Plan to park on Washington Park soccer field draws questions

Arlington Heights neighbors want studies and community outreach first

A Multnomah Athletic Club gymnastics class on the soccer field earlier this month engaged about 50 girls of all ages.

The last temporary parking lot in Washington Park proved harder to remove than a Supreme Court justice. That’s one of the reasons neighbors of the park are leery of turning the park’s soccer field into an overflow parking lot this summer.

Explore Washington Park, a nonprofit serving the transportation needs of the Oregon Zoo, Portland Japanese Garden and other park attractions, wants to allow cars on the field for two weekends in July and August.

EWP interim Executive Director Mara Gross told Arlington Heights Neighborhood Association board members this month that she intends to seek a Non-Park Use Permit from Portland Parks & Recreation. Beyond that, few details are known.

Neighborhood representatives are troubled by the short notice, the lack of community outreach and the uncertainty as to how PP&R will evaluate the application.

“How come no one’s doing a [traffic] circulation study, an environmental impact study and an engineering study?” AHNA board member Jay Shoemaker asked. “Why would you embark on this if you don’t even know how much it’s going to cost you to fix the field once you’re done? You don’t even know if you have those funds.”

Gross referred to earlier planning studies EWP has used to guide transportation planning, but offered no research to justify the parking plan, what she calls a pilot project.

“Since they were, very opaque about when they would actually be submitting, I think we need to assume it’s going to be submitted quickly,” AHNA President Darcy Wheeles said after Gross left the meeting.

Arlington Heights neighbors remember the “temporary” 129-space parking lot opened during construction of the MAX station that remains in use 28 years after the station was completed. Neighbors took the case to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals, which ruled that the city had not justified the need for the auxiliary lot. In 2012, the city approved a conditional use permit for a 116-space accessory parking area known as the West Lot.

Preston Walk, now a senior at Lincoln High School, with his family’s new puppy, Rook, on the soccer field about five years ago.