Fencing approved for bike-parking alcoves
Move addresses long-standing problem with trash, crime at ASA apartment building
The Portland Environment Management Office has approved fencing off the bike parking alcoves at ASA Flats + Lofts at 1200 NW Marshall St. The alcoves have fostered camping, garbage and criminal activity in recent years.
PEMO’s action reversed the policy of the Portland Bureau of Development Services, which had required the public bicycle parking areas as a condition of the building’s land-use approval.
It was not a new problem, or a new solution.
In May 2024, the NW Examiner reported that Pearl neighborhood Clean Team volunteer Linda Witt said, “I complained to Greystar Property Management about the people urinating and the trash in the alcoves starting in 2018. The management company was also fed up with the urine and trash, so in February 2019, they gated all their alcoves.”
Metal screens with lockable gates barred access to all five recessed sections of the full block structure.
“Everything was wonderful for a year or more. Then code enforcement said they couldn’t block bike rack amenities,” she said.
A complaint filed with the Bureau of Development Services in 2019 set off a series of inspections and threats of fines until Greystar considered possible solutions before removal of all barriers last fall.
“Greystar pleaded with the city to let them keep the barricades up, and eventually they must have lost, because first the gates were forced to be unlocked and then the entire barricades were completely gone.”
BDS spokesperson Ken Ray explained the city’s rationale.
“Required short-term bicycle parking spaces were not available for use,” he said.
The company was told to restore access to the existing bike racks or install bicycle parking elsewhere.
“The ownership did submit a design review application to install bike parking elsewhere but ultimately withdrew the application and decided to remove the gates to correct the zoning violation,” Ray said.
Finally! We have rarely seen an actual bike parked in these spaces. They are mostly used by people to park themselves all day while creating a huge mess for the building to clean up at great expense. Many times we have seen groups of people cooking their drugs in broad daylight. Kudos to the Asa for not giving up in the fight to put up gates to protect their property from misuse. Why should it take years to get common sense changes made in our city?
A year or two ago when this problem was first publicized, I suggested that the "public" bicycle parking be installed nearer the curb in the street tree zone of the sidewalk, in order to fulfill the requirement for public access. Then the building alcoves could be secured and repurposed, perhaps as storage.