Albina Fuel Issue

Neighborhood Report: April 2001

The Albina Fuel Co, long-time occupant of a five-acre site at NE Broadway and 33rd Avenue, plans to move its business to a more suitable location. In the process, the owners have applied for a zone change from industrial use to an urban mixed-use. While Albina plans to clean up the site, they do not plan to do the redevelopment, but will sell the property.

The zone change process calls for hearings both before a hearing examiner and before City Council. There is a burden of proof on Albina to show that the proposed change better meets the goals of the city's Comprehensive Plan. This is done by specifically addressing each of several established criteria and demonstrating that the proposed rezoning meets or exceeds these criteria. If Albina can make this case the zoning will be changed.

According to our 1987 neighborhood plan, we believe that a change from industrial to some form of mixed-use is appropriate for the Albina property. The challenge is to anticipate development that has yet to be proposed.

After initially applying for a "central employment" zone over the entire site, Albina has amended their application to rezone the property along Broadway to store-front (or urban) commercial. The applicant would still seek central employment zoning for the remainder of the site nearer the Banfield Expressway.

What this would mean is that the Main Street kind of development that exists along Broadway would be continued. A typical building would have commercial on the first floor and housing or offices above. The height would be limited to 35'. With no setback allowed, auto-orientated retail would be precluded. The central employment zone on the back portion of the site would allow most urban uses.

Estimated traffic impacts are currently a great concern to the neighborhood and to city staff. The solution for both Albina and Sullivan's Gulch seems to lie in finding an accommodation around traffic impacts and the mixture of uses on the site. The Arnston family, owners of Albina, came to our board meeting last October. Our Albina/ land use committee has been meeting with their consultant team since. It is our preference to support redevelopment of the site to the extent that it is consistent with city and neighborhood policies.

Our committee is now meeting weekly; we've met with city transportation people and have engaged an experienced city planner to help us evaluate our options. We're meeting with neighbors near the site and are involving adjacent neighborhoods.

It is important that all who are interested get informed and then let the committee know their thoughts. For a full story on where we've been and what's happening, please visit our website www. Sullivansgulch.org. Albina is under Projects. For those who do not use the web, you can reach me at 335-9405.