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The LatestTo serve and not protectThe Gorge Commission imperils what it should improve The Columbia River Gorge Commission gazed upon a glorious opportunity this week -- then squandered it. Instead of taking the win that was right there on Tuesday's table, the commission set a course for years of litigation and ongoing degradation of the asset it is charged to protect. What a waste. More than 20 years ago, as Portland geared up for one of its periodic growth spurts, it seemed all but certain a strip mall would spill east, snaking through the gorge. A group of activists formed the Columbia Gorge Coalition and called for the area to be protected as a national park. Uncle Sam responded instead to a competing group -- Friends of the Columbia Gorge -- that coalesced around the idea of federal Forest Service protection for a fresh construct dubbed a national scenic area. As part of that preservation package, the government -- recognizing that people had lived in the gorge for thousands of years -- set aside 13 areas in which urban development might continue. Tuesday, the Gorge Commission voted to bust those borders. The Stevenson family, owners of the Broughton Lumber Co., won an amendment to the commission's land-use management plan so that it might develop its abandoned mill site across the Columbia from Hood River. That land was zoned commercial recreation, a designation that permitted construction of a cluster of cabins and scores of RV sites. But what the Stevensons wanted to build was Broughton Landing, an upscale development that will feature hundreds of something called residential units. What, you wonder, is a residential unit? It's a home in which the owners are limited in the number of nights in which they may actually sleep each year. What is afoot here, in other words, is the creation of a neighborhood disguised as a resort, the carving out of a de facto new urban area in the gorge. Let us make this clear: Nobody here is suggesting this land not be redeveloped. The question is the scale -- and the character -- of that development. The bi-state commission missed an opportunity to fine-tune the economic viability of the Broughton proposal. It could have harnessed state and federal resources to reduce the costs of needed infrastructure -- road improvements, a sewer and water supply system -- thus enabling the property owner to proceed with a much smaller-scaled -- and vastly more appropriate -- development. Instead, the commission heads now to court. During the coming all but certain years of litigation, no improvements will be made to this eyesore of riverfront property. That means no enhanced tax base will be blessing Skamania, the county so sorely in need of a boost. With its action, the commission failed this week in its primary charge. It imperils, rather than protects, the gorge. |
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