Project Staff

Project Staff Jay Sugnet, Portland Planning Bureau, Project Manager Jeanne Harrison, Portland Office of Transportation Arianne Sperry, Portland Planning Bureau Jean Senechal Biggs, Portland Office of Transportation Kathy Mulder, Portland Office of Transportation Teak Wall, Portland Office of Transportation Consultant Team Mia Birk, Alta Planning + Design, Project Manager Mike Tresidder, Alta Planning + Design David Parisi, Parisi Associates Ryan LeProwse, David Evans and Associates Amy Jones, David Evans and Associates Timothy Smith, SERA Architects Matthew Arnold, SERA Architects Bob Wise, Cogan Owens Cogan FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: Portland Bureau of Planning 1900 SW 4th Avenue, Suite 4100 Portland, OR 97201-5350 503-823-7700 phone 503-823-7800 fax E-mail: [email protected] RE: Division Plan A digital copy of this document can be found at: www.portlandonline.com/planning This project is partially funded by a grant from the Transportation and Growth Management (TGM) Program, a joint program of the Oregon Department of Transportation and the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development. This TGM grant is financed in part by federal Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), local government and the State of Oregon funds. The contents of this document do not necessarily reflect views or policies of the State of Oregon. Table of Contents A. Background History of East Portland and SE Division Street Planning and Policy Technical Memo Multi-modal Transportation and Urban Design Analysis B. Land Use Existing Land Use Inventory Land Use Alternatives Memo Zoning Posters C. Transportation Traffic Glossary Street Classifications (listed in Section B. Planning and Policy Technical Memo) Mode Split Table Transportation Alternatives Analysis 7 Corners Roundabout Analysis D. Public Involvement Declaration of Cooperation – May 8, 2003 Schedule of Meetings and Events Community Working Group – Purpose, Responsibilities, and Relationships Neighborhood Walk Report October January Workshop Flyer January Workshop Summary April Workshop Flyer April Workshop Summary April Workshop Posters June Workshop Flyer June Workshop Summary June Workshop Posters A. Background The Background section contains the following documents: History of East Portland and SE Division Street This is the story of Division since the mid 1880’s and how forces have shaped Division into the street it is today. Factors that induced these changes include: the enormous growth of Portland’s population from the 1850s through 1910; changing zoning policies over time; the effects of the automobile era of the 1950s and 60s; the controversy of the Mt Hood Freeway; and traffic calming along parallel routes in the late 1980s. Planning and Policy Technical Memo This extensive memo is an inventory and review of public policies, plans, and studies relevant to the Division study area. This was completed early in the project to help document the policy framework that guided the plan. Included are descriptions of state, regional and city policies, as well as street classifications and zoning characterizations. Multi-modal Transportation and Urban Design Analysis This analysis outlines the existing conditions along Division related to multi-modal transportation issues and urban design. Timeline: Population of the City History of East Portland and SE Division Street of Portland* The story of the Division Green Street Main Street Project area is one of ongoing, rapid change and upheaval. It begins in the mid-1800s when the first settlers were gifted large Land Donation Claims east of the Willamette River, and soon moves into the approximately 60-year span when these farms were all subdivided into neighborhoods. The next changes occurred during the years of rail and streetcar expansion and decline, and continued on through the two World Wars. The subsequent popularity of the automobile in the 1950s promoted intense suburban growth on the eastside of the Willamette River, as well as significant freeway and highway expansion. In the 1970s there was a heated controversy over plans for a “Mt. Hood Freeway” which, had it not been defeated, would have replaced SE Division, Clinton, and Lincoln streets entirely. The defeat of the Mt Hood Freeway led to many changes in the way Portland looked at transportation planning and how to manage traffic and ensure livability in a growing city. In the 1980s The City of Portland devised a plan for revitalizing SE Portland, including several Traffic Calming measures on streets parallel to Division. This story begins with the creation of the City of Portland: Portland, OR was created in 1845 when Asa Lovejoy and F.W. Pettygrove decided to lay out a townsite and draw up an informal plat of 16 square blocks containing 50 by 100 foot lots on the west bank of the Willamette River. They flipped a coin and Pettygrove won the right to name it “Portland,” after Portland, Maine. The City was officially incorporated in 1851 and included a much larger area than