Southeast Portland Blight to Bright

Commissioner Adams:

I am writing to urge City Countil in the strongest possible terms to support your initiative to provide at least $500,000 of local seed funding for the Portlands Brownfields program. As a former manager in the Portland Office of Transportation, I led the development of the City's brownfield programs in the early 1990's. These programs became one of the nation's first brownfield pilots, and led to the Livable Community Showcase program and several other grant-funded brownfield efforts. Portland's leadership in brownfields cleanup and redevelopment caught the attention of policy makers in Salem and Washington DC, changing the way federal transportation dollars are spent on contaminated sites across the country. Portland's brownfield programs helped launch a region-wide public-private partnership for cleanup and reuse of contaminated properties. Thanks to the efforts of people like Clark Henry, Portland is making smart growth a reality on inner-city brownfield sites. The reaction from Portland's business community has been immediate and dramatic. When Portland started its brownfield programs, the most complicated issues in the River District and South Waterfront were how to deal with expensive contamination issues, how to convince regulators to help and finding someone who was going to pay for cleanup. Portland's brownfield programs helped move high-profile sites like South Waterfront and the River District to the center of local planning and development, and also gave hope to neighborhoods like inner Northeast and North Portland where Portland focused its brownfield resources to make a difference one lot at a time. Portland has led the nation in demonstrating how a comparatively small amount of seed money could change policies at the local, state and federal levels, and in the process, improved the quality of life for the citizens of Portland. The seed money provided by the federal government created much more in private investment and breaking down barriers with regulatory agencies. The public benefits of hope and neighborhood renewal were even more dramatic. I urge you, other City Council members and the Mayor to keep this important program moving forward.