New Libraries Revitalize Cities

From: Miller-McCune Turning Research into Solutions

By: Jonathan Lerner | March 2, 2010 |

Architectural rendering of a library planned for Aahus, Denmark

New library complexes rejuvenate urban centers around the world by including theaters, shops, cafes, offices and even gyms.

A new library is being planned for the center of Aarhus, Denmark’s main port city. It will certainly contain books on shelves. Beyond that, it will not resemble the hushed and stately central libraries of the past. In fact, it is referred to not as a library but an “urban mediaspace.” The building will include flexible conference and project rooms, multimedia learning labs, performance venues, studios for artists and business startups, a shop, a cafe, a tram station and government-service offices where patrons can, for example, apply for social security. Its design competition envisioned “a layered structure that can be navigated like a home page.” It will anchor a sizable stretch of industrial waterfront that will be redeveloped as an esplanade for festivals, markets, sports and leisure. The winning entry shows an irregular, seven-sided, glass-walled building with generous roof overhangs that seem to simultaneously extend protection over the public realm and invite people into a hive of visible activity.

A mixed-use, multimedia complex that is meant to foster social interaction and creative ferment as much as reading and research, the library of the future is also intended as an engine of city-center rejuvenation. Examples have gone up in dozens of places around the world, including Salt Lake City; Vancouver, B.C.; Chongqing, China; the Spanish island of Tenerife; Delft, the Netherlands; Brisbane, Australia; and Cardiff, U.K. Versions are planned in Philadelphia; Oslo; Turin, Italy; Amsterdam; and other cities large and small. These library buildings incorporate a constellation of nontraditional and even non-library uses, like cafes, shops, theaters and auditoriums, galleries, classrooms, conference centers, meeting rooms, recording and broadcast studios, government offices, even housing. Some are placed adjacent to theaters, concert halls and museums to form cultural campuses; others are joined to schools or even hotels.

In Australia and New Zealand, says Alan Bundy, president of Friends of Libraries Australia, “it is now generally accepted that new public libraries should not be standalone, but should be, at minimum, within shopping centers as key retail anchors or collocated with other community facilities and agencies such as swimming pools, child care centers, family health and medical clinics — and that they should be multiuse and provide a range of spaces.” Architecturally, these new libraries seek to respond to the evolution of information technology and the blending of ways people seek knowledge, entertainment and social encounters. Many have glass walls, which both express their openness to the city and reveal the lively goings-on inside.

“The new libraries are very transparent, but what I think most important is the flexibility. We could create empty rooms and furnish them for the next five years and then rethink,” says Maija Berndtson, library director in Helsinki. “We see how the customers behave, and then follow their ideas.” The traditional library, built to house printed matter, had a fixed layout and purpose-defined spaces. The new libraries typically have open floor plans, uninterrupted interior sight lines and fluid traffic patterns — design approaches that acknowledge technological and cultural shifts.

The momentum toward new library design was encouraged by the high-profile 2004 opening of Seattle’s Central Library. Inside this irregularly shaped glass structure, there is a vast reception area called the “living room,” where you can read, but also meet people, grab a coffee and chat; it’s no quiet zone, though these exist in the building. The librarians all work together in the “mixing chamber,” another big space, accessible to patrons, that is also bustling — acoustically so, too. The book collection is displayed on a single long ramp that wraps up and around the building’s interior, shelved continuously following the Dewey Decimal System. Seattle’s particular innovations may not be perfect or universally adopted, but they do reimagine the library’s spatial organization in response to contemporary needs and uses.

Still, the Seattle library is not the best exemplar of the trend. It does contain meeting rooms, an auditorium, a cafe and a gift shop, but not the other non-library uses that might further integrate it with the city. You can’t go into the building to use a research database and take a swim, say, or to find a good read and buy a pair of socks. It has had a positive impact on the local economy and draws tourists for its sensational architecture. But downtown Seattle was hardly moribund when it was planned; urban regeneration was not among its principal goals.

