August 2011
NEWS
The Southwest Portland Post • 7
Opponents of proposed North Macadam jail are running out of time
By Lee Perlman
The Southwest Portland Post
Not that they necessarily need it, but
developers of a new Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility,
with detention cells, in the South Wa-
terfront area may be saved by the bell.
City of Portland Hearings Officer
Gregory Frank held a public hearing on
a request for a Conditional Use permit
for the facility at 4310 S.W. Macadam
Ave. on July 6. At the hearing’s end he
brought up an important procedural
issue – the 120-day clock.
By state law, a local jurisdiction must
complete its review, and either grant
or deny an application for a land use
process, within 120 days of receiving
a “complete” application.
City officials often ask applicants to
waive this requirement or extend the
time limit, with the implication that if
the applicant insists on an immediate
reply, it will be a denial. However, the
applicant can insist on adherence to
the timeline.
As a Type III procedure Frank’s de-
cision can be appealed to the Portland
City Council, and the South Portland
Neighborhood Association, which is
opposing the Conditional Use, can
bring such an appeal for free. How-
ever, Frank pointed out, the 120-day
deadline is September 6.
Jim Davis of South Portland request-
ed that the record be held open for
additional testimony for seven days,
and Lindquist Development LLC, the
applicant, has another five days to
submit rebuttals. Frank has another 17
days to issue his decision, which will
probably be August 4.
If the decision went against Lindquist,
and the applicant wished to appeal, the
applicant could waive the deadline at
will. If South Portland lost, however,
given the time needed to schedule a
Council hearing and provide manda-
tory notice for it, they would have little
time to make the deadline.
Suggesting “hypothetically” that he
ruled against the neighborhood, Frank
told board member Bill Danneman,
“There’s an idea that the more time an
opponent takes, the more screws you
drive into the developer. This time the
screws could be driven into you. You
might want to file an appeal immedi-
ately after receiving the decision to
give yourself a fighting chance.”
Lindquist plans to add on to an exist-
ing vacant bank storage facility, with a
total of 114,000 square feet. The Port-
land Design Commission approved
the design earlier this year, and City
Council upheld it in the face of a South
Portland appeal.
However, City Council also found
that about 5,300 square feet of the
building constituted a detention facil-
ity, and required a new approval pro-
cess with a new set of criteria.
The issues, as argued between ap-
plicants and critics, were the safety of
nearby residents, property values, the
effect on local traffic, and the suitabil-
ity of placing such a facility across the
street from the new Southwest Charter
School.
ICE representative Elizabeth God-
frey said ICE has operated in the
Pearl District, at 511 NW Broadway,
for years with no complaints. Inmates
would be brought in and out by secure
vehicles out of public view, she said.
For the most part they would be
taken to Tacoma, Wash., for temporary
incarceration; if not, they would go to
a county jail; under no circumstances
would they spend the night in the
South Waterfront.
According to Godfrey, about three
An artist's rendition of the proposed ICE detention facility. (Courtesy Keith
Skille, GBD Architects)
people a week would be released, none
considered to be “a threat to public
safety.” If necessary they could be
provided with a bus ticket, and “not
left stranded in an unfamiliar area.”
Davis responded that incarcerated
people would be held there, “and if
they tried to escape they could be shot.
If that isn’t a jail, I don’t know what
is.” He protested that the development
team refused to provide information
about the holding cells.
Danneman said that the facility is
located on Southwest Bancroft Street,
“the only entrance to a very geographi-
cally constrained area,” and that ICE’s
prediction of two trips a day by large
buses was “very optimistic.”
Bob Haley of the Portland Bureau of
Transportation did not deny that the
facility might have an impact on traffic,
but said that it would be far less than a
far larger facility that could locate on
the site by right.
Scott Matson of the federal General
Services Administration conceded that
agency guidelines call for ICE facilities
not to be located within 300 feet of a
school.
However, Matson said, GSA signed
its lease for the property before the
Charter School signed theirs. (At a
community meeting two weeks before
the hearing, asked why the GSA is not
supposed to locate near schools, he
suggested that there was no practical
reason other than to assuage public
concerns.)
Christian Pearlman, chair of the
Charter School wasn’t fully aware of
the ICE facility’s purpose until late
in the process. At that point, he said,
“We had no other option; we either
moved forward or we wouldn’t have
a school.”
In a story in The Oregonian, Pearl-
man charged that a clause was inserted
into the school’s lease that allowed it to
be terminated if the school attempted
to interfere with the ICE siting.
Several community members testi-
fied that the facility would detract
from the neighborhood’s livability and
desirability.
Architect and resident Fred Gans
said that South Waterfront, the cre-
ation of a new community, is “an
experiment, and a rare one. It’s in a
really fragile state. People are watching
to see what will and will not work.”
To put such a facility close by is “un-
conscionable,” he said, and to put it
“within a frisbee throw” of a school is
“absolutely nuts.”
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