The North Portland Land Use Group  (NPLUG) recently adopted the statement below as official policy, to submit to the Bureau of Planning & Sustainability. It’s worth taking a look at, as each neighborhood including King works to understanding how to manage growth, planning, and construction.

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Introduction

North Portland is a vibrant, diverse community of single and multi-family homes, commercial centers, and industrial preserves situated at the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette rivers. Our eleven neighborhoods face increasing growth and density in the coming years. The City of Portland Comprehensive Plan identifies inner neighborhood areas such as North Portland as ideal for increased density. The plan recognizes, however, that increased density carries with it the challenge of maintaining a healthy, connected city where residents have access to clean air, accessible green space, and vibrant employment centers.

In order to meet the coming growth in our community without compromising the health and well being of our residents, North Portland’s neighborhood representatives recommend a health overlay zone. This zone applies specific land use, design, and monitoring requirements on new development in North Portland to mitigate negative health and safety impacts. The health overlay zone supports a vision along with goals and strategies outlined below that together preserve and enhance our way of life while accommodating new development in our community.

Our community draws inspiration for our recommendations from two key sources. Portland’s comprehensive plan update, Policy 4.28.d, encourages design and land use patterns that mitigate negative air quality and noise impacts in Portland neighborhoods, especially near high vehicle traffic areas, and other sources of air pollution. Similarly, Portland’s Climate Action Plan (CAP) goals 1-4 aim to reduce the environmental impacts of new development through more sustainable land use and design principles.

Vision

A North Portland community that preserves and enhances the health and well being of its residents while accommodating growth and density needs.

Goals

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United Neighborhoods for Reform (UNR): Demo/Development SummitIII

Open to the public

Tues., Oct. 7, 7:00-9:00 pm  —  Summit III: Reaching Consensus

Grant Park Church, 2728 NE 34th Ave, Portland, OR 97212

(Please park in parking lot.)

An invitation c/o Beaumont-Wilshire Neighborhood Association (BWNA) and Central Northeast Neighbors (CNN)

On Monday evening, September 29th, representatives from seventeen neighborhoods gathered together for a Summit II follow-up meeting at Grant Park Church, united in addressing citywide concerns over problems associated with residential demolition/development practices.

Here’s a summary of that meeting by UNR Chair Al Ellis (editor@bwna.us):

1.) The group now has a name: United Neighborhoods for Reform (UNR). While the focus of UNR is currently on demolition/development reform, the UNR network provides a means of uniting neighborhoods together for future collective action on other issues of common interest.

2.) The meeting was publicized as a “Prelude to Summit III”–i.e., with an objective of preparing the way for a decision at Summit III on items for inclusion in a proposal to be submitted to City Council on behalf of participating neighborhoods.

3.)UNR is pursuing a two-track approach to demo/development reform: first, support for ongoing efforts by local government to enact substantive reform; second, crafting of a UNR proposal to present to City Council on pressing issues that are either not being addressed by local government and/or are not being attended to in a timely manner in accordance with residents’ urgent concerns.

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