Portland General Electric’s proposed utility project in Forest Park, which would require removing nearly 400 trees in order to make way for transmission upgrades, has been a source of controversy in the city since it was announced last year. A recent City Council move to reject the plan marks the latest snag for PGE’s project—and what it has come to represent.

On April 17, Portland City Council mulled over PGE’s proposal, which a city hearings officer approved in March following a January land use hearing. The hearings officer’s conclusion put her at odds with community organizations including the Forest Park Neighborhood Association and Forest Park Conservancy, which each appealed the decision to the City Council.

Both organizations say the hearings officer ignored key criteria in the Forest Park Natural Resources Management Plan that is intended to guide oversight of the park. They allege PGE has misrepresented its project and strategy to make up for ecosystem losses the development will cause. 

PGE’s plan represents the third phase of its Harborton Reliability Project, which seeks to bolster electricity transmission from the Harborton substation, located just outside Forest Park in Northwest Portland. The plan includes upgrades to an existing transmission line and the addition of a new line and power poles in Forest Park, requiring the utility company to remove hundreds of trees from a roughly 4.5-acre area in the northwest corner of the park. 

According to PGE, the project is necessary to ensure Portland’s power grid can handle increased energy demand as the city transitions away from fossil fuels and toward clean electricity. Increasing severe weather events—like extended summer heat waves, for example—will also strain the energy supply. 

While there’s widespread agreement that Portland needs to support a clean energy transition, the City Council heard from hundreds of Portlanders, including the project’s appellants, who don’t buy PGE’s claims that cutting down trees in Forest Park is the only way to make that happen. 

They also don’t believe the utility company has met necessary criteria in the city’s land use code, which sets a high standard for development in Portland’s largest park. 

At the April 17 hearing, councilors heard hours of impassioned public testimony from people with varied opinions about the project, though the majority who spoke are opposed to PGE’s plan. The Council also heard from the appellants and PGE representatives. By the end of the meeting, councilors unanimously expressed their skepticism that the utility company’s plans met the city’s land use code—even if they personally agreed with the project on many of its merits. 

“I came into this hearing today leaning towards denying the appeal, honestly, recognizing that we're in a moment of crisis and need to upgrade our transmission system,” Councilor Jamie Dunphy said at the end of the meeting. “But based on the evidence on the record… I can't understand how the hearings officer got to the decision they made based on a plain text reading of the law.” 

Those opposed to the plan believe the project, if approved, could pave the way for a corporate takeover of the city’s public lands and resources—including further destruction of Forest Park by PGE in future phases of the plan. Proponents of the project, meanwhile, see the City Council’s tentative rejection of the plan as an example of a toxic, anti-progress mentality they believe is pervasive in the city. 

In a piece published on April 20, the Oregonian Editorial Board wrote the Council’s tentative vote “offers a sobering glimpse of how the City Council might handle future decisions in which competing priorities are at stake.” The editorial posited that City Council’s vote signals an alignment with people who believe “any change—whether to zoning codes that encourage more housing or expansion of infrastructure to match growth—marks a slide down the slippery slope to Portland’s doom and ruin.”

Councilors all tentatively voted to uphold the appeals to the land use decision, with a final vote set for May 7. From there, PGE can choose to appeal the City Council’s decision with the state’s Land Use Board of Appeals. No matter which side ultimately prevails, however, it’s clear PGE’s proposal has come to represent more than a single utility project. 

Disagreements on project details 

The city’s land use rules, including the Forest Park Natural Resources Management Plan, require a project to meet certain approval criteria to be granted an environmental review permit. In this case, PGE had to show a demonstrated need for the proposal, prove the location and design have “the least significant detrimental environmental impact of the practicable alternatives,” and provide a mitigation plan to “minimize impacts on resources and restore adjacent disturbed areas.” 

These are ostensibly objective metrics to judge a proposal on. But interpretations of the approval criteria—and whether or not PGE’s project meets them—have differed widely. 

The decision by Portland Hearings Officer Marisha Childs to accept PGE’s proposal, outlined in a March report, depicts a very different understanding of the project than a report compiled by Portland Permitting and Development (PP&D) staff in January. The PP&D report also cites other city bureaus and local agencies, including Portland Parks & Recreation and the West Multnomah Soil & Water Conservation District, which also agreed the proposal didn’t meet the criteria to be granted an environmental review. 

Childs’ decision specifically refuted many of the claims made in PP&D’s staff report, and even called some of their conclusions “confounding.” The hearings officer’s report struck some people as a harsh rebuke of the city staffers and advocates who had urged her to reject PGE’s proposal. 

One statement that was particularly striking to those following the case was Childs’ assertion that, while many people feel strongly about preserving Forest Park, her decision “is about facts, not feelings.” 

