Kerns Neighborhood Applies for Permit Parking

The Kerns neighborhood in inner Northeast Portland is the first to request a "mini" permit-parking area under a program the City Council passed last summer.

Neighborhood residents in Kerns (here's a map) are seeking to require permits around Benson Polytechnic High School, where commuters often stash their cars before grabbing the MAX in the nearby Lloyd District.

"There's a lot of problems with people park-and-riding," says Brendon Haggerty of the Kerns Neighborhood Association, "or hide-and-riding, if you know what I mean."  

Portland Bureau of Transportation spokeswoman Cheryl Kuck says the bureau is determining the boundaries of the district, and will soon mail a letter to every resident within the proposed parking area, asking them to vote on the program. Every household gets one vote.

But Kuck says PBOT still hasn't received any requests from the neighborhood most often suggested for a "Mini Area Parking Permit Program"—the Richmond neighborhood around Division Street, rent by controversy over apartments without on-site parking.

City Commissioner Steve Novick suggested permit parking for Division Street last month as City Council changed the parking rules for apartment projects.

Kuck says Division is not a good fit for the program.

"In approved [parking program] Zones," Kuck tells WW, "commuters who originate from outside an area and park within that area to avoid paying meter fees or to have easy access to transit or other commuter benefit […] do not have legitimate business in the area. In the Richmond neighborhood, however, residents of the apartment complexes have legitimate business in the neighborhood. They live there."

WWeek 2015