Started with Neil.

Neil was actually a lot smarter than Vera, whom he controlled. She took the craziness to a whole new level, culminating in the Adams "administration."

There are so-o-o-o many things to comment on about that article. The overall lack of any common sense leads the way, but here are a few more:

> Hales is full of crap and is only appearing to back-peddle because of the election.

> Smith is delusional on the numbers coming to town - no surprise.

> The residents quoted seem to have drunk the kool-aid, while being hypocrites - almost all of them have cars.

> The fact that young people don't have cars has nothing to do with lifestyle changes and everything to do with affordability from low wages and no jobs.

> Robert Liberty is another nanny-state loon that would have been popular with Stalin - back in the day.

> The money quote is where Hales says that he couldn't have imagined that banks would actually make loans for apartments with no parking. Hah! I bet he also couldn't imagine the banks making really bad bets on housing either.

The sad part of this CRAP scheme is that the next big peg down in our economy is just around the corner, and the banks are going to have another crap load of bad loans on their books. Of course the banks know they are going to get bailed out, so what do they care?

Hales tells WW that when the city was rewriting the zoning code in 2000 to eliminate the parking requirement, he never thought developers would actually build apartments without parking.

“We were trying to get developers to put in one [parking] spot instead of two,” he says. “I certainly wasn’t smart enough to anticipate that banks would finance projects with no parking whatsoever.”

Yeah, And he wants to be re-elected? As Mayor? How stupid do you think we are? He loses either way as in "I didn't know the gun was loaded"!

And as for his comment about fluoride vote, that's even worse!

He hasn't the foggiest notion and does not deserve to be on our council.

Write in LaVonne Griffin-Valade for mayor.

“We were trying to get developers to put in one [parking] spot instead of two,”

Trying? As Planning commissioner, he could have put one spot required in the code,
why didn’t he? Why was the parking requirement even eliminated? Now he claims not smart enough to anticipate and he wants to blame it on the banks?

Hard to run away from all that he instigated while in city council.
Those that watched Charlie as he maneuvered so cleverly as the fox in the hen house of planning and changed the good codes we had into whatever would never trust him in those city hall chambers again.
He just wants back in now and will make up anything.

"WW conducted a survey of residents at Gerel’s 23-unit apartment complex. We talked to 10 residents, who own a total of 11 cars and 14 bicycles. Every resident owns a car, but many of them say they rarely drive.

Many of the residents work in the environmental and sustainability fields. “Personally, I don’t mind the extra motivation to not drive,” says Andy Davidhazy, a creative director who designs MAX stations."

EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. had a car.

This seems to be the level of thinking among the kool-aid drinkers: "There are a ton of people who don't have cars. Except for members of the environmental and sustainability fields... and planners... and bureaucrats. In fact, I don't know anyone who doesn't own a car. But I tell you that they are out their in droves. Cuz of um... millenials or something."

That area of Division is being flat-out ruined as we watch. Long time residents and new apartment dwellers alike will spend every day living there counting days until they can move out. And it was done on purpose.

Jack, I see no evidence that G-V is running. I will do a write in, but not her at this point.

Even if the residents don't own a car, they will certainly have friends visit that drive there. Many of them will also rent a car or join a car-share program: where are all those visitors and rental cars supposed to park.

The Orwellian mind-f^%k is getting worse and worse in P-town.

It was also Charlie Hales who gutted the solar access laws that made possible these privacy-and-light obliterating apartments, as well as the 3-story skinny houses going up in my SE neighborhood.
http://blog.oregonlive.com/portlandcityhall/2012/08/charlie_hales_vs_bud_clark_and.html
As for the parking, the legal parking limit on the street is 24 hours, but the city does not enforce it, and, as I have written here before, it is possible for someone to store a vehicle on the street for up to 2 years, or the entire registration period, without getting a ticket or a tow. If the city would enforce it's parking regulations, and these no-parking apartment dwellers had to move their vehicles every 24 hours, they might re-think their vehicle ownership. As it is, they have no reason to do so.