Wait 'til the condo dwellers catch on that there's a lovely methadone clinic a few blocks away. Should make for some interesting chit-chat up on the eco-roof.

I'm fairly sure that's the same methadone clinic operation that used to be located a block from my home in the Hollywood District...had an altercation there once where I parked myself across the street with a camcorder to record suspicious goings-on outside on the sidewalk...within a minute I was surrounded by a crowd of addicts and "counselors" screaming abuse.

From the cited document:The Belmont Condominium Project will be located in a prime close-in, southeast Portland neighborhood known as The Belmont District, which has historically been an underserved market.

The building will consist of a five-story, mid-rise condominium, located approximately one mile
east of Portland’s Central Business District. The Project will contain approximately 131 units in a single building with approximately 125 parking stalls in a ground level structured garage.

Construction is currently scheduled to begin early 2007.
JK: Random thoughts:
131 units and 125 parking spaces. Expect about 130 more cars parked on nearby streets.

Another little LA (or NYC) comes to Portland, presumable tax free for ten years.

Hey Frank, how do you like this little gem? Or is it far enough away from your home that it is OK?

Last time I was in that area, the neighborhood activists were looking forward to more density. Hope they like this one.

Thanks
JK

Yeah, build UP to alleviate urban sprawl...just not in MY neighborhood!!

Hope you're not talking to me. I'm not into the "up" thing anywhere in Portland. And I haven't lived in Buckman in almost nine years.

131 units and 125 parking spaces. Expect about 130 more cars parked on nearby streets.

The conspiratorial part of my brain believes that projects like this get approved because one inevitable result is that the neighbors will complain about clogged parking, and the city will say "ok, then we'll go to a permit-parking situation in the neighborhood," which is a revenue source and helps move Portland towards the sacred car-free future.

(Also noting that one potential problem is that directly N of the new project is the cemetery, so that reduces the nearby streets that can serve as parking spaces for all the new cars.)

It's not exactly a high-rise, five stories. The proposed building looks better to me than many of the (usually puke-mustard color) plexes that are already in the neighborhood as well.

As far as the methadone clinic (which I go by every day on the way to work), well, I'd rather live in a community where well-to-do rub elbows with the not-so-much, instead of living in an out-of-sight, out-of-mind homogeneous income pod in the burbs.

As far as parking, I would think many of the units will get by just fine with one, or zero, cars. It's walking distance to downtown, as well as easy to bus/bike. ( stats on similar units would be interesting) I'm sure the extra dough from having fewer cars will mean an extra mortgage payment or two a year.

As far as parking, I would think many of the units will get by just fine with one, or zero, cars. It's walking distance to downtown, as well as easy to bus/bike. ( stats on similar units would be interesting) I'm sure the extra dough from having fewer cars will mean an extra mortgage payment or two a year.

The NY Times did an article recently (including something on Portland) talking about how the rage for builders was to have fewer spaces than units, the theory being that more and more condo owners are content to be a one (or no) car family. Fair enough, and I know some of these people. But, we're still a car-dominated culture, and for every person who can live in the new building with one car, you'll have a family who needs 3. And, really, unless you institute a parking-permit system in the neighborhood, there is no way the builder can prohibit them from parking one in the alloted space and two in front of the house down the street.

Sounds like you've got all the answers. Glad someone is so in love with what's happening to Portland.

well-to-do rub elbows with the not-so-much

That's what so funny. The Homer Williams well-to-do don't want to even look at the not-so-much, much less rub elbows with them. They're in for a real shock in Buckman. Old moneybags will be laughing all the way to the bank.

I'm sure the extra dough from having fewer cars will mean an extra mortgage payment or two a year.

$300 a square foot, and no place to put a car. In Portland, Oregon. What a joke.

"Puke-mustard color"?

Oh...yeah...Those would be the Weston Specials, most of which were built in the 1970s and 1980s...AKA "the T-111 rabbit warrens".

Well, maybe BCA will give Homer the same warm welcome they gave Joe Weston. That'd be nice.

Just one methadone clinic? That's all? Cheeses, when I lived there (when it was known as the Revolutionary People's Republic of Buckman), Buckman was the group home capital of the metropolitan area, serving more marginal members of our battered society than nearly every other neighborhood in town. There are both federal and state halfway houses for prisoners being released, there are group homes for the retarded, the developmentally disabled, the drug addled, kids in trouble...you name it, it's probably there in Buckman.

Not to mention the dead people. It is going to be right across Morrison from Lone Fir Cemetary, right?

Folks who move in there might want to consider keeping a cricket bat around the house...you never know when the zombies might get loose.

(Dead people are far more likely to be quieter than regular freight trains, though.)

The convenience store nearby on Belmont that caters to the 40-ouncer street drinker set will be a nice neighbor for the Marin County emigrees. And the drug dealer pay phone out front is another great resource. Plus, don't miss the Reed-drop-out graffiti! World class.

"ground level structured garage"
Sounds like a TOD, Transit Oriented Development, subsidy from Metro.
Oh, just another couple million for developers with the public benefit being entirely theoretical and imaginary.

And yes it's another parking nightmare.

Hey! Maybe it will be a twin of different fathers to the atrocious monstrosity that is being assembled at 26th and Division. It's only three stories and it overwhelms everything already.

Cheeses, it is uuuuuuuugly.

Yep. Two hundred city planners and nothing but ugly cr*p going up all over. Sten's Portland.

Doesn't everyone feel just swell about the UGB today ? Well, everyone who is laughing all the way to the bank, that is...

The "countercultural" residents of Buckman, and all of inner SE, really, are going to be forced out to Gresham in record time when their rental units are remodeled and either sold or rented back out at 2.5x the current rate, and that methadone clinic will be foisted off on a poorer neighborhood so fast it will make your head spin.

I can't wait to see what happens when all the Californians who are going to inhabit the ugly-ass units going in along NW Front really start raising hell about all the freight trains. Perhaps we can just surgically remove everything that's left of Portland's industrial shipping economy, and everyone can just sell each other condos and 6 dollar cups of coffee.

See you in East County !

Hey, on a condo related note, I notice the Oregonian website is going to have a story about the Hungry Tiger in tomorrow's paper.

The blurb says the Hungry Tiger building "needed about a million dollars in repairs."

