How many of the PDC’s urban-renewal areas can you name?

Looks like Chris Smith named 10 URAs (not 9).

Actually, I said, "I'm really tempted to cheat, because I'm sitting at my computer, but I won't." And I didn't.

The more RELEVANT and IMPORTANT Urban Renewal Area question for ALL Portland city council candidates is:

If elected, how do you plan to deal with the fact that the citizen volunteers of the Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committees OPPOSE the use of PDC funds for unlimited neighborhood concentration of public housing and the appointed PDC commissioners and their publicly paid employees SUPPORT spending tax dollars on unlimited neighborhood concentration of public housing?

What we have here is the classic confrontation between the people and the paid political power structure. On which side do all candidates for Portland city council stand?

Keep this in mind:

1. On February 28, 2007 PDC commissioner Sal Kadri tasked PDC's housing director Andy Wilch to gather information by neighborhood on the location of all public housing clients that are subsidized and administered by any government agency within PDC's area of influence. Since that time Kadri's request has been crushed by his colleagues and PDC staff.

2. PDC has ignored the letter below. This raises the question of the usefulness, credibility and legitimacy of the time and energy contributed by citizen's involvement in PDC's Urban Renewal Area decision making.

Dear Portland Development Commission:

We, the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committee, support a public housing location policy of equitable distribution of public housing (defined as requiring three components: means test + government subsidy + rental agreement). This is consistent with the public housing location policy of the Portland Bureau of Housing and Community Development's published public housing location policy which is:

1. Maximize housing choice, especially for low-income people who have traditionally been limited in the location of housing that they could afford;

2. Discourage the concentration of low- or no- income households in any one area of the city;

3. Encourage the creation of additional housing resources for low-income households integrated throughout the community.

Much of the work of the citizen volunteers on the ICURAAC involves advising the PDC on how to spend public funds on public housing. Acknowledging equitable distribution of public housing as a policy gives us the foundation upon which we can make reasonable, justifiable and defensible decisions.

As an operational imperative of a public housing location policy of equitable distribution of public housing, we have set 15% as a cap on the percentage of public housing clients in any of the 10 neighborhoods included in the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area which would allow future PDC funding for public housing projects. The Portsmouth neighborhood, which has more than 30% public housing clients, is indisputably in this category. As a result, we, the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committee, exercise our advisory responsibility by advising you, the Portland Development Commission, to stop all future funding for pubic housing projects in the Portsmouth neighborhood and redirect those funds to other Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area neighborhoods with a population of less than 15% public housing clients.

Thank you for your support of this recommendation by the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committee.

Sincerely,

Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committee

Richard Ellmyer

Community activist leading the campaign to stop all potentially new public housing (means test + government subsidy + rental agreement) in the Portsmouth neighborhood, especially the following:

1. Hacienda CDC public housing project on N. Newell Street (PDC ignores ICURAAC request to stop funding.)

2. The former John Ball School site (Portland Hope Meadows Corporation and commissioner Saltzman refuse to make available accurate and complete public data on funders and board members.)

3. The recently closed Clarendon School site (Temporarily defined by PPS as a "swing space.")

Standards for Equitable Distribution of Public Housing Resolution author and project champion

Writer/Publisher - HAP Watchers commentary - Published on the Internet (www.goodgrowthnw.org) and distributed to thousands of readers interested in public housing policy in Multnomah County. To Subscribe: HAP-Watchers-on@goodgrowthnw.org

President, MacSolutions Inc. - A Macintosh computer consulting business providing web hosting for artists and very small businesses. Located in Portsmouth, the neighborhood with the second highest concentration of public housing clients, 30% and rising, within HAP's Multnomah county jurisdiction of 117 neighborhoods.