LIDAR: What it means to you

Along with current  problems with Sensitive Lands codes is what the City plans to do with Oregon's new LIDAR imaging that can show every tree and natural (and built) feature on private lands.  Perhaps more properties will be sucked into this onerous program, along with tree code permitting tracking, decks built without a permit, and so on.  For some people the detailed sounds like a good thing.  For others, it is one more government intrusion into our homes and lives where it is neither needed nor wanted.

A sharp-eyed citizen spotted a news article about the uses of LIDAR mapping being used for other-than geo-tech purposes and reported this at the City Council Meeting on September 2.  (Click on Citizen Comments and watch video.)  LIDAR has been used to map land for landslide and earthquake (faults) potential to aid cities in preparing for emergencies, and for denying building permits in such areas.  The problems occur when the mapping occurs for other than the general safety and welfare of the community.

If a government can make money from code enforcement, wouldn't you expect to see more codes so that more of our behavior could be criminalized and penalized?  And targeted?  For entry onto your  property?   And what city doesn't want to be "smart?"

CityScan

Data-driven data for smart cities.  

CityScan provides cities and utilities a solution to manage their assets, ensure compliance with local ordinances, improve safety for residents, and increase overall efficiency. 

Is CityScan the Future of Code Enforcement?

Urban Land,  April 1, 2013   By Bendix Anderson

See CityScan marketing video on this webpage.  

From smuggled cigarettes to illegal billboards and overcrowded homes, Chicago-basedCityScan uses technology to identify a variety of infractions, which could lead to millions of dollars in revenue for cities.

Founded in 2011, the tech startup builds extremely detailed models and maps of urban areas. Synchronizing the data with zoning information and permit information, experts from CityScan can

flag potential scofflaws.
                                                            CityScan searchs for unlicensed billboards.

"CityScan is an inspector,” says    Orlando Saez, chief operating officer for CityScan. “We inspect, we observe, and we predict.” Because these inspections take place virtually rather than in person, hundreds of man-hours in initial site visits can be avoided. This allows cities to check on problems they would never have enough staff to identify otherwise.

To build its maps, CityScan gathers huge amounts of information—some proprietary, some public. The biggest data trove—provided by NAVTEQ, a subsidiary of Nokia—is obtained with light detection and ranging (LIDAR) technology. A LIDAR system can collect millions of data points per second as lasers are projected, strike objects on the street, and are reflected to detectors. Each data point comes with its own global positioning service (GPS) coordinates. Connecting the dots provided by these data points, the system can draw outlines of everything in the built environment from buildings to billboards—even small objects like doorbells and mailboxes.

Code Enforcement Goes High-Tech

CityScan uses street-mapping technology and public records to find hidden violations.

Urban Lab, Mar 7, 2013  Eric Jaffe

Chicago Challenge Cup Winner CityScan Is (Literally) Mapping Its Way to Success

Challenge Cup 1776, November 13, 2013  By Melissa Steffan 

Let’s talk about data. We’re seeing huge amounts of data being created in the health industry—and not many platforms for interpreting it in meaningful ways. How does CityScan fit in to that?

What I want to do is completely democratize the data sets. Let’s say we drive Chicago for whatever use case. We’re driving it once a year, but we make that data available at a fraction of the cost for an individual. There will be tons of private and public applications that can tie to this data set. We can bring down the cost disruptively.

Metro has Manhattan-Envy

Metro has Manhattan-Envy 
Does adding parking benefit the developer or not?  It depends.  The end point owner of the property, such as individual owners of condo units, will benefit from having more parking.  If the developer maintains ownership of the property, or hopes to get the maximum price from the condo sale, then building the maximum amount of parking feasible might be economically beneficial.  If the property is an apartment complex where the end user is not the owner, the added expense of the parking facility could raise the rent of the apartments above market rate.  There would be little or no benefit to the landlord unless he/she were able to charge for the parking spaces.  

Which makes me wonder -- will resident (and retail) parking at the Wizer Block apartments be free or will renters have to pay extra?  If it is the latter, more cars than expected may wind up on city streets.  Who should pay for the parking generated by a business (apartments are a business)?  If cars park on city streets, citizens pay the cost.  If parking garages are built, who pays for the borrowing costs, and who benefits?  Shouldn't each business and housing project provide adequate parking for its use?