Since regularly scheduled maintenance is part of any good business operation, it seems that Hungry Tiger was in fact NOT a well run business. Despite the affinity for it expressed on these pages and elsewhere, it was not generating enough revenue to support the necessary maintenance needed for the building's survival.

This begs the question - if an existing business cannot generate enough income to survive, yet the preferred outcome (expressed in this space many times by many individuals) is for no new development to occur, what should happen to the business? Any ideas?

Also, Jack - you're not a fan of the $300 a square foot price for this development, but earlier you expressed a preference that development in Portland should cease, which would cause housing values and rents to rise (so long as people continue to find desirable, which they clearly do).

So I don't understand the objection to the $300 a square foot figure. Shouldn't you want that number to rise, so as to prevent more people from being able to move into Portland? Or do you want that number to fall (but in that case, it ends up making Portland MORE desirable, especially to Californians!)

If you're ONLY objecting to the development itself and not the price, that would seem to be consistent. But objecting to the price seems inconsistent with past statements. I'm just trying to get a sense of what you really believe vis-a-vis the preferred level of real estate prices in Portland. :)

A comment about the relative number of condo units and parking spaces: it is easy to be concerned about this, as several people above are. But a bit of perspective:

I live a bit less than one block north of the Hollywood branch library / "Bookmark" apartment complex, which has a comparable ratio of units to parking spaces as the forthcoming Belmont structure. A lot of us in the neighborhood were pretty upset during building planning about the seemingly inadequate parking (and about the cozy relationship between the developer and the County, but that's another matter). As it turns out, yes, I would say that street parking is indeed harder to come by on the blocks right next to the library, but the effect is really quite localized. Frankly, the occasional frustration I have about the parking issue is outweighed by the fact that I can head out the front door with my child and be at the library in about a minute.

The Belmont structure is obviously going to be a lot bigger than the Hollywood library structure as far as living units goes, but library patrons also take up parking spots on the street. My (semi)educated guess is that the Belmont structure is going to have only a very localized effect on street parking.

Sorry for the multiple posts, but Cabbie - where do they sell 6 dollar cups of coffee? Honestly, that is a business I'd like a part of - the margins on each transaction would be enough to retire on after a couple of years! It's like $5.50 of pure profit for every cup sold!

Whoever thought of that idea is a GENIUS. I'd like to go there and copy the idea!

Hey Frank, how do you like this little gem? Or is it far enough away from your home that it is OK?

I don't think there's anything wrong, Jim, with every neighborhood having different housing options, including affordable housing. Mine does. I'm not familiar with this particular development.

I think we need to respect the fabric of neighborhoods when we can. I also recognize that neighborhoods continually evolve.

One can support the urban growth boundary without also saying we have to house a billion new people in the next 30 minutes, or whatever METRO's latest line is. There are limits to what's sustainable.

Uh oh...did I say "sustainable?"

Frank

Fun discussion over on Portland Architecture re the tram, condos, South Waterfront...

http://chatterbox.typepad.com/portlandarchitecture/2007/02/ohsu_receives_4.html#comments

Frank,
I think you sway from the path of logic when you simultaneously disparage much of the UR SoWa type scheming while at the same time continually defend the status quo planning cabal that is really behind it all. What's up with that?
I know you realize there is tremendous dishonesty in planning circles and various agencies. But then why do you assume they are telling the truth on matters you continue to support?

defend the status quo planning cabal that is really behind it all. What's up with that?

I'm part of the secret cabal?

And if it's "status quo" then why are things going south on us? (Maybe we should change the cliche to going South Waterfront on us?)

What's up is I think there's good people and bad people, and good policies and bad policies and it ain't all black and white to me. And, truth be told, I don't always know what's right.

When I think I have a good idea that I do, though, stuff I'm personally knowledgable about...I speak out.

Besides, I don't believe in cabal, I've got satellite TV!

Er, I drink "Coffee" sometimes...I'll even occasionally pay $1.50 for a little cup downtown...but I didn't feel like listing all the megafrapacrapalattecino variants that are substantially more expensive at all the cute little shops over on skid row, excuse me, The Pearl, so I just used the generic term.

Personally, I prefer strong black Earl Grey...it's quite cheap to brew at home.

There are loads and loads of people fleeing here from Cali. The secret is out, and many tens of thousands of them are flocking here yearly. The artificial UGB will not affect the sheer amount of newcomers one iota, but what it DOES have a demonstrable effect on is land values and density.

For the record, the vast majority of the "Density" we are seeing in Portland today caters almost exclusively to the upper strata of society.

One of my customers had an idea last night. He argued that, as part of the mammoth tax breaks granted to the developers of these hideous condos, there should be a legal clause forcing them to construct a certain percentage of normal brick apartment buildings for regular people, as well, because there is otherwise absolutely no market incentive for them to do this. Nice utopian idea, but it'll never happen.

There ARE those lovely townhouses going in around NE MLK and Dekum. What a wonderful quality of life the inhabitants of those shoddily constructed pieces of fecal matter are going to enjoy, crammed in there a-hole to elbow with the neighbors, as they listen to televisions blaring through those thin walls and the kids playing on the asphalt. I suppose if you need to borrow a cup of sugar or something, it will be convenient to just reach outside your window to the window of the next unit over, without having to trip over 15 other people on your way down the stairs.

two things oregonians hate: density and sprawl.

What Oregonians really hate is population growth. It was being controlled somewhat until the Goldschmidt people took over and decided to cash in on it. "Oregon is open for business," Governor Neil said. That was code for, "I can sell your rape of Oregon, but you'll have to pay me." Now the Oregon dream of the '70s is as dead as a doornail. We're into "smart growth" now, which like "progressivism" and "suatainability" is just something the earnest Stennies mumble to each other while crooks wreck the place and chase the middle class out.

If it were 1978 again and I were picking a place to start a career, alas, it'd be somewhere like Boise. Either that or bite the bullet and live someplace real like San Francisco. It's too bad, but the magic of the Rose City has pretty much worn off. What's left is neither here nor there. Utterly soulless.

What's in store for all these high density condo develpments as the real estate bubble begins to collapse around the country? Condo developments get hit much harder than detached single family residences in these housing market corrections. Portland's just a little behind the curve in terms of the housing correction. We're not immune. I predict many of these condos will sit on the market vacant, with nervous investers listing them at a loss to get away from their ARM loans. Other possibility: many revert to rentals, flooding the local rental markets and driving down prices. Maybe more of the methadone clinic's patients will be able to rent nearby....