In contrast, for those libraries that fully embody the new approach, “the planning really starts when we can see the connection with the development of the city center,” says Berndtson, who is involved in creating the vision for a new central library in Helsinki. So far, the project has a well-defined purpose. That, she wrote recently, is to be “a cultural meeting point, both physical and virtual; the city’s public face … where interactive democracy takes place…; a place where city-dwellers can spend their free time, feel at home and meet others, a place for the entire family right in the centre of town.”

Perhaps unusually, the building will not house the library system’s administrative offices or even the bulk of its book collection. “We don’t need the huge collection because it’s so easy to locate it if it’s situated elsewhere,” Berndtson remarks. Helsinki planners have now focused on a likely site in the city center, within the boundaries of a redevelopment master plan and adjacent to a major park, a concert hall-conference center complex, a contemporary art museum, and a music center and university-level music school now under construction. If this location is selected, a building can finally be designed.

Libraries are valuable components of re-urbanization plans not only for civic but for tangible economic reasons. They are natural people magnets, sometimes receiving several thousand visitors a day. When located alongside other places people need to go, they create destinations with strong drawing power. They also bring stability. A library will be a long-term neighbor with a reliable (and in most places today, rapidly growing) clientele. Should a shop, for example, adjacent to or within the library building move out, the location can still attract another enterprise. Conversely, the mixed-use model can provide “justification for the development work and the money that will go into a main library. It’s the synergy as communities begin to talk about, ‘What do we need in the urban center to jumpstart a level of activity?’” observes Sari Feldman, executive director of the Cuyahoga County system in Cleveland and president of the Public Library Association.

New architectural-landmark central branches in big cities may get attention, but mixed-use libraries are also being built in small towns and even suburbs. In such places, which often lack functional centers and neutral gathering places, they help concentrate activities and foster urbanistic, civic-oriented interaction. For example, Bournemouth is an atypical community for England. “The center of the town is quite spread out,” says Shelagh Levett, a service director for the Bournemouth Libraries. For a new building there, the mission statement envisioned “a hub of the community.” Completed in 2002, it houses a glass-walled library above street-level shops, overlooking an open triangle — formerly the site of a bus station and still something of a transit hub — that is presently being redesigned as a pedestrian-oriented plaza for events, markets and informal use. The impetus for the new building came less from within the library system than from town leaders, Levett says. They saw it as “a crucial part of a comprehensive development including shopping and leisure,” she says. “The overall aim was … enhancing the community’s sense of identity.”

For people who grew up using and loving classical libraries with delineated spaces and no-talking rules, the new free-form buildings — and the vitality they encourage — can require adjustment. But these buildings are only responding to present-day needs. “We find ourselves much more at an intersection of information and education,” Feldman explains, “and the librarian role is evolving much more into a facilitator role, to facilitate learning.” Her Cleveland library, for example, hosts English-as-a-second-language classes and has career counselors on staff to teach people how to search and apply for jobs. She adds, “I would put theater and music and art as part of the learning.”

The central library in Philadelphia opened in 1927. A major expansion will add a glass pavilion with shops, a 550-seat auditorium, a teen center and “areas where people can create content,” says Sandy Horrocks, its vice president for communications and development. She says that with recent changes in the publishing landscape, many authors and musicians cannot expect their work to be issued commercially. But, she says, “one of the things libraries can do because of their technology and because of the enormous use of their Web sites [is to] share content with a lot of people.” Speaking to another need, she says, “in Philadelphia, 47 percent of the households have no Internet access, which is considerably higher than the national average, so our demand for public-access computers is enormous. So we need to have some flexible space to make that possible.” Quiet? Feldman points out that “just introducing computers into the libraries made them noisy. And young people work together, so there’s that noise, too.”

“The Internet has done a lot in the way of isolating people. We find when we have programs, the attendance is extraordinary because there’s a hunger and desire to talk,” Horrocks observes. “People do want to come together and have dialogues and conversations, and libraries are providing that place.” Maija Berndtson calls the new malleable, mixed-use model “the boundless library.”

“The reasons why people come to the library can be many other things than to use the collection,” she says. So the library of the future will be a porous container: both a destination itself and a portal to other places, a space for civic engagement and a locus of urban vitality.