Buy Condo, Then Add Parking Spot for $1 Million
New York Times, September 9, 2014  By Michelle Higgins

What will $1 million buy in New York City? A diamond-encrusted Cartier men’s watch. A small fleet of 2014 Bentley Continentals. Or maybe your very own parking spot in SoHo.

A new development, 42 Crosby Street, is pushing the limits of New York City real estate to new heights with 10 underground parking spots that will cost more per square foot than the apartments being sold upstairs.

The million-dollar parking spots will be offered on a first-come-first-served basis to buyers at the 10-unit luxury apartment building being  developed by Atlas Capital Group at Broome and Crosby Streets, itself the former site of a parking lot. At $250,000 a tire, the parking spaces in the underground garage cost more than four times the national median sales price for a home, which is $217,800, according to Zillow.

So instead of a 5,000-square-foot house with a wine cellar in Dallas or a  3,500-square-foot home with a sauna in Seattle, one could choose 150  square feet in the basement of 42 Crosby, a condominium designed by the  architect Annabelle Selldorf.

The parking spots, some of which will be a generous 200 square feet, will run $5,000 to 
$6,666 a square foot, whereas the nine three-bedroom units upstairs will cost between 
$8.70 million, or about $3,170 a square foot, and $10.45 million, around $3,140 a square 
foot. Monthly common charges for operational expenses and taxes for the three-bedrooms will run as high as $8,880 ($18,360 for the $25 million duplex penthouse). But the parking spots, which also provide a bit of storage space and a charging station, if not views, will not rack up additional monthly charges.  

To build the 10 spots, the developer had to get a special permit from the city, which typically limits the number of parking spaces in new buildings to no more than 35 percent of the units.

Beth Fisher, a senior managing director of Corcoran Sunshine, which is marketing 56 Leonard, said: “The No. 1 amenity is parking. In the luxury market, parking is really one of the key, key features that distinguish one development from another.”  

Whatever happened to global warming?

Earth is in a cooling trend that has been going on for millennia and will continue for many more.  That humans think they can prevent the Earth from cooling too much, or warming too much, is insanity.  In the meantime, there are plenty of people making their fame and fortune on the global warming, climate change, climate disruption craze.  Now that climate change laws are embedded into every level of government, no matter if the science is false or needs correction, we are on an expensive path that will also lead to loss of personal freedoms.  For the good of the Earth and Mankind - even if the basic science does not justify it.  

Whatever Happened to Global Warming?
Now come the climate scientists' implausible explanations for why the "hiatus" has passed the 15-year mark.  

Wall Street Journal, September 4, 2014  By Matt Ridley

On Sept. 23 the United Nations will host a party for world leaders in New York to pledge urgent action against climate change. Yet leaders from China, India and Germany have already announced that they won't attend the summit and others are likely to follow, leaving President Obama looking a bit lonely. Could it be that they no longer regard it as an urgent threat that some time later in this century the air may get a bit warmer?

In effect, this is all that’s left of the global-warming emergency the U.N. declared in its first report on the subject in 1990. The U.N. no longer claims that there will be dangerous or rapid climate change in the next two decades. Last September, between the second and final draft of its fifth assessment report, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change quietly downgraded the warming it expected in the 30 years following 1995, to about 0.5 degrees Celsius from 0.7 (or, in Fahrenheit, to about 0.9 degrees, from 1.3).

Even that is likely to be too high. The climate-research establishment has finally admitted openly what skeptic scientists have been saying for nearly a decade: Global warming has stopped since shortly before this century began.

First the climate-research establishment denied that a pause existed, noting that if there was a pause, it would invalidate their theories. Now they say there is a pause (or “hiatus”), but that it doesn’t after all invalidate their theories.

Alas, their explanations have made their predicament worse by implying that man-made climate change is so slow and tentative that it can be easily overwhelmed by natural variation in temperature—a possibility that they had previously all but ruled out.

This article is not available on the WSJ website except to subscribers.  Readers may access a large portion of the article HERE with links included.

Save Our Village - U.K.

