Category Archives: New Urbanism
Brave New U.S. Housing Policy
February 12, 2021- PlanGreen
To expedite building market rate housing, as well as more public housing, that is affordable to BIPOC communities and to young people, we need to lobby for TAX POLICY CHANGES that will shift our perceptions about “the American Dream”–away from homeownership and towards security, equity and legacy for all.
HOUSING DOESN’T HAVE TO BE A COMMODITY
For the last few years, as long as the issue was housing, I could be found on Fridays at the Q&A microphone at Portland City Club Friday Forum. I would ask: How can you square promotion of homeownership as a means of wealth building and reform of our housing system?

An example of a Portland City Club Friday Forum ad for a housing forum 11-15-19. Image from XRAY-FM.
Wealth building depends upon housing being a commodity to be bought and sold for a profit. Rather, don’t we need to see housing as a social good that all have the right to access? If I could get away with a few extra seconds, I might add: The Community Land Trust, as it was originally conceived, is a NEW MODEL OF LAND TENURE that provides security, equity and legacy, but doesn’t promote housing as a commodity. Isn’t that what we need to be moving quickly toward?
Young people at this 2016 Bernie rally showed
great enthusiasm to transform healthcare.
We need to repeat that for HOUSING in 2021-2022!
Photo by PlanGreen
Housing has NOT gone away as an issue, but you wouldn’t know it from the last two cycles of Presidential debates, which had almost no questions of any substance about housing. As a supporter of Bernie Sanders in 2016, I became irritated with my candidate when he virtually sidestepped local Portland TV reporter Laurel Porter’s question to him about housing affordability and homelessness. I had been attempting to get him to awaken his Millennial base to the idea that we did not necessarily need to continue the current system of housing. I tried hard to get my blog Housing Affordability: Put a Bern on It to members of his campaign and to the candidate himself, but seemingly without success. Since Bernie was Mayor of Burlington, VT when the largest Community Land Trust in the nation was started, he understands the potential of this new system of land tenure. He even told the CLT at an annual meeting that helping to get them federal funding was the best thing he had ever done as Mayor. As Chair of the Senate Budget Committee, he can still mobilize that base.
NEW OPPORTUNITY WITH SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE

Sen Ron Wyden at Forest Grove Town Hall lays out his tax reform priorities. They don’t yet include HOUSING! Photo by Pamplin Media.
Now, young people through groups like Portland: Neighbors Welcome, Sunrise PDX, and NextUp now find that their Senior Senator, Ron Wyden, has become the Chair of the Senate Finance Committee. Peter Wong in a Jan. 21 article in the Portland Tribune lists the priorities for Tax Code reform that Senator Wyden laid out at a January Town Hall in Forest Grove. OR. Corporate Taxes, Capital Gains, Energy, Health Care, and Infrastructure are priority areas, but HOUSING is not one of those priority areas—even though it is probably the largest expenditure in most Americans’ budget. (See comments for update.)
Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean that we,, shouldn’t try to plant the seed for profound change to US housing policy while Wyden is up for re-election. I loved the suggestions from Diana Lind’s Brave New Home:Our Future in Smarter, Simpler, Happier Housing because they match so nicely to my own. Lind began her book after the birth of her son because she felt isolated and disconnected in her own single family row house–and this was before COVID-19. She is Executive Director for the Arts + Business Council for Greater Philadelphia which hardly makes her seem like a radical.
I’d seen other authors question the mortgage interest deduction (MID) before (e.g., Matthew Desmond in Evicted and Richard Florida in The New Urban Crisis), but I believe Lind goes further when she questions the entire assumption that homeownership does or should present a path to wealth building for most Americans. She wonders why the government would continue its subsidization of homeownership when so many homes have now been bought up by multinational companies like Blackstone and affiliates. She also questions such a subsidy even though the mortgage interest deduction is one of the country’s largest regressive tax loopholes and even though student debt has changed the landscape of housing choices for young people. Lind travels the country exploring what people are doing for alternatives.

WE BUY UGLY HOUSES.COM HomeVestors: America’s #1 Home Buyer. Photo by Mary Vogel/PlanGreen taken in east Portland, OR
Any system that pushes housing as an investment (hence a commodity) is bound to attract those who are ready to game the system. It should be no surprise that we see hedge funds, REITs and institutional investors buying up single-family housing and developing portfolios of thousands of properties. They comb sites like Zillow and the MLIS to find, renovate and flip undervalued properties. They buy billboards and post signs on lampposts. Their size allows them to fix prices and this price-fixing becomes a primary reason for skyrocketing housing costs. Yet in Portland, and I believe elsewhere, these companies often face less resistance than new construction or redevelopment—even though they are likely to be bigger contributors to gentrification.
POTENTIAL ASKS TO SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE
I’ve come up with these broad directives (with a nod to Diana Lind) that will need to be further fleshed out to be actionable:
- Actively transition our policies away from homeownership and single-family homes.
- Investigate how best to subsidize people, rather than their property.
- Regulate landlords and buyers who own hundreds to thousands of properties, while finding ways to leverage their scale for good.
- Rethink zoning that privileges single family homes
- Rethink the variety of ways the federal government incentivizes and rewards single family housing—e.g., IRS, FHA, VA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac.
I’We might also explore our connections to members of the coalition that got the “Yes In My Backyard (YIMBY) Act” (H.R. 4351) passed in the US House in 2020 and help them to get an even stronger bill passed in the US Senate in 2021. (See update in comments.)
SHIFTING PUBLIC OPINION

Let’s team up with well-known authors such as:
- Matthew Desmond (Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City )
- Richard Florida (The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class-and What We Can Do About It
- Diana Lind (Brave New Home: Our Future in Smarter, Simpler, Happier Housing)
who can get media attention of all kinds: TV, radio, social media, newspapers, magazines, etc. Locally, we might team up with Sightline Institute Founder Alan Durning who recently authored The Problem With US Housing Policy Is That It’s Not About Housing. Durning begins: Here, I sketch the hidden reality of federal US housing policies: they are about real estate appreciation, not housing. And I spell out how they polarize wealth, exacerbate racial inequality, cut productivity and job creation, speed climate change, and exaggerate the ups and the downs of the business cycle. He plans to next address how we might form a left-right coalition to shift federal policy.
THE BUDGET AS A MORAL DOCUMENT

