Village Character:
You know it when you see it.
It's easy to define.
You know when someone is trying to corrupt it.
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.
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.
:)
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