Portland Architecture

Metro seeks feedback on latest Urban Growth Boundary expansion proposal

The Metro regional government is seeking public feedback on how to accommodate up to 300,000 new homes by 2030. To expand the urban growth boundary or not to expand. The Metro Council produced a preliminary report earlier this spring, and before the official draft comes out in September, they'd like to receive comments on the plan - due no later than June 30.

The preliminary report makes a somewhat surprising argument given that the UGB has expanded a few times in the past: that future growth can be absorbed through a combination of zoning changes, density increases, clearing brownfield sites, incentives for housing near transit centers and new financing tools to pay for infrastructure. Metro also listed these criteria or operating assumptions.

(1) People live and work in vibrant communities where they can choose to walk for pleasure and to meet their everyday needs. 

(2) Current and future residents benefit from the region’s sustained economic competitiveness and prosperity.

(3) People have safe and reliable transportation choices that enhance their quality of life. 

(4) The region is a leader in minimizing contributions to global warming.

(5) Current and future generations enjoy clean air, clean water and healthy ecosystems. 

(6) The benefits and burdens of growth and change are distributed equitably.

There is also an economic component here, of course. Metro cites the Case-Shiller index, which measured home prices during the period of December 2005 to December 2008. Prices in the Portland region decreased by only three percent, compared with decreases of 43 percent in Las Vegas, 31 percent in Tampa, 13 percent in Atlanta, and 40 percent in San Francisco.

Comments should be submitted to Malu Wilkinson at malu.wilkinson@oregonmetro.gov.

One resident in particular, Robert Nobles, is keen on residents sending Metro a message. He's written me a few times urging a post, and when The Oregonian posted a notice about the issue, he was one of the first to comment. But Nobles' point in that comment is a good one:

"The real issue is what type of housing those people live in. Builders want huge swaths of land that they can build the same house like an assembly line.This mens more profit for them, but homogeneity and poor planning for the city," he writes.

"The people want well planned neighorhoods with a diversity of housing types and incomes. This means infill lots, condo towers or mid-rises, duplexes, granny flats, etc. What the poeple want cannot be built like an assembly line, and since there is not enough supply of it, the average income gets priced out of it due to high demand. There is room within the boundary for many more people with the type of housing choices we all want, but speculative builders mostly want to build fast cheap efficient crap."

Personally, I believe the reason we have a growth boundary is so it acts as one. Expanding it is contrary to that effort. So I almost always argue against expansion. Even so, it's not always a black and white issue. People need affordable places to live just as we as a region need to limit sprawl. There needs to be a balance, although ultimately tipping that balance in a direction that encourages cheap suburban auto-dominated environments will hurt people who are economically struggling more than it will hurt people better off.

Notes from Arun Jain's vision for Portland's future

On April 9, the City of Portland's outgoing Chief Urban Design Strategist, Arun Jain, gave a presentation at the American Institute of Architects' Center for Architecture to highlight the results of his staff's multi-year study of Portland and where we go from here.

The work consisted of three principal components: (1) an urban design assessment to get at the heart of urban design issues in the city, like height restrictions, topography, environmental issues, etc.; (2) creating a basis for selecting areas of highest place-making potential, the places where future growth makes the most sense; and (3) what Jain calls "framework elements", the values we hold important going forward like enhanced green streets and certain "nodes" where public areas or other special places might exist.

Jain began the talk by emphasizing the complexity of cities. He quoted urban theorist Christopher Alexander in saying, "A city is not a tree." In other words, Jain said, "This is really about overlapping networks. They're not as clean and simple as we'd like. Cities are messy." But often our memories of cities, he added, are the unusual places where traditional street grids or other familiar aspects of city planning act differently.

"There's no right or wrong to cities," Jain continued. "Solutions are either better or worse, and many create other problems...But we don't need to predict the future to make great cities." The role of urban design, he explained, is to look at urban form, quality, and pattern.

Some of the challenges Jain spoke of seemed a little funny: not the fear of change he spoke of, nor confusion over design's role, but when he said, "We're always dogged by citizen involvement." Part of the reason I really like Arun Jain is he's an academic - and certainly not a populist. How many people at the City would actually say public involvement is a pain?

