The Jade District, in Southeast Portland, could look a lot different if ideas presented in an urban design charette come to fruition.

The event came about after MultiCultural Collaborative, a self-described team of planning and business professionals, secured a $100,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. Then the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO) last week brought together Prosper Portland (formerly the Portland Development Commission), the Oregon Department of Transportation, the Portland Bureau of Transportation, TriMet and Metro as well as community members to participate in the charette. Designers from Resolve Architecture + Planning, Qamar & Associates Inc. and Green Girl Land Development Solutions LLC showed attendees ideas to “Green the Jade.”

“This is to generate the vision plan,” said Anita Yap, partner in the MultiCultural Collaborative. “It is a conceptual master plan.”

Now that stakeholders’ input has been collected, a final report will be submitted to the EPA this fall.

“Only five communities in the country got grants, so this is a big deal for us,” said Suenn Ho, principal at Resolve Architecture + Planning. “We were able to bring in really strong presence from the Vietnamese community. We got that voice in front of the jurisdiction representatives.”

The designers focused on areas around Southeast 89th Avenue and Brooklyn Street, Southeast 82nd Avenue and Woodward Street, and Southeast 85th Avenue and Division Street.

Organizers had four main goals for the charette. Designers were asked to minimize gentrification, make streets safer, foster development of small businesses and increase parks and green space.

“What was so inspiring was that they hit all four goals,” said Khanh Pham, programs and strategy manager at APANO.

Many of the proposed projects focused on creating parks and slowing traffic in the area. But the focus on small business development was one aspect that helped broaden the audience of the charette, Pham said.

“As community members we originally envisioned it as an entirely environmental project,” she said. “What we found most valuable was the interconnections of how greening the Jade is about small businesses. Trees are nice, but jobs – that is something that piqued people’s interest.”

Charette organizers hope that economic development will help minimize gentrification. Land values in the area have increased, and many parcels are now more valuable than the structures that sit on them.

With neighborhoods zoned for multifamily units, the area is primed for redevelopment.

“It’s about local economic development,” Pham said. “On 82nd (Avenue) and beyond, we are seeing a lot of gentrification issues. We are looking at how we can keep some land permanently affordable.”

Giving the community a voice in that redevelopment and the path it takes was a key aspect of the charette.

“When we team up with designers and they listen to the neighborhood (residents), they tend to be very surprised,” Yap said. “The design is much more complex and thoughtful.”

The post Planning under way to improve Jade District appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.