Great White Whale

The houses being built in Portland keep getting uglier and bigger, towering over their neighbors.  I guess it is pretty cheap to build when there is no trim....  ugh.

 This is their rendering.  Note the fake trees and grass and the missing neighbor houses.

And yes, there are TWO of them, one behind the other.  Once again this is a rendering...

Here is a link from Google maps.  I think there are 8 units with 1800 sq ft each and renting for $2800 per month.  GAG.

RIP

Residential Infill Project = death to our city

Affordable apartment in Portland (so the ad says)

Craigs list ad

This is the whole 165 sq ft apartment, for $1135 per month.  Like a dorm room....

I blogged about it when it was being built. 

And here are all the amenities you get for an apartment smaller than most rooms in my house.

• All Utilities Included! (Power, Electric, Trash, Sewer, Complimentary WIFI, Everything!)


• Studio furnished with a new twin bed


• Kitchenette includes granite counter top, deep stainless steel sink, microwave, cabinets, and mini refrigerator/freezer


• Flexible lease terms: 6-9 months (+$100), or 10-18 months (listed base rent of $1035)


• Pets welcome! $300 Deposit & $25/Month Pet Rent (Limited Breed Restrictions)


• Two Common kitchens on each floor, with weekly cleaning (10 within the whole building)


• Complimentary bike parking


• Secured Entry and Quiet hours


• On-site laundry payable by credit card


• Professional maintenance of common areas and grounds


• Walk Score: 94, Transit Score: 70, Bike Score: 99


• Large ADA bathrooms


• Smoke Free Community

Life in Portland, the city that does not work

My life of late has been consumed by two Portland problems: the homeless and unbridled growth.  Unbridled growth is destroying us.  Our city is overwhelmed. And our elected officials are doing squat.

In the words of  Tom McCall:  " We must respect another truism - that unlimited and unregulated growth, leads inexorably to a lowered quality of life.”

This is a shit bucket provided to the homeless in the park and emptied for them.  They haven't emptied it yet...  I think it pretty well sums up life in Portland these days.

Today is the day of the big Springwater Trail homeless camp sweep.  It's been in the works for at least six weeks and was postponed once.  The news reports that of the more than 500 people camped there, they have relocated 60, including a dozen they put on the bus to somewhere else.  And now they are going to force them off the trail into the neighborhoods.  They have been told to camp in small groups on public property  but not in parks and some other rules that not even I can follow.   They are angry.  Broken down vehicles that people live out of have become the norm on Portland streets.

I get a daily Google News alert on the topic "Portland Homeless".  Here are some of the links from the past few days.

Open Wapato jail to the homeless, says Commissioner Loretta Smith

Fire breaks out at homeless camp near Hawthorne Bridge

Police: Man tired of homeless campers throws bomb under RV

Lents neighbors wrestle with homelessness issues

Harbor businesses to challenge Terminal 1 homeless shelter

'Lents' year from hell:' Neighbors protest new homeless camp

Homeless on the Springwater Trail prepare to leave

The Spaceship

This house is called the Spaceship because of all it's blazing lights.

Source: Stop Demolishing Portland

"This house sold earlier this year for $900,000.
It's a great example of the realities of the City's claim that we have to accept all this redevelopment to 'increase density' to accommodate the "climate refugees".

No one lives there.
It's owned by someone with an address in Vegas that's a building on the strip - $1.3-million-and-up condos.
This house is used only as an Airbnb - I got that from a neighbor, and there's a recent complaint about it, filed at the City.

It was completed in 2015 but has already had serious water-intrusion problems.
If you're familiar with University Park, you'll see how-ridiculous this house looks at the location."

Quote from Stop Demolishing Portland

Loving the gorge to death

Unbridled growth is destroying us.  These people are lined up to climb over a giant log jam in Oneonta gorge.  Does this look like a natural spot?  Too many people.

Source

"It is so depressing to see such beautiful nature treated like an amusement park. I personally blame Instagram and people going places they see on there to take the same picture for "likes". The amount of selfie-sticks and pooh-bears at Oneanta Gorge the past couple of years have turned it from one of the most magical little hikes in Oregon into a barely recognizable shizshow of crowds. Side-note, someone is going to have an accident at the log-jam there and I am curious to see how this looks in 10 years..."

Source

The greedy idiots are still destroying Portland

There are lots of demolitions of wonderful houses.  Every now and then people get excited about a specific grand home and they save it.  I am more upset by the many less expensive less grand but still wonderful bungalows that get destroyed every day, especially by the hated Vic Remmers, AKA Everett Custom Homes.  May a curse be on you if you buy one.  There is already a curse on him.

Here is a grand home in Eastmoreland (a pricey Portland neighborhood) that Remmers is slated to demolish.  Boy is he ever greedy.  And Portland lets him get away with it.  I am losing respect for my beloved city.

Source

More on the house here.  And Zillow still has the listing photos.

