The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-09-25
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (19,419 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are not yet identified (colors just separate consecutive turns). Auto-captions can contain errors — check the recording for anything that matters.
Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Climate Resilience and Land Use Committee met on Thursday, September 25, 2025. After roll call and the reading of the standard conduct statement, the committee resumed discussion of the Portland Urban Forest Plan, continued from a September 11 hearing. Three proposed amendments to the plan's resolution document were discussed, covering street tree maintenance funding and city responsibility, sidewalk repair financing strategies, and narrowing financial assistance eligibility to qualifying low-income property owners. Discussion covered funding sources including Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund allocations, cost estimates for street tree and sidewalk maintenance (figures were stated inconsistently across speakers), and coordination with Parks and PBOT staff. One amendment was revised during the meeting to include language about developing a plan for how the city could assume responsibility, along with a cost estimate. Votes occurred on each amendment and on moving the amended resolution to full council; outcomes are recorded in the vote ledger. The committee then heard a Bureau of Planning and Sustainability presentation on the Inner Southeast/Inner Eastside Infrastructure Study, covering growth scenarios, zoning tiers, sewer/stormwater and transportation capacity findings, and next steps. A community panel representing several housing advocacy organizations then testified in support of expanding housing in the inner eastside, followed by discussion touching on transit ridership, safety perceptions, and displacement concerns. The next meeting was announced for October 9.
AI-drafted from the session's auto-captions, reviewed by an editor — describes the discussion only; recorded votes live in the vote ledger. Captions contain errors.
0 I call the meeting of the climate resilience and land use committee to order. It is Thursday. Oh. Good morning. I called the meeting the climate resilience and land use committee to order. It is Thursday, September 25th at 9:30 a.m. Will you please call the roll?
1 Good morning. Morillo.
2 Here.
3 Avalos.
4 Present.
5 Canal. Ryan.
6 Novick here. Claire, will you please read the statement of conduct?
7 Good morning, and welcome to the meeting of the climate resilience and land use committee. To testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at Portland gov. Council agenda slash climate resilience and land use committee. Or by calling 311. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting. In-person testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard. If public testimony will be taken on an item, individuals may testify for three minutes unless the chair states otherwise, your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The chair preserves order. Disruptive conduct such as shouting. Refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered. When testifying, please state your name for the record. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. And finally, virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.
8 Thank you. Thank you. Claire. We have two items on our agenda today. We'll resume our discussion of the Portland urban forest plan, which we continued from our hearing in September 11th. Then we'll hear a presentation from the bureau planning sustainability on the inner southeast infrastructure study. And we'll hear from a community panel as well. Diego, will you please read the first item.
9 Item one adopt the Portland urban forest plan to improve public health, build resilience to climate change, and promote environmental justice.
10 Colleagues, we continue the urban forest plan conversation from last meeting so that councilors and staff would have time to discuss possible amendments. I think that the amendments that councilor Kanal is bringing forward were already discussed, at least in concept, at the last meeting. So if that if they are substantially similar to what was discussed, I don't think that we need to allow for public testimony. Councilor Kanal or the amendments you propose to bring. Do you think that they've already had the opportunity for public testimony at the last meeting?
11 I think that some might and some might not have. I think they've been adjusted based on the conversation with community members and with the staff. So my preference would be to allow for that. But I don't know what the concern is on the other end.
12 Well, it's I mean, the concern is simply time. Let's see. We don't have.
13 Everything's just a presentation though, right?
14 Yeah, but okay, why don't you take us through our amendments and then we'll see if there's anybody here who wants to testify. Okay.
15 There are three. I have copies here, and they're also posted to the agenda item on the website. Thank you to the clerks for getting that posted. And thank you to everybody who's involved in this. They are substantially similar to the list of some some of the things that were on the list of seven. Last week, but two weeks ago. But I'll just read them out here. One is to amend an action item, two three of the recommendations and implementation strategy. It has said sustainably fund and implement a comprehensive citywide street tree maintenance program to reduce financial burdens for portlanders, improve the health and safety of the city street trees, and support habitat connectivity. It changes that to fund and implement a comprehensive citywide street tree maintenance program, and by November 2027, establish a plan for the city to assume legal and financial responsibility for street trees, to improve the health and safety of the city's street trees, and support habitat connectivity. Second change is action item two, five of the recommendations and implementation strategy to establish a plan for the city. I'll just read the quote. Identify financing strategies, cost saving measures, and other ways to improve pedestrian accessibility and reduce cost to property owners for repairing sidewalks damaged by trees. And it would update that to identify financing strategies that include new funding sources, cost saving measures, and other ways to improve pedestrian accessibility and reduce cost to property owners for repairing sidewalks damaged by trees. And this is the new part by 2028. Establish a plan that takes into account current projects underway for the city to assume legal and financial responsibility for street tree related sidewalk repairs. And then the third one just adds a couple additional words to action item two one. So instead of saying to provide financial assistance to portlanders, it says to provide financial assistance for qualifying low income property owners. So just narrows the scope of 2-1. And everyone has a copy. Thanks.
16 Do we have anybody signed up signed actually signed up for public testimony?
17 Just to clarify, as this is a second reading of this item, verbal testimony was closed after the end of the previous committee meeting. That being said, at your discretion, you're open to open verbal testimony. Now.
18 I think that since these are substantive amendments and I don't think all of them were discussed, like specifically at the last meeting, is there anybody here who would like to testify on any of these amendments?
19 If there's anyone interested, feel free to walk up over to me at the clerk's seat. If there's anyone tuning in online that would like to provide verbal testimony, please email council clerk at Portland Oregon.gov and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.
20 Okay. In the absence of anybody wanting to testify. Let's see. I'm not sure that we should. I think that we should have motions to one at a time. Just to adopt these amendments, followed by a discussion. So I would entertain a motion to adopt councilor Kanal first amendment to exhibit a of resolution document number 2025 351.
21 So moved second.
22 I'd like to have a motion to adopt the second of councilor Kanal amendments.
23 So moved again.
24 Again.
25 And a motion to adopt the third of councilor Kanal amendments.
26 So moved second.
27 All right. The motions for each of these amendments separately have been moved and seconded. Is there is there any discussion? I know there will be some discussions. I want to have one. Have some. Councilor Kanal.
28 I just wanted to reiterate the thanks for the staff and for the advocates who reached out with all of this, but also to councilor Ryan's team. I know he's not in the meeting right now, but his staff was involved in the in the conversation as well, and I didn't mention them earlier. So thanks to them.
29 Okay. Let's see on amendment one, my concern about the amended language is, it seems to me to. As opposed to the original language, to commit the city to assuming legal and financial responsibility for street trees. Period, at some point in the future. And I don't think the previous language was that unequivocal. And my concern about that is that I am worried about having the Portland clean energy fund, which I think is what we wind up paying the cost, assume responsibility for maintaining all street trees, even in the richest parts of the city, because I just simply don't know if relieving people in Eastmoreland in the west hills of the responsibility for street trees is as high a priority for the clean energy fund as, for example, expanding transit in low income areas. So I would my tentative inclination is to vote no. But obviously I welcome some discussion, including from councilor Kanal.
30 Can I respond to you? Yes. Okay. I you know, I appreciate that concern. And I also think in a lot of the tours that we've done with different community organizations and district three, there's just such a noticeable difference in the tree canopy in different parts of district three. And of course, you know, beyond that in district one as well, especially, and the difference that it makes for just the heat islands and everything seems to me to be really critically tied to tree maintenance and making sure that that's expanded across the city. So I do feel that that would fall under what PCEF is doing. And it seems like already already does some of that work. And I feel like we have not we're not really investing in our tree canopy anymore. There's been a lot of discussions about that since the last budget cycle, and it's just going to be really critical in the years to come. So I do feel comfortable with this amendment. I guess that would be my pushback, but.
31 Councilor Kanal. Thank you. Chair. Novick. I think it's a valid question, but I would point out that I think geography is not always a good. A good stand in for income level, and specifically as it relates to folks who might. There are house rich, cash poor folks who live in in every neighborhood in the in the city. There are low income folks in just about every neighborhood of the city. So I think that there's a the the geographical stand in is, I think, my concern with that argument, and I think that it makes sense to say we're going to take the existing pilot and just allow it to be one of the options for how this would continue.
32 And what is the what annual cost of the city taking over the maintenance of all street trees?
33 I can get that number. I think there's probably someone here who can answer that question.
34 Parks and PBOT.
35 I'm letting them figure out who's the best person to answer it.
36 To talk to before this.
37 Good morning, councilors jen cairo, city forester our estimate currently, which is a few years old, is 15 to 20 million per year. We are doing a pilot, as was mentioned, coming soon, and that is in part to truth, those numbers.
38 And just to clarify that, where are those dollars coming from at present for the pilot?
39 Those funds are pcf Portland clean energy community benefits funds. Thank you. Yep.
40 Councilor Ryan, we're discussing the first of councilor Kanal proposed amendments, which would fund it, would say change the current language to fund and implement a comprehensive citywide street tree maintenance program. And my November 2027 establish a plan for the city to assume legal and financial responsibility for street trees. And I expressed concern that I'm not sure that this is the best use of clean energy fund money to the extent that it takes over maintenance of street trees from some of the richer people in the city. So that was one thing we were discussing. Councilor Morillo.
41 Actually, I'm going to put my hand down again. Thanks.
42 Okay.
43 Councilor Ryan.
44 I put that in there because I thought it'd be a minute. Sorry I'm late. I was at a very inspiring ceremony, bringing in the largest number of new recruits to the police force from all walks of life and really compelling stories. I think for me, when I looked at all of these. I'll start with this. I know it's where we want to go, and I think it's inspiring. I just want to know, have we worked this out with the bureau of parks bureau and with PBOT? And to look at the impact of what this would be to our budget. And so it was I just wanted to start with that. So I want to hear maybe from you, councilor Kanal how this was a workshopped with the bureaus that this will be impacting in terms of the delivery of the work. So I'm glad that you're up here. It's good to see you, jen. And it's as a representative from PBOT here as well.
