From the Citywide Land Use Group:
Neighborhood Apartment Parking Survey
Dear Neighbors and Community Leaders:
Our Portland community is experiencing unprecedented growth in the development of apartment buildings that include little or no off-street parking. Although a number of these types of older apartments remain along the former trolley lines, the approval of 28 new apartment buildings over the past 18 months has alarmed many of us.
Due to the recent community concern regarding the approval of so many apartment buildings with no parking, the City’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS) is conducting a study of residents and neighbors of eight of these older buildings. As a group of volunteers that participate in the Citywide Land Use Group, we felt it was important to conduct our own, complementary survey. This survey is the result of our Apartment Parking Task Force and Editing Team’s work on the no-parking issue over the past four months. It is our attempt to clarify your concerns and needs. We want to give neighborhoods the opportunity to provide constructive criticism to the City on this issue.
Click here to start filling out the questionnaire
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In our view, the City, Metro, and the State are each dealing with competing goals. These include reducing air pollution, traffic congestion, and storm water run-off, while at the same time retaining and enhancing neighborhood livability, high density residential, affordable housing, living-wage jobs and vibrant local businesses. The recent development of apartments with little or no off street parking is a direct result of these policies.
Portland is not alone in dealing with reduced parking in new apartment developments. Other cities we reviewed included Seattle, San Francisco, and Denver.
Our contention is that the city needs to begin a dialogue with the neighborhood associations and business communities to help understand the impact of these goals and policies on our daily lives. We offer that Portland contains the most creative and enthusiastic community that could be brought to the table for this discussion. Together, it is likely we will come up with a range of ideas and equitable solutions.
The results of this Apartment Parking Neighborhood Survey as well as the BPS parking study will both be presented to the Portland Planning and Sustainability Commission at their November 13th Forum. This is but the first step in helping broker a dialogue between the City of Portland and its concerned neighborhoods on this issue.
The survey questionnaire should take you about 10 to 15 minutes to complete.Click here to start filling out the questionnaire:
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ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THIS SURVEY
What’s this survey about?
Apartment buildings being constructed in Portland with little or no off-street parking.
How could this issue affect me? My family? My neighborhood?
The City code was changed almost 10 years ago to allow developers to include little or no off-street parking in their new developments. Over the past 18 months (02/2011-08/2012), 20 apartment buildings with no off-street parking and 8 apartment buildings with little off-street parking have been approved. This correlates to 557 residential units located outside the City Center with NO off-street parking and 602 residential with little off-street parking.
A total of 1,159 new residential units impacting our neighborhoods.
The City has never before experienced this level of construction of this building type (except maybe in the late 1800s). Government policies, a low local apartment vacancy rate, and available bank financing are key factors that converged in the recent past to spur this explosive increase.
Who’s behind the survey?
The Citywide Land Use Group (CWLUG) is an organized effort to connect Neighborhood Association Land Use representatives as well as other Neighborhood Association Committee members, along with interested others, in a communication network. The function of the network is to share approaches to and concerns about land use and neighborhood livability issues that impact residents of Neighborhood Associations throughout the city. As volunteers from our respective neighborhoods, we recognize apartments with little or no off-street parking may have problematic impacts on the community. It is our wish to identify your concerns. More Info.
Why is this worth my time?The results of this survey will be presented by the CWLUG to the Portland Planning and Sustainability Commission at their forum November 13th at 1:30 p.m. Together with the results of the City’s own apartment-users survey, we propose to begin a dialogue and promote a series of actions that will have a direct affect on retaining community livability. Your input can help change what are considered important factors in dealing with this issue.
What will the CWLUG do with the survey information?
- We will present a summary of the Apartment Parking Survey to the Planning and Sustainability Commission (PSC) on November 13.
- We will submit A ‘white paper’ report to the City Council and PSC which summarizes the Survey results and recommended next steps.
- We will use the results as a resource base for furthering the CWLUG process of gathering the community’s input and making sure the full range of issues and ideas are addressed
- We will develop a set of recommendations for changes and improvements to the City zoning code and permitting process.
When do you need my response?
We’d like to hear from you by: Saturday, November 10th, 2012, so that your opinions can be included in our presentation to the Planning and Sustainability Commission on Nov. 13th. The CWLUG task force will review the survey responses as they come in and the sooner we hear from you, the sooner we will be able to start developing our presentation.
What are the options available for filling out this questionnaire?
You can:
> Mail it to:
Neighborhood Survey
Central Northeast Neighbors Coalition
4415 NE 87th Avenue
Portland, OR97220
>Drop it off at:
Central Northeast Neighbors Coalition
4415 NE 87th Avenue
Portland, OR97220
3. Request a paper copy: (see contact people below).
More information and support
If you have questions or comments about this questionnaire or the work of the CWLUG, contact one of the following:
- Tamara DeRidder, Survey@tdridder.users.panix.com
- Ellen Burr, cwlusurvey@gmail.com
You may also track the progress of the Apartment Parking Task Force at the following website: https://sites.google.com/site/apartmentparkingtaskforce/
Thank you for completing the survey and helping to improve community involvement in Portland’s planning and development process!