June 28, 2016 Salmonberry Trail

I went to a public meeting in Timber last night. The idea they were discussing was a bike (horse, pedestrian) path which would eventually run from Bank (maybe) to Tillamook. The meeting opened my eyes to a few things which are interesting to me. Mostly because this trail brings with it a dichotomy it will create.

For me, the interesting parts of this are the new opportunities for commerce, the new opportunities for public recreation, and the high probability that these trails will forever change the adjoining property into a park, rather than a railroad. This last bit is maybe the most important point.

I have been thinking about how places grow and change for a very long time. The entire reason why the Creekside Farm seems a great location for what we plan is that there is a park-like trail running right in front of it and across the street.  There is a highway leading directly to high paying jobs which is fairly empty when compared to the highways in the city. So the natural hydraulic pressures of transportation will cause people to populate the more open areas. The fact that the land across the street will never become something other than a park is attractive because my view will not change much even as the highway widens to four lanes and sub-divisions become a thing in Manning. The growth of the Metro area into Manning and Buxton is inevitable.

When we came to Portland, twenty-five years ago, the edge of the populated areas stood firmly at the 185th highway exit, now the growth within the little farming communities of north-western Washington County are ten miles past that. The east side of Portland is filled up and the over-flow is coming west. At Cornelius Pass Road the are widening the street to six and a half lanes, four and a half for Heltitia, all to support new industries near Hillsboro. The fact of the matter is that, in a few years, mini-mansions will become the new normal areas like Manning and Buxton because they are a straight drive into town. Just as the growth became the normal around 185th.

The people are coming, the question for planners is: where to allow them to land. But these new people are an inconvenience to those who are already there. Some don't see this change as inevitable and hope to stand in the way of the rising tide. For them these changes bring uncertainty and noise where none had existed.

Most of the people who read this will not be native Oregonians because natives are few. So few will understand the native Oregonian mind-set. This is the same sort of people who once put signs up at the borders of the State which simply said "come, spend, leave" (but not in so few of words.) They like it here, the way it is, and fiercely protect their property rights without thinking about the rights of the property owner next door, especially if that person moved their from somewhere else. These people expect first come, first serve, despite the lack of support for their assertion of privilege. These people abhor progress which changes the character, or threatens to change the character, of the places they love, as such, and wish to pass on to their descendants the same place, the same conditions, the same everything. It is the burgeoning immigrant population which changes things.

The immigrants (like me in the mid-70s), come here and looked at the place with the same love that the Native population had but also brought the wish to change things for what they see as better. These immigrants see the forest as something they would like to see more of, because they are not filled with a lifetime of seeing the forest, and would like a convenient way to see the forest. These new people see the railroad as relic of the bad old days, full of poisonous creosote and railroad noise, so they would rather the forest were made better by removing the train stuff. These new people are not invested in keeping things as they are, and always were, because they themselves have changed what they themselves were. Change for the new people is a part of their lives.

This Timber people, at the meeting last night, was a crowd which had somehow become hostile to the idea of people trapesing through their community. But these people, no matter how appearing, are not stupid, not backwards thinking, and definitely not fooled by the process.

The idea of thousands of individuals riding their bikes over a path which had once carried a logging train brought them all sorts of anxiety. Some of the local people were openly hostile, a few were seething with anger. In the crowd of maybe fifty there were only a few who would embrace the idea of inviting people into their communities. The first was a fellow who owned land which the rail-bed runs through, he was at the end of a major tunnel. The two others were the owners of Jim Dandy Farm and myself, since it may be possible that the trail-head for Salmonberry might be located in Manning. I believe that the two of us see this as an opportunity to find new customers from a class of people who probably will appreciate what we are trying to sell. But for the most part, the patrons of this meeting would rather that the railroad owners disbanded the line and gifted the adjoining owners with a return of the land.

As I said above: I am an immigrant to Oregon. I grew up in a place where they developed nearly everything. Covered over the good with concrete and sprawled their progress as far as the eye and the land could support.  I came to Oregon in my early teens, but never came to be a Native Oregonian.