45 I respond to that.
46 Yeah. I just want to hear the transparency of this dialog.
47 Good morning. Alex morano, chief engineer for PBOT.
48 So I'll just jump in on the the first part of that. And I know that the second one. No. Yeah. The second one is. Related to the, the, the part about PBOT. But I'll just kind of give the overview here, which is that after the last meeting of this committee two weeks ago, you know, we talked about how best to. Go about assessing those amendments that were seven that were proposed by advocates that I highlighted and said that I was intending to put at least two of them forward. So staff from your office, councilor Ryan, as well as my office, met with three folks, including belinda, brian and jen from from Portland parks and recreation, along with some of the advocates from 350 pdx and the bird alliance. And then the conceptual framework was sort of in that conversation, and the exact text was worked out by ppnr staff. So the deadlines specifically, which were a goal to have a deadline that was an underlying suggestion from the advocates. But the specific dates were put part as part of that conversation with the staff. And then the staff actually wrote the the text you're seeing.
49 Can you all add some more to that? Because this is a big change from where we were in the last meeting. So I just want to make sure I'm listening to what how you were all brought along and your ideas on how to move forward. And is this doable?
50 I can speak to the first one. Yeah. So for the first amendment regarding street trees, staff are comfortable with the language that's proposed. The deadline to establish a plan by November 2027.
51 And that's the only one we're talking about right now is no.
52 All of them are moved. So we can discuss the second one about sidewalks to. Okay.
53 So you feel that you've been brought along a number one.
54 Yes, absolutely.
55 And you're representing PBOT. Correct.
56 No, I'm representing.
57 You're representing PBOT.
58 Okay. So we have been brought in the conversation. There are a lot of questions that we have in terms of both funding and the cost of associated with, not necessarily the trees and maintaining the trees, but really the impacts, secondary impacts of the trees on the sidewalk systems and how they cause damage to the sidewalk. And then who makes those repairs. So we would need more clarifying conversations around who maintains those sidewalks if the city does, how is the funding being allocated for that? This could, I think the city of denver looked at this in the past. They came up with a $40 million annual cost to maintain the sidewalks. Obviously, we would have to take a look at that and see what that impact is, but that is just for the actual repairs. And so we'd have associated staff costs to what have you that would need to be addressed as part of that program. But again, that 40 million is just a kind of a wag, you know, certainly a starting point. And we'd have to dig into that which we have not done at this point.
59 We're mostly councilor Kanal. We're most of your conversations with parks then, or PBOT and parks. I missed that part. Sorry.
60 Again, our staff. So your staff and mine spoke primarily with parks, but PBOT was in part of that conversation as well. We had one meeting.
61 This is our first week of having both council meetings and every committee meeting, so I apologize.
62 No. Fair enough.
63 I don't know everything.
64 Yeah, no, that's totally fair. And we're we're all adjusting to that. But I think then after that there was email after the meetings to talk about the actual language and, and work that through. I will say that if you look at the, the first two and a half lines of the current language are reflected in the first three lines of the amended language. So different line breaks there. But the thing that's being added in the second one is by 2028, establish a plan that takes into account current projects underway for the city to assume legal and financial responsibility. So, you know, this is we're talking about asking PBOT to come up with the methodology of how do we get from here to there? It's establishing that this is a goal. It doesn't commit us to going there in terms of we'd have to see what the plan says, right. So I think this is one of those conversations we had several of during the budget, where we are trying to give clear direction to our staff. That is less ambiguous than I think the current language is to and with a deadline. That's a fairly generous deadline 2028 to look at. How do we get from here to there? And I think one of the things we're not most of the things that Portland does that are that don't make any sense. We're the only city that that does them. This is one that's not actually that. A lot of cities, the majority do take responsibility for sidewalks. We don't really as a general rule. And I think it's I think in particular the parts of the city that were annexed later have had to put in sidewalks and then now are having delayed maintenance costs ten years, 15 years afterwards, especially as it relates to trees. Taking on that responsibility makes sense as a long term goal for the city. I'll leave it at that.
65 Councilor Morillo.
66 Thank you, councilor Novick. Yeah, I actually think these amendments, the the part that stands out to me is simply, you know, in the first one it says establish a plan. And the second one it says identify financing strategies and new funding sources, cost saving measures, etc. And so to me, I don't really see why these are difficult to wrap our heads around, because it's just asking our bureaus to look into this, and it's putting a timeline on it, because we know that if we don't put a timeline on things at the city, they will never get done because there are a million issues to take care of. And so when we don't put timelines on things, then there's nothing to force us to prioritize anything. So these amendments are simply asking our bureaus to try to figure out a plan to preserve and expand our tree canopy, which is going to be really critical for our climate in the years to come. And I think that there are very reasonable it sounds like folks are okay with a two year, even three year deadline. I think that's reasonable, and we really appreciate all of your efforts moving forward on this. But I'm fully in support of of these amendments. Thank you.
67 Thank you, councilor Morillo. My personal feeling is I don't think we should be instructing staff to develop a plan to do something until we've decided it's something we actually want to do, and that applies to both of these first two amendments. And I'm particularly concerned about directing staff to establish a plan for the city to assume legal and financial responsibility for street tree related sidewalk repairs, when we have no idea how much that will cost, except perhaps in denver, it cost $40 million. So those are those are my concerns. I personally feel like this language. If I vote for this language, then I'm committing us to saying that I'm committed for the city to assume these financial responsibilities. I will say that I do think I have had a long standing concern about the idea that we tell people that they can't remove trees, but then they're forced to maintain sidewalks that are damaged by those trees. And I think that's worth the longer discussion, but I'm not as comfortable simply saying that, well, the city should pay for it. So those those are my concerns.
68 Councilor Kanal. Thanks for that. I think I was not understanding the concern. I appreciate you clarifying it. I, I think it's a linguistic concern. I don't I don't mean that in a negative semantic sense. I mean that my interpretation of the text as it was being drafted and as it is here, is that the plan is how we know how much it costs. The plan is how we know the information necessary before making that commitment in 2028. In this particular amendment 27 and the other one, and I think the way that it was sort of laid out to me as it came out of this is that we're establishing a plan for how the city could assume legal and financial responsibility, if it's helpful to put that into the text. I'm happy to reword that one. For for number two, I think number one is a little different because we're already doing it through that pilot program. So but for number two, I'm happy to to draft that. If you give me a minute here and if there's any other conversation on the first and third that can continue while I do that, I think it might be helpful.
69 Yeah. And if they actually if I may have a friendly amendment suggestion, if it could include a plan to add an estimate of costs for something to that effect.
70 Sure. Thank you.
71 Councilor Avalos.
72 Well, I think to the broader statement that I'm hearing from you and correct me if I'm wrong councilor Novick around, do we or should we address the maintenance of street trees in neighborhoods that are more wealthy? I understand the underlying sentiment, but I think ultimately part of the problem is that the maintenance of street trees has been the responsibility of the maintenance of street trees has been inconsistent over the years. And we I know in east Portland they planted a whole bunch of trees that all died because they didn't water them. And so and, you know, maintaining trees requires a professional eye. So I don't think putting a burden on any homeowner, regardless of their income level, is in the best interest of the city, because if we don't have a consistent way of maintaining the trees and then we are losing them, that's ultimately costing us more money. It is also my understanding that the entire point of the 150 million of dollars that PCEF has allocated for trees is for precisely this goal of, again, trying to remove the burden on individual portlanders on the maintenance of trees. Can I get a confirmation about, I guess, the the PCEF dollars? Because it sounds like there's some confusion on where is the money if do we have the money? It was my understanding that the that that program that PCEF created with that bucket of money was to do what we are proposing here. Am I correct in that.
73 I can speak to that councilor? There are three different funding streams from Portland clean energy community benefits fund for urban forestry. All of them are five year intervals one equitable tree canopy that's $40 million over five years to plant and establish trees. The second one is $7 million over five years to develop this private property tree care program, which is focused on low income property owners. And the third and final one is $100 million over five years to develop and pilot the street tree maintenance program, as well as other measures for tree protection and care. So ongoing funding is not included in the five years. However, it's anticipated in this first five years for street tree maintenance. We'll learn more about actual costs as well as operationally, how best to deliver the service, and that will inform future funding cycles.
74 Great. Thank you for that clarification. Yeah, I guess I'll just end by saying I'm supportive of these amendments. Thanks.
75 I would just add that, I mean, my concern is that we are that I think that in adopting this, we are saying that we are going to use PCEF to fund street trees forever, not just for five years. And we're telling the PCEF committee that you can never have a discussion about whether other uses of PCEF money are more important than maintaining street trees, including enriched neighborhoods.
76 Councilor councilor I.
77 Say where in the language you're seeing that? Because I'm not seeing that in this.
78 I think that when you say establish a plan for the city to assume legal and responsibility for street trees to improve the health and safety of the city, street trees, blah, blah, blah, to me, you don't tell people to establish a plan to do something unless you are planning to do it, and it doesn't distinguish between street trees. So that's just the way I read it. Councilor Ryan.
79 Yeah.
80 I think that all of us want this for Portland. We want to growing tree canopy and a legitimate partnership with homeowners for street trees. I can't tell you how many calls and site visits I've done with homeowners who have don't have the funds, and it's a shocking bill, and it's caused them to basically go into a short term debt. And it's also caused people to say, I'm done living in Portland. So I get the headache to that. We're trying to aspirin we need for this headache. I do think that we're doing information gathering based on the dialog I'm hearing today, and we need this assessment. A plan sounds like a done deal. An assessment says let's get the real information. Finally. So we have our eyes wide open to what this looks like if we land it. So I'd be comfortable with language that moves us more to that style of action.
81 Councilor Kanal thanks. I'm going to run something by you and see what what you all think. So identify financing strategies that include new funding sources, cost saving measures, and other ways to improve pedestrian accessibility and reduce cost to property owners for repairing sidewalks damaged by trees. That's in the existing. And this is the new as adjusted. And by 2028, develop a plan for how the city could assume how the city could assume legal and financial responsibility for street tree, sidewalk related sidewalk repairs that take into account current projects underway for the city and include an estimate of potential costs. I think that addresses both of the things, but I don't know if that. Please confirm.
82 For me it does for that amendment.
83 And I will send this to the clerk. I just wanted to make sure I'm not sending five versions of it as we're discussing.
