American Dream

Participants in the 2004 Preserving the American Dream conference will remember Cascade Station as the large, vacant parcel that planners had zoned for offices and small-box retail (i.e., stores no larger than 60,000 square feet -- about the size of a large supermarket). Despite being large enough to have two light-rail stations, and despite having taxpayer-funded infractrusture such as roads and parks, not a single store or other development had been built.

Now the Portland Planning Commission has approved a zoning change to allow for big-box retail (stores as large as 265,000 square feet -- about the size of a large Wal-Mart supercenter or Home Depot). The Portland City Council will make a final ruling on the issue on January 20, 2005.

The developers say they want "unique" stores so they can attract people from all over the region. Obviously, they hope to build a regional shopping mall, not just a town center. This mall will attract auto traffic from all over the region, as only a tiny portion of the region's residents live near a light-rail station and even fewer want to take public transit to the mall.

The rezoning encountered little resistence at the planning commission level: No one testified against it and only one commission member voted against it and he claimed he was only against the prescriptive zoning code, not the development itself. However, the city council may be a different story.