[Nettime-bold] Reconstruction Report: 7/11 - 8/11 -- Questions

[t byfield <tbyfield@panix.com>]

     [what follows is an essay from the first issue of a project
      i'm working on, _reconstruction report_, dealing with the
      redevelopment of the WTC site and, more generally, lower 
      manhattan: <http://reconstructionreport.org/>. the essay 
      appeared in a micro-newspaper distributed at the 20 july
      'listening to the city' spectacle, whose stated purpose was
      to elicit public input into redevelopment plans. despite
      tight strictures on distributing non-official material, we
      circulated ~1700 copies among 5000 people -- who then were
      randomly broken up into 10-person discussion tables for the
      next ~7 hours. happily, the main result of the event was a 
      nearly unanimous rejection of the perpetuation of pre-9/11 
      commercial leases on the WTC site. a small but good start.
      
      misc nettimers (in or around sydney, athens, nagano, calgary,
      sarajevo, salt lake city, turin, mexico city, etc, etc) might 
      be interested in what, for them, is a familiar saga: the deus 
      ex machina of an olympic bid sponsored by local elites as a 
      means to reengineer the urban fabric for private gain. in months 
      of talks with urban planners and activists in NYC, i've found
      only a handful of people who grok the Big Picture -- which 
      is alluded to in this essay.
      
      this project is funded by the design trust for public space, 
      with additional support from the new school university and the 
      united nations university. kudos to openflows.org for technical 
      implementation and to thing.net for hosting. the slash site
      _rr_ runs on also hosts slash.thing.net and, soon, might host
      icannwatch as well.

      subscriptions to the paper edition of _rr_ are *free*: mail me 
      and i'll sign you up. and if you know of any non-nettimer who
      have an interest in these issues, please pass this mail along.
      -- cheers, t]


7/11 - 8/11: Questions

Through much of this spring, various elected and appointed New York
officials insisted that there was an "emerging consensus" on how to
redevelop the former World Trade Center site. Too often, they put more
energy into declaring that such a consensus existed than into explaining
what supposedly was agreed on.

To arrive at a consensus, you first ask questions; and the answers you
get depend, in part, on the questions you ask. If you ask someone from
the metro area "What should happen at the WTC site?", the answer will
probably sound more or less like the LMDC's *Principles and Preliminary 
Blueprint*: an inclusive and open planning process leading to an
idealistic mix with something for everyone. But if you ask the same
person "Should the site be rebuilt to give the WTC's two leaseholders
everything they expected, like 9/11 never happened?", the answer will
probably be *very* different.

Yet that latter question fueled *three* of the Port Authority's ten
"program elements" -- requirements -- "for onsite development" of the
site. As a result, all six "concept plans" produced by the PA and LMDC
include 11 million square feet for offices, 600,000 ("or more") for
retail, and a 600,000-square-foot hotel. These numbers won't be found in
the recommendations of public-interest coalitions such as the Civic
Alliance, New York New Visions, Imagine New York, or R.Dot. They're
based on the leases the PA signed with Larry Silverstein's investment
group for the twin towers, and with Westfield America for the retail
area beneath them. (In fact, the proposed retail area includes 170,000
square feet that Westfield *hoped* to build on the WTC plaza.)

Even people close to the planning process were surprised to learn so
belatedly that the PA was treating these private claims as equal to
public desires. Worse, in explaining the planning concepts, the PA
insists -- falsely -- that "legal obligations" prevent it from changing
the original terms of the leases. Given the City's bleak economic
prospects, the PA has good reason to be financially conservative, and
ensuring strong revenues from the site is *one* way to do that. The PA
could have -- should have -- made that argument to the public. Instead,
it has tried to hide behind the skirts of Silverstein and Westfield,
while offering dubious black-and-white choices between $120 million per
year[1] (the pre-9/11 lease payments) or nothing.

     [1] http://reconstructionreport.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/06/1743249

But the problem isn't just that the PA and LMDC have failed, despite
many promises, to act with openness and transparency. For all the shock
and sorrow of the World Trade Center attacks, the blossoming of
committed public engagement that followed was more than a silver lining:
it prompted civic debates not heard for decades and held forth the
possibility of breaking some political gridlock. But the business-as-
usual approach taken by the PA and the LMDC runs a very serious risk 
of squandering this opportunity for innovation -- in exchange for a 
banal result.

More specifically, the PA's and LMDC's design and planning program
demotes key issues the public felt very strongly about, such as design
excellence and sustainability, to a laundry list of "other programming
considerations." And other points on which there *definitely* is a broad
consensus -- for example, the need for an international design
competition -- are mentioned only in passing as nice possibilities.

If this is where we stand at the end of Phase One of the redevelopment
process, we should be *seriously* concerned about where Phases Two and
Three might lead. The PA and the LMDC have done some extraordinary work,
but to date what little openness we've seen in the planning process has
mainly been a one-way street of press releases, carefully choreographed
presentations, and unaccountable assurances that officials are
"listening." And even the supposed cure for these shortcomings, the NYC
Economic Development Corporation's hiring of a PR team to publicize
redevelopment-related information, seems imbalanced[2]: the contract was
awarded to a two-company team that includes a subsidiary of Parsons
Brinckerhoff, Beyer Blinder Belle's urban-planning partner, and was
announced with a whisper late in the afternoon before the July 4th
weekend.

