Beaverton? (Portland, Hillsboro, Sherwood: buying a house, neighborhood, to live in)

[doggiemama]

Thank you for the article, hamellr. Nice to know the reason for the "island."

[Deezus]

Originally Posted by hamellr

BTW, a decently even handed article about the City's attempt to annex Nike's property is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/bu...8782.html?_r=0

I've heard, but have not been able to collaborate, is that Nike also preferred to stay with the County for a variety of reasons. They had faster Police and Fire response times. They allowed Nike to get away with a lot of things such as the custom street signs along Murray and Jenkins. They're more lax then the city about OKing building permits, which is a huge deal as they're constantly remodeling the internals of buildings.

The costs to Nike go beyond the additional $700,000 a year in property taxes to the point that they potentially affect business and employees to be able to work.

I've got no problem with Nike trying to protect their interests--or Columbia or Tektronics--and I'm not in Washington County so I don't really have a dog in this fight nor do I assume I've heard the entire story of what's gone on the past between Washington County and Nike. If the City of Beaverton hadn't been sort of underhanded with their possible future plans to annex that area it might not have gone over so badly. You'd think though that if they were to ever annex that area they'd be willing to compromise in hearing Nike's concerns--no point in disturbing the golden goose. The police and fire response times is something I wasn't familiar with. It's interesting though that even SW Jenkins Road is officially in the city boundaries of Beaverton--however everything around it in that section of town is unicorporated county land.

And besides any money Nike saves in property taxes can go towards Phil Knight supporting my favorite college football team and their snazzy new Nike-designed uniforms. Let's go Ducks!

[Bluesmama]

Poeple get embarrassed by the stupidest things. When I lived in Beaverton, it's name was the least of my concerns. Kinda' liked it, in fact.

[Nell Plotts]

Even I didn't know the source of the name of Beaverton but it makes sense. With this in mind, assuming it starts to rain one day, make sure your home-site is well above the 100-year floodplain or buy flood insurance. BTW "100-year floodplain" means that the odds are high that you will get your foundation very wet soon, the 100-year standard is idiocy. My DD Father worked for the Corp of Engineers, I know of what I am speaking. I remember the Vanport Flood. [OK, I admit I am old.]

Now I will start my soils lecture: Back in the day, before we covered our land with houses and streets, rain had the opportunity to filter down through the soil. Now there is significantly less permeable surface and rain water runs off quickly to lower areas. Land use planners have not enforced 'wetlands' set-a-sides that were negotiated as a part of developments - they have been filled in. We have been dry for many months, the soil isn't prepared to handle a lot of rain in a short period of time (soils engineer know of what I speak). We will have a lot of standing water for a couple days and our roads have accumulated a lot of oil. It might as well be ice.

[Minervah]

Originally Posted by Nell Plotts

Even I didn't know the source of the name of Beaverton but it makes sense. With this in mind, assuming it starts to rain one day, make sure your home-site is well above the 100-year floodplain or buy flood insurance. BTW "100-year floodplain" means that the odds are high that you will get your foundation very wet soon, the 100-year standard is idiocy. My DD Father worked for the Corp of Engineers, I know of what I am speaking. I remember the Vanport Flood. [OK, I admit I am old.]

Now I will start my soils lecture: Back in the day, before we covered our land with houses and streets, rain had the opportunity to filter down through the soil. Now there is significantly less permeable surface and rain water runs off quickly to lower areas. Land use planners have not enforced 'wetlands' set-a-sides that were negotiated as a part of developments - they have been filled in. We have been dry for many months, the soil isn't prepared to handle a lot of rain in a short period of time (soils engineer know of what I speak). We will have a lot of standing water for a couple days and our roads have accumulated a lot of oil. It might as well be ice.

So does that mean those horrible monstrosities going up in the SE and NE neigborhoods that will be cramming people in like sardines will be causing floods in the neighborhoods? As it is, the storm drains in the streets back up during heavy rains and the street corners look like rivers.

There is one of these abominations scheduled to be built on the NW corner of 27 and Hawthorne. Right now there are two beautiful 105 year old houses converted to businesses. These will be torn down. Next to them is a nice piece of land with some trees and bushes.

[Nell Plotts]

A soils engineer looking at storm runoff really doesn't care about the monstrosity above ground. They look at the ratio of permeable to impermable surface and the infasctruture to capture storm water. The traditional approach for the building department is to require an applicant to install an impermeable surface for driveways and parking (for example), then a drain. A wiser approach, IMHO, is to use open cell pavers that permit water to seep through the soil filtering surface contaminates.

FYI, not spell checked.. two glasses of wine... woo hoo!

[SETabor]

The City of Portland has pretty strict stormwater standards as they don't actually want any more water in the storm sewers. If you put in a new building, you have to deal with the stormwater. Ideally, by not having any stormwater leaving the site through use of swales, green roofs, permeable pavement or other infiltration facilities. If that can't be done, then there is usually some water collection facility that will release the water over time to the storm system so there's not a huge surge to the system with a storm. In addition, the city is adding a lot of green streets improvements to capture stormwater and infiltrate it, water that would normally go to the storm system.

[hamellr]

It's my experience that Willamette Valley's soil makeup is a lot different that Tualatin Valley. TV tends to be clay based and hard packed, which leads to a lot of storm runoff holding ponds being built through out the area.

Willamette Valley tends to be more "normal" diry and can handle a lot more run off before flooding. Although Portland is wise to enforce new methods of storm water control, Beaverton and Hillsboro really need it more.

Of course I bow to Nell's far superior knowledge in this area, geology is not my forte.

Anyone remember the big flood back in the mid 90's that closed Highway 99 and pretty much cut Newberg/McMinnville off from Portland?

[Minervah]

Originally Posted by hamellr

It's my experience that Willamette Valley's soil makeup is a lot different that Tualatin Valley. TV tends to be clay based and hard packed, which leads to a lot of storm runoff holding ponds being built through out the area.

Willamette Valley tends to be more "normal" diry and can handle a lot more run off before flooding. Although Portland is wise to enforce new methods of storm water control, Beaverton and Hillsboro really need it more.

Of course I bow to Nell's far superior knowledge in this area, geology is not my forte.

Anyone remember the big flood back in the mid 90's that closed Highway 99 and pretty much cut Newberg/McMinnville off from Portland?

Was that the one where people were volunteering to sandbag the river in downtown Portland because they were afraid it would rise and flood 2nd Ave?

[EnricoV]

Originally Posted by Minervah

Was that the one where people were volunteering to sandbag the river in downtown Portland because they were afraid it would rise and flood 2nd Ave?

Yeah, that was it.