Gentrification in Portland

Too much construction

There is construction everywhere.  It is causing traffic problems and many livability issues.  Noise complaints are way up.  Our already crumbling streets are suffering from the weight.  Too many trees are being taken down.  Nice houses are being destroyed.  Construction debris is filling up our landfill.  And what they put up is just cheap and ugly.

Demolished house.  No, we are NOT green in Portland.

Just a livability issue

Source:

Chuck Lawrence said two of his eight units at Bel-Air Court will soon be vacated after longtime tenants announced area homeless are making them feel too unsafe to remain in their apartments. Lawrence said he doesn’t blame them, , rattling off a list of recent crimes: stealing bikes and water, and frequent cases of trespassing.  “The homeless have been looking in the windows,” Lawrence said.   “Several [of the tenants] are single women.  Lawrence said he’s recently put padlocks on outdoor water faucets and installed several motion-detector lights.

There’s a four foot chain-linked fence around the side and back of the property, but he's hoping the city will allow him to make it taller.  “I've tried to take care of the place,” Lawrence added. "I’ve tried to take care of all of them, and it’s hard for somebody whose trying to make a living off their small rentals." Lawrence has owned the complex in southeast Portland for 30 years.

He said homeless in the area have been an issue for about two years and the biggest problems have come in the last few months. Tenants must cross the Springwater Corridor path to get to their homes, and some of the tents are just feet from the apartments.

“It’s scary,” said tenant Maddie Ingraham, pointing to a homeless camp about 30 feet from her bedroom window. “They’re everywhere, and they just kind of stare you down when you’re driving through your driveway. You just feel uncomfortable going to your own house.” “These people yell and scream all the time, like at three in the morning,” Ingraham added. "It’s just really inconsiderate. When they do move on they leave all their trash everywhere.”

Not ANOTHER stand off...

You might remember the Malheur Refuge standoff not so many months ago.  Now some of the Springwater Trail campers are saying they are having a standoff.  And the mayor is saying the campers are supposed to disperse in small groups into the neighborhoods.

This is the Springwater Trail and the "campers"

source

The mayor says these 500 people (or more)  should camp in the neighborhoods of Portland.  These "campers" have destroyed the land they have been camping on,  have made the lives of the people with houses near them miserable and have made they area they camp in dangerous to be in.

This is the trash "campers" piled up behind a home on the Springwater Trail.

Source

This is insane.  Our police are severely understaffed and can only respond to emergencies in a timely manner.  They can't respond to livability issues and that is how they classify problems with homeless people in most cases, including open drug use, needles left strewn around, noise, fires, trash, threatening behavior, urinating/defecating in public.  Perhaps Charlie Hales, the mayor, has become passive aggressive at the end of his tenure.

Still want to move to Portland?

Just a livability issue

Quote from Koin news story on Springwater issues:

"Neighbors in the area have been protesting the campers there, reporting crimes and overflowing trash for months. One homeowner, who didn’t want to be identified, said she stepped on a needle someone threw onto her porch this morning. She broke into tears telling KOIN 6 News her story.

 "This isn’t their ground to stand on. They shouldn’t be here. It’s an environmental disaster,' she said. 'All these advocates are here for the homeless, but there is no one here for us,” she said. “I hate my life. I hate my house. I don’t want to live here anymore.'"

Just a livability issue

From a Nextdoor comment:

"My husband called the cops on a homeless man the other day who was at Sunnyside environmentally school playground. The man was belligerent and peeing on a tree in front of children. His "privates were in full view of kids. This is just not okay! My husband waited for at least 30 mins until he had to leave to get to work and the police did not show up as it's probably not a priority."

What privilege means in Portland

This homeless situation is so big and so difficult.  I've talked before about the huge camping problem on the Spingwater Corridor which now has at least 500 campers, some say a 1000 campers.  And now the city says they are closing it down.  The campers want the city to allow camping in all neighborhoods, including Eastmoreland where the mayor lives.  This is a quote from their meeting:

"That's where the decision makers for our whole city live," Schultz said, "but they get to have their kids run around and not be confronted with [homelessness]. So they don't have the dinner-time conversation of, 'yeah, I saw a guy [urinating] in front of me or screamed a bunch of profanity at me or there were needles littered around.' They don't have to deal with that. It's a manifestation of their privilege."

So, now we know what privilege means.  It seems to me that the homeless are demanding privileges that the rest of us don't have.  They want all their needs met while they do whatever they want which includes using drugs in public, leaving trash everywhere, pooping and peeing anywhere, acting out, setting fires, taking what they want, destroying public and private property.

The Springwater trail homeless have a list of demands.

* Extend the Aug. 1 deadline to shut down the trail to overnight camping

* Provide additional time to people with disabilities, children or the elderly in the event of relocation

* Relocate homeless people, not displace them.

* Refrain from seizing anyone's possessions

* Cease the criminalization of the homeless community

* Meet directly with the trail's homeless campers

* Levy a tax on real estate projects to benefit social services

* Allow interested homeowners to open their backyards for long-term camping

* Deploy storage units for campers' belongings a week before the Aug. 1 cleanup

Source: Vahid Brown, discussion leader from July 23, 2016 Springwater Corridor meeting

A city out of control

As far as I can tell, Portland is out of control.   This is how Portland looks and feels these days.

