[Grovenet] Fwd: ACTION ALERT: Call for Measure 37 Suspension & Hearings

[Marian Cakarnis]

Seems to me the Corvallis you like so much was designed in a way that
focused more on long-term planning than much of the short-term get rich
quick mentality that seems to rule these days.  Otherwise we wouldn't have
neighborhoods where no one has any sense of privacy and the kids have no
place to play in their own yards and end up playing in the street.

I've often wondered how neighborhoods would look if housing was more
proportional to lot sizes instead of having the zoning strictly limiting lot
sizes.  For example, if a lot size of 3000 square feet could have a maximum
house size of 1000 square feet.  To have a 3000 square foot house, a 9000
square foot lot would be required.  Housing could not be more than 30% of
the lot size.  This would provide far more privacy than many of the newer
subdivisions that are currently built and would provide more areas for trees
and greenery.  Just a thought....

-----Original Message-----
From: grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com [mailto:grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com] On
Behalf Of Greg & Cindy Gritton
Sent: Monday, December 11, 2006 11:00 AM
To: Tosca at prodigy.net; Forest Grove local interests list
Subject: Re: [Grovenet] Fwd: ACTION ALERT: Call for Measure 37 Suspension &
Hearings

At 10:50 AM 12/7/2006 -0800, you wrote:

>--- Daniel Eisenbeis <dan at friends.org> wrote:
>
> > Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 10:38:06 -0800
> > From: Daniel Eisenbeis <dan at friends.org>
> > To: tosca at prodigy.net
> > Subject: ACTION ALERT: Call for Measure 37
> > Suspension & Hearings
> >
> > Dear Bonnie,
> >
> > The imminent threat of irresponsible development due
> > to Measure 37 is becoming clearer as thousands of
> > new claims have been filed in the past week,
> > including a claim by an out-of-state corporation to
> > turn 32,000 acres of forests in the Coast Range into
> > suburban-style development. The Oregon that we know
> > and love will no longer exist if Measure 37 claims
> > like this are allowed to go forward.
> >

I found the Oregon that I know and love when I went to
school in Oregon State.  Corvallis was a wonderful city.
It was small enough that there was no pollution, no traffic
congestion.  You could bike across it, or with some time,
walk it also.  But, it was large enough that there was
plenty to do .  Finally, it was beautiful.  There were
plenty of parks and greenways, bike paths and walking trails.

Corvallis was lucky enough to have experienced much of
its grown before zoning.  Development was very mixed in the
old part of town, which was quite large, with stores next
to houses next to businesses.  The newer areas weren't
quite so mixed, but were well done.  There were modest
sized shopping centers scattered through the city,
within walking distance of almost any part of it.
They were large enough for a full sized grocery store
and accompanying shops, but not too much larger.

The surrounding countryside was great too.  There was a
nice bike trail going to the nearby town of Philomath.
There were hiking trails in the nearby Bald Peak or in the
watershed.  The area around was developed at low density,
with a mix of scattered houses and farms.  It was very
beautiful.  Mary's Peak was a half an hour's drive away
with camping, hiking trains, and spectacular views.

Although not my major, I was interested in urban planning
while going to Oregon State.  I read up on New Urbanism
and other modern planning.  Portland was viewed by many of
the articles as the leading major city for planning.
What I read looked good; it discussed having plenty of
parks and public spaces, housing designed to get neighbors
to interact, corner stores, and eliminating the need to
drive everywhere.  In fact, what the planners talked about was
very similar to the reality of what existed in Corvallis.
It would undo all of the damage caused by zoning
in most of the country.

After Oregon State I took a job in the San Francisco
Bay Area, living in Fremont and San Jose.  What a contrast.
Traffic was horrendous.  Housing prices were sky-high.
Although the older area of development was nice, the newer development
was dense, with tiny yards and hardly any green spaces.  Zones
were huge, with giant swaths of residential areas separated
from large, although nice and clean, industrial zones.
Shopping centers were fewer and larger, rarely in
walking distance from where one lived.

I lived there for a while, but I missed Oregon.  So, I applied
to work for Intel in Hillsboro, and chose to live in Forest
Grove.  It was a University town sort of like Corvallis.
It is reasonably self contained, has a nice downtown, pleasant
streets, and, at least at the time I moved in, reasonably
priced housing.

However, there are definite contrasts between Forest Grove,
and more particularly the larger Washington County that it
is a part of, and Corvallis.  Zoning is well and strong here.
In Forest Grove, residential zoning stretches north and west
quite a ways from downtown, with only a convenience store
to break it up.  Few in Forest Grove have a store within
walking distance.  Things get worse further east.
The zoning map, with industrial in the north, residential
in the south, and huge shopping plazas like Tanasborne,
looking almost like San Jose.  There are a few spots of mixed
use development, such as Orenco Station, but they are very
rare.

The newer housing developments, particularly outside of Forest
Grove, look almost identical to San Jose.  Houses are built tightly
together, with almost no space between them for anything green.
Traffic is horrendous.  I was saddened, but not surprised, to
read a recent article in the Portland Tribune that the planners
here have deliberately decided to live with more congestion
than in other areas.  In fact, the Portland metropolitan area
has the worst congestion in the nation of any metropolitan area
its size.

The area around Forest Grove is beautiful and green.  But, you
pretty much have to stick to the roads.  There are no hiking trails
nearby like there were near Corvallis.  The city of Forest Grove
owns some forest land that it uses for its watershed, but instead
of putting trails there like Corvallis did, it prohibits people
from entering.  There are some scattered houses around, built
before the Urban Growth Boundary, although perhaps fewer than
near Corvallis.

And that brings up the Urban Growth Boundary.  When I lived in
Corvallis and read about Portland's planning, it seemed good,
but after experiencing it first hand I started wondering.
Is the Urban Growth Boundary preserving the Oregon that I love,
or is it doing the opposite, destroying it?  It is keeping
development away from the countryside, but at the same time,
it is driving up the price of land and creating the types
of development that I saw, and disliked, in San Jose.
Without room for extra roads, traffic gets worse and worse.
(Although the reasonably good public transit helps there,
even so, the busses get stuck in the same traffic.)

While the New Urbanist literature talks about having plenty
of parks, my time on the Parks and Recreation Comission
reminded me that the high price of land is making it hard
for cities to purchase much land, resulting in smaller and
smaller parks.  Even adjusting for the size of the city,
we only have a fraction of the park land that Corvallis has.

I wonder if the Oregon that I know and love is much different
than the Oregon that others know and love.  I love the
green hills and forests.  I love having walkable cities.
I love having hiking trains and bikeways.  I also love having
housing that is affordable, place for kids to play.
Having a store close enough to walk to is an added bonus.

Do the land use planning laws of the 1970's and the
accompanying Urban Growth Boundary buy us any of these things?
It might be something worth thinking about.
Corvallis, which grew and developed before the land use
planning existed has these in abundance.  By contrast,
the newer areas, particularly in Washington County, seem
to be lacking them.

Sincerely,

Greg Gritton

_______________________________________________
GroveNet mailing list
GroveNet at rdrop.com
http://www.rdrop.com/mailman/listinfo/grovenet