Timetable for Slabtown Park finally announced
Can you wait another five years?
Five Portland Parks & Recreation officials met with neighborhood representatives last week to bring good news about the long-delayed Slabtown Park coming to Northwest 20th and Pettygrove streets.
Newly appointed project manager Jane Alexander assured Northwest District Association activists that the park’s funding allocation has never been in jeopardy and that the bureau’s “A team” is on task and enthusiastic about completing the mission.
The bad news is, the park may not be built for another five years, and the $5 million budget, already heavily depleted by inflation, must be stretched to cover environmental cleanup.
“As a builder myself, a $5 million budget for this, especially including remediation, sounds very low,” NWDA Planning Committee member Elliott Gansner said. “I’m concerned that we’re advancing the planning, and then there will be no funding to actually construct it.”
Alexander said the city is applying for a $1.9 million Environmental Protection Agency grant that “could cover much of the total cost of the project.”
“A little faith in what we’re bringing forward would also be appreciated,” she said.
That faith has worn thin over 15 years since a park was designated at this site as a first-phase project in the Conway Master Plan, which was adopted by the City Council in 2011. That should have produced a park by about 2015, when New Seasons became the first project under the plan.
Parks Planning Manager Brett Horner blamed the neighborhood for much of the delay.
“It’s fair to say, this project has had a long history,” Horner said, “including a lawsuit—that took seven, almost eight, years to work through—that was appealed by the neighborhood. That [was what] delayed the park.”
That history began in 2015, when Guardian Real Estate Services purchased the double block between Northwest 20th, 21st, Pettygrove and Raleigh with the understanding that the eastern half of the block would be dedicated to public open space under conditions of the master plan.
Horner’s understanding of that history is loose as to dates and causation. He said Guardian President Tom Brenneke would not release title to the park parcel until finishing construction of his apartment building—ultimately named Slabtown Square—so he could use the park site as a staging area for construction.
Brenneke told the NW Examiner that the need for a staging area was a minor factor holding up a complex deal involving five parties. But that sequence fits Horner’s story that the neighborhood association brought on its own predicament.
NWDA appealed city approval of the project to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals and then to the Oregon Court of Appeals, losing both times. Those cases were decided in 2017 and 2019. The association then asked the Oregon Supreme Court to hear the matter but, in September 2019, it refused to do so. The three-step legal fight consumed two years and one month.
But to Horner, it seemed longer. He said NWDA persisted with claims though “not one element was upheld.
“Lord knows, it probably would have appealed it to the United States Supreme Court if they could have,” he told association members.
Slabtown Square took two years to build, opening to residents in early 2024.
“We’ve wanted to build this park since 2011,” Horner said.
Northwest District Association President Todd Zarnitz shared a different explanation for the delays at the beginning of last week’s meeting:
“PP&R appears to have not wanted to invest money on [environmental] remediation and expected full remediation of the property before the transfer. The landowner believed that hefty park SDC [system development] fees, along with a combined $10 to $12 million in park SDC fees collected from the surrounding area, were more than enough funds to do the complete job.
“PP&R was trying to double dip by extracting high park SDC fees while expecting full remediation of the land,” he said.
It's so hard for the city to take responsibility. Again more finger pointing. And the ordinary citizens have to continue to tolerate the incompetency and lack of basic services from the city.
If the City could get some of the preparation done now as a good faith gesture it would be nice. There's still some concrete that needs to be broken up and carted away for example. Wondering who paid for the weed removal a few weeks ago.
(I like the weeds because they provide habitat for the local house sparrows, who used to have pretty big colony in the Himalayan blackberries along 20th St.. Both the weeds and the sparrows are non-native, but at least I never observed any Tree of Heaven.