Homer, Go back to your SoCal condo. SE Portland is low-rise, a vibrant, and liveable community, with bikes and people who talk to each other. We don't need your aesthetic or the money handed to you by the PDC.

Too late, pal. He owns you now.

I wonder what we'll do when there are no more places to build five-story glass-steel condos next to one and two-story brick buildings?

what will we do when it can't get any denser?

i suppose that's when the magic kicks in, and the population, economy and cost of living magically right themselves.

just like in New York City.

sometimes, i feel like the younger sister that guys tried to sell me when I went drove to Tijuana. As the greasy developer pulls out a wad of cash, the city-pimp pushes my community to the front, saying "here you go, enjoy; just don't leave any marks."

Both Jack and Ecohuman seem to be bemoaning population growth. Yet, population is only growing because we continue to allow tons of immigration (the US citizen fertility rate is below replacement level and dropping). Immigrants flood the major metros like LA and NY, which push people out to second tier cities like Portland. That's the source of the issue - but I don't hear anyone talking about immigration, pro or con.

My position on immigration is that we should allow modest levels of it while selecting on the basis of skills and smarts. That's what Canada does. What are everyone else's ideas?

Also, Jack - Idaho is now the third fastest growing state in the union. I'm afraid you'll find no respite there.

One comment on the Boise Guardian (http://www.boiseguardian.com) said the following:

"We are so sick of the "growth at any cost" mantra that we are looking to move somewhere else for our golden years. I am a retired person but expect Ada County to start resembling Los Angeles before I die of old age."

Nobody likes where they live. :)

It's just a progression. Boise is where Portland was 20 years ago. If I went to Boise, I wouldn't be uncomfortable with the overrunning of the place for probably another 10 years.

I was very happy with Portland for around 20 years.

Why not Japan? Their population is shrinking. ;) Plus, great sushi!

Morgan,

the US rate is not below replacement. 2004 Census and 2005 ACS figures clearly say so.

nearly all immigration to Portland is from other US cities--and it's forbidden by the Constitution to prohibit such immigration.

Like the US, Canada doesn't restrict immigration between its cities.

I said among U.S. Citizens.

"The fertility of the population of the United States is below replacement among those native born, and above replacement among immigrant families."

"How Fertility Changes Across Immigrant Generations." Research Brief #58, Public Policy Institute of California, 2002.
(cited on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_rate

Also, to immigrate INTO Canada and receive a visa (for non-amnesty types), you must meet their skill requirement tests.

"Applicants for skilled worker immigration visa to Canada must have at least one year of full-time work experience in the past 10 years in any skilled occupation. In addition, the new selection system requires a pass mark of 67 out of 100 points on the following factors: age, education, work experience, language ability and adaptability."

I am saying we should adopt a similar system in the United States, and enforce it so that only a moderate amount of skilled are allowed entry each year. Otherwise, the system is overwhelmed.

My point, just in case it wasn't clear, was that if you reduce uncontrolled immigration, you will reduce the pressure (economic and social) of those leaving major metros like NY and LA to come to cities like Portland.

Population growth is *largely* due to immigration and the higher fertility rates those immigrants have, as opposed to US citizens.

Morgan, you're overdoing it. Please don't crowd the mike.

Portland, Souless? This city has more soul in its little finger than most cities have in their entire boundries. I've bounced around from city to city for along time and I guarantee you will not know what you are missing until you are away.

Boise is great if you want cheap land and strip malls and Olive Garden.

San Fran? Pa-leeze. Great place to visit but completely unlivable. Same with Chicago & New York.

Salt Lake? Sprawl. Denver? More Sprawl. Phoenix? Even more sprawl. Seattle. OMG, what a traffic nightmare, but at least it has a downtown worth a damn.

Ok City? Louisville? Nashville? Memphis? Indianapolis? Milwaulkie? KC City? Las Veags? Minn-St. Paul? Each of those cities is more disfunctional than Portland.

Obsessing with Homer and City Hall won't let you see the forest through the trees.

Portland used to have a lot of character. Now it is totally Bank of America and Olive Garden, through and through, with a thin veneer of Progressivism and Sustainable Ecotopia over the whole thing. Downtown, Northwest, Belmont, Hawthorne, Colonial Heights, it's all being turned into the same glass condo mess. Sure, it's more "livable" than some of the hellholes that pass for cities, but it's lost what distinction it once had.

Homer and City Hall are the forest, baby. Don't let your groovy bike path loop obscure the reality of what Portland is being turned into -- an unaffordable condo jungle for rich folks from California that your kids won't be able to (and probably won't want to) live in.

As for sprawl, what do you call Troutdale to Hillsboro, Camas to McMinnville? Except from a very high horse, that's called sprawl, my friend. Now we're wrecking (and bankrupting) the once-family-friendly inner city neighborhoods based on vague falsehoods about how we're preserving something. Preserving what? Some little patch of farmland left in a place like Newberg that will be developed in the next 20 years anyway? Next up, toll roads through the valley so that the rich guys can get to the coast faster, and price everybody normal out of there, too.

You can sit back silently and watch it if you like, but I'd prefer it if somebody said something.

But, Jack, at the risk of repeating myself, I still don't understand how your preferred stance of halting all new construction will help the average family. Prices of all sorts would rise under that scenario - rents, costs of production, etc. How does that help the average family? It would just turn Portland into even more of a rich enclave, like Carmel or Sausalito.

"131 units in a single building with approximately (?) 125 parking stalls in a ground level structured garage."

I can see the signs now out front of the condos..."If you lived here, you'd already be Homer Condo'd"

How about mandated CCRs that requires all owners, renters or lessors of any of HomerCondos to have no more than .954198 cars per unit. If the CCR is really liberal, then maybe we could round up to a complete car per unit, but owners 126 - 131 walk or ride Trimet.

BTW, didn't the estimates on Phart use the same term "approximately" in their estimate of cost... such as, "the estimated cost should be approximately $7 million dollars."

Does this mean HomerCondos with have more or less spaces. Could get crowded on the streets of S.E. Belmont.

