Hello Neighbors,

Everyone who is available should come check out the neighborhood park open house - a week from today over at the Center for Health and Healing. Here are the details:

Neighborhood Park Open House
Schematic Design Options
Tuesday, March 11, 5:30-8:00 p.m.
Presentation at 6:00 p.m.
OHSU Center for Health and Healing
3303 SW Bond
Paul Kirk Conference Center, 3rd Floor, Rms 1A/B

See how the Neighborhood Park design team has translated community ideas and priorities into three preliminary designs. Tell us what you think about the early design choices. Your contributions will help shape a preferred park design. We look forward to seeing you there!

Community Questionnaire Results
Thanks to all who participated in the Open House on January 29 for the Greenway and Neighborhood Park! We appreciate the thoughtful feedback provided in the 78 completed questionnaires. A summary report of the results is now available at http://www.portlandonline.com/shared/cfm/image.cfm?id=185429.

Dear Resident,
      Do You Want to Keep Your Access to the River?

The South Waterfront Nature and Greenspaces Committee needs your support!

What kind of visual access and view of the Willamette River would you like to have upon completion of the Greenway Trail construction?
Would you like to maintain, or even improve, physical access to the river?
Can you help keep the City committed to the existing plan?

Some background:

• The Greenway Development Plan is a three-stage development of our riverfront that includes habitat restoration, jogging/bicycling paths, and various river access or view points
• In 2004 the City Council accepted the Greenway Development Plan
• In 2006 the City Council dedicated $6 million in funds
• During 2007 the City had repeatedly revised the plan due to insufficient funding, cutting out some very important design features:
  • The small boats dock
  • Wildlife viewing platform
• If the dock is not built, we may not have any access to the river—not even a path to the water—after the Plan moves into its implementation stage
• By March, 2008 the City will finalize the project and will begin implementation. The time to comment is NOW

Here is how to comment:

• January 22nd, 6:00 – 8:00 pm: Project Advisory Committee Meeting
• January 29th, 5:00 – 8:00 pm: Open House with the Greenway presentation at 5:30 and the Neighborhood Park presentation at 6:30 pm
• Both meetings will be held at the OHSU Center for Health & Healing, 3303 SW Bond, 3rd Floor, Rooms 1A/1B

Make your voice heard about the future of your neighborhood!

 Please post any questions or comments on this blog.
 

On December 11th the Project Advisory Committee met to discuss the future of the South Waterfront Neighborhood Park. I was unable to attend, however I have obtained a copy of the committee meeting notes, here: Neighborhood Park PAC Notes. A very interesting beginning to the planning process - there will be 3 more Public Open Houses regarding the Neighborhood Park. I’m going to read up on these minutes from the first meeting and be sure to include my 2 cents in the coming meetings. Here are the dates for the upcoming Open Houses:

Tuesday January 29th, 6 - 8 p.m.

Tuesday March 11th, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

Thursday April 22nd, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

All of these meetings will be held at the OHSU Center for Health and Healing (3303 SW Bond) in the 3rd Floor, Paul Kirk Conference Room.

These are also listed on the South Waterfront Community Events Calendar as well.

Patty Freeman, the project manager for the Greenway Project in South Waterfront recently supplied me with a link to the Portland Parks & Rec page that has the Revised 2007 Plan, compared to the original plan from 2004.

Be sure to stay up to date on the status of the Greenway so we can help to shape the future of our neighborhood. Keep watching for more posts related to this subject.

Lawn games, such as Croquet, Golf, and Slinky Ball (the image below illustrates the game, as it was played in the Mt. Hood Wilderness area) have fascinated competitive and recreational players for centuries.

Croquet - tracing its origins to France in the Middle Ages - requires a level playing field and set boundary conditions.  The game inspires images of quaint cocktail parties and wickets proudly adorning an impeccable lawn.

Golf - Scotland’s gift to the world, with the first recorded game taking place at Musselburgh Links in 1672, places a set of strict demands upon the gardener:  perfect grooming of fairways, tee boxes, and greens are a key subset to any successful course.

Slinky Ball - a game spotted on campsites, backyards, large lawns, and beaches - is a great way to spend an afternoon on a field with an unobstructed throwing line.  Deriving its rules from Horseshoes and Shuffle Board, this game is a great addition to a lawn party.

So what do these great games have in common with the South Waterfront?  The answer is that we have our own very large lawn between Bond and Moody.

Another, equally important opportunity, is the one to participate in the process of planning the park’s layout.  The South Waterfront Nature & Greenspace Committee is engaging Portland Parks and the City of Portland in the planning and design process.  Now is the time to let the us know what features are important to you as the SWF Community resident!

On a more general note, I am very excited to make this first post on behalf of the Nature & Greenspace Committe.  I will keep you updated both on the outdoor activities in the neighborhood and on the committee’s participation in the planning and development processes of both the Neighborhood Park and the Willamette River Greenway projects.  I look forward to your dialogue!

There has been a lot of buzz lately about our Greenway here in South Waterfront since the story in the Oregonian on November 24th reporting a 76% increase in the cost to build the Greenway due to rising material prices. You can read the article here.

Now the original proposal costs were done in 2004, it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that the overall price of the project rose, the longer you wait to begin a project the more the price tag increases due to inflation and other market factors. Did they actually think the price would decrease?

An excellent editorial was written in the Oregonian yesterday titled “Portland deserves something spectacular” and I couldn’t agree more. Not only do the citizens of our city deserve this green space for recreation, but our down trodden river (one of the most polluted in the USA) and ecology deserve this restoration and revitalization as well. The editorial said it best:

Restoring a working river, revitalizing industrial lands that have complex histories, is an immensely complicated task. What’s at stake here is a regional amenity that will serve, both recreationally and environmentally, a community far larger than that inhabiting those high-rise condos. As a community, we committed here to creating something spectacular.

Portland deserves nothing less.