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WHEREAS, Albina was once home to 4 out of every 5 Black families in Portland – a thriving, creative, and affordable neighborhood consisting of Black-owned businesses, homes, and faith institutions; was a cultural capital of Portland with world-class jazz venues, environmental justice initiatives, and education models created for and by Black Portlanders; and was decimated by decades of disinvestment, urban renewal, and racist public policy; and

WHEREAS, the City of Portland recognizes the role it has played throughout the past 70 years together with other public sector institutions in destroying the vibrant Lower Albina neighborhood; displacing Albina residents, who were primarily Black families; and creating severe generational hardships that still color the present day; and 

WHEREAS, the Portland City Council continues to work alongside Albina Vision Trust in advancing efforts toward restorative justice and wealth creation to in part repair significant past harm and trauma on Portland’s Black community resulting from the systematic destruction of the Albina neighborhood, which has been estimated to have resulted in Black Portlanders losing over $1 billion in lost wealth; and

WHEREAS, Since 2012, the Portland City Council adopted a number of foundational plans and guiding policies—including the Portland Plan, the 2035 Comprehensive Plan, the Central City 2035 Plan, and the N/NE Quadrant Plan—that support the establishment of a reconnected, mixed-use residential neighborhood in the Lower Albina area and promote inclusive economic development with emphasis on elevating communities that have been disproportionately burdened, and were sometimes intentionally harmed by past governmental actions; and

WHEREAS, the Central City 2035 Plan contains specific actions for the city's participation in the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project (I5RQ), and directs relevant City bureaus to work cooperatively to ensure all elements of the project identified in the I-5 Broadway-Weidler Facility Plan are implemented to integrate the project with efforts that advance community and regional goals in Lower Albina; and

WHEREAS,consistent with the City of Portland’s core values, key bureaus partnering on projects and planning initiatives in the Lower Albina area center equity and racial justice in their work, engaging underrepresented communities and endeavoring to dismantle institutional racism and acknowledge and correct past harms. Each are guided by their respective equity policies, including PBOT’s Transportation Justice Framework; Prosper Portland’s Equity Framework; and the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability’s Strategic Plan that promotes supporting community-led efforts, engaging with underrepresented communities in long range land use planning processes, and evaluating the benefits and burdens associated with land use policies and regulation.

WHEREAS, the City of Portland is supporting a variety of complementary planning efforts and projects in the Lower Albina in an effort to advance multiple City objectives for the area that include fostering wealth-building and inclusive economic development, vibrant regional entertainment venues, and multimodal regional and local transportation in the area; and

WHEREAS, the City of Portland and Rip City Management are jointly working on new Rose Quarter operating and lease agreements to support the ongoing operations of the Moda Center and Veterans Memorial Coliseum, regionally economic significant facilities that annually host over 260 events, 1.7 million visitors, generate $600 million in economic output, and support nearly 6,000 jobs as a key anchor to fulfilling the goals of the Central City 2035 Plan; 

WHEREAS, the Albina Vision Trust, a 501(c)3 community-led development organization, was created in 2017 to steward the vision for the future of Lower Albina: a nationally precedent-setting, 94-acre restorative redevelopment plan for the area; the largest such initiative in the United States with a holistic, child-centered, district-level plan for the creation and generational sustenance of a diverse, abundant and historically informed zip code in the heart of Portland’s central city; and

WHEREAS, the Albina Vision Trust Community Investment Plan  provides a 50-year vision for re-establishing a neighborhood that provides housing and supports wealth-building for Black Portlanders; the vision was created through an extensive three year community visioning process, in coordination with Metro and the City of Portland and engaged community elders, youth, property owners, philanthropic partners, faith-based institutions, public entities, technical experts, planners, architects and designers throughout the plan while centering the voices of Black Portlanders to demonstrate community authorship as well as a commitment to invest financially in community development and placemaking in Lower Albina; and

WHEREAS, Albina Vision Trust has demonstrated success and continued momentum for the broader district stewardship and development in Albina, including an established resolution from the Portland Public Schools (PPS) Board of Education granting Albina Vision Trust a right of first offer on the 10.5-acre  Dr. Matthew Prophet Educational Service Center property in 2021; an additional resolution from the PPS Board committing the school district to a 12-month timeline for the identification of a new headquarters, clearing the way for Albina Vision Trust acquisition of the site; was jointly awarded the Reconnecting Communities planning grant with the City of Portland in 2023; and initiated development of Albina One, a 94-unit affordable housing project in Lower Albina in 2023 funded in part with Portland Housing Bureau investments; and

WHEREAS, in June 2022, City Council approved an IGA with the Oregon Department of Transportation providing $6.2 million to fund city staff services  across a number of city bureaus to coordinate on and facilitate the design of the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project (I5RQ), including engagement with the Historic Albina Advisory Board, the design of the highway cover, reconnected local street design, and consideration of future development and governance of projects on the cover that directly benefit Portland’s Black community; and

