Despite pleas from conservationists and East Hayden Island residents, Portland’s City Council authorized staff Thursday night to plan for building 300 acres of marine terminals on 800-acre West Hayden Island.
The council voted 4-0, with Commissioner Randy Leonard absent, to authorize further planning.
Planners are to develop a proposal by December 2011 for annexing the island and identifying 300 acres for deep-water terminal development.
The council could still vote against the proposal then.
The council ordered further study of how to best use existing Port lands and options for restoring the undeveloped portions of the island.
It also ordered more study of a possible new bridge from the island south to North Marine Drive and of “opportunities for increased coordination” with the Port of Vancouver.
The Vancouver port has about 350 acres available for new terminals in its Columbia Gateway project.
The Port of Portland says West Hayden Island, which it owns, is the only place it can develop large new terminals, and the 300-acre footprint is the smallest it can go.
Tentative Port plans call for two or three terminals on the island in the next 10 or 15 years, with much of the building on the grasslands that have emerged on spoil dumping grounds.
Economic projections indicate the terminals would most likely be for imports of cars and trucks or exports of bulk goods such as potash or coal to help supply Asia’s growing demand.
Three hundred acres of terminals would create 1,200 Portland Harbor jobs, the Port estimates, in a state that has seen unemployment rise and incomes decline.
Bruce Halperin, representing the Oregon Trucking Associations, noted that the development would take up less than half the island, leaving the rest for restoration.
”This is not development running amok,” Halperin told the council. “Of course, it would be nice not to develop the land at all, but our economic and social needs don’t afford us that luxury.”
Conservation groups say new development can go to other regional ports, including Vancouver, or to retooled Port of Portland sites amid its 756 acres of existing terminals.