So I have bought a place which I wish to change into a commercial opportunity to build a life in a beautiful place. The people of Timber can use what I build, but probably won't. So too the people of Manning and Buxton might not come to me to buy the produce of my little farm or enjoy the scenery. And the other fellow at the meeting who already has a place which does much the same as my proposition may not appreciate that I wish to have something akin to the thing he already has, and for that I am confused and sorry.

But I understand the hostility even as I undertake to change the place these people appreciate. Were I in the same position as they I might take another side than the one I take today. My farm will provide goods for the people, clean up a blight on the land, and probably be less successful than I envision. But my farm will also bring people where there were none, traffic where there is little, and the possibility that some locals will feel pressured to clean up their front yards. And they might not like to be made to feel that way. The value I add to their property values cannot truly compensate them for the inconvenience.  I just want to have for my children and grand children the same thing that the natives have had all along.

I apologize, in advance, for my changing their way of life. But the change seems inevitable, the outsiders are coming, I am simply the vanguard, and I hope the change I bring will be better for the changed community than another sub-division.

June 11, 2016 Building Permits and Flood Plains

I spent the week studying up on building permit applications. There is a ton of material to read, separating the wheat from the chaff. Applying for the permit itself isn't much of a problem but the fact that we are in the 100 years flood plain. This may add an extraordinary amount of complication to the project.

• The good news: Once we get the  flood plain thing figured we'll get the permit easily.
• The bad news: The flood plain application is complicated, requires a great deal of information, and the County doesn't show their work.

The first thing I need to find is a Base Flood Elevation (BFE). This will tell me how high up off the ground that my floor must be built. I had an engineering study done early on, there is a BFE of 225 feet on it, but this may not be the officially recognized number. Judging from the GPS data on-line the farm is a fairly consistent 228 feet, so I may not actually be in the flood plain after all. None of the maps show the magic number, so I need to figure it out.

FEMA has re-drawn the flood plain map and the changes will take place in July, but they still don't tell you what the number is or how they figured the BFE. I messed around with overlaying maps on top of each other and came up with my own map:

You would be surprised how difficult it was to make this picture.
The numbers are the elevations at each point.

The elevation of almost all of the Farm is 228 feet. The above image shows that creek drops from 217 feet to 215 feet in about a mile as it runs behind the Farm. The Highway has been re-drawn out of the flood plain for the most part, the red used to cover 240 feet. This would mean that, in a one hundred year flood, Manning would be twelve feet under. This cannot be correct, since Manning has never flooded to this extent. FEMA seems to be a bit too cautious in the case of this map.

While I can't find the number, the map gives me enough clues to make a guess and another clue from another source gives me an idea of how they figure where to put the line:
Near as I can tell, the red line runs out at 238 feet. Since the Creek is at 218 feet, and the Tualitin River's peak flood of 1996 (a one hundred year event) was about 19 feet above normal. Since they would have added a foot for safety, and they didn't do any measurements when they drew the map, I figure they just put twenty feet on top of every number on a topographical map.

This is an abstracted flood level to be sure. But the County is going to try and protect the flood plain from development by adding restrictions and conditions of approval. So I may need to have a hydrologist do some calculations, and then apply for a flood plain change before I make my application.

The creek side of the Farm is 229 to 230 feet, roughly thirteen feet or so above the creek. When the flood happened in 1996 the people who once lived here say the creek came up to 227 feet, so it does flood there. But the magic number is what I am after. How high do I have to build the first floor?

Ideally they will let me build at or below 232 feet, but I am guess they will want something like 237 feet, which is nine feet above the dirt. I hope not, it will look worse and I hate stairs. But what I want is an approval and I will pay nearly any cost. If my front porch is nine feet up, the view will be awesome.

As I said above. if I get the flood plain figured, the rest will figure itself. But the idea of jumping this hurdle makes me nervous.

I did look at other things. My plan is still fairly much the same as when I posted in a few days ago.

Rocketdog Bassets moved to it's own place.

I moved Ann and Rocketdog off of the main blog as we begin serious building prep.

Catch up with them HERE.