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Portland, Oregon
Wednesday, April 6, 1994
Neighborhood Blocks A Home For Homeless Families
Apartment plan appeals cite
environmental regulations
By Julie Sterling
This month, the Wilson Neighborhood Association will have
spent three full years working to derail the construction
of a 31-unit apartment building for homeless families.
The avowed defeat of the Turning Point project, which could
have provided short-term housing for at least 375 families since
its might-have-opened date ( December 1991 ), seems to satisfy the
neighbors as a just cause to pursue from their comfortable
residences near Wilson High School.
In fact they will toast their efforts on a winery tour of
Yamhill County April 23. "All proceeds," says the Southwest
Neighborhood News in its March issue, "will be used to pay for
Wilson Neighborhood Association legal fees in our case against
the Housing Authority of Portland." Cost of the tour is $35.
The Turning Point, a first for Portland, would be built and
owned by the housing authority on donated land on the west side
of Southwest Bertha Boulevard at Chestnut Street.
Homelessness among families with children has increased
dramatically in recent years. Of 401 persons denied shelter
because of lack of space one night last November, "the great
majority...were families with children and women with children
escaping domestic violence," wrote Chuck Currie, chairman of the
Multnomah County Community Action Commission, in The Oregonian
February 16 [1994].
The Turning Point project would offer families like those
something more than a night in a shelter or two weeks in a motel.
It would give them a decent living environment - sleeping and
cooking faclities in a secure two-story, landscaped building -
while they receive counseling, job training and help in finding
permanent housing.
Kay Durtschi, who is president of Southwest Neighborhood
Information Association among its 16 members, characterizes the
dispute among its 16 members, characterizes the dispute as a
stand-off between environmentalists and homeless advocates.
Gerry Newhall chairman of the Friends of Turning Point, disagrees:
It's a NIMBY ( Not in My Back Yard ) issue. The Wilson Neighborhood
Associatlon, she contends, underwent an "environmental conversion"
in the early stages of the dispute when it became clear that
fighting the case on a NIMBY platform would not be politically or
socially acceptable.
The May 1991 issue of Southwest Neighborhood News, reporting on
an April 4 meeting of the Wilson group, said residents at the early
meeting "questioned why such a project was being considered for a
largely middle and upper-middle-class neighborhood ... They
expressed fears about increased crime and lowered property values,"
A letter to the editor in the Oregonian April 20, 1991, quoted one
of the Wilson group as saying, "Why are people of lesser means
brought in here, just to see what they can't have?"
Early on, the housing authority successfully countered
NIMBY arguments with assurances that the facility would have
24-hour, on-site management and an average residency of 60 days.
But since then, the Wilson neighbors have tossed so many
environmental grenades at the housing authority that the agency
must be tempted to build a bunker on the thorny site instead of
housing.
There's no question that the site is environmentally sensitive.
Part of it is an easement for storm water detention and part is
a wetland. A small creek runs through its layers of brambles.
And there's no doubt that the neighbor's environmental strategy
has reaped delays and heaped legal fees on lawyers for both sides.
But the housing authority argues that every objection raised is
satisfied in a series of conditions it has accepted, including an
argument to build outside the wetland. As to questions of runoff
disposal, the Turning Point development would not change the
overall capicity of the storm-water detention area, according to
city findings.
If anything, the Turning Point project would enhance the
neighborhood. The housing authority would dedicate 72 percent of
the site - the part that will remain untouched - for a park.
The proposal has survived a minefield of appeals - from the
City Council to the state Land Use Board of Appeals, to the Oregon
Court of Appeals to the Oregon Supreme Court - so the housing
authority had every reason to celebrate October 1, [1993] when the
City Council approved the Turning Point site for conditional use.
But in early February, the Wilson group filed its fifth appeal.
Now the neighborhood challenges the evidence the city and the
housing authority gathered to substantiate three issues singled
out by the Land Use Board of Appeals for further council review.
Chairman Wesley Risher says the Wilson Neighborhood Association
is prepared to go to the federal level in its effort to make sure
that the Turning Point "is built in accordance with federal
requirements and mandates, because it is receiving federal funding."
He believes it does not meet standards set by the National
Historical Preservation Act, the Clean Water Act, the Americans
With Disabilities and the National Environmental Policy Act.
He could well cite one more well-known act: The Turning Point
project was a bright hope for homeless families three years ago;
today it is an endangered species.
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