Jackson Jambalaya

Lot vacant for twenty years.  Economically depressed area. Black community.  Major grocery store chain wants to build store on said vacant lot. What  could possibly go wrong?  The Oregonian and Jackson's own Casey Parks (Once of the JFP) reported:

Trader Joe's is backing away from a development in Northeast Portland, company officials said Monday.

"When it comes to choosing Trader Joe's store locations, we are deliberate and work hard to develop store sites with great potential for success," a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement to The Oregonian Monday morning.

While the company views the area south of Vanport Square in Northeast Portland as "a great neighborhood," Trader Joe's "will not be opening a store in the area," citing "negative reactions from the community."

"We run neighborhood stores and our approach is simple: if a neighborhood does not want a Trader Joe's, we understand, and we won't open the store in question," the statement read.

Majestic Realty Co., a California-based developer, had hoped to build the Trader Joe's store. The $8 million development included plans for 4-10 adjacent retailers and a 100-space parking lot on the two-acre site. The Portland Development Commission's board approved selling the land to Majestic for roughly $500,000. A recent property tax appraisal indicated if developed with market-rate housing, the property would be worth $2.9 million...Article

 

"Negative reaction", you ask? What negative reaction?

The Portland African American Leadership Forum (PAALF) is writing in response to the proposed development in partnership with Majestic Realty. Our opposition is rooted in the well documented and ongoing attempt to profit from development in inner N/NE Portland at the expense of Black and low-income individuals. Rather than invest in proven methods to stop displacement and empower the African American community, the Portland Development Commission (PDC) and City of Portland have consistently supported projects that have displaced existing residents and attracted wealthier ones in their place....

*The property in question was assessed at $2.9 M and was offered to Majestic Realty for $500,000, which amounts to a nearly $2.4 M “subsidy.” This subsidy primarily benefits the Roski family, one of the richest families in the country. It secondarily benefits Traders Joes, a national corporation. It mandates no affordable housing and no job guarantees from Trader Joes.

*A new Trader Joes will increase the desirability of the neighborhood to nonoppressed populations, thereby increasing the economic pressures that are responsible for the displacement of low-income and Black residents. The choice to not provide family appropriate affordable housing above the proposed Trader Joes retail space is consistent with a long standing series of actions that between the 2000 and 2010 census displaced over 10,000 people out of Inner NE Portland.

*Gentrification, and the economic inequality it produces, is not an unforeseen byproduct of increasing density or improving the livability of streets. (This point was printed in highlights. Its really important to them.)

*By placing a Trader Joes on this land, without an affordable housing mandate (serving up to 60% median family income) and a legally binding community hiring agreement, our community will continue to suffer disproportionate burdens. Our community faces the same adversity that this investment was supposed to relieve; they just do so without the support and familiarity that their old neighborhood provided. The City of Portland cannot continue to sweep Black and low-income people out of Inner NE Portland and claim. (The land is vacant.)

The NAACP even weighed in with its usual tomfoolery.  They must have been upset they weren't getting to charge their usual vig.

Trader Joe's gave them what they wanted. However, it turns out the actual community might not have been too crazy about the things done in its name.  The Oregonian also reported:

 People who live near Northeast Martin Luther King Boulevard and Alberta Street say the grocer would have brought life to a lot that’s been vacant for 20 years.....

“There are no winners today,” said Adam Milne, owner of Old Town Brewing Co., which is just north of the proposed Trader Joe’s property. “Only missed tax revenue, lost jobs, less foot traffic, an empty lot and a boulevard still struggling to support its local small businesses.”

Neighbors and business owners first discussed bringing Trader Joe’s to the lot in 1999 as part of plans to revitalize Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard’s northern stretch.

For most of its life, MLK had been a commercial hub of shops and restaurants. The Walnut Park Theater showed first-run movies on the block at MLK and Alberta.

But by the 1990s, the corridor suffered from rising crime, dropping property values and the highest storefront vacancy rates in town. The Walnut became an adult theater, then was demolished.

Fifteen years ago, the Portland Development Commission put together a panel of neighbors and business owners to create a plan for the corridor....

The King neighborhood was already changing. Nearly three-fourths of the community was African-American in 1990, according to U.S. Census figures. By 2010, only a quarter of the area’s residents were African-American.

Residents rushed to correct the record: the neighborhood does want Trader Joe’s, they said.

“Was there a vote? This should be reevaluated,” said Kymberly Jeka, an artist who lives a few blocks away. “This is not what the neighborhood people want. This is terrible.”

Grayson Dempsey, an 11-year King resident who can see the vacant lot from her window, said she tried offering her support at neighborhood association meetings, but her voice was drowned out by the opposition.

“I moved here when there were gunshots out the window,” Dempsey said. “I appreciate that (PAALF) is trying to talk about the origins of gentrification. That’s really essential, but they can’t stand up and say, ‘As residents of the King neighborhood, this is what we want.’ The residents of the King neighborhood want this to happen.” Article

It gets even better:

All of my neighbors were excited to have Trader Joe’s come here and replace a lot that has always been empty,” said Nghi Tran, who has lived a block away from 15 years. “It’s good quality for poor men.”

Tran said he didn’t think PAALF had the right to represent the neighborhood. “They don’t come to the neighborhood cleanups,” he said. “They don’t live here anymore.” (Bussed-in protestors. Imagine that. Sometimes outside agitators really are outside agitators.). 

But don't worry. PAALF is not giving up:

Fitzpatrick said at the press conference that PAALF is working to “create pathways for those who were forcibly removed to come back.”

That could include affordable housing, Fitzpatrick said. If Majestic or the PDC had pledged to bring affordable housing with the Trader Joe’s construction, the deal might not have been met with such controversy, the group said.

PAALF said it will hold a community visioning process later this month, bringing displaced people back to the neighborhood to talk about what they want to see on this and other PDC-owned lots. Article (Don't you worry, don't you fear, Robin Hood will soon be here.)

Here is one pathway: jobs.  Trader Joe's would have provided them.  The lot was empty.  These people (Trader Joe protestors) are literally pigs who like to live in their own slop. Period. Hmm.... some more thoughts:

It's white flight if the white folks and businesses leave.  It's gentrification if they move into an area. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Wait a second. These people want to create "pathways" for blacks to move back to an area and make it clear they don't want whites moving into said area.  In a nutshell, they want to create homelands for blacks.  Wasn't this called apartheid? As written earlier: Pigs gonna slop.

Kingfish note: Some excellent reporting on this story.