Google the term, "save our village," and you will find that people everywhere are in the fights of their lives to preserve their way of life and defend against overdevelopment of suburban towns and country villages.  Is there some global conspiracy afoot that wants to see us out of our homes - out of low-density housing - off of the land and into dense, urban centers?   Well, if it isn't a diabolical conspiracy, then it is a mind-meld of gargantuan proportions that is fueled by the ease of travel and cross linkages of ideas and beliefs between countries and continents.

We are living in a global environment where  cultural and social traditions are being trampled upon to make room for the ideas of a few ideologues and the vast array of monied interests that take advantage of the public money and bureaucratic power they control.  Pretty extreme thinking, but when you see the same thing happening over and over all over the world, what other explanation is there?

Save Our Village  

http://www.saveourvillage.co.uk

Save Elsenham and Henham Villages

Today, Monday 2nd June 2014 at 2.00 pm, the Save Our Village Committee delivered a magnificent  2,211  letters from local residents vehemently opposed to the U.D.C Local Plan and the siting of 2100 homes in NE Elsenham. For eight years now the residents of Elsenham, Henham, Ugley and Widdington have    opposed plans to build 2100 homes on high quality farming land between    Elsenham and Henham. The residents, in a four page submission, say the Local Plan is unsound and fatally flawed because:                                                                                             

                                                                                                            
·   it is overdevelopment on the edge of only a key village                                                    
·   coalescence of Elsenham and Henham, destroying the special character of     
    both villages                                                                                            
·   it is not a sustainable location in any sense                                                                     
·   there is inadequate provision for education, health and community services                         
·   the road system serving Elsenham is seriously sub-standard for the              
    establishment of an extra 2,100 homes                                                                                                                         

·   the development would destroy local landscapes and the open countryside   
    and lose a valuable agriculture asset                                                                                           

·   public opinion, as expressed by thousands of objectors is being ignored                               

                                                                                                             

Nick Baker, OBE, Chair of Save Our Villages, said,                                                               

 ‘It is about time that U.D.C saw the stupidity of this housing proposal    and acts before it   is too late. The Government Housing Inspector will   reject this Local Plan as being unsound.  Please U.D.C wake up to this  appalling situation before it is too late, an accept that the Local Plan is   fatally flawed’        

Painting it gold

If money can't produce designs that work, money tries to persuade us that what what we feel and think is wrong, and what is being offered is right.  

Painting it Gold

Spin doctors are trying desperately to get us to believe that Lake Oswego will be a ghost town without their mega-block development.  No vibrancy! The town that wants to live in the past and  watch the future pass by.  That's just silly, but PR people are paid to spray shiny paint on horse manure and call it gold.

The Kessi website is trying hard to get Lake Oswegans  sway the public and the City Council with a petition for people to sign in support of the project.  Maybe someone forgot to update the site, but anyone who didn't testify before the DRC cannot weigh in with testimony before the City Council at the appeal hearing, so what good is a petition except to "spin" the heads of the Council who should be looking at legitimate testimony only.

The website also requests the public to write the Kessi group a letter of support and cc the City Council.  Again, testimony, including friendly letters on the subject of the Wizer Block, is ex parte communication and not allowed.  But what did you expect.  Just because you can't officially "testify," why waste an opportunity to try to influence the outcome in other ways?   Maybe someone should ask City Attorney David Powell if  letters to the council on the Wizer Block constitute ex parte communication.*. If I get more information on that I will let you know and everyone can then flood the Council with their letters and calls.  The same rules should apply to all.  I hear the City Council already has enough past DRC testimony to wade through that it will take all their waking hours from now until the 22nd to read.

During the appeal hearing, will any of the councilors mention these email contacts, or does it count if councilors only converse with people about the Wizer project prior to the appeal?  These quasi-judicial hearings seem pretty messy and political to me.  Who can talk to or write to whom and when?  Let's see what our Councilors (and City Attorney) do regarding these organized attempts to influence them.

*USC Note:  Mr. Powell just confirmed that people who did not testify at the DRC hearing cannot testify at the City Council appeal cannot testify now, and this includes letters and petitions.  For the City Council to read and consider sentiments and arguments from anyone other than those who have standing constitutes ex parte communication and is not allowed.  

