82nd Avenue has one of the most diverse populations in the greater Portland area and serves many immigrant communities. It is home to places of worship, vibrant, culturally significant businesses, farmers markets, regionally known stores like Fubonn Shopping Center and Shun Fat, a brand-new McDaniel High School and the Jade District.
Before East Portland annexations began in 1983, 82nd Avenue was the City of Portland’s literal eastern boundary. Today, 82nd Avenue is the heart of East Portland. However, the built environment remains a sprawling landscape in need of public and private investment, with wide roads and narrow sidewalks that are designed for cars, not people.
Several projects are currently underway to improve safety and public transportation along 82nd Avenue, including TriMet and Metro’s 82nd Avenue Transit Project and the City of Portland’s Building a Better 82nd. These types of investments are meant to benefit people and businesses in the community. However, without intentional strategies and community collaboration, they can increase displacement by accelerating rising housing costs and business rents.
“[82nd Avenue] has a rich history. It’s got a lot of rich culture to it, and it would be very easy to lose that in the course of doing these improvements,” said Jay Tomlinson, a Clackamas County community organizer with Unite Oregon. “Anytime there’s a hint of some improvement, then a lot of people like to buy that land while it’s cheap, let the improvement happen, develop the land and then jack up the price, and we really don’t want that to happen.”
For residents and businesses along 82nd Avenue, many of whom have already experienced displacement, anti-displacement strategies are critical for public investments along the corridor.
What is an equitable development strategy?
To ensure public investments benefit existing community members living and working in an area, it is important for decision-makers to intentionally develop sustainable solutions that expand the breadth and depth of influence among affected people.
Equitable development strategies focus on preventing displacement through affordable housing, homeowner support programs, business stabilization resources, childcare, workforce development resources and training so that the people most vulnerable to displacement – like people with disabilities, low-income households, youth, seniors, immigrants, veterans, small businesses, people who speak limited English and BIPOC folks (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) – can stay and thrive in the area.
The 82nd Avenue Coalition
The 82nd Avenue Coalition was created in partnership with Metro, other government agencies and community-based organizations so that the people who live, work and play along 82nd Avenue can directly address issues that affect the social, economic and physical well-being of communities along the corridor. They work in partnership with the community to preserve the corridor’s cultural vibrancy and encourage equitable and sustainable growth in the corridor.
The Coalition is led by four organizations who have served people along the 82nd Avenue Corridor for decades:
- APANO works with Asian and Pacific Islander communities, particularly in the Jade District.
- Unite Oregon works across Oregon to build a unified intercultural movement for justice and is represented by the Clackamas County Chapter.
- Verde has a strong presence in Cully and serves people with low-income and people of color, working at the intersection of environmental, racial and economic justice.
- Oregon Walks, whose mission is to promote walking and advocate for safe, convenient and attractive walking conditions.
Together, they completed the 82nd Avenue Equitable Development Strategy in fall of 2024 with input from affected community members and partners.
The equitable development process is informed by the expertise of nonprofit organizations, as well as community outreach and opportunities for community members to voice their concerns, hopes and dreams for the 82nd Avenue corridor. The coalition works to identify and leverage existing resources, secure funding and identifies potential partner organizations that have the knowledge and resources to carry out strategies specific to equitable development goals.
In addition to expertise, programs, resources and existing community relationships, the core four nonprofits also ensure that community voice is strong and thoroughly represented in the coalition’s work.
“APANO [will serve] as more of a liaison between public agencies and the communities to make sure that what we’re advocating for has been aligned with the communities’ needs as well as making sure that the public agencies are being held accountable along the way,” said Brian Liu, a community development manager at APANO.
Zachary Lauritzen, the Oregon Walks representative and the 82nd Avenue Coalition Manager, emphasized the critical role of community voice in the creation and implementation of the EDS.
“Navigating complex public projects can be daunting! We aim to represent community ideas and concerns that can easily be drowned out and lost in massive projects like this,” Lauritzen said.
Elements of the 82nd Avenue Equitable Development Strategy
The 82nd Avenue Equitable Development Strategy has six goals:
- Workforce development
- Climate resiliency
- Childcare
- Business stabilization
- Equitable housing
- Community development
Workforce development
Equitable housing and workforce development are especially important to communities along the corridor because both are long-term interventions. For communities of color who are often prevented from accumulating wealth due to systemic racism and racist policies like redlining, workforce development is an essential tool for long-term economic stability.
The coalition developed several workforce development strategies, including creating local employment opportunities, supporting recruitment and investing in training programs.
