Kristyna Wentz-Graff

Correction appended.

BY GORDON R. FRIEDMAN

Portland officials are weighing an ambitious plan to pump more cash into programs intended to benefit residents displaced from the city’s historically black neighborhoods.

The idea: begin the complex process of redrawing an urban renewal area’s boundary so housing and economic development bureaus can spend another $67 million by taking on debt.

If they do that, city officials say they can "produce the units promised" by a housing plan the City Council approved in 2015, records show.

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The Oregonian/OregonLive file

The City Council has already dedicated $52 million to implement the plan to help people stay in or move back to Portland’s traditionally black north and northeast neighborhoods.

Progress has been slow. A report issued earlier this year by the plan's housing oversight board showed very few families have benefited from it. At the time, Mayor Ted Wheeler called a down payment subsidy offered under it an "abject failure." He said the city is "way off the mark" from meeting its goals.

Officials now say they need more money to make good on promises to black families.

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Bishop Steven Holt. Dave Killen/Staff

“In order to make significant impact, we need significant revenue,” Bishop Steven Holt, chairman of a citizens committee overseeing the plan, said during its meeting Thursday.

Portland’s black neighborhoods – formed due to discrimination and redlining, and once home to the most concentrated African American populations in Oregon – were decimated over decades by construction of Interstate 5, Veterans Memorial Coliseum and Legacy Emanuel Medical Center. Thousands of families were forced out. Others moved away because of gentrification.

The plan the council already approved calls for spending millions on housing subsidies and construction of apartments and townhomes. Those are to be offered at low cost to Portlanders who can prove a generational tie to the neighborhoods.

Money for the plan comes from an urban renewal district encompassing parts of Interstate 5 and some North and Northeast Portland neighborhoods. Some property tax revenue generated within its boundaries – which is normally funneled into the city general fund – is diverted to repay debts incurred for urban renewal projects.

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Kristyna Wentz-Graff

The budget started at $20 million. It expanded to $52 million in 2016. Including $32 million the city economic development agency has set aside, its final total could be $151 million, if officials amend the urban renewal area to reach its legal debt ceiling.

Funds have so far paid for housing projects on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, North Interstate Avenue, North Williams Avenue and elsewhere. Those buildings are not yet open to renters.

The city also offers residents zero-interest loans and cash grants for home improvements and down payments. Officials say few have taken those subsidies because they are too small.

Officials said Thursday they plan to use the additional $67 million to subsidize small businesses and build 50 to 70 condos and 45 to 50 apartments, buy land and set aside some money for future projects.

Amending the urban renewal area agreement is no small task. Any plan would need approval from the oversight committees, city planning commission and the City Council. There would be a lengthy public comment period. Every city household would receive notice of proposed changes.

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Mayor Ted Wheeler. Beth Nakamura/Staff

For Holt, the oversight panel chairman, the extra spending is worth it, given the need for affordable housing and Portland’s historically poor treatment of people of color.

“All the promises that they city has made that have not been kept need to be kept,” he said. “However we can hold the city’s feet to the fire – remind them of their commitments – I’m absolutely for it.”

In a recent interview, Wheeler said he would withhold judgment on any such proposal until he is briefed by city officials. But, he said, the city intends to deliver on its promises to black residents.

-- Gordon R. Friedman

GFriedman@Oregonian.com

503-221-8209

Correction: An earlier version of this article did not accurately state the budgets of the North and Northeast Portland housing initiatives run by the Portland Housing Bureau and Prosper Portland. The total possible budget between both bureaus is $151 million, not $119 million.

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