Council picks housing

Led by Commissioner Fish, the council recommends a mixed-income development for the Sears armory site

By Shasta Kearns Moore

The Southwest Community Connection, Aug 1, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

City Commissioner Nick Fish met with concerned neighbors of the SFC Jerome F. Sears U.S. Army Reserve Center on Multnomah Boulevard two days before the City Council unanimously decided to recommend a housing center be built on the site when it is decommissioned in 2011.

Shasta Kearns Moore / The Southwest Community Connection

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MULTNOMAH — A gamble of nearly $100,000 worth of time and design work over the past 15 months has paid off for Community Partners for Affordable Housing (CPAH) and its architectural partners.

The Portland City Council voted unanimously July 9 to recommend that they be able to develop more than 100 units of mixed-income housing at the SFC Jerome F. Sears U.S. Army Reserve Center on Multnomah Boulevard.

"We're just so thrilled to have gotten the full support of the council," said CPAH spokeswoman Tracy Stepp. "Sites like this just don't come up very often."

The opposition to the proposal, led by armory neighbor Martin Waugh, seemed to shrug off the defeat.

"I'm a little disappointed, but guardedly optimistic," Waugh said, adding that he believes the city will engage the neighbors during the design process.

The 4-acre site is slated to be decommissioned in 2011 by the Department of Defense (DOD), which has the ultimate say in deciding what will happen to the facility.

To ensure that the Council’s recommendation is carried out, Housing Commissioner Nick Fish flew to Washington D.C. during the last week in July to attend a conference on homelessness and lobby DOD officials.

The Commissioner’s visit to Multnomah

Fish, who co-sponsored the council resolution, spent the afternoon of July 7 with Moss Street residents and other armory neighbors who were concerned about the impact such a large housing project would have on the neighborhood.

The neighborhood’s concerns largely focused on transportation issues the estimated 200 new residents would create and compound. They listed the lack of sidewalks and off-street parking, the congestion from Multnomah Boulevard, the narrow, unimproved roads behind the center and the lack of bus routes and pedestrian access to the area.

Many were also concerned about safety, both of the people the development would house, and of the community as a whole.

At a straw poll in May, the neighborhood voted in favor of a proposal by the Portland Office of Transportation, the Office of Emergency Management and the Water Bureau to house maintenance and emergency response gear at the site.

But Fish said his office would take responsibility for incorporating the neighbors’ list of concerns into the housing development plan.

“We are not powerless as a community and as a city to address these issues,” he said.

“I think the last thing we want to do as a city is to do something that’s going to be disruptive to this neighborhood.”

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