84 Councilor Morillo.
85 Yeah, I think I'm fine with those changes as well. If it clarifies the intention of these amendments. And I do just want to point out that there's not you know, it. Again, I understand the anxiety around PCEF being used to address every single issue in the city, and I certainly don't support that. And I do think we need to follow the lead of the PCEF committee as well and their recommendations. And I would just add that PCEF is not referenced in the language of any of these amendments. As of right now. It's in fact, it says identifying funding strategies or new funding sources. So I think that maybe we all have some ptsd related to PCEF attacks, but that's not what's explicitly listed in these amendments. And we do need to try to figure out any and all possible options for for funding.
86 I appreciate that, councilor Morillo. I think that for the for amendment one, because the PCEF is currently paying for the five year pilot, I think that everybody would assume that that's the funding source. So even though you're right, it doesn't explicitly say that I'd still have the same concern for amendment two. I think you're right. There is not the I mean, I appreciate councilor Nils revision, and I don't think that it would have been presumed to mean that PCEF would pay, but simply having the city agree to pay was something that was worried about. Councilor Kanal.
87 Yeah, I think the conversation you just had might have covered most of what I was going to say. So I'll just say, just to restate for the record, in case anyone from the committee is watching, I have no intention of defining, you know, every, every penny of a dollar and where it's going to go. I think having worked with advisory committees and I know you're more than just advisory, so please don't take it as as that because of the language used. But having worked with committees for many years across the street, I am committed to listening to the pcf committee as part of this process of developing future climate investments. But I do appreciate the opportunity to get to clarify that. Thanks.
88 Any further discussion before we move to vote separately on each of the amendments.
89 Do you have to do something to amend it?
90 Oh, that's right, we. You moved to amend your amendment.
91 I moved to amend my amendment to what? I'm going to probably put diego on the spot and ask him to read, and I ask for unanimous consent to do.
92 It.
93 But I'll let him read first.
94 Thank you. Amendment language for amendment two. Identify financing strategies that include new funding sources, cost saving measures, and other ways to improve pedestrian accessibility and reduce costs to property owners for repairing sidewalks damaged by trees. And by 2028, develop a plan for how the city could assume legal and financial responsibility for street tree related sidewalk repairs. That takes into account current projects underway for the city, and includes an estimate of potential costs.
95 Thank you. Let's see. Wait a minute. Was that already moved? Was that moved and seconded, or was it.
96 Where are we?
97 What? Okay. Unanimous consent. That's right.
98 Sorry.
99 Yeah. Can we have unanimous consent to amend that amendment?
100 Not yet.
101 Not yet. Councilor Ryan.
102 Can I. I hear the word could. I'm trying to find this email.
103 Okay.
104 Pbot parks, are you good with this language change? You're our partners. You're the ones that have to do the work.
105 I think for PBOT. Absolutely. I think the question really comes down to funding the effort to do this planning work. So that's where we would need some clarity. And working with parks to identify how we work together and fund this planning effort so that we can report back to council. But having that commitment between parks and PBOT, I think, would be beneficial, so that we can bring back good information to.
106 Absolutely. And do you think the language now creates that did the from what you just heard.
107 I do I think it would be fine. It commits us to do the planning work and so that we can come up with some information to bring back I think so.
108 Okay, now I can.
109 All right, I think I'm sorry, I'm a little discombobulated today, but I think that now we can move to a roll call, vote on councilor Canales, amendment one. Please call the roll.
110 For amendment one. There was a previously a motion from Morillo second by canal Morillo. I Avalos. I no. I Ryan. I Novick nay. The motion carries with four eyes and one nay. Amendment one to exhibit a of resolution document number 2025 351 are adopted, is adopted. Excuse me.
111 Can we have a roll call for amendment two?
112 Yes. Amendment two, previously, a motion by Morillo. Second by canal Morillo.
113 I.
114 Avalos I.
115 I. Ryan I.
116 Novick I.
117 With five eyes. Amendment two is adopted and amendment three previously a motion for Morillo second by canal Morillo. I Avalos.
118 I I Ryan.
119 I Novick. I with five eyes. The motion carries amendment three to exhibit a of resolution. Document number 2025 351 is adopted.
120 Now I'd like to entertain a motion to move the resolution document number 2025 351, as amended, to the full council, with the recommendation to be adopted.
121 So moved.
122 I'll second.
123 Motion has been moved by councilor, seconded by councilor Canal. Is there any discussion?
124 Yes.
125 O councilor Kanal sorry.
126 Yeah.
127 Thank you for everyone on the conversation, on the amendments. I still have a couple questions that I'm going to be asking as we get from now to then that just weren't able to get fully worked out before here and now. And I'll just daylight those I have intention to vote for this motion and look forward to discussing it at the full council. But the specific thing that I'm still trying to get full information on, I want to thank parks for what they've already provided is around the the zones. So this is on page 57 of the exhibit. But the I understand the the river zone is harder to increase the canopy in. So that's why the targets from 13% now going to 20%. The goal, by the way, on the western side is to retain 66% canopy cover. To give you an idea of the disparity here. And I understand that industrial land is difficult there, but that area also includes some of the non-industrial land. So we're trying to get that information figured out and see if there's a way to adjust, or to at least give more information in such a way that we're not we're not locking in a disparity between the residential portions of the districts. And you can see in some of the other maps that have been put in, I can't remember the page number off the top of my head, but there is a pretty significant disparity between the districts. And part of that is just simply that district two has a lot of land that is not set up for a higher level of canopy, and so ensuring that at least the residential area, which is not exactly how the maps are not disaggregated perfectly for that distinction, that's not what they're designed for. So just trying to get that information and I wanted to daylight that that might be a topic of conversation at the full council. Thanks.
128 Thank you. Councilor Kanal any further discussion? Diego, please call the roll.
129 Morillo I. Avalos I canal. Hi, Ryan. Hi. Novick nay.
130 With four eyes and one nay vote. The motion carries and the resolution document number 2025 351, as amended, will move to full council with a recommendation it be adopted.
131 Thank you. Oh, I I'm delighted that we were able to conclude a substantive discussion on these issues and almost stay on time. Diego, will you please read the next item.
132 Item two inner southeast infrastructure study.
133 On Tuesday, the bureau of planning and sustainability released the inner southeast infrastructure study, which looks at current and future capacity for encouraging housing production across across affordability levels in the inner east side. We'll have a presentation from the bureau, and then we'll hear from a community panel of folks who advocate for expanding housing options. Take it away.
134 Good morning. For the record, my name is Eric engstrom. I'm the director of the bureau of planning and sustainability. Before I turn it over to staff to to give you the details on this, I just want to tell you how excited we are to bring this information forward, this work to consider. Potential rezoning in inner east Portland has been something we've been working towards for a long time. It is one of the bureau's highest priorities this year. So I just want to say at the beginning and then also want to express appreciation for the infrastructure bureau's for their collaborative work on this examination and background information. That's critical going to going forward and doing a thoughtful process. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to patricia to give you a little context about where we are.
135 Thank you so much, director engstrom. Good morning. Chair Novick councilors patricia diefenderfer for the record, chief planner, bureau of planning and sustainability. And I use she her pronouns. The item before you is an opportunity for staff to present the findings of a multi bureau study that was conducted to inform a future planning process in the inner east side. The study is technical analysis and background report. It develops two conceptual growth scenarios that were developed for the purposes of modeling and analysis. To understand the ability of the existing infrastructure in the area to accommodate growth. It also identifies the type of infrastructure planning and improvements that may be necessary to accommodate different levels of growth, while maintaining quality and livable neighborhoods. It is good land use planning practice to assess the potential impacts to infrastructure, and to understand the future infrastructure that may be needed to support growth. Before embarking on a planning process that increases growth capacity, the reason for that is that so that the provision of infrastructure can be planned in tandem with the increases in land use capacity. While the city has traditionally been good at planning, land use and transportation together, this effort is an attempt to better coordinate land use changes with other infrastructure systems such as sewer, water and stormwater, so that the infrastructure bureau's work plans, capital plans and funding can be aligned to support the the anticipated growth. The land use changes. So this study actually is a result I wanted to just share. It's a result of a pilot program that bts, water PBOT and bts engaged in together to improve infrastructure and land use planning coordination as early as possible in the land use planning process. And you'll see that the findings of this report essentially are that, you know, the increased area is generally an area that's well served by infrastructure and the relative cost of accommodating growth in this area is lower than potentially other areas of the city where there may be more deficiencies, but ultimately, there still are costs associated with upgrading infrastructure and public services to accommodate growth. And that's that's what the report is trying to identify early in the process. So you're going to hear from Ryan in the presentation about the phases of a typical planning process. This typical this technical analysis represents an early phase that in that process that is actually before the diagram that you will see. So it's very early building block for this process. You'll also hear in the presentation the project is an identified action in the city's adopted housing production strategy, and is part of bp's and the city's ongoing, many year long effort to facilitate housing production and to expand opportunities for housing in the city, and to improve access to a variety of types of housing at different affordability levels. You will also hear during invited testimony. As was described, there is a significant there has been significant public advocacy for this project and this effort, and staff and the prior council heard this this desire during the adoption of the housing needs analysis and the housing production strategy. I would like to recognize the community for their advocacy and to thank the infrastructure bureaus for their partnership in conducting this analysis and preparing the assessment. So with that, I will turn it over to Ryan, who will present the study and its findings. Thank you.
