Eliot LUTC meeting cancelled for January – Next ENA Board Meeting on January 27th

Posted on by Allan Rudwick

LUTC Updates – No meeting this month

— Hooray! The City of Portland won a $1 Million grant to study redevelopment of the Kerby avenue ramps – Announced 1/8 https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-merkley-bonamici-dexter-announce-5-million-for-sustainable-community-development-projects-in-portland-metro-area

— The Eliot Parking meter area is being proposed to be merged into a larger Boise-Eliot Parking Management District that will include all of Eliot west of NE MLK, Jr Blvd. Note that this will not change anything currently but will create a meeting space to discuss issues along the Williams corridor. There will be an open house at BEH Elementary Sunday, January 26th https://www.portland.gov/transportation/parking/boise-parking/events/2025/1/26/boise-eliot-parking-management-plan-open

Board Meeting
The next ENA Board meeting is delayed for MLK day to the 4th Monday of the month (1/27) in observance of Martin Luther King Jr Day

5 days left: “Pin” your ideas to inform the Reconnecting Albina Planning Project

Posted on by Allan Rudwick

https://www.portland.gov/bps/planning/reconnecting-albina/news/2024/10/25/calling-all-portlanders-pin-your-ideas-inform

<from the website>

Screenshot of Pin It Portland Reconnecting Albina map tool

We invite community members to share your thoughts and concerns by using the Pin It, Portland: Reconnecting Albina interactive map. The map is open for input until January 15.

Pin it, Portland: Reconnecting Albina

Your input on the Pin It, Portland: Reconnecting Albina map will help project staff identify assets, opportunities, and challenges in the project area. To share your thoughts and concerns, add a pin to a desired location within the project boundary, insert your comment, and select one of the following categories in the tool:

  • Arts & Culture
  • Community Space & Public Facilities
  • Environment & Climate Resilience
  • Health & Safety
  • Housing
  • Land Use & Zoning
  • Transportation
  • Wealth Building
  • Other

Portland looks forward to hearing from you!

About the Reconnecting Albina Planning Project (RAPP)

RAPP is a two-year project to create restorative urban development strategies to reconnect the physical fabric of the Lower Albina, Lloyd, and Rose Quarter areas. The project is a collaborative effort involving the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS), Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), Prosper Portland, in partnership with Albina Vision Trust (AVT).

Dawson Park Historic Story Boulders Restoration

Posted on by Serena Li

This week, the existing steel plates and boulders will be removed temporarily from Dawson park for off-site restoration work. The installation of the updated plates and renovated boulders is expected to occur between April – May 2025 to avoid the busy summer season in the park. None of the removal or installation work will impact use of the rest of the park’s amenities. 

To learn more, see the full email notice provided by the City of Portland.

Eliot Leaf Day is THIS Friday (12/20) – Move your car outside of (residential) Eliot if you can

Posted on by Allan Rudwick

To make the most of Leaf Day, Move your car. Your car will be outside of the zone if it is:

  • east to NE 7th or farther
  • west to Vancouver or farther
  • North to Fremont or farther
  • South to Broadway or farther

I know that this is a pain, that many of your neighbors may not do it and that it is disappointing that our LEAF Day is so late in the year, but it is the only one day that the city is going to sweep our streets all year.

Suggestions from PBOT:

  • One day before. Rake the leaves you want picked up into the street one day before your scheduled Leaf Day pickup.
  • Tree leaves only. Use regular yard bins for twigs, branches, needles, grass clippings, and other debris.
  • Keep one foot of space between your pile and the curb for storm runoff and to make it easier for our sweepers. Also allow plenty of clearance between your pile and any vehicle left parked on the street.
  • Trim your trees to leave 11 feet of clearance. Make sure you trim any low-hanging tree limbs over the street so our equipment can get as close to the curb as possible and get the best clean. Learn more about tree pruning and permits here.
  • Move vehicles and other objects off the street. Whenever possible, allow plenty of clearance between your pile and anything left parked on the street. Leaf Day service districts are small enough that you should never have to travel more than a quarter mile to park a vehicle outside the boundaries of a Leaf Day district.
  • Help your neighbors. People are still working from home in large numbers, with vehicles parked longer. Check in with your neighbors so everyone remembers to move their vehicles on Leaf Day.