Image from OCPP.org/agenda links to their Disconnect from Wasteful Federal Tax Breaks blog.
Many of us–especially in my Boomer generation–find it difficult to rethink long-held assumptions and perhaps to give up some financial privileges. Some of the most introspective among us–such as those in Portland’s Interfaith Alliance on Poverty have been exploring the root cause of poverty and homelessness for the several years.
Chair, Les Wardenaar, has an eloquent “Commentary On The Budget As A Moral Document” in the January 2021 issue of the Alliance newsletter showing that he has given some deep thought to the Alliance’s series on the topic over the last few months.. He especially cites OCPP Executive Director Alejandro Queral’s presentation (Oct 2020) on the Oregon tax structure and the benefits that many of us gain from it at the obvious expense of those with lower income. That prompted him to ask himself the question: “how much of my personal finance and with it my lifestyle am I willing to sacrifice to make the system more just?” Wardenaar goes on to conclude:
As one of my Alliance friends put it, “The Budget as a Moral Document” ultimately demonstrates that we—as Portlanders, as Oregonians, as Americans– are deliberately choosing to perpetuate social and economic injustice. We choose to force people to live on the streets. We choose to provide a sub-standard education for many of our children, thus impacting their chances of lifting themselves up. We choose to put “people of color” into a chasm of inequity that only a small minority could ever climb out of. And we make those choices year after year after year.
Many more in the Boomer generation are even more fearful–without being quite so introspective and soul searching as those in the Alliance. Some reinforce each others fears in neighborhood associations where they attempt to block change.
HOUSING JUSTICE: CLIMATE JUSTICE AND PUBLIC HEALTH
Housing Justice is Climate Justice is a meme embraced by BIPOC advocates in Oregon and many supporters such as those in Portland: Neighbors Welcome, Sunrise PDX, and NextUp
What if, rather than bemoan the change to our single-family neighborhoods, we embraced it instead? Ever larger American homes have become a huge factor in climate change at the same time they have led to increased loneliness. And public health officials are recognizing that loneliness is the new smoking or worse–equivalent to 15 cigarettes a day! As homes have become bigger they have led to increased emissions from heating and cooling, more furniture and appliances to fill the space and more fossil fuel to travel further distances–all with a carbon cost. “Why isn’t there a more robust public conversation about how living differently–more affordably, more communally, and more simply–could strengthen our society, economy, and health?” asks Lind.
An equitable housing policy at the federal level needs to be a policy that will expedite building market rate and public housing that is affordable and available to BIPOC communities and to young people. That will happen only when we shift our perceptions about “the American Dream” away from homeownership and towards security, equity and legacy for all.
Our Future in Smarter, Simpler, Happier Housing could be around the corner–we first need to permit it, fund it and build it! And the fearful may then want to get on board.

Screen capture of Twitter site by PlanGreen
UPDATE May 19: While preparing a slide presentation for the PLACE Initiative Climate Summit, I found out that the Senate Finance Committee held a Tax Inequality Hearing on April 20, 2021. The first person to testify was Dorothy A. Brown, author of The Whiteness of Wealth and tax law professor at Emory University.
Also see my slide show embedded in my post of May 20. I’m working on including the text that goes with the slides.
Portland Region 2040 Vision–What’s Next?
April 4, 2016
“How do you think Metro should respond to the key issues and trends affecting the region’s ability to realize the vision of the 2040 Growth Concept?”
I was asked this question recently and here’s what I said. . .
Since its inception in 1995, the 2040 Growth Concept has promoted compact, mixed-use, transit-oriented development in centers and corridors. This has been central to shaping regional growth patterns, limiting sprawl and creating livable communities. In fact, directing growth into centers & corridors has been the region’s primary strategy for preserving farms, forests and natural areas outside the Urban Growth Boundary. Metro policymakers (and I myself) believe that compact development is the premier tool to address climate change, ensure equity, create jobs and protect the region’s quality of life.
I see three key trends that have only gotten stronger since 1995:
Trend 1: Walkable Urbanism Preference

Most cities in the region know that they must promote walkable urbanism–but sometimes their policymakers forget. This image is from Beaverton’s Civic Plan.
Boomers and Millenials both show a strong preference for “Walkable Urbanism.” Some suburban policymakers responses to Metro’s Climate Smart Communities (CSC) project shows that many of them are not aware that this first trend means that they should be focusing more of their infrastructure dollars towards “retrofitting suburbia” rather than building and widening roads. I worked hard to see that urban form/urban design was in the strategies tested in the CSC project (and indeed it tested at the top!), but many suburban policymakers would rather focus on electric vehicles and other technology for lowering tail pipe emissions. More needs to be done to alert them that their present course will potentially lead to stranded assets where there is little market left for suburban single-family homes that don’t provide the opportunity to walk to needed services and amenities.
Trend 2: Recognition That Inequality Hurts Us
There is a growing recognition of the unacceptable impacts of inequality (racial, social, financial). Inequality impacts such issues as housing affordability, homelessness, displacement and even sprawl as people seek more affordable housing in towns outside the Metro Urban Growth Boundary. Thanks to Bernie Sanders, financial inequality (the widening income gap) has become a chief topic of presidential debates and led to more discussion of the role that the Federal government should play. Meanwhile, Metro has attempted to address several aspects of inequality.

This report mentions Community Land Trust as a strategy. But it needs to become THE major strategy if we are to address housing costs for a 2040 workforce.
Regarding Metro’s Strategic Plan to Advance Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Metro’s COO Martha Bennett said “the priorities are to learn more about best practices, apply equity plans to its service-delivery areas, improve community engagement and use equity as a measure of decision-making in spending money.” Any build out of the 2040 Growth Plan will need to address gentrification, displacement and contracting opportunities in an equity strategy that focuses on communities of color.
Metro has pursued affordable housing strategies for many years—the latest effort being the Equitable Housing Initiative headed up by Councilor Sam Chase. From Metro’s web site: The Initiative’s Report discusses a variety of tools that could help, including financial assistance for residents, renter protections against evictions and nonprofit community land trusts. . .
I agree that Metro should utilize the Community Land Trust model, but not just for the involuntarily low-income. I would like to see governments in the region, including Metro, promoting the CLT for ALL OF US. The original impetus behind the CLT movement was to create a new institution to keep housing permanently affordable. The first people I ever met living in a CLT were NOT low-income, rather middle-income people who saw it as a better way. Probably the local government that best understood its potential was Burlington, VT under then-mayor Bernie Sanders. The City of Burlington under Sanders helped to support the formation of the Burlington Community Land Trust. It’s now the Champlain Housing Trust, the largest CLT in the US and a model for local governments looking for systemic solutions.

