By
Dear Beacon editor,
Your coverage of the University's plan for a one block square parking structure on the Willamette Bluff omits a major fact: the Willamette Bluff is a thin seven-mile wildlife connectivity corridor affecting wider north Portland
Further:
• There's no need to place a large structure in a critical wildlife corridor when there is space available elsewhere on campus.
• There are already existing natural resources on the site: 50 native trees currently providing habitat and cover. It is unnecessary to destroy them and recreate "wilderness," as you optimistically call the restoration plan.
• The context of the development agreement, the North Reach Plan, is a public process meant to engage multiple stakeholders. Proper process moves toward a mutually acceptable conclusion rather than starting with a conclusion and working backward. An open house is simply a "show and tell."
• The city and Metro just acquired part of Baltimore Woods for 1.1 million dollars to improve connectivity. It's incredibly wasteful of city resources to enable a large structure to fragment the corridor just to the south.
• A transportation analysis including a parking study as part of a new UP Master Plan is the correct arena for parking decisions that affect multiple stakeholders.
-Barbara Quinn, chair, Friends of Cathedral Park Neighborhood Association