ODOT Claims it has funding to widen I-5 through Eliot, but it still has roadblocks in its path

Posted on by Eliot Neighborhood

This month, ODOT issued a press release claiming the agency intends to start construction in the summer of 2025 on the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion Project despite ODOT only possessing 40% of the needed funding for the entire project and numerous legal hurdles in their way.  The press release is designed to give this project as currently designed an air of inevitability, with ODOT issuing statements like “The I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project was created by the local community, City of Portland and ODOT working together to plan for changes coming in the future of inner north and northeast Portland. By building new separated bike lanes and wider sidewalks, improving the highway and creating new roadway connections, the project will create a better connected community, a more reliable I-5 and support economic growth.” (ODOT press release, 2018).

In a presentation to the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) this month, ODOT admitted that with their current available funding, they are limiting the scope of the project. Their ‘phase one’ would be minimal changes from the current I-5 travel patterns, but they would almost entirely to double the width of I-5. They hope additional funding arrives from the 2025 legislature to build the community components desired by the Eliot Neighborhood and others, but there is no guarantee that funding for these elements will be delivered any time soon (or ever).

Let’s be clear – thanks to the advocacy of Albina Vision Trust and other local partners to win a historic $450 million grant from the federal government, ODOT already has enough funding to build the caps over the freeway without the expansion. But ODOT is cynically spending this money upfront on their freeway expansion plans with the intent to beg for an additional influx of hundreds of millions of dollars in the upcoming 2025 legislative session, a tall order considering the legislature’s need to prioritize finding billions of new dollars of revenue to invest in basic maintenance and preservation of ODOT’s existing deteriorating roads statewide. This prioritization of investment in freeway capacity over the highway caps at a time in which the state legislature is clearly not capable of promising this additional influx of revenue jeopardizes the likelihood our neighborhood receives the positive transformative changes we were promised. We will, however, get the years of construction impacts of this project, the increased vehicle emissions, and the additional cars on our streets making the neighborhood more hostile to local residents for years to come.

In my testimony to the OTC this month, I reminded the Commission that the Eliot Neighborhood has consistently asked for a few basic things in this project:
– Change traffic patterns to help businesses thrive
– Reduce car traffic on local streets
– Improve transit
– Reconnect the urban fabric around the area
– See usable pedestrian-scale buildings in and around the project area
– Have walkable and bikeable routes to cross the highway without interacting with cars
– Reduce air pollution

Meanwhile, the funded project will:

  • Widen I-5 south of the Rose Quarter
  • Ignore all ramp reconfigurations the community asked for and keep the status quo
  • Remove the hancock overcrossing
  • Remove the clackamas overcrossing
  • Keep the overbuilt freeway cap width, leading to the need to lower the roadbed and cause major disruptions to traffic
  • Remove the most desirable building locations from the caps
  • Widen I-5 north of the rose quarter
  • Widen I-5 in both directions through the rose quarter

The Eliot Neighborhood Association has therefore continued to serve as co-plaintiffs on multiple state and federal level lawsuits to stop this project as currently designed. We, along with advocates from No More Freeways and other groups believe that ODOT didn’t fully comply with federal environmental law that demands they look at alternatives to freeway expansion in our neighborhood.

Even if ODOT hosts a ceremonial “groundbreaking” ceremony next year to commence construction, the agency still faces numerous financial and legal hurdles to completing this project, and the Eliot Neighborhood will continue to use the tools at our disposal to demand that ODOT deliver a project that in line with our communities needs and values. Any Eliot resident who wishes to get more involved with opportunities to talk to our elected officials and legislators should reach out to me at lutcchair@eliotneighborhood.org; the upcoming year represents a critical opportunity for us to organize and stand up for our neighborhood, and we’ll need all the help we can get. 