Champlain Housing Trust is the largest Community Land Trust in the nation. It enables housing to be kept permanently affordable by holding title to the land under both multifamily and single family homes–both rented and owned. Image from CHT 2014 Annual Report: http://www.getahome.org/learn-more/publications.
I believe the CLT is the best tool for transforming our housing system. By taking the land under housing off the private, commodity, speculative market, it helps to change the concept of housing from a commodity to be bought and sold for a profit. Instead it encourages us to see it as a social good that everyone needs and deserves.
“By looking at housing as a fundamental human right rather than a market good that goes to the highest bidder, and with shrewd political organizing in a hostile environment, housing advocates in Burlington have created a sustainable model for affordable housing that deserves to be emulated across the country” says Daniel Fireside in Burlington Busts the Affordable Housing Debate.
The Portland region has a Community Land Trust, Proud Ground (formerly Portland Community Land Trust and Clackamas Community Land Trust). Personally, I feel that it is far too focused on home ownership rather than a mix of ownership and rental. Nonetheless, Metro should explore developing a relationship with it similar to that of Burlington and CHT.

Woolsey Corner in the New Columbia community of Portland was developed as a Community Land Trust by Proud Ground utilizing Orange Splott as its developer. Photo courtesy of Orange Splott.
For the shorter term, it should work with innovative housing developer Orange Splott, LLC and its network of other small incremental developers in promoting more alternatives to conventional home ownership. Let me repeat, these alternatives should be marketed not just to “the poor” but to ALL OF US! For Metro, this work could come under the banner of the Equitable Housing Initiative, but it needs to be larger than “affordable housing.” Rather it needs to focus on housing affordability involving ALL income levels. In the long run, hopefully before 2040, such efforts by Metro will help to change the concept of housing from a commodity to a social good.
Trend 3: Need for Excellent Urban Design
Residents of existing neighborhoods will be far more supportive of new development when it includes excellent urban design encompassing:
- appropriately scaled buildings
- streets designed for walking, biking, pushing baby strollers. . .and even cars
- neighborhoods with diverse uses
- people of diverse incomes, class and ethnicity
- sufficient parks and natural areas, protected streams, wetlands, and steep slopes
- infrastructure for arts and culture
Metro might look into working with the Regional Arts and Culture Council to produce a toolkit to encourage every community in the region to integrate arts and culture. Transportation for America has produced a Creative Placemaking Handbook that could provide a good start.

Tigard Mayor welcomes New Urbanist Jeff Speck for two days of talks and workshops on making Tigard, a suburban community in the Portland Metro area, more walkable. Photo by PlanGreen.
Members of the Congress for the New Urbanism have a great deal of expertise in excellent urban design. Metro should continue to develop a partnership with the Portland-based non-profit National Charrette Institute, a leading affiliate and powerful voice within CNU. As presented at the New Partners for Smart Growth Conference by Council Member Craig Dirksen, the Investment Areas Approach with its Shared Investments Strategy highlighted both the City of Tigard and the Tigard Triangle in the SW Corridor Investment Area. New Urbanists are having strong influence over Tigard’s redevelopment and this trend should be encouraged.

Metro is connecting its natural area at Canemah Bluff with a riverwalk along the Willamette River. This will make Oregon City even more appealing as a place to live and work. Photo by PlanGreen.
Metro should continue its long-standing relationship with The Intertwine regarding the integration of parks and natural areas into developing centers and corridors. This coalitions of organizations have long been involved with implementation of Titles 3 and 13 of the 2040 Concept. It should consider expanding relationships with environmentally oriented organizations that represent communities of color (some of whom are in The Intertwine). As mentioned above in the inequality trend, any urban design efforts must take into account gentrification and displacement. They must also take into account inequitable air quality impacts.
What do you think about my three key trends re: implementing the 2040 Growth Concept–and my ideas on what Metro should do about them? What are your ideas?
Lacamas Northshore Development – PlanGreen In the News

The blue is business park, gold is large lot SFH, orange shades are multifamily, pink is commercial and green is open space. A 3-lane arterial will replace the 2-lane road.
Why does a big re-zoning decision in Camas, a small town in the Columbia Gorge, matter so much? Find out in the newspaper coverage and commentary in these three newspapers:
- The Oregonian/Oregonlive: Camas approves 460-acre development near Lacamas Lake despite objections at packed public hearing, September 10, 2013
- The Columbian: Camas approves a 460-acre development, September 3, 2013
- Camas Post Record: Camas approves Lacamas Northshore development, Tuesday, September 10, 2013
In the Camas Post Record, I wrote: If Camas really wants to create a “sustainable, walkable community, mixing single- and multi-family housing, businesses and commercial development with parks and bike paths,” the zoning would accommodate the kind of development shown in the Commerce Center Templates (http://www.gvmc.org/blueprint/CommerceCenters.shtml )my New Urbanist colleagues did for the Grand Valley (MI) Metropolitan Council. The Kellogg Foundation funded these templates in order to help make Michigan more competitive in attracting future industry and the young people who will work there.
The zoning that the Camas Council approved does NOT support the kind of mixed use in the templates, rather it segregates each type of use and separates the housing and commercial from the industry or business park with a major arterial. While I applaud the denser housing, I believe the developers may be building the townhouse without the town by putting such housing so far from existing services and shops. Even if this area were built out with 3000 homes, that would not be enough to support a grocery store or other essential services that people want to walk to–for their health and the health of the planet.
It seems Camas planners HAD proposed mixed-use zoning for at least part of the area, but that zoning got nixed by the Grove Field airport issue. Regardless, that would not have overcome the core problem with seeking to build the area now—LEAPFROG development.
To become truly sustainable and truly attractive to the market of the future, Camas should be reproducing its delightful grid of downtown streets in areas adjacent to downtown, rather than 3.5 miles away from shops and services. I have walked the Pacific Crest Trail through the entire state of Oregon, but I would not likely walk 3.5 miles along an arterial street to get to basic services on a regular basis.
Yes, they are planning a new shopping center/commercial area segregated from the housing along the shore of Lacamas Lake, but there will not likely be enough density to support that commercial. There is a far better way to zone for a walkable community!
Lacamas Northshore Development – PlanGreen in the News