Travis: Boise is great if you want cheap land and strip malls and Olive Garden.
JK: In other words, affordable housing and convenient shopping. What is wrong with that?

Travis: San Fran? Pa-leeze. Great place to visit but completely unlivable. Same with Chicago & New York.
JK: Which are examples of where Metro is leading us.

Travis: Salt Lake? Sprawl. Denver? More Sprawl. Phoenix? Even more sprawl. Seattle. OMG, what a traffic nightmare, but at least it has a downtown worth a damn.
JK: What the hack is wrong with sprawl anyway??

Travis: Obsessing with Homer and City Hall won't let you see the forest through the trees.
JK: BTW Which government agency or developer do you work for?

Thanks
JK

at the risk of repeating myself,

Like an annoying, argumentative, broken record? That is a risk that you appear to enjoy taking. You have overstayed your welcome.

"as part of the mammoth tax breaks granted to the developers of these hideous condos, there should be a legal clause forcing them to construct a certain percentage of normal brick apartment buildings for regular people..."

Don't you think every generation has it's "normal"? One person's hideous is another's cool?

MY normal was single family homes out in the 'burbs of New York, and only my weird Jersey relatives still lived in brick apartment buildings. My Aunt Lillian lived in an apartment over the liquor store she ran in Bayonne. Grandpa Dufay lived in a narrow single-family row house in an otherwise all-black part of Jersey City, with pidgeons --and a goat-- in the back. He parked his Dufay & Sons moving van in front, before the IRS took it away from him for never paying taxes.

The once elegant Brooklyn Brownstone my daughter was mostly carried to term in was in a barrio of sorts, across from a bodega, and was knocked off into ramshackle bedrooms three couples lived together in. Now its BACK to being an expensive brownstone in a very, very fancy-pants part of town.

Our cities evolve and change, along with our tastes, and families. There's always people out there hustling money off the process...I just wish the city wasn't such an easy mark.

Young people --like my son, my step-son, my daughter who's back in Brooklyn-- would LOVE one of these condos. I don't blame them, and think we need a way to accomodate different needs and income ranges. We just need to be smarter, and fairer, and more respectful of what we have that's good so we don't lose it...but that's a never ending battle.

Portland's better in 2006 than in 1975, the year I moved up here from Eugene. We've lost some, gained a lot...but, on balance, I'm proud of the place, though I get very, very frustrated sometimes.

When most of a community doesn't want something to happen in their community, why is part of the justification for doing it "immigrants from other cities/communities will love it"?

this building, i think, encapsulates what troubles us all--real communities have almost ceased to exist, because we treat them as formless abstracts with interchangeable parts. we can take buildings out and drop another in--presto. add a highway and build a skyscraper--ta da. give big developers breaks and--boom, economic growth.

is it any wonder we all feel uneasy in the pit of our stomach, and so go looking for answers?

I'm sure the extra dough from having fewer cars will mean an extra mortgage payment or two a year.

Actually, I just this week sold my car to help save up for buying our first house. I take MAX to downtown for work every day, and 90% of the time my car sat at home anyway. We still have our "evil SUV" though. My wife uses it to get to work, and we do have to have a vehicle to shuttle the three kids around after all...
But this will save us about $80/mo in insurance & gas. And the proceeds go to pay off bills.

I don't understand the objection to the $300 a square foot figure.

Well, I dunno about you guys, but for me its still obcenely high. And out of reach for middle-class families such as mine. Its 2-3x what I think it should be.

But hey, its better than the $500-$700 sq/ft in the Pearl.

Jack,

I guess it depends if Portland means the City of Portland, or if Portland means the Greater Portland Metro Area. The suburbs are worse off in the “soul” department, and it isn’t for a lack of trying by developers who made every attempt to convert every suburb in the tri-county area to resemble every other suburb in America. How many truly unique restaurants are there outside the city of Portland? Whereas, how many truly unique restaurants are within the City of Portland in truly distinct neighborhoods? Sellwood, Belmont, Hawthorne, NW, Pearl, Multnomah, Hillsdale, Terwilliger, Macadam, Alameda, U of Portland, Mt. Tabor, et cetera.

The difference between Portland and many more cities of approximate size is Portland is the civic center of the larger metro area. People come to the City of Portland from the Suburbs when the work day is over. Some go to downtown, some go to the Pearl, some go to NW, and others to Hawthorne. The only other cities that enjoy this benefit are cities much larger than Portland, like San Fran, Chicago, and NYC. People certainly do not go into Philly, LA, Dallas, Miami, or DC after dark to just stroll around and hang at a bistro except in very exclusive neighborhoods.

As for Homer and City Hall, I concur about being vigilant and vocal. At the end of the day, though, I simply disagree that the sky is falling.

"Portland's better in 2006 than in 1975 . . .. We've lost some, gained a lot...but, on balance, I'm proud of the place, though I get very, very frustrated sometimes."

I agree with your general assessment of Portland, Frank. And I specifically think that the development that's at issue in the Buckman neighborhood, if it's well designed, well built and isn't replacing something more valuable, could enhance the neighborhood.

Southeast portland, particularly along its main thoroughfares, was deteriorating for a long time--probably from about 1945 to 1990. As a long-time Portlander and 17-year Southeast resident, I'm glad there's now interest in rehabilitating, investing in and building in Southeast. The area can benefit from new buildings and different kinds of housing, including condominiums. I'm not convinced that people who live in new condominiums will contribute less to the community than people who live in old-fashioned single-family homes or brick apartment buildings.

I realize that developers can be tricky and exploitive and are invariably concerned with their own profit. It's possible, though, for a community to gain from development, to not get ripped off financially, and to channel the developers' profit motive in a way that improves on what's bad and protects what's good in the built environment. But, yes, it is a struggle.

Travis: Boise is great if you want cheap land and strip malls and Olive Garden.
JK: In other words, affordable housing and convenient shopping. What is wrong with that?

