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Allan

Some of this will be better once the Gateway Green gets built

Kettlemoraine

E205 sounds PERFECT for outer East Portland! Thanks so much for sharing this idea, Brian, and especially for your great ideas on how we can make this work! We need that area's collective quality of life and access to nature to increase substantially...

Henry Kunowski

The last time that East Portland got the new city parks attention it needed was after the World War II influx of new residents. There are few places in Portland that deserve this consideration more than the area east of 205. Recent open space needs assessments point to the E205 area as lacking in some basic parks infrastructure needs at the same time this area of Portland is growing in population as Portland pushes the toward the city limits at East 181st Avenue.
With this in mind the current efforts on the part of Commissioner Fish are long overdue but very welcome however, E205 parks and the recent expansion of parks in downtown Portland are two different animals from a development opportunities perspective.
Director, Jamison, Tanner Springs the forthcoming “Fields” in the Pearl and the new site for the Saturday Market and the Neighborhood Park in South Waterfront are all in urban renewal areas and were funded, in part, with TIFF dollars from PDC. While private development donations were solicited by the Portland Parks Foundation for Director and the fountain at the Saturday Market site, no such funding sources are extant in E205 in terms of an urban renewal “angel” and it appears that the Foundation is no longer in the acquisitions and development business. The one recent exception to this funding model was the acquisition and development of Holly Farm off of Capital Highway in SE Portland. Holly Farm may be a better model than Director Park for E205.
In this case the City applied for and received acquisition dollars from the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department as part of its lottery funded local government pass-through for parks and additional funds came from donations to the Portland Parks Foundation and many hours of volunteer time by local landscape and architectural firms. The same funds that the city received from the state are once again available with the recent passage of Measure 66 for Water, Parks and Open Spaces. If a new model for parks in the E205 area is to be grown, Holly Farm is a good indicator for future success and under the vision and leadership of the parks commissioner I’m confident this will be achieved.

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