The City's published Notice for administrative approvals on a project for 186 apartments at the intersection of Orchard Heights Road and the power line easement, west of West Salem High School.
I'm not sure there is anything substantive to say about this project itself, especially as it falls under the category of "needed housing."
But there is an older house on the property, old enough it was inventoried several years ago as a possible "historic property." It was not obvious it was very important, however, and they did not investigate very deeply. It was on the margins, an in-between kind of case.
In the current proposal, since there is no discussion of the house, and it just disappears in the proposed site plan, it seems reasonable to suppose the house will be demolished.
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| Historic Resource Form |
Here, the house and circumstances are not any clear occasion to invoke a cry for historic preservation. The house itself looks to have been updated and added onto, is not a stylistic exemplar — the assessment calls it "Victorian eclectic" — and does not retain its original integrity; the associated history is interesting, especially for the development of the neighborhood, variously called "Popcorn," "Mountain View," and "Highland," but is not very significant so far as I can tell for the city and region.
It offers a minor kind of historical interest.
Rather than saving the building, we should be more interested in retrieving bits of a narrative history for this part of West Salem and its orchards.
Here are some bits. This is scrapbook without strong narrative. The Arcadia Press West Salem photo book might have some additional detail in its chapter 3 on Orchard Heights, but it was not available right at the moment. (We'll update as necessary later.)
The family appears to have arrived here in two phases, with Amasa R. Southwick's grandmother in one phase, and he and his father Milton in another.
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| History of Vernon County, Wisconsin |
A promotional history for Vernon County,
Wisconsin, published in 1884 says Permelia Southwick "resides at Salem, Oregon, with her three youngest children....Milton, the eldest son, resides on the home farm...."
I read the "home farm" with Milton as still in Wisconsin. It's not yet clear when Permelia came here.
According to Milton's obituary, he came here in or just after December of 1885.
Permelia died in 1887, and Milton is listed here as a survivor.
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| Milton's mother, April 1st, 1887 |
Polk County records show Milton with a purchase of property in 1886. So these are all consistent with Milton arriving in very early 1886.
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| Milton & Juliette, 1886, 87, 94, 97 |
The first purchase in 1886 looks like a residence lot in a town, but I can't decipher it. The next purchase in 1887 is for rural acreage between Oak Grove and Popcorn School. That is the Ruble/Rubble farm referenced in Milton's obituary: "The deceased resided about five miles west, on the Rubble farm in Polk county."
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| Southwick property west of Popcorn School Milton purchased in 1887 (see below) 1929 Metsker Map |
By 1929 it had passed down to son Amasa from Milton.
After Milton died in 1889, his wife Juliette purchased lot 13 in the Highland Fruit Farms in 1897. This is the bulk of the parcel being redeveloped now.
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| The 1901 transactions with A.R. Southwick |
She deeded it to her son Amasa in 1901, and this transaction hit the newspaper.
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| Highland Fruit Farm addition (center) Independence West Side, March 8th, 1901 (inset) Polk County, Metsker Map, 1929 |
They may have moved from the Ruble parcel to the Highland one.
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| Polk County Itemizer October 11th, 1901 |
Soon he became the District Road Supervisor for the County.
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| Polk County Itemizer February 10th, 1905 |
What we know as Orchard Heights Road appears to have been known earlier as the Oak Grove Road. In 1905 a new school was built, very near what looks like a water pump station and Schoolhouse Court NW.
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| Polk County Itemizer November 24th, 1905 |
It's not entirely clear that the 1901 articles refer to the present day house site, but this note from 1908 is very likely about the completion of that house.
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| Polk County Itemizer October 1st, 1908 |
He'd married a Chapman, and the Grices, Chapmans, and Southwicks were at least socially friendly and appear in the neighborhood notes together and separately.
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| Polk County Itemizer February 18th, 1910 |
The change to Orchard Heights may date to 1928, when a club changed its name.
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| October 28th, 1928 |
Amasa died in 1939. He's buried at Belcrest. His wife, Cora, died in 1943, and is also at Belcrest.
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| September 12th, 1939 |
The family was not perhaps prominent, but was generally known. Uncle Frank was a builder, and constructed the Gray block of 1891 downtown, as well as other buildings, including old City Hall, no longer around.
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| The Gray building (CBTwo) |
He died in 1924 and is buried at City View.
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| January 1st, 1910 |
Other family obituaries say they came to California in 1874 or 1875, spent some time
in Santa Rosa, and then moved north to Salem in 1882. Permelia may have
been with him or joined him shortly thereafter. They lived at 12th and
Marion and a house Frank's widow, Helen, later lived in there was moved to
Breyman Street for the Capitol Shopping Center.
Amasa's father, Milton, who was Frank's brother, died in 1889 and is buried in the IOOF Pioneer Cemetery (and a photo here).
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| One of three parcels zoned MU-II on edge of city |
There are other things to say about the planning context for the apartments.
The land is currently zoned MU-II, but there will be no actual mixed uses here. So far the three kinds of MU zoning isn't inducing much mixing in new development, and is employed for more of the same kinds of single uses.
It will be interesting to see if these apartments, combined with the apartments in the RM2 site will provide enough people for the MU-II parcel at the corner of Doaks Ferry and Orchard Heights to be developed as a real neighborhood hub or to provide other walkable commercial amenities.
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| Except for schools and parks, nothing is walkable |
Presently the proposed apartments have a walk score of 13, very low, and
indicating firm car-dependency. The Traffic Analysis shows little in a
one mile radius.
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| Earlier this week |
Farther than a walk or casual bike ride, about two miles away and with hills, the Checkpoint 221 food cart pod announced an expansion with an indoor space recently.
