You can now tack on 20 of the city's neighborhood associations to the list of people concerned about the proposed relocation of homeless rest area Right 2 Dream Too.

The board of SE Uplift, a powerful coalition of mainly southeast Portland neighborhoods, voted last night to ask Portland Mayor Charlie Hales and Commissioner Amanda Fritz to better explain the planned move from beneath Old Town's Chinatown gate to a vacant, state-owned lot just east of the new Tilikum Crossing bridge.

"The vote last night was to support further discussion," says Robert McCullough, chair of the neighborhood coalition. "A letter's going out from our office probably today or tomorrow. It's gonna say we would like to roll up our sleeves."

McCullough took pains to stress his coalition's potential gripes have nothing to do with NIMBYism. Neighborhood associations are concerned about a lack of process, he says— casually invoking neighbors' hand in scuttling the proposed Mount Hood Freeway in 1974—and the fact homeless people living at the proposed site could be subjected to excess diesel emissions from nearby railways.

And, he says, members share the concerns articulated by the Central Eastside Industrial Council (CEIC), an influential business group that's made a case that the city's on the verge of perverting its own stringent zoning standards, leaving the door open to dozens of new homeless encampments throughout the city.

"Our agenda turns out not to be very NIMBY-like, interestingly enough," McCullough says. "If we had a sense that there were six options and this was the best one, we'd probably support it."

What the group is really asking for is that city staff account for itself. SE Uplift, like the CEIC, wants a written rationale for why a homeless camp should be allowed on a site zoned for industrial use, and a list of other potential sites. McCullough stresses his group has the highest regard for R2Dtoo, but wants the city's take on whether Portland's homeless population—largely focused near the social services of downtown—will even want to live near OMSI (he acknowledged there are already homeless people living in the neighborhood). And it's interested in the outcome of environmental impact tests the city is conducting.

SE Uplift's involvement throws important heft behind CEIC's request to hit the brakes on the R2DToo move—largely because it's willing to go to the mat for its chosen causes. The group, and particularly McCullough, emerged as a central doubter in the recent "street fee" discussions, going to court and agreeing to pay thousands of dollars just to check the city's math. More recently, McCullough and his neighbors have waded into a hugely expensive land deal to save three towering sequoias.

"As you know, we've litigated in the past," McCullough says. "No one has proposed that."

Hales and Fritz unveiled the proposed move in late April—a day after announcing it to the CEIC. City staffers had spent a year and a half scouring the city for suitable homes for the homeless encampment, and they said the central eastside plot was the best they'd found.

The move was presented at the time as a foregone conclusion. In 2013, Fritz had obtained an opinion from the city's Bureau of Development Services (BDS) that R2DToo could be classified as a "community service," a designation that made it suitable to set up shop on a wide variety of city lands. The CEIC has questioned that finding, though, and is asking (along with SE Uplift) for a fresh evaluation of the encampment's fitness on the new site. At very least, the group has suggested, the encampment would have to file for a building permit, since the city is planning showers and restrooms on the plot. That could open up the move to lengthy process.

The questions are made more interesting by Commissioner Dan Saltzman's sudden stewardship of BDS, which will have a big say in this process. Saltzman has been R2DToo's biggest foe on city council, overseeing thousands of dollars in fines levied on the camp before Fritz smoothed things over in 2013.

A call to Hales' office about SE Uplift's vote hasn't been returned, but spokesman Dana Haynes said last week the move was on track for late summer. Once the city's environmental review process is complete, officials will need to negotiate a deal to purchase the site at SE 3rd and Harrison from the Oregon Dept. of Transportation.