Portland, Oregon is the bizarro world of American metropolitan areas when it comes to politics and social culture. Its weirdness is based off of very hardcore liberal politics. With that, they draw a hoard of drug abusing drifters to the city who live outside, mostly by choice. The city is very accepting of its drifter drug user population and on the surface, they tend to value them more than actual citizens.
Now the city’s planning commission is pushing that private land owners (apartment and condo builders) make areas for homeless people to rest whenever they develop land. This is of course causing a major rift with developers.
Here’s more from Willamette Week:
If a majority of the Portland Planning and Sustainability Commission has its way, new private buildings downtown will be required to include spaces where houseless Portlanders can “rest,” which could include sleeping and pitching tents.
Magnera’s proposal would stretch what’s asked of developers and owners of new private buildings, such as stores and apartment complexes.
“Sitting is brief,” she said, “but the reality of the housing shortage is, folks need to rest on a longer-term scale.”
Ultimately, the commission voted 5-4 to approve the more expansive language. (Houck, Schultz and Bortolazzo didn’t return calls or declined to comment.)
Bachrach is strongly opposed to the idea of requiring developers to include design features that would promote camping, saying it is counter to existing policy and beyond the purview of the commission.