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| This 2 mile ride is not casual or easy |
But maybe Checkpoint 221 will be the seed to the organic development of a real neighborhood commercial hub and a legit expression of mixed uses, even if mostly horizontal rather than vertical.
As we think more about safety and walkability and climate, we need a real reorientation in our traffic planning and analysis. We just assume a constant increase, an assumption untethered from our goals on climate and to reduce VMT.
The growth rate is estimated using the Mid-Willamette Valley Council of Governments (MWVCOG) forecasting model. [That's SKATS.]
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| When will we start modeling for climate and VMT reduction? |
The streets are too fast.
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| Back in 2012 |
Orchard Heights is a minor arterial and zoomy, and Doaks Ferry is a major arterial and zoomy. These speeds are not consistent with any Vision Zero and Twenty is Plenty plans.
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| Speeds are too fast for walkability |
The safety analysis in the Traffic study concludes the streets have low crash rates and are safe. They might be safe for those in cars, but the crash rates are missing walking and biking counts in a separate denominator and ratio. One reason the rates are low is likely because outside of school start and end, few walk and bike here.
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| It seems "safe" because few walk and bike here! |
The City should be clearer about asking and then formulating policy to support:
- How do we reduce VMT?
- How do we kick-start the MU class of zoning for real mixed use development?
- How do we actually improve conditions for people walking and biking?
New development patterns are still backwards-facing and just entrench more of the same.
Addendum, February 6th
Here's an unexpected twist! I was looking only at purchases, and a sale is very interesting and clarifies the mystery of the first purchase.
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| Milton sold to Robert S. Wallace! |
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| March 3rd, 1887 |
Milton Southwick's first purchase in 1886 was not a city lot, but 131.5 acres from E. F. Hosford's DLC. Milton flipped it year later in 1887 to R. S. Wallace to become part of Wallace's farm and orchard that is now Salemtowne.
It's funny that acreage owned only for a year would be established long enough to be called "the Southwick place" in the paper.
(There is some evidence also that Frank Southwick may have built the Wallace House that remains as the Salemtowne Clubhouse.)
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| November 4th, 2006 |
Hosford's tombstone was apparently hanging out at the old Straub place, across from the old Highland Church site and cemetery. For more see a full transcription of the 2006 piece at Hosford's burial record linked above.
There are still some uncertainties and perplexities. In the piece a relative is quoted saying "one point, her great grandfather owned most of the Orchard Heights hill."
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| DLCs in West Salem (Polk County) |
But Orchard Heights is in the John Martin DLC. Immediately north of it is the DLC of C. O. Hosford, who is probably Erwin Hosford's brother and Methodist missionary, Rev. Chauncey Hosford. (Though the wiki cites a piece in the Oregonian that says the DLC was in Marion County.)
We'll look into John Martin another time. There is one who married a Durbin, but his activity seems to be in Marion County.
7 comments:
The good thing about these apartments is that it is already serviced by cherriots route 16, which is a very popular line and has a loop to the downtown transit center, reducing the number of transfers needed to get to the rest of the city.
This cuts down on transit commute by 10 minutes. Which can be huge when making in town transit trips.
There is currently a painted bike lane, which while not ideal, is better then the bike lane and spotty sidewalk of eola.
Found the demolition plans. It says "remove" the house. Hopefully they'll salvage timber, original windows, doors, and hardware, and deconstruct it before demolishing the rest.
I should have mentioned the Robert Wallace house used by Salemtowne for a club house. This project might have repurposed the Southwick house similarly and incorporated some history that way.
(Edit: Inserted a new section on the years c.1885-1900 and made some minor edits elsewhere for consistency.)
Added more to clarify Milton's first purchase - and a relation to R. S. Wallace!
I live just down the road in the West Meadows Estates subdivision. My husband is an avid walker and he hikes in the area every day. He used to call the walk of about .7 miles from our house up the hill to this house and back down the "Llama Loop" because the people living there owned several llamas when we moved in. They, of course, left about 8 years ago.
In the past few years we saw all the nice old White Oak trees on that property and the area adjacent be cut down. I believe they cut down at least 13 wonderful trees so far. The plan is to remove some more.
This development by the way has not yet been approved. Comments are still open until Feb 15. case #UGA-SPA-ADJ-DAP-TRP 24-02 My review of the application suggests this project has numerous requests that should not be granted, like decreased distance from Orchards Heights to the first street from the required 200 ft to 140 feet. Even the 200 feet is a recent reduction of the original 300 feet.
If I lived next to this development I would be very angry. To buy a $600,000 plus home and then have all these apartments crammed right next door will evoke NIMBYs with money.
It will not likely prompt any commercial development. The city's flawed assumption that zoning creates certain development was invented out of whole cloth. Commercial development can only happen when enough customers are available to make a business viable. The planners did absolutely no market analysis on this or any other MU property. Believe me I asked. That's why the East Park Estates on the old mushroom property did not create a HUB. Such things don't happen on the fringes of a city.
While there is no commercial destination, there are tfour schools very near by and we do already see kids walking. Many do not ride their bikes because the hills are too steep to be safe. I occasionally see a daring skateboarder going down a minor street but usually only once is enough to convince them it is not a good idea. But there are lots and lots of people with dogs who walk morning and night. This area is good for recreational walking. Didn't someone even propose building a natural trail under the power lines?
Power line?. Yes, this development and the one that is likely to be built next to it are right next to the high tension electrical towers. When Salem was considering the standards for how close to allow development under those wires there was a lot of controversy. Expert testimony said 500 feet minimum, but money said 100 feet was good enough. I live about 1,000 feet and would never consider living any closer. The renters will be hopefully only living there for a few years at most.
Here's a 2019 note with some discussion of the concept for a path in the power line easement.
The Arcadia Press West Salem book did not have anything on the Southwicks here. It did have some nice images of schools and churches up in here.
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