Forest Heights

1865 home of Cedar Mill founding father, John Quincy Adam Young

One of the things I like best about my work is being out in communities – walking or driving streets, talking with residents, and engaging with institutions and businesses that serve them. Neighborhoods expand and deepen our sense of home, offering connection and belonging beyond property lines and family ties.

The spirit of place thrives in Portland. Did you know that it has 95 recognized neighborhoods? And each is represented by an association that gives residents a voice in local governance? The city’s Office of Neighborhood Involvement (ONI) provides funding, information and technical support to help Portlanders build more inclusive, safe and livable communities.

Grand Central has become Cedar Mill hub since launch of 1st suburban location here 12/15

Signs of Cedar Mill’s past – site of 1855 business that gave community its name

In 2005 and 2006, Portland’s League of Women Voters published a two-part study of our neighborhood associations – past and present. They grew out of the activism of the 70’s. Some weighed in powerfully on land use decisions in the early days, helping to limit freeways and nudge the city toward walkable development and mass transit solutions. Over the past 40+ years, they have continued to evolve – through dissent and conflict as well as partnership, across changing political climates, and in good and bad economic times.

The vitality and achievements of our neighborhood associations command national attention. To take just one example, Portland occupies the whole final chapter of Better Together: Restoring the American Community (2003). Co-authored by Robert Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard, the book focuses on the power of networks or “social capital” to help people renew their communities and improve their lives.

Rare lull at Market of Choice wine bar in Timberland Town Center

Open spaces and native flora protect Cedar Mill's water quality

At the same time, associations have struggled with top-down city programs; insular perspectives or NIMBYism (“not in my backyard”); limited funding and capacity; lack of accountability and inequities in how resources are used and shared across the 95 associations and five area coalitions they make up; and not enough diversity among those who participate in them.

Monthly meetings of Cedar Mill’s Community Participation Organization are held at Leedy Grange, built in 1903

It is both because I value community and see opportunities to strengthen it that I recently started attending meetings of my neighborhood association. If you haven’t and would like to, here’s how to get started:

Type your home address in the search window of portlandmaps.com and hit enter.
The name shown beside the heading ‘Neighborhood’ is your association.
If you live in Multnomah County, the name will be a live link. Click on it and you’ll see contact and meeting info for your association.
If you’re outside Multnomah County, simply copy and paste the name to a new web browser window and you’ll soon find your way to your association website.

Of course, as a practical matter it’s also my job to do desk and field research that will help clients decide where to live. Neighborhoods are one strand of content in my blog. So far, I’ve written about Cedar Hills, Forest Heights and Cully. Up next? The West Slope. Stay tuned.

Signs of community – entrance to Cedar Mill Library

Forest Heights has been much in the news lately. The April real estate issue of Portland Monthly identified it as the top spot for “blossoming families” on the west side. A couple of weeks back, the Portland Business Journal reported that the neighborhood (and the rest of 97229) retained its #1 spot for volume of home sales in the first quarter of 2017. And in an article on homes with courtyards, OregonLive profiled a 3-level Mediterranean style property in Forest Heights listed just south of $2 million.

Once home to Tualatin Indians and pioneer loggers, this planned community is less than 30 years old. While making way for over 1100 detached residential lots, almost 700 townhouses and condos, 160 apartments and a small town center anchored by Starbucks, the development has preserved the area’s best natural features: territorial views of the west hills and coastal range and a 6-mile network of woodland trails.

Forest Heights feels far away from the urban hustle. But its southern boundary along Cornell Rd is just 3 miles from Highway 26 and the Sunset Transit Center, which offers bus and light rail connections to downtown Portland and Hillsboro. The neighborhood is served by private weekday shuttle bus service to the Transit Center during commuting hours.

There’s no question that it’s a great place for kids. In addition to quiet streets and nature trails, Forest Heights has playgrounds, Mill Pond Park and a neighborhood elementary school that gets the highest possible rating on greatschools.org and schooldigger.com. The same is true of the high school (Lincoln) and middle school (West Sylvan) that serve the community. According to the 2010 Census, 30 percent of the population is under age 18 and 32 percent of households are families with children.

Forest Heights deserves its reputation for affluence as well as family-friendliness. The median sale price of a home is $631K. Detached properties can range over 8000 square feet and $2 million. But condos run as low as 1100 square feet and $300K. The relative affordability of multi-family housing is undercut by homeowner association fees, which start at about $350 per month.

If you want to move into the neighborhood, it may be a consolation that the price of admission has not risen nearly as fast as in other areas. The 5-year median price change was a modest 20 percent. If you’re a homeowner in the area, on the other hand, you may feel disappointed by that statistic.

Portland Business Journal attributes the high volume of sales in the area to empty nesters living in large detached homes. According to a search run today in the Regional Multiple Listing Service, there are 24 properties for sale in the neighborhood.

Get on the fast track to community — and the heart of Portland living — through your neighborhood association

Taking the pulse of Forest Heights – this NW neighborhood offers splendid views, nature trails and family-friendly living for a price