Two Portland development companies set on renovating Old Town Chinatown’s Grove Hotel are suing the owners of property across the street to evict the homeless tent camp set up there.
Filed by developers of the Grove Hotel, a high-profile project designed to help revitalize the neighborhood, the suit argues the camp violates Portland’s zoning code, defies Oregon’s permitting rules for setting up a park or camp and impedes redevelopment of the Northwest Portland neighborhood.
Bob Naito is lead owner of Grove Hotel Partners, which is developing the nine-story hotel. Grove Hostel Property, which helped acquire the hotel property, is also suing.
The groups worked to remake the historic hotel, which stretches for a full block from Fourth Avenue to Fifth Avenue on West Burnside Street in Old Town, into a high-end tourist destination with restaurants and other retail offerings on the ground floor.
They argue in the suit that the camp, known as Right 2 Dream Too and located at Northwest Fourth Avenue and Burnside Street, interfered with the renovation of the hotel by reducing the neighborhood property values and lowering the value of their proposed project by $900,000.
The tent camp, governed by its occupants, has operated on the site with the permission of property owner Michael Wright for more than five years.
Wright did not respond to a phone call and a text requesting comment. The Oregonian/OregonLive was also unable to reach Mark Kramer, an attorney who represented him in a separate lawsuit against the City of Portland.
Portland city officials have long struggled to find another location for the camp, even after directing $846,000 toward the project.
Commissioner Amanda Fritz recently found a new potential site, her chief of staff Tim Crail told The Oregonian/OregonLive Thursday. He declined to say where it is, but said the commissioner is keenly aware of the April 7 deadline to find the campers a new location.
Suing to force removal of the homeless residents “was the last resort when my client felt that nothing else seemed to be working,” said attorney Steve Naito, the brother of Bob Naito who is representing both groups in the case. “They felt they had received assurances from the city that the camp would be moved and that hasn’t happened.”
Wright is among four defendants named in the lawsuit, along with wife Linda Wright, and fellow property owners Daniel and Donna Cossette.
The four have co-owned the property across from the Grove Hotel at the base of Old Town’s Chinese gates since Wright and Daniel Cossette bought an adult bookstore on the property in 1984.
A dispute with former City Commissioner Randy Leonard ended the bookstore in 2008. The owners later demolished the bookstore, and Wright invited the Right 2 Dream Too homeless camp to move onto the property in October 2011, in part to spite the city for Leonard’s actions.
Although the Cossettes co-own some of the land the Right 2 Dream Too residents occupy, court filings make clear that the Wrights are the sole decision-makers in favor of hosting the camp. A lawsuit filed on behalf of Donna Cossette in January says Wright is responsible for any damages the owners incur as a result of zoning code violations or nuisance charges.
The Cossettes “have zero responsibility” for the Grove Hotel lawsuit’s claims, said attorney Charles Markley, who represented Donna Cossette’s guardian in the January case against Wright.
“It’s Michael Wright and only Michael Wright (who) allowed Right 2 Dream Too to come onto the property,” Markley said.
Cossette’s advocate claims in the lawsuit that Wright owes her more than $185,000 for rent Wright failed to charge the homeless camp, demolition costs and payments made by the Portland Development Commission to begin buying the property.
In October 2014, the four owners entered an agreement to sell the property to the Portland Development Commission for $1.2 million, plus $300,000 made in 30 monthly payments of $10,000. The commission sent the monthly payments to Wright, the lawsuit said. It paid $290,000 to Wright as of Feb. 9, said commission spokesman Shawn Uhlman. The lawsuit alleges that Wright has not paid Donna Cossette her full share.
Portland City Council voted in February 2016 to move the controversial camp to the Central Eastside, but a ruling by Oregon’s land-use board blocked the move. The ruling found that city officials abused local zoning rules by trying to classify a residential camp as a nonprofit so they could move it to an area zoned for industrial use.
In 2013, Fritz and former Mayor Charlie Hales worked to find a new home for the camp in the Pearl District, but neighbors and local business owners fought the plan until Hales looked elsewhere.
City officials created a list of 21 potential new sites. None worked out so the city turned to the Central Eastside location. The Oregon land-use’s ruling left the camp with an uncertain future.
The Portland Development Commission agreed to close on the property by April 7, so long as the owners passed environmental and archaeological inspections and removed the campers living on the property, said Uhlman, the development commission spokesman.
“The ball is in their court as far as clearing the site,” Uhlman said. “As we get closer to that deadline, we’d have to take a much harder look at what the next step options would be. The requirements we’ve put in place have been very clear as well.”
“Amanda and the city are committed to finding them another location by that date,” Crail said.
Former Right 2 Dream Too co-founder Ibrahim Mubarak said moving the camp will push the campers further from nearby social services.
“For the sake of gentrification, someone has to get pushed out and hurt and it’s usually the poor people,” Mubarak said. “They’re doing that true to form by discriminating against us. They’re saying because we don’t have no house, we don’t have a right to be around.”
Jim Ryan contributed to this report.
–Jessica Floum
jfloum@oregonian.com
503-221-8306
@cityhallwatch
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