October 10, 2018
Page 5
Shaking Up Controversy
C ontinueD from f ront
retrofitting mandate.
“When I started contacting
churches, none of them knew
anything about the [proposed]
mandate to retrofit our buildings,”
Irving said.
Though city officials have said
they sent letters to stakeholders
this past spring, many apparently
had not received them, according
to a statement from the Portland
NAACP which is working on
the issue on behalf of other black
churches and other community
members.
Irving’s church and two other
black churches were on the URM
list on June 16 of this year, ac-
cording to an internet archive of
the city’s website from that time.
Those churches, both in north
Portland, were Celebration Tab-
ernacle Church, led by current
NAACP president Pastor E.D.
Mondaine and Christ Memorial
Church, led by Pastor Roy Tate.
Both Mondaine and Tate told the
Portland Observer they didn’t re-
ceive any notification then that
they were on the list, but Irving
did receive written notice in May.
According to the most up-to-date
URM list from the city’s website,
all three are still listed.
New Testament Church of God
, Maranatha Church, and Trinity
Full Gospel Pentecostal Church
are more examples of black
churches in the north/northeast
area of Portland on the list, among
dozens of other churches all across
the city.
A huge concern for Bishop Ir-
ving and others is the expense to
retrofit. Irving estimates the cost
to upgrade his church for better
earthquake protection would be
anywhere from $1 to $1.75 mil-
lion.
“There’s no lending institution
that would lend us that kind of
money,” he said.
Continuing to operate without
the upgrades, Irving said, could
result in his church, and other es-
tablishments who can’t afford the
remodels, being condemned and
forced closed.
In addition, some 7,000 resi-
dential units--1,800 of which are
designated as serving low-income
– are designated as non-conform-
ing to the new standards.
Of the 1,600 non-residential
URM buildings, 1,415 are com-
mercial, including thousands of
small businesses, 43 are Portland
Public Schools, and 38 churches,
according to a grassroots volun-
teer group made of individual
and family community members
called Save Portland Buildings.
About four years ago, the City
Council directed three of its city
departments—the Bureau of
Emergency Management, Bureau
of Development Services, and
Portland Development Commis-
sion (now called Prosper Port-
land)—to research and create
recommendations for a mandatory
retrofit policy for the buildings in
question, Bureau of Emergency
Management Public Information
Officer Dan Douthit told the Port-
land Observer.
The mandate to go beyond the
required posting to actually ret-
rofit the identified commercial
buildings, schools and churches,
is expected to come to City Hall
in about a year. A committee will
be formed until that time to assess
the logistics of its implementation
(the city is currently accepting ap-
plications to be a part of that com-
mittee)
As part of that process, city
officials are working with state
legislators to drum up a way of
partially reimbursing owners for
the cost of retrofitting, Douth-
it said. He added that a revolv-
ing fund specifically designated
for non-profits, is one idea being
looked into.
A 20-year time frame for the
building upgrades to be completed
for each building, with a shorter
timeframe for city-owned build-
ings, is expected to be part of the
mandate, but the yet-to-be-formed
committee will ultimately decide
that, Douthit said.
Irving has called for the entire
process to start from scratch and
Portland NAACP released a state-
ment last month calling for the
immediate halting of the any plac-
arding initiatives “until an inclu-
sive resolution has been drafted
and approved by the community.”
The civil rights group com-
pared the practice of placarding to
the historical blighting of Albina,
referencing black neighborhoods
that were designated as “blight-
ed” in north and northeast Port-
land in the 1960s and 70s by City
Council. The designation allowed
the Portland Development Com-
mission to tear down 160 houses
and 28 businesses and is blamed
with causing the displacement of
a large number of African Ameri-
cans in the area.
According to its website, the
Save Portland Buildings group
also calls for the halting of plac-
arding on buildings, as well as
education to the community about
earthquake readiness, and a fix of
the city’s URM list which has in-
accuracies.
A disclaimer on the city’s web-
site states its list of URM build-
ings apparently isn’t 100 percent
reliable, having been started
from a list from the 1990s from a
very cursory “windshield” study,
Douthit said. Data points were
then investigated, corrected, or
added later by city staff, when the
retrofit mandate recommendations
were being formulated four years
ago.
Douthit said the list is mostly
accurate. He added that an appeals
process is in place for those who
are on the list that might’ve got-
ten their building upgraded in the
interim, which would further im-
prove the list’s accuracy.
The accuracy of the list raised
a lot of questions from communi-
ty members last Wednesday when
the City Council heard testimo-
nies on the placarding proposal
and received much opposition,
though Commissioner Dan Saltz-
man defended the list.
Community members repre-
senting music venues, business
owners, and others said the plac-
ards could drive away revenue.
During that hearing an amend-
ment passed unanimously, initi-
ated by Commissioner Amanda
Fritz, to make the placards more
accessible—such as including the
text in brail—and mandating the
information be passed on to ten-
ants of the buildings in question.
The original initiative to up-
grade URM buildings was spurred
by the fact that Portland is con-
sidered to be under-equipped for
a major catastrophic earthquake
charting 5 points or above on the
Richter scale, one that scientists
say may happen any day. The last
catastrophic quake to hit Oregon
was in 1700, 318 years ago, while
the average interval between most
major quakes is 243 years.
Under the city’s proposed time-
line, a publicly-owned building
impacted would be required to
post the warning placards on or
before Jan. 1; privately-owned
buildings would have until March
1 and non-profits would be given
until Nov. 1, 2020. The new regu-
lations would be enforced by reg-
ular inspections through Portland
Fire and Rescue.