This isn’t over, but ODOT wants you to believe that it is.

EliotNeighborhood.org Posts Now go to more sites

Posted on by Eliot Neighborhood

Eliot Neighborhood Posts go to facebook, our email list, bluesky, and nextdoor. Do you have another site you would like us to cross-post to? Are there any topics you want us to cover more? As always feel free to reach out at info@eliotneighborhood.org with suggestions

  • our email list:
    you can join this by clicking on the lower left corner of our website
  • nextdoor:
  • facebook:
  • bluesky:

Eliot Neighborhood Association Land Use and Transportation Committee Minutes Monday 8/12/2024 [DRAFT]

Posted on by Andrew Champion

Attendees

Board

Mike Warwick
Allan Rudwick
Andrew Champion

Guests

Anders Hart – Portland: Neighbors Welcome

Portland: Neighbors Welcome Presentation

P:NW describes itself as “a campaign for abundant housing and climate-friendly communities in the heart of Portland.” 

Campaign is in response to city’s housing crisis, attributed to downzoning of the city, with the goal to upzone the city’s inner eastside to resemble older parts of the city, with for street scale apartments, corner stores, et al to reduce the need for automobiles.

The current subject area does not include but is immediately east of Eliot, in part to limit displacement.

P:NW asks for LUTC support at upcoming NECN.

Warwick asserted that land, labor, and materials remain expensive, and that  P:NW’s proposal differs little from local RIP2 and statewide zoning changes. Rudwick suggested that expanding beyond city corridors would reduce competition for multifamily zoned lots. Mike countered that it is a rounding error in the overall development cost.

Warwick moved to support P:NW at NECN, Champion seconded, 3-0 in favor

Updates

Event Parking Pilot

No news

Kerby Project

City may apply for Reconnecting Communities grant to study

News

Next release of Eliot News targeted to precede October general meeting.

Letters

None

NE 7th Greenway

Nothing is happening.

Leaf District

Eliot is being added.

Public Comment

None

Adjournment

Adjourned at 7:13

Eliot Neighborhood Association Land Use and Transportation Committee Minutes Monday 6/10/24 [DRAFT]

Posted on by Andrew Champion

Attendees

Board

Allan Rudwick
Andrew Champion

Guests

Casey McGuirl – McGuirl Designs & Architecture
Alicia Jameson – McGuirl Designs & Architecture
Heidi Bertman – Portland Public Schools 

Developer Presentation: 2416 N Flint Ave (at N Page)

Number of proposed lots for land division or planned development review: 

Proposal Description: 19 unit (8x 2bd2ba, 8x 2bd1ba, 3x studio), 5 Story building with vehicular parking below (6 spaces: all w/ charging, 1 ADA) and rooftop deck. 

Zoning of site: CM3d

Amount of square feet of new building area: 14,995 SF

Attendees weighed different possibilities for improved ground level programming within limits of code and site geometry constraints with a garage.

Common spaces are FAR exempt

PPS – Heidi Bertman

PPS is assessing the value of its Prophet Education Center property for redevelopment. Relocating district ops may prove more difficult than initially anticipated.

Status of Tubman is remains up in the air.

Event Parking Pilot

Allan testified before Portland City Council onJune 5th. Pilot advanced to the next phase of approval.

Kerby

Allan is pitching the Fremont Bridgehead to District 2 candidates, but still needs a grant and leading agency.

Eliot News

New issue is coming out

Letters

None

Public comment

none

Adjournment

Adjourned at 8:04

Eliot Neighborhood Association Land Use and Transportation Committee Minutes Monday 5/13/2024 [DRAFT]

Posted on by Andrew Champion

May 13 2024 6:30pm Online

Attendees

Board

Allan Rudwick
Andrew Champion
Jason Cohen

Guests

Anders Hart

Event Parking Pilot

Allan shared draft of proposed permit parking area. Residents on block faces adjacent to permit area are eligible for permits.