Jain's work developing an urban design strategy began in 2006, intended as a lead-in to formation of a central city plan and the overall Portland Plan being hammered out.

Really, though, rather than looking forward, it seems Jain spent more time looking back. In his presentation, Jain spoke of numerous previous Portland plans dating back nearly a century.

A 1912 plan, for example, created more wide thoroughfares in the early years of the automobile. A 1932 Portland plan designated the downtown west waterfront as a park, something that only happened 50 years later. This plan also initiated locally the Beaux Arts "city beautiful" movement.

Then there's the famous Robert Moses plan in 1943, which introduced a system of highways and freeways - some of which were built, some not. The 1966 plan expanded the downtown core and for the first time identified individual neighborhood "units" and emphasized how each one should have a school, park and retail. It also added more freeways. The 1972 plan gave us much of the Portland we know today, with the downtown bus mall and an emphasis on smart growth.

Jain also studied several cities that have aspects of city planning applicable to Portland. Barcelona favors the notion of social equity: building important projects in the poorest neighborhoods. Edinburgh, with its Royal Mile, shows "you can't always concentrate retail in one area," he says. "They have to hold lots of festivals to make it work."

Kyoto (pictured above left), Jain believes, shows a good approach to the street grid, allowing a variety of sizes. Jain loves Portland's small 200x200-foot blocks, he says, "but it eats open space, and is too small for things like a symphony hall." Kyoto's "floating grid," he says, keeps the grid system but allows for the principal of congregating blocks together like tatami mats into larger parcels in certain areas.

Glasgow, Jain explained, wanted to be a city of youth and technology and has become just that, providing a key comparison for Portland. Philadelphia's diagonal streets give dynamism to its street grid, much like our own Sandy Boulevard. "It's a traffic engineer's nightmare," he added. "But who cares? It's fun."

Looking ahead, Jain identified several "places of change" in Portland that could and should accommodate more high-density growth: inner Burnside, the MLK/Grand loop, the Lloyd Center/Convention Center district, and inner North Portland.

One of the most eagerly anticipated parts of Jain's study was exactly how much height, or extra height, should be allowed in areas like the northern Pearl District where industrially-zoned areas are giving way to mixed-use and residential. I'm still not sure how this will pan out, but Jain seemed to indicate that a single height limit, even for a small neighborhood, should be frowned upon and would allow too much sameness. "There needs to be some cleverness," he said.

A bold offering for the future was Jain's idea to make certain key streets not only green in the sense of having sidewalk bioswales or permeable pavement, but actually to make the streets themselves more park-like, thereby connecting various real parks around the city with an infrastructure of public spaces that connect them. It's "streets as less of a conduit and more of a place," he explained.

Jain focused on the Central Eastside Industrial District as an area of future growth and not forever a continuing industrial enclave. This isn't a surprise. Everybody knows the Central Eastside is a sleeping giant.

But on a related note, since the east bank I-5 freeway overpass is not likely to go away soon, nor is the industrial designation, Jain identified the area near OMSI as a key growth area in the immediate years ahead. There will be a new MAX/streetcar and pedestrian bridge being built there, and it is prime riverfront property across from downtown.

"The freeway and the CEID restrict the Central Eastside from rampant speculation," Jain said. "Now is a time to set it up better."

Jain also called for an extension of Sandy Boulevard past Burnside so it meets Morrison Street and connects to the Morrison Bridgehead.

He additionally looked at the US Postal Service site on Broadway in old town as a place for a "consolidated campus or institution," with small buildings and a human scale. That doesn't sound good for those of us who would like to see the post office building saved and renovated for a new use. It's not very small.

Overall, I've always been exceptionally impressed with Arun Jain: his intelligence, his commitment to research and the historical view, and his unwillingness to rush. At the same time, I heard a snicker or two from architects after his presentation. The just of their comments were that anybody could have identified the Central Eastside and OMSI for future growth, and it needn't have taken years to do so. Perhaps there's at least a kernel of truth in both arguments, but given how rapidly the city is sometimes inclined to embrace change, it was helpful having a tortoise amongst the hares.

