State of Emergency for Housing and Homelessness in Portland and City Club Affordable Housing Forum

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Portland Mayor Charlie Hales has declared a state of emergency for housing and homelessness in the city. With a vacancy rate of 2.5-3.2%, less than half of that in a healthy housing market, and a 30% increase in rents in that last 5 years, it certainly feels like a state of emergency to everyone from the homeless to the working poor to artists and even to middle class professionals. City Club held the first of a two-part forum on Friday to address the issue of affordable housing. On the panel were Israel Bayer, executive director of Street Roots, Martha…

July 28, 2010

Phoenix Planning Manager Carol Johnson Reveals the Strategy for Downtown and the Light Rail Corridor

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Below is my conversation with Carol Johnson, the Planning Manager at the City of Phoenix about what’s next in terms of codes, walkability and making our city more livable on the whole: Blooming Rock: What’s your position in the city? Carol Johnson: My title is Planning Manager. I oversee our long range planning division, that includes the planners that staff that Village Planning Committees. We have 15 Village Planning Committees which are like mini Planning Commissions throughout the city to help break it up into more manageable pieces because we’re over 500 square miles. There used to be one…