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Is Ashland losing its diversity? Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Malena Marvin, organizer of a political group called Ashland Community Action, says this property in the Railroad District is one of the last large undeveloped properties in the city, and should be used for affordable housing and open space. The site is scheduled to become a mixed-use development of housing and commercial projects. Younger residents worry that the city is becoming a community primarily for rich retired people By TONY BOOM Mail Tribune Twenty-three-year-old Malena Marvin didn't like what she saw in Ashland after finishing college. Development has led to gentrification, she says. She and her peers find high rents, low-paying jobs and little chance to buy a home. With other local young people, Marvin has formed Ashland Community Action to seek solutions to their concerns. Young dominate Ashland Community Action They are in their 20s and 30s and unhappy with the way Ashland has developed. Ashland Community Action, a group of local activists, is concerned about a wide range of issues that affect the town and its surroundings. Several members grew up in Ashland, left for college, and returned to find higher rents high and a weaker sense of community. The group meets twice a month for a potluck and to discuss issues. ACA also has a "listserv" - an e-mail discussion group and communications network with 45 members. Members of the listserv can post information and ideas about a crisis of unsustainable growth that they say threatens the town's urban environment, watershed quality, standard of living, economic diversity and sense of community. The group frequently looks at issues affecting forests near the town. But it also delves into town-centered issues, said Malena Marvin, who maintains the listserv. Marvin grew up in town and graduated from Ashland High in 1996. She returned in 2001 after earning a bachelor's degree in environmental history at Portland's Reed College. ACA sends members to City Council meetings to speak on issues. It supported Jay Linninger for a vacant seat on the council last year. Chris Hearn was appointed to the spot. "The word is out on Ashland nationally," says Linninger, who returned after going to college. "The diversity is increasing, but the economic diversity is diminishing." "It can be hard for students and people working for nonprofit organizations to continue to live here," said Liz Crosson, an ACA member and Southern Oregon University graduate student studying environmental education. "I don't think that's the direction that most people want to see Ashland grow." The listserv's information address is at lists.riseup.net/www/info/ashland-community-action on the Web. Anyone interested can visit the address for more information and sign up to join the discussion. "The interests that are served are those making a profit," said Marvin. "I really expected more commitment to environmental sustainability, economic justice and social diversity. "We have the thinkers, the leaders, the framework for doing amazing things. But I'm not seeing those things happen." Marvin says city leaders talk about sustainability and other lofty goals, but are not carrying through. Former Councilman Brent Thompson, an outspoken supporter of forcing to the city to control its growth, supports her viewpoint. "Decision-makers constantly profess to want to maintain the special things of Ashland," says Thompson. "Unfortunately they very often vote to undermine the very thing they say they want to maintain." Declining school enrollment, the impending closure of a low-income mobile home park, the lack of affordable housing, and new housing that seems out of scale with Ashland's small-town feel are symptoms of social stratification that could change the town's nature, according to affordable-housing advocates, current and former elected officials and university professors. Others fear the town is on its way to becoming a gentrified community composed mostly of wealthy older residents. Runaway growth and a lack of social diversity are other concerns. The high cost of housing was listed as one of the top four concerns in a public attitude survey conducted by the city during 2000. Former Mayor Cathy Shaw says gentrification has happened in just one area, the Railroad District, where she formerly lived. "There are some good things about gentrification, for instance the remodeling and upgrading of a lot of our historic houses," said Pat Acklin, a former councilwoman and geography professor at Southern Oregon University. "But there's some downsides as well." The railroad property development is a sign of what's wrong with the city's current direction, Marvin says. One of the last large, undeveloped pieces of land in Ashland, the site is scheduled to become a mixed-use housing, retail and commercial neighborhood. Marvin would like the city to keep some of the open space and make a greater commitment to affordable housing at the site. "When you have a town as attractive as this you do get gentrification," says Colin Swales, a critic of city planning decisions now on the planning commission. "The comprehensive plan is a kind of vision. The land-use ordinances are meant to reflect the vision. Unfortunately it is kind of interpreted differently by the council." Affordable housing could do much to