With Jain now having left the City, there will be big shoes to fill when it comes to Portland looking at itself and assessing where the city wants to go. But there are no plans to find another Chief Urban Design Strategist for the City of Portland. That makes Jain's work for the last few years studying the city all the more important.

You can read the entire Urban Design Assessment here.

Arun with a view: Jain highlights Portland Plan today

Apologies for the short notice, but today (Thursday) from 4:30 to 6:00PM at the AIA Center For Architecture (403 NW 11th Ave.), outgoing City of Portland chief urban design strategist Arun Jain will deliver a presentation on the Portland Plan, the mammoth planning effort to map out the next few decades of growth.

Jain's presentation will be called, "So… what kind of city would you want anyway? An Urban Design Framework for Central Portland’s Future."

As he writes in an accompanying document, "The Urban Design Framework is intended to be an important basis for making strategic choices that focus the preservation, enhancement and creation of great public places and development energy in the central city.  It highlights the 'bones' of the central city and describes where exceptional and public minded development would greatly leverage city and central city priorities over the next 25 years."

Jain's work leading up to the Urban Design Framework is based on three main efforts: an urban design assessment (identifying key issues), selecting areas of highest place-making potential, and then setting urban design elements like nodes for placemaking (greenspace, public areas), enhanced street corridors, and a green network "synthesizing and linking the city’s man-made and natural environmental assets (i.e. parks and schools with the river, trail heads and natural reserves)."

Arun Jain has, as of a few days ago, left his position at the City of Portland. But rather than his wanting out, my impression is that the city decided it didn't need a Chief Urban Design Strategist anymore. With head planner Gil Kelley already departing and the planning bureau merging with the sustainable development bureau, suddenly we've got a vacuum of top-level expertise at a time of change and upheaval. Certainly there are others still drawing paychecks in the new Bureau of Planning & Sustainable Development with talent and expertise and vision of their own, no doubt. But I'm sorry to see Arun packing his bags.

Meanwhile, come see and hear Arun's views. Or in case you can't, I plan to attend and take notes.

Portland central city plans: past, present, future

Do you remember what you were doing on March 24, 1988? I was a 10th grader at the time, counting the days until I could get my driver's license and speed recklessly through McMinnville, and reading Cliff's Notes of literary classics for English class. But here in Portland, that day saw the release of the Central City Plan (pictured at left).

In other words, it's been more than 20 years since Portland, that much hailed bastion of planning, has updated its plans for the greater downtown core.

But fear not: We won't be sliding back into Dallas or Atlanta-like tendencies just yet. The city is currently at work on a new Portland Plan. A citizens advisory committee is expected to begin work in September, with completion in 2010. There are also intra-neighborhood plans like the North Pearl District Plan, which for example could see that area near the base of the Fremont Bridge go considerably taller. (Which makes sense.)

The last Central City Plan in 1988 was largely an expansion of the 1972 plan, which created high density office and retail cores downtown as well as the Transit Mall along 5th and 6th Avenues. The 1988 plan focused on greater connections with the river and expanded the notion of the central city to the south and east. The '88 plan also emphasized introducing housing to the urban core.

In an interview published earlier this month in The Oregonian by Stephen Beaven, Steve Iwata of the Planning Bureau said the goal this time around is to bring more jobs to the central core neighborhoods. "I think we've done pretty well on the housing side," he said, "But job creation, that's a significant challenge."

I'd amend that thought just slightly: We need more job creation in the northern part of the central city, particularly the Pearl District. There are already numerous office spaces under construction there. But we still need lots more housing in the traditional part of downtown and in Old Town. That's the only way we can get downtown to stop feeling dead on evenings and weekends, or overrun with vagrancy. This phenomenon has improved measurably in the central core over the last 20 years, but there is still a long way to go.

How would the rest of you like to see the new Portland Plan for the central core put together?

