Leaving People out of Planning

Portland has won many national awards for its city Planning. Projects such as the 1972 Downtown Plan, the 1988 Central City Plan, and more recently the Hollywood-Sandy Plan and the River Renaissance Intiative have made the name Portland, Oregon synonymous with good urban planning.

I think we’re in danger of losing our claim to that accolade.

From my perspective, there are two main tracks for Planning in Portland right now. Neither of them involves much meaningful citizen participation by the general public. One is exemplified by River Renaissance: very long on research and policy, short on implementation. The body of scientific evidence of current conditions and breadth of analysis of issues is impressive. So far, almost no code revisions to address known problems have been proposed or adopted. Committees are working on issues; production of outcomes seems slower than molasses. The other, Regulatory Improvement, is stuffed with implementation rules with almost no “Big Picture” vision. “Regulatory Improvement” means a series of Regulatory Improvement Code Amendment Packages, which staff insists on calling “RICAP” although even planning-groupie citizen volunteers have difficulty remembering the acronym. Many of the amendments are so minor, it’s difficult to see why they have become priorities for fixing, when we have so many huge mismatches between what the code allows, and what will produce developments where people will want to live in a manner that keeps Portland, Portland.

Implementation is where the concrete hits the dirt. Implementation means Zoning Code language, Building Code standards, and inspections to enforce both. We can (and do) have all the lofty policy language the finest planning minds can dream up, but without rules in the code and adequate enforcement of them, those goals stay just dreams. True, the Bureau of Planning won an award for the River Renaissance Plan, but it’s a concept plan, with almost no adopted regulations or program strategies to implement it. Citizen involvement seems limited to informational Open Houses, and taking people on hikes and boat trips to experience the Willamette close up – very enjoyable (I’ve visited Open House events and been on a couple of these outings), but not likely to produce measurable results in the near future.

Much of the latest Regulatory Improvement package is aimed at land divisions/partitions. It’s about buildings, density, orientation, building design, etc., with no mention of what happens when people live in these buildings. The questions for public discussion and Planning Commission/Council decisions should be about the people who move into the new housing units. Tri-Met may or may not have bus service which serves any of their needs; the schools will get lots of new children from “family friendly development” without any new dollars to pay for them; neighborhoods may get pieces of new pavement and sidewalks without any way to maintain them, or may not get any new street improvements; we grow without having a plan to grow the necessary infrastructure of life, including parks and recreaion space and/or open space.

That doesn’t even get into things like tree removal, flag lot development, lack of protection for neighborhood fabric/character, little interest in preserving affordable housing stock rather than building new/higher cost housing units, or building scale. It also doesn’t look at the lack of support for neighborhood commercial areas or protection of our green environment. Portland Planning seems to be sliding into a silo mentality, exemplified by asking citizens to focus their attention on whether the code provides 3′ or 5′ setbacks, and does not include yards or neighborhood parks as a consideration of quality of life. It’s as if the viewpoint has to be either at 30,000 feet or on the individual lot to be developed, and in neither case are the needs and humanity of the people who will live in the neighborhood, next week or in the next decade, considered vital.

I must mention one exception to this trend. The Bureau of Planning has recently implemented a suggestion made ten years ago, to assign specific staff to serve as district liaisons to neighborhoods in different parts of the city. Some of these planners are doing excellent work in forging working relationships with neighborhood volunteers, partnering to discuss isssues and figure out ways to fund improvements. Parks and Recreation is also assigning district coordinators. These are good steps in the right direction. Movement towards attending to neighbors and neighborhood needs should become a trend and driving force in Planning and throughout city government.

Mayor Vera Katz charged Planning Director Gil Kelley with interbureau coordination. The move consolidating budget decisions into the Office of Finance and Management should have been the second leg of the three-legged stool which would make our Commission form of government work better for Big Picture Planning – the third being commitment by current and future City Council members to make budget decisions together, considering and prioritizing all city functions as well as commissioners-in-charge advocating for the requests of assigned bureaus. It seems to me that all three of these initiatives aren’t performing as well as they might. Planning, in particular, seems less willing to lead and more apt to keep its collective head below the rim of the trenches. And by reducing the means and level of citizen involvement to either boat trips or the size of building setbacks, it’s hard for concerned neighbors to help support more comprehensive Planning, with a capital P.

Someone needs to plan for the people continuing to want to live in Portland as it grows. Our City Council seems to be competing for leadership in finding the new set of buzz words in planning infill, rather than dealing with the issues which surround growth and creating/maintaining desirable neighborhoods. We see multiple press releases and Town Halls on the latest streetcar extension proposal, while outer neighborhoods like Parkrose wait eight years for $150,000 to improve a park. Nobody on the current Council cares passionately about planning (or Planning) as their first priority. Mayor Potter kept the bureau in his portfolio, but doesn’t seem to have given Gil Kelley authority to go to bat for neighbors and neighborhoods – the threads that create the woven tapestry of a livable city. The Bureau of Development Services continues to service and promote development as its core mission, rather than keeping neutral in land use reviews that decide whether a development is allowed, rather than how.

How to fix this problem? Off the top of my head, here are some ideas to start the discussion:

1. Whatever the form of government after the Charter Reform vote in May, the Council and Mayor should assure Gil Kelley that his job is not at risk if he uses his considerable planning skills to consider neighborhood needs and coordinate city bureaus to provide necessary public services outside of the central core.

2. Move land use reviews back into the Bureau of Planning from Development Services. Have the planners who staff the reviews work the Permit Counter once a week, so they keep in touch with on-the-ground reality, but make the decision of whether a development is allowed more separate from how it is allowed.

3. Strengthen, don’t weaken, Civil Service protections for front-line staff doing their job of seeking the long term public good.

4. Involve citizens in meaningful participation in planning for livable neighborhoods. Return to the Neighborhood Needs process, allowing citizens more access to making decisions for the Capital Improvement Projects list. Stop the itzy-bitzy code detail amendments that seem like fiddling while Rome burns.

5. In budget discussions, create and review a 10-year plan for how the city will provide basic public services in neighborhoods that lack them – paved streets, sidewalks and bikeways, improved parks, etc.

I could go on (and on and on and on), but my daughter is off school for Teacher Planning days, and we have a tape of last night’s The Daily Show and Colbert Report to watch. We already know the Saginaw Spirit won their hockey game on Friday, so I’m particularly looking forward to watching Stephen Colbert gloat.