136 Thank you. So good morning. I'm Ryan singer, principal planner for long range planning and urban design at bts. I use he him pronouns, and I'm here today to talk about the inner eastside infrastructure assessment, which was funded by a grant from dlcd and developed in collaboration with PBOT, bs and the water bureau. This study is a continuation of portland's well known practice of coordinated land use with infrastructure planning. Today I'll walk through the study, walk you through the study objectives and rationale, describe the process and how bts developed the growth scenarios. Discuss both the existing conditions and detailed future analysis that the infrastructure bureau's conducted, and finally, talk about some findings and next steps. First, the study objectives and rationale to give a little more context on how this study originated during the development of the comprehensive plan, the need to expand the range of housing opportunities in inner ring neighborhoods was identified during the outreach for the housing needs analysis and housing production strategy. There was significant advocacy to plan for a plan to increase housing capacity and housing affordability in the inner eastside, which is a high amenity transit accessible area of the city. Bts applied for and received the dlcd grant to do this work, and the infrastructure study was included in the hpes as a high priority. Action kicked off the study in April of 2024. The study area is shown here. You can see the inset where it is in the city. So the sort of range blob there in the middle. The boundaries are roughly northeast fremont to the north southeast, powell to the south, seventh and 12th avenues to the west, and 60th avenue to the east. We did refine the boundaries based on bs sewer system types and the water bureau's pressure zones, so that we would be studying sort of apples to apples. We also included the brooklyn neighborhood, as it has many of the same locational assets as the other neighborhoods in this. In this study area, the objectives of the study were to explore opportunities to increase mixed use and multi-unit residential development capacity in inner ring neighborhoods. We evaluated the infrastructure capacity in the area and understood and to understand the system constraints and the ability of existing infrastructure and in the inner eastside to accommodate growth. This is developed as a background technical document to inform future land use processes. You can see the existing zoning here is primarily single dwelling zones with higher density and mixed use zones tightly mapped along the corridors. Beyond the direct objectives of the study, baps is undertaking this work to further further the goals of the comprehensive plan. The comp plan identifies these inner ring districts as areas for an expanded range of housing types, specifically with the direction to accommodate additional growth close to the central city, the inner eastside circled on this image in yellow is one of those inner ring districts. In 2021 and 2022, Portland approved the residential infill project, which expanded the housing choices in single dwelling districts to include middle housing options like duplexes, fourplexes and cottage clusters. Initial data on the implementation of these rules suggests that in areas with higher land value, like the inner east side, it is less financially feasible to develop middle housing. This map shows where the middle housing permits were issued between 2021 and 2024. In the zones where the residential infill options are available, and you can see the relatively fewer middle housing developments in the study area as compared to the surrounding area. This suggests that a different zoning approach is necessary in order to expand housing production in this part of the city, and finally, the reduction of vehicle miles traveled is a goal of the city's climate emergency plan. The inner east side is an area of the city with lower vmt per capita. So by increasing opportunities for more people to live in this area, we could advance the city's climate goals. Now that I've discussed why we undertook the study, I'll describe the process and how staff developed the conceptual growth scenarios for the analytical purposes to evaluate infrastructure capacity. This diagram shows the study phases starting with the study area refinements, which I've already described. Bp then did conceptual growth scenarios, which I will describe later, and our partners in the infrastructure bureaus produced existing conditions analysis, which was done in a sort of Green light, yellow light, red light sort of framework for different areas. The bureau staff conducted a collaborative work session where the staff overlaid the existing conditions analysis with those growth scenarios, and then this led to some refinements to the study area and the conceptual growth scenarios. So the infrastructure bureaus could do a future conditions analysis. On the conceptual growth scenario approach. Before I go into the detail here, I want to be clear that these scenarios are for analysis purposes only. These are not zoning proposals for our scenarios. We developed four tiers. Tier one is a higher density mixed use tier. We use the cm three zone, which may result in a maximum of seven story buildings with a mix of commercial and residential uses. Possible tier two is a higher density residential tier, and we used the rm four for a high growth scenario and the rm three and a lower growth scenario are for may result in a maximum of 10 to 11 story multifamily residential buildings, and the arm 3rd may result in seven story multifamily residential buildings. Tier three is a medium density residential tier, and we use the rm two, which may result in a maximum of five story multifamily residential buildings. And finally, tier four is a lower to medium density tier. We use the arm two for our higher growth scenario and the arm one for a lower growth scenario. Arm 1st may be may result in four story multifamily residential buildings. So for our our conceptual growth scenarios here you can see the this is the higher zoning scenario we want. We took a very broad brush approach. These are not zoning proposals. In the higher growth scenario, tier one was applied a full block off of the corridors. Tier two was applied three blocks off of the corridors. You can see that this applies a higher density residential zone consistently between many of the corridors. We then applied tier three, which allows in this higher density, up to five story apartment buildings that we applied that zone everywhere else. And then the historic districts, we applied the tier four, which in the high growth scenario is the same as the zone that we used in tier three. We were deliberately aggressive in order to really test the models and understand what additional growth would mean for the infrastructure in the lower zoning scenario, the map doesn't change. So but the, the, the tiers, the zones that we use in the tiers does. So tier two is a slightly lower density, allowing up to a maximum of seven story buildings and then tier four areas. Those historic districts. The zone applied in this scenario allows up to four stories. To understand the output from our capacity growth scenarios, we developed this graphic to help explain sort of generally the the methodology. The bar on the far right is the full build out based on the zone. This is what would be allowed if it was applied to a totally vacant property, and the builder built to the maximum of what was allowed. This is an easy concept to understand, but it really isn't how developed typically work development typically works. Instead, bts has developed a model to estimate, based on past trends, what is likely to be built. The second bar from the left uses standard building types, market conditions, and value assessments to estimate whether a property would develop and at what scale. This establishes a reasonable capacity or supply created by the zoning. And so when I say capacity or growth capacity in this presentation, I'm referring to this number and not to the full, full build out. This new capacity is on top of the existing development represented by the pink bar on the left. That pretty much stays the same. The red bar, the second from the right represents the growth allocation assigned to the area from our 2045 growth forecasts, the city of Portland is allocated growth estimate by metro based on population projections, which we then allocate to various parts of the city. This is this represents an expected demand for the supply, which was estimated in that orange bar. And so when I'm talking about a utilization rate later, it's basically this number. The growth allocation divided by the development capacity. On this map here you can see the colored lots represent the sites that would we expect would redevelop in the next 20 years. And that gives us an estimate of the total number of units you could see based on conceptual growth scenarios. The colors indicate the number of units that could be developed on each of the sites. The larger lots in blue have more units, and the smaller lots in yellow have fewer units per lot. The existing zoning capacity in the area is about 26,000 units. Most of this is clustered along the corridors and includes larger lots. When we run the scenarios, the higher density scenario you can see here has a capacity of about 144,000 units. This growth capacity is primarily located in the southern part of the study area. We wanted to test the sensitivity of the model, and we ran a lower density scenario. This resulted in a capacity of about 90,000 units. The location of the growth didn't change much between the higher and lower growth scenarios. So that's a discussion of the capacity. If you remember on the prior side, we also talked a little bit about the demand. And when we think about allocating the expected growth of the city under the current zoning bts has allocated near nearly 18,000 units to this part of the city. If that were to happen, the new growth would use about 67% of the available capacity of the zoning. This is high, but it may not be unrealistic for an area of high market demand. Under both the scenarios, bp bts assumed that the allocation would use about 28% of the capacity. This is a rate more in line with other parts of the city. So that's the the growth scenarios. Now that we have an understanding of that, I'll briefly describe the existing conditions and detailed future conditions analysis for the infrastructure systems at the existing conditions work session with the with the bureaus, beis provided analysis of the risk and capacity of the existing sewer and stormwater infrastructure in the area. It's important to note that this is a combined stormwater sewer system. By and large, capacity issues have less to do with the number of toilets flushing than the ability of the system to handle large storms. The taggart d trunk line, the large brown area labeled on the map is a significant risk. It is an older, large brick trunk line with both capacity concerns and risk failure concerns. For PBOT. This is an area with good connectivity, sidewalks, bike infrastructure, and transit. There are some issues with bus delays on the major corridors, and then also noting that southeast powell is a state road and currently experiences congestion. Pbot does expect this area to have relatively high rates of non automobile trips in the future, as it does currently. And with the water bureau bureau, there are a few water delivery system issues in this area. It is an older part of the city, so there are some pipes that are aging. But water bureau believes that their replacement is within the scope of routine asset management. So after our work sessions with the infrastructure bureaus, bts refined the growth scenarios. As a reminder, the existing zoning has a capacity of about 26,000 units, with areas of expected growth clustered along the corridors and on the larger lots. So for the purposes of the analysis, bts developed a inner ring subarea and a secondary ring subarea. B we focused on areas where the model was projecting growth and developed the sub areas so that the infrastructure bureaus had discrete, manageable areas to analyze and to compare. Re ran a high capacity scenario which has a capacity of a little under 44,000 units and an allocation of about 40,000 units. So we used 28% utilization rate. So for the infrastructure bureau's PBOT ran an in-depth analysis. And and this looks at vehicle capacity analysis to read this. This map, will start with the scenario for an increase in capacity in subarea a. The colors indicate a change in the traffic flow. The Green means it's still flowing. The yellow indicates a slowing of traffic, but it's still moving and the red indicates traffic congestion. In this scenario, where we just increased the capacity in subarea a, we find some areas of increased congestion seen on the map in red. Specifically, the segments along Burnside, belmont, Hawthorne division and powell. Traffic congestion in this part of the city is a concern because it would slow down busses that run on those east west corridors. It is possible that these areas of congestion could be mitigated with standard traffic interventions, things like signal timing or additional turn lanes, and then also further analysis showed that when these these congestion areas of congestion were responsive to change the modal split. So if people walk, bike or take transit instead of driving, the congestion eased or went away in some of these areas. On when PBOT conducted the same analysis in a scenario where densities were increased in both subareas a and b, the modeling shows congestion in many parts of the system. This could lead to bus delays on the corridors, and this level of traffic congestion would likely be on the scope of of those standard mitigation measures and would involve more costly transportation infrastructure improvements such as roadway reconfiguration or road capacity increases. This scenario was intended to break the system, so it did, so I don't think we were surprised. When bhs ran the two scenarios through a stormwater model, it found that there were new capacity deficiencies for small diameter pipes. When density is increased in just subarea a, there are areas in yellow develop deficiencies, and when capacity or housing capacity is increased in both subareas and b, a and b, the deficiencies developed in the red areas to capacity deficiencies can manifest as localized flooding, and while this could be in streets or intersections, it could also be in yards and basements. So it's important to address these. The water bureau conducted a fire flow availability in both conceptual zoning assumptions and found no issues with fire flow. Finally, I'll discuss the findings from the study and and our next steps. Bpd believes that based on the study, the areas of low hanging fruit for further land use study are sullivan's gulch, sandy mount, tabor, kerns, buckman, and the brooklyn neighborhoods. In these areas, bts staff would want to undertake land land use planning while coordinating with PBOT and bts to address the local transportation and stormwater management concerns. Areas in the southern portion of the study. So the richmond and south tabor neighborhoods would require more extensive coordination on capital improvement plans with b, b, s, and PBOT to address the larger issues with the taggart d trunk line and transportation concerns along major corridors like powell and cesar chavez. So to give you a flavor of what this coordinated approach looks like for PBOT, they would likely want to conduct in motion plans for the area to sort of address these localized concerns. They would also look for opportunities to do public realm improvements. So thinking about what beyond just what can make the system work, what can make these areas great places to live? They would want to institute parking management districts, residential permit programs and shared parking strategies. And then they would also do work to address high crash corridors and work with TriMet on more north south bus service for the area. External grants or system development charges would be explored to fund the capital improvements. So we do the planning and then you have to figure out how to build build the infrastructure. Some of these would occur simultaneously with land use planning. This coordinated approach is similar to what bts and PBOT have done in other parts of the city recently, in lower southeast and in montgomery park. Bts as they do sanitary and stormwater system planning works to address both the capacity and risk issues presented by new development. They would work with the other infrastructure bureaus and bts to find solutions to the stormwater issues, and bts prioritizes projects from a citywide perspective and would work and would look for funding tools to achieve the goals of their planning efforts. A planning process for an area plan like this has two broad phases a technical analysis and outreach phase, and a legislative phase. The project scope and engagement plan at the start of the process are two important steps in shaping the rest of the work the technical analysis and background work helps bts and the community partners to develop goals and understand how best to achieve them, and the outreach during the technical and outreach phase aims to engage the public and help shape the proposal. The legislative review phase starts with staff preparing a proposed draft that is considered by the planning commission and then, after planning commission votes, to make its recommendation to city council, a recommended recommended draft is sent to city council for consideration and action. Bts is starting the work to develop a scope and outreach plan for this effort. We are working with our partners in the infrastructure bureaus to coordinate the work and aligning the resources necessary. Yeah, that's the close of my presentation. Thanks.
