Equitable Land Use

Fighting for Fair and Equitable Land Use Decisionmaking Processes

Developing creative solutions for community harms created by historical acts and legacy systems is what makes working in the environmental justice field so rewarding – and also so difficult. Today, a person’s race and income are the biggest determining factors to their proximity and exposure to high polluting facilities. But where you live is heavily influenced by zoning policies of the past. At Crag, we have been working hard with our clients to advocate for the inclusion of environmental justice (EJ) in our land use laws. This means both improving laws and holding local governments accountable for their fair implementation.

Photos of community members at Portland City Hall by Parkrose and Argay Opportunity Coalition.

A Neighborhood Fights Back:

Protecting Students from Toxic Traffic

For nearly three years, we helped fight back against the development of a 244,000 square foot warehouse being built next door to multiple apartment complexes and directly across the street from Parkrose Middle and High School. The surrounding Argay Terrace neighborhood ranks 8 out of 94 in neighborhoods with the most racial and ethnic diversity in Portland. And a 2019 Multnomah County report found that 70% of Parkrose students are BIPOC (top 1% diversity in Oregon), and 74% of students come from low-income households. The area is already exposed to a disproportionate amount of diesel pollution and has relatively high rates of asthma. There were significant concerns regarding the impact that potentially hundreds of trucks coming to and from and idling at the warehouse would add to these environmental injustices.

Community members first brought the project to Crag’s attention in 2021 when the permitting process was just getting started. Crag helped these community members understand what local laws required for the construction, coordinated with students and leaders at the Parkrose School District, and attempted to negotiate with city officials to address the impacts of idling diesel trucks and traffic on this already environmentally overburdened community.

Community members were also concerned that the warehouse would also increase traffic on an already dangerous intersection and what has been designated as a high crash street by the Portland Bureau of Transit. Many students of Parkrose Middle and High School rely on this intersection to get to school. The significant increase in heavy freight trucks barrelling through the streets of the area is a major risk.

Despite all of these concerns, the City approved the project without utilizing its authority to consider off-site impacts and its goal of preventing “repetition of the injustices suffered by communities of color throughout Portland’s History.” The City did not use any of its authority to condition the permit in order to alleviate the warehouse’s air pollution or traffic risks. 

The fight against the warehouse is an important precedent not only for the community surrounding the warehouse but for making sure the City’s practices line up with their environmental justice goals in future actions. Portland (and Oregon generally) has a history of discriminatory zoning practices, which has led to high polluting and harmful facilities in vulnerable and already overburdened communities. Communities of color continue to be exposed to disproportionate environmental burdens in Portland.

Healthy Communities Act: Continuing the Fight

We’re proud to  have supported a broad coalition of organizations including Neighbors for Clean Air, Verde, Beyond Toxics and 1000 Friends of Oregon to advance a bill in the 2025 Legislative Session that, if passed, would have created a public health impact analysis for zoning decisions to ensure that industrial uses are not sited near sensitive uses such as schools, parks, care facilities, and hospitals. This issue is by no means unique to Portland, and only further exacerbated the need for proactive, community involved zoning practices that protect those most vulnerable to the harmful effects of industrial pollution.

What’s next?

Eugene Public Health Standards in Industrial Zoning

The City of Eugene is currently in the process of updating its land use code to address and remedy the public health impacts that industrial development has on the environment and neighboring communities. We have been supporting Eugene-based nonprofit Beyond Toxics in the public participation process at the City. If meaningfully implemented, the Public Health Standards project has the power to take a responsible, proactive approach to preventing the environmental and health impacts that industrial uses have in EJ communities.

Community members, particularly in West Eugene, are not strangers to the impacts that unchecked and irresponsibly sited industrial uses have on their health. In 2019, 550,000 pounds of toxic emissions were released in the West Eugene neighborhood. This concentrated pollution accounted for 96% of all the emissions released in the City of Eugene for that year. This pollution persists due to outdated zoning laws, housing built near pollution, and weak air regulations.  As this Commission continues to develop draft code amendments, we support Beyond Toxics in urging the City to meaningfully address the impacts community members have experienced as a result of industrial development.

We have also been supporting Beyond Toxics in challenging approval of a fuel transloading facility that is proposed to be sited neighboring residential uses and route trucks directly through an environmental justice community. The City of Eugene approved the facility which would offload liquid fuels from trains onto trucks that would then deliver the fuel regionally. Beyond Toxics and local community members were concerned about the air quality and safety impacts this facility would have on the surrounding neighborhood, which is an environmental justice community that has already experienced disproportionate amounts of environmental harm from surrounding toxic uses and the railyard. 

Photo by Jim Allen, FreightWaves.

Community members, particularly in West Eugene, are not strangers to the impacts that unchecked and irresponsibly sited industrial uses have on their health. In 2019, 550,000 pounds of toxic emissions were released in the West Eugene neighborhood. This concentrated pollution accounted for 96% of all the emissions released in the City of Eugene for that year. This pollution persists due to outdated zoning laws, housing built near pollution, and weak air regulations.  As this Commission continues to develop draft code amendments, we support Beyond Toxics in urging the City to meaningfully address the impacts community members have experienced as a result of industrial development.