The Portland Trail Blazers are a primary reason for the permit area but appear uninterested in directly funding permits. Indirect contribution through ENA may be possible.

Kerby Ramp/Fremont Bridgehead

Allan plans to reach out to city council candidates about the project and hold another site walkthrough.

Letters

Williams & Fargo

City is working with the new contractor for the construction site at Williams & Fargo to bring the sidewalk into compliance.

OHSU

OHSU replied affirmatively about working together post-Legacy merger but there hasn’t been much action.

NE 7th

General conversation: studying traffic diversion, progress on the greenway appears stalled.

Adjournment

Adjourned at 7:00pm

Eliot Neighborhood Association Land Use and Transportation Committee Minutes Monday 2/12/2024 [DRAFT]

Posted on by Andrew Champion

February 12 2024 6:30pm Online

Attendees

Board

Allan Rudwick
Jason Cohen
Andrew Champion
Mike Warwick

Williams & Fargo

Jason: “we can’t compel” the city to return the sidewalk, but we do want it back. Drafting a letter.

OHSU

Allan working on letter to OHSU proposing resolutions to drug dealing issues, redevelopment of unused land, and collaboration on freeway ramp modification near Emanuel campus.

Former Nike Store

Mike is meeting later about the former Nike Community Store

Adjournment

Adjourned at 7:28pm

Eliot Neighborhood Association Land Use and Transportation Committee Minutes Monday 12/11/2023 [DRAFT]

Posted on by Andrew Champion

December 11 2023 6:30 Online

Board Attendees

Andrew Champion
Jason Cohen
Allan Rudwick

Guests

Wes Ayers

Leaf pickup zone 

Allan presented a draft letter asking to include Eliot in the city’s Leaf Pickup Program. 

Area Parking Permit

Allan presented three draft letters:

To the city: asking for firm commitment to enforcement of the permit area and appropriately assigning the responsibility to Rose Quarter.

To Eliot residents: explaining the genesis of the Area Parking Permit and process of adoption.

OHSU

With the upcoming Legacy merger with OHSU, Emanuel Hospital changes hands. Allan presented a draft letter introducing the LUTC to the hospital owners seeking collaboration and proposing  community investment initiatives

Fremont Bridgehead

Allan is connecting with representatives from Hill Block (bounded by Knott, Williams, Russell, and Vancouver) and Soul District reps. PBOT contact Mike Serritella suggested a TGM (Transportation and Growth Management) grant. Allan is considering a nonprofit to push the project forward.

Meeting Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 7:16pm

Eliot Neighborhood Association Land Use and Transportation Committee Minutes Monday 9/11/2023 [DRAFT]

Posted on by Andrew Champion

Attendees

Mike Serritella – PBOT
Steve Streimer – Streimer Sheet Metal
Allan Rudwick
Andrew Champion
Jason V. Cohen
Mike Warwick

Additions to agenda

(none)

Streimer Sheet Metal – Steven Streimer

Since the 1950s, Streimer Sheet Metal (SSM) has operated off Knott in lower Albina. The company has run out of space, will be relocating in the near future. SSM is exploring redevelopment options for the site through new zoning. 

Issues with the site are soil contamination, and that some lots are IG1 with no-housing overlay. 

The lots on Russell have already been rezoned to EX, consistent with their indication in the Comprehensive Plan boundary. 

SSM hopes to rezone the no-housing lots to EX and sell the site to a developer, potentially as a single project, and/or with Albina Vision Trust (AVT).

Broadway/Weidler – Mike Serritella

Discussed PBOT proposal for federal Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods Grant (RCNG) Program. Project goal is bridging active transportation gaps on Broadway, Weidler, and Larrabee and a Main Street redesign from the Willamette to NE 7th.

The application is in partnership with AVT and Historic Albina Advisory Board. Signal and stormware upgrades are planned, as well as new protected bike lanes, shorter pedestrian crossings, movement separations, and increased green space, as well as signal and stormwater upgrades.