PlanGreen’s Mary Vogel and Carolyn Foster testified on Lacamas Northshore at Camas City Council on 9-3-13 and were covered in three newspapers.
Why does a big re-zoning decision in Camas, a small town in the Columbia Gorge, matter so much? Find out in the newspaper coverage and commentary in these three newspapers:
- The Oregonian/Oregonlive: Camas approves 460-acre development near Lacamas Lake despite objections at packed public hearing, September 10, 2013
- The Columbian: Camas approves a 460-acre development, September 3, 2013
- Camas Post Record: Camas approves Lacamas Northshore development, Tuesday, September 10, 2013
In the Camas Post Record, I wrote:
If Camas really wants to create a “sustainable, walkable community, mixing single- and multi-family housing, businesses and commercial development with parks and bike paths,” the zoning would accommodate the kind of development shown in the Commerce Center Templates (http://www.gvmc.org/blueprint/CommerceCenters.shtml )my New Urbanist colleagues did for the Grand Valley (MI) Metropolitan Council. The Kellogg Foundation funded these templates in order to help make Michigan more competitive in attracting future industry and the young people who will work there.
To become truly sustainable and truly attractive to the market of the future, Camas should be reproducing its delightful grid of downtown streets in areas adjacent to downtown, rather than 3.5 miles away from shops and services. I have walked the Pacific Crest Trail through the entire state of Oregon, but I would not likely walk 3.5 miles along an arterial street to get to basic services on a regular basis.
Yes, they are planning a new shopping center/commercial area segregated from the housing along the shore of Lacamas Lake, but there will not likely be enough density to support that commercial. There is a far better way to zone for a walkable community!
Park City As Biodiverstiy Engine?
Park City As Biodiverstiy Engine?
June 3, 2013 Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods and The Nature Principle (as well as six other books), was the keynote speaker at CNU 21, the 21st annual conference of the Congress for the New Urbanism, held this year in Salt Lake City, Utah. CNU 21’s theme was Living Community and Louv’s task was to weave the connection between family, nature and community.
Louv made his case on the disconnect between children and nature with some of the data and anecdotes from his books. Most importlay, the remedy he proposes is “A NEW KIND OF CITY” “Cities can become engines of biodiversity,” he proclaimed.
What if CNU sponsored an effort to create a “homegrown national park” along the lines of what author and entomologist Doug Tallamy calls for in his book Bringing Nature Home? Louv asked. Tallamy suggests that if people would turn their backyards into native habitat, we could provide so many more ecosystem services to address the big problems of our time:
- Climate change
- The crash in biodiversity
- The disconnect between children & nature
Louv exhorted us to embrace the New Nature Movement using as an example Bill McDonough’s design for a hospital in Spain. In the design, one side is a green wall; another side is solid solar panels done in the colors of a butterfly that is about to go extinct in that region; the third side is a vertical farm that will feed people in the hospital. It’s an example of a building that not only conserves energy, but also produces human energy – through the food grown, and the view of plants and more natural habitat. What’s more, this hospital takes the next step: regeneration. The hospital’s bottom floor will become a “butterfly factory” where anyone who walks into the hospital may see one of the threatened butterflies of the region land on them. The hospital staff will reach out to every school, place of worship, business, and home and say, “You can do this, too. We can bring this butterfly back.” So this building is not only conserving energy and producing human energy through biophilic design, it is, in a sense, giving birth – by helping a species survive. Conservation is no longer enough! We must regenerate nature–bring it back into our cities! proclaimed Louv.
Louv didn’t take questions at the plenary. Instead it was suggested that we could ask them at the book-signing table–where a long line quickly formed. I was delighted to see that sales were brisk as Louv covers topics that he could only mention in his talk in much more detail in the books .

Because this land is in the public realm, it is a great place to start the movement towards a “homegrown national park.”
The next day, the mountains surrounding Salt Lake City were calling to me, so I joined the tour to Park City’s historic main street. During the time set aside for lunch, three of us encountered a pleasant park on our walk up Main Street. I asked my two companions what they thought of Richard Louv’s talk the night before. The Gen X one said it had introduced her to the important concept of “Nature Deficit Disorder” in both children and adults and that she would look for opportunities to help overcome this disorder in her future work. HOORAY!
The other, a CNU Board member, said he thought the speech was not very insightful and was lacking in specifics on which to move forward. He felt that the lack of visuals (no PowerPoint or anything else) was a real negative. The speech simply lacked specific examples of what Louv was talking about. “I see what you mean,” I said, “but I can provide one here.”
To the surprise, if not disgruntlement, of my companions, I used a “nature principle” framework to assess the park. According to Louv, studies show that parks with the highest biodiversity are the parks from which people benefit the most psychologically. How did this park rank?

By failing to slow, cool and filter street runoff above,-the town was losing habitat value of this creek
There was a small creek running through the park, but you could see from the large storm drain in the street above that this creek could become a danger to children and pets whenever it received street runoff–because of both pollutants and flashiness. I imagined the hard rains two days earlier creating a mini flash flood through here. By failing to slow, cool and filter street runoff–perhaps in a series of lovely native plant rain gardens–the town was losing out on the habitat value that this creek could provide to many aquatic species.

