It’s sometimes easy to lose sight of the fact that heroes are all around us in our community, going out of their way to help others every day.  The skill that some of those heroes have is a green thumb, cultivated from many trials and errors.  And they wear their cape in the front and call it a gardening apron! What do these hero gardeners do for our community? They provide thousands of pounds of fresh local organic produce for families in our community that are struggling with food insecurity, all grown in their own gardens. 

Neighbors Nourishing Communities (NNC) is a local Tualatin non-profit that provides free plants, seeds, and education to gardeners that commit to donating 20% of what they grow to help local families in need. And many of our gardening neighbors donate much more.  As we head into our 9th year this year, we wanted to recognize some of our award winners (superheroes) from our community last year. These are gardeners that donated the most within one of four categories: a new member, a veteran member, a business, and an institutional partner.

Golden Trowel Winner: Hannah Collinsworth 

Hannah was a new member last year. She began gardening in 2017 with a few simple plants. She and her husband have turned their yard into an amazing garden with vegetable, herb, and flower beds. Like many of us, Hannah grew up seeing her mother garden and now she has become an active gardener herself. I asked her why she decided to garden with NNC and she said, “When I learned about NNC I loved the practicality of it…a simple concept that fulfills an extremely important need.”  We are so happy to have Hannah helping address hunger in our community and we look forward to seeing her at some of our group events this year.

Rusty Trowel Winner: Jo Hibbitts

Jo is a veteran gardener with NNC and wins the Rusty Trowel award year after year. (Careful Jo, Hannah’s coming for it!) From her garden she donates 400 lbs or more of produce every year, which she takes to the Tualatin Schoolhouse Pantry.  Jo has been with NNC since almost day one, so in that time she’s donated thousands of pounds of produce.  Last year Jo felt that visitors to the Tualatin Schoolhouse Pantry could be cheered up with bouquets of flowers in addition to produce.  Flower arrangements are not the sort of thing you can afford when you are struggling to get food so this was a fantastic idea. Jo has an amazing cut flower garden and we continually learn new gardening knowledge from her. 

Sodbuster Award: Lynn Bertelsen and Tualatin Park Veterinary Clinic

When NNC was first getting started we needed so much help. Lynn was one of the first people to reach out to me in Tualatin and ask me how he could help. Ultimately he decided to take his business lawn, located near Tualatin Community Park, and turn it into a garden. NNC helped him build raised garden beds and fill them with soil. Since that time, Lynn and the staff at Tualatin Park Veterinary Clinic (TPVC) have donated almost 800 lbs of produce each year, sometimes more. Many people comment that they don’t realize TPVC even has a garden there, which a testament to how much you can produce in a small yard.  The staff at TPVC have really been supportive of the garden and have taken things a step farther. The clinic also started several years ago with collecting donated pet supplies to take to the Tualatin Schoolhouse Pantry so that pet owners could also feed their pets. This is another fantastic idea and I’m so thankful we have such generous people in our community.

Hoe Lotta Help Award: Hilltop Community Garden

Hilltop Community Garden is located at Hilltop Community Church in Tualatin. This is one of the few community gardening spots in Tualatin and for a small fee to cover maintenance, a raised bed can be obtained.  You do not need to be a church member. In addition to providing gardening space for community members, the garden also has some areas where produce is grown simply for donation.  Hilltop regularly donates 2,500 lbs or more of produce each year to the Tualatin Schoolhouse Pantry, about a third of which is grown from plants and seeds that NNC provides. We are all very lucky to have institutions like this in Tualatin, not only because of their donation, but also because of the community connections that they create among gardeners and volunteers. More of this please! Other institutions that have won this award in the past include Resurrection Catholic Church and Bridgeport Elementary School Community Garden. All three are NNC gardening neighbors and significant donors of produce to the Pantry. 

You can be a gardening superhero too!

If you are interested in joining with NNC this year, you don’t need special skills and a large garden space. We’ve had members that have had only a few pots on a deck. Our unofficial mantra is, “If you only donate one vegetable, that’s one vegetable somebody wouldn’t otherwise have had.” It all counts. If you are a business that is interested in setting aside part of your property for gardening, I’m sure your employees would enjoy it and we’d be happy to help you get started. Please call Chad Darby at 503-523-7142. If you are an individual or family that would like to garden this year with NNC, our free plant and seed handout will be the first weekend in May. Please register as soon as possible so we have some sense of how many plant starts to have on hand. You can register at www.neighborsnc.org. Once you register we will provide you the details on time and location.

A zone change request meant to pave the way for infilling more than 100 new units in the Tualatin Heights Apartments has become the city’s first trial of a recently adopted land use ordinance that relaxes restrictions on multi-family housing development.

