Credit: City of Portland

Just when you thought you had run out of space for your home garden, Portland Bureau of Transportation is giving you more for free! Well, maybe.

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According to PBOT’s Dan Anderson, PBOT plans to lay out new guidelines for private planter boxes that lie in residential areas between sidewalks and city streets, expanding the urban garden. While this has been an option for residents for two years, the new plan may no longer require the hefty $180 permit fee to use the publicly-owned patch of land.

This potential upgrade follows the tumultuous initiation of these planter boxes in 2009, when the city destroyed Portlander Jordan Benner’s box for being on public property. Benner fought back, leading to the creation of the permits.

But for now, nothing is set in stone. Anderson says PBOT will announce its decision in the fall. Oh, the possibilities!

Alex Zielinski is a former News Editor for the Portland Mercury. She's here to tell stories about economic inequities, cops, civil rights, and weird city politics that you should probably be paying attention...

10 replies on “Sidewalk Planters on the Path to Permit-Free”

  3. Well, every properly trendy Portlander must drive a Prius and have a raised bed in the front yard – to show the neighbors how fucking green you are, right?

  4. So are the sidewalks and the land between the sidewalk and the curb city property? Why did I think the sidewalk was just a right-of-way across private property? Shows how much I know, or don’t.

  5. City owns both, I believe – however you as a homeowner are responsible for upkeep – cracks, snow, etc.
    At least, this is my understanding.

  6. Oh, and only certain trees are allowed to be planted on the island too.
    And don’t expect “Friends of Trees” to know which ones either. My neighbor gave me a Japanese Persimon that they planted in the island, but had to come replace because it wasn’t allowed there.

  7. As long as I can open my car door without hitting a plant I am happy. However, that isn’t the case in a lot of near in SE neighborhoods.

  8. its the homeowner’s property, the city has an easement for the right of way. its not public owned, but the public has a lot of rights to that land.

    the homeowner can apply to vacate the entire easement and get full rights to the center of the street.

  10. I wish people would leave the gardens to their backyards. People seem to rip all the grass out of their front lawns then let flowers, ferns, and weeds grow wild. Meanwhile, every spring and summer you cant walk ten feet down any sidewalk without getting a face full of spiderwebs. If you want to turn your front yard into a garden, at least maintain it (proper pruning and weeding) instead of letting it turn into your own personal overgrown Amazon forest

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