Attend the Appeal

• When: Monday, September 22, 6:00 p.m.
• Where: City Hall, 380 "A" Avenue
• What:City Council Appeal Meeting

STILL too big, still trying too hard

The Lake Oswego Review Editors repeated their previous opinion that that the Wizer .  No matter the aesthetic improvements architects make to the Wizer Block mega-block development, it's just too big.  Too massive, too dense, too long - just overwhelming for Lake Oswego.

And it would change Lake Oswego forever.

USC Note:  The DRC denial for the project is based on the fact that it does not meet the letter of the code.  The description of village character and compact shopping district the editorial refers to is the basis of the numerical codes and is part of the codes that must be adhered to.  This important fact is one that the developers exploit to say they "meet the codes" while ignoring the ones they find inconvenient.

Wizer decision isn't about right and wrong; it's about shaping the city's future
Lake Oswego Review, September 4, 2014

What will Jeff Gudman and the rest of the City Council see when they meet to consider the Wizer Block project this month? We hope they see what we do: that decades of planning for a “compact shopping district” with a small-scale village feel can’t be ignored; that you don’t have to accept a pretty proposal just because it meets the letter of the code; that the DRC was right in rejecting the Kessi proposal; and that when you are given an opportunity to shape the future, you grab hold with both hands.

In the end, that is the only “right” thing to do.

Read the entire editorial HERE

No joke

Update:  I have been asked to clarify the purpose of this post.  Some thought I was siding with the property owner in his dispute with the city and that he may have brought his problems on himself.  I agree.  There are two sides to every argument and I do not know all the particulars of this case, nor do I want to.  The points I want to make have to do with how the city handles land use cases.  These issues are important to the city as a whole, but more importantly, important to people's lives and fortunes.  

• Are they consistently fair to each applicant using the same rules and interpretations for each, or are some singled out for harsher treatment?  
• Are there internal communication problem within the city bureaucracy that confuses issues?  Does the staff know the amount if time and money involved in property?  
• Do they ignore or use delaying tactics or regulatory means to make the process more burdensome for the citizens?  
• In their position as city planners, engineers and city manager, do they understand the awesome power they yield over the lives they touch when the write rules, interpret and enforce them - sometimes even playing the judge also?   
• Are rules and enforcement activities even fair to citizens (like Sensitive Lands)?
• Do they do simple tasks like keep records in a professional and retrievable way?  
• And finally - how long does it take to solve a problem?  No matter who caused the problem, if one party has the upper hand, they will have to be realistic and act humanely to get to a decent solution that is fair to all.  

A man walks up to the counter...

............. and asks for a an annexation application.  The bar keep first told him what to do, and then ttold him he was a tree killer and would have to pay thousands of dollars in legal fees, wait for years, and put up with years-long supervision if he ever wanted to have water or sewer for his new home.  

The man thought it was a joke and laughed!  

I didn't say it was a funny joke.    

The joke is that this is what passes for customer service in Lake Oswego City Hall.  

At the City Council meeting on Tuesday night (09/02/2014), a man appealed the denial of his application for the annexation of his property at 14061 Goodall Rd. into the City.  

USC does not know all of the history of this case.  We tried reading through the exhibits for Case Number AN 14-0004 on the city website, but parts of the case are missing, namely the "agreements" between various city departments and the applicant that were referred to in several of the exhibits.  We hope the city puts such agreements in writing.  It is not good for the planning staff to produce exhibits in a judiciary finding that are, in their own words, incomplete.  Be forewarned people - get any agreement with city in writing lest you need it later - and make sure the person has authority to make the agreement.  

The unbelievable part of this case is that it all began when the owner applied for annexation 
8 years ago in June, 20006 (AN 06-0002). 

As USC read through the documents - but not all 165 pages of city produced reports and correspondence - it is possible that there were miscommunications along the way.  There may be a simple explanation and I just don't know enough about annexations to answer this question: 

In Exhibit E-8 in 2006, the Community Development Director says that the applicant will be getting building permits from the county and that the home will be completed under county inspections.  However, in Exhibit E-10 in 2007, an Associate Planner writes to say that, "Typically resource protections designations occur upon annexation and development occurs thereafter."  Hmmm.  I am not an attorney, nor am I a Community Development Director or an Associate Planner, but there seems to be some inconsistency.  You can build with county codes, permits and inspections, but you need to be annexed to the city first which would take you out of county jurisdiction.  The junk keeps piling up from there and the list of "must dos" and finger-wagging gets worse each time.  