Last month at a hearing to rezone Tualatin Heights held during the Jan. 24 City Council meeting, Frank Angelo of Angelo Planning Group, speaking on behalf of property owner United Dominion Realty, presented a conceptual plan that would add two new buildings to the complex located at 9301 SW Sagert St. 

“Infill on the existing site could provide 116 units, which would address the deficit you currently have in the residential medium-high designation,” Angelo said, referring to 2019 housing analysis that identified a medium-high density housing shortfall of 109 units and about 7 acres.

If approved, the change will shift Tualatin Heights zoning designation from medium-low to medium-high density, allowing it to expand by nearly 50 percent from a 10 unit per acres 224-unit maximum to 15 units per acre and 336 total units.

While the city Planning Commission recommended greenlighting the change, City Councilors ended the hearing after nearly two hours of testimony and discussion without a decision, instead opting for a continuance.

“The housing needs analysis is a goal, and it’s a target that the Council set that the Council is striving to meet,’ said Tualatin Assistant Community Development Director Steve Koper. “I think it’s clear that we’ve identified a couple of the conceptual plan criteria and provided findings that proposal meets the criteria.”

Tualatin Heights residents, the complex’s neighbors along SW Sagert St. and City Councilors voiced concerns that additional units will compound existing parking problems. Residents also worry green spaces and storage would be lost.

Under HB 2001, Council can only deny the request if it deems rezoning the property is not in the best public interest, a task that could prove difficult and which could be appealed to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals.

In an attempt to help ease housing shortages around the state, the bill requires cities of more than 25,000 to amend codes that inhibit construction of multi-family housing.  

“From a purely legal perspective, if you are going to find this is not in the best interest of the public, then I think you have to articulate very specific reasons why that standard is not met,” City Attorney Chad Jacobs advised. “It’s not an easy standard. We’re going through things for the first time under HB 2001. Lots of cities are struggling with this, and I can’t promise you how LUBA’s (Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals) going to rule on that if there is an appeal filed.” 

City Councilor Maria Reyes spoke in favor of approving the request, saying the need for housing is greater than the potential problems.

“To me, what matters is that someone is inside a home warm with food, and then the rest will be fine,” she said. “I guarantee you that’s how my community thinks. That’s how my mom and I and new immigrants think.”

A few Tualatin Heights residents voiced opposition, citing existing issues with parking and garbage and recycling areas.

“Was there any thought put into the recycling and the garbage waste management portion of the facility at all,” asked resident Scott Bauer. “Currently, we have a decent compactor and about seven recycling bins. Every garbage day, you can barely get into the area to even recycle or put your garbage in the trash.”

Even if the zoning change is granted, additional units aren’t a done deal. 

The conceptual plan Angelo presented is an early-stage rendering of one possible expansion and not the subject of the hearing. If the complex is rezoned, development plans will still be subject to passing an architectural review in a separate process before construction could begin.

Multiple councilors voiced concerns ranging from increased traffic and proximity to a school to impacts on quality of life for current residents to affordability. 

At press time, the complex had about a half dozen available 2 bed/2 bath apartments listed between $1599 and $1814. 

Councilor Christen Sacco called the decision one of the most difficult she’s faced.

“We have a huge housing crisis in our area,” she said. “At the same time, there are concerns about losing storage, green spaces and parking. We want to maintain a decent quality of life for everybody and not leave people behind.”

Neighbors along SW Sagert say they’re already struggling with the impact of overflow parking from the complex, which they say monopolizes the spaces in front of their homes, clogging the street, leaving little room for their garbage and recycling cans.  

“We have folks that are blocking driveways. We have folks that are blocking the actual mailboxes. We have folks that are blocking trailers trying to get out. It’s been an ongoing problem, and it’s just getting worse and worse.” Says Jim Keil, who’s lived across the street for seven years. 

Tualatin Heights has 457 parking spaces for its 220 units. One space is included in the rental agreement, with another available for $25 a month. According to Bauer, the fee and the lack of visitor parking drive tenants and their guests onto the street.

Earlier this year, Keil and other neighbors took their grievances to the city, which in turn conducted a parking study last July. 

On street parking issues, there’s a relatively easy solution. 

“We could fix the issue for the residents across the street pretty easily with a permit area,” said Mayor Frank Bubenik. The city already has a permit-only area around Tualatin High School and another near the Hazelbrook apartment complex.

Despite misgivings about rezoning, Oregon HB 2001 leaves City Council little room for decision making. 

“HB 2001 kind of handcuffed us,” Bubenik said. “The purpose was to increase density and remove arbitrary standards so that cities couldn’t just block things they didn’t like. Not that this is what’s happening here, but this is the first instance when we’re going to start seeing the impact of HB 2001.”