ANSWER: Nothing if you want your suburb to be virually indistinguishable from every other suburb in America. The post was about Portland losing its soul. I’m pointing out that the cookie-cutter neighborhoods with the same stores and same restaurants may be convenient, but they do not have “soul.”
And in any event, affordable housing is not sustainable when there is a land orgy by mega-developers who make lot sizes smaller and smaller even in cities like Boise that do not growth boundaries. Large lots with a modest house were the middle class dream for Beaver but now people want McMansions that, to be affordable, are placed on smaller lots. Yah, looking into your neighbors’ window during Sunday breakfast when you both live 25 miles from downtown is “soul.”
I have a huge problem with strip malls. First, the anchor tenants in strip-malls have a shelf-life of 10 yrs; however, the half-life of a strip-mall is somewhere in the range of uranium. Take Tigard. Tigard rips down the old Fowler School around 1975 in old town to build the city’s premier strip-mall. K-Mart, the first mega-store in Tigard, was a hit. Across HWY 99 was Safeway. Very busy and very convenient. Then a new strip mall opened, then another, then another, and eventually, K-Mart closed as did Safeway because they could not compete with the new strip malls and the fancier designs and the better convenience. So, all the tenant shops had to quit business as well because the anchor tenant went out of business. Now, Tigard is wealthy in strip malls but poor in vibrant businesses. Half-vacant strip malls with empty parking lots are a blight on the community, and the property value of the strip mall declines which affects the city’s coffers. There is no central shopping now in Tigard, so one has to drive towards Sherwood to go to Safeway, back up the highway towards Tigard to hit Costco, across town along 217 to get to Wash. Sq, and back down 217 to hit Olive Garden. So, in the end, how convenient is the shopping, really?

Travis: San Fran? Pa-leeze. Great place to visit but completely unlivable. Same with Chicago & New York.
JK: Which are examples of where Metro is leading us.

ANSWER: Not likely in your lifetime JK, or mine. Portlanders are a unique bunch and I trust they will self-correct.

Travis: Salt Lake? Sprawl. Denver? More Sprawl. Phoenix? Even more sprawl. Seattle. OMG, what a traffic nightmare, but at least it has a downtown worth a damn.
JK: What the hack is wrong with sprawl anyway??

ANSWER: It destroys communities in the long run. Also, sprawl is dependent on false economies that, in the long run, cannot be sustained. Government subsidized oil and gas keep the cost of living artificially cheap in those suburbs that expand without consideration of transportation barriers. At this point, the race is for sustainable energy that is naturally cheaper than subsidized oil. However, since a gallon of milk, bottled water, and juice exceeds the costs of subsidized gas, then I have little hope that saw-grass and ethanol will produce cheap energy.
The natural evolution of suburbs, ironically, is more density as mega-developers build more and more homes on smaller and smaller lots. At the same time, these dense mini-cities have no alternative transportation and are completely dependant on the automobile. Transit times increase due to more cars on the road, the costs of gas goes up with more consumption, and communities that uniformly have to commute everywhere in town.
I’ll bet you 10 to 1 that Tigard, Tualatin, Sherwood, Wilsonville, Lake Oswego, Beaverton, Aloha, and Hillsboro are all going to be forced to be wired into a mass transit system in the next 25 yrs when the costs of that public system will be 10 times the current costs. The train from Wilsonville to Beaverton is just the beginning.
Portland, which will already have the bulk of its infrastructure complete, its unique communities, and sustainable shopping areas, (ie “soul”) will be a lot more attractive to middle class families because of it.

Travis: Obsessing with Homer and City Hall won't let you see the forest through the trees.
JK: BTW Which government agency or developer do you work for?

ANSWER: NEITHER, I actually work with construction defects resulting from the numerous half-ass builders that have made a lot of money in sprawl but left middle-class families with rotten 5 yr old homes.

Thanks
JK
Thanks to you,
TWH

"People come to the City of Portland from the Suburbs when the work day is over..."

Very doubtful, Travis. Most suburbanites avoid Portland like the plague. They may visit once or twice a month, but barely anyone commutes to Portland during the week just to 'hang out.'

And, by the way, are 'truly unique restaurants' the litmus for an areas' soul and character? Since when? Your comments smack of the typical urban elitist.

Funny how I notice more and more density fanatics and urban dwellers bagging on the burbs. I'd much rather live on my private, 10,000 square foot lot in Beaverton than a Homer-built condo in the Pearl. I don't blame anyone for wanting to live downtown, but many who live there sure get defensive about it.

And btw, the effects of suburban sprawl wouldn't be so dramatic if it wasn't for Metro enforced density requirements. There's huge tracts of forest land mowed down for apartments and condos because said greenspace is located inside the UGB. There's something twisted about forcing land outside the UGB to be preserved when Metro allows the clearing of huge tracts of greenspace inside the UGB.

Yeah, like Metro really cares about the environment.

Boise is a terrible place and has nothing to offer - tell all of your friends, especially if they are from CA.

Why would ANYONE who lives on Belmont need a car when the number 15 rolls by every eight minutes?

Me and my SO save $800 a month w/o cars... living on the inner eastside... and if we need one... we go to Enterprise and rent a Chrysler which gets us where we want in style... for pennies.

Imagine your life with $400 or 800 extra a month... for.. what... a new blood red sportscar... aka... a penis extender?

No thanks.

"Why would ANYONE who lives on Belmont need a car when the number 15 rolls by every eight minutes?"

Daphne, will that 15 bus take you to Multnomah Falls? Or Detroit Lake? Or Silver Falls State Park? Or Mt St Helens? Pretty hard to load your kayak on the 15 and get yourself up to Bob's Hole for a summer afternoon run... Good for you if you and your S.O. don't need a car, but for many of us who spend nearly every weekend out of the city limits, it's pretty damn necessary. Regardless of whether you live on Belmont or not.

"Imagine your life with $400 or 800 extra a month... for.. what... a new blood red sportscar... aka... a penis extender?"

Why did you have to go there? Good thing you're enlightened enough not to judge people on externalities...

TWH: I’m pointing out that the cookie-cutter neighborhoods with the same stores and same restaurants may be convenient, but they do not have “soul.”
JK: So to get “soul” we should all be packed into the Pearl at a few thousand per month for housing?

TWH: And in any event, affordable housing is not sustainable when there is a land orgy by mega-developers who make lot sizes smaller and smaller
JK:Why are the lots smaller? Because planners misguided policies have driven up land prices. That is what is not sustainable - planner’s nutty ideas.

TWH: I have a huge problem with strip malls. First, the anchor tenants in strip-malls have a shelf-life of 10 yrs; however, the half-life of a strip-mall is somewhere in the range of uranium.
JK: You have huge problem with other people’s choices and desires.

