CNU Cascadia Newsletter, Spring 2011

The unemployment rate for the Architect, Engineer and Planner professions in the Portland area (whose economy was harder hit than Seattle or Vancouver, BC) has been estimated to be around 45% for the past two years. During the last week of December 2010, the author visited three principals of smart growth/new urbanist firms in the Portland area that still have work to try to get insight into where those of us who are unemployed or underemployed might focus our energies....

Otak, Inc.

From a visit to its headquarters office location on the fringes of suburban Lake Oswego ringed with a surface parking lot, one might not peg Otak, Inc. as a new urbanist firm, albeit the building was recycled. Although its web byline calls it an Architecture firm specializing in transportation, growth management, and urban design, the author had long thought of Otak as an engineering firm (like CH2M) that branched out.

Otak has been developing its reputation in new urbanist planning for a number of years by planning for greenfield areas within the Portland region's Urban Growth Boundary. The firm has also been involved in planning Portland's Pearl District, the Portland Streetcar and downtown housing and infrastructure projects.

Prior to his interview on Dec. 31, Joe Dills had just finished the West Bull Mountain Concept Plan for a 700-acre new neighborhood as well as the North Bethany Concept Plan and implementation both for Washington County, Oregon. The Comprehensive Plan for the new Clackamas County City of Damascus, which Dills was involved in, was adopted this fall. Dills mentioned that they had recently finished a placebased code for Logan, Utah, a smart growth code that incorporates formbased standards with new design guidelines and the existing code....

 To visit the Congress for the New Urbanism website, please click here.