Rather than these alien ornamentals, Utah’s colorful and hardy native species could provide habitat for native insects, the base of the food chain, as well as education about natural heritage
Rather than utilize some of Utah’s fabulous high desert lupines, lomatiums, paintbrush, asters, daisies, phlox and other plant species to celebrate its historic natural as well as cultural heritage, the same old over-utilized plant species we see in Anywhere USA plus turf grass graced the park. Native plants would also be far better habitat for the base of the food chain,native insects, as well.
So, utilizing the guidepost of biodiversity, Old Town Neighborhood Park would not rank very well. But, because this land is in the public realm, it is a great place to start the movement towards a “homegrown national park.” With a diverse landscape of natives and educational signage and perhaps classes, I could imagine this park helping to transform those Park City yards that are now filled with dandelions, garlic mustard and other invasives into an engine for biodiversity. So Park City, let’s get started!
My Blog Has Moved to My New Web Site!
Hooray! With the help of Mary Ann Aschenbrenner, I re-did my PlanGreen web site to incorporate my blog. You can now find it at http://plangreen.net.
Now that my web site is more user-friendly to me, I hope to be updating it more often. Thanks so much Mary Ann–a budding new web designer!
Vision for Dowtown Portland, Oregon – Part 3
Buildings and Codes
To see that new buildings promote good urban design, I would like to see a form-based code developed with input from all downtown residents, business and landowners who want to be involved. A form-based code is necessary to see that we get great pedestrian-oriented urban design.
The Ladd Tower fits in its surroundings better than most new residential towers–thanks to citizen advocacy
I would personally prefer a mix of buildings–incorporating and rehabbing our historic buildings to today’s green standards. Most new buildings should be in the 7-9 story range with little to no setback from the street, lots of large operable windows, and clad in conventional materials. The St. Francis Apartments at 1024 SW Main are a good model. A few more tall towers that pay attention to their context should be part of the mix. The Ladd Tower is an example of a project that does this moderately well. The towers should produce enough energy to run their own elevator and HVAC systems—as energy for such uses may be problematic over the long term.
All new downtown buildings should be required to contribute to distributed renewable energy by producing power for the grid. Locally produced and distributed renewable energy is a vastly better model than the distant wind (or solar or geothermal) farms we currently rely on for “green energy.” If you’ve ever seen the
devastation to great swaths of forest, farm and suburban land caused by the high voltage power lines that bring us that energy, you would question whether that power was truly green. Downtown should model the standards we will need to address climate change. I strongly support bringing the updated Green Building Policy (http://www.portlandonline.com/bps/index.cfm?c=45879&) into effect downtown NOW. It covers both new and existing buildings. I participated in developing it in 2007 and 2008, but it has been held back by events.
Uses to Encourage
We should build on the arrival of ShoreBank Pacific (now One Pacific Coast Bank) to our neighborhood and get them to help us encourage some of the companies in their portfolio to locate here. Perhaps we could bring in a national office of a socially responsible investing organization such as CERES. The existence of Oregon Community Foundation in the neighborhood, as well as ShoreBank, could increase the likelihood of socially responsible businesses and organizations locating here—if we do something to recruit them. Giving them the opportunity to become part of a cooperative health insurance policy or to own their building cooperatively with like-minded organizations could be incentives. Here’s ShoreBank on Green Building:
The built environment has a tremendous impact on the environment, resources, and human health. Building sustainably or implementing more energy-efficient features in an existing building can significantly reduce the single largest contributor to our nation’s carbon footprint. . . .Our real estate lending focuses on owner-occupied buildings and commercial buildings, as well as innovative projects such as co-housing, in-fills, and rehabs. We also specialize in brownfield clean ups. ShoreBank Pacific does not engage in residential lending.
Clean Tech and Sustainable Industries (CTSI), Activewear, Software and Advanced Manufacturing are advocated by Portland’s Economic Development Strategy. perhaps there is room for a company that turns certified sustainably-grown Oregon forest products into unique furniture pieces suitable for those of us who live downtown in small apartments —a company similar to Sweetwater Farm at 14th & Everett in the Pearl. Ideally it would have some assembly jobs suitable for those who live in the subsidized apartments nearby.
Schools and Child Care Facilities
Northwest Academy is one of two schools downtown. It serves grades 6 – 12 with “a unique and challenging educational environment that juxtaposes the arts and academics.” It may be unique in its approach to its physical needs:
The Northwest Academy’s campus is located in the center of the City of Portland’s Cultural District at 12th and Main. The Main Street building boasts a small theater, multimedia lab, music recording lab, photography lab, and classrooms. Additional classrooms are located just across the street in a newly renovated facility. Science and visual arts reside in the south campus classroom building a few short steps from the main building. Dance and other activity classes are held at our Studio Building conveniently located a few blocks away. The Central Branch of the Multnomah County Library, a 24,000 square-foot library located just 3 blocks away, serves as the school’s resource center. In addition, the neighborhood includes the Portland Art Museum, the Oregon History Center, Portland State University and Portland Center for the Performing Arts, all of which are involved in enhancing the school’s curriculum.
St. Mary’s Academy is the other school within downtown’s borders. (There may be others I don’t know about). A Catholic all-girls college preparatory high school, it is Oregon’s oldest continuously-operating secondary school (Grades 8 -12).
To attract families, downtown needs to retain such schools and expand their number. It also needs an elementary school–perhaps along the lines of the one going into a new affordable family housing/mixed use project in the Pearl. And downtown needs more affordable child care facilities–both to attract families to live here and to serve the needs of workers downtown.
Preserve and Expand Existing Uses
Like Northwest Academy, Outside In is already occupying space in multiple, mostly older buildings. Their health clinics badly need more space—especially their acupuncture clinic—as students, patients and the clinic supervisor are forced to work in cramped conditions that are hard on students and their patients.
NW Film Center should be interviewed for its potential space needs and what it will take for it to stay in the neighborhood. Are there other arts groups we should be nurturing or attracting?
Loaves & Fishes Center, mentioned above, is a nonprofit, secular organization that provides hot, nutritious meals to seniors 60 years and older. It’s downtown center serves as the meeting site for the neighborhood association and other neighborhood activities. It offers the neighborhood great opportunities for “civic engagement” so important to sustainability. Through it, residents can get involved in urban agriculture, in service activities providing meals, classes and companionship to seniors. And perhaps other opportunities as well. They are open to suggestions. . .
Finally, we should work with existing businesses and institutions to encourage them to stay. During the recent walk of our PDNA Land Use Committee, the owner of Thai Chili Jam restaurant at 13th and Jefferson came out and handed us cards begging us to come in or come back. On a recent Saturday night at 9:45 PM they were empty. The whole string of restaurants there—Chef Naoko Bento Café, Taste of Jakarta, Olé! Olé! were either empty or closed at that same hour. This does not bode well for their longevity. Only the West Café on 12th & Jefferson had any patrons. Perhaps SW 13th Street gets too much noise and exhaust pollution from the I-405 freeway to attract many patrons to businesses close to it. We need to keep alive the vision of capping the freeway–even during this era of contraction. Once that takes place, we could build more middle income housing nearby. And that would, in turn, help businesses there.
“Buy local” needs to be promoted amongst downtown residents and businesses too. My downtown chiropractor sent me over to Lloyd Center to a shoe repair shop for arch support inserts when they are probably available from downtown shoe repair shops as well. Preserving existing businesses may also mean preserving the structures they currently occupy.
Workforce Housing
I’d also like to see several co-housing projects as co-housing is an excellent way to both encourage workforce housing and create a sense of community. Co-housing projects are designed, built and owned by the members who plan to live there. They usually have more community spaces and events than the typical multifamily building and they often utilize the latest green and self-sufficiency technologies—from renewable energy/energy efficiency to organic gardening. Eli Spivak of Orange Splot, LLC (http://www.orangesplot.net/) is a co-housing developer who might help us attract such projects. A relationship with him should be cultivated. Since Spivak usually works with lower density projects than we would require downtown, we might consult with cohousing developers who have experience with denser projects such as ECO (http://www.ecohousing.net/eco.htm). The Courtyard Housing designs that Portland held a design competition to develop could also serve to bring in more families if such housing could be kept reasonably priced.
Alternative HealthCARE
While the medical racket industry reform debate (aka healthcare reform) rages on, no attention seems to have been paid to the truly less expensive, more effective, more preventative, more holistic and most caring part of the healthcare industry–those involved in alternative treatment modalities such as Naturopathic, Homeopathic, Chiropractic and Chinese Medicine, Acupuncture and other forms of energy medicine. In downtown Portland, we are lucky to have several teaching clinics for these modalities that also offer inexpensive care: National College of Natural Medicine at 049 SW Porter St., Outside-In Clinic at 1132 SW 13th Ave and Mercy & Wisdom Clinic just outside our borders at 2 NW 3rd Ave. We also have a host of practitioner offices, several of which offer multi-modal treatment such as the Clearwater Clinic at 1201 SW 12th Ave. Because these are in downtown office buildings, these are less visible than many of their counterparts in more suburban parts of Portland where stand-alone clinics are better able to advertise their services. My vision sees all of these institutions given more visibility at least equal to what we already afford to the medical racket industry. In fact, I would love to see an insurance plan–perhaps a co-op–developed around these modalities that would cover the alternative labs they use and prescribed supplements as well.
(I say all this as a small business owner whose medical racket insurance rate went from $289/mo to $522/mo over the course of 15 months and one whose only foray into the MD world resulted in three bills of at least $255 to my “insurance” company from physicians who saw me for 15 minutes or less. The general practitioner and specialist sent me for an unnecessary CT scan that resulted in another huge bill that also cost me and my insurance company dearly.)