the original 16 blocks.1 Portland began its early development as a trading and shipping town and the City’s 1850 economic growth soared in 1849, as the California Gold Rush demanded large quantities Population: of timber and foodstuffs from the area. To keep up with demand, logging in the 1850s 821 resulted in large cleared areas surrounding Portland and East Portland, thus the nickname “Stumptown.” The timber was shipped out of Portland as a major export and used locally for building construction. A secondary town named East Portland took form on the east side of the Willamette River in the 1850s, incorporating as a separate city in 1870. To the right is a picture from East Portland in 1874: *(www.portla ndonline.com, East Portland, 1874, looking southwest from the “Historical approximate present-day location of Hawthorne Timeline”) Boulevard, Oregon Historical Society, Negative # OrHi 8292 1 Snyder, Eugene E. Portland Names and Neighborhoods: Their Historic Origins, pg 16, Binford and Mort Pubs, December 1, 1979. 1 In 1850 the area was made up of large farms, with only a few streets connecting them. Several different (subsequently prominent) families acquired East Portland Land Donation Claim farms after 1850, when the Land Donation Act went into effect. The section of an 1852 survey map to the right shows some of these claims (i.e., Clinton Kelly and Seldon Murray). In addition, the Ladds, Stephens’, Waverleighs, Lincoln Kelly and a few others all owned land in East Portland and their farms contributed to Oregon’s export economy. When John B. Preston completed the Willamette Survey in 1851-1853 (soon after Survey Map, 1852. Oregon/Washington Bureau of Portland officially became a city), some of his Land Management, 1851-52 Cadastral Survey Map. survey lines were chosen to become major street alignments. Division Street, originally known as “Section Line Road” (from 1870 to 1882), was named for a survey section line (see survey map above, the Division Street section line is just below “Seldon Murray’s” Claim). The name was changed from Section Line Road to Division Street in 1882, apparently because it was too difficult to write as an address2. The map below, also from 1852, shows alignments for historic roads that follow nearly the same alignments as many contemporary ones (Sandy Boulevard, and SE Foster Road, for example). Historic Portland Roads and Topographical Map, Oregon/Washington Bureau of Land Management, 1851-52. 2 Ibid. 2 1860 In 1868, the Oregon Central Railroad broke ground at the east end of Division Street for Population: an eastside rail line to the south. By 1883, East Portland had become the western 2,874 terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad and boasted a population of 30,000. Bridge construction across the Willamette River began in 1887, both to alleviate ferry traffic 1870 Population: capacity problems, and to facilitate eastside housing opportunities for westside workers. 8,293 As a result of the above factors, astonishingly rapid growth occurred in East Portland 1880 between the mid-1800s and just past the turn of the century. Portland and East Portland Population: united as one city in 1891. “Streets in both East Portland and Albina, as in Portland, were 17,577 laid out on the “Philadelphia pattern,” numbers paralleling the river and named streets 1890 running east-to-west. But many of the names were repeated in those two cities and also Population: in Portland on the West Side.” This problem was later corrected in the “Great 46,385 Renaming” when the city replaced duplicate street names with unique ones3. 1900 By 1910, only approximately 60-years from the time the first settlers claimed land in East Population: 90,426 Portland, nearly all of the Land Donation farms had been subdivided 1910 and developed into the Population: neighborhoods and street alignments 207,214 we see today. Interestingly, the families on the south side of Division Street subdivided their land into “additions” (Waverleigh’s Addition, th etc.) before the families on the north A horse drinks from a trough at SE 60 and Division in 1910. (City of Portland, Stanley Parr Office of side (Ladd’s Addition, etc.), which Archives and Records, 1910 c_60th Ave & Division St may be the reason for the odd [72]_5411-02 b39 f22) alignment of many of the north-south streets crossing Division. Others speculate this mismatch is due to a survey mistake. In 1915, the cities of St Johns and Linnton merged with Portland and the population of the resulting city was estimated at around 233,000. However, “the great increase in population from 1891 to 1915 was not due primarily to annexations or mergers—the 1920 areas taken into Portland were not densely populated—but to the immense immigration Population: 4 258,288 from the East.” Zoning In the early 1900s, the City of Portland regulated development and the location of certain land uses, but did not categorize uses into zones and did not have a map showing where uses were allowed by right.

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