Irving Street Parking Garage Voted down

I walked out of my apartment building on NW Irving Street on Tuesday morning and discovered a flyer had been taped to the front door about a City Council hearing on the proposed Irving Street garage. This 3-story garage would demolish an old building at 2311 N.W. Irving Street. Well, the news this week is that City Council voted against the garage. One of the approval criteria related to pedestrian safety was a deciding factor. Here is a picture I took of the proposed site (which is located just West of Papa Haydn restaurant) this morning on my dog walk.

My favorite quote from the Oregonian article covering the City Council vote came from Vera Katz, who sent her testimony on a disk: "I have to smile when I hear people say we need garages to reduce traffic," said Katz. "That's not the Portland way." Some good background on the dispute in a Mercury article appears here:

http://portlandmercury.com/portland/Content?oid=55918&category=22101

I'm curious to see the actual testimony presented. The City of Portland's website publishes archives of City Council meetings on City Net 30. The meeting on Wednesday night (2/21/07) hasn't been posted yet but check back later here:

http://www.portlandonline.com/index.cfm?c=28259

As you can see from the photo, there are no street trees on this site to speak of, but what you can't see from this picture are the three old Portland homes just to the West of the pale blue low-pro structure. Also, just steps from the proposed site there is a Bigleaf Linden Historic Register tree, which I snapped a photo of.

I have to say, I'm feeling sort of conflicted about what's worse: the impact of lots of new cars (and benzene release) in the neighborhood, or the continued impact of careless street parking on trees large (and small).