“This case is about whether the Applicant’s Project Proposal satisfies the applicable approval criteria and whether the Applicant has satisfied its burden of proof,” the hearings officer’s report stated. 

While representatives from PGE were pleased with the hearings officer’s decision and agreed with its findings, those opposed to the project believed Childs was overly credulous of the utility company’s narrative. 

“[The hearings officer’s decision] did a disservice to the city expert analysis and important land use codes, and instead gave deference to the arguments of a profit-seeking corporation,” Micah Meskel, urban conservation director at the Bird Alliance of Oregon, said at the April 17 hearing. 

Project opponents believe their decision is based on facts, too. But it’s proven difficult for people on either side of the issue to come to an agreement on what those facts are. 

One major point of contention is over the question of ecosystem mitigation. The PP&D staff report depicted the project’s impacts on Forest Park as “arguably unmitigable” and said PGE’s proposal “lacks demonstrable plans” to reduce the damage and overall impacts to the park. Project critics point out that the proposal would result in more than just the removal of hundreds of trees. It would mean the destruction of a habitat for many species, including fish, birds, and—of particular note for many environmental advocates—northern red-legged frogs. 

PGE’s mitigation plan includes planting oak woodland habitat, native wildflower and grass seed, and riparian plants throughout the project area, as well as paying a $2.46 million in-lieu fee to Portland Parks & Recreation to help offset impacts outside the immediate project area. The utility company and project supporters have argued the plan is not only enough to allay the negative impacts of the development—they say it could actually improve upon the existing ecosystem, and reduce the risk of wildfire. 

“This mitigation action would take one of the last remaining stands of oak woodland in Forest Park and double it in area,” Noah Herlocker, an ecologist who has been working with PGE on the plan, said at the April 17 meeting. Herlocker added that PGE’s strategy for making up for the project impacts includes “at least 25 acres of forest understory enhancement” and the removal of wildfire hazard fuels from the site.

Project opponents disagree. 

Scott Fogarty, executive director of the Forest Park Conservancy, told City Council that PGE’s “proposed mitigation plan doesn’t even begin to address the loss compared to what is present.” 

“The larger the size of the removal, the greater the negative impact on the diversity and the ecosystem services of the region,” Fogarty said. “PGE is proposing to replace this healthy mature forest with shrubs, grasses, juvenile hardwoods, and other plants which pose a greater fire risk in the dry summer months.” 

The April 17 City Council hearing also revealed major differences in interpretation of whether or not PGE has successfully demonstrated a need for the project. PGE has argued that without these system upgrades, Portlanders could face rolling blackouts as soon as 2028. The utility company and project supporters have also implied the region won’t be able to successfully transition away from fossil fuels and toward clean electricity without this development. 

While many city councilors are sympathetic to PGE’s stated goals for the project, and want to support plans to boost capacity for clean energy, they don’t believe PGE can support all the claims made about its plan. They were specifically concerned about the assertions that the Forest Park site is the only feasible location for the project, and that the electrical grid is at risk of failure by 2028 if the project isn’t built. 

As Councilor Steve Novick, who began his legal career as an environmental attorney, put it: “It’s quite possible that PGE could have made a demonstration of need… I just don’t think they’ve done it.” 

Ultimately, all 12 councilors made a tentative decision to reject PGE’s plan. The hearings officer’s report came up frequently. Several councilors, including Dunphy and Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney, said they didn’t know how Childs reached her decision. Councilor Mitch Green called her assessment "inflammatory.” 

“But it is true that you have to evaluate these cases on the merits of the facts,” Green said, adding that he is concerned the hearings officer herself didn’t “adequately evaluate the case on the basis of the facts.” 

The Council’s decision was celebrated by people opposed to PGE’s plan, who believed it was a slippery slope to future destruction of Portland’s natural resources—including within this area in Forest Park. The plan is the third phase in a five-phase project, though it’s unclear exactly what phases four and five of the Harborton Reliability Project would entail. 

Critics, including city staff, have said once the third phase is constructed, PGE would likely argue the other phases need to be completed in Forest Park as well. The utility company has denied this, saying each phase will be evaluated independently. But concern about such a precedent has been central to many project critics’ arguments. Meanwhile, project supporters fear rejecting the plan will have negative implications, too. 

“Oregon has already lost so much of its ancient forests since the arrival of white settlers and the timber industry. Even taking just a few more acres of healthy forests is an incalculable loss that would also set an unacceptable precedent,” Damon Motz-Storey, who leads the Oregon chapter of the Sierra Club, said at the April 17 hearing. “Today it's 4.7 acres, but the next phase, and the next phase after that, and other proposals yet to be seen will continue to point back to the decision made here today.”