The city of Wilsonville wants to create a new urban renewal district to turn Town Center into an urban setting of high-rise apartments with commercial on the bottom floor. This begs the question, “Do you want suburban Wilsonville to move toward a more urban look and use with greatly increased traffic?”
There are so many empty retail spaces in Wilsonville and some will be occupied by new tenants. However, online shopping for almost everything is becoming the norm, and I wonder how many retail establishments will continue to fail. Even if the city used urban renewal to upgrade Town Center infrastructure, there are no guarantees that private money would choose to develop there.
For decades our city councilors have gone along with Metro’s dictates to live on smaller pieces of land and get us out of our cars. Did you know East Frog Pond is slated to be 95% multi-family housing/townhouses with only 5% single family homes on tiny lots? Prioritizing car traffic is certainly not among the city’s objectives. The reduction in lanes on Town Center Loop to make room for a hardly used bicycle lanes is an example. The mixed-use five-story apartment building to replace Shari's was approved with a ridiculous allotment of less than one-half parking space per apartment. The Town Center Plan favors all modes of transportation, except cars.
The question becomes: How do we want our city councilors to spend their efforts and our taxes? There is a crying need for affordable housing. Should the city decrease system development charges to make new housing more affordable? How about putting in much needed sidewalks in Charbonneau? Or, even a small project like requiring the owners of the Town Center shopping center to fix the hazardous holes in their parking lot speed bumps?
Each of you can come up with your own list of needs not being met by the city. Is it time we took an in-depth look at Wilsonville’s actual needs rather than utopian dreams? When we are voting for our leaders, it would seem wise to understand their motivations and plans for our city. Is it more important to build legacies and shiny bright new things, or be more practical to meet the existing needs of our community?
Is it prudent to commit to another urban renewal district? If we approve this new Town Center Urban Renewal District, we will be on the hook for a projected $100 million over a 20-40 year period. The plan includes a $5 million pedestrian and bicycle bridge across I-5. That’s a lot of money in hopes that people will use it, especially considering our months of rain. A cost/benefit analysis of this is in order. You can make your voice heard on creating a new urban renewal district to redevelop Town Center by voting in the May 21 election.
Limiting Wilsonville city councilors to serving 12 years in a 20-year period was passed by 63% of the voters just four years ago. Now the council has two measures on the May 21 ballot to revise term limits. Measure 3-608 proposes to exempt time served as an appointee from counting as a term. I am in favor of open seat elections, not the method used before term limits which created incumbent advantage. Measure 3-609 would give an extra 4-year term to the mayor so that current and future mayors could serve as many as 16 years. If passed by the voters, these measures would affect which councilors would be eligible to run in this November’s elections. Some councilors have said the citizens just did not understand what they were voting for in 2020. How demeaning to the voters. We should vote NO on these two measures to change term limits, as well as voting NO on the new urban renewal district.
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