Growing Baltimore Woods

The Friends of Baltimore Woods are delighted to announce the recent acquisition of a new parcel nicknamed Acorn Acre near the North Reno Entrance of the Baltimore Woods Natural Area.

Purchasing of this lot, formally known as the Erickson Property, has long been on the back burner FOBW “To Do” list, until the spring of 2023 when a realtor “For Sale” sign was posted on North Reno, alerting the board into action. Over the summer, a weekend neighborhood petition drive gathered over 120 signatures in favor of protecting the lot, plus many emails and phone calls to Metro, Portland Parks and Bureau of Environmental Services were made.

The most significant boost to the effort came when board members attended North Portland and Northeast Portland town hall meetings in August with City Commissioner Dan Ryan and his Communications and Special Projects Director TJ McHugh. Once TJ was informed of the board’s interest in protecting the property, and received the petition and letters of interest from the FOBW board, the ball began to roll. The property was taken off the Zillow website and Portland Parks planned to seek approval from city commissioners to complete the purchase and protection of this beautiful woodland habitat to be added to the 30 acres of Baltimore Woods. City Council approval was granted in January 2024.

Portland Parks has already begun work on the site, clearing invasive shrubs, ivy and blackberry vines. The Parks botanist in charge of the restoration, Laura Guderyahn, has a 2 year plan to get the site under control and natives planted using park crews and Friends volunteers. FOBW is also planning walking tours of the new site and surrounding meadows of the Baltimore Woods corridor sometime in the future. Stay tuned to the website for dates.

It took a village. None of this would have been possible without the accessibility of Dan Ryan and his staff at neighborhood Town Halls this past summer, a concentrated neighborhood petition drive, a letter of support to City Council, the help of Andrea Berkley with Metro, Laura Lehman with Portland Parks, and the action of several hard working FOBW board members. We are so grateful for our city stewardship partners and this combined community support for protecting local native oak woodland habitats.