Neighbors and developers disagree about future of Northeast Portland golf course

The push to rezone Colwood National Golf Club in Northeast Portland from open space to industrial has hit a snag, as the land-use hearing officer assigned to the project last week issued a report in favor of retaining the open-space designation for the 115-acre property.

In his report, hearing

The conclusions of Frank's report support the cause of several area neighborhood associations, including the Cully Neighborhood Association, which have in past weeks faced off against a dozen real estate professionals who have lobbied in favor of the industrial designation.

Members of the neighborhood associations feel vindicated by the hearings officer's report and believe Portland City Council will act on its suggestions.

"(The permanent loss of open space) would be a huge blow to Northeast Portland," said Tony Fuentes, a co-chair of the Cully Neighborhood Association. "It goes beyond a neighborhood issue, and it's really a city issue."

The Cully neighborhood has among the smallest acreage of open space in Portland, according to city estimates.

In March, the city's Bureau of Development Services issued a report detailing the rezoning process and the steps needed to move ahead. The report estimated that nearly 2,000 jobs could be created by rezoning the land and attracting large industrial businesses.

Corky Collier of the Columbia Corridor Association, a Northeast Portland industrial business association, says job growth would improve if the property were rezoned because there's a dearth of suitable vacant properties of significant size within the corridor or within the city.He fears that without more industrial land within the city, businesses will be forced to move to surrounding areas where there are more available properties and land.

The property is also important to the Port of Portland.

The Port, currently working on its Airport Futures study, wants portions of the land as "strategic reserves." It has identified the land as being suitable for expansion and is in negotiations with Colwood Partnership, which owns the golf course, to purchase 48 acres of the property.

But Frank's report found that in most cases, changing an area's zoning designation from open space to industrial "creates more air pollution, noise pollution and energy usage." Rezoning the golf course, he said in his report, is not different.

He also disagreed with the BDS opinion that the rezoning would act in accordance with the Cully Neighborhood Plan, arguing instead that it would be bad for the Whitaker Slough and the Columbia Slough, which run through the property.

Collier called the report "objective" and a good summation of the issues surrounding the rezoning efforts, but he staunchly disagreed with its conclusions.

"We would never suggest that land be converted from a golf course to industrial land," Collier said. "But since the golf course owners decided it wasn't working as a golf course, we don't want to stand in their way."

Collier and a slew of real estate professionals maintained in a series of letters to the Bureau of Development Services that the property represents a major opportunity for industrial and commercial development.

According to Tony Reser, a senior vice president with GVA Kidder Matthews and a supporter of rezoning the property, the city has an "ample supply of open space" but too little industrial land.

"I find this decision very disappointing because there is almost no developable industrial land in the city," Reser said.

Reser points to Colwood Partnership's plans to donate 22.5 acres of the site, in which the sloughs are located, to Portland Parks and Recreation, as an amenable middle-of-the-road approach.

"The bottom line is, neither the city nor Metro has expressed much interest in purchasing the property," Collier said. "If someone or some entity wanted to come along and purchase this as a park, then go ahead."

If rezoned for industrial purposes, the land would be expected to fetch a higher price than it would as open space. Reser says he believes the City Council will do the right thing if it's forced to vote on the issue over the summer, and that "reason will prevail."

Credit: Tyler Graf