TWH: .. and eventually, K-Mart closed as did Safeway because they could not compete with the new strip malls and the fancier designs and the better convenience.
JK: That is the free market - companies who provide what people want (as opposed to what planners want people to want) drive out the ones who don’t. That is part of the mix that has given this country one of the highest standards or living - well above all European countries except one or two.

TWH: It destroys communities in the long run. Also, sprawl is dependent on false economies that, in the long run, cannot be sustained.
jk: Are you trying to claim that sprawl costs more than the $200,000 per unit PUBLIC TAX MONEY subsidy that Portland is giving each living unit (not even real homes) in the SoWhat?

In case you didn’t know sprawl started many hundred years ago (the word suburb is Roman for beyond the wall.) Sprawl is nothing more than the latest scare fostered upon the public to get them to feed money to special interests.

TWH: Government subsidized oil and gas keep the cost of living artificially cheap in those suburbs
jk: Mass transit uses oil and gas too and costs many times what driving costs. If the price of fuel increased by several times, driving would still be cheaper. See Europe for high fuel prices and DECLINING transit usage. The decline in transit usage tracks the increase in income.

TWH: At the same time, these dense mini-cities have no alternative transportation and are completely dependant on the automobile.
jk: Mass transit is of no use in low density areas. Its only useful function is to export parking spaces out of the dying dense city cores. All other functions can probably be done cheaper by other more convenient means such as private cars, jitneys and taxis.

TWH: ...I actually work with construction defects resulting from the numerous half-ass builders that have made a lot of money in sprawl but left middle-class families with rotten 5 yr old homes.
jk: That sounds like the Pearl District construction.

Thanks
JK

Daphne Me and my SO save $800 a month w/o cars...
JK: You left out the rest of that sentence: by having the taxpayers pick up 80% of my transportation costs. (mass transit actually costs more than driving - it is only cheaper because users are not paying their full cost to society)

Thanks
JK

Excellent expression of the anti-sprawl point of view, Travis. I agree with you entirely. And I think the majority of people who live in the central part of Portland share your beliefs, which is why Portland is such a good city to live in by US standards.

And I appreciate Jim Karlock and Chris McMullen, too, for their tireless and endless advocacy of an alternative vision of Portland: more driving, more highways, more strip malls, more cheap and ugly development, more of the social isolation that comes from a suburban way of life, more fossil fuel use, more pollution, more global warming, less mass transit, less social interaction, less farm and forest land. It's good to be reminded of exactly what we should be fighting against.

I hereby pledge to make an extra donation to 1000 Friends of Oregon this year.

speaking of density:

NYC is about as dense as you can get. it's the ultimate in Transit-Oriented Development.

NYC has 54% transit ridership, far more than any other city (Portland: ~12%).

NYC faces a 24-hour rush hour *and transit shortage* in the next 12-20 years, says conservative estimates in a year long study by planners, scientists, academics and environmentalists.

NYC faces massive electricity shortages and lack of *any* affordable housing within the same time frame.

NYC can't add any more transit. they can't really add any more streets. they can't add any more cabs.

NYC expects millions more people in the coming decades.

density, anyone?

http://www.ecohuman.com/?p=11

Want a car for the day, Lawrence? How's eight bucks an hour for the whole car?

Flexcar will get you from your house to the Gorge and back again for less than 50 bucks, split one, two, three or four ways. So, it could be just 10 bucks plus gas... for the day.

http://www.flexcar.com/default.aspx?tabid=56

And, the REAL reason I don't drive much or buy gas is that the Saudis (OPEC Numero Uno) are using the billions in daily oil profits to teach their kids in school that Jewish people eat their children. It's in the Saudi textbooks which have been on display at PSU at several anti-tolerance conferences, ones not well-attended by my many Arab friends.

An example:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901769.html

OPEC hates us all and will use YOUR oil dependence and love of autos to kill us all.

Enjoy your Hyundai, Lawrence. Enjoy.

I couldn't imagine a bigger pain in the butt than organizing my life around Flexcar. Just ask Betsy, who recently gave up on it. Try doing anything involving outdoor gear in one of their Priuses. Ludicrous.

The vast majority of people still want their cars. The last time I looked, this was a majority rule country. If you want to live in a particle board compartment and not have wheels, fine. But don't force it on the rest of us, who don't want that.

My life organizes nicely around Flexcar. Most of what I do can be accomplished from home in NW on foot or by bike, but on the occasions when a car is needed (a Costco junket, for example, or picking up a grandchild at school), there are eight or ten Flexcar spots within an easy walk from home. $5 (at the $10 hourly rate I pay) to fetch a kid from 11th & Main in less than half an hour. And the capacity of a Prius has little or nothing to do with this. Flexcar has few, if any, Priuses. Current Prius models have four doors and fold-down rear seats and would be practical for outdoor gear as Flexcars if you could find one. In their absence, you can easily find Elements, Pickups, Minivans and Scions. I don't hold any particular brief for Flexcar, beyond the fact that I find it convenient. But it puzzles me that you want to criticize it with misinformation. Ludicrous, indeed.

"The vast majority of people still want their cars. The last time I looked, this was a majority rule country. If you want to live in a particle board compartment and not have wheels, fine. But don't force it on the rest of us, who don't want that."

There's no place in America that has banned automobile ownership or in which there's a serious movement to do so. So the statement above doesn't make any sense.

Are you objecting to alternatives to private auto use, less frequent auto use, use of more efficient vehicles, and reduction in fuel consumption and pollution? These are the modest aims of most mass transit advocates and environmentalists. Given the two biggest threats the world faces today--war born of competition for limited oil resources and environmental destruction born of excessive use of those oil resources--I'd expect that any concerned and intelligent person would want to support the cause of making driving less necessary and transportation in general less destructive.

Richard, I was responding to Daphne, whose anti-car rant went a bit overboard.

Allan, I'm glad you can do with Flexcar. The only vehicles I see parked in any of the spots that I cruise by are the small models -- Priuses or smaller. You couldn't comfortably take a family of four to the beach or to the mountains for the weekend in them.

When did they sneak an additional 10 units in there? The original announcement was for 121 units. When did it go from the originally promised high design values to a first level of parking structure?