Whatever the cause of this dispute, whoever is to blame, 8 years is too long for a solution.  Justice delayed is justice denied.  The code writers, interpreters, enforcers and penalty-creators (aka planners) gave the City Council 2 options for approval or denial of the annexation.  NO ONE would want or should have to endure what the city wants to do to the property owner.   If mitigation is part of a negotiated settlement - where one party does not have an unbelievable power over the other - then why would the city require total legal access to this "private" property via an easement for 3 years to see if progress is being made on the mitigation plan?  Two trips at a time and date agreed to by both parties at the beginning and end of the 3 years to check on the mitigation areas only are all that is needed.  Since it's not necessary, an easement can only be for punishment, power and control.

Reasonable people can come to reasonable solutions.  Taking 8 years with punishing consequences makes the process a joke, but it is no joke to the public that has to live under these rules and this type of enforcement.

HERE's the REAL joke I promised:

A cowboy walked into a bar...

                                       ...................... and ordered a whiskey. When the bartender
                                                                         delivered the drink, the cowboy

asked, "Where is everybody?" The bartender replied, "They've gone to the hanging."  "Hanging? Who are they hanging?" "Brown  Paper Pete," the bartender replied.   "What kind of a name is that?" the cowboy asked. "Well," said the bartender, "he wears a brown paper hat, brown paper shirt, brown paper trousers and brown paper shoes. "Weird guy," said the cowboy. "What are they hanging him for?"

"Rustling," said the bartender.

NOW you can laugh!

Californians close to cliff

California: The state that thinks it's a country and taxes its citizens on the whims of the gentry.  Can we have the science pleases?  They say plastic bags are bad, but we need the data.  Are there more lemmings in Oregon who want to take the rest of us with them to the edge of the cliff?  Just jump already!  I will wave goodby with my recyclable plastic bags.

California Moves to Become First State 
to Ban Plastic Bags
Wall Street Journal, September 2, 2014  By Alejandro Lazo

If Signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, Bill Would Be First Such Statewide Ban in the Country

Paper or plastic?  In California, the latter may soon no longer be an option and the former may come at a cost.

On Friday, the state Legislature passed a bill banning the use of plastic bags at California grocery stores, pharmacies, liquor stores and other businesses. If signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, the bill would institute the first statewide ban on plastic bags in the U.S. A spokesman for the governor said he hasn't taken a position on the issue.

Cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and Portland, Ore., already have such bans in place, as do most counties in Hawaii. The California ban would prohibit the thin, commonly distributed plastic grocery bags in grocery stores and pharmacies beginning July 1, 2015, and go into effect for convenience and liquor stores on that date a year later.  Proponents say plastic bags are rarely recycled and commonly littered.  The plastic often ends up in the ocean, they say, harming sea life.

The final bill, passed Friday by the Senate, would allow reusable plastic bags to be sold at grocery stores, and would also allow paper bags to be sold to consumers for a minimum of 10 cents.

State Sen. Kevin de León, a Democrat from Los Angeles, opposed previous versions of the bill because of concerns that it would harm Command Packaging, a company in his district. The company has since retooled some of its operations to create reusable plastic bags out of recycled agricultural film used for wrapping crops, and Mr. de León, the state Senate's incoming leader, now supports the ban. "This measure is going to prove that a cleaner environment is compatible with expanding the economy and job creation," Mr. de León said. "Part of the bill creates a new market for agriculture film recycling."

Most producers of plastic bags and paper bags oppose the law, saying it would kill jobs and serve as a tax on consumers. The statewide ban is supported by the California Grocers Association, which says it will eliminate a patchwork of local legislations.

"This bill is widely supported by groups representing environmental causes, workers, the poor, and business. It's pretty rare to have such a diverse and sweeping coalition standing behind a policy," California Grocers Association President Ron Fong said in a statement. "This has never been about anything but encouraging Californians to shift habits and use reusable bags."