Arun Jain, chief urban design strategist for the city, has with his staff created several studies of past Portland planning efforts, such as those involving famed New York freeway builder/neighborhood destroyer Robert Moses, and earlier plans involving the famous Olmstead Olmsted brothers of Central Park fame. (The plan at right is from 1897.) Jain, who I also interviewed in June for Design Within Reach's 'Designs on Portland' discussion series, has also scoured the globe for cities whose topography, street grids, relationship with bodies of water and other factors either resemble Portland or provide a historic case study: Barcelona, Savannah (Georgia), Glassgow Glasgow, Edinburgh, Philadelphia and Kyoto.

Of the street grid examples, "Each city uses its grid differently," Jain says. " Some follow it rigidly (Philadelphia, Barcelona, Savannah) whereas others manipulate it for emphasis (Kyoto, Edinburgh, Glasgow).  Philadelphia and Barcelona have disturbed the monotony of their grids through powerful diagonals but Savannah deliberately enhances its character through repetition and extension of the historic grid."

"In contrast, Kyoto plays with its grid by combining or further sub-dividing it to satisfy changing function and need. Kyoto also overcomes monotony through a height strategy that allows only temples and prominent structures to dominate.."

Regarding topographical factors, Jain says, "Cities with the strongest natural forms have a natural advantage in framing and defining their urban form.  Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Kyoto have capitalized on their assets by deliberately limiting development on surrounding hills, preserving only large historic monuments and allowing only few prominent institutions and outlooks." 

Each city’s relationship with water varies, too. Proximity to water frames and contains the urban cores of Philadelphia and Kyoto, while Barcelona and Savannah have water as an edge, and Glasgow and Edinburgh embrace both sides of their river.

Then there is the character and identity, something as important to Portland as its architecture. "Barcelona pursues its agenda of social equity in terms how art and design are expressed in the city," Jain says. "Glasgow has chosen to leave industrial artifacts to retain historic memory and character and reinvent itself as a cultural and youth-oriented city.  Edinburgh has strict design guidelines to retain historic character and ambiance while using monuments and icons to pursue the creative city and promote innovation.  Kyoto encourages preservation and restoration of the traditional Machs building form.  Savannah has adopted a strategy to createa city of parks.  Philadelphia has used a mix of traditional historic inheritances and reuse of existing infrastructure to continue its evolution."

What do these comparisons mean? They provide a template, or a guide, for how we go forward with issues like establishing more creative and recurring uses of Portland’s grid, creating better waterfront relationships to and across each river bank, promoting civic functions and events to strategically activate street life, and enhancing existing assets (such as bridges) through lighting and design. If we don't, we could end up with a freeway-strewn city like Moses planned in this map.

At the same time, planning can only do so much. It's the private sector who mostly fills out the city. That said, Jain is right that we ought not to plan in a vacuum. We don't want Portland to be any other city, but some of them have been at it a lot longer than us.

Meanwhile, there is also an upcoming series of evening lectures as part of Riverfest that will feature a variety of speakers who will discuss Willamette River's role - past, present, and future -- in shaping the city we live in. The lectures will be held September 2, 3, 4 and 5 from 7:00pm - 9:00pm at the former McCall's restaurant at 1020 SW Naito Parkway. The series is officially called "The Lower Willamette Group/Port of Portland Willamette Chautauqua". Just don't try to say it five times fast.

Bridge Over Troubled Potter

It's a funny, audacious idea: take the old Sauvie Island Bridge that was recently replaced by a new span, and recycle the structure into a new bike and pedestrian bridge over I-405. It also may be an indication of the risk and reward of Commissioner and mayoral candidate Sam Adams, a proponent of the idea, versus current/outgoing mayor Tom Potter.

The bridge has been discussed for a few years, but originally the idea was to make it a simple, cheap concrete crossing. That's what Mayor Potter still supports, according to an article in today's Oregonian, because it's about $1.5 million cheaper than recycling the Sauvie Island Bridge. But $1.5 million is practically pocket change to a major metropolitan city like Portland, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who wouldn't choose, money aside, the Sauvie span for its superior aesthetics and the message it sends about Portland's values.

Potter has every right to oppose an extra budget outlay, but when I read that he opposes Adams on this matter, I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Tom Potter is a good man, no question about it. But this is the latest case where, at least when it comes to the built environment, he just doesn't get it. Adams does.

