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Ross Island Vision Team: Envisioning Ross Island
The Institute has produced, with its partners at the Willamette Riverkeeper, Audubon Society of Portland, Greenworks landscape architecture, architects, and landscape architects a plan for Ross Island, Envisioning Ross Island (.pdf), which lays out scenarios for how Ross and its sister islands Hardtack, East and Toe, might be managed as a unit with the Holgate Channel and the 160-acre city-owned Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge as an urban wildlife refuge complex, public natural area park, and place to contemplate nature in the heart of downtown Portland.

Bi-State Trail Plan Unveiled The long awaited Bi-State Trail Plan was released at a meeting of The Intertwine Alliance on April 9th in downtown Vancouver, Washington. The plan contains information regarding the values of a regional trail network and displays 37 regional trail elements of the proposed regional system. The plan was created by the Urban Greenspaces Institute, National Park Service's Rivers and Trails Conservation Assistance Program, Metro Sustainability Center and Vancouver-Clark Parks and Recreation. To read the plan click here.

Oregon Public Broadcasting features Portland Memorial Mausoleum mural project. On April 15th OPB's Art Beat Program ran a 10 minute special feature on the 50,000 square foot wetland mural that the Urban Greenspaces Institute collaborated with ArtFX Murals to produce on the Portland Memorial Mausoleum overlooking 160-acre Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge. Click here to view OPBs video.

Urban Greenspaces Institute participates in creating an agricultural and natural resources map for Metro's Urban and Rural Reserves planning.

October 2nd and 3rd Dedication of Portland Memorial Mausoleum and Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge Mural, the nation's largest hand painted mural
[See photo]
[Download invitation]

UGI National Advisory Board member, Jon Kulser , honored by the Association of Wetland Scientists with Lifetime Achievement Award

Institute Director Mike Houck receives The Garden Club of America Club Conservation Commendation from the Portland Garden Club, Wednesday, June 11, 2009

Memorial Mausoleum Mural Completed!

Quiet, No Wake Zone For Holgate Channel and Ross Island

Wild in the City Field Trips - Exploring Regional Greenspaces by Kayak, Bike and Foot

Urban Green, A Radio Documentary on Green Planning in Portland.

Regional Planning

Connecting Green Vision—The World’s Greatest Regional Parks, Trails, and Natural Areas System

The Institute has been engaged in regional growth management, parks, trails, and natural areas planning since its founding in 1999. Our current involvement at the regional scale is to help implement the region’s Connecting Green Vision of creating the world’s greatest regional parks, trails and natural areas system. The Institute’s Director, Mike Houck, was a member on Metro’s Greenspaces Policy Advisory Committee and was an active participant in drafting a vision for a bi-state, regional system of parks, trails, and natural areas: Greenspaces Policy Advisory Committee, Vision, outcomes, objectives and means which was adopted by the Metro Council in March, 2005.

The adopted vision states: “We envision an exceptional, multi-jurisdictional, interconnected system of neighborhood, community, and regional parks, natural areas, trails, open spaces, and recreation opportunities distributed equitably throughout the region. This region-wide system is acknowledged and valued here and around the world as an essential element of the greater Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area’s economic success, ecological health, civic vitality, and overall quality of life.

As the region grows and develops, this region-wide system also expands, diversifies, and matures to meet the needs of a growing and changing population. All residents live and work near and have access – regardless of income – to nature, areas for recreation and leisure, and public spaces that bring people together and connect them to their community.

This region-wide system of parks, natural areas, trails, open spaces, and recreation opportunities:

Drives the region’s economy and tourist trade
Preserves significant natural areas for wildlife habitat and public use
Enhances the region’s air and water quality
Promotes citizens’ health, fitness, and personal well-being
Connects the region’s communities with trails and greenways
Provides sense of place and community throughout the region
Supports an ecologically sustainable metropolitan area

The Institute’s Director Mike Houck chaired the Greenspaces Policy Advisory Committee natural landscape features working group that developed the natural landscape features map that depicts the regional natural areas system from Clark County’s North Fork Lewis River in the North, south to Salem in the Willamette Valley and from the crest of the coast range to the crest of the Cascades.

Connecting Green Alliance

The Institute is a founding member of the Connecting Green Alliance, a coalition of government, business, and nonprofit groups dedicated to ensuring the vision for the world’s greatest parks, trails, and natural areas system for the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan region is realized.

Core members of the Alliance include the Urban Greenspaces Institute, Trust for Public Land, Audubon Society of Portland, Metro, and the City of Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services and Portland Parks and Recreation. The Alliance’s mission is to:

Network: The Alliance is a fertile ground for collaboration.
Communicate: Develop an identity package that creates a consistent and compelling message and brand.
Advocate: identify and support key issues and projects.
Mobilize: issue calls to action and organize supporters.

Urban and Rural Reserves Planning

Metro, the nation’s only directly elected regional government, has the responsibility to plan for future growth and where that growth will occur. The Urban and Rural Reserves Planning process will identify those areas around our current Urban Growth Boundary where future urbanization should occur (Urban Reserves) as well as those areas where farm, forest and natural areas are so important that future Urban Growth Boundary expansions should not be allowed over the next fifty to one-hundred years (Rural Reserves).

The same natural landscape features map created for the regional parks, trails, and natural areas system is being used to delineate the region’s most important landscape features and where Rural Reserves should be designated. Mike Houck sits on Metro’s Reserves Steering Committee and continues to continue providing input on the Institute’s priorities for exclusion of important natural landscape features from Urban Reserves and where Rural Reserves should be located.

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