January 31, 2003
Sleight-of-Hand in City Development Process
Earlier today, Charles Heying posted an excerpt to the Friends of the Reservoirs list of a technical memo from Montgomery Watson Harza, the consultants working with the City of Portland on the project to bury the Mt. Tabor reservoirs:
Mt. Tabor. The area in and around Reservoirs 1, 5 and 6 at Mt. Tabor Park is zoned Open Space (OS) and the Reservoirs are classified as "basic utilities". Basic utilities within the OS zone are allowed through a Type III, Conditional Use process. However, the existing reservoirs have "approved conditional use status" because of their historical use.
The purpose of the Open Space zone is to preserve and enhance public and private open, natural, and improved park and recreational areas identified in the Comprehensive Plan. These areas serve many functions including: providing opportunities for outdoor recreation; providing contrasts to the built environment; preserving scenic qualities; protecting sensitive or fragile environmental areas; and preserving the capacity and water quality of the stormwater drainage system (Code Section 33.100.010).
A major change to a basic utility (reservoirs) within the OS zone requires a conditional use permit. However, according to OPDR staff (Duncan Brown, April 4, 2002), placement of the reservoirs underground is considered a permitted outright use if the park development is temporarily designated open space for the purpose of moving forward with design and construction. The interpretation of the Code in this scenario would be the creation of additional open space in the OS zone. The creation of more open space is allowed outright.
Commenting on this excerpt, Heying says: "This is how I read it. If you want to avoid going through the conditional use permit process specifically required for changes to a basic utility (reservoirs) in an OS zone, the city simply calls them something else (temporarily designated open spaces) that does not require permitting and goes ahead and does it."
Obviously, I can't contribute anything above or beyond a very lay opinion on the matter, but reading the above does certainly give the impression that MWH (who has somethong of a vested interest in seeing this project go forward) is specifically advising the City of Portland how to finagle its own regulatory process into letting them slip past normal procedures in order to just push through with the project.
Meanwhile, on a related matter, below is the text of the letter dated January 24 (and forwarded to me by a representative of the Bureau of Water Works) sent by Commissioner Saltzman to the Friends of the Reservoirs about the forthcoming public hearing on February 19 -- and a comment or two about what it says:
The decision to secure the Mt. Tabor and Washington Park reservoirs, by burying them, has been called into question by several hundred Portland residents. As the commissioners in charge of the Water Bureau during the course of these deliberations, we recognize that the public dialogue has not satisfied all reasonable concerns. We want to honor the desire for more discussion and evaluation, and we want to give those with opposing, skeptical, or critical viewpoints more access to the City Council as a whole.
We have scheduled a public hearing on the decision for the evening of February 19th, at 6:00 p.m. Portland Water Works will have 20 minutes to present their analysis and rational [sic] for reservoir burial, the Friends of the Reservoirs will have 20 minutes for their presentation, and then we will open the hearing up to general discussion.
City Council has looked at alternatives for securing these facilities and understands that all solutions have their pros and cons. While we believe that the analysis to date argues in favor of burying the reservoirs as the most prudent option, offering a forum where different points of view can come to light can only benefit the public.
You'll note, of course, that nowhere does the Commissioner suggest that this hearing is to openly debate the issues in order to publicly consider the burial decision. Rather, as evidenced by the final paragraph, it's construed as a means for the Council to profess that they allowed the public to have a hearing.
Normally, this is called pandering.