I mean, a long ugly concrete slab in the central city, to save a million and a half? That's like choosing a kiddie burger over a Big Mac to save a nickel.

At the same time, the fact that Adams, as head of the city's transportation department, may be able to push this through, also may show his danger, or at least the irony of this whole thing. The original discussion about a bike/pedestrian bridge was born of talk about the Burnside couplet, which Adams has pushed hard. The bridge itself is just the kind of project that Adams ought to champion, but the couplet is a rogue project that is about much, much more than transportation; a change this big really ought to come as part of a larger central city planning process coming from...city planners. So in other words, I think the bike bridge battle shows Adams at his best, but it's also inextricably tied to a bad idea.

Adams and Potter are like the eager son and the fatigued father. I'd rather have the son leading in this case, but he could perhaps use just a little of the father's restraint. In the case of this proposed bike/pedestrian bridge, though, I think the island is Potter, not Sauvie.

As always, though, I say this as a conversation starter, not an ending. What do the rest of you think?

Point-Counterpoint on PDC's Future Urban Renewal Plans

The opinion section of Sunday's Oregonian offered two opposing views on what the Portland Development Commission should do next with respect to its urban renewal areas: to keep devoting resources to making the central city more dense, or to focus more on outlying areas in need such as Parkrose and Rockwood.

Portland State University urban studies professor Carl Abbott favors declaring victory in the central city and heading eastward to do more good:

"The equation [for urban renewal starting in the 1970s] had two simple parts: Shore up downtown as a center for retailing, employment and culture. Preserve and revitalize older neighborhoods to keep them attractive for the middle class.

It worked. From the slopes of the West Hills to the slopes of Mount Tabor, the city is a success by any comparative standards.

The Portland 'miracle' is yet to work its wonders, however, in the city's far eastern neighborhoods. These are areas with more people in poverty, more immigrants, fewer parks and a lot less creative class buzz."

By contrast, Patricia Garner, land use planning committee chair for the Pearl District Neighborhood Association and a project manager with Chesshir Architecture, says there are still important pockets of land in the central city currently not in urban renewal districts that need to be developed and densified. Namely, the flats of Goose Hollow and the area around Con-way in Northwest:

"If these to areas were developed to their full capacity, the city could see an increase of at least 4,000 new housing units and one million square feet of new office capacity. The more that is built in these urban environments, the less we have to build in other neighborhoods."

Gardner also addresses what urban renewal is and isn't:

"One of the biggest misconceptions about urban renewal financing is that fat cat developers are given money to create their projects for rich people. This is not true....Urban renewal does not work in established, healthy neighborhoods unless there is a desire to fundamentally change the character of that neighborhood toward more density. But it works fabulously in these blank opportunity sites."

I tend to agree more with Patty Gardner on this one. Of course Abbot isn't wrong that poorer neighborhoods would certainly benefit from more investment in services and infrastructure there: libraries, open spaces, schools, transit. But urban renewal money isn't social service money. It's meant to plant seeds in mostly vacant areas and make neighborhoods. It's true that some of the close-in industrial areas in Northwest Portland seem better candidates for high density than neighborhoods like Parkrose and Rockwood that are far from the city center.

If we're going to go very dense outside the city center, however, it should be at key transit intersections, such as Parkrose's next-door neighborhood, Gateway, where Interstates 5, 205 and 84 intersect along with the MAX line to downtown, the airport and eventually Clackamas. But Gateway already is an urban renewal area.

To some extent, pitting low-income outer Portland neighborhoods against the central city for urban renewal dollars feels like an incongruent, apples-to-oranges affair. Even so, we shouldn't abandon our dance partner -- the central urban core -- in the middle of the floor to cut a rug on the fringe of the dance hall.

Can 49 Trump 37?

This November, Oregon voters will decide on a new ballot measure, number 49, designed to take some of the sting out of the horrific, catastrophic Measure 37 that has raped our state's land use laws. Tonight and tomorrow, the environmental nonprofit 1,000 Friends of Oregon will host two campaign-kickoff meetings.

