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A real estate company that owns property along the Columbia Slough in Northeast Portland faces $61,000 in fines by the city of Portland after the city says it repeatedly failed to correct code violations after removing 14 trees along the bank of the slough.
The trees in questions included black locusts, cottonwoods and ash trees, and the city explained in documents obtained by WW that the trees were not only removed in violation of city tree and environmental zoning codes, but were also part of the slough’s riparian zone—or the greenery along the banks of a river that’s critical to maintaining the ecosystem.
The Columbia Slough is a channel of water that flows—very slowly—westward for 19 miles parallel to the Columbia River through North and Northeast Portland.
Crown Enterprises LLC, a real estate company based in Warren, Mich., owns the 11.6-acre plot of land from which the trees were removed. A trucking company, Central Transport—also based in Warren and owned by the same parent company as Crown Enterprises—occupies the 17,000 square feet of industrial space on the land.
The city imposed two separate fines on Crown Enterprises in May and April totaling $61,000 after the company, according to city documents, did not follow the city’s process for correcting the zoning violation that stemmed from the tree removals.
Google Earth images show that in July 2023, the property’s border with the slough was lush with trees. By May 2024, two-thirds of the trees were gone, leaving only dirt (see below).
The city’s Urban Forestry division also cited the property for violations and charged the company $15,750 in restoration fines for cutting down the trees, which the company paid. Because the company planted eight new incense cedar trees on the property sometime late last year to replace the old trees, Portland Permitting and Development, which now enforces Portland’s Tree Code, has since settled the case.
Central Transport did not respond to a request for comment, and neither did Crown Enterprises. The two companies are owned by the same billionaire family in Michigan, the Morouns, and are closely tied; Crown Enterprises appears to be the real estate arm of Central Transport.
This isn’t the first time in recent years that the two companies have been accused by government of running afoul of environmental regulations.
Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality fined Central Transport and Crown Enterprises $29,600 in August 2025 after finding that the company had not applied for the proper permits before undertaking construction work that could harm the slough.
“Failure to obtain a permit and implement its requirements posed a risk of pollution to waters of the state, including the Columbia Slough,” DEQ wrote in its August penalty letter, noting that “discharge of sediment can degrade water quality and harm aquatic life by covering up food sources and smothering invertebrate organisms living in wetlands and creeks.”
State regulators alleged that when they visited the property in November 2024, there was “little to no vegetation, and the slopes were covered with slope matting”; that construction materials, gravel and soil lay uncovered; that catch basins were covered with an oily sheen and overwhelmed by sediment; that a turbid plume was entering the slough through an outfall pipe; and that oil drums were exposed.
The company appealed the penalty, according to DEQ spokesman Michael Loch, but eventually paid the full fine late last year. It also cleaned the catch basins.