The United Food and Commercial Workers, a union that represents grocery workers, also backs the ban, saying it wants the money currently spent on plastic bags to be used for worker training and food-safety initiatives.

Mark Daniels, an executive with plastic-bag maker Hilex Poly, in Hartsville, S.C., said the law amounts to a giveaway to grocers in the state, which now will collect a profit from products that they once were required to buy and give away free to consumers at cost. Such plastic bags are popular among consumers, he said, as they are often reused for lunches, lining trash bags or scooping up dog waste, he said.

"If the grocers truly thought that plastic bags were not environmentally friendly, and their customers felt that way and demanded it, every grocer in California can voluntarily give out paper bags if they so choose," he said. "Now they are asking the government to mandate the banning of these bags for their financial benefit."

Off to the races!

ORESTAR

ORESTAR is a campaign watcher's best friend.  This is the Secretary of State's website where election information related to each campaign committee is posted.  There are required filing dates so finance activity cannot be hidden until after the election, but very late contributors can still slip through unnoticed.  For political junkies, this can be a fun site for doing searches on the sources of influence for candidates, and issue-related and political action committees.

Search for candidate, PAC, or other related committees for current and past elections.
Use varying search criteria for a general search.

It is often helpful to look at past elections to see who were the main campaign organizers and contributors to see if there are very many similarities with current candidates.  USC will be reporting on these as time goes on.  There are only 4 of 5 candidates with committees posted, and no financial activity on any as yet.

Note:  Candidates and PACs cannot collect money for their campaigns without registering a formal campaign committee with the Secretary of State.

You can check on data for each candidate's or PAC'c campaign:

• Persons Associated with Committee
• Campaign Finance Activity
• Election Activity Log
• History
• Account Summary

"Village Character"

Village Character: 

 You know it when you see it.  

It's easy to define.
You know when someone is trying to corrupt it. 

The Save Our Village website has the best visual description of "village character" in Lake Oswego.   You will recognize many of the buildings from your strolls around downtown and in Old Town.  This is the design style the Downtown Redevelopment Plan adopted to serve as a unifying, comprehensive design, and unique identity for Lake Oswego, and it is reflected in the codes within the Downtown Design District Overlay.  The original East End Redevelopment Plan set the stage for what Lake Oswegans wanted and how the city was to be developed.  Changes have been made, but the original vision has not.  The village character that defines the city today was cemented in place almost 30 years ago.

Save Our Village, along with other dedicated individuals and downtown business people have led the fight for the survival of our town as a special place to live, to visit, and to do business.  Unfortunately, this endeavor is expensive and difficult, and SOV and others are up against a well-funded, influential group of investors who are expecting to use Lake Oswego as a backdrop for their apartment investment.   DON'T LET THEM DO IT!

I encourage people to visit the SOV website, look at their village illustrations, read what people have to say, and become involved in the movement to keep Lake Oswego unique and livable.  

saveourvillagelo.com

A warning to anyone who lives on the other side of town - the Lake Grovers - please don't think you are safe just because the action right now is downtown.  Big-money development and political forces will soon be challenging our small-town, un-Lake Oswego way of life.  Picture dense, four-story, mixed-use, retail and apartment buildings lining Boones Ferry Rd. with multi-modal connections to regional transit.  Saving Our Village doesn't stop at the end of "A" Avenue.

Real Estate Agency

All licensed real estate professionals in Oregon can be searched for the status of their license.  Below is the information for the realtor, Sandra Bittler, who purchased 2 acres from an elderly couple for a tenth of its real market value.  The license data is not current as Bittler's real estate office has already dismissed her.  Even with a valid license, Ms. Bittler cannot practice without having a parent broker hold the license.  It is still up to the REA to determine if Bittler keeps her license.


                      Real Estate Agency: 
         License Lookup

Scroll down to see Disciplinary Actions for the listed licensee. If Disciplinary Actions do not appear, it means the Agency has no record of administrative actions taken on this licensee.