This stuff is so predictable. How much does anybody want to bet that our planners will improve it even further by letting him reduce the number of trees he has to plant in return for.... wait for it .... further REDUCING his parking spaces. That'll make it better. Don't think that's better? Oh you are so backward.

Travis, thanks for the $10 for my $1`bet. "Tigard, Tualatin..." etc. all have mass transit now. It is called TriMet. Buses are mass transit. We won't have to wait for your 25 years. Thanks again.

The only vehicles I see parked in any of the spots that I cruise by are the small models -- Priuses or smaller. You couldn't comfortably take a family of four to the beach or to the mountains for the weekend in them.

I know this thread isn't about cars, really, but I have to correct one thing: you CAN take a family of four to the beach for the weekend in a Prius--I've done it, comfortably. It's actually a very spacious car.

JK,

I'm neither an urban elitist nor a rural elitist, I'm just anti-sprawl. If anything, I am actually much more an advocate for sustainable small communities.

And nor am I anti-choice. I absoutely have no problem with K-mart, Wal-Mart, Costco, or any other business that passes savings to consumers through efficient mass distribution programs. My problem is the hoping around, opening and closing, of stores and the subsequent abandonment of store fronts. The free market is not perfect, and there are checks for a reason. Planning and zoning are recognized by the US Supreme Court as taking priority over unrestricted market forces.

If suburb planners would restrict development of additional strip malls, the market and consumer choice would drive renewal of the strip malls already in place rather than new construction.

And, one last shot, are you saying new subdivisions in Phoenix, Mesa, Chandler and Scottsdale are on large estates? There is no difference in the lot size in Phoenix than Portland. At least developers in Phoenix have the cajones to admit it is because of profit. Portland devlopers deflect criticism for their piss-poor excuse of lot size by blaming the urban growth boundry. Take away the urban growth boundry, the lot sizes stay the same and will have the same value.

Homerville in SE Portland. Isn't that an oxymoron. We have no parking meters here. We love the sound of dead cell phone batteries. We have historic parks. We value preservation. We work with the homeless. We have no "Clean and Safe" patrol officers. We limit our car use because we know driving our cars on highways next to big condos is unhealthy. We know that green buildings need to be used by people with small carbon and waste footprints in order to remain green. We know how to listen to the wise elders of our community. We know that Homer doesn't own us or our community. One day Homer may decide will listen to us. There is a place in Portland for corporate social responsibility too.

Dream on. He and his Cali exiles will crush you with their yuppiedom. Get a good look at Gresham or Felony Flats, 'cause that's where you're headed.

you CAN take a family of four to the beach for the weekend in a Prius

Maybe some families. Not mine.

Jerry,

I hardly call 100 minute transportation "wired" mass transit.

Walk 0.16 mile west from North Wilsonville Holiday Inn (25425 SW Boones Ferry Rd) to SW 95th & Commerce Circle (Stop ID 8389)
8:33 a.m. Board 96 Portland via I-5
8:50 a.m. Get off at Tualatin Park & Ride (Stop ID 7879)
9:02 a.m. Board 76 Beaverton TC
9:38 a.m. Get off at Beaverton Transit Center
Go to Beaverton Transit Center (Stop ID 9984)
9:47 a.m. Board 57 TV Hwy to Forest Grove
10:05 a.m. Get off at SE Tualatin Valley Hwy & 67th
Walk 0.1 mile west to Fred Meyer - Hillsboro (23105 SW Tualatin Valley Hwy)

Travis: I hardly call 100 minute transportation "wired" mass transit.

Walk 0.16 mile west from North Wilsonville Holiday Inn (25425 SW Boones Ferry Rd) to SW 95th & Commerce Circle (Stop ID 8389)
8:33 a.m. Board 96 Portland via I-5
8:50 a.m. Get off at Tualatin Park & Ride (Stop ID 7879)
9:02 a.m. Board 76 Beaverton TC
9:38 a.m. Get off at Beaverton Transit Center
Go to Beaverton Transit Center (Stop ID 9984)
9:47 a.m. Board 57 TV Hwy to Forest Grove
10:05 a.m. Get off at SE Tualatin Valley Hwy & 67th
Walk 0.1 mile west to Fred Meyer - Hillsboro (23105 SW Tualatin Valley Hwy)
JK: Excellent example of how mass transit wastes people’s time and why they choose a car. If you are thinking that the service could be improved - yes, but that would make transit even more expensive, compared to cars, than it already is. For instance the average bus cost is$0.835 per passenger-mile while the average car is around $0.23, less than 1/3 the cost of an average bus. (DebunkingPortland.com/Transit/Cost-Cars-Transit.htm) Now here’s the problem: increasing bus service will make bus even more expensive so mabye it would end up coasting not 3 times, but 5 or 6 times what driving a car costs? So what is the point of mass transit?

To save energy, money and time, we should switch to late model small cars. (I am guessing that it would be cheaper to provide taxi vouchers to the needy than to continue the huge yearly subsidy to mass transit, much of which goes to provide “welfare transport” for well paid downtown government employees and lawyers.)

Thanks
JK

At least developers in Phoenix have the cajones to admit (they promote small lot size) because of profit. Portland devlopers deflect criticism for their piss-poor excuse of lot size by blaming the urban growth boundry.

There are two construction sites within two blocks of my house in inner-SE. On one, the existing house was torn down and TWO houses are being built where one stood. On the other, a house was recently sold and then the backyard was reduced and refenced to nothing...and a new house is going in there.

Blame the urban growth boundary? C'mon...

It's greed, pure and simple. Zoning is supposed to put a check on greed, but the way land use regulation plays out in Portland, it actually encourages cr*pping up the city's originally well planned neighborhoods with crowded junk.

In your neighborhood, Frank, nothing will top the defecation currently taking place at 26th & Division. That atrocity will be a monument to the current "leadership" of our city. Long may it stand.

The Randy Rapaport development going in at SE 26th & Division wasn't required to provide ANY parking spaces...and isn't, for the visitors and shoppers and restaurant goers the building intends to draw. The neighborhood can simply absorb that burden. They were required --theoretically-- to provide bicycle parking...but the development is too dense to provide even for that, so they bought their way out of that reponsibility by paying into a small fund set up for such law evasions.