     [2] http://reconstructionreport.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/08/2047200

There's good reason to pay close attention to the redevelopment process
in any case, but it's now becoming clear how much more transparency is
needed. Unfortunately, transparency is rarely given freely; so those
concerned with the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan need to be *much*
more actively vigilant.

To date, neither the LMDC nor the PA has released any of the
environmental, land-use, or fiscal studies that, one hopes, support the
six concept plans they've published. The LMDC holds weekly meetings, but
as of this writing it has only published the minutes -- ccompletely
schematic summaries -- of just five meetings, the most recent on April
9th.

The disappointing results of Phase One make plain that the PA and LMDC
have failed to understand or articulate some of the deeper challenges
posed by this redevelopment. In a way, that's understandable: it's hard
to fathom how a sixteen-acre site hemmed in by dense urban fabric could
support such a symbolic burden. If it can't, then the problem becomes
what can be achieved on the site within the larger context of the City
and metro region.

Even if the PA's supposed legal obligations to Silverstein and Westfield
are justified, it's fair to ask whether the "right" to rebuild is tied
to the former WTC site. But now that the six concepts have been
presented for public response, we can by the same logic ask whether
certain elements really need to be rebuilt on or even near the WTC site.

Take, for example, the broadcast tower lost when the north WTC building
collapsed. All six PA/LMDC concept plans (one "contributed by"
Silverstein's architects, Owings Skidmore and Merrill[3]) clearly
include a broadcast tower. Jack Beyer of Beyer Blinder Belle insistently
described some of them as "sculptural" elements "to create height"
instead of frankly stating what they are. On the other hand, in early
June, a consortium of New York and New Jersey broadcasters "unveiled" an
1,800-foot broadcast tower proposed for Governor's Island or Jersey City
-- the very same design they had unveiled two months earlier as the
"NYTTower/NYC 2012"[4] at a convention in Las Vegas. These kinds of
evasions about such an immense environmental and aesthetic presence are
completely unacceptable.

     [3] http://reconstructionreport.org/article.pl?sid=02/06/07/192237
     [4] http://reconstructionreport.org/article.pl?sid=02/06/05/0529207

At the other extreme, there is strong consensus support for a
transportation hub. One element common to all six concept plans is an
"intermodal" transportation complex. However, the concept documents are
very vague about which modes are involved. Train-to-bus transfers hardly
merit the name "intermodal," and the renderings clearly show that
ferries are a key element ("an absolute given," according to LMDC
boardmember Roland Betts). Expansion of ferry services would be
excellent for the city and the region, but any integration of private
ferry operators such as New York Waterway into metro transportation
systems or planning initiatives such as NYC2012's "Olympic X" *must* be
made accountable to the public.

Unfortunately, accountability can move slowly, but some events are
bearing down on us *very* quickly. On November 3rd, Marathon Day, the
U.S. Olympic Committee will announce whether New York is America's
candidate for the Olympic games. If so, the surge of developments around
the city will inevitably become tangled up with, at the very least, any
intermodal transportation project downtown. One of the USOC's twelve-
member Bid Evaluation Task Force is Roland Betts, LMDC boardmember and 
Chelsea Piers owner. NYC2012, the private company spearheading the City's 
bid (including a showcase stadium[5] near Chelsea Piers), was founded and 
headed up by Dan Doctoroff, now Deputy Mayor of Economic Development and 
Rebuilding. NYC2012's urban planner is Alex Garvin -- planner for the 
LMDC and a member of the City Planning Commission. These overlapping and 
possibly contradictory roles can't be ignored, and assurances of personal 
integrity aren't enough; possible conflicts of interest need to be made 
public and addressed promptly.

     [5] http://reconstructionreport.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/14/0239245

Two days after the USOC's "decision day" comes the gubernatorial
election. Already, imagined electoral pressures have led various
politicians to grandstand on redevelopment issues. There's every reason
to think that this tendency will worsen as the election rolls on.

Amidst this all -- that is, in *five months* -- the PA and the LMDC hope
to complete a coherent redevelopment plan worthy of a historical turning
point, worthy of one of the world's great cities, and worthy of
tremendous public commitment. As they flesh out plans for each component
project, the rising costs will collide with sharply escalating fiscal
concerns.

These concerns are without doubt one of the forces driving the PA and
the LMDC to give pride of place to Silverstein and Westfield, who are
entitled to hefty insurance payments when construction begins. But those
funds are locked in fierce litigation that could potentially drag on for
years.

In turning to these private parties, redevelopment authorities are
turning away from a much broader public. It's our task now to turn them
back. Doing so involves more than participating in isolated "events" and
contributing "input." More than anything else, what's needed now are
commitments from the PA and the LMDC not just to "listen" but to abide
by the public will.

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