More money for the street car at SoWhat. Isn’t that precious? Until you realize that the street car that exists there will have to be ripped out because the planning class screwed up. More from our anonymous blogger friend after the jump:

5th Listener reports:

This is really disgusting.

The streetcar is already there, it cost $35 million, some borrowed UR/TIF,  but it will be torn up and rebuilt.

The excuse is “The project will allow construction of new residential and commercial buildings without disturbing capped hazardous materials”.

The truth is the entire site has to be raised 5 feet for the flood zone just like the previous sites.

The hazardous materials issue is a useful exaggeration. Fraud.

The site also has springs and fill issues that are not resolved with capping but convenienlty ignored. 

The 14 feet is also needed to accomodate the elevation of the future light rail.

Moody Street is also being moved 100 feet to the west to accomodate OHSU and Zidell land development.   

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/02/lahood_awards_23_million_to_so.html