“This city has a blight on it. It’s not producing the results we need it to,” Mayor Sam Adams said at a May 9 City Council meeting. “We can’t wait for the state to figure out higher education,” he added.
A proposed Urban Renewal plan has $50 million worth of building and land improvements coming to the Portland State campus. Some of these projects include renovating Cramer and Neuberger Halls, expanding the School of Business, increasing classroom space and efficiency, and research lab upgrades.
The May 9 Portland City Council meeting discussed the final Urban Renewal Area proposal, which would bring the 44-acre district $169 million in improvements. Final approval will be voted on tomorrow. The URA would encompass a significant portion of downtown, from Southwest Columbia Street heading south, including nearly the entire PSU campus. The council meeting spent several hours discussing the ramifications of the plan.
Urban renewal areas are long-term plans that propose to boost the economy of specific city regions. “It’s a state authorized program designed to help communities redevelop poorly planned or economically stagnant property,” said Anne Mangan, senior communications coordinator for the Portland Development Commission. “The PDC is authorized to lead this planning.”
Mangan said that the idea of a URA is to identify these underdeveloped or “blighted” areas and freeze the tax base, meaning that property taxes are redirected to improvement projects in that district. The city will not receive these tax revenues. The hope is that by the conclusion of the project, “the land value is many times what it was,” Mangan said.
The proposed Education Urban Renewal Area would bring in $50 million worth of property improvements to the PSU campus during the project’s 28-year lifespan. Lower property taxes would incentivize developers, investors and private companies to develop property and businesses in the area.
“PSU has an incentive to build out their campus in a taxable manner, otherwise the increment isn’t produced,” Adams said.
PSU President Wim Wiewelexplained that this district in particular has “more private sector potential because of the location.”
“What this is really about,” he stated to the council, “is providing access to education. That’s what PSU is all about.”
Still, urban renewal could have significant shortcomings. Since the URA functions by redirecting large amounts of property taxes, millions of dollars in public revenue will be lost initially. This takes valuable money away from social services and other infrastructure, a fact that draws skepticism from some Portland area groups.
The League of Women Voters in particular was skeptical about the plan. Shelley Lorenzen, a representative for the league, voiced her opinion that the city would be “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” She explained that the number of urban renewal districts has nearly doubled, from 56 in 1998 to 106 in 2011, and that urban renewal becomes less effective the more they are used. She cited failed urban renewal projects in California and encouraged the council to use that money on social services instead.
In the beginning, MultnomahCounty representatives were initially skeptical about the plan. County Chairman Jeff Cogan explained that plan alterations since 2010 have allowed the county to support the plan. Under the proposed URA, the county would get a new $19 million facility for the Department of Human Services.
Cogan said that developing PSU improves the community as a whole and actually decreases the need for social services. He cited a College Board study that indicated for every 1 percent increase in the amount of people with bachelor’s degrees, the amount of public assistance paid out by the government decreases. He said he would like for the city to “invest in the front end rather than fix the problems at the tail end.”
“To the extent that making PSU a success makes the community a success, we are happy,” Cogan said.
More details about the project can be found on the PDC website, pdc.us/edura.