April 2012
NEWS
The Southwest Portland Post • 3
Committee imagines focus areas along Barbur Boulevard
By Lee Perlman
The Southwest Portland Post
The Bureau of Planning and Sustain-
ability’s Barbur Concept Plan process
last month processes last month en-
tered a visioning phase, with members
considering an ideal future for seven
“focus areas.”
These are also potential station sites
for a future light rail line or high capac-
ity transit route.
As proposed by planners Jay Sugnet
and John Fregonese, these areas are:
Gibbs Street, Hamilton Street, Terwil-
liger Boulevard, Capitol Hill Road, 26 th
Avenue, Crossroads (the Southwest
Barbur Boulevard-Capitol Highway-
Interstate 5 interchange), and Portland
Community College’s Sylvania Cam-
pus.
The current land uses at these loca-
tions are “a limited number of build-
ing types repeated over and over,”
Fregonese told the project Stakeholders
Advisory Committee last month. “We
want to start thinking with a bigger box
of crayons.”
Fregonese suggested the type of
higher intensity development seen on
the city’s main streets, and particu-
larly Northwest 23 rd Avenue, Northeast
Broadway Street, and Southwest Capi-
tol Highway in Multnomah Village.
Fregonese spoke favorably of Mult-
nomah’s Headwaters housing project,
where “in summer you hear the buzz
of animals and birds.” Even more im-
portant is access to shopping.
“The number one reason people go
out is to go to a retail store,” Fregonese
said. He said there should be parking
for both bicycles and cars, and extolled
mixed-use development.
“Right on a retail street may not be
where you’d want to live, but a block
away?” Much of southwest includes
“formerly auto-oriented suburban areas
that are evolving,” said Fregonese.
Planners need to be flexible in their
approach to Barbur, Fregonese said.
“What works at Capitol Hill may not
work on Terwilliger,” he said.
Indeed, the focus areas as selected are
themselves “crash test dummies” that
can be rejected or moved if needed, he
said. “We need to test what you do and
don’t like, ask the public to mix and
match, and learn from our failures.”
This was a fortunate attitude to take
because, before the month was out, the
South Portland Neighborhood Associa-
tion had officially called for Gibbs Street
to be removed as a focus area.
Delegates Laura Campos and Jim
Gardner both said that the area is
largely composed of single-family
homes, which Gardner pointed out
include part of the Lair Hill National
Historic District.
They would be in jeopardy if the area
was rezoned for higher density. Sugnet
said the area was chosen in part because
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of the tram and new pe-
destrian bridge bringing
people to OHSU.
The study is not propos-
ing zoning changes for
single-family neighbor-
hoods, he said. Fregonese
said the focus areas need
not be “monochromatic.”
The Stakeholders and
planners also looked at
other focus areas. Planner
Glenn Bolen said Sylva- A potential light rail station, Southwest 26th Avenue
nia was included in the is one of the focus areas of the Barbur Concept Plan.
hope of “connecting and (Post photo by Don Snedecor)
making it more a part of
remodel doesn’t get tagged with it all.”
the community.”
Averbeck asked if the Oregon Depart-
Hillsdale activist Baack said that
ment of Transportation would cooper-
Southwest Multnomah Boulevard west
ate with proposed changes to Barbur
of 19th Avenue is “a really great place
and freeway accesses.
for redevelopment.”
Fregonese replied, “They’ve changed
Another stakeholder, Ken Williams,
a lot. They’re not just about moving cars
said areas to the west between Barbur
anymore.” Some years ago, efforts to
Boulevard and Interstate 5 are totally
restore on street parking to Northeast
undeveloped.
Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard pro-
Southwest Neighborhoods, Inc.
duced “a pitched battle,” he said. “Now
transportation chair Roger Averbeck
we’re free to dream and imagine.”
cautioned, “When you have a freeway
Different rates of speed may be ap-
off-ramp, it changes the conversation.
propriate in different places, Fregonese
The closer you get, the more expensive
said, and traffic projects could mean
and complicated development is.”
“spending a lot of money for minimal
SWNI land use chair John Gibbon
improvement. The level of service is not
agreed: “I live in the neighborhood,
the king anymore anywhere in the U.S.”
and I avoid those areas like the plague.”
Williams said, “The problem isn’t
Sugnet said perhaps such areas would
Barbur (Boulevard) per se, but what’s
be better suited for office development.
around it,” including access streets.
Gibbon added that the cost of City-
Stakeholder Bill Garryfallow said,
required storm water treatment with
“The more people view Barbur (Bou-
any development would be “really
levard) as their home, the less they’ll
spendy.” Fregonese said, “We need to
zoom through.”
make sure the person coming in for a