Downtown revitalization meeting slated

By Jennifer Colton - Argus Observer
Friday, June 8, 2007 1:51 PM PDT

Chelle Robins and Linda Tucker relax outside Jolts ‘n Juice in downtown Ontario late Thursday afternoon. The city of Ontario is sponsoring a downtown revitalization planning workshop June 19 for public feedback on reviving the unique area.

Ontario - If you have a vision of the future for downtown Ontario, city officials want to hear from you.

The city of Ontario will sponsor a public meeting and downtown revitalization planning workshop at 6 p.m. June 19 at Four Rivers Cultural Center to hear a presentation by George Crandall and Don Arambula, principals of Crandall Arambula, regarding the Depot Square concept and to solicit public feedback and discussion. Crandall Arambula is a national urban design and planning firm.

“Downtown revitalization is an attempt through planning and funding to revive your downtown, try to make it a real unique, vibrant area like it was when the city was first formed,” Grant Young, Ontario Planning and Zoning Administrator, said. “Downtown was the center of the city, that’s where everyone went to. It’s unique architecturally. It doesn’t look like the typical commercial development. You try to make it pedestrian and bicycle friendly, provide parking, so people want to come downtown and can get around, almost like a college campus.”

Downtown revitalization revolves around a streetscape or the overall appearance of a city area — from the look of the buildings to street furniture, landscaping, awnings and decorative touches like cobblestone cross walks. In Ontario, the project began in 2005, when the city received a grant from the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development and the Oregon Department of Transportation to hire a consultant and perform a preliminary report on area possibilities. After the results of the study, city officials decided to pursue a full-blown downtown development, Young said, and searched for a grant from the Transportation and Growth Management program, as well as a technical assistance subsidy and an outreach grant.

“I think the total that we sought was about $240,000, and we got all three of those,” Young said. “So now Crandall Arambula is coming to town on June 19 to give the same presentation they gave in Oct. ’06, and then they’re going to focus on one aspect of that — depot square.”

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The development of depot square — a large public area around the Ontario train depot — will serve as the center of downtown Ontario, Young said, and after the presentation June 19, participants will break into groups to pick the preferred alternative for that development.

“That’s when the preferred alternative for what depot square will look like will be set,” Young said. “Then we’ll have to work into the rest of the plan that we’ll develop through the TGM grant. That will probably take until this time in ’08 or ’09.

Meanwhile, the city will attempt to do urban renewal district planning because that’s your funding source for any projects from your downtown.”

A certain area of the city will be designated as an urban renewal district and as the tax assessed value of that property increases, the city will garner the boost, Young said.

For example, if a building is designated as part of an urban renewal district in 2007 and the value of that property increases 2 percent in 2008, the city would received the funds from that 2 percent boost. The funds can only be used for a specific project list, such as the downtown revitalization.

“There’s no additional tax, no increase in the tax rate, it’s just that the city gets to capture the city’s assessed value raise,” Young said, adding, “And if it goes down, we don’t get anything.”

The public workshop is only the next step in the downtown revitalization project, and Young said the more members of the public involved, the more successful the revitalization.

“The more people that come to something like this, the better your plan ends up being. Everybody has a stake in this, everybody. Your schools and your downtown are the critical aspects of your community,” he said. “In 10 years, if this all works, it will look completely different downtown, but you’ll notice the changes will occur almost immediately.