The City Code requires a loading zone...but the Portland Office of Tranportation is fine, apparently and on the record, with waiving that requirement as well. This is why we have delivery trucks parking on sidewalks and blocking traffic in Portland.

PDX Culture Club Update:

The COOL kids on the eastside do not drive cars, according to Willamette Week's new cover story on young singles (flooding into this town like some sort of modern day Vanport) and the city they love to love in.

www.willametteweek.com for the facts on life in the big city, young 'un style.

Cars ain't cool in PDX anymore, kids. Sorry.

Travis, you want to see a ton of empty store fronts? Try downtown Portland. Using your logic, the Pearl took a big chunk of downtown business away -- but we both know that isn't the truth.

Regarding Tigard, one of the only empty store fronts is the defunct Haggen next to Bi-Mart. The Safeway on 99 is now a fabric store and you can finding a thriving Fred Meyers, Costco, Albertson's, Winco and many other international markets from one end of 99 to the other. Hell, Sherwood's huge retail complex is totally thriving.

I agree with you that we shouldn't be subsidizing oil, but we also shouldn't be subsidizing agriculture, entertainment and the high tech industry. It's disingenuous to single out oil when practically every industry out there gets a subsidy in one form or another.

Using your logic, the Pearl took a big chunk of downtown business away -- but we both know that isn't the truth.

Really? What's the truth?

Frank Dufay Portland devlopers deflect criticism for their piss-poor excuse of lot size by blaming the urban growth boundry....On one, the existing house was torn down and TWO houses are being built where one stood. On the other, a house was recently sold and then the backyard was reduced and refenced to nothing...and a new house is going in there.

Blame the urban growth boundary? C'mon...
JK: C'mon...Frank. It is basic econ 101 - supply AND demand balance. The price is set by the interplay between the two. High demand and/or low supply raises price. Low demand and/or high supply lowers prices.

UGB restricts supply and therefore raises prices. High land prices make it profitable to tear down a perfectly good house and build two on the lot.

High land prices also make it very attractive to plop down some piece of crap in your backyard for a quick 100k (thin air number) profit.

High land prices. Land is approaching 1 mil an acre = $120,000 for standard 5000 ft lot. In the hated Houston you get a house for free when you buy a 5000 ft lot for $120,000 see:
americandreamcoalition.org/penalty.html

So, it is the UGB after all. It is destroying Portland by forcing high density and the resultant high costs, congestion and pollution. See DebunkingPortland.com

Thanks
JK

My life organizes nicely around Flexcar.

Well, the problem's solved, then.

So that's why all those Californian types can come here with the capital gains they realized off the sale of their California home? Because of the UGB in California?

I mean...The lack of land down there must be much worse than here, given the price differential on comparable properties. Right? It's gotta be those UGBs down there.

godfry: So that's why all those Californian types can come here with the capital gains they realized off the sale of their California home? Because of the UGB in California?
JK: Correct. The idiot planners did UGBs in CA before the fad hit Oregon. Also remember that an UGB doesn’t count until demand reaches it.

godfry: I mean...The lack of land down there must be much worse than here, given the price differential on comparable properties. Right?
JK: Correct. CA is even more screwed up than Oregon.

godfry: It's gotta be those UGBs down there.
JK: Correct. Now that you understand, are you going to work to fix the problem by helping to free up land for living space?

Thanks
JK

Frank, there are other issues that promote densification, the loss of your neighborhood backyards with two additional houses, besides the UGB as Jim K. rightly cites.

Take for example the planning bureau's requirement that one cannot build less density than prescribed by code. A few years ago a neighbor of mine and myself submitted a lot adjustment request to divide the lot between us (50ft x 100ft) into two attached 25 ft parcels attached to our lots to make 75 ft lots for our own residences. Denied. Not meeting the intent of the UGB. We wanted to save a slide-prone (slide occurred in 1996) lot with springs from development and enhance our two lots. This same thinking from the planning bureau also applies to all other zoning in our city-densify. Max-it-Man. But be a "green shirt" while you are at it. Oxy-morans.

So, JK...There's your answer.

Once they drive the price up of your property, you sell it an move to an area where they have not yet placed urban growth boundaries, or where the densities are where you like them. That way, you can enjoy your capital gains all the more.

godfry So, JK...There's your answer. .. Once they drive the price up of your property, you sell it an move to an area where they have not yet placed urban growth boundaries, or where the densities are where you like them. That way, you can enjoy your capital gains all the more.
JK: Proven to NOT WORK: People fled Germany, to France and England. Didn’t work, the Nazis were planning world conquest, just like the planners are on a world conguest. You can’t run you have to kill the movement. Just like we had to kill the Nazi movement.

In case people haven’t realized, these nutty planner’s schemes are a worldwide issue, not just USA. They even have UGBs in Australia!!! Talk about being suckers. Well, maybe no worse that UGBs in eastern Oregon to protect sagebrush land. Just plain idiotic.

And yes, I’am accusing planners of acting like religious Nazis - every bit as bad as the libs accuse Bush & Farewll of being. They are forcing other people to live the way the planners want them to live instead of they way people want to live.

And just about everthing the planners claim is a provable lie. See DebunkingPortland.com/Smart/SmartGrowthLies.html

Thanks
JK

Progressive thinkers find it easy to stop driving... every time we fill up the tank with gas... we see what is really happening when we buy gas... we are actually pouring bullets and IED's into the hands of AQ terrorists heavily-funded by their close pals in Riyadh, not Teheran.

Imagine the flow of gas as bullets and bombs aimed at your pretty little head.

Bang. You are dead, or wishing you were.

Daphne Progressive thinkers find it easy to stop driving... every time we fill up the tank with gas... we see what is really happening when we buy gas... we are actually pouring bullets and IED's into the hands of AQ terrorists heavily-funded by their close pals in Riyadh, not Teheran.

Imagine the flow of gas as bullets and bombs aimed at your pretty little head.

Bang. You are dead, or wishing you were.
JK: Hope you don’t use mass transit, because it uses more energy that a late model small car (per passenger-mile)

Be truly progressive: get a hybrid car and quit using mass transit.

Thanks
JK

Frank, there are other issues that promote densification, the loss of your neighborhood backyards with two additional houses, besides the UGB as Jim K. rightly cites.

Yeah...greed.