137 Councilor last one. Okay.
138 Thank you so much to all of you for presenting, for the staff doing this important work. Thank you to I see a bunch of advocates in the room. We had a great rally this morning with Portland neighbors welcome who have been pushing the city to do these kinds of studies and to ensure that we are making the densification of our neighborhoods a priority. Portland is facing a housing crisis, and we need every single tool available to expand supply in ways that are sustainable and equitable. And so I'm especially supportive of exploring opportunities to increase mixed use and multi-unit residential development in the inner east side areas that are close to transit jobs and services, where we can strengthen our communities. Now, I'm sure folks are saying, well, Candace, you're a district one councilor, why would you care about this? And I think what's important about what we're talking about here is we're setting up a foundation that for future planning. And I see this as an opportunity to solidify this plan in a neighborhood that's already ripe for this and that. Hopefully it will set set us up for what that looks like on the east side. Right. We are severely lacking in infrastructure, and so we are starting from many, many steps behind. But hopefully this sets again an intentionality from the city about how we design our future. And I'm looking forward to how we can pair housing production with the infrastructure investments that we need to make these neighborhoods successful, especially for east Portland. So thank you for your work, and I'm looking forward to seeing where this continues.
139 Councilor Kanal thank you. I had a couple questions, but I wanted to start with a thank you as well for all this work and and the detail of the presentation. So in looking at slides eight and 28, there seems to be a focus on. A focus that includes the northern part, at least most of it in the case of 28. And I'll circle back to that in a second. But when you get to slide 22, your subarea seem to leave out most of the area within this. The sub area seem to leave out the portion of the area that it's in district two. So I just wanted to, if you could speak more to why that was the case and why the assumption was that the development would not occur as highly up.
140 There are. So we did focus the the the infrastructure analysis needed more tightly drawn geographies. And so we made the decision to for the analysis purpose, look at the areas where the model was producing the, the the growth so that we could conduct that analysis. The. Actual the the sort of growth scenario projections. We believe that the northern area is not showing as much growth, just simply because the the way the market conditions, the the property values are a little higher there and the rents that are at least the model is saying that the rents are a little lower. And so we weren't seeing this. The same amount of development. That doesn't necessarily preclude, you know, further study of those areas that we in fact, we want to we are showing that we want to continue looking at those areas.
141 I would for patricia defender, for the record, I would also just add that this again is background information. This isn't determining what the boundaries of the future changes are going to be. This is just information that's, you know, feeding. It's just knowledge to feed into making those determinations and having conversations with community and going into those conversations with community with a good understanding of what it would take, not just from the land use planning side, but from the infrastructure side to make these changes and still maintain good quality of service for these neighborhoods. So it's not determining what the boundaries of the future change areas are going to be. For example.
142 Okay, thanks. In that. So in slide 14 and 18 you've got a big portion of that northwest corner of this irvington area that's different. In one case, it's you've noted what the the limit growth reasoning is the tiger trunk line at the bottom there, but not what's going on up in the in the upper in the northwest portion. Can you speak to that? And then similarly in the slide that you've got limited growth on or rm1 as the max in slide 14.
143 Sure. So I'll speak to this. Slide 18. That is the the wheeler basin for bhs. The sort of orient if you've seen the brown blob there on the. That is also a similar to the taggart trunk line. It's a large trunk line that is. Brick and has both capacity and risk issues. So it would we would probably want to take a similar coordinated approach with bhs when considering work in that in that basin. And then what was the if you could the other slide that you were referring to.
144 It was 14. Let me confirm. Yeah. So 14.
145 We that is the historic district. The irvington irvington historic district. And we wanted to be careful with the historic districts in terms of thinking about that. You know, the the capacity that we apply to them, although in our higher density, higher growth zoning scenarios, we applied district that would permit up to five story apartment buildings. So it was pretty aggressive. And I would say along almost all of the historic districts, some of the edges and sort of main corridors were you did see some few lots start to to sort of show up in the model as potentially redeveloped.
146 But I, I would also just add on that note that again, this was as as Ryan said, this was a very broad brush approach to applying zoning just for purposes of analysis. We would probably look at those areas in much more fine grained detail and see where there are areas, even within the historic districts, as, as Ryan said, perhaps around the edges or in some of the more commercial parts of those areas where they exist to to be more fine grained about that zoning. Right. So it doesn't mean that we're going to, you know, paint that area with just the same brush, so to speak, but rather we'll look at it in a more fine grained way, and there may be opportunities to be more aggressive in some portions. And, and to be, you know, there may be a need to be more modulated in the response in others.
147 I'll just also add that, you know, these modeling exercises, they use rents and and land value as a, as a way to understand where the, where the land might respond to upzoning more than in other areas, but that's based on current values. And those things change. And this is a long term play. So just because you look at an area and say that you don't think the economics are ripe for that to turn over right now, doesn't mean you don't do that up zoning, but it's information.
148 Got it. I think you've addressed the second of those questions really well, and I think that that all makes sense to me as it relates to the first one. At some point outside this conversation, we'll have to follow up on the basin and the needs there. From a business perspective. And I just to to kind of put a comment on this and why I'm asking these questions. This was so southeast focused that even though it's inner east side, for all, the actual name of this agenda item is inner southeast infrastructure study. On today's committee agenda. And I don't want our area to be left out. So I just wanted to mention that, sorry, you looked like you were going to.
149 Say something.
150 I was just going to say that honestly, I think we colloquially call it the south or southeast, and that was really probably an error on the agenda, to be honest with you. This study area, as you can see, is is not just the southeast. And so we have a habit of calling it that, but it's really the inner east study.
151 So yeah. And I guess the last question I'll ask is on the PBOT side as it relates to you mentioned transit, you mentioned busses. I know this is on the edge of only a portion of it in the case of seventh avenue. But did did car free, entirely car free streets come up as part of the planning here to try and move people in a different way? Totally.
152 Yeah. We do have representatives from our partner bureaus. If there are questions you want to direct to them. But I would say again, for the purposes of this exercise, the analysis and the modeling, we didn't model car free streets. But that doesn't mean that a future planning process, you know, the types of in motion plans that PBOT does, wouldn't consider some of those things where there's some interest in pursuing that.
153 Great. And I know this isn't on you. So you happen to be here and I'm saying it to you, but I hope PBOT hears it, that that should be one of the things that gets modeled in the future as, as part of it, I think we're a little narrow in what we look at, and I would love to see a greater level of imagination in that. Thanks.
154 I'll just say that when I said public realm improvements, it it was perhaps a euphemism for what if we shut down a street and made it a plaza like that was that was a that was that was the conversation I had with PBOT staff.
155 So I think there's maybe several people in the room and definitely a lot of people who are outside earlier that are here to to back you up. If you stop using the euphemism and use the real.
156 Thing, I think.
157 There is a big level of support for this, and not just as a plaza, but also as a road that is just for motion of pedestrians and vehicles that are not cars. So yeah.
158 Thanks. Councilor Ryan.
159 Thank you chair Novick. Thank you team. It's good to see you Eric, patricia and Ryan. I'm excited about the prospect of getting more housing density and also just getting some economic activity going in our city right now. Housing permits pulled this year are perhaps at an all time low. I'm sure you all know that. And on that note, when I look at the chart about capacity and allocation methodology, was that slide 15?
160 Yes. Yeah.
161 I have a question. When was the report you often you referenced metro's projections. When did they do that report.
162 The most recent projections were working with are from earlier this year. Their their projections from the state. But we also timing numbers come out from different entities at different times. And so I think a lot of our planning is premised on some earlier numbers from metro. But increasingly our planning documents are reflecting more up to date numbers that were produced by the state in January of this year.
163 So.
164 Patricia, as we evolve, you will be adjusting numbers based on reality. Yes. Okay. When did the last council voted on this? And it was in 2024. Correct.
165 The last council voted on. There was nothing related to this particular planning process at council. You might be thinking of the housing production.
166 Strategy that.
167 The housing production strategy, this was an action in the housing production strategy. Yes. And council voted in 2024.
168 It's it's easy to think they're connected. Would you say they are.
169 They are connected. This is. No absolutely. This is an action that is identified in the housing production strategy. And by taking on this work, we are implementing one of those actions which we're required to do by the state.