Lincoln High School
Lincoln High School offers one of the greatest opportunities for creating and displaying Downtown’s new paradigm shift. It could and should go to at least four stories in height and welcome another school or two to join its campus. There are already models in the public school system for a greatly revised and multi-functional landscape: Glencoe is probably the best as other schools have too many non-natives in their stormwater planters. A wildlife garden in the area of the three Black Walnuts fronting on 14th Ave could benefit the trees and be a far better use of the space than the turf grass and temp buildings that are there now.
Invasive species hinder biodiversity and ecosystem services and the Lincoln High School campus is full of them. There are many other hotspots for them throughout the study area as well. They need to be inventoried and a plan developed to deal with them.
Going Against The Grain
Today’s paradigm, as it was in 2009, seems to accept shrinking public sector budgets and hinder our ability to think big and envision a brighter future. I recognize that this vision is going against that grain. But, having just read The Nature Principle by Richard Louv has given me new hope that there are enough of us out there who still see nature as integral to our health, prosperity and our very survival. I hope to promote these ideas in the Portland Central City 2035 Plan for the SW Quadrant and into the City’s new Comprehensive Plan. And then I’ll work to implement them. I hope that you will too!
Vision for Downtown Portland, Oregon – Part 2
Downtown Parks
While the streets cited above could provide the east-west connection, the South Park Blocks are the logical place for the north-south connectivity corridor as they already provide that function–to a small extent. But they need to do better. They need to provide better habitat and they could provide even more stormwater management than their mature canopy trees already do through re-design of the landscaped portions and connection with street stormwater. Over time, replace all alien ornamental plants in the landscape with native plants–perhaps beginning to interplant those areas with native plants right now. Plan to replace trees that die with native trees and plant only native trees as succession trees from now on. This holds for the landscape of the Central Library too.
In the entire series of visionary Halprin parks from Keller Fountain Park to Lovejoy Fountain Park to
Pettygrove Park to Chapman and Lownsdale Squares we need to start the process of converting to native species over time. These parks tell Oregon’s story in terms of terrain. Why not in terms of its native vegetation too?
Right away we should begin the removal of invasive plants replacing them with natives. English ivy is prevalent throughout downtown—even on LEED certified buildings (such as 2 Market Square). If we are serious about getting rid of it in our wild areas such as Forest Park, we need to get rid of it downtown as well–so that people know that it is NOT okay in their landscape either.
Urban Agriculture
While I bemoan the loss of Park Block squares to development, at the very least enhance what has been allowed by requiring or encouraging with incentives an eco-roof on any building in the Park Block corridor. Enhance their wildlife appeal through treatment of buildings and streets at the edges of the Park Blocks too. For example, explore adding a second use to the public parking structure edging SW10th and Yamhill by integrating a community garden into it. Community Gardens are especially important for the occupants of all of the affordable and assisted housing in the area and may play a role in attracting more families into downtown. Topsy Turvys (or similar upside down hanging devices) of tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, eggplants, etc. could be hung in the openings of the parking structure. Planters could grow vining plants such as peas and beans up the side of the structure.
Some preliminary design work for the 10th & Yamhill parking structure was already done by attendees at the Living Futures Conference in May 2009. Talk to Kevin Cavanaugh (Ten Pod) and Mark Boucher-Colbert (Urban Agriculture Solutions). This model can be repeated in other public parking structures throughout downtown as well. Loaves & Fishes at 1032 Main St has been vegetable gardening at City Hall and the roof of the Multnomah County building and using the produce in its meals for seniors.
Vacant Land
For the next five years, the soon to-be-vacant land of the Jefferson West at SW 12th & Jefferson should become a multifunctional landscape providing some bioretention stormwater treatment with native plants and community garden plots for apartment dwellers. More community garden opportunities should be developed in that area as well as there is a concentration of affordable housing there. I am not aware of ANY today except for students and faculty at PSU. Community gardening on rooftops should be explored. To get an idea of what could be done on a rooftop, please take a look at the highly productive garden atop Noble Rot at NE12th & Burnside—a garden that provides fresh organic vegetables to the restaurant below.
Courtyards
Some courtyards of relatively new buildings are designed to infiltrate stormwater onsite. The courtyard of the St. Francis Apartments at 11th & Main is an example. A diversity of native plants, rather than the current alien ornamentals should be grown there, though food-growing plots might be made available to residents in areas of courtyards that get enough sun and that do not have to handle stormwater management. PDC should encourage buildings whose courtyards are currently private to go native. I would like to see us encourage experimenting with opening private courtyards to the public where feasible design-wise—just as The Sitka and its neighbor do in The Pearl.
Surface Parking Lots
Portions of several of our surface parking lots have become important venues for food carts, an important microenterprise in the Portland economy. I would like to see space for these carts retained as the lots are developed to some of the higher uses suggested below such as courtyard housing and/or cohousing. These uses, especially, could replace surface lots while potentially keeping some space for the carts. Space for the industries targeted in the recently passed Economic Development Strategy should also play a role in developing surface lots to higher uses. And the Portland Public Market should replace the surface lot at SW Morrison and Naito Parkway.
Energy Production and the EcoDistrict
At the same time we dig up the street for green streets, we should put in district energy* and smart grid infrastructure tying in with the Sustainability Institute/University EcoDistrict. Portland is developing an EcoDistrict concept. According to Sustainability Institute Director, Rob Bennett, “The objective of the program is . . . to create neighborhoods with the lowest environmental impact and highest economic and social resiliency in the United States.” While green buildings may have energy- and water-saving measures, on-site solar or geothermal energy, treatment and reuse of wastewater or composting of waste, an EcoDistrict does the same for multiple buildings with greater economies of scale. EcoDistricts are likely to have green buildings, many transportation choices and state-of-the-art infrastructure, such as centralized energy production and water treatment.
According to Bennett, they also seek compatible forms of civic engagement, such as car-sharing among residents and employees, a habitat conservation plan or other ways to fulfill broader social and environmental goals. The EcoDistricts Initiative is unique in that it not only establishes high-level performance goals, but also emphasizes governance, finance and civic engagement mechanisms. Portland’s EcoDistricts Initiative envisions a growing network of distinct neighborhoods in that are highly energy and resource efficient; capture, manage, and reuse a majority of energy, water, and waste on site; enhance human health and wellbeing; and are home to a rich diversity of habitat, open space, and green transportation options.
Net Zero Energy Use
District energy systems produce thermal energy for heating, cooling and hot water at a central plant, for use in the immediately surrounding community. District Energy facilities, both renewable and non-renewable, have less carbon output because there is less energy loss due to shorter conveyance distances. District Energy systems typically consume 40% less fuel and produce 45% less air emissions than conventional energy generation. These systems can serve small developments or larger areas up to several miles; however, the energy demand must support the cost of construction and running the system. It is best utilized in dense urban areas like downtown Portland where there are energy loads sufficient to justify the infrastructure installation, as well as both day and evening energy users.
New options for renewable District Energy sources are growing, including solar, wind, biomass and micro-hydro facilities. Technology improvements in small scale plants make these rapidly developing renewable energy sources accessible to businesses and communities. Renewable sources should always be considered to achieve the goal of Net Zero Energy use.
Urban Wind Generation
The V-LIM wind generator eliminates some of the major barriers to wind energy including being able to operate below Class 3 level winds in congested urban areas. Rogue River Wind, Ltd, its developer, will market large commercial and utility scale distributed energy projects. A study in the UK revealed a 180% velocity gain associated with wind tumbling over rooftops. Since the power of the wind is proportional to the cube of the velocity, this gain offers significant benefits in power production. The V-LIM is silent, vibration-free, operates comfortablly in gale forece winds and easily manages gusting, turbulent airflow making it suitable for rooftop mounting and extensive use in urban settings. It can be screened to protect birds.
Downtown Vision for Portland, Oregon – Part 1
This document was first posted in 2009 as a Google Doc that I encouraged neighborhood residents, workers, students and churchgoers downtown to edit and enlarge. Several people sent me good ideas, but no one else took on the tough job of editing.
I sent it out to a committee of Portland movers and shakers who were advising the Mayor on a new Central City Urban Renewal Area. Then, as everyone’s attention shifted to jobs and economic development, I moved on too. Now, two recent events prompted me to post it:
- My attendance at the City of Portland Central City 2035 Steering Committee Meeting;
- My preparation to lead a discussion on The Nature Principle, a book that gives a more universal framework to my vision.
Portland Development Commission recently asked those of us on the Downtown Neighborhood Association Land Use and Transportation Committee “What is your vision for downtown?” While I knew that they were seeking something that fell into step with the tenor of the times, I submitted this vision in response to that request. Hey! I’m an Aquarian who focuses on big picture and long-term.
I will address the public realm first, and what we might do there to set an example to private developers, property owners and residents alike. I will start with the largest part of the public realm, the streets and address how we might go one step further than we are currently doing to make them sustainable.
Then I’ll move on to our parks, then parking garages, then vacant or soon-to-be-vacant land, then courtyards (which might be made semi-public), etc. I’ll suggest some technologies, practices and uses that will address the global environmental impacts we are facing: climate change, peak oil and loss of biodiversity/extinction of species. Portland’s Watershed Management Plan does a world class job of addressing the latter issue so some of my vision speaks to how we can help implement it downtown.

