s also about all of the services that
current and future families will have
access to.”
HAP has successfully applied for
and received two HOPE VI grants in
the past, for its New Columbia and
Humboldt Gardens properties. HAP
officials expect to receive an answer
to the Hillsdale Terrace application
sometime in February, and they say
they will continue to pursue funding
for the project if they don’t receive the
grant. If successful, construction would
begin in 2011 with a completion date set
for summer 2012.