On Sunday, September 18, 2011, the Dill Pickle Club led “How Is The City Planned?,” a walking tour of notable green design sites of downtown Portland. Here’s a report back courtesy of DPC member Ashley Ortiz. All photos by volunteer Kelsey Curtis.

This past Sunday, more than 40 Dill Picklers and community members met at Jamison Square, a perfect location to kick-off the tour. The Pearl District has been transformed by urban renewal efforts since the early 1990s, and today highlights many of the City of Portland’s innovative and progressive urban planning policies.

Alisa Kane, Green Building and Development Manager for the City of Portland, Bureau of Planning & Sustainability (BPS) was on hand to educate us about these policies and other planning strategies. Using Jamison Square and its neighboring buildings as an informative backdrop, she went on to discuss the history of the Pearl District and the many changes it has undergone in the past 20 years. She pointed out integrated affordable housing, condo developments, multi-modal streetscapes, public park features, the Portland Loo, local businesses, and energy-efficient building design features.

To highlight specific environmental design features in the neighborhood, Alisa then led the way to the Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center, also known as “The Ecotrust Building.” This LEED-Gold (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) building is a unique example of environmental innovation and historic preservation. The building — originally constructed as a warehouse in 1895 and renovated by Ecotrust in 2001 — now incorporates everything from an “ecoroof” and street-level landscaping (which greatly reduce runoff to the overburdened Willamette River) to energy-efficient building systems to exterior seismic structure upgrades.

Read Ashley’s entire recap after the jump…

Rachael Duke gives us insight into the new Bud Clark Commons

After a short walk we met up with Rachael Duke, Manager of Operation and Partnerships at the recently-opened Bud Clark Commons, a $47 million platinum LEED-certified center that is a cornerstone of the City’s 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness. By elevator and stairs, we trekked to a fourth-floor conference room and Rachael described how the Commons developed as a partnership between the Portland Housing Bureau, Home Forward (formerly the Housing Authority of Portland) Transition Projects, Inc. and Multnomah County. The Bud Clark Commons now provides vital resources, shelter and housing placement services to individuals and couples. The environmental design features were very impressive, as was the overall contemporary style of the building and units. We toured a vacant apartment (there are only a few), enjoyed views from balconies on the east side, and met a resident who was happy to share his praise of the whole operation. Rachael also took us to the Day Center, which has a separate entrance within a beautiful garden courtyard. The Day Center serves as a central intake center and information sharing area.

Nicolas Starin from BPS talks about the history of city planning outside Union Station

At that point, we were only a block away from historic Union Station — our final stop on the tour. For more than a century the station has served as a hub of transportation. We gathered out front under the ornate roof and met Nicolas Starin, City Planner on the Central City Team and Historic Resources Program at BPS. Amongst the busy background of rain, people coming and going by foot, car, and bus, Nicholas gave an overall view of the history of city planning and urban development in Portland, concluding with a glimpse of the Portland Plan — a master plan for development in the city for the next 25 years.

From there, filled with a wealth of knowledge about how our City has been, continues to be and will be planned, we all dispersed into the afternoon. Some of us to tour the inside of Union Station, others to continue touring Portland (a woman on the tour was visiting from Singapore for a few days), and others to get ready for a new week. No matter which direction we headed, our minds would no doubt be filled with a whole new appreciation for city planning and its impact on nearly every aspect of urban living. And hopefully a new understanding of how we, as citizens, can be involved in these processes and future change.