Weekend Update 5/6/7

Neat dateline, huh? I hope you’ve had an enjoyable weekend to go with it. If I hadn’t been off having fun with my family yesterday, I could have posted this earlier today, at 05/06/07 08:09. Oh well.

In no particular order, here are miscellaneous updates about issues of interest:

City of Portland v. PGE – the court case about the City’s request for records from PGE is delayed until September.

Fifty-four people attended the Infill Conversation on St. Patrick’s Day, in addition to the dozens of speakers. DVDs will be available free for Neighborhood Associations soon, intended for use at neighborhood meetings to continue the conversation.

Susan Anderson, Director of the City’s Office of Sustainable Development, and Brendan Finn, Dan Saltzman’s Chief of Staff, are still working on the issue of unwanted phone book delivery. The latest update: “The Product Stewardship Institute is working on this issue on the national front. They completed the initial phase of the project last month and their project summary indicates that from June – September 2007 they intend to convene two meetings of national stakeholders and develop priority agreements. Here is the link to that information. There are two local jurisdictions, Las Vegas and Beavercreek Ohio, that have ordinances that “prohibit businesses from leaving information on doorsteps without approval.” Apparently they may not have enough teeth to be effective.” Susan and Brendan continue to work on the problem. I’ll post updates when available, and keep asking about it.

Amy J. Ruiz at the Mercury is taking her turn (mine are here and in the comments here) at urging the City to post links to relevant documents on the Council’s agenda. Word is still that it will happen “soon”. Amy is following up, asking, “when is soon?”

Diligent volunteers continue to keep watch over the City’s review of development applications. Here’s an example of where neighbors spent their own money to make the City follow state rules: Christine Yun of the Buckman Community Association appealed to the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) because staff in Development Services wrote a decision on an adjustment request that also included interpretation of other parts of the code. The City’s decision said anyone objecting should appeal the adjustment to the Adjustment Committee, the rules interpretation to LUBA. In their Decision (pdf), LUBA cites previous cases saying no, the City cannot split one decision into parts like that. The rest of us owe a debt to the Buckman neighbors. Because they went to the expense of this appeal, everyone benefits by the City being told what is fair in land use reviews. This is a case where “The appeal is dismissed” at the end of the decision masks the true victory. The appeal was denied because the City was wrong to tell the neighbors to appeal to LUBA in the first place, and now the City can’t do that again. Buckman neighbors’ other appeal, of the Adjustment decision itself (the one saying not providing a truck loading space is just as good as providing one) is pending at LUBA still. To help with volunteers’ struggle to make the City follow the rules in development applications, Give A Buck for Buckman.

A new request to waive the truck loading space on another lot in inner Southeast is coming before the Adjustment Committee soon. Interestingly, the application team includes someone who recently served on the Adjustment Committee and was part of the block voting to approve the waiver in Buckman. I believe there should be rules requiring an applicant to wait, say, a year or five, between being on the committee making final decisions on a precedent-setting adjustment application and applying for the same thing for personal benefit.

Another request coming before the Adjustment Committee asks permission to decrease lot size from the zone minimum 3,000 square feet to 2,700 square feet, and reduce the size of the required 12′ x 12′ outdoor area. This is in the R5 zone, where the desired average lot size is 5,000 square feet. Apparently reducing the size of the house instead, to match the small lot and still leave space for a swingset or patio table, is out of the question. Or maybe not – c’mon, Adjustment Committee, please get real! R5 should mean 5,000 square feet for the average lot size! If the City wants to have 4,000 or 3,000 foot lot sizes for detached housing, the Council should ask the Planning Commission to create an R4 or single family R3 zone instead, so other standards such as maximum height, setbacks, etc., can be set to match the smaller lot size.

No Ivy Day 2007 was a big success. I learned something new, from Sandy Diedrich at the Forest Park event: Research done by No-Ivy League interns shows it’s not necessary to pile up or haul off the pulled ivy. Very little re-rooting was observed even when the evil vines are just left strewn around the pull site. “Let it drop, let it rot” is the new refrain.

And finally, I commented in the recent post on proposed changes to garbage rates and services that reading the recommendations on the City’s site informed me I can now get a better deal than the on-call pickups we’ve used for several years. I realized later that this marks the first time I can remember that my engagement in civic processes has resulted in savings for my family instead of expenses. A milestone, indeed. Others this past week include attracting more than 500,000 hits, 70,000 visits, and 120 new subscribers here since I began the blog at the end of December 2006.