Community Involvement in the Portland Plan Starts With You. NOW.

Spend a few minutes surfing PortlandOnline within the Bureau of Planning and Sustainabiliy section, and you'll quickly notice a lot of plans. Plans for our rivers and trees. For our urban design and development. For bike lanes. For climate action. There's the Downtown Plan, the Central City Plan, the Strategic Plan. Wading through all these plans can certainly prove confusing, but the plan du jour that truly requires our immediate, thoughtful attention is The Portland Plan which will directly feed elements of The City of Portland's Comprehensive Plan. Portland Plan organizers launch a series of community workshops this week that will provide forums to get facts about our City out in front of people, to clarify the roles of strategic planning for the City, and to gather critical input to determine priorities from neighbors, business owners, you.

Although it was first drafted in the late 1970s, The City of Portland's Comprehensive Plan wasn't adopted by the City Council until 1980. State requirements necessitate reviews and updates of the City Comprehensive Plan, with its main goal to guide City policy and actions (but not micromanage bureau activities). The Comprehensive Plan spans many topics, with a strong focus on the physical—like transportation, environment, land use detail—and strives to improve certain tangible elements over many years.

How do we design our neighborhoods to enhance livability? 

Portions of Portland's Comprehensive Plan have not been updated since its adoption date. In 2006, the visionPDX initiative was launched to help "reconnect the people of Portland with their government and craft a 30-year vision of the place we want to become." The main goal of visionPDX was to create a citywide strategic plan aligning all bureau activities and resources. The Bureau of Planning lead this effort in its role as citywide policy coordinator, "ensuring that the vision direction is integrated into an updated Comprehensive Plan and that this plan along with the more focused Citywide Strategic Plan will again become guiding policy documents that drive the work programs of various City bureaus and meet state and regional expectations." (From document: Bureau of Planning Strategic 2006-2010. PDF available online.)

The Bureau of Planning's efforts have primarily focused on four key objectives: "Achieving a fresh, long-term vision for our community; Striving to foster and maintain a prosperous, equitable, and sustainable economy; Creating and promoting livable neighborhoods, thriving centers and corridors, and a vibrant and exciting central city; and A river renaissance linking neighborhoods, business districts, habitat, and industry." (All in this paragraph from document: Bureau of Planning Strategic Plan 2006-2010. PDF available online.)

How do we create jobs and sustainable neighborhood business activity? 

Equipped with these goals in mind, the City of Portland has been working for over two years to create an updated strategic plan that will propel us into the next quarter century. Themes of creating a "thriving and sustainable city" whose members are "prosperous, healthy, and educated" pave the way. Such efforts have laid the groundwork for the next stage in the City's development, as it is now ready to move forward with the creation of an up-to-date, viable Comprehensive Plan that accurately reflects our evolved needs and positions us for the next 25+ years. Thoughtful input serves as a driving force in prioritizing needs and affecting policy.

Enter Portland Plan.

The Portland Plan hopes to guide the Comprehensive Plan as it more strategically addresses short-term goals with various community partners and agencies (e.g., schools, Metro), neighbors and business owners, providing valuable insights that will help the City decide how it can best invest resources. Community workshops involving both residents and City officials to "address immediate priorities, to know more about our City, to know where we want to go" begin on November 17. Deborah Stein, District Planning Manager with the City, further notes, "We hope to inspire and engage in a different kind of conversation about our future." With the Portland Plan ultimately offering direction to the Comprehensive Plan, the importance of community input is clear.

How do we create rich cultural experiences in our daily lives?

To prepare for the workshops, it might prove beneficial to review some key documents that provide further context. Nine Action Areas of the Plan are outlined as critical and worthy of our thoughtful attention. This page offers interesting facts about each of the action areas, provides a current profile of our City, and notes which conditions are ready for change.

Here's a snapshot view of the Nine Action Areas (with links to PDFs):

• Prosperity, Business Success and Equity addresses job creation and sustainable neighborhood business activity and access.

• Education and Skill Development spans topics related to educational opportunities that allow people to succeed.

• Arts, Culture, and Innovation includes arts funding, library circulation, and the creation of rich cultural experience in our daily lives.

• Sustainability and the Natural Environment obviously addresses sustainable practices needed for our watersheds, water quality, tree canopy, and energy usage patterns to change.

• Human Health, Food, and Public Safety is a broad topical area targeted for action in access to parks and healthy food choices, life expectancy, and a sense of safety all under the umbrella of healthy living options.

• Quality of Life and Civic Engagement focuses on volunteerism, a key ingredient in Portland culture.

• Design, Planning, and Public Spaces spans urban design features like building design and walkability that enhance our neighborhoods.

• Transportation, Technology, and Access considers sustainable transportation and Internet access options for our population.

How do we foster more civic engagement?

Your voice—does it really count?

It does, but you've got to speak out loud and channel your great ideas to a public forum in a constructive manner. After review of the action areas and the facts about Portland related to each, why not take an important survey geared to capture baseline information that Plan organizers want and need. The survey has 27 questions, and room for comments. 

There's also a draft handbook that gives a good overview of the Plan, its key action areas, what's at stake, and why neighborhood voices are critical to the planning process. To download all or parts of this handbook, see: http://www.portlandonline.com/portlandplan/index.cfm?c=51428. If you plan on attending any of the neighborhood workshops (which I know you do!), it'd be a good idea to cruise this draft before participating in those community sessions.

If you're interested in how community members involve themselves in City processes, and how the City interacts with the public on some levels, you might find it helpful (in all your free time, of course) to review the Public Involvement Best Practices Program. The Program "aims to strengthen and support public involvement processes citywide that are accessible to the community" and offers guidelines for bridging City and community effectively. These guidelines potentially impact the Portland Plan, too, as the program relates to the Nine Action Areas—just how the City engages the community is a vital link that impacts decision-making, policy, and practice, and shapes our lives.

Eager to learn more? Get involved!

At the very least, commit to reading some of the foundational content noted in this article, and then get thee to one of the many community forums taking place in various locations over the next few weeks. It's important that we voice our opinions in order to effectively address needs and priorities that shape public policy. Be heard. Attend a meeting, Take the survey. Talk to your neighbors. Get involved in planning the future of your City.