Apartments are sprouting up like weeds in the Tigard Triangle. As one complex is finished, another is starting.

The Tigard Triangle, located in the northeast corner of the city, is bordered by the roadways that surround it: Highway 99W (Pacific Highway), Highway 217, and Interstate 5.

Spurred, in part, by changes in the federal tax code, the apartments in the Triangle are driving increases in the local population. Hopeful retailers are already in the area to serve new residents, but one crucial element is clearly missing – public spaces. 

Public spaces are essential for the well-being of everyone in a community.  They give breathing room to people in dense housing, they make people feel safe, comfortable, and welcome. In addition to providing opportunities for relaxation, recreation and socializing, they help stimulate a neighborhood’s local character and sense of place. Community places instill a mutual sense of pride and ownership and help assure a commitment to an area’s continued well-being. 

Think of Portland’s Pioneer Square, Governor Tom McCall Waterfront Park, Tualatin Commons, Beaverton’s City Fountain Park, Lake Oswego’s Millennium Plaza Park. They are all prime spaces for interaction where people from many parts of the community and diverse backgrounds meet naturally and interact comfortably.

Without public spaces in the Tigard Triangle, where will parents and their children gather, where will friends be able to sit outdoors on a bench and enjoy enjoy a conversation, where will community get-togethers such as farmers markets and special events be held?  

If Tigard doesn’t make an effort to provide much needed public spaces accessible to the residents of all the new apartments in the Triangle, the entire community will suffer. Personal connections will wither and, instead of togetherness, the community will be dominated by massive shopping center parking lots and streets dedicated to moving ever-higher volumes of traffic.

What a tragedy that will be.

As naturalist John Muir said, “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”