What a thrill! Out of many deserving nominees, Gorge Owned selected the Streets Alive team to receive the annual Tod Lefevre Sustainability Champion award in the organization category! Thrive is honored to be one of the founders and organizers of the Streets Alive celebration, and look forward to sharing an even bigger and better event on Sunday September 29. Thrive Board Member Peter Cornelison serves as the overall event manager while Executive Director Heather Staten focuses on putting up the street demonstration projects like temporary crosswalks and bikelanes. Along with producing the Street Alive event, our team has evolved into an advisory group called The Street Project which provides recommendations to the City of Hood River around active transportation solutions to make our streets safer for pedestrians and people on bikes.  

We won an important case at the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) on October 15, 2018. HRVRC had appealed a local permit decision that was made without a hearing. Hood River County’s local planning director recently approved a conditional use permit to allow a short-term rental on exclusive farmland. Hood River County is among the most expensive rural counties in the US and the unprecedented growth in Short Term Rentals and second homes has started to impact housing affordability, neighborhood livability and threaten farmland. The City of Hood River and the local communities throughout the county have been struggling with a very tight housing market for locals, as well as ensuring that their incredibly valuable agricultural resources remain viable for current and future farmers. A short-term rental on farmland does not help either of these issues. Instead, it puts a greater strain on the community and further drives a wedge between housing and farmland preservation.…