170 I have to remember with bts right now. So you're up here. Yeah. And I'm happy to hear that you keep bringing up the other bureaus. I'm curious about the timeline, the forward projections, as you know, real estate values and investments in our city are some we've never been here before. They're pretty low. And the market has changed remarkably in the last 6 to 9 months. So I just want to say I hope that you're considering those factors as you keep looking into this. Let's see, what else did I come up with? Also, I didn't hear anything about engagement with the let's see, I didn't hear about engagement with the development community. The construction community. Are these on agendas and neighborhood associations and district two and district three.
171 This this phase was a study phase. So there wasn't particularly outreach associated with this phase. But that's that will be the next.
172 That's next.
173 Phase of work.
174 So we're getting the presentation right after the study. And now you're going to take that out and socialize it with obviously needed partners to make this actually come to fruition.
175 Exactly.
176 Okay. And so this isn't a report today I'm used to these being a report. This is. Just a presentation on the update okay. Got it. All right. Thank you I who's the point person on this. Is it you Ryan. Yeah okay. Thank you.
177 Councilor Morillo.
178 Thank you chair Novick. Thank you all so much. This was such a fabulous presentation. I feel like we all learned a lot today. And I hope anyone who's watching from home also did too. And we are big fans of plazas here, so highly encourage us talking about it whenever you would like. I had a question about yesterday. I got a call from TriMet telling me about more of the the cuts that they're facing, and it's going to be quite brutal if the numbers end up the way that they're looking right now. I think it was about 40% of bus and transit lines are going to be cut. And as a transit user, I always think about that. And I've told my staff that if that does happen, they will never find me on time to anything ever again. So I was curious if moving forward there's going to be updated analysis or anything like that when we're building more housing, because I know a core focus of this is building it along transit lines. And as our reality shifts and those transit lines get cut, if we're going to get updated analysis with that information to or maybe I'm putting in a request for that.
179 Yeah. I mean, certainly these these different data sources are it's iterative and they continue to be updated and inform our processes. Pbot is also working on a transportation system plan update currently, which is an element. It's a it's a portion of the comprehensive plan. And that's something that we are also coordinating with them on. And Ryan is also one of the leads on that. So it is through, I think both of these processes that we will be able to get a better handle on. What is the outlook for transportation funding in the future and what transportation you know, how how the city and the planning can support having the transportation that's needed to, you know, make our communities and our neighborhoods function.
180 And it's absolutely true that the city's land use strategy really does depend on there being a transit system that's functioning well. And to the extent that TriMet is challenged to deliver that, that's a significant barrier to us achieving our land use goals.
181 Thank you all so much. Thank you. Truly, these I feel like all of the presentations that we receive from your group are just so detailed and helpful. Really appreciate all of your work on this.
182 Thank you.
183 I really appreciated the presentation as well. I had some questions. Might be for the best representative here about when you talked about the the issues with the tiger trunk line. It sounded like they were issues that we should be worried about now, regardless of future growth. But then you said something about capacity issues as well, and then you said that the bws is also concerned about deficiencies in the small diameter pipes and their ability to handle further traffic. So I was just curious about what what it would take to address. I mean, first of all, to what extent are we talking about things we should be worrying about, regardless of expansion of density? And second, what would bs have to do to to address the capacity issues we're talking about? If we had the kind of density expansion that we might imagine in our wildest dreams, what in terms of cost, in terms of time, etc.
184 Good morning councilors. My name is elizabeth reese and I'm the planning division manager with environmental services. And you've got a planner here today to try and interpret for you and engineering analysis. So I'll do my best. So we it is existing risk. So the first well this this graphic is a a blending of existing risk and looking forward into these future. Projections. And so this is work that the bureau plans to do. It isn't in our five year cip, but it is on our radar that this is future risk that needs to be addressed. We prioritize our risk using an asset management approach, as I think you know, and so we have a lot of urgent risk that we're facing right now, both in trunk lines that are in locations like I-84 or under I-5. Transportation routes, emergency routes that we prioritize. So we're focused on those efforts, as well as upgrades to our treatment plants that serve the entire city and pump stations across the city that support all of Portland. And so it's tricky for us. It's an issue of timing and an issue of investment, how we prioritize our efforts. We do have a number of brick trunk lines, including taggart and wheeler, that pose risks primarily, as Ryan said, around flooding risks in the street. It could be also basements and yards. It could be sewer overflows to the river. Worst case scenario, it could be sinkholes, failures of the pipes themselves and increased densities can exacerbate those risks. So there is risk. Now our models show with increased density there could be increases in that risk. And so that is risk to public and environmental health and risk to our regulatory requirements. So that could result in fines from deq or EPA. So those are the kind of things that we're looking at when we're prioritizing our work. The projects would look like potentially lining the pipes or building parallel interceptors. That's a really costly endeavor in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. The small diameter pipes could also be lining or replacement, depending on capacity constraints versus condition constraints. It could also look like Green streets or other infiltration facilities, in areas where that's feasible to try and pull stormwater out of the system to reduce the capacity constraint in this inner area. They are it is an older system. So we do have more condition risk, which we can't address simply through the the infiltration facilities. So you see those throughout the east side, but you also see us having to go into the streets to replace pipes. That's because the pipes are old, and we can only do so much removing water from the system. We also need to make sure those pipes can last another hundred years.
185 So this is a question for you. And and I guess I mean. Do we think do we have sort of a okay, we can't do the most aggressive the most aggressive things we might want to do in terms of increasing density until bts has $100 million in 17 years to prepare for it. Is there. You know, I just want to get some sense of the interaction of the time and money. It would take me to address some of these issues with what we can hope for in terms of increasing capacity.
186 I could just start by saying, I think that that is part of the message here is it's it is a question of how aggressive to be and phasing. So this is why we were looking at the area both, you know, kind of slicing it horizontally and slicing it vertically. This concept of sub area a and b, because what this is basically showing is that if we focus initially on sub area a, the the need for infrastructure is a little bit more manageable when we start to make some more aggressive changes in subarea b, then it starts to have more citywide and system wide impact. And and this is why it's important to do this kind of analysis, because, as elizabeth said, and I'm sure she can provide more insight into this. But, you know, the infrastructure bureaus, different infrastructure bureaus plan for their infrastructure differently. But they look five, ten, 15, 20 years out. And so when we're doing a land use plan, they need quite a bit of lead time to start adjusting their own capital plans and their financing, you know, their, their, their funding in ways that that balance the asset management that elizabeth was talking about with the kinds of infrastructure improvements that are needed to support growth. So that's kind of overarching what I would say. And then.
187 One of the tools we use in this kind of situation, which the most recent example was, was the the rezoning of the west Portland town center in southwest Portland, where we did that work. Similar to this coordinated infrastructure work, identified issues. We changed the comprehensive plan, but we didn't change all the zoning immediately because we put some some sort of milestones in place before we change the zoning. We signaled that we're going that direction, but we are still working on some of the stormwater and street plans there before we release the zoning. And that that doesn't preclude the private sector from identifying a particular project to move forward and do kind of a one off zoning change. But it it it signals the direction without making the change. It phases the change.
188 We also understand that we're never going to be completely ahead of all of our risks. So it is a trade off. And so we understand it doesn't mean that as soon as the area is rezoned, all of that density is going to come and impact the system. So once the zoning changes, that goes into our model, and it does help us to reprioritize our work, but it is a it is a risk trade off and we need continued funding, including rates and sdcs or other funding options in order to continue to keep our system in sync with the the population.
189 Thank you very much. That's very helpful.
190 Councilor Kanal just one additional question, which is on slide 15. There's no y axis with numbers. So if at some point we can get that information, that would be really helpful. It's the one with the four bars.
191 Oh yes. We we think that we could produce this graphic for each of our scenarios. That was that was that's an outstanding graphic that we.
192 This is just meant to demonstrate the concept generally.
193 Yeah. This is just a concept.
194 No numbers associated with it. But ultimately, yes there are. We have each of those bars for these different scenarios. And that.
195 Would it be. What I'm trying to understand is a relative scale here to understand if these gaps are roughly equal. I mean, right now, just visually it looks like the development capacity one is about twice the size, you know, and then the one above is a little bit higher.
196 So so this slide here and I think another slide we can look at a couple. Yeah basically shows what the what the capacity of each scenario. The number of units that we create capacity for. And then can you go to the one that has the utilization? I think it's the.
197 You mean the this. Yes.
198 Yeah. Right. Oh is it this one.
199 Yeah. This one has it too. Yeah. Yeah.
200 So essentially what each of these bars is showing you can see. The, you can see where it says current zoning kind of in the towards the left. That's what the current zoning number of units would be allowed. The capacity the conceptual zoning. You can see it creates capacity for about 59,000 in the inner ring, 84,000 in the secondary ring you can see the delta of the increase. So we're talking about an increase from current zoning capacity of about 46,070 5000 respectively. And then the allocation is just it's the supply and demand piece that that Ryan was talking about. So those are more the supply. Right. And then the amount that we of housing uptake of that capacity that we think will happen by 2045 is represented in the on the right in those growth allocation numbers. So you can see I mean, similar to what elizabeth said, just because you changed the zoning doesn't mean you immediately have the growth or you you know, you you'll have varying levels of uptake of that capacity based on the economy and a lot of different things that are happening. Right. So and also there's only so much demand, right? We only have so much household formation and growth happening. So by these estimates we were saying there's about 28% utilization of the new capacity that would be created. And that could look like, you know, something in the neighborhood of help me here, six like 17,000 new units. If you're looking at the inner ring area, another 23,000 units, if you're looking at the secondary ring area and that that's about, you know, 40,000 more units potentially.
201 Thank you for that.
202 Councilor Ryan.
203 Yes.
204 Thank you, chair Novick. I just a couple comments. So I love conversations like this. They're really fun and I'm glad that we have someone from bea's up here. And I'm trying to get to the heart of the matter. On how this moves along, especially with where we are currently. Like there's a reason why ridership is down. There's a reason why we're losing business licenses. There's a reason why families are moving out of Portland. And when we talk about this issue, say in 2016, 2017, I would sit up here with more confidence and enthusiasm. I want to have that. But I also and my job is to deal with the current reality of today. So I hope going forward we will include more engagement with with the other bureaus that are the infrastructure bureaus. As this moves along, I hope that we will see those who are trying to build who aren't pulling permits right now because of the conditions in our city and the economy overall. But Portland is special. And and people from TriMet. So and I think I'd like to see like, what are the five year incremental steps we can take. What are the ten year? And that's what I hope to get next time I'm in a dialog about this. Did you do this study? Is this all relevant to what you were charged to do? Yes, and you did a great job. I just today needed to put that on the dais and into the record. Thank you.
