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Portland city officials tell WW that plans for a safe car camping site at the Expo Center are dead, unless regional planning agency Metro offers up a paved lot.
The site in North Portland was a leading candidate in the city’s vision for a parking lot where people could live in their cars. For months, Metro offered a gravel lot that the city estimated in October would cost $1.5 million to make usable.
“We haven’t been talking to them for several weeks, given they were not able to offer us any of the acres of paved parking for this use,” says Bryan Aptekar, communications liaison for the safe rest villages. “Instead, we were offered a grassy ditch that would cost $1.5 million to develop for our Safe Park needs. If Metro were to come back with an offer of use of a paved parking lot, we’d be happy to talk to them further.”
Metro spokesman Nick Christensen tells WW that Metro is open to discussions, but “any solution must work with our existing clients at the recently reopened Expo.”
So far, City Commissioner Dan Ryan’s office has only selected two of six planned safe rest village locations; however, those leases aren’t yet inked. None of the 70 sites first identified by the city are still under consideration.