Ancil Nance “public housing" idea. Actually, the key to making densities workable is design and quality. If you provide for various kinds of setbacks, courtyards, gardens and such, high densities can be quite pleasant. Even more pleasant, higher housing densities further our potential for community self-reliance by making possible greater energy efficiency and decentralization of energy sources. Common wall construction, for example, saves on building materials and saves on heating costs. Individuals interested in more energy-efficient homes can explore building their own passive solar homes, weatherizing existing homes, or attachment of a food and heat-producing solar greenhouse. Portland Sun and Eliot Energy House (see Resources) offer classes to help do-it-yourselfers. —Mark Roseland first requires better management of shelter resources. Few governments have begun to plant the trees needed for lumber, to plan the public services, or to develop the land-use policies essential for meeting future housing demand. Concentrating government expenditures in this way will ultimately generate far more housing than comparable government expenditures to build new homes." A progressive program for housing and neighborhoods might be based on such principles as; (1) reducing speculative, private ownership; (2) increasing public control of housing finance capital and reducing the dependency of housing on private mortgage credit; (3) increasing social control of housing production (including land, materials, design and development); (4) increasing the viability of lower income neighborhoods and expanding housing mobility for lower income and minority households; (5) increasing popular control over housing decisions (at the building, block and neighborhood level); and, (6) increasing public funding for housing and community development by relocating existing revenues and developing more progressive forms of taxation. Examples of strategic housing organizing efforts which reflect these principles include: campaigns for progressive rent control and condominium conversion control, and demands for a set-aside of development profits from publicly-assisted projects for purposes benefiting lower-income families. The Metropolitan Service District (Metro) has projected a 40 percent population increase for the region by the year 2000. How can we "encourage the availability" of needed housing? • By making fees charged to new housing reasonable and fair. • By revising ordinances and standards for housing which are unnecessary or wasteful. • By revising the ways communties plan and pay for major extension of services and facilities. • By experimenting with mixed-use zoning, clustering, and Planned Unit Developments. There are other important ideas to consider as well: • Design new residential developments/units to make maximum use of solar exposure. • Encourage common-wall or attached dwellings. • Add-a-rentals • Infilling • Cooperative living arrangements (e.g., "shared housing") • Creative financial/ownership mechanisms (e.g., "mingles") Increasing housing density does not have to mean sacrifices in our quality of life. When Frank Ivancie was running for Mayor of Portland and stirring people up about the Comprehensive Plan, he was envisioning row houses, ghettoes and other remnants of the old Transportation Twenty-seven percent of all energy consumed in Portland is used for transportation. Autos guzzle almost 40 percent of the 6.7 billion barrels of oil used in the United States every year. In 1978 foreign imports of petroleum products accounted for 43 percent of the country's total petroleum consumption. In 1972 it was only 29 percent, and Oregon, now as then, must import all of its petroleum products. The growing dependency of our nation on foreign energy sources has compounded our vulnerability to other nations. So, transportation is an energy issue. It's also a political issue, a land use issue, and an economic issue. The city of Portland's Energy Policy addresses the need for revised transportation options through five of its general goals: 1. To locate more single-family residential areas near major industrial employers and near where "new" regional transit facilities are to be sited; 2. To provide more crosstown transit service from residential areas to commercial centers and major industrial facilities; 3. To increase development of labor-intensive industries, commercial centers, and high- and medium-density apartments along major transit corridors and near where "new" regional transit stations are to be sited; 54
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz