SENTINEL NEWS SERVICE

By Lucinda Gilman

Colwood National Golf Course has applied to be rezoned from open space to industrial land.

The “Keep Colwood Green Coalition,” an array of environmental and neighborhood groups, opposes this.  They have cleared one major hurdle: In May, a City of Portland Hearings Officer recommended denial of the zone change request.

The next hurdle, a hearing with the City Council at large, is coming up on Sept. 17.  The hearing promises to be lively; people with many different viewpoints are lining up to be heard.

Tamara DeRidder, Land Use Co-Chair for the Parkrose Neighborhood Association and an urban planner, points out that Colwood, in addition to providing 18 holes of golf, serves a wide range of environmental functions.  

 “Colwood is a buffer to much of the pollution and noise in that area,” she said. “There are 500 mature trees that produce oxygen.  There are two branches of the Columbia Slough and a significant bat habitat – some of the bats are endangered.  Bats are wonderful for controlling mosquitoes, which with the West Nile virus is becoming an issue. There’s osprey and eagles … the Colwood site does water purification site for that part of the slough.”    

The North/Northeast Business Association sees things from a different angle, but still opposes the rezoning.  Gary Marschke, vice-chair of the Association, says, “We support the right of the owners to maximize the return on their investment.  But the infrastructure costs for developing that parcel to industrial standards would have been well into the tens of millions for roads, electricity, sewer – and of course the taxpayer would shoulder that burden.” 

And Tony Fuentes has another idea: A leader of  “Keep Colwood Green,” he would love to see Colwood turned into a park.  He declared, “Without permanent public ownership, we believe there will always be a chance that this unique area could be permanently lost.”  Groups that support public acquisition as a long-term goal include the Urban Greenspaces Institute, Trust for Public Land, and local neighborhood associations.  

Bill Saunders, a representative of the Colwood Partnership, would be happy to see the land become a park “as long as they are offering what we consider fair value for the property given its location and surrounding uses.”

Social Justice

DeRidder sees not only nature’s needs but also the neighborhood’s.  The Cully district, she notes, “is up to four times more toxic than other neighborhoods.  In Cully, 20 percent of the population is at or below poverty level – the [city] average is 13 percent.  They have no parks and one acre of open space per 2,400 people; Portland’s average is one acre per 40 people.  The population is 40 percent nonwhite and over 22 native languages are spoken there.

“These are folks that aren’t able to fight for themselves,” she continued. “Here we have no parks – how are kids going to play?  These people already have high cancer rates.  And now you’re going to take away their oxygen by cutting down those trees?  That’s not justice.

“As an industrial site, businesses would only be required to take 50 percent of their waste out of their storm water.  Lead, cadmium, and other heavy metals are a concern.  DEQ is already trying to clean that area up.”   

Parks in play

The Portland Parks & Recreation Bureau is at least interested.  The Sentinel contacted Public Information Officer Beth Sorensen, who said, “The Parks remain committed to opposing the rezoning.  If the owner wants to talk with us about acquisition, we would be happy to sit down and talk.”  

Sorensen didn’t have any details about past negotiations with the course’s owner, but other Parks employees acknowledged that talks have gone on.

Saunders confirms that negotiations with the Park Bureau have taken place.  However, the “fair value” he’s looking for is currently pegged at what the Port of Portland offered him for the land; if the rezoning fails, the land’s value will be considerably less.  “If we can’t get a decent price, we’ll continue to run it as a golf course.”  

Martha Richmond, a spokeswoman for the Port, says that they are still interested if the rezoning goes through.  “Not, though, for a third runway,” she says, attempting to dispel a common public perception.  “In the 2000 PDX master plan, that was envisioned as either a primary access road or as air cargo development – facilities that accommodate air cargo distribution.”  She says that in any case, given current traffic at the airport, a third runway isn’t in the cards until at least 2028.  

Dollar signs

The Port of Portland, Saunders says, is offering $200,000 an acre for the northern parcel.   An industrial real estate agent familiar with the property independently estimated a similar value.  With 115 acres up for rezoning, that comes out to a price tag of about $23 million, assuming all acreage is equally valuable.

If the rezoning fails, the land would be worth its value as an operating golf course, which the same source approximated as “between three and seven million.”