Kate Brown hates your neighborhood
An alert reader who can bear to follow all the bike-children fantasies in Portland sends along this depressing story. Now it seems that Portland and other Oregon cities won't be allowed to require the developer and construction goons to provide for parking when they build their ugly cr-apartment monstrosities. Under new land-use rules, the developers can just give the finger to the neighbors, and the City Council can't stop them, even if it wants to.
Of course, the Portland City Council will never stand up to those guys, and so this won't matter much in the short run. But it means that the death grip the apartment mob has on the city's neighborhoods will never be loosened.
I wrote last year about how Tina Kohoutek and her pals in the Legislature have outlawed single-family zoning. If your neighbor decides he's in the mood to tear down his house and slap a bulky multi-plex next to you, you'll just have to deal with it. Screw any expectations, however reasonable, you may have had when you bought your property. Be thankful Tina and the crew even recognize the concept of property. "End civ," remember?
But this latest outrage was apparently brought to you courtesy of an executive order of our governor, Killer Kate Brown. Kate and Tina, two peas in a pod.
It's all part of the persistent delusion (or deliberate b.s. story) that everybody's going to risk their lives riding their little two-wheeler, or rolling the dice on Tri-Met, in order to go to school, to work, or out on personal business. And it's all so green, green, green. The only problem is, it will never happen. Electric cars, people.
Most days I sit here and weep as the far-right destroys the nation. But to watch the far-left destroy Portland hits even closer to home.
I have no choice but to drive. Got disability where I cannot walk more than one block before I start to shut down. Bus service is cutting hours and lines, and is crappy in my neighborhood. Now parking is at even more of a premium. I rode bikes and carpooled, and took the bus everywhere in Portland. Not much of a reward for me but god bless the bicyclists.
ReplyDeleteThis is far worse than you’ve outlined. There will be no off-street parking between streets and store fronts. Try hauling a week’s groceries back home on your 10-speed in February. The funny thing is that these rules only apply to a few larger cities. Can’t find parking in Bend? Try Redmond, where the rules don’t apply. No stores with parking in Hillsboro? Head to North Plains, and tell Tina to pound sand. Of course, the agency never bothered to calculate how “climate friendly” these rules would actually be, because they knew they wouldn’t like the answer. But they get an A+ in virtue signaling.
ReplyDeleteYou’d think people would eventually figure it out, but I guess not.
American cities waste enormous amounts of space on parking. Any new housing in an era with a lack of housing supply is a good thing. Look around the world, it’s possible to live in cities and not rely on cars, a dirty and inefficient form of transportation (and yes electric cars too, which our electric grid is not prepared for).
ReplyDeleteYes, in other cities it's possible to live without a car. But not on the West Coast of the United States. It has never happened, and it is never going to.
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