preserve the character of the town, according to Echo Fields, a Southern Oregon University sociology professor and coordinator of the community development degree program. Fields taught at SOU from 1985 to 1990, moved to Iowa, then returned to the university in 1998. "We've got an economy that generates a lot of $7-per-hour jobs, but we have a community that has houses that cost $200,000 (for starters)," said Fields. "And we are getting ready to close down a trailer park." The town relies on tourism too much and should seek employers that offer family-wage jobs, Swales says. "You have to have economic diversity and not have your eggs all in one basket." Schoolteachers, college professors, firemen, policemen and construction workers and other middle-class wage earners are unable to live in the town, says Fields. "A percentage of our faculty now live in Medford because it is more affordable," says Sara Hopkins-Powell, SOU's provost. "Some stay in rental accommodations just because they don't have enough money to put a down payment on a house." "I think it's really important for a community like Ashland to have a broad spectrum of people and types of occupations in town," says Shaw, the former mayor. "But I don't think we can fix it from the government level." "We are strictly letting the real estate market drive the nature of the community," said Fields. "We will end up being some place where you have nothing but 'equity immigrants'," she added, referring to newcomers who buy larger homes with money derived from selling previous homes at a profit elsewhere. Employer-subsidized housing might fight the trend, says Fields. Ashland Community Land Trust, which cheaply leases land to homeowners and caps the resale markup for homes on its land, provides another option for affordable housing. "We have to look seriously at manufactured housing development in town," says Fields. "For regular middle-class people that's what is going to have to happen." Former Councilman Thompson also says mobile home parks could provide some of the answers. "The criteria should be more on the quality of the house, whether it's made in a factory or stick-built on site," says Swales. "You can get good manufactured homes." Easing covenants, codes and restrictions in parts of town such as Quiet Village would allow more and smaller residential units on larger lots that now have just one house, says Thompson. "You don't have to travel far to know that this is the place to live," said Shaw. "But we are suffering from the same kinds of habits as every city and place in America." "It's the same in Jacksonville, Eugene, Seattle. Any kind of trendy place in the West," agrees Fields. "Like the Endangered Species Act, there may be a need for an Endangered Communities Act." Developer faults city's expansion restrictions A city policy against expanding the town's size has helped create the gentrification that some decry, says one developer. "Ashland has basically taken a policy in the past of not expanding our urban-growth boundaries," says Bill Barchet. "That is one of the factors that is affecting the prices in Ashland." Efforts to ease that restriction by proposed changes to the affordable housing program is not a clear-cut solution, says Barchet. Ashland's changing character was one of the things that worked against the Kaufman Crossing development proposed by Galpin LLC, said Barchet, the project's coordinator. A former mill site would become a 65-acre mix of residential and commercial development with affordable housing under the proposal. Planning commissioners rejected the application for a zone change, but that decision has been appealed to the City Council. "The average resident in Ashland has a higher net worth than in the past," said Barchet. "The people that are coming in want a higher-quality home and in some cases large homes, but I don't think it impacts the general character of the town to any great degree." Newcomers pay a lot of attention to visual details, but they are also tend to be very concerned about the quality of life that they move here to gain, said Barchet. Former Mayor Cathy Shaw also thinks those who move here reflect a concern for the community. Shaw is a political consultant. "One of the concerns with retirees is that they won't be supportive of schools or libraries," said Shaw. "That hasn't been the case in Ashland." Despite more large homes, voters in the precinct that includes Briscoe Elementary School have shown the progressive character the area has always shown, said Shaw. "Most of the things we end up doing result in greater gentrification," said John McLaughlin, the city's planning director. "The more attractive a community, the more people want to be there. It's not just aesthetics, it's low crime rates, good streets, quality schools, good open space plans, things that we do here. It's a tough, tough issue." Aspen, Colo., Carmel, Calif., and other communities that end up on desirable town lists struggle with similar problems. Ordinances that restrict historic home demolition and promote affordable housing programs cannot stop gentrification, but do affect its impact, McLaughlin said. "We may have to find a way to tax ourselves to keep our diversity," said McLaughlin. "If that's what we truly value, that's what we will have do." Reach Ashland bureau reporter Tony Boom at 482-4651, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.