205 Thank you.
206 Any further questions? Thank you very much. And I want to say that this is one of what will be a number of informational sessions that bts and their partners have arranged for us. Councilor Morillo. And I basically asked bts what stuff that we should know about in advance of the things coming through the planning commission, so that at least the members of this committee have some information. And you came up with a number of great topics. This is one of them. So thank you very, very much for this and those future presentations.
207 You're welcome.
208 Thank you. Thank you.
209 We now have some invited testimony from heidi heart of Portland colon nation's neighbors. Welcome. Michael had noticed the colon before michael anderson from the sightline institute and sarah radcliffe from Portland. Habitat for humanity.
210 Thank you.
211 Heidi. Take it away.
212 Okay.
213 Great. Thanks. Good morning. My name is heidi heart, and I'm a board member of Portland neighbors. Welcome. We are a 160 member organization made up of passionate portlanders who want everyone in our city to have a safe, stable, affordable place to live. For the past few years, we've been working to legalize neighborhood scale apartments and corner stores in portland's inner east side. We drew from bts mapping and data that show that the inner east side is a place where many portlanders would like to call home, but they are unable to because of housing costs. We care deeply about this because we love this city and we know it can be more welcoming, more affordable, and more just. When we've asked our members and neighbors why they care about this policy, the answers are wide ranging, but the message is clear. People understand that we're in a housing crisis and they want the city. They want the city to be bold. They want Portland to lead. We spoken with 18 different neighborhood associations across northeast and southeast Portland, and we reached out to even more. And in the recent southeast uplift survey, a majority respondent said that they support an inner eastside. For all that confirms what we've been hearing. Portlanders are ready for more homes in the places they already live and love. And we're not alone. We're part of a growing number of residents, advocates, and community groups and affordable housing who all believe in a Portland where everyone, regardless of income, can find a home. Let's build that Portland together. Thank you.
214 Good morning. My name is sarah radcliffe and I work with habitat for humanity Portland region, and at habitat, we see firsthand the need for affordable, family sized homes throughout Portland. We receive hundreds of applications for every dozen homes that we build, and we recognize that nonprofit housing developers cannot address portland's housing shortage alone. One significant step that our city can take is to allow a mix of housing types, including four story buildings in high opportunity areas with strong schools, good air quality parks, trees and convenient transportation options. And that's why we support allowing more housing in portland's inner eastside. Habitat has a vision for affordable housing opportunities and homeownership, including condo buildings and thriving, diverse schools in every Portland neighborhood. The picture that you see is Kenton commons, which is a stacked condo built by habitat in north Portland. Affordable homeownership opportunities in the inner east side could look like this, or could come in the form of affordable condos incorporated into privately developed buildings through inclusionary zoning. Thank you.
215 By the way, I need to confess an error. I committed the cardinal sin of not flipping the page, so I did not mention that indian income from verde is also here today.
216 Thanks.
217 Coach harrison committee.
218 My michael anderson.
219 With sightline institute. I've got the best job in the environmental movement because instead of going around taking away people's hamburgers, my whole thing is just that people should get to live where they want. When people live close to each other, when they choose to do that, they cut their energy use in half without even noticing it. A lot of people would be happy to live near other people if only they were allowed to, but under today's laws, they're literally not allowed to. And this is dumb. It hurts every single one of us. So today I'm here also to tell a similar story about the city budget. We can all think of many ways we'd like to invest public money. The great thing about eastside for all is that not only is it essentially free to legalize a neighborhood scale apartment building in some of these neighborhoods, as you heard, it actually improves city finances. Heidi, could you switch the slide? Of course, the city gets more property taxes from the new buildings, but specifically in this part of town, in the box on your screen, redevelopment will reset the taxable value of lots that have been deeply subsidized by measures five and 50. So we get more bang for the buck. And although sdcs can pay for new pipes, it takes ratepayers to replace the old pipes like the one on powell. Having more ratepayers will hold down water and sewer rates citywide. As we try to upgrade all our pipes. And to your point, councilor Ryan, yes, this absolutely depends on people choosing to live in Portland. If they don't, then this won't be built right? None of these homes will be built, but if they do, if the council's work to improve the city succeeds and demand returns, then this is the way to ensure that that demand is met more gracefully than we were able to back in 20 1617, when we had a huge price spike. And eastside for all would be a way to get energy efficiency without taking away anyone's energy to raise tax revenue without raising anyone's taxes and a way to hold down prices when and if our economy rebounds. It's a big step in a winning strategy for Portland.
220 All right. Good morning. Chair Morillo chair Novick council members, thank you so much for the opportunity to present. For the record, my name is andy namkung. I'm here on behalf of verde. Our mission is to serve communities by building environmental wealth through social enterprise outreach and advocacy. We're a community based organization rooted in kalihi, where one of the more affordable neighborhoods in Portland, one of the most racially and economically diverse. And we're not part of the inner east side, but I'm still here because, colleagues, diversity is fairly new. Over the last 30 years, many people have moved to our neighborhood and neighborhoods like ours on the urban fringe, because the rising housing costs in closer in neighborhoods have pushed them away from the city center, away from services, frequent transit, and the amenities of inner Portland. And this is happening because for decades, our city has been artificially suppressing more homes in the high resource and high opportunity neighborhoods of the inner east side, protecting exclusionary zoning and banning new apartments where they'd previously been allowed. Instead, we let areas like albina and outer southeast carry far more than their fair share of burden in building the homes our growing city has needed through the 90s and 2000, while wealthier and whiter inner neighborhoods with more sway in city hall largely retained their exclusive single family zoning. When the neighborhoods best suited to develop without displacing people won't pull their weight, the pressure and less affluent residents get exported to the places that economically vulnerable people already live, and the cycle continues. So if you look at the map on this slide from our 2023 housing needs analysis, every blue dot represents underutilized but non vacant land. Something's already there, but we could build a lot more if we redeveloped. No. Neighborhoods in purple are classified as economically vulnerable. Vulnerable to displacement. That's cully. That's foster-powell almost all of district one. And these are the places where people are most likely to be displaced. If we ask these neighborhoods to carry the burden of solving our housing crisis largely alone, and given where much of our buildable land is located without some intervention, that is exactly what we're primed to do again. But inner eastside for all can be that intervention. By bringing more homes to the part of the city that can welcome more neighbors most easily, we can ease the pressure on more vulnerable areas. Other panelists have already shared many of the great things this would offer to current and future portlanders who may live in a home that this plan makes possible. But I'll add one more thing to your list, which is that by ending a half century of exclusive zoning and bringing more homes to the inner east side, you can also offer communities like ours who are most at risk the gift of time to stabilize and to develop without displacement, so that this time we can stick around to see our neighborhoods future. Thank you.
221 Thank you. Any questions? Councilors.
222 So michael and others can weigh in. Clearly the the transit is a big deal. Like we have to get transit more more users on transit. What do you think that plan consists of today? Because today those numbers have been coming down for about five years now.
223 I think a lot of that is related to the sharp decline. Is 100,000 fewer people working downtown than there were. That's the place that was best served by transit. And I think our transit system probably needs to adapt to that unfortunate reality from my perspective. And that's a big fiscal problem. As we just heard, I don't have any answers. Maybe andy knows more than I do. She's been in the thick of it at the legislature, but it seems to me that the. Ultimately the way to make transit work is to build it in neighborhoods where build, build housing and businesses in neighborhoods where transit is most viable is currently best served, where you get the best farebox retention rate, return rate. That's these neighborhoods. These are the neighborhoods that were built by streetcars, built around streetcars. And what we're asking to do here is the city should allow development to happen, as it did when these neighborhoods were built around streetcars. And that's how we're going to return to the demand that we can serve by transit. Well.
224 I, I think that the short bus rides near downtown, out into inner eastside neighborhoods seem to be doing much better than most. But you didn't mention max, and you didn't mention that the yellow line and the lines going out to the east side are way down in ridership. I hear from neighbors daily if I ask them, and I go around and talk to them often, they stopped riding the yellow line, which is two blocks from our home, and they do it because the organized crime that is on our transit. And if if your lobby continues, I think, to deny the reality of the safety issues that are that are the big factor in ridership is down. We're not going to get to where we want to be. So I'm hoping that we can embrace the reality of that, that data that they're getting from TriMet that I've heard directly from the director of TriMet, then I hope that we can all get on the same page to improve the conditions so that the elders of my neighborhood, the students who used to ride it, and their parents don't let them anymore, so they drive them to work. So I'm experiencing more car traffic in our inner east side neighborhoods and all of our town, because we have less people taking transit.
225 I think we can all agree that crime on transit is terrible for everybody, and we should be reducing it.
226 Thank you.
227 Councilor Morillo.
228 As the only person on city council without a license who has to ride transit every single day, and who actually had a very funny interaction with the security guard who saw me get off the bus this morning. I do think that I think actually what you stated about the ridership being down is part of the fact that our the way that our job system and everything is existing now after the pandemic is just never going to go back to the way it was. People are working from home, people are working in their neighborhoods, people are shopping in their neighborhoods. And what I saw during the pandemic and after is that there was a large activation of small, local businesses in the different neighborhoods because people aren't necessarily going to downtown. People are also shopping online now more than they ever have before. And while I do think that there are certainly issues on transit, as a young woman who walks through the entire city alone at every hour of the day, I go alone at night downtown to old town, to everywhere. It doesn't really matter to me. I think I can handle myself just fine. But the the safety issues that I see happen to me as a person living in this body, anywhere that I go. So that's going to happen on transit, that's going to happen in city hall, that's going to happen anywhere. And I think that this public narrative about our transit system is incredibly detrimental to getting people to ride transit. In fact, I've been very critical publicly about there was a period last year where TriMet decided to do a study about the amount of drugs on transit, and they did an analysis of, like the surface area drugs, and it scared a lot of people. But it turns out that like, it wasn't that serious. It's not like if you touch the bus, you're going to suddenly become infused with fentanyl and overdose. That's not how that works. But it really scared the public in an unnecessary way. And I think that this public narrative and how we talk about our transit and how we talk about safe neighborhoods and having density and all of those things, is going to impact whether or not we can implement these plans. So I just feel very strongly about that as a transit user. And I genuinely love the bus. And I feel we've seen me yell at people about the bus all the time. So I'm going to stop doing that now. But I also just wanted to say thank you guys so much for all of the research and your advocacy efforts on this. I think that this is something that we absolutely need to do, and that should have been done for a very long time. So while we work with the federal and state cuts that we're seeing to transit and to other housing models, we need to push for this vision and make sure that our language and our rhetoric is going to contribute to making sure that this is a possibility. So thank you so much for doing this. I plan to push very hard for this in my office as a councilor for district three, and none of this would have happened without you, so thank you.