Children regularly frequent the South Park Blocks and the arts and history institutions surrounding them but few children live downtown.
I also suggest a form-based code to help insure great urban design and truly walkable neighborhoods. I briefly address creating jobs for a portion of the existing downtown population; attracting green businesses; using innovative models to develop workforce housing; supporting existing institutions including arts and service organizations and schools and churches.
Green Street Retrofits, Connectivity Corridors and Placemaking
The first part of my vision addresses infrastructure including what is now considered part of green infrastructure. I suggest retrofitting key streets as “green street” connectivity corridors, e.g., SW Salmon Street/SW Park Place. Green streets are streets with bioswales or infiltration planters in the public right-of-way that not only manage stormwater, but also encourage the recovery of biodiversity with NATIVE PLANTS AND TREES. Such a street, or couplet of streets, might stretch from Washington Park (which still has pockets of native landscape) to the Willamette River. Other streets that might be appropriate are SW Main, SW Jefferson and SW Columbia. These streets could serve as a connectivity corridor between the park and the river for birds and other wildlife. These ideas might also implement former Portland Urban Design Director, Arun Jain’s call for “streets as less of a conduit and more of a place.”
If we used a highly diverse mix of natives species in the bioswales—not only the native shrubs, ferns, rushes and grasses that are typically used–but also wildflowers, we could show that we can have color, beauty, interest and diversity in our native landscape while giving residents and visitors alike a true sense of place and providing habitat for critical parts of the ecosystem.
Biodiversity Recovery
It may seem strange to bring up biodiversity recovery as a priority for our central city core area, but, in the long run it will:
- save us money by allowing ecosystem services to function
- attract and keep more residents in the area
- enhance our reputation for sustainability
- keep Portland in the leadership on sustainability by putting us ahead of the curve on Sustainable Sites
(Hopefully, the integration of the Sustainable Sites rating system (http://www.sustainablesites.org/) into LEED will raise the critical importance and value of using/restoring native species in the landscape. I am hoping Sustainable Sites will be the tsunami wave for landscape architecture that LEED was for architecture.)

