VisionPDX dream's still fuzzy

Thousands gave ideas for Portland’s future, now deadline looms for action

By Jim Redden

The Portland Tribune, Jul 20, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (10 Reader comments)

Mayor Tom Potter kicked off the city’s vision quest in spring 2006, and soon he’ll help decide what to do with the results.

Jim Clark / PORTLAND TRIBUNE FILE PHOTO

With two months to go before the Community Vision Project committee presents its report to the City Council, the members are feeling the heat.

The Portlanders working on the project – officially called VisionPDX – have read the news stories, columns and Internet postings questioning their efforts.

They’ve heard the accusations that their version of the future is nothing more than the vague utopia that everyone wants – a clean, green, safe, affordable city with good schools and no discrimination.

The committee is scheduled to present its final report to the council Sept. 19. It has spent much of the past two years surveying thousands of Portlanders about what kind of city they want in 2030.

The results have been boiled down into a series of interconnected value statements, ideas and challenges related to such topics as population growth, the environment and the education system.

They most recently were published in a booklet – titled “Portland 2030: It’s Up to You” – distributed at follow-up community meetings and available on the city’s Web site. Major themes include making the city more sustainable and affordable to families.

But what the members are hearing now is, So what?

“What I keep hearing is, I know these are the values and the trends. What they want to hear is, How does this translate into something I can do?” said committee member Zeke Smith, who works for the nonprofit Portland Schools Foundation.

The question is especially urgent because the project, so far, has cost more than $1.2 million, including funds spent by the Bureau of Planning, which is providing staff and research support.

Committee member Brenna Bell has heard the complaints, too. She is not convinced the report to be presented to the council within eight weeks needs to include specific future projects, however.

“It is a vision, not an action plan. It’s where you want to get to, so it makes sense to me as a first step,” said Bell, who helped found the Try/On Life Community Farm in Southwest Portland.

Whether the council will approve any more money for the project is unclear, however. Committee members have talked about asking the council to fund an ongoing series of grants to nonprofit community organizations to show how the vision can be implemented.

Although the council could finance the first of them during the upcoming annual fall budget adjustment process, no specific funding request has been developed so far.

“I would not automatically oppose a request, but it would have to produce actual results on the ground. We’ve had enough surveying,” Commissioner Randy Leonard said.

Without the additional funding, visionPDX could end by simply being folded into a series of other planning efforts under way at the Bureau of Planning. They include an update of the city’s comprehensive plan, which governs how Portland will physically grow in the future.

Other efforts include the development of a citywide transportation plan, a new economic development plan and an update of the Central City Plan, which deals with the growing retail and residential core.

“We’re trying to consolidate all of our planning efforts into something we call the Portland Plan,” said bureau Director Gil Kelley, who called visionPDX a good foundation for these efforts.

Business owners chipped in

Despite the uncertainty over the future of the project, the committee members are convinced the emerging vision accurately represents how most Portlanders want their city to look and act in the decades to come.

Residents from all parts of town said they value such things as the environment and the city’s small-town feel, and want them preserved in the future. Some of the ideas that repeatedly surfaced in the surveys were sustainable development and more transportation alternatives to the automobile.

Committee members admit they’ve heard complaints that a disproportionate percentage of the surveys were filled out by the kind of activists who oppose cars and big-box stores.

But in fact, many of the same values also were reflected in the surveys filled out by members of the business community, including the members of the Alliance of Portland Neighborhood Business Associations, which represents small-business owners across the city.

Among other things, the alliance’s survey found business owners want “a sustainable city of likable inhabitants.”

“Business owners live here, too, and want the same things for the city as everyone else,” said Nancy Chapin, executive secretary of the alliance.

Another thing the committee agrees on is the need to build public support for the vision before it goes before the council.

Toward that end, it has launched a series of efforts to line up backers. One is a Mayor’s Partnership Group Meeting set for July 30 with Potter. Another is a reception and celebration with supporters set for Sept. 6. Details of both gatherings still are being worked out.

Some committee members also have begun briefing council members on their work. They already have met with Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who said he was pleased the surveys show the public supports parks and sustainable development, two areas in his bureau portfolio.

“It was a good way of measuring the pulse of the public, which needs to be done,” Saltzman said.

The members also have met with Commissioner Erik Sten, who is especially interested in how the emerging vision supports his efforts to build affordable housing for families near local schools, according to Rich Rodgers, one of his aides.

“The feedback we got from them was, the issues we are working on resonate with their findings,” Rodgers said.

Committee seeks real buy-in

In truth, however, convincing the council to accept the vision Sept. 19 will not be nearly as challenging as convincing the council to spend more money on it.

It will be hard for anyone on the council to argue that Portlanders do not embrace such values as sustainability, equity and accountability.

Securing more money for the project will be trickier, in part because the council members already have a number of priorities they are trying to fund.

1 | 2 Next Page >>

Facebook	Digg	Del.icio.us
Newsvine	Stumbleupon	Reddit