The fabled Northwest District Association, perhaps Portland’s most influential neighborhood association in the last century, now contends with splinter factions countering or outshining its actions.
Separate advocacy groups for neighborhood parks, two alternative transportation bodies and a new public safety nonprofit have all bitten off chunks of the turf usually left to the city’s officially recognized neighborhood associations.
This may not be the best way to run a railroad, or even a citizen-engagement system, but it can make for lively discussions. One such exchange broke out at last month’s NWDA Planning Committee meeting, as current themes in Portlandia 2.0 spilled out for the entertainment of all.
Parker McNulty, a developer and member of the committee, complained about city plans to replace parking on Northwest 25th Avenue with a bike lane.
“The city is making decisions without any prior conversation with the actual neighborhood it’s affecting, which is insane,” McNulty said.
“It goes back to Northwest in Motion. That’s when they started adding bike lanes and all this other stuff. It comes down to top-down versus bottom-up decision-making.”
Northwest in Motion remains a loaded issue in the district five years after its adoption. The assemblage of 22 transportation projects is largely completed, financed in part with funds overseen by neighborhood representatives, some of whom have regrets about supporting the program.
Jordan Lewis had a different view of NWiM. He was one of about 40 citizens who filled a meeting room in the Portland Building in August to protest the proposed removal of traffic barriers at Northwest 20th and Everett. They had been told the diverters were part of NWiM, which they hailed as a model of community engagement.
“When it comes to top-town versus bottom-up—and since Northwest in Motion was mentioned—I just want to highlight that there’s a demographic makeup to a lot of these meetings, like the meeting I’m in right now.”
Lewis was referring to age and perhaps other demographic markers as essential to democratic process.
“What spurred a bunch of turnout of younger people to this meeting was the proposed removal of the Northwest diverters. … If there’s this accusation of NIMBYism or obstructionism, I think there were really bad optics. Not that I’m assigning this to the neighborhood association, but whoever worked to get the diverters removed … that was really bad PR for this neighborhood association.”
Lewis had said a mouthful. NIMBYism is an epithet neighborhood associations are sensitive to, and he was implying the charges would stick whether true or not.
Northwest District Association President Todd Zarnitz, who was chairing the committee meeting, was having none of it.
“Hold on, wait a second,” Zarnitz said. “That was not driven by the neighborhood association. We had nothing to do with removing or suggesting that the diverters should be removed at all.”
He wasn’t finished.
“I bristle at the idea that there’s a certain demographic of people here. We’ve been a neighborhood association since [1969]. We hold public, open meetings. Everything we do is public, and people can either attend or not attend. We constantly recruit people, so whatever the makeup of this room is, it’s people who care about their neighborhood and want to be here and have time to contribute.
“So I bristle at the idea that we should be criticized for that, or that we all look too much alike for people looking in from the outside. I find that disturbing, to be honest.”
Lewis had another point. Planning Committee meetings are held at the wrong time.
“It is 8 in the morning. This is also a sign of my privilege: I have one of those coveted email jobs. … A lot of people cannot attend a meeting at 8 in the morning,” he said.
Ian Irwin helps facilitate the Portland branch of Strong Towns, a national network raising environmental and urban design issues. He also recently joined the Planning Committee, though his perspective is that of an outside critic to the association.
“I think the traffic diverters are a good example of how the NWDA doesn’t always align with the broader neighborhood. Some of that, I think, is about who’s able to attend the meetings, like Jordan was saying.
“The diverter issue is something we barely talked about, and when we did, there was a lot of support for removing the diverters in the meeting—not unanimous, but significant. There was a big turnout and mobilization around the diverter issue, which I think also shows that people appreciate things the city has done for the neighborhood, such as the bike lanes and the diverters, and efforts to calm traffic, like this bike lane at 25th and Vaughn.”
Ben Gilbert also took on the association’s legitimacy.
“The neighborhood association had less than 60 people vote in the last election,” Gilbert said. “I joined the neighborhood association recently, and demographically, it does not represent the neighborhood. That’s just a fact.”
Gilbert said the district has “a lot of different groups with different interests. … That’s why we need bike infrastructure, to move away from on-street parking being the number one priority. This is not [zoned as] a single-family neighborhood.”
If that was not enough social division for the morning, Irwin brought up income disparity.
Irwin did not believe disclaimers from committee members that “we’re actually not one of the richest districts in the city.”
“You can see here—at least this is my zip code [97210]. It’s not the highest, but it’s third highest, after 97209, which is $85,000, and 97221, which is also $85,000. … I just wanted to put that out for additional context when we try to ‘play poor’ and say we’re not actually that rich as a neighborhood.”
Doug Knauer, a resident not on the committee, offered the closing comment.
“What I like about this group so far—as I’ve been sitting in—is the fact that there is robust conversation that goes back and forth, and I think the moderation you’re doing, Todd, is helping to keep that pretty well organized.
“Ultimately, all we can do as an advocacy group is take all of that in and then come up with the position that we agree on and move forward with that.”
The following week, Connor Lennon, a Northwest resident who commutes daily by bike to his job in Southeast Portland, agreed to be photographed for this story. Lennon has been attending Planning Committee meetings lately “to have meaningful conversations with my neighbors. … By working together, we often come out on the other side with a great letter to a city body or a deeper understanding of each other.
“I have a lot of thoughts on bike infrastructure,” he said. “This is my main form of transportation, and I am lucky to feel comfortable biking most places. I know many of my colleagues don’t feel the same.”
About 14% of Portland households did not own an automobile in 2016.
What percentage of Portland's adult population gets around primarily by bicycle? I'm more interested in reducing car use by improving public transportation, but don't see as many vocal advocates for that.