“The Portland Plan”, aka Periodic Review

Yesterday, I attended the monthly General Meeting of the League of Women Voters of Portland. The guest speaker was originally scheduled to be Gil Kelley, Director of the City of Portland’s Bureau of Planning. But Mayor Potter called a snap meeting of all bureau heads for Tuesday noon, immediately after his announcement he’s not running for re-election. So Steve Dotterer, one of the Principal Planners (the top managers) in the bureau, spoke instead. I’d been expecting a review of a lot of stuff I already know from monitoring planning issues, but Steve did a super job of explaining not only what’s coming down the pike, but why we should care and participate.

And get this – it turns out VisionPDX may be useful after all.

Here’s why, how, and when. Forget the whole reach-out-to-Portlanders, kum-bah-ya thing. On October 8, the City will be receiving an important letter from the Department of Land Conservation and Development, aka DLCD. It’s the state agency charged with managing and overseeing Oregon’s land use planning program – the Statewide Planning Goals and adminstrative rules first adopted over 30 years ago to protect farm and forest land. Cities and counties are required to formulate and implement plans on how they will comply with the statewide goals. They cover values like natural resource protection (Goal 5), Economic Development (Goal 9), Transportation (Goal 12), Energy Conservation (Goal 13), and so on. Portland’s Comprehensive Plan, adopted in 1991, is a major component of compliance for us, along with the Zoning Code which implements it (or is supposed to).

With me so far? Good. The Comprehensive Plan and other mechanisms of implementation of the Statewide Planning Goals aren’t meant to be static. They’re required to be revised and updated over time. And the state has a process called “Periodic Review”, to ensure cities and counties are adopting needed revisions to comply with new statewide administrative rules, and that any amendments adopted since the last Periodic Review are in compliance when considered together. [Individual changes in the Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Code are also reviewed by DLCD and its governing body, the appointed Land Conservation and Development Commission – LCDC.] Since Citizen Involvement is the very first of the Statewide Planning Goals (they’re required to be co-equal, but still, nice to have that one listed first), there are many mandatory opportunities for real, meaningful citizen involvement. One of my most memorable successes as a citizen advocate at the State level was appearing before the Land Conservation and Development Commission in Salem, and winning my argument that the City hadn’t done a good enough job with its Environmental Zone regulations for utility lines. The City was required to revise them, as a result. That was definitely the most satisfying experience I’ve ever had in Salem.

So, Periodic Review is rather like the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals visiting acute care hospitals every few years, or fire inspectors doing surprise visits checking out whether safety code standards are being implemented in office buildings. And as with the hospital inspections, Periodic review doesn’t happen on a set schedule.

Portland is expecting to receive a letter notifying the City of a state mandate to perform Periodic Review of the Comprehensive Plan, in October. By March 2008, the Council must adopt and send to the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD, got that one now?) a plan for issues and public involvement to update the current Plan. The revision process, which the Bureau of Planning is calling The Portland Plan, is expected to take two years. The maximum allowed by DLCD is three years – Steve Dotterer wisely and wryly noted that these things tend to take longer than expected, so if they set the goal for completion at two years, that allows for some buffer within the mandate. Approximately half to two thirds of the Planning Bureau staff will be working on this project for two years, with the remainder continuing work on River Renaissance and tree protection regulations. So VisionPDX isn’t just a touchy-feely thanks-let’s-put-it-on-this-nice-shelf thing any more. It’s part of a no-messing-around state mandate for Portland to get its act together and show the state how we comply with its Statewide Planning Goals and associated administrative rules.

I realize this still all sounds like just a lot of talking and meaningless policy babble to many. But here’s two reasons why you might consider participating:

* The Bureau of Planning management feels its planners should be proposing “risky”, highly progressive ideas for public review and discussion.

“Risky” in the sense of innovative (I continue to despise that word), different (I like that one), radical. The expectation is that not all ideas will be ready for action, indeed some will be rejected completely, but by proposing them the Bureau of Planning (BOP) hopes to spark debate and interest. I can practically hear Jack Bogdanski and those already concerned about the direction of Portland Planning cracking their knuckles. It’s good to know the BOP will be deliberately trying to provoke response – and it may be entertaining to participate.

* The City is required to have a list of the projects required to implement the revised Comprehensive Plan, and an outline of plans to pay for them. This includes sewers, streets, and water, plus the BOP is choosing to include parks provision, too, although parks plans aren’t required by DLCD.

This second reason is highly significant. The City admits it hasn’t had a complete list of needed implementation projects in the past, and hasn’t done a good job of budgeting to pay for even the ones that have been identified. In The Portland Plan, the BOP will work with the Portland Development Comission on an implementation list for the Economic Development goal; with the Bureaus of Environmental Services and Water on the sewer and water infrastructure list; with the Office of Sustainable Development on (duh) sustainability issues, and so on. This stuff really matters, because it’s going to have a project list and funding. Once it’s adopted by the City Council and approved by the state, it’s way more likely to be implemented than many other planning processes.

And the input from VisionPDX will help inform and justify choices. The process showed much support for safer neighborhoods, for sustainable development practices, and for provision of good jobs. Not a big surprise to most Portlanders. Regardless of the somewhat wishy-washy process to date, things are going to start being translated to real actions in neighborhoods, with associated dollars allocations, in The Portland Plan. Time to start paying attention.

The Council hearing on VisionPDX will be held at 6 p.m. (yay, in the evening!), on Wednesday, September 19.