September 5, 2018
Page 15
Trying to
Get it Right
C ontinueD from f ront
formed in northeast Portland’s Cully Neighborhood which
promotes the economic and environmental uplifting of
low-income communities in the city.
The CBA, which will be legally binding, will be a first
for the coalition, DeFalco said.
“The big picture is that this is an opportunity for us as a
city to get development right by prioritizing racial justice,
environmental justice and economic justice,” he said.
The city caused great harm to communities of color in
the past, such as the urban renewal of the 1960s and 70s
that brought the construction of the Memorial Coliseum
the I-5 freeway, the expanded Emanuel Hospital cam-
pus that all but wiped out the thriving African American
community of Albina, and gentrification in the 1990s and
2000s with the displacement of thousands of black res-
idents. But now it’s trying to correct previous mistakes.
The Healthy Communities Coalition was only created
a few years ago, said DeFalco, and this is its first major
development undertaking. Members of the coalition in-
clude OPAL Environmental Justice, O’Neill Construction,
Main Street Alliance, Portland Voz, Metropolitan Alliance
for Workforce Equity, Coalition of Communities of Col-
or, Portland Firefighters Union, Oregon Tradeswomen,
Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon, Internation-
al Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and several more
unions and nonprofits.
DeFalco said he is “particularly excited” that the coa-
lition is made up of labor, environmental and civil rights
groups.
“Let’s build on the painful understanding that we have
of how urban renewal has not benefited our communities,
to lift up something that really does benefit our commu-
nities,” he said. “I see in this proposal a real desire to do
that and now we have the hard work of committing to that
and working through that over several months and into the
coming years.”
Coming to an agreement with the city between dif-
ferent community organizations was nearly impossible a
few years ago, said Vivian Satterfield, deputy director of
OPAL Environmental Justice, because many times non-
profits were at cross purposes.
“When it comes to big projects, our priorities would be
pitted against each other,” she said. “With (formation of)
the coalition we learned how to come to understanding
and have solidarity.”
The coalition has come up with an 8-page platform that
was presented to Prosper Portland, and the final three-way
photo by D anny p eterson /t he p ortlanD o bserver
Dubbed the Broadway Corridor, 32 acres of prime Pearl District real estate will be redeveloped for new housing
and retail under a Community Benefits Agreement, or CPA, a legally binding agreement between the city,
developer and community advocates to make sure the project benefits Portland’s diverse and disadvantaged
populations.
agreement with the city, the developer, and the coalition
will grow from that, Satterfield said.
The ideas presented in the coalition’s platform are broad
in scope, addressing affordable housing, job opportunities,
community open space, disabled accessible units, child-
care, grocery stores, business opportunities, and commu-
nity programming with a permanent funding stream.
According to the platform, development on the Broad-
way Corridor site “should lead to long term, shared wealth
creation for all Portlanders, starting with people and busi-
nesses who have been hit hardest by race and gender dis-
crimination, and the corporate push to make work pay less
for more hours.”
The development will be years in the making, and will
include moving the Post Office distribution headquarters
to the Cully neighborhood, near Portland’s airport. DeFal-
co said that neighborhood also deserves to be protected
from any undesirable effects of moving the postal facility.
The coalition’s platform addresses that by suggesting
that a mitigation fund be established to mitigate for carbon
emissions from construction and increased traffic as well
as for those displaced from housing or jobs.
This is important because the Cully neighborhood will
be getting more truck traffic and noise, vehicle pollution
and increased danger to pedestrians, DeFalco said, “So we
asked for a fund to be based on some analysis on how those
things can be monetized in terms of negative impacts.”
Just where that funding would come from is yet to be
determined, DeFalco said.
“We’re just getting started,” he said.
Negotiations for the final contents of the CBA will be-
gin next spring, said Kimberly Branam, executive director
of Prosper Portland, but steering committee discussions
began more than a year ago to bring community values
into the process.
“When we began the process we knew we wanted to do
things differently this time,” she said. “We’ve starting ear-
ly and are excited about what this means for our future.”