All of the city departments are understaffed and can't keep up, including the police.  The city website often leads you in circles instead of helping you with your problem.  It used to be a great website.  Not anymore.

If you call about an issue, it takes six to seven phone calls (and a lot of time) to find anyone who might help you.  Every response I get from them talks about how over burdened they are, without the resources to respond.  This is pretty much the standard  response you get to any complaint (I got this one in email):

" Service Level Update:   Due to reduced resources, the Bureau may need to prioritize some  enforcement/complaint types in order to effectively process the more critical  cases with our limited resources.  While  cases are being setup to document all complaints received, not all cases are  being assigned for investigation and enforcement.   We apologize for this service level reduction and plan to respond to  more case types as additional resources become available."

What this means is that if you haven't been shot or stabbed, don't expect a timely response from the city.  If it's "just" a livability issue, don't expect any help.  And people are moving to Portland for its "livability"?   Boy are they gonna be surprised!

Camping along the Springwater Trail

The homeless situation gets worse and worse.  We now have the largest single homeless camp in the country with an estimated 500 to a thousand people living along the Springwater Corridor.  The situation there is very bad and unsafe.  There are shootings and other violence as well as heavy drug use and  fires.  It's supposed to be a bike/pedestrian trail but it's unsafe to be there.   People who live near the Springwater Corridor are very affected by the camps in close proximity to their homes.   The city has  decided to finally clear it out, which will force all those people into the neighborhoods.

This is a tent in Laurelhurst Park.  It has been there for weeks and weeks even though camping is prohibited in the parks.  The tent is very near their maintenance building.

I reported the illegal camping.  That tent is still there and now it has a neighbor.

It's pretty hard to get to the Hollywood neighborhood on foot without going down these stairs.  This guy called me Babe and asked for money.  When I refused, he was angry and called me names.

The construction  gets worse and worse.  The city does not respond in a timely manner to construction complaints.  It takes days for them to respond.   By the time they get there, that particular subcontractor has moved on to another project.  The construction people know they have the upper hand and are ignoring the laws.  This construction site has had the sidewalk blocked for about ten days although the law says they can't do that for longer than 2 hours.

Portland is changing and the changes are not good.  Portland has the slogan "the city that works".  I think we need a new slogan.  Maybe we can just put a Not in front as in "Not the city that works".

Still want to move to Portland?

That tunnel was even more dangerous than I thought...

You might remember when I posted about a temporary sidewalk that is a tunnel with no escape.  I was concerned that if something happened, you could get trapped in the tunnel.  Well, the tunnel itself collapsed, a danger I had not even considered.

Here is how it used to look.  I hope no one was crushed when it fell over.

Breach of the public trust

The city is having public meetings to talk about infill.  But they are refusing to discuss the basic important questions.  Look at their slide on the items that are NOT up for discussion.

David Minnick photo

All they cover in their meeting is things developers want to change.  It is so very sad.  And I am not the only one who is upset.  Here is a very good article on how they are breaching the public trust and another on demolitions.

The infill meeting was sort of creepy.  Those representing the city were spouting a party line and not open to any ideas.  It was sort of like the Stepford Wives and not what I expect to find in Portland.  It feels like corporate america and the developers have us by the throat.

And if you think you are exempt, think again.   They have pretty much decided all of Portland is subject to these changes.

Further they are now letting constructions sites operate all night long....

Another victim of unbridled growth

Our trails in the gorge are over capacity and are being destroyed by over use.

One of these things just doesn't belong

These houses are all in close proximity.  Most were built in the early 20th century.  One was built in the early 90's.  The difference in quality and appeal is astounding.  Unfortunately, what they are building TODAY is even worse.

Fixing the paint

We had our house painted summer before last.  Our front porch gets blazing sun in the late afternoon.  There were places where the paint had bubbled BEFORE they painted.  We thought it should be stripped but they thought they could fix it without stripping.

Unfortunately, we were right and they were wrong.  The bubbling was much worse after they painted it.  And it is very visible right by the front door.  No one has asked us for a painter recommendation.  The bubbling probably puts them off.

We've always done most of the work on our house ourselves.  You get control of the project that way and it is so difficult to get good work these days.  We did get a quote of $2500 to strip these two small sections, which is outrageous for how much work it is.

So, John is stripping the paint in those sections himself.   And he is doing a better job than we would likely get if we hired it out.   The worst is done on this side and it took about four hours.  The second side is not as bad.  And he is getting quicker.

The wood is beautiful quarter sawn fir.  Siding like that would be hard to come by these days.   And yet, the city is eager to tear down houses like ours and replace them with poorly built crap made of much lesser materials.

I didn't think to take a photo of this side before he started but here is what the other side looks like (it isn't as bad as this one was).  It looks like it has a skin disease.  One bubble on the first side was about four inches across.