Renovation at the German Baptist Church and the Planning Commission

The renovated German Baptist Church on Cottage & D Streets has been in the news early this month. A week or so ago DevNW held an open house for the new housing and Salem Reporter had a note this past week, "Veterans housing opens in Grant Neighborhood."

Cottage & D (but closed the corner entry, alas)

Of much lesser importance than the facts of housing and for veterans, but interesting and significant nonetheless, are three interpretive history panels on Cottage Street.

Church building history

There's only so much you can say and show, and the panels seemed to strike a reasonable balance. The second one even hightlighted conflict, with a section "contested homelands."

Through the Donation Land Claim Act, the government allowed non-natives to "claim" lands in Kalapuya territories.

Larger site context

Still, there might be adjustments to make in future interpretive signs. David Lewis has a discussion of the problem in "Integrating Tribal Perspectives into an Oregon Trail history."

He writes with language a little stronger,

The Oregon Donation Land Act of 1850 assumed US title to lands that were still owned by the Tribes.  

There's an important difference in tone, not just a difference in primary actor, between "assume" and "allow."

Another candidate moment for revision is the removal of native people from historical process into a primitive state outside of history, "Kalapuya peoples have lived here since time immemorial."

Lewis is more specific, and alludes to a time before:

The majority of the population were indigenous...Upper Chinookan, Molallan and Kalapuyan peoples who had lived in the Willamette Valley for more than 10,000 years.

Grant Neighborhood context history

One conflict not highlighted, alas, is the exclusionary origins of Grant Neighborhood.

Ads for "building restrictions"
Main ad: April 13th, 1912
Inset detail: May 11th, 1912

The Oaks Addition, featured on the blue panel, also had restrictions against "unsightly barns, business property or inferior dwellings," ensuring it would become "Salem's most exclusive residence district."

Jan. 28th, 1922

A decade later the City foreclosed on 45 lots.

The centerpiece of the "heritage neighborhood" has a messy history!

A finding of one violation
of ORS 244.120(2)(a)

And in light of the struggle DevNW had with neighborhood advocates, including a sitting City Councilor, exclusionary themes are hardly a minor matter. They are at the very center of the project itself.

The struggle continues to reverberate. 

At Council on Monday one of the candidates to the Planning Commission says

I see directly volunteering for the City as a way to have a greater impact and get more done than I can by sitting on a neighborhood association board that seems to work mainly towards stifling change....The reason I became interested in the Grant Neighborhood Association and ultimately joined the board was because I saw a land use notification sign outside Evergreen Church during a dog walk. I later read in the news about how a non-profit was trying to turn the building into permanent supportive housing for veterans experiencing homelessness and how GNA was fighting their rezoning efforts in the name of on-street parking and intangible things like ‘historical feel’. This is unacceptable to me and did not reflect my values.

The stress on protecting incumbency privilege and on "stifling change" is a real problem, and this likely won't be the first person the case of the German Baptist Church, or other similar cases, radicalized a little.

humor via Bluesky

The other candidates are an ODOT road designer very interested in bicycle transport and bike culture, and a Cherriots board member.

They will be great additions to the Commission.

Fewer items go before the Planning Commission

But between the trend for more administrative reviews, and the City's review of City Boards and Commissions, there's a redefinition of the role of the Planning Commission in process. The new members will have opportunities to shape new roles. We have already seen Commissioner Slater do some of this, like initiating the study for a solar installation at the airport.

Motion at the Planning Commission (2023)

There's definitely room for the Planning Commission to be more proactive and to initiate things and not merely react to matters that Staff and City regulations might bring to them. With a new balance and new personalities on the Commission, there are new possibilities.