Keep your pencils sharp

For years we've been discussing using 'cluster housing' as a way to have some development in the open areas of the hamlet and still be able to keep the rural elements of working landscapes and habitat areas intact.

Cluster by definition is a small number of things. A cluster of grapes fits in your hand. It's manageable.

Like a typical Hamleteer I keep hamlet maps rolled up in the car and so when I had a chance to hang out with a land use planner recently I was prepared! I unfurled a big old hamlet map and asked, pointing to the open lands of Rosemont and Hazelia and asked - how would you get affordable sewers in there?

He studied the terrain and started dragging his fingers across the map, plopping down little clusters of homes that would all be linked to a larger system that would move the sewage downhill to be treated in Wilsonville instead of uphill to other cities.

Clusters! That would be cool and fit into the Vision for our area. A bucolic cluster of a dozen homes surrounded by open spaces with views of hills and bunnies. Perfect!

But then I asked, how many houses in a cluster would be needed to pay for this sewer expansion? A mere 20.....units per acre. And you'd need to build out 10+ acres.  So that would be a minimum of 200 units of denser development in order to preserve open areas. To get this sewer line all the way through the hamlet, you'd need a swath of perhaps 5 clusters along Johnson Road. Minimum 1000 new neighbors.

Is this a sign of the future?

This is one gentleman's idea of how this could pencil out. There will be other ideas of how growth will happen. But they are all going to have to be profitable in order to happen. The monies will determine the outcome.

With our current planning process going on, it's time for some specifics. 

Going door to door and asking people on the ground what there plans are to me means no more excuses like 'we're looking at things at a 10 or 20,000 foot level so we can't tell you what it will cost or where your water will come from' when we ask for specifics. Willamette Water anyone?

Next time you hear about clusters or any other vague term, especially if it sounds harmless, get out of your chair and be sure to ask some sharp questions about how the proposed plan really pencils out.

County Support to Hamlets becomes questionable

Emails announcing You're Fired, Redundant, Unnecessary and that your services are no long required just bite.

This one came out a couple of weeks ago:

It is a difficult time for local government budgets in Oregon and around the nation.  Clackamas County is no exception.  Due to budget constraints, Public and Government Affairs is undergoing a reorganization to better maximize limited public resources.

Unfortunately, this means that the County is eliminating the staff liaison position for Hamlets and Villages effective June 30, 2013. 

Chris Roth has contributed to the formation and stability of the nationally-recognized Hamlet and Village program.  Please join me in thanking her for her service.

The Hamlet has only known an existence with Chris Roth in it. As liaison from day one she was our best resource and inside connection to the county plans, processes and persons. If we needed to get into someone's ear, she made it happen. The list of what she organized and physically did is long and the many boxes of sign in sheets, agendas , easels, sound systems, etc that she dragged around for our meetings were heavy.  Chris was always there at our Saturday Town Halls and our Monday meetings, quietly observing, speaking only when it seemed in our best interest.

So it was sad news to hear that her job (and our Hamlet support) was eliminated due to budget cuts at the county and ...

Wait!!! Stop the Presses!   Breaking news!!!

The county is in the works of approving a new budget!
 In the midst of these budget constraints our clever and worthy commissioners are giving themselves 4% raises, 6% if you're the hard working Chair.

OOOPS!  This is a stool, not a chair.  My bad!

Wow!

Are these merit raises? Hell no!  They're 'comparison' raises.  When the commissioners discovered that they're not making as much as Commissioners in wealthier counties with bigger tax bases (basically places with more people than horses, unlike Clackamas), they decided to use the old Can Do spirit and give themselves raises. That's why we voted them into office, right?

Other overworked county staff can absorb Chris' job duties on their current salaries and we won't even see the difference in support. Promise!!!


Clackamas residents everywhere can now feel we're keeping up with the Multnomahs.

Bye Chris - best wishes and thanks for all the late nights, weekends and endless emails and support you've given us over the years. I'll miss you. We'll miss you.

Words for Thought

This statement was printed in a booklet in another place preparing for change, Gerhart, OR.

Dave Coles has substituted Stafford Hamlet in the appropriate place.

"Nothing lasts forever;
forces of change will someday make
Stafford Hamlet unrecognizable.
Those forces are not in earth or water,
or in chain saws or concrete, but in human attitudes.
Stafford Hamlet will cease to be Stafford Hamlet
when its people no longer recognize themselves as a community,
when open and generous attitudes toward each
other give way to individual selfish interests.
When everyone takes what he or she can
from the environment and the community
without seeing that the whole has been diminished thereby.
In those days the only thing left will be the memories..."
(borrowed from Gerhart, OR)


It's true. Thanks Dave & Tia.

Open Letter to the Phone Company

Dear Tree Gnashers who work for the phone company.

My Oak tree in the early morning light.

Thank you for again sparing my 100 year Oak Tree and remembering it was here before the telephone poles sprung from the ground like seedlings.

But on behalf of her cousins up and down Childs Road that are or soon will be mangled, chopped, chipped and mutilated  she wants me to tell you that there will come a day of reckoning.

These  trees will grow new, strong limbs.
Small trees will become large in the newly revealed sunlight and branches will fall in harsh storms, dragging your wires to the ground.

The Ents will return. In Force and with patient Tree Vengence will make short work of your poles.

Tree recently sighted on Cooks Butte playing baseball with an elm (not pictured).

Bury your wires or suffer the consequences.

Best wishes,
Carol

Rare Unicorn Siting!

The process for planning the Stafford Hamlet moves on.

Thursday night dedicated neighborhood leaders gathered together  to conscientiously translate the information gleaned from surveys and neighborhood meetings into symbols and colors onto about 200 square feet of blank and partially colored maps. These maps will then be compiled into one comprehensive map of what the citizens here envision for their future.

This unicorn named One Acre Lots was recently seen trotting through the Hamlet

Person after person wants their property divided into one acre lots. They don't want to ruin the wonderful rural open feeling we now have. We seem to believe we can be different and special when it comes to zoning and basic economics.

There's a huge gap in reality here. How 'different' do you really thing we are in Metro's eyes?

This prevailing discussion that we can come into the UGB encouranging denser development in the 500 or so acres in Borland and then freely have Gentleman Farmer low density lots everywhere else is a fairy tale.

Remember when Tualatin wanted to zone 100 acres as one acre lots and Metro sued them and the surrounding cities vilified them? That's a city filled with townhouses and apartment complexes (the latest one coming in at 38 units/acre), and 4-6 units per acre housing.

It's not going to happen that we get any guarantee that the remaining 75% of our area can potentially be zoned as one acre lots.  Remember too that we have to be added to a city to come into the UGB -  what city would take on the burden of urban services for lands they aren't allowed to use to meet their own density requirements?

We really need to to find out about the feasibility of this plan before we draw one more thing on our maps. In an open forum too. I for one am not comfortable with the current model of just a couple of people on and off the board having private meetings with county or Metro officials to discuss our plans.

Clackamas County Business Alliance had a few representatives at our citizen planning meeting. They have zero interest in 1 acre lots except for use as exclusive housing for the business owners wanting to live close to the ventures they envision on newly added employment lands.

For that business growth to happen they know that the first hurdle is to get us into the UGB and after that....well... are there really any unicorns?