Thursday’s public hearing on Metro Chief Operating Officer Michael Jordan’s Making the Greatest Place recommendations displayed the wide variety of concerns resident of the region express at Metro nears decisions about managing growth for the next 50 years. Metro Councilors were joined by public officials from East Multnomah County and nearly 30 interested citizens at the meeting at Gresham City Hall.
Jeff Corcoran, a member of Gresham’s Transportation Committee, began the hearing with a topic that to date has been rare in the public discussions about the recommendations – transportation.
Cororan supported the corridors suggested in Jordan’s recommendations, but was concerned about the efficiency of using light rail and about how realistic it was that residents would use it if they could get to their destination quicker in their cars.
Jean DeMaster, a resident of East Portland and executive director of Human Solutions, thought the recommendations needed to focus beyond residents who have a choice between using a car and transit, and take into account transit-dependent, low-income and homeless people.
Some participants noted that they and others only recently heard about the Metro staff recommendations.
Margarite Truttman, a long-time resident of Gresham and Realtor said she considers herself to be a well-involved community member and just learned about the hearing by Multnomah County Commissioner Diane McKeel.
“If I have not heard about it, then there are a lot of people in Gresham who haven’t heard about it,” Truttman said. This concern was seconded my Troutdale Mayor Jim Kight. “The general public isn’t aware of what’s going on,” he said.
Kight also expressed his desire to grow Troutdale beyond the constraints set out in the Metro staff recommendations. He discussed FedEx opening up a distribution facility in Troutdale and the need to allow for complimentary businesses and homes for new workers. There are currently only 24 acres of buildable land in Troutdale, he said.
Metro Councilor Robert Liberty asked Kight about the type of jobs FedEx would create and whether those jobs would allow people to afford to buy a house. Kight responded that, “whether [the pay is] high or low, you have to live somewhere. You can’t be attracting more business without providing more housing.”
Metro Councilor Kathryn Harrington suggested that Mayor Kight keep an open mind about how much and what kind of housing Troutdale can provide on its existing buildable lands. “There are many different varieties of housing – we do have some capacity for handling additional housing,” Harrington said.
Throughout the hearing, the Metro councilors expressed the need for more public feedback to adequately address the region’s unique concerns. Gresham City Councilor Shirley Craddick understood the impact that the COO’s recommendations have on the residents of the region, “Infrastructure is having an impact on people and people’s lives. This is part of the picture that we need to understand.”
Residents can attend any of the three remaining public hearings, email Metro or mail a comment letter about the Metro staff recommendations. The deadline for comments is October 15th.