229 Councilor Kanal.
230 Once again, a lot of what I was just about to say was just said, so I won't repeat that, but I just wanted to reiterate that the last part there, this is a priority for my office as well in district two. And I also wanted to say thanks. I'm a fan of all four of your organizations. Full disclosure I'm a member of Portland neighbors. Welcome. So that's a point to to to each of the things that you're bringing up. I also regularly read when I have the time to sitelines detailed reports. They are often among the longer ones, and I enjoy that. So I do think, because I agree with councilor Ryan, that that it was notable that the conversation around the busses and I think busses, because they're more flexible, we can sort of adapt to the the new ways and patterns in which people work. But I also think that we always designed a system on the max as a, as a community that was a hub and spoke system as opposed to a true system. And I think having lived in cities that have fully built out systems, it would be really great to have a way to get between parts of the city that are not close to each other without having to go through downtown, and I, I would love to, to get into a conversation at some point about what it means to have people who don't live here deciding what transit we get. It doesn't have to be a systemic change. I mean, we've seen some positivity around it in new york, where the state controls the mta, and there's always been that tension, but it's still a good system. But I do think that here there's a challenge where we have folks who don't necessarily understand what's going on and understand what the needs of this community are deciding what we get. And I would love to reopen those conversations so that we can have a conversation about a max line from st. Johns to the airport, along the lombard, columbia corridors, or whatever else we need to wrap around the city as well. But I would I guess the question here is how do we have a. Where is the the realistic conversation around where we need to be expanding the system for transit? And how would you advise us to go about that conversation? I think you've some of you talked about this a little bit, but yeah.
231 Councilor I can respond to that or I can I can certainly try. This is a really thorny problem that I think many of us who who love transit and want to meet our housing goals as a city and as a state, are really grappling with right now. I think, you know, the pandemic created many compounding challenges for our transit system. I don't think it's I don't think it's reasonable or helpful for us to deny that we're facing some, some problems. I think one of those problems is as we displace our most reliable ridership base from the central city, where service is fastest, it's easiest to get to it's most abundant. We're going to have more fewer people riding and more vulnerability to the economic shocks that we've experienced in the last decade or so. So for me, those two issues of a lack of housing in our transit rich areas and our ridership crisis are really connected. It's really hard to make the case for the transit, the homes, the development patterns that we need based solely on the performance of the last three years. And it is really hard to connect those dots for folks in who aren't living in these transit rich communities and aren't experiencing the potential that this can offer in connecting them to jobs, to opportunities, to education. I think part of that is, is creating the demand. There's reasons that states like california just passed this really exciting transit oriented development program. There's a reason that transit agencies all over the country are really excited about the potential of building more homes and legalizing more homes near their lines, because they know it's going to translate to ridership, to demand and the opportunity for expansion. It's really similar. I think it's a nice parallel to what this can mean for our property tax base. It doesn't cost any of our existing residents extra, but it helps us grow the kind of communities that can hit virtuous cycles instead of toxic ones. When it comes to revenue, when it comes to growth and and building the kind of communities that we want to see without overloading our more vulnerable residents with additional costs or additional burdens.
232 Yeah. And I just wanted both of this response and in the previous statement to thank you for bringing displacement as a factor into this conversation. Obviously, I'm a district two representative. We all know that the level of displacement that's occurred from district two, in particular for the black community. And when we're talking about building development without displacement, for sure, but also how that is a factor and it's not the easy, and I would argue, sort of undeveloped arguments as to why people don't ride anymore, but it actually has a deeper underlying factor to it. I rode the yellow line, by the way, myself earlier this week and into to work. It was a really great experience, and so I want to encourage anyone who happens to live close enough to the yellow line and wants to, even as a one off to to join me in doing that. Next week is the week without driving. Thanks.
233 Councilor Avalos.
234 Thank you so much. You know, I think the whole point of densification in general is to reduce the need to travel far to get what you need, right. And so when we can create communities that are connected, that you don't have to go to another part of town to get your groceries, or to go to work, or to have your entertainment or to shop. That's the whole point of creating these dense communities. It helps with our climate goals, helps with our transportation connectivity goals, and of course, it helps with, you know, filling in our neighborhoods and ensuring, too, that we can bring mixed income communities into neighborhoods because that also reduces stigma. It allows for the kind of social mixing. I'm repeating some of my points that I made on my vienna trip that will create the kind of community spirit that we also need. We cannot forget that infrastructure. These goals are more than just roads and lighting and housing. It is about creating connected communities socially as well. I think it's important that we recognize times have changed the way that people are shopping, working, playing is different and so we have to adapt, right? We cannot continue to try to correct to a reality that no longer exists. And that would put, you know, that's not our job as government. It is our job to transition and to adapt. You know, when I ride the line on division, it's actually very populated. I think that it's really good at meeting our east to west travel needs. But east Portland desperately needs more north south travel because it's very hard for us to get around within east Portland. It's easy for us to get out of east Portland, and that shouldn't be the goal. The goal should be for east portlanders to be able to feel like their community is east Portland, and that they have ways to connect to it. Not that they are forced to go to other communities to get their needs met. So I think that's a really important part of the discussion around transit. And lastly, you know, andy, you did a beautiful job of just describing the way that anti-displacement is key to this work. And in fact, my office is currently developing legislation to standardize our anti-displacement goals because we have to apply that lens to every single thing that we do. We want to create communities that people can age in, that they can stay in. And that requires, again, that we build the infrastructure that allows that. So thank you for your presentation. I'm really excited to keep working with you all.
235 Three things one, I ride the orange line and it's very safe. What the depressing thing about it is how few people are on it with me. So I can't speak to the yellow line, but I think the orange line example of I wish want more people to know that it's safe to ride it, then I'd like to have more company on the on the train. I think obviously we need to be having conversations with TriMet, and I'm sure some of you already are about what could the transit system look like if we get the kind of growth and density in various places where we're looking forward to it, that's an ongoing conversation. And finally, michael, I have to ask a question based on one of our shared interests which lord of the rings are silmarillion character. Would you have expected to be the strongest advocate for expanded housing choices?
236 Can also ignore him. We do.
237 I was I was reading the hobbit to my son last night, and bilbo was talking about how gandalf should go talk to somebody else. So like, this is a way for you to pass off annoying people to your neighbors? Good morning.
238 Councilor Ryan.
239 Thank you. Chair Novick councilors. When I share my lived experience, I'm telling the truth. I'm not here to try to build some negative perception, but I am a realist. And so I bought my home in 2000 near the yellow line, so I, of course could use it. I write it frequently. We're a one car family, so my spouse takes the yellow line, changes at the rose quarter, goes out to gateway almost daily. The stories I hear I can't unhear. That's a big reason why the lines are down there. My colleagues, when I listen to people who are trying to run storefronts that are close to delta park, that are trying to run storefronts that are near lombard and interstate, the ones out at gateway that I've been listening to for five years. I believe them, the amount of crime that's connected with organized crime, connected to that flow is a real thing. When I listened to the airlines that have moved their accounts from downtown Portland to Vancouver, so their flight attendants and pilots and such have now are increasingly moving their accounts from downtown Portland to Vancouver because of incidents that happened where they take max from the airport to downtown. I don't need to be retorted. I'm sharing my lived experiences, the stories I've heard from people with big pain in their heart because they want to support our transit system, and they're waiting for us to provide a transit system that they experience in other large markets. We will not have density housing in Portland unless we improve our transit system. And today, Portland, we have some issues we must be honest about and address. Thank you.
240 Oh councilor Maria.
241 Thank you, councilor Ryan. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. And I would say that when other people are sharing their experiences, it does not negate your own. I will say that what I have heard from other people who don't live in Portland is that they have come into downtown for one reason or another, and they usually go, wow, it's pretty nice down here. There's a lot of good stuff happening. I thought it was going to be burning down based on all the news that I had seen. So the reality is that we as councilors are also responsible for the perception of our city and for the past, I don't know, eight years or so, the other city council was dedicated towards making a national narrative that our city is crumbling and falling apart, and that narrative does directly affect how people are going to invest in our city. And I would suggest that we have a responsibility to not contribute to that narrative unnecessarily, while also holding that there are poverty issues in our city. There are crimes that are happening and they do need to be addressed. But there are a lot of good things happening here too. So again, sharing my own experience does not negate your own. My lived experience is that every single day, every single day on the weekends too, I take the bus. So thank you.
242 Councilor Ryan, if I could just interject as a parent, my son, who just turned 13, takes the bus from. He seeks out skate parks. So he goes to ed benedict and east Portland, mcdaniel high school, pier park in saint john's, and he does that on the bus and max. And it does make me nervous as a parent. But what will make me feel better is more eyes on the street. More. More people, more riders on the bus, more riders on the max, more people living close together. So I feel like it's, you know, like these strategies can work together. Safety and density are paired.
243 We're at time and I don't even see anybody in the queue. I want to end on this positive note, which is although the world is a much worse place overall than it was last time I was on the council, there's one improvement that I see, which is that when I was last in the council, when I started pushing for allowing middle housing and single family zones, it was considered something of a radical idea and there was a lot of pushback. And now there's incredible support, both in the community and in this council for expanding housing choices. And I don't know if we'll actually get there, but I find that a positive development. Thanks you, everybody. Our next meeting is Thursday, October 9th. At that meeting, we're anticipating a staff presentation relating to the cei hub. And now we will adjourn the meeting of the climate resilience and land use committee.