Photo by Roo SaBell
Last week, FPC and the Forest Park Neighborhood Association presented our appeal to Portland City Council in order to overturn the City Hearings Officer’s approval of Phase 3 of PGE’s Harborton Reliability Project. We were joined by hundreds of community members who rallied outside of City Hall with us and dozens of people, including members of partner organizations, who gave live testimony in support of Forest Park. Together, the case was made that PGE’s proposal should not be allowed to violate city law, specifically the Forest Park Natural Resource Management Plan. It was also argued that PGE had not demonstrated adequate need for the project or that there were no viable alternatives outside of Forest Park, and that these were also grounds to deny PGE’s application.
At the conclusion of the hearing, Portland City Council voted 12-0 to tentatively grant our appeal and stop PGE’s project to cut 4.7 acres of trees, fill two wetlands, and impact streams in Forest Park. City Council will reconvene on May 7th to approve the written findings drafted by the City Attorney and to finalize this decision. We thank Portland City Council for weighing all of the facts on the record and for listening to the well-reasoned arguments in opposition to PGE made by their constituents.
More updates to come after Portland City Council finalizes their decision. Additionally, PGE may try to appeal this decision to the Land Use Board of Appeals. If they do, FPC will be involved in any way we can be to continue advocating for Forest Park. For now, thank you to everyone who supported our appeal. Take some time to congratulate yourself on a job well done, we could not have done this without the overwhelming support of our community behind us.