Lookup Detail View

Name and Address Name                                         Address SANDRA ELAINE BITTLER 8145 SW 57th AVE.   PORTLAND, OR 97219 License Information   License         License Type.   Effective Date Expiration Date Status 200308112 Principal Broker 05/01/2013         04/30/2015           ACTIVE Affiliated With Name                     License         License Type                           Status      Affiliation Date OREGON FIRST    940900500 Registered Business Name ACTIVE    04/26/2011

Generated on:  9/1/2014 3:34:15 PM * For more information about Real Estate Agency and laws concerning real estate practices and professionals in Oregon, see:  Oregon.gov/REA  The REA publishes the Oregon Real Estate News - Journal several times a year as an educational service to Oregon real estate professionals.  Each issue contains the names of real estate agents who have been sanctioned by the agency along with links to the legal actions taken.  The REA is required by law to publish the names and activities of offending agents.

Injustice knows no limits

After about a year of writing this blog, I am going to step outside of my usual topics for just a moment to express my anger towards people who who knew better, but decided to harm others for their own gain.

This story by Steve Duin in The Oregonian has me outraged, and I know my readers will feel the same.  Thank you Mr. Duin for bringing this to our attention, and kudos to Oregon First Realty for their swift, unequivocal response. And lastly, gratitude for neighbors and good people like them everywhere.

Besides the immediate firing of Ms. Bitter, I hope the Real Estate Agency conducts an investigation into her behavior and pulls her license.  Mr. Leland should be given the same opportunity for redemption.

There is no paucity of disparaging remarks for neighbors Bittler and Leland - 757 and counting in only 2 days.  Though they are not asking for anyone to fix their mistake, I hope they will get something more for what is obviously a very valuable asset.mm

To read the entire article - CLICK HERE

The article was updated on August 31.  Follow the link in the article to see what is happening now.  This is not over yet.

Steve Duin:  Two acres,
Two neighboring couples
And a $200,000 misunderstanding

Elmo and Melitta Marquette, on the front porch of their 1923 home in SW Portland (Steve Duin)

The Oregonian, August 30, 2014  By Steve Duin

Update: Oregon First terminates Sandra Bittler, Realtor who bought Elmo and Melitta's Garden Home property

Last November, a two-acre parcel in Southwest Portland sold for $22,000, one-tenth of what Multnomah County considers its real-market value.

Looking downhill at the edge of the disputed property. Steve Duin 

And as I revisit that transaction -- and the two couples at the heart of it -- I want you to reflect on whether something went wrong here ... or whether this story is simply further proof that America is the land of opportunity.

Elmo and Melitta Marquette have lived in their 1923 house on Southwest Garden Home Road for more than 30 years.  He was a long-time plumber; Melitta spend three decades with Veterans Affairs.
They lean on their next-door neighbor, Donna Lee Holmes, now and then, to pick up the new cable boxes, turn off the hazard lights in the new Jeep, and to explain where to file those "free" checks that arrive 
in the mail.

But given their ages -- Elmo is 86, Melitta 88 -- they are admirably self-sufficient.  Elmo is often walking the neighborhood and feeding the birds. Melitta maintains the checkbook, even though she only enters the check amount, not the running balance.

At some point in time, the Marquettes spoke to their neighbors -- Michael Leland and Sandra Bittler -- about selling the two-acre meadow just down the hill and abutting both their properties.
Leland is the president of Mortgage Trust, a Portland lender. Bittler, his wife, is a principal real-estate broker at Oregon First.

"When we first moved in, seven-plus years ago, we saw they had a bunch of land, and we said, 'If you're ever thinking of selling, let us know,'" Leland said.
"Elmo knocked on the door one day and said they were interested in selling. He threw a number out, and we went from there."
That number, according to the sales agreement for the 2.02 acres and the essential easement, was $22,000.
"I didn't read it carefully. I should have, but I didn't. I thought it was $220,000," Melitta insisted last week.  "He (Elmo) got all that mixed up.  When you get older, it's easy to do."

What happens to affordable homes

The Economic Facts of Life

Here are two economic facts of life that are often ignored these days:  

1. Existing homes are less expensive than new construction. 
2. You can't build an existing home. 

Every time another affordable home gets torn down, the income disparity of the  neighborhood widens.  Politicians and office-seekers, administrators and planning staff,
 developers and  development directors, and the chamber of commerce, opine about older

people needing to downsize or "age in place," and young people wanting to move into thecity but need affordable places to live, always talk about the need for NEW development to fulfill those needs.  Read numbers 1 and 2 above and see if this makes any sense, and then ask yourself why presumably smart people say such dumb things. Have you got it yet?   

