Monthly Archives: April 2013

Portland: A New Kind of City – Part III, Greenways

The deadline for comments on Portland’s Draft Comprehensive Plan is May 1. I hope you will endorse this Greenways comment at http://www.portlandoregon.gov/bps/60988 before that date     –or write your own. 

Portland planners have been talking about integrating fingers of green into the city for a couple of years now.  Then they gave the concept some teeth in the Portland Plan and now the draft Portland Comprehensive Plan with  the concepts of Habitat Corridors (pp4-6 and 4-7) and Greenways (pp 6-34 [sic] and 5-35).

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Tree Crew Leaders rally before each planting

I love planning, but it’s implementation that really lights my fire.  I haven’t figured out how to become a developer yet, so I plant trees with Friends of Trees. In fact, I’m a Tree Crew Leader in both its Neighborhood Tree and the Green Space Initiative planting programs.

I look forward to my Neighborhood Tree planting days with a bit of ambivalence.  I love helping neighbors get those big trees into the ground while getting to know each other better as neighbors. We also have conversations with people out in their yards or walking their dogs in the neighborhood–adding to the sense of community.  But I often cringe at the tree species selection that I am assigned to plant.  Rarely is there a native tree in my allotment of 9-12 trees–lots of Persian ironwood, Japanese snowbells, Chinese dogwoods and. . .you get the picture!  I’ve even come to celebrate when I get a Rocky Mountain Globe Maple because that’s a little closer to the Pacific Northwest.

Last Saturday, April 20, 2013, Friends of Trees had its Earthday planting on the NE Holman Greenway.  Homeowners along Holman had been offered FREE trees because their street had been designated a Greenway.  It was Earthday and  we were planting a Greenway, so I was hopeful that at last we might be planting some NATIVE street trees.  Several businesses had sent teams, so it was an opportunity to educate them.

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Part of my Friends of Trees crew planting a tree that will help transform this street.

I thought I recognized only one tree on the list as a native tree: Swamp white oak. Turns out, it’s native to the same region I am–the mid-Atlantic (and a bit further).  But it’s not native here–so, unfortunately, there were no natives.

We’ve  started to implement the Greenway concept before the Comp Plan passes. My point is, why aren’t Greenways green in more ways than bikes and stormwater. The draft Comp Plan mentions promoting multi-objective approaches. So let’s add one more objective to our Greenways. Let’s add wildlife habitat too.  My brief additions to the draft plan policy are in RED . Its already a great policy, so I did not have to change much!

Policy 5.26 Greenways. Create a citywide network of Greenways that provide distinctive and attractive pedestrian- and bike and wildlife-friendly green streets and trails that link centers, parks, schools, rivers, natural areas, and other key community destinations.

5.26.a. Strive for an integrated Greenway system that includes regional trails through natural areas and along Portland’s rivers, connected to green streets and other enhanced streets that provide connections to and through the city’s neighborhoods.

5.26.b. Prioritize multi-objective approaches that draw on and contribute to Portland’s pedestrian, bicycle, green street, wildlife corridor and parks and open space systems.  Recognize that to be multi-objective for wildlife, native plant species are required.

5.26.c Strive to re-landscape most Greenways with native plants both to better serve our native wildlife and to allow more children to experience nature where they live. Require plantings in the public right-of-way be native and strongly encourage native plantings on private property too.

The draft Plan commentary on Habitat Corridors suggests: Corridors to connect bird habitat on Mount Tablr and Clatsop Butte could be provided across 82nd Avenue and I-205 by planting large, primarily (sic) native trees, incorporating naturescaping into yards and other landscaped areas, and/or installing ecoroofs that have suitable native plants. This is an excellent suggestion but it needs to be applied more widely.

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There’s no reason this and all the bioswales along this Greenway couldn’t be planted in native plants and trees.

 

We’re already connecting Mt. Tabor to the Willamette River (Tabor to the River). Let’s connect the Willamette  River to the Columbia through North and Northeast Portland. Let’s connect Forest Park to the Willamette through Goose Hollow and Downtown and through Northwest and the Pearl.

The Greenways designated on the Comp Plan  map below (from p.4-6 and 5-34)–and a few others I would propose that are not yet on the map–are the logical places to make those connections. If we can do this, we will truly be creating a new kind of city–one that is more friendly to wildlife, to children–and to the rest of us too.

WildlifeCorridor-GreenwayMap

The photos I’ve used to illustrate this article are stand-ins from earlier events I photographed. I will be adding the final ones as they become available. Meanwhile, I thought it was important to publish this before the May 1 deadline on comments.

Healthy Economy, Healthy Environment: Industry and the River

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Environmental Workshop Comp Plan Update at the Native American Center, Portland State University

I went to the session the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability had for the environmental community last night (April 3, 2013) on the current Working Draft of the new Comprehensive Plan. This session was held at the Native American Center on the Portland State University campus at the behest of two members of the Watershed and Environmental Health Professional Expert Group (PEG): Judy Bluehorse Skelton and Claire Carder. Judy gave a tour of the student-planted and maintained green roof atop the Center and someone else led one on the other green infrastructure on the campus.

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Environmental planner, Shannon Buono, and economic development planner, Steve Kountz, presenting the dilemma between industrial expansion and environmental protection.

At the session on “Healthy Economy, Healthy Environment”, I came to the conclusion that more of us who care about the environment need to be

  1. praising manufacturers, like Toyota, who are willing to change their ways to restore the environment at their facility along the river (Please see my blog on Toyota.);
  2. pushing the City to recruit more companies like Toyota and giving them suggestions from our own reading and research;
  3. exposing industrialists in North Portland who are unwilling to work towards creating a healthy environment along with the jobs they tout;
  4. asking lots of questions about proposed tax breaks for brownfield redevelopment and coming up with acceptable solutions.
  5. supporting North Portland residents who are stewarding and restoring parks such as Pier Park   that can become part of a wildlife connectivity corridor if linked to other natural areas.

I sent planners links to two recent articles by Richard Florida and Neal Peirce exploring “The Uselessness of Tax Incentives for Economic Development”. Both were based on a New York Times in-depth series on the topic. I already got a response from planner Steve Kountz distinguishing tax breaks for land from the tax breaks for business that the NYT series was largely about.  I hope that he will put that response below in the comments.

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Image highlighting the location of most of Portland’s industrial lands–along the Willamette and Columbia Rivers.

Otherwise, we will see the continued erosion of what greenspace is left at the confluence of TWO great rivers–the Columbia and the Willamette–an area that is critically important to wildlife. Already, planners propose to take at least a portion of 800 acres of golf courses and most of West Hayden Island into industrial land. Many of us said we preferred that the City push the redevelopment of vacant brownfields first, but the difficulty Steve pointed out was cost. He encouraged us to read the City’s Brownfield Assessment report, but it seems the solutions boil down to tax incentives. Most of the group were wary about those as well.

Other solutions for wildlife that were discussed were green or ecoroofs  atop factories and other facilities and bioswales  along parking lots and roads. In its North Reach River Plan, the City has proposed the Willamette Greenway Plan be extended through the industrial corridor, but industry pushed back (see Toyota link above).

Please use this link to send the City your own comments. They are due by May 1,2013 but don’t delay until then.  Do it today!