June 18, 2004
Quick Round-Up Of Tram And South Waterfront Developments
We're a little behind on relaying news items regarding the aerial tram to OHSU and the South Waterfront project, but our delaying has actually allowed a critical mass of stories to accumulate, so perhaps it's better this way.
Reaching back to last Sunday, Oregonian architecture columnist Randy Gragg called for "healing" but did lay out some of the remaining open questions:
The arguments over the tram are hardly over. Even some supporters doubt its price tag of $28.5 million has completed its upward trajectory. But after six years of sputtering starts, we'll finally get to see what happens.
Will it seed the long-moribund district to blossom with 10,000 jobs and 3,000 units of housing, 788 of them affordable? Will it be our Battery Park City, the fabulously successful development of Manhattan's southwest edge?
Or will it be the biggest boondoggle in Portland history as the city is dealt the lousy hand of rising interest rates and oil and steel prices?
There's plenty of reason for optimism. Roughly $300 million worth, in fact, is under construction right now in the form of a new wellness center/research center and two condo towers. But anyone involved in this project -- whether for or against -- should have a stomach full of fluttering butterflies.
Of course, the premise of "rising interest rates and oil and steel prices" isn't the only potential cause of a boondoggle here. As Gragg himself notes, the costs on the tram alone have done nothing but grow, and various chunks of the tram project itself, the overall South Waterfront development, and the promised neighborhood improvements continue to have no obvious sources of funding.
Meanwhile, it was announced on Wednesday that OHSU was receiving the gift of nearly twenty acres of land in the South Waterfront area from the Schnitzer Investment Corporation. This was also picked up by OPB News and covered in The Oregonian.
And today's Portland Tribune checks in with the neighborhood as plans for the tram move forward. For our purposes, we want to relay this bit from last week's City Council hearing on the tram:
During a City Council review of the tram plans on June 10, Mayor Vera Katz said it will be the mark of a "great city."
She said: "A great city never sleeps. A great city never stands still. A great city shares its vision with its community and makes it very clear that we are going to work together to make it happen. A great city thinks about its future. ... Private developers are taking risks. OHSU is taking risks. The city is taking risks. But without taking those risks, you will never become a great city."
Herein rests our continued problem. Thus far, the City has done a rather piss-poor job detailing to the people of Portland just what those risks to the City are, what's at stake if we get hit with the downside of taking those risks, who gets left holding the bag if that happens, and just how large that bag would be.
Now, we do have a better understanding now than we did a couple of weeks ago as to just how and why this all came about to begin with. Faced with the need for OHSU to expand, the City had the choice of working to give them what they needed to expand here in Portland or watching one of the City's most prominent institutions and one of its largest employers expand to some location elsewhere in the metropolitan area.
Apparently, that meant OHSU would get its aerial tram to connect its existing campus with its expansion locations in South Waterfront. And as for South Waterfront, it does legitimately tie into the idea that Portland needs to expand through urban density rather than contributing to the metropolitan area pushing out against the growth boundary.
All of that said and understood, we still defy anyone in the City to make any claims to have adequately conveyed to the public a clear and concise description of the costs, benefits, and risks of the entire endeavor. As near as we can tell, the general attitude is simply to state that the project is needed and then move on with no sense that it needs to be justified.
In the lack of any concerted effort to make the required justifications to the public -- especially given the clear and present risks involved -- it's little wonder that so much of the City is squeamish and making sure it knows the definition of boondoggle. With a project so large, with costs so high (and climbing), it's simply not the public's job to trust that it's warranted, or accept officials at their word that everything is under control.
Until and unless City Hall demonstrates to the public that the project is an imminent requirement, explains the risks, and proves that it is worth those risks, we see no particular reason to the critics to stop wondering what it is we aren't being told.
Comments (5)
John on 18 Jun 2004
B!x,
I appreciate you coming back to this issue, but I'm confused by your references to "risks." Are you suggesting that there's a financial risk to taxpayers in this, a la Civic Stadium? If so, what are they?
John
The One True b!X on 18 Jun 2004
Ask the Mayor. She brought it up. ;)
SW resident on 20 Jun 2004
While the rest of SW Portland transportation infrastructure rots and we continue to have sidewalks on just 15% of our streets, the Metro Regional Transportation Plan (10/31/03) dedicates $15 million to the Tram and an additional $20 Million to I-5/North Macadam Access Improvements. This was before the jump in price to $28 mil for just the tram. Whether it comes from the city, state or federal governments, it is tax payers' dollars. And isn't OHSU a state supported institution and, thus, supported by taxpayers? Isn't all their property tax free?
I just found out that PDOT has decreed my elementary school can not have 10 feet of sidewalk with a crosswalk due to the "high cost capital improvement" - they simply recommend our 8 year olds "exercise extreme caution".
John on 21 Jun 2004
Undoubtedly, there are some public dollars going to this project. But the question B!x raised is whether there's some chance of the City being accountable for some costs beyond what it's already agreed to pay, and why hasn't the City told the public more about these risks.
I asked him to give some insight into what risks he's talking about, and got a flip non-response.
The answer is that the risks you're worried about don't exist, making it very difficult for the Mayor or anybody else to "address" them. The City isn't the property owner at North Macadam, the City isn't an investor, and the City isn't the one who will take a bath if the project fails.
If someone is going to allege that this will become a "boondoggle," it's incumbent on them to articulate how this might happen in something other than veiled asides and half-truths. If one wants to oppose the tram going over their property, fine, but opposing the tram by making a mishmosh of ill-conceived arguments about a half-dozen other issues doesn't help the debate --unless your sole goal is to confuse everyone in order to stop the tram.
Everything's in the public record. Every obligation on the City's part is available for scrutiny. Find something there and give a real argument as to why it's bad for the City.
Have some courage! I DARE you to make a serious public policy argument here. Not just unsupported accusations, fragments of other arguments from a different meeting, name-calling or anti-government generalizations. What's best for the City? Why does or doesn't this project measure up?
The One True b!X on 21 Jun 2004
I gave a flip response (not, in fact, a non-response) because it's the Mayor who is stating plainly that the City is taking a risk. It isn't my fault that the City has done a crappy job explaining and justifying the project and what the Mayor terms its associated risks. Which in the end has been my overall point. I'm not going to do their justifying for them because it's their job to do it and I'm trying to push them to do so.