End note: I have written here before on ScaleDown on the why I think that a library/culture complex for the West lands would be the best thing that this city could do for itself to revitalize the core.

News. Monday, March 22, 2010

The Pittsburgh makeover

Mayor visits Pittsburgh in search of ideas to help here

Hamilton group finds striking similarities, inspiration

The possibilities are apparent on every street corner as a group of Hamiltonians travel this Pennsylvania city that is transforming itself from a steel power to a white-collar metropolis based on research and medicine.

Amid gleaming corporate towers are heritage buildings that remind this contingent of home. An historic downtown hotel where the group is booked is eerily reminiscent, from the street and inside, of the dormant Royal Connaught Hotel in its heyday. The 596-room William Penn Omni Hotel is fully booked mid-week in March.

Mayor Fred Eisenberger, who leads the group of city staff and arts advocate Jeremy Freiburger, says he’s hopeful the Connaught, owned by a powerful local consortium, will be revived. “I think it’s only a matter of time. I’m quite optimistic about it,” he says.

Just a stone’s throw from the hotel is a former Gimbels department store that now serves as office space for ketchup giant Heinz. It bears more than a passing resemblance to the Lister Block that is undergoing redevelopment on James Street North.

There are several reminders of what’s been lost in Hamilton, too. Pittsburgh’s courthouse echoes the former City Hall that was torn down to make way for the Eaton Centre. A stretch of old theatres in Pittsburgh’s Cultural District conjure up visions of the Century Theatre that was recently demolished. There are two incline railways that carry riders up Mt. Washington on the city’s southern end, much like Hamilton once had.

The group excitedly talks about a return of an incline. Perhaps it could be a project of civic pride and Hamiltonians could pitch in to make it happen again, is one suggestion.

Pittsburgh has many of the elements Eisenberger wants for his city: a light rail system, a waterfront stadium, downtown employment. Much like Hamilton but on an even greater scale, the compact, pie-shaped Pittsburgh downtown is a bustling hub in the daytime. It literally clears out at the end of the day……

The Femivore’s Dilemma

Four women I know — none of whom know one another — are building chicken coops in their backyards. It goes without saying that they already raise organic produce: my town, Berkeley, Calif., is theVatican of locavorism, the high church of Alice Waters. Kitchen gardens are as much a given here as indoor plumbing. But chickens? That ups the ante. Apparently it is no longer enough to know the name of the farm your eggs came from; now you need to know the name of the actual bird.

The London Orchard project: bringing fruit to car parks

The London Orchard Project was founded by Rowena Ganguli and Carina Dunkerley. In less than a year the team has assessed, prepared and planted orchards on 12 sites in nine boroughs around the capital; and trained 50 orchard leaders in orchard management skills.

Is urban farming Detroit’s cash cow?

This year, though, Detroit’s small-scale, volunteer urban farm movement will see the most dramatic steps yet toward making urban farming an economically viable industry.

These steps promise that within the next few years, urban growers in Detroit will produce jobs and a tax base along with their salad greens.

Critics slam Ontario Liberals’ green-energy levy

Consumers will struggle when they see an increase in their hydro bills in Ontario, critics say, after the Liberals revealed Saturday that a new levy will help cover $53 million of the government’s conservation and green energy program.

Is city council chicken?

Many major North American cities, including Vancouver, Victoria, New York, Seattle, Chicago and Los Angeles, together with Ontario communities such as Niagara Falls, Brampton and Guelph, allow the small-scale raising of hens. Now it’s

Kingston’s turn to join this positive and growing trend.

In the decades after the Second World War, many urban and suburban communities across Canada and the U.S. instituted laws to distance people from their then-unfashionable rural roots.

In recent years, many of us have begun to realize that maintaining a close connection to our food supply is a positive choice — a way to a healthier and more ecologically sustainable lifestyle.

Urban Harvesters Scavenge Backyards to Feed the Hungry

The idea is so simple: Trees produce more food than people can eat. Most of the fruit goes to waste. Get the food and donate it to those in need.

