“A trail corridor must be provided to address transportation impacts.”
-Bureau of Development Services.
The Portland Bureau of Development Services has issued another denial for SK Northwest. It’s been one year since I first broke the story of the company’s plans to develop a facility along the Willamette River, just south of OMSI.
SK Northwest — a dealer of personal watercraft, ATVs, and Segways — did not want to allow a trail to be built along the property, even though the lot sits right in the middle of a major trail gap that could connect the popular Springwater Corridor and Eastbank Esplanade trails.
In their 22-page decision (download PDF here), the City says the proposed building would “increase demand on existing transportation facilities” including “conflicts between vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians.” They say a trail is necessary to help alleviate the impacts the new development would create.
Their opposition to the trail, however, was just one of the many problems with their proposal. They also were not able to satisfy the city’s Greenway develop criteria, and ran into trouble with stormwater and emergency access issues.
Click to enlarge graphic
Their initial proposal was very controversial and touched off a firestorm of opposition in the form of letters, emails, and phone calls to the Bureau of Development Services. This response from the community (only two out of 127 responses was in support of the proposal) led to BDS’s decision last June to deny the application.
SK Northwest’s lawyers then appealed the decision, but BDS denied their appeal.
Last month, they tried again but BDS held their ground, and on Monday, they rendered yet another denial of SK Northwest’s proposed development.
Here’s an excerpt from their official decision:
“…a trail corridor must be provided to address transportation impacts and the specific requirements (of various city bureaus) must be satisfied.”
Is this a fatal blow to SK Northwest’s plans? Stay tuned.
More info:
- The official decision goes into detailed analysis of all the issues (and is pretty interesting from a wonky point-of-view). You can download it here (1.4MB PDF).
- For comprehensive coverage of this issue, visit my special SK Northwest archive page.