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Seeds Of SE Uplift – Terry Dublinski-Milton

  • by Kelly Fedderson
  • July 30, 2014July 30, 2014

terry5A passionate and knowledgeable activist, Terry Dublinski-Milton is bringing innovative and eco-friendly ideas to his position as Land-Use and Transportation Chair for the North Tabor Neighborhood Association. Elected in late 2013, Terry has been mobilizing neighbors and neighborhood associations to support safety modernization for East Burnside, including adding high-quality bike lanes. We sat down with Terry to discuss his ideas and experiences thus far in his tenure.

Joining the North Tabor Neighborhood Association was not your first foray into advocacy. You’ve been actively involved in advocacy efforts in Portland for years, particularly those focused on transportation. Can you tell me a little about your past work?

I moved to Portland in ’98 after I did my undergraduate work at University of Wisconsin – Madison and got attached to the Urban Studies Department at Portland State. I completed about a year of courses in the Urban Studies masters program. During this time, we analyzed the Hawthorne Streetscape and I also studied the South Waterfront plan as it developed.

I was drawn to work on active transportation because not only is it about safety, but also climate-change mitigation and health. Our society is heavy in carbon and obese and we need to fix both of those  or they are going to cripple civilization in the long term.

I began with letter writing for various projects and then I went to public outreach meetings for the North Portland Greenway, among others.  I tried to form my own movement – Coping with Bikes – which would help create an integrated ½ mile grid network of residential Greenways connecting the entire area between the river and I-205. It was a great idea, low-cost with high benefits but it didn’t take off. So instead I teamed up with Beth Sanders and we started to rebuild the North Tabor Neighborhood Association. I figured this would be a good way to integrate my ideas – with a few cost effective fixes our neighborhood could have a robust active transportation network.

What have you found to be the advantages and disadvantages of working with transportation and land use issues through the neighborhood system versus outside of it?

We have a lot of different advocacy groups outside the system, and at the same time Portlanders are kind of burned out on advocacy. Volunteers are over-extended and trying to get them to join a new group, when there are already so many out there, is very difficult.

There’s always some tension when you have a new idea, whether you want to work inside or outside the system. Working inside the system, I’ve begun to notice changes, like what Laurelhurst did; they extended their road diet on Burnside. When you’re working from inside the system you can transmit ideas readily within the established structure, which a lot of the time helps get the word out efficiently, but at the same time we’re working inside this big transportation bureaucracy that takes a long time to do anything. Sometimes you have to balance the two and it can get frustrating.

You’ve been quite active in looking for ways to make East Burnside safer for all users. What strategies have you used to engage residents, businesses, and city staff in this conversation and mobilize support? Which were the most effective, and why?

burnside-re-striping-option-1-58th-48th-e1396455497706So far the most effective approach was using the High Crash Corridor Program and forming a group called CURBS (Citizens United Rebuilding Burnside Safely) to access city staff and resources. As far as engaging residents, we’ve gone through the neighborhood association.

One of the ways I’ve engaged is meeting with an engineer at PBOT (Portland Bureau of Transportation) and talking to the pavement people – it’s time for a grind down and repaving of Burnside. They said if we can come up with a new lane configuration for the stretch between 47th and 60th, they hopefully will be able to implement it. So I’ve worked with the Neighborhood Associations and the businesses to get the word out. I’ve also gone door to door on several blocks and multiple businesses. The outreach efforts will increase this fall because East Burnside is scheduled to have sewer pipe repairs next year. After the sewer line, assuming everything lines up right, Burnside would have to be repaved, which increases the opportunity for the changes we are advocating for.

Since a road reconfiguration would require some parking removal, I’ve gathered data on the demand for parking. I’ve done about twenty car counts at odd times of the day, riding up and down the street and counting the cars and where they’re parked. And I’ve figured out exactly where the in-demand spots are and a way to save most of them.

You recently worked with neighbors and a developer to organize an event where people could salvage materials from a house before it was demolished. How did it go, what did you learn from the experience, and would you encourage others to try this?

house2This was a small house and we had a very short timeline, but we managed to salvage a significant amount of things.  What did I learn?  – That you need more lead time. We didn’t have enough time to organize. We needed a series of volunteers to come in and dismantle. There were beams, sheathing, molding, and old rough wood – stuff that if we had had a team of 6 to 8 people, could have been dismantled in the 4 days we planned for. But luckily we were able to get the time extended. The developer was very flexible.

I’d encourage any neighborhood that has a house that is small and decrepit, where saving the house is not worth it, to try this and work with the developers. We were able to salvage appliances, light fixtures, a neighborhood coffee shop got an old floor, siding, sheathing; all sorts of odd stuff, things that would’ve normally been thrown in the landfill. We didn’t take the structure apart. Windows, doors, that sort of thing was saved, which is better than nothing!

But at the same time what I would like to see is an organized effort to dismantle these houses and use the raw materials to build tiny houses or something. There were so many opportunities at this last house that just went away with the bulldozers because we didn’t have the time, man power or organization.

The North Tabor Neighborhood Association is interested in increasing density, maintaining historic housing stock, and providing more affordable housing. Recent experience has shown that doing all three in the same neighborhood can be extraordinarily challenging. What ideas do you have to address all three of these interests?

I would like to see a multiple tiered system for demolitions, where if you are a developer and you come in and have an old house and you say, “I just want to dig it up!” and bulldoze away, the permit is really expensive. Next would be a permit which is not quite as expensive, for the developer who saves, dismantles and donates. The cheapest permit would be if the developer saves at least 50% of the structure and adds onto it.  At the same time, we should change some of the design standards to allow for duplexes, conversions, and more flexible ADUs in lower-density single-family neighborhood.  We also need inclusionary zoning for larger building projects so we can include low income units.

