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Burlingame • Capitol Hill
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• South Portland
• Multnomah Village
• Raleigh Hills • Vermont
Hills • West Portland
Southwest Portland’s Independent Neighborhood Newspaper
Volume No. 15, Issue No.11
www.multnomahvillagepost.com
Portland, Oregon
Complimentary
--Page 11
September 2007
New Holly Farm Park skate
spot scores with shredders
By Mark Ellis
The Multnomah Village Post
West Portland’s Holly Farm Park has
four big corners, but all the action is in
one of them. On a mid-August evening
there were grinds, ollies, and wipe-outs
galore as area skateboarders tested their
skills against what all agreed is a “tight
little park.”
Taking a break from his rail-riding,
bank-busting aerials, 16-year-old Brian
Seibert approved of the skate park’s
design. “It’s got a good flow,” he said,
and then flashed off to teeter along a
handrail like a tightrope walker.
Jordon Marchand, 17, visiting from
Louisiana, took off his brain-bucket
(helmet) long enough to say that
the Holly Farm layout is “creative,
better than some of the bigger parks I’ve
ridden.”
It’s not all about the skateboarding.
The new park, scheduled for a formal
ribbon cutting ceremony on Saturday
September 15, at 3:00 p.m., boasts a
lush lawn, handsome benches, and
children’s play structure.
Perusal of a parks department hand
out reveals that opening day will
include games, crafts for kids, and self-
guided interpretive tour. Celebratory
food items will be available, but families
are encouraged to bring a picnic.
‘It was a long-time dream of the
West Portland Park Neighborhood
Association,”
says
Portland
Parks Business and Development
spokesperson Sarah Schlosser-Moon,
“for a place to gather and play as
a community.”
The farm’s history is a far cry from
the shredding vertical jumps and
quarter pipe descents, which began at
the park only days after construction
crews, planted the new sign.
Legendary holly horticulturist John
S. Weiman began his hybridizing of
English holly at the location in 1926, and
went on to register twenty-seven new
varieties between 1959 and 2000.
The Weiman family lived in the
large home on Capitol Highway until
1998, bearing witness to the eventual
development of the area, including PCC
Sylvania. The farm’s main residence
was set back on the property, shaded
by trees, and singular for its one-story
stucco exterior.
Weiman received the highest award
from the Holly Society of America
in 1983, and varieties of his hollies
can be found in Hoyt Arboretum
and many places in the United States
and Europe.
‘This is great,” said Ron Cusick,
over from Lake Oswego after spotting
the park on his way home from work.
His daughter Brooklyn had only one
complaint: there aren’t enough swings.
Lucy Koch strolled the pathway
with her husband and two Siberian
Huskies while their children checked
out the play structure. ‘This is our first
time here,” she admitted, but there’s
no doubt that her family plans to make
regular visits.
Back at the skating area a female
skater gets her board out into the mix.
Kelly Murphy takes a ramp or two, all
the while watching for where exactly
the next skater will hurdle by.
The buzz around skate culture
that week was focused on a certain
professional skater who grabbed so
much air at the recent X Games he
ended up in a 35-foot freefall.
The miscue made video headlines,
and Holly Farm skaters--like skaters
around the country-- high-fived when
Jake “Nothings Broken” Brown walked
away unhurt from what has to be the
ultimate bail.
The skaters had a thing or two to say
about the new park, but they had come
to skate. By the time rush hour hit on
Capitol Highway there was a bit of a
cluster in the skate area too.
Soon table top-jumps and tail sliders
were flying every which way, long
curving arcs known as carving flying
into almost horizontal realms, all ages,
both sexes, and a good representation
of fairly young children. Young Recan
Rasheed, his brain-bucket strapped on
and his skateboard half as big as he is,
probably sums it up best. “It’s fun.”
Portland police officer Angela Hollan and her horse Ian of the Mounted Patrol
Unit were part of the Central Precinct’s Open House during the Multnomah Days
Festival held on August 18. Taking a special interest in Ian were (from left) Siena
Kelso, Jenna Thompson and Madison Carbo. Additional Multnomah Days photos
on Page 16. (Photo courtesy Portland Police Bureau)
Neighbors complain that Southwest Community
Plan doesn’t enforce design standards
By Lee Perlman
The Multnomah Village Post
In discussing a new development
proposal for Multnomah Village,
longtime community activist Mike
Roche expressed frustration not just
with the proposal itself (he called the
design “atrocious”), but also with the
process, or lack of it, by which it had
come about. “The deal we made in the
Southwest Community Plan was that in
exchange for higher density we’d have
design review,” Roche said.
Well, Multnomah sort of has it
and sort of doesn’t. The Southwest
Community Plan, passed in 2001
after a lengthy process, zoned much
of Multnomah Village CS (storefront
commercial), and R1 [medium density,
one residential dwelling per 1000
square feet]. Either allows residential
development at densities up to one
unit per 1,000 square feet of lot space,
or about five times the density of single
family dwellings, and a minimum
density of one unit per 2,000 square feet
of lot space.
The CS zone requires buildings to
be situated at or near the property
line and forbids parking between the
building front and the sidewalk, pretty
much in keeping with the character of
the area. Both have a height limit of 45
feet, allowing structures far taller than
their neighbors to be built as a matter
of right.
Because
Multnomah
Village
is designated a ‘main street,’
development there is governed by the
Portland zoning code’s community
design standards and their “two
track” system. These are a series of
design elements normally required
for new development.
They
include
pitched
roofs,
ornamental columns on front porches
under some conditions, and lower
height limits for new projects when
the development site abuts residential
land with a lower height limit. A
developer who wants to deviate from
these rules must go through a design
review process.
The bad news, for people such as
Roche, is that the rules were designed
for the city as a whole, not just
Multnomah, and do not necessarily
fit the character of the area. Further,
if developers meet these rules, they
can build as a matter of right, with no
review by the city or the public.
A state law passed in 2004 stipulated
that except in Downtown, Gateway
and designated historic districts such
as Lair Hill, developers had to be given
the option of being allowed to build
if they passed objective standards,
without public review.
Planner Marie Johnson, who
shepherded
the
Southwest
(Continued on page 3)
Don’t forget to renew your subscription! Just fill out the form on Page 2.
The Multnomah Village Post
7825 SW 36th Ave Suite #203
Portland, OR 97219
A pair of skaters try out the new Holly Farm skate spot August 14. (Photo courtesy
of Hans Marshall Ellis)