Robert Liberty

Myron Orfield, a nationally recognized expert in the field of metropolitan equity issues and director of the Institute on Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota, will visit the Portland area next week to lead regional discussions on the Metro Council's goal of ensuring equal distribution of the benefits and burdens of regional growth.

Orfield will meet with local elected officials, community leaders, students and interested residents Oct. 26 and 27, and will discuss an evaluation he's prepared on how the Portland metropolitan area is currently addressing issues of equity and how we can continue to improve.

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Do you have an opinion about whether farmland and forestland should be developed or conserved?

Do you have ideas about how we should invest your tax dollars on transportation projects?

Are there investments governments should be making to maintain and improve existing neighborhoods, main streets and downtowns?

Do you have concerns or proposals for how redevelopment occurs in your neighborhood?

Are there ways our neighborhoods and region can attract and retain jobs?

All of these issues are relevant to Metro's proposed 40 to 50 year strategy for our region. As your Metro Councilor, I want to hear your opinions, information and ideas on our regional strategy. Your last opportunity to testify in person on our long-range plan is this Thursday:

Making the Greatest Place open house and public hearing

Thursday, Oct. 15
4 p.m. (open house) | 5:15 p.m. (hearing)
Metro Regional Center, 600 NE Grand Ave., Portland

If you are not able to attend, please comment oniine using our survey tool or submit comments in writing by Oct. 15.
Comment online
Submit comments by e-mail

I look forward to hearing from you.

Twenty-two elected officials and their staffs visited the city and suburbs of Vancouver British Columbia during the last weekend of September (reported earlier). The purpose of the trip was to see how that region was implementing its own regional strategy of focusing growth in centers and corridors, in both the city of Vancouver and the suburbs. The effort to integrate green design into the Olympic Village (which will become a new waterfront neighborhood of 1,200 homes after the Olympics) was one of the highlights of the trip. But another set of projects that generated serious picture-taking was two big box stores, Home Depot and Canadian Tire and a grocery store, Save On Foods, that had been developed with several stories of housing overhead. (These stores serve several neighborhoods in the south part of the city of Vancouver.) Rather than being surrounded by a parking lot each of the stores provided parking in or below the building.  Many of the customers arrived by bus, on foot and the new station on an extension of the region's rapid transit system.

The Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission is responsible for the implementation and refinement of Oregon's comprehensive land use laws, laws that mandate urban growth boundaries and the protection of farm and forest lands. Metro Councilors Robert Liberty and Rod Park recently participated in a discussion with LCDC members about Metro's long-range regional strategy (referred to as Making the Greatest Place) including questions about urban reserves, infill and redevelopment and farmland protection. Liberty predicted that taxpayers' reluctance to finance new roads, sewers and schools for new urban areas - when their own roads, sewers and schools needed to be repaired and upgraded - would be just as strong a brake on urban expansion as the urban growth boundary.

On Oct. 3, Metro Councilor Robert Liberty shared some of Metro's perspectives and achievements in regional housing policy with Shaun Donovan, Secretary for Housing and Urban Development in the Obama administration. The Secretary came to the Portland region because of his Department's interest in a new approach to housing policy, an approach that integrates transportation planning and sustainability. His office recognized that Portland is a leader in these ideas and arranged for a quick visit to the region. Congressman Earl Blumenauer moderated the informal round-table discussion with Liberty and a small group of private, public and nonprofit housing developers and local government officials.