Here is the modern formula.

Get a city to give tax breaks; via ten year property tax moratorium.

Get the state to borrow money, with taxpayer guarantees; and deliver it to the city.
Then let the owner use the taxpayer guarantee to then use the ownership documents of the resulting project as collateral (at 90 percent of appraised face value) in an Oregon Commercial Bank to then do another project.

Peak Development, LLC. and PEAK DEVELOPMENT RENTAL can team up with LONE OAK CONSTRUCTION, INC. at a common Gresham address to game the system.

The Oregonian gives just a snippet. But look also to notions of economic development and MAX-transit related development etcetera. Retail sales, from my economics background, facilitates the OUTFLOW of local dollars and is thus quite the opposite of economic development. Yes, it is openly and grotesquely contrary to genuine economic development.

It sure is hard to distinguish graft from economics today. Huh? It seems all tied together in one big blob. If you don't join the game you lose because it is the only game in town.

UPDATE: Gresham's Citizen Planning Organization Board Resigns (four at once). This is just one group involved in the Gresham Station. The state land use goals require that each local government have a CPO. Here is a link to critic's comments on the whole Gresham Station plan -- perhaps he could join the CPO.