As the bus rapid transit project and equitable development projects proceed, opportunities for training in specialized jobs related to bus rapid transit and tree planting will arise. Mapping job opportunities across the corridor – particularly in the trades – and increasing minority and women participation in construction are included among potential outcomes.
Access to childcare
A lack of available affordable childcare across the greater Portland area harms both children and adults, affecting children’s health and development and guardians’ health and financial stability. The equitable development strategy emphasizes investing in existing childcare services like Multnomah County’s Preschool for All program.
“There are really large portions of the population that are kept out of the workforce because childcare can be more expensive than a single parent could make in that time,” Tomlinson said.
Climate resiliency
82nd Avenue is classified as a heat island, which means the corridor is an urbanized area that experiences higher temperatures compared to other areas because of a lack of greenery and an abundance of structures like pavement, roads and buildings that absorb and re-emit the sun’s heat.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, daytime temperatures in urban areas are typically one to seven degrees hotter than outlying areas, while nighttime temperatures are two to five degrees hotter. These temperature differences may seem small, but they can have a huge impact on a community’s health, increase energy consumption resulting in higher electricity expenses and increase the production of air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions.
A potential climate resiliency project is removing concrete and asphalt and replacing them with permeable surfaces like soil or gravel. Project partners like Depave will identify potential locations for depaving and putting in parks or bioswales, vegetated ditches that collect stormwater runoff and filter out pollution.
Funding for the coalition
To plan and implement solutions that address the community’s needs, the coalition and its partners are pursuing various funding opportunities.
The coalition was awarded $5 million from the Portland Clean Energy Fund for tree planting along the 82nd Avenue corridor. Additionally, thanks to Senator Khan Pham’s advocacy, Metro's Transit-Oriented Development program received $5 million to acquire land for future affordable housing.
With significant changes coming to the 82nd Avenue area, concerns about gentrification and the need for stability and inclusive growth are increasing. In 2023, the Portland City Council called for an East Portland Tax Increment Financing (TIF) exploration process to include the 82nd Avenue corridor to promote community-led development. In October 2024, Portland City Council approved new legislation to establish six new TIF districts, including one along the 82nd Avenue corridor.
TIF is a long-term source of targeted public funding. TIF districts make use of an already existing tax which accrues funding from increases in property taxes over time. Prosper Portland manages TIF funds as the redevelopment agency for the City of Portland. TIF funds are invested according to five-year action plans that are co-created with community. These action plans identify priorities for permanent, physical investments in homes, businesses and , infrastructure, as required by state law.
“Outside of the investment that was happening there, from an infrastructure standpoint, too, it’s an acknowledgment of the vulnerability of the businesses and the surrounding community,” Robert Smith, an entrepreneurship and community economic development manager at Prosper Portland, said. “[It’s] wanting to ensure that in that exploration of East Portland, 82nd Avenue, [which] has faced a number of challenges over the years, is included in that discussion, and the folks that live and work along the corridor are involved in the exploration efforts.”
TIF funds will accrue slowly over the first few years. Kathryn Hartinger, a development and investment project manager at Prosper Portland, underscored the importance of intentional sequencing of investments to ensure the money is used efficiently and effectively to maximize benefits for existing community members.
Potential early priorities for the TIF district include homeownership and affordable housing as well as property acquisition. The Community Leadership Committee, Prosper Portland and the Portland Housing Bureau – guided by a committee of community representatives – will bring funding recommendations to Portland City Council.
“Traditionally, we’ve had an advisory body that made recommendations to staff or to council or whomever,” said Hartinger. “We kind of took what we can take or not, and then, it went into the bureaucratic machine. In this case, we are really trying to sit down in partnership with community, and, in that space, bring the budget constraints, bring the political issues going on and work through those things together to produce recommendations.”
Around springtime 2025, there will be more information on how to join the Community Leadership Committee for people who live, work and play along 82nd Avenue.
Next steps and a call to action
“We’ve done the hard work of planning. However, all that is performative unless we commit the resources for implementation. The Coalition will be working hard with various partners on how to fund this work in the coming years,” Lauritzen said.
Buy-in from elected officials and politicians who will champion the community’s needs expressed in the equitable development strategy will be essential for the coalition’s work to move forward. Community members and people interested in supporting the needs of communities along the corridor can contact their local elected officials and advocate for funding the 82nd Equitable Development Strategy.
“We’ve got to convince our [elected officials] that this is a space to continue to invest in, or we’re going to have yet another large investment in public infrastructure and the displacement that comes with it. We strive to interrupt that cycle,” Lauritzen said. “It’s now our job to convince our elected officials that this is an important and worthy set of strategies that merit further public investment.”
Learn more about the 82nd Avenue Equitable Development Strategy
Learn more about the 82nd Avenue Coalition