WHEREAS, Albina Vision Trust secured an additional $25 million dollars from the State Legislature in March 2024 to facilitate the acquisition, predevelopment and demolition of the PPS parcel; secured an unprecedented $450 million dollars in federal funding in collaboration with the Oregon Department of Transportation, which will restitch the district by constructing a buildable highway cover over Interstate 5, transform the streetscape of the neighborhood, and accelerate the generational work of rebuilding Albina; and secured a resolution from the Oregon Transportation Commission unanimously approving the creation of a work plan to determine and collaboratively work towards the regulatory changes necessary to grant Albina Vision Trust stewardship of governance and air rights over the eventual I-5 highway cover and adjacent, surplus lands; and                                                          

WHEREAS, in FY 2019-20 Portland City Council allocated a one-time discretionary budget amount of $75,000 from the General Fund for AVT and the Metro regional government awarded an additional $375,000 grant through its 2040 Planning & Development Grant program to create the Community Investment Plan; and

WHEREAS, in FY 2022-23 Portland City Council allocated $800,000 in one-time General Fund resources to AVT via the annual budget process for master plan development and land banking for future development, and designated Prosper Portland as the administrative entity for the funding; and

WHEREAS, City Council supported AVT through $145,000 of funding for City bureaus to provide technical assistance on the Community Investment Plan and for the Albina/Lloyd Waterfront Study, which is studying the feasibility of redeveloping the former Thunderbird Waterfront site to host a publicly accessible arts hub, waterfront open space, and possible other supporting uses; and

WHEREAS, in February 2023, AVT and PBOT were awarded an $800,000 Reconnecting Communities Grant to support the Reconnecting Albina Planning Project, an area planning process that will include a community engagement plan, land use framework plan, public realm/urban design framework plan, street framework plan, and community funding/financing strategy, all in an effort to specifically support a community-centered development program to benefit Portland’s Black community, and as a result, all Portlanders; and

WHEREAS, the City of Portland has further received an intent to award a $38.4 million USDOT Neighborhood Access and Equity Grant to support the Broadway Main Street Project and Supporting Neighborhood Connections – a project intended to restore a neighborhood main street along NE Broadway and NE Weidler between N Larrabee and NE 7^thAvenue - in direct connection to the Albina Vision Trust’s redevelopment of the PPS parcel and the Rose Quarter Improvement Project and with explicit acknowledgement by the USDOT that this funding was awarded as a result of the nationally precedent-setting work of Albina Vision Trust and the momentum created by close public-private partnerships at the local, statewide and national levels.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Portland City Council accepts and acknowledges the Albina Vision Trust Community Investment Plan, as a visionary framework for equitable economic, social and environmental innovation in Portland’s Central City; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that City Council affirms the City objectives for the Lower Albina area are to establish a reconnected and thriving neighborhood and entertainment district that fosters inclusive economic development opportunities with an emphasis on reclaiming home and rebuilding wealth for historically displaced communities; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that through ongoing collaboration, the City, in partnership with the Albina Vision Trust, will work closely with the Oregon Department of Transportation, Rip City Management, and the community at-large to deliver numerous planning efforts and projects in the area that together will achieve the collective long-term vision of a diverse, reconnected and thriving neighborhood and entertainment district; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the City of Portland is the recipient of a U.S. Department of Transportation Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program grant, a partnership between the City and AVT as memorialized in the project charter, to develop a framework plan for the Lower Albina area.; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that in recognition of Albina Vision Trust as a critical stakeholder and steward of the community’s shared redevelopment vision for Lower Albina, the City of Portland will work together with AVT to support implementation of the CIP; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, PBOT, as part of the Reconnecting Albina and Broadway Main Street Planning Projects, will explore necessary next steps for long term community use and/or ownership of the potential opportunity site along the public right-of-way of North Larrabee Avenue, currently owned by PBOT; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the City will integrate its role as property owner as well as technical advisory, regulator and convenor as part of a visioning process for future needs and uses in the district as part of the Reconnecting Albina Planning Project; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Reconnecting Albina Planning Project will develop for consideration potential 2035 Comprehensive Plan and Central City 2035 policy amendments addressing issues including, but not limited to restorative development, design guidelines and placemaking to restore Albina’s district identity, and the implementation of community-led, district-wide redevelopment plans in Lower Albina and its connection to neighboring districts; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Portland City Council shares the values of the Albina Vision, the largest restorative redevelopment vision in America centered around the reinvention and transformation of Lower Albina into an accessible, activated and youth-centered community geared towards creating opportunities for marginalized and historically displaced Portlanders to thrive, build wealth and reclaim home; and 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Portland City Council supports the partnership between the Albina Vision Trust, Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, Prosper Portland, and Bureau of Transportation and anticipates periodic updates to City Council jointly organized by the named parties; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that this resolution will take effect on July 31, 2024.