PHB Director Van Vliet doesn't want to "explain the past 11 years" because she would have to say that PDC gambled on the market with public money, and used our tax dollars to create homes for the wealthy. However, as she is new to City, I applaud her for looking forward; we will be watching.

Everyone knows that with urban renewal districts, it is cheaper to build affordable housing first, before market-rate development drives up prices and gentrifies the area. From 2000 to 2009 the median price of housing in the Portland metro area climbed 31.5%, even including the crash. To wait until the end of a project only to find out that development of affordable housing is now too expensive is cynical and dishonest, and the surprise that PDC is expressing is disingenuous.

The economic crash is not the cause of the South Waterfront fiasco, it is merely the method by which bad urban renewal practices that do not prioritize affordable housing have been revealed.

I would hope that, going forward, PDC actually makes affordable housing a priority instead of using it as a way to drum up political support for a project and then quietly drop it later when it seems nobody is looking.

We will be watching.

The South Waterfront used to have affordable housing but then my apartment burnt down...