LD 1481 NOT RESPECTABLE

Thank you to Sara Donnelly for her reporting on LD 1481 (see "No Backsies," May 20). In theory, I can respect its basic premise — that local land use decisions should be made by local planning boards.

And proponents of LD 1481 recognize a real problem — that uncertain regulatory climates can inhibit developers, good and bad, to build. In reality, however, I cannot respect it.

While developers would love for us to think this is just a matter of protecting affordable housing from the not-in-my-back-yard (NIMBY) malcontents, it is also a matter of any locally undesirable land use (LULU) like a Home Depot or a Super-Duper Wal-Mart.

While one industry spokesperson interviewed in your article expressed hope that LD 1481 would "prod citizens to get involved way before the final planning board vote," there is no positive incentive to encourage such involvement, only the status quo we enjoy now.

If the real interests here were to encourage public participation and affordable housing, we might have a law that requires planning boards to notify tenants of public hearings.

In this majority-renter city, the fact that the zero-renter city council appoints a zero-renter planning board to notify only property owners of business before the planning board does not support the premise of this bill that planning boards are legitimate arbiters of land use.

After all, who would be more supportive of building affordable housing than us tenants?

Unfortunately, the only way for tenants to join up with developers of affordable housing and support them at planning board is through an "opt-in" approach, whereby you can email planning division office manager Jennifer Dorr at jmy@portlandmaine.gov and request inclusion on the "interested parties list." Participation shouldn’t be this difficult, but it is.

Kevin Donoghue

Portland

EDER’S EXCITED

Thanks to Sara Donnelly for a well investigated article on the would-be Portland "arts incubator" (please send the file for that fun cover photo of the egg under the lamp). Sara and the Phoenix have contributed to the effort with this indispensable piece (see "Let’s Get Growing," May 20), and we will incorporate these visions into the ongoing, community-informed process of shaping this thing.

I relish the thoughtful and enlightening input from some of the leaders of Portland’s creative community. Many of the ideas in the article are immediately accessible and others are more intriguing and it’s my hope that the incubator will provide a jumping-off place where the contributors to the article can come in and make all of them happen. I’m just ecstatic that whether I talk to bankers, software developers, high production crafts people, heads of successful ad firms, developers, architects, publishers, writers, arts agency heads, or struggling artists that there is so much agreement on what we need to do to make the creative economy in Portland flourish without leaving behind the talented people who make Portland an increasingly desirable place to live.

I now believe this thing was just out there in the collective consciousness and that it chose me to play my part in giving it a push. When my buddy Ari Meil (owner of Warren Machine Company, an independent publishing company) and I were envisioning an "arts incubator" for Portland this past fall and winter, I could not have imagined I would get a chance to share our concept with the Governor and that he would completely light up at the idea and groove on it instantly. I could immediately see we shared this common passion and I believed him when he told me he’d move on the idea no matter how I came down on the budget because he gets it — he recognizes that in order to make the Creative Economy work, we need to get the tools and support to the people who are making it happen organically, and despite obstacles. The Governor has hooked me up with some talented people and though I know we can’t possibly please everybody, I think we’re going to make something that can belong to everyone and something that people will be thrilled to be a part of.

I know I already am.

John Eder

Social Capitalist

Green State Representative, Portland

Chair of Portland Arts Incubator Steering Committee