Historically Black church finally moves forward on a new climate-friendly vision, hoping the final permit stages won’t cause delays

Local nonprofit Depave and a group of volunteers broke ground on a project to turn Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church’s unused parking lot into a community hub.

More than 60 volunteers showed up on a sunny, 87-degree day to pull up slabs of concrete June 22. Morning Star, a historically Black church in the Cully neighborhood, wants to turn its parking lot into a community space with attention to climate resiliency, where neighbors can find refuge in the face of increasingly frequent extreme weather events.

The proposed project aligns with many city goals related to climate resiliency, environmental justice, racial equity and other community-based solutions to Portlanders' challenges. Numerous studies, including Multnomah County’s 2023 Environmental Snapshot report, show people living under scarce tree canopies, without air conditioning in their homes or long distances from cooling or warming centers in extreme weather conditions already directly experience the effects of climate change, including those living in the Cully neighborhood.

Still, starting last summer, delays in city bureaucracy pushed the project back a full year. Proponents of the project hope this summer will be different so they can begin construction, tree-planting and offer space for kids to play.

Work on the envisioned vibrant space, teeming with greenery and space for kids from the connected Pequeñitos Daycare to play, stalled last year when the city of Portland required the project to undergo a conditional use review. The review came with a $7,500 price tag, which was partly waived by the city, and cost the church five months just after breaking ground on the first half of the lot.

The building Morning Star now calls home, on the corner of Northeast 55th Avenue and Alberta Street, was built in 1960. Pequeñitos, a Spanish language immersion daycare, shares the church building with Morning Star.

Previous occupants paved the 18,000-square-foot space in 1968, adding 31 new parking spaces to the lot on the south side of the church. Morning Star has never used the area for parking and wants to convert those 31 additional parking spaces into green space.

Depave argued its proposed project would not alter any of the existing uses and should not be subject to the review, but the city’s Bureau of Development Services required it and ultimately suggested a few small changes. An envisioned shipping container kitchen will instead be a full structure, and a line of trees will serve as barriers between the lot and the adjacent neighbors.

Katya Reyna, Depave program director, said the heart of the project is creating a space for the community to take care of each other and the land.

“Everything is teamwork,” Reyna said. “You can’t depave alone — you always need another person. It’s inherently a community effort.”

Technically, Depave is still waiting on the permit to start building, but the work to pull up the layers of asphalt has to begin in the meantime for the construction phase to be completed by the fall when they will begin planting.

Jean Norwood, a church member, worked tirelessly to see the project through. She said they would have finished the project last year but the conditional use review took five months to approve, so the project was delayed until this summer. The expensive review lost time and funds.

“Those funds could have gone to getting equipment for the children's playground or, you know, maybe better crops for the mini farm,” Norwood said.

While massive funding exists through the Portland Clean Energy Fund, or PCEF, small community projects like Morning Star have an uphill climb to reach their vision. PCEF creates grant opportunities to invest $150 million over five years for projects that reduce or sequester carbon emissions, create meaningful economic opportunities and enhance Portland’s resilience to climate change.

Morning Star applied for grants through the PCEF, hoping to receive a response in late March. PCEF moved its decision deadline to as late as August, just before the fall weather threatens to delay the project until next summer.

Reyna said she’s excited the project is moving forward and hopes they can reschedule contractors who have repeatedly had to delay their work while waiting for the final permit. The delays create barriers to the project but also create challenges for a nonprofit organization attentive to funding cycles.

“As a nonprofit, we can't just not do work,” she said. “You have to keep doing something and producing because we have grant funders to report to, we have money we have to get through during a certain amount of time.”

In the public comment phase of the review, neighbors only submitted positive comments about the project. The neighborhood association submitted a letter — a meaningful gesture of support from the community that will have access to the area once it is finished.

The project will be a notable upgrade for children at Pequeñitos Childcare, who currently play on the concrete lot between the church building and the park. The lot is partially painted green to look like grass, because the children are not allowed to use the neighboring Khunamokwst Park as a condition of the daycare’s license.

Norwood said she is eager to get moving, and hopes they don’t lose another year to bureaucratic hurdles.

“We want to be able to start inviting the community to come over and participate with us,” Norwood said.

Street Roots is an award-winning weekly investigative publication covering economic, environmental and social inequity. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.