On the urban fringes: small farms arising

While big farms are slipping in number, Washington is seeing a rise in small farms, the main supplies of farmers markets. Developers are now treating a small farm as an attractive amenity, attracting those hooked on the FarmVille fantasy game.

Newsom Christens New Mojo Cafe “Parklet,” Pledges More to Come

With scores of people crowding the sidewalk and taking up one lane of traffic on Divisadero in front of Mojo Bicycle Cafe, Mayor Gavin Newsom, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi and city department heads heralded a new “parklet” sidewalk extension as a piece of a growing trend of re-purposing street space for people instead of cars. The new trial parklet was built into the space formerly occupied by two parked vehicles, providing several hundred square feet of public space and benches, tables, planters and bike racks.

Fact: Texas Coal-Fired Power Plants Release More Mercury Than Those In Any Other US State

Using publicly available data maintained by USEPA, an Environmental Integrity Project report lists Texas as having five of the 10 largest power plant mercury air pollution sources in the nation. The sum result: nearly 12 tons per year of mercury emitted into the Texas skies during 2008.

20 Principles for Successful Community Organizing

Kahn’s new book, “Creative Community Organizing: a Guide for Rabble-Rousers, Activists and Quiet Lovers of Justice,” is a manifesto for the politically active.

Community rises from bakery’s bread

The village of Cowichan Bay is North America’s first official “slow city,” part of Europe’s slow food movement, a designation earned because of a transfomation that began in a defunct fish processing plant.

True Grain Bread Ltd. has spun off cottage industries such as jam and cheese making, and it is slowly putting this out-of-the-way seaside community on the culinary map for foodies.

Your City My City: High expectations in Markham

Peter Calthorpe likes to say that how far someone is willing to walk to reach public transit depends on how interesting the journey is.

It’s that kind of thinking that got the California-based new urbanism planner and champion of the “walkable city” hired to design a revolutionary, transit-dependent live-work community in Markham.

Langstaff Gateway — built upward rather than outward — will raise the bar for suburban transformation, possibly across North America.

Be a good neighbour

Katie Stiel is taking on Big Steel in Hamilton.

The recent Environment Hamilton recruit is co-ordinator of the non-profit organization’s new Good Neighbour Campaign, with the stated aim of persuading steelmaker ArcelorMittal Dofasco to cut air emissions of cancer-causing chemicals faster than the company now plans.

“The overall goal is to open lines of communication between industry and the community,” Stiel said in an interview this week. “One reason for the campaign is that a lot of volunteers and area residents coming to us expressed concern about industrial pollution — black fallout, smell and noise.

Why Haven’t Electric Bikes Caught On?

From a $350 electric commuter bike to fancy German e-bikes that apply electric assist direct to the power train, we’ve had no shortage of cool motorized bicycles here on TreeHugger. And they’ve even ignited some important debate, including Trevor’s musings on whether his electric bike is lame, and Lloyd asking if electric bikes will get people out of their cars. Now the folks at Sightline Daily are taking up the discussion with a series of posts on electric bikes in our culture—asking why e-bikes are not more popular than they are, and what can be done for them to fulfill their potential.

Cardboard Furniture is Durable and Recyclable and Everywhere

Cardboard is popping up everywhere. A strong and durable material, it is made from recycled paperboard and is itself recyclable when you get bored. It is long lasting, can be assembled easily, comes in a flat-pack and some say is softer and friendlier than wood or plastic. It certainly is cheaper….

The Rise of NORCs

“Basically, a NORC is a place (a building, a development, a neighborhood) with a sizeable senior community that wasn’t purpose-built as a senior community. What counts as a “sizeable elderly population” varies from place to place (and from one level of government to the next), but NORCs are important because once a community meets the respective criteria, it becomes eligible for local, state, and federal funds retroactively to provide that community with the support services elderly populations typically need. These include (but are not limited to): case management and social work services; health care management and prevention programs; education, socialization, and recreational activities; and volunteer opportunities for program participants and the community.

