Truth and creativity can't be quashed

Thanks to Portland Assembly and SDP for today's content.

Teardown developers: Let them eat ca...

Courtesy of the Internet

It finally happened

I'm sure it's not the first time, but it was for me, seeing a sign in a yard where a home used to stand that housed people of color.

How to spread the word about these new builds, and what came before them, so people can align their values with their consumer choices?

The years-long demolition epidemic continues unabated, and with it the economic redlining of Portland's neighborhoods, but there is change in the air, more important on City Council, where at least teardown builders can no longer pollute and endanger people's health and kids' IQs with impunity. That's according to rules taking effect July 1 (or earlier), with great faith placed in enforcement.

Black lives matter; so does affordable housing.

Early last month City Council overwhelmingly voted in favor of methods to reduce the spread of hazardous materials during mechanical demolition.

Even though federal studies show demolition dust travels up to 400 feet, under the new rules people living within 300 feet of the plume will be given notice and hopefully can take precautions, even though the particulates that settle on the land around them may yet pose a problem for residents, and future generations. If you know of a demolition, and get notice, do your neighbors a favor who might be a little farther out, and warn them too. You never know which way the wind will blow, and demolitions are allowed to occur as long as the wind registers under 25 mph.

As Mayor Wheeler noted at the February 1 session, "That's a pretty stiff wind."

Teardowns RIP this city

Meanwhile, the Residential Infill Project heads to the Portland Planning Commission.

Attention and enthusiasm for the teardown side seem to be flagging, perhaps because Portlanders are used to following the money trail. As time goes on, and developers' properties languish on the market, there may be fewer contributions to garner needed grassroots support for a teardown blitz mostly brought on by out-of-town interests. Hopefully those developers find that no matter how many former environmental groups are bought along in this process, or no matter the pretty, eager faces hired to drive the drumbeat, Portland people tend to look and think deeper.

As we've lost diversity in our neighborhoods, trees, and community (buyers of the new homes tend to move on soon), the truth emerges at ground level.

The cartoon says "Later in Detroit" but Portland owns it too

by Zac Finger modempunk.tumblr

The bamboozling goes big-time

Much is happening on the land-use front, with developers going for gold at the local level in Portland, Oregon. You can read much more about it here.

The good news is that there are even more chances to see a fine movie sharing important Portland history lessons. Hopefully masters of the plan mentioned above will watch Priced Out and scrap the city's proposal that would entail yet more Urban Removals.

Farewell, old friend

Every demolition hurts, considering the history that vaporizes with walls that could have sheltered more lives and witnessed more stories. The Ancient Order of United Workmen Temple, which fell to airborne jackhammers and other heavy machinery last month, had ruled the intersection of Southwest Second Avenue and Taylor Street downtown since 1892. What an incredible building it would have been to reuse! What a wasted opportunity.

In this photo essay, Portland photographer Scott Tice documents the building as it left our landscape.

A fantastic reuse opportunity, wasted.

Middle housing also gets demolition treatment

A shiny batch of units rises along the river in Portland, while another resident
pitches a tent. Demolitions remove the affordable in-between.
Courtesy of Stephen Poole.

Midway through the city's troubled Residential Infill Project the term "Middle Housing" became the buzzword. Introduced by the developers' lobby, it also turned into the battle cry for housing activists bankrolled by developers in another all-too-transparent bid to maintain dominance at City Hall and take down more of Portland's viable, affordable housing stock for cheaper construction with a greater rate of return.

The latest list of demolitions shows dozens of units more affordable than what is being built now—the sort that city leaders and staff, not to mention neighborhoods, say we need. Among the properties destined for the landfill are duplexes of that so-called middle housing, apparently not expensive enough for the teardown crowd to keep standing.

In another irony, don't miss the demolition permit issued to the firm that calls itself "Sustainable Development." Has Portland finally jumped the shark? (We do know Portlanders increasingly are jumping ship.)

How long until we say No to the destructive and outsize impacts of this kind of development?

The city's Urban Forestry gang has gone on the offensive looking for ways to stop or reverse an alarming loss of mature urban tree canopy. Going around to the neighborhood association meetings, the staffers harangue neighbors to plant trees, especially the large, old-growth-suitable kind that teardown developers love to raze for cookie-cutter units across the city.

Preserving this neighborhood old growth benefits everyone and requiring it would lead to more creative and site-specific buildings. A more robust, preservation-oriented tree code—instead of the pay-to-clearcut program in place now—could score a win for everyone, even for developers who might be able to make even more money with a plan less out of a plan book and a project more driven by the beauty of an established tree.

We love trees, don't we?

Win-win-win.