Let’s connect this nature to the river via Downtown! Addressing biodiversity loss will help us address other issues as well.
While downtowns are not usually the first place one would think to restore biodiversity, I maintain that
because downtown is a place that best projects our image to our visitors and the outside world and that most people in the region visit—if only occasionally, it is a great place to demonstrate biodiversity recovery and educate about it, displaying our values to our residents and our visitors alike.
Entomologist, Douglas Tallamy, in his book Bringing Nature Home gives both research and anecdotes that show that our native insects need native plants to survive. Hence, so do our native birds, amphibians and some small mammals.
. . .Biodiversity is essential to the stability—indeed, the very existence—of most ecosystems. We remove species from our nation’s ecosystems at the risk of their complete collapse. . . . More energy in the system means that the system will be more productive. . .and, from a selfish human perspective, produce more ecosystem services for us, make more fish, more lumber, and more oxygen, filter more water, sequester more carbon dioxide, buffer larger weather systems, and so on). . . Biodiversity also benefits ecosystems by making them less susceptible to alien invaders (Kennedy et al. 2002).
Douglas Tallamy, Bringing Nature Home
It’s not the plants alone we would be attempting to recover, but also the insect species that pollinate plants, return nutrients tied up in dead plants and animals to the soil, keep populations of insect herbivores in check, aerate and enrich the soil and provide food for most other animals. These and other ecosystem services produced by a healthy ecosystem will be especially critical as the planet warms—to help us fend off invasions of destructive alien insects and keep our soils healthy. To further explain ecosystem services, I might ask, “How would you like the job of pollinating every apple tree in the state of Oregon every year?” While it is nearly impossible for humans to do this, bees do it for free.
Another issue we should consider is the alien ornamentals we currently use in nearly all of our human built landscape have brought us Dutch elm disease, chestnut blight, dogwood anthracnose, sudden oak death, hemlock wooly adelgid, and other pathogens that are endangering some of the tree species we will need most to adapt to climate change. Even though we know better, we are still importing invaders. Some diseases, like greening disease (the worst citrus disease in the world) have arrived in this decade on a plant that has become quite ubiquitous–star jasmine. Brought in by an insect on this alien ornamental, in just 7 months greening disease had spread to kill citrus trees in 12 counties in Florida.
Biodiversity Recovery Examples in Other Cities
Other cities are installing examples of biodiversity recovery in their downtowns. In Washington, DC, the National Museum of Natural History has planted the entire street edge on the NW 11th Street side of its property in a native plant butterfly garden with interpretive signage and the US Botanic Garden has a permanent native pollinator garden and display on its property. Finally, the US Senate has installed a rain garden of diverse native species to both filter stormwater from one of its parking lots and rival its ornamental gardens in beauty.
The Corporatelands Natural Landscaping Program in Chicago encourages and supports large institutions to replace their turf grass landscapes with natural landscapes of plants and grasses native to the Chicago region. The program has partnered with Columbia College on the Chicago Loop, to create a native prairie garden in a former parking lot space at 11th and Wabash. They maintain “This beautiful garden is designed to carry the message that biodiversity can work in a very urban downtown environment and that it can also be attractive.” Corporatelands also partnered with one of Chicago’s largest developers, the John Buck Company, to make the planter beds at its prime downtown location, 222 N. Riverside Plaza, a model for how native species can complement a more traditional planting scheme. The entire Chicago region has adopted Biodiversity Recovery Plan.
Costs and Benefits
Researchers have valued the ecosystem services provided by insects at $57 billion each year. What downtown Portland would gain in ecosystem services would be far greater than the cost of adding the additional native plant landscaping. And this green street landscaping I am suggesting would also help us deal with stormwater. The city has calculated the life cycle costs of green streets to be lower than the conventional curb, gutter and storm drain and it is moving ahead despite city budget difficulties on a sustainable stormwater project involving streets from Mt. Tabor to the Willamette River on the eastside. That project will not only retrofit streets with stormwater planters and more street trees, but also stimulate more actions by private property owners such as installing ecoroofs and/or rain gardens and disconnecting downspouts into cisterns or rain barrels or vegetation.
Retrofitting the streets such as those suggested above—and perhaps additional downtown streets—will make a statement and set an example for a greater percentage of our residents and visitors teaching more people about our world class Portland Stormwater Management Plan. This scientifically-based plan needs to be integrated into every economic development and land use decision and plan as its implementation will make a great contribution toward saving our salmon and other species. It will take us a long way toward addressing the impacts of climate change on our water supply as well. Of course, Portland will want to use educational signage to help in teaching people to take action on their own property or public space.