European cities have done this for centuries. They save their existing structures and build onto them. We do not have to have disposable housing, which is what we’re doing right now. Carbon emissions take something like 60 years to recoup when you tear down and rebuild. We could save a lot of that carbon if we just remodeled and added on. It would also allow us to retain neighborhood character, stem demolitions, and get more density to absorb the up to 400,000 people estimated to be moving here in the next 20 years.

Tags:North TaborSeeds of SE Uplift

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Alexander McPherson

Alexander is a native of Portland Oregon and currently resides on the inner borders of the Northeast and Southeast Neighborhoods. 

At the core of his life’s mission is co-creating innovative strategies and solutions to deeply rooted inequalities adopted and perpetuated within our social systems. 

 As a social and civic entrepreneur, Alexander co-leads a community development and investment firm focusing its work on leveraging Public/Private partnerships on community wealth building through land ownership and economic agency. 

 

 He currently serves on the Board of Directors at REACH CDC and works as Program Manager/Liaison for SE Uplift Neighborhood Coalitions Neighborhood Planning Program and Land Use/Transportation Committee. 

Eaen Goss

Eaen provides administrative support to the SE Uplift staff and the communities of SE Portland. They’re excited to work to ensure that community involvement is possible for anyone who wants to take part and are invested in creating a community where everyone (especially BIPOC, queer, disabled, and poor folks) has the access and agency to shape their lives and the place they call home.

 

Eaen’s professional background is in higher education administration and non-profit administration. They received a communications degree from Southern Oregon University in 2014 as well as a Master of Education degree in Student Development Administration from Seattle University in 2016. Their initial goal was to pursue college access work after graduation, but their plans changed when they were drawn to disability justice organizing outside the sphere of higher education.

 

On days off, Eaen is likely spending time with their partner and their two rescue dogs. They also enjoy doing art and working with different community groups in the Portland-area. 

Matchu Williams

Matchu feels fortunate to work with the community in advancing the SE Uplift mission of collaborating to build informed, inclusive, and participatory neighborhoods that support our social and ecological well-being. He looks forward to assisting neighborhood and partnering with the community in building capacity in building equity in their programs for civic engagement.

Matchu holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology with a focus on Women, Gender, and Sexuality studies and Criminal Justice. You may know Matchu from the SE Uplift Board of Directors where he was recently Vice Chair. He brings a wealth of community engagement to SE Uplift having previously served as Chair of Mt. Scott Arleta Neighborhood Association, BikeLoud Memorial Events Coordinator, Arleta Triangle Project Planning Committee, South East in Active Motion Co-Chair, and has volunteered with many groups including Urban Gleaners, Sisters of the Road, SOLVE, Transition Projects, Food Not Bombs, Humane Society of SW Washington, and more.

On his days off he dreams of the next bikepacking (biking + camping) trip. Last year he bikepacked the San Juan Islands and campgrounds in the Cascades. When in town he enjoys cycling, seeing movies on the big screen at the historic Hollywood Theatre, and enjoying food at Portland Mercado with friends.

Matchu is the SE Uplift Liaison for the following neighborhoods: Creston-Kenilworth, Kerns, South Tabor, Foster-Powell, Mt. Scott-Arleta, and Sunnyside.

Leah Fisher

Leah is the SE Uplift Neighborhood Planning Program Manager, and serves as the main point of contact for community members wanting to communicate about Portland’s land use and transportation planning policy and processes. Leah supports SE Uplift’s Land Use and Transportation Committee which meets monthly and represents perspectives of volunteers from each of our twenty neighborhood associations as well as several business associations. Another part of Leah’s multifaceted role is supporting several neighborhood associations.

Leah holds a Master’s degree in Public Health and a Bachelor’s degree in City and Regional Planning, Minor in Economics. She has worked for state and local government, and is a LEED accredited Professional (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).

On any given day, Leah can be found working in her yard or garden, relaxing on the porch with her 2 daughters, playing soccer, jogging, or walking through her Southeast Portland neighborhood.

Leah is the SE Uplift Liaison for the following neighborhoods: Reed, North Tabor, Montavilla, Woodstock, and Brooklyn.

Leroy Eadie

Leroy is the Executive Director for SE Uplift.

He has the wonderful opportunity to work with an outstanding staff and Board to carry out the mission of SE Uplift. He feels very lucky to get to work in such a great community and is excited to his best to make a difference.

Leroy has a bachelors in Urban and Regional Planning from Eastern Washington University. His background has been mostly in local government – working for 25 years for the City of Spokane. Leroy worked for 15 years in the Planning Department and for 10 years as the Parks and Recreation Director.

He loves to be outside on his time off. His favorite outdoor activity is backpacking – in the last five years or so he has been working to complete the Washington Section of the Pacific Crest Trail. He and his wife also love camping in their tear drop trailer with their two dogs Frisky and Charlie.

Leroy is the SE Uplift Liaison for the following neighborhoods: Richmond, Eastmoreland, and HAND.

Paola De La Cruz

Paola is the Communications & Outreach Manager for SE Uplift. Paola’s professional background lies in design and community advocacy. She has worked with non-profits from Boston, MA to the Portland metro area, to campaign for equity and inclusivity.

Paola received a BFA in Illustration under Communication Design. She looks to merge illustration and design with community organizing to bring SE neighbors together.

On her free time, Paola is painting ethereal, powerful women or putting on a 90s R&B concert for her small dog.

Paola is the SE Uplift Liaison for the following neighborhoods: Buckman, Mt. Tabor, SMILE, Laurelhurst, Brentwood-Darlington, and Ardenwald Johnson Creek.