Have you heard about the 5-story, 56-unit micro-apartments built between 2 houses on a

single 50'x100' lot in a residential neighborhood in Portland?  "Homeowners want city leaders at least to feign interest in their concerns when merrily approving supersized developments that cast shadows – both financial and literal -- over nearby homes."  The Oregonian.


How about the 100'x100' lot reduced to 4 skinny lots just 25' wide in a neighborhood of 50' wide residential home properties.  What will happen to the 2 homes nearby?



In every neighborhood, apartments and commercial buildings are being built that are too big and are disruptive to the locals.  The come without any parking, or far fewer parking spaces than needed.  The number of new residents destroy what made their quiet neighborhoods and their cities special. The locals are fist-shaking mad and can you blame them?  Lowering the quality of life in a city is not "progress."

If there are still adherents to the sustainable-density cause, it's because the movement hasn't come to their neighborhood - yet.  And if they have enough money, it never will.  

If you want to have any influence on Lake Oswego's last, best chance at csaving our city from Metro's fate, it starts with the development codes.  You must speak up now!  Along with others, the Clear and Objective Housing Standards as written, will make things worse than thy are now.  Got involved, and stay involved.  

It's our city after all! 

Neighborhoods no match for excavators

The concept of "neighborhood character" is lost on city staff who see nothing but dirt and splinters where homes and neighborhoods once stood and still stand.  We are in a time of change where those with power don't know the difference between a house and a home.  I guess the Eastmoreland residents should feel lucky.  Did you hear the one about the Portland house that was destroyed to make room for 4 skinny-home lots in a neighborhood of standard single family homes?

Neighbors can't save Eastmoreland home from demolition 
The Bee, August 29, 2014  By David Ashton

Photo Credit: DAVID F. ASHTON - The demolition excavator made quick work of the embattled Eastmoreland house on Rural Street; at the end of the day about all that was left was kindling.

With the mighty crunch of a demolition excavator’s claw, the house at 3620 S.E. Rural Street started being torn to shreds at 8:30 am on Monday, August 4.

In our promised sequel to THE BEE’s story in our July issue, “‘Park-In’ delays Eastmoreland home’s demolition”, the delay in tearing down the home was short-lived.

An effort by neighbors to buy the home from developer Randy Sebastian of Renaissance Homes failed, as did an attempt by the Eastmoreland Neighborhood Association to obtain a 120-day demolition delay.

“In our opinion, the legality of the demolition remains cloudy,” said ENA Land Use Chair Rod Merrick.

The subdivision of the property – enabling the developer to build two houses on the single lot – should have been delayed, under the language of City statute 24.55.200, Merrick asserted.

“But the mandated 120-day delay filed by the neighborhood association was waived by BDS without warning. The developer was allowed to cancel his original filings and replace them with paperwork that supported constructing only one house.”

Demolishing one house and replacing it with a single new one negates the 120-day delay, Merrick pointed out. “As all parties well know, the announced plan is to build two houses on the lot. BDS has decided to administratively move lot lines at this location to facilitate the lot-split.”

Renaissance Homes has reportedly agreed to build the taller of the two new homes on the western end of the property, as a neighbor requested.

“Working with Renaissance Homes was significantly easier than working with the city's Bureau of Development Services,” ruefully remarked ENA President Robert McCullough. “I thank Randy Sebastian and his staff for the two week delay.”

“In the end, the villain in this story is the city,” McCullough told THE BEE. “Randy is a businessperson trying to make a buck. He’s a tough negotiator, but he was honest in his dealings, openly saying what he intended to do was subdivide the property and build two homes.”

ENA has decided not to take the matter to the Land Use Board of Appeals.

“What’s happened here is called, by some, ‘soft corruption’,” McCullough opined. “This isn’t the level of honesty we’d expect from the Portland City Government.”

As the dust from the demolition settled, ENA Board Member Kimberly Koehler commented, “The events at 3620 S.E. Rural have renewed neighborhood interest in distributing a covenant that property owners can attach to their deed, preventing a lot-split, should their home be sold to a developer.”