Pearl District developers want Right 2 Dream Too out of
their neighborhood, so much so that they’re willing to pony up more than $846,000
toward the homeless groups future home.
City Council will vote next week on whether to accept the
money.
Pearl Hotel Investors LLC, fronted by developers Homer
Williams and Dike Dame, has agreed to pay the city just over $1 million total
for multiple uses. Of that amount, $142,000 will be used to purchase Lot 7, a
parking lot under the Broadway Bridge once proposed as new home for Right 2
Dream Too. The Portland Development Commission currently owns the lot.
Another cut of the payment, $50,000, goes to offset parking
needs to the nonprofit REACH, which had an agreement with the city for the
space.
The remainder is dedicated to finding a suitable alternative
site for the homeless rest area.
“It’s a step forward, Fritz says. “No one’s going to say
it’s a solution.”
Ibrahim Mubarak, the spokesperson for R2DToo has not formally agreed to
the terms of the proposal, and won’t until it can convene its board of
directors on Saturday. Mubarak says they
agree on the general principle of the proposal, but want to discuss and clarify
some of the terms, including who would own the lease if a new site were found.
As part of the proposal, the city agrees to facilitate the
sale of the current Right 2 Dream Too site — the high profile lot under the
Chinese Gate — to the PDC. Even with that sale, Right 2 Dream Too would still
be allowed to stay on the site until a suitable alternative was found,
according to the proposal.
The agreement also waives the existing fines, and puts a
halt on any future fines, assessed by the city for R2DToo’s occupation at
Fourth and Burnside.
For the developers, it takes Lot 7 off the table for R2Dtoo.
According to the City Assessor’s office, that property has a real market value
of nearly $1.4 million, and is assessed at $172,000.
Dana Haynes, communications director for Mayor Charlie
Hales, says the mayor has agreed to the conditions of the sale. Hales is
currently in South Africa for the C40 Mayors Summit.
The past two years have been a series of false starts
between Right 2 Dream Too and the city.
The organization — a fluctuating group of about 70 homeless
individuals, governed by a board of directors — has been on the lot at Fourth
Avenue and Burnside since Oct. 10, 2011. They have a lease with the property
owners, but Right 2 Dream Too has to relocate: the property is for sale, and
the city has been piling monthly fines on the organization for violating city
code.
By December 2012, the Right 2 Dream Too sued the city for
relief from the fines. Nearly a year later, lawyers for both parties reached a
settlement agreement. City Commissioner Amanda Fritz, as the freshly anointed
commissioner with the Bureau of Development Services, signed the agreement that
would allow R2DToo to move to a parking lot, known as Lot 7, under Lovejoy
Street vehicle off ramp.
That met with considerable blowback from the Pearl District
neighborhood, which rallied against such a move and was reinforced by an offer
from developer Homer Williams to find another location. All sides agreed to a
60-day window to air out ideas.
What followed was an announcement on Dec. 4 from Mayor
Charlie Hales that he had reached an agreement with the owners of an empty
warehouse at 320 Hoyt Street to lease the property for 15 months to the homeless
organization. The announcement came as a surprise to both Right 2 Dream Too and
Fritz, who had brokered the earlier arrangement for Lot 7.
It wasn’t to be. Right 2 Dream Too wasn’t keen on the site,
particularly having been let out of the negotiations to secure it, and it was
later dismissed as an option because of the high cost to make it habitable and
due to previous city agreements with the neighborhood.
“This whole process has been two steps forward and one step
back,” Fritz says. “It’s a complicated situation.”
R2DToo members say a suitable alternative site would be one
that is close to social services and public transportation, with open space for
tents and connections to water and electric service. And they say they want the
proximity to being locating near downtown written into the agreement.
Mubarak said he is hearing
increasing reports from people on the streets of police moving campers out of the
downtown core. He said R2DToo has had to turn away increasing numbers of
visitors to their rest area. Wednesday night, Mubarak said they had to turn
away about 75 people who came looking for a place to stay.
“With the present sweeps going on in the city, we need to
keep being a place where people can go,” Mubarak, says. “They’re sweeping
people who don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Despite its tenuous relationship with City Hall and downtown
businesses, R2DToo has operated a low-cost, peaceful shelter area for more than
two years without any tax dollar support. It has become a de facto resource
within the homeless service continuum. Fritz acknowledged that the services
offered by R2DToo are vital for the community.
“I think it’s here to stay,” Fritz says.
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This article appears in 2014-01-31.