In 2007, SERA organized an interdisciplinary team charged with creating a neighborhood plan for East Hayden Island, a Portland community that sits in the Columbia River between Portland and Vancouver, WA. In addition to planning for and conducting a multi-day charrette, SERA’s focus was land use and urban design, including identification of the preferred light rail transit station location. SERA also worked with island property owners to demonstrate how redevelopment could take advantage of the proposed transportation/transit investment represented by the Columbia River Crossing (CRC) project.
SERA staff facilitated a five-day Community Design Workshop, an intensive charrette during which the team drafted a preferred concept plan for the island. The charrette included four evening events for the general public, two Steering Group meetings, two Technical Advisory Committee sessions, a neighborhood tour for stakeholders, a series of public “coffee breaks” and “office hours,” and many hours of design time. The concepts that resulted served as the basis for the final preferred plan.
The preferred plan demonstrated how a regional retail mall could be redeveloped over several phases into a mixed-use, transit oriented district with a significant residential component. This work entailed the conceptual development of a new street grid/block pattern within the island’s core. Working with traffic engineers, SERA defined a highly transit-supportive mixed-use development program that could be achieved without exceeding highway interchange capacity.