Tonight's, on the East Side, will be held from 6:30 to 8:00pm at the Hollywood Branch Library, 4040 NE Hollywood. Tomorrow's, on the West Side, will be at the same time but held at the Northwest Branch, 2300 NW Thurman.

If you'd like to get involved but can't make either of those meetings, the phone bank is already underway and seeking volunteers at its Lloyd Center headquarters. This Saturday at Colonel Summers Park (SE 17th and Taylor) from 11:00 to 3:00 kicks off canvassing on the issue.

Unless you want rural strip malls to go with the clearcutting and pickup trucks, please consider getting involved. Besides, the activism will be good practice for the real battle: November 2008.

City Council’s Burnside Blitzkrieg Continues

Yesterday the City Council voted unanimously yesterday to begin initial work to convert West Burnside and Northwest Couch into two one-way couplet streets between 2nd and I-405.

Leading the charge on this $80 million endeavor is commissioner Sam Adams and the Department of Transportation. But as Anna Griffin reports in today's Oregonian, city planners and members of the Planning Commission, an advisory group, are against the plan. However, there is also tied to the plan an extension to the streetcar, which most everyone supports.

Steve Duin’s column from today's paper also quotes commissioner Erik Sten saying, “Let’s be blunt. We have a Planning Bureau that’s trying to undermine this project.”

I don’t quite understand. If it’s a major planning decision for the city and it doesn’t originate from the Planning Bureau, isn’t the undermining happening the other way around? If this is best for Portland and the central city in particular, I’d have expected the plan to originate in the Planning Bureau and then be carried out by the Transportation department.

This is just my opinion, of course, but I don’t even find it “blunt” to say that we have a couplet effort that’s undermining the architecture of the city’s planning process.

But where the couplet plan starts is less important than whether it goes through or not. As someone staunchly against the couplet, I can give you some reasons why it shouldn’t happen. And somebody favoring the couplet can give reasons why it’s for the best. But do we want to move forward with a plan that at least half of those weighing in seem to oppose? Is the couplet a plan that those in power should railroad through?

Burnside isn’t a great place for pedestrians. There need to be much better crossings in certain places. However, as the only street in Portland that touches Northwest, Southwest, Northeast and Southeast, I believe it has extra importance as a unifier of the city—a grand boulevard in the tradition of the Champs Elysee.

If Burnside is divided into a couplet with Couch, the dichotomy may allow more room for wide sidewalks and other pedestrian amenities. But one will also be crossing two busy streets instead of one. I think of the places this format exists in Portland—Northeast Broadway and Weidler, Martin Luther King Boulevard and Grand—and I think of islands surrounded by traffic.

If the city council members advocating for the Burnside couplet are so confident about the plan’s viability, why not come to us with a couplet plan not attached to a streetcar extension? I wonder if some supporters are in it for the streetcar and turning the other cheek with the couplet.

The ironic thing about the couplet to me is that, despite whatever claims its supporters make about pedestrian health, this is a plan for automobiles. When you think about all that Portland is known for, does it really fit to radically change the most significant major thoroughfare in the city in a way that's about moving cars? That's why marrying the streetcar plan to the couplet plan is so clever--and (however unwittingly) devious.

Also, I’m continually flummoxed at the notion that there are property owners in Old Town or otherwise along Burnside who are waiting to invest until the couplet is approved. It’s true that the streetcar has been used in the past as a development tool, but I believe the promised value of a couplet to property owners is a purely psychological one. The couplet is news that they can use to spin for condo buyers, but not something that will transform their area—only they will do that, but renovating the buildings they’ve been sitting on.

How about this: we go forward with what everyone agrees on and then take up the couplet if necessary. That means we put a streetcar down Burnside. We take out the trees in the middle of the intersection, put them on the sidewalks and widen them, adding those wide curb extensions at key intersections. We also put traffic lights on Couch to make it more viable as a through street. Those combined things would in my and a lot of people’s minds solve what needs solving. If it doesn’t, we can still make Burnside and Couch one-way at a later date. But for now, why not move forward with solely the measures people agree on?