2 • The Southwest Portland Post
EDITORIAL
October 2015
Urgent that Multnomah neighbors appear at City Council hearing on Nov. 19
OPEN FORUM
By Martie Sucec
Portland’s planning commission
recently recommended the planning
bureau’s 2035 Comprehensive Plan to
city council for public hearings, then
adoption. It’s the blueprint for growth,
including building sites, height, and
mass.
Oregon planning law requires that
processes be open to “widespread,
active citizen involvement.” But
2035 planning hasn’t been receptive
to many neighborhood associations,
who mostly know and are strongly
connected to their community’s social
fabric, landscapes, and living patterns.
Tireless neighborhood association
efforts mostly struck out. Echoing
Multnomah’s experience, one
Southeast leader wrote, “[City]
s t a ff h a v e n o t b e e n h e l p f u l i n
understanding or explaining the issues
to the [Planning and Sustainability
Commission], and [its] leadership
have as a result not been receptive
to implementing the neighborhood’s
requests.”
Dozens of Multnomah Neighborhood
Association amendments and
document/information requests were
ignored.
These were copied to the mayor,
planning-bureau director, planning-
commission chair, city commissioners,
state land-conservation-and-
development department, Metro’s
regional-planning director, others.
As one city staffer put it,
[neighborhoods] could have input,
but planners didn’t have to listen.
MNA leaders want changes in
policies and zoning that adversely
affect many Southwest neighborhoods.
For Multnomah, the Plan designates
the Village (now a linear “Main
Street”) a “Neighborhood Center,”
promoting dense development within
a half-mile radius.
MNA wants a linear “Neighborhood
Corridor” designation, limiting dense
development into adjacent streets.
Multnomah’s half-mile radius
falls within two even-denser
“Town Centers” (West Portland/
Hillsdale) and two “Civic Corridors”
(Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway/
Barbur Boulevard), allowing 10-story
buildings within half-mile radiuses.
New mixed-use zoning converts
current “Commercial Storefront”
(Village zone) to “Commercial Mixed-
Use (CM).”
Despite MNA’s lobbying for “CM1”
(three-story, 35-foot-buildings),
without a strong outcry, the Village
will be zoned “CM2,” allowing 45-foot
buildings. Within overlapping Town
Centers/Civic Corridors, 55-foot
buildings are inevitable.
Multnomah’s half-mile radius
encompasses almost the whole
neighborhood: under current zoning
3,980 households can increase to 5,900.
Under proposed zoning, build-out
View facing west of Southwest Capitol Highway at 35th Avenue showing current scale
and character of Multnomah Village, and the recent three-story building (right) that
complements the core area. (Photo by Stewart Rounds, used by permission)
increases 28 percent to about 7,560
households.
Where will they go?
Portland says it already has capacity
for enough growth to protect the
Urban Growth Boundary, so what’s
driving this development-on-steroids,
aside from profiteering? “Transit-
supported development.”
Because Southwest Capitol Highway,
Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway
and Barbur Boulevard surround
Multnomah, this policy is bluntly
applied—despite Multnomah’s
scale and character, healthy mix of
single- and multi-family-housing
options, and recent housing/business
development.
Barbur Boulevard and Beaverton-
Hillsdale Highway have transit to
Join us!
For an Education
Round Table with
local leaders.
well
be
…
and well informed
6pm, Thursday,
Oct. 8th
Lake Oswego
City Hall
Bowman’s Hillsdale
Pharmacy
We want to
hear from you!
6256 SW Capitol Hwy.
503-244-7582
Hosted by State Rep. Ann Lininger
email: pharmacy@hillsdalerx.com
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22
Editor & Publisher .........Don Snedecor
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The Post has a circulation of 7,000 in Multnomah Village and the surrounding
neighborhood business districts including Burlingame, Capitol Hill, Garden Home,
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www.mygnp.com
support denser development. Narrow
Capitol Highway does not. TriMet
says it can’t boost capacity much
in neighborhoods outside Central
City/“inner” neighborhoods.
Multnomah is treasured for
small-town vibrancy, economic and
social diversity, robust age mix,
small businesses, “greenscape”— all
imperiled by Plan-enabled mega-
redevelopment and rationalized by
“private-property rights” and/or the
UGB.
People living here now have property
rights too, so should neighborhoods.
This plan gives slash-and-burn-type-
developers rights that will constantly
trump ours.
Land-use planning that truly
balances economic values with
livability and community values
mostly eludes Portland, despite its
rhetoric.
The 2035 Comprehensive Plan will
radically alter Multnomah. Let’s
say NO to senseless demolition
of affordable housing, higher-rise
density, and relentless gentrification.
To save Multnomah, please appear/
testify at the City Council hearing
at 2 p.m. on Nov. 19 at City Hall to
support a “Neighborhood-Corridor”
designation and “CM1” zone in the
Village.
Martie Sucec lives in Multnomah.
Sucec joined scores of other Southwest
citizens who, in the mid-1990s, became
immersed in a six-year process to help
hammer out the Southwest Community
Plan, part of the current Comprehensive
Plan that remains in effect until adoption
of the 2035 Plan. The Post welcomes
reader response. Interested in writing
a guest column? Contact Don Snedecor
via email don@multnomahpost.com
or call 503-244-6933 for guidelines.
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