Current state is a “2%” design, both independent and aware of  I5 RQ project. 1 year of public comment follows any grant.

LUTC agreed to write a letter of support for PBOT’s grant proposal.

NE Fremont near Williams

There was no objection to proposed 23 unit housing development immediately west of 40 NE Fremont.

Parking Committee Update – Allan Rudwick

Allan Rudwick and Jimmy Wilson of ENA along with Kathryn Doherty-Chapman (PBOT) had an initial meeting with Blazers management. Ballots are going out ???. The district will be contiguous, and is unlikely to extend to Russell.

Legacy/OHSU

Legacy is in the process of merging with OHSU Health. LUTC agreed to send an introductory letter to OHSU asking for a dialogue with the future owners of undeveloped property on the Williams/Vancouver couplet.

Public Comment

(none)

Adjournment

7:46

Eliot Neighborhood Association Land Use and Transportation Committee Minutes Monday 7/10/2023 [DRAFT]

Posted on by Andrew Champion

Welcome and Introductions

Attendees

  • Allan Rudwick, chair
  • Andrew Champion, recorder
  • Wray
  • Jason Cohen, member

Additions

none

Graham

Developer uses community design standards and isn’t obligated to listen, used [Title 11 fee waiver?]  to not preserve/replace existing trees.


Wray expressed concern about the loss of green space in this lot and in Eliot at large but did not have a specific request for the committee. Allan offered a post on the neighborhood website.

Permits

(none)

Parking Committee

Sent letter to Portland Trail Blazers asking for the team to subsidize the cost of Area Parking Permits for Eliot residents near Rose Quarter. Implementation details of the overall plan remain fuzzy.

Fremont Bridgehead

Allan intends to seek grants. Ideal writers would represent people displaced from Albina.

Public Comment

(none)

Adjournment

Adjourned at 7:03

Eliot Neighborhood Association Land Use and Transportation Committee Minutes Monday 6/12/2023 [DRAFT]

Posted on by Andrew Champion

Attendees

  • Allan Rudwick (LUTC)
  • Ryan Smolar (Placemaking US)
  • Madeline Spencer (Placemaking US)
  • Serena Li (ENA)
  • Cassie Muilenberg (ENA)
  • Jennifer Wilcox (ENA)
  • Jason Cohen (LUTC)
  • Andrew Champion (LUTC)
  • Alice Newman (ENA)
  • Aaron Brown (No More Freeways)
  • Joe Cotright (City Observatory)
  • Chris Smith (No More Freeways)
  • Michelle DePass (School Board)
  • Ananda Gordon-Peabody (MURP)
  • Grace Dudley (MURP)
  • Paul Ahrns (MURP)
  • Ian Meisner (MURP)
  • Meg Grzybowski (MURP)

Items

Fremont Bridgehead Reclamation 

MURP/Team Magpie presented the history of the Fremont Bridgehead, analyzed the site, and provided recommendations for its future.

https://arcg.is/1D5XmG2

This was recorded. See the recording and the final report here:

PSU students deliver final report on Fremont Bridgehead Reclamation Project

Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 7:47

Eliot Neighborhood Association Land Use and Transportation Committee Minutes Monday 3/13/2023 [DRAFT]

Posted on by Andrew Champion

Attendees:

  • Kris
  • Jason Cohen (member)
  • Allan Rudwick (co-chair)
  • Andrew Champion (recorder)

Stanton Letter

Discussed updates from 2021 letter, incorporating modern updates

Send letter: motion (andrew) second: allan vote: 3-0

Art Pierce 

South Eliot

  • Kris discussed the Rose Quarter expansion and its possible effect on development along the Broadway corridor

Parking Committee

  • Establishing district boundary, they seem to be targeting residential blocks more than commercial
  • Residents within boundary will be surveyed on permitting

Fremont Bridgehead

Group is working on report of existing conditions, beginning public engagement process, and making contacts with the city

Eliot News

  • Seeking content