Canadians’ water conservation efforts declining: 2010 Canadian Water Attitudes Study

“These findings suggest that Canadians haven’t made the link between water and energy conservation,” says Sandford. “What Canadians may not realize is that generating energy requires a lot of water, and moving water - to make it available for when and where we want it - in turn requires significant amounts of energy. Until people make the link between the two, we won’t achieve anything approaching sustainability.”

Just the headlines:

Should Toronto be a province?

The Global Food Market (VIDEO): Why Do Some Eat Well While Others Starve?

Greening Ontario can afford to switch off coal power now

The Biology Of Dithering

Is Goat the New Cow? Why American Foodies and Environmentalists Are Reviving the Old-World Staple

Hamilton: Why paying more for electricity is good for you

In Defense Of Non-Commercial Culture

Is squabbling over regional venues and attractions opening old city-suburban battle wounds

The Persistence of the Primitive Food Movement

Woonerf: It’s Dutch for smart city-building

All Together Now: Green Modern Cooperative Living in Australia

World Crude Oil Production Projected to Peak a Decade Sooner

Infographic: “How Cars are Killing Us Around the World”

10 Land-Use Strategies to Create Socially Just, Multiracial Cities

Carrotmob: Green Shopping Goes Social

Naysaying into Positive Marketing - Calgary conference Part II

Panhandlers, Bag Lady’s and Wailing Sirens. Look at how one U.S. downtown cleverly played with these themes.

Come visit our downtown which has so many Panhandlers

.

See the Bag Lady’s walking in the streets

And Listen to the Wailing Sirens

Now I understand of course that we have to remain constantly vigilant to reduce the other types of these people but what a way to turn perception on its head and get people changing how they view these items

In any event the Marketing seminar focused on how the businesses within it need to turn themselves into destinations. We already have Shanfields, TBQ sauce is pretty famous and some other establishments that have no comparisons anywhere else.

I liked the tone of the seminar as it took the focus off of what they called “Airport Marketing” where we create a brochure of a laundry list

One thing that will be controversial is that they recommend the socialist attitude of giving everyone the same attention. They only marketed the businesses that converted themselves into destinations or attractions. They assured us that everyone would benefit, and there was equality of opportunity not of marketing attention or whose owners promoted themselves as experts or local celebrities.

I think all local independant businesses in Windsor could learn from this not just downtown

What did PAC 1 really say about building New commercial?

Apparantly last night Thom Hunt said that I misinterpred the Q&A
Contained in PAC 1. Thet there was never any recommendation to
limit the building of new commercial space. I think you should
read the PAC 1 Q and A as I maintain and hope I did not
 misinterpret it.
(IF I did, so did Karl Tanner and probably you will too)- PAC 1
 will be attached here.

Please read PAC 1 and tell me whether I misinterpreted. pac1

What amazes me is the complete disgregard to the facts contained
in this report by ALL councillors other than Alan Halberstadt

- that it was quoted that these commercial developments do not
integrate into our neighborhoods,
- that we have one of the highest commercial vacancy rates in
Canada
- that actions need to happen to protect main streets

I’ll never understand how developers have some sort of Rasputin
like hold on our councillors, that the concern of how we’re viewed
 by the outside reigns paramount over the utter disregard of how
 we’re viewed by the people who actually live here and own small
 businesses here.

Its instulting to me that these same developers would never
consider living next to the developments they want us to have
in our cities and many don’t even live within Windsor’s limits.
They have the audacity to say that Limiting commercial growth in
Windsor wont’ work as long as lasalle, lakeshore and tecumseh
won’t cooperate while they actually live and have influence in
those same communities that are obstacles

I call on Alfie Morgan, chair of the small business taskforce
(whose only concern was red tape while big box plaza’s were
completely unaddressed) to debate and discuss this once again

Here is my speach but again -read PAC 1 and decide for yourself
 how much I “misinterpreted” or “misrepresented” the comments
by Thom Hunt and Urban Metrics Rowan Faludi

——————————

Before you this evening is the Official Plan Report - a document
 that exemplifies the very reasons that I chose to become a
communitarian, active involved in my community and scaledown.ca.
You have qualified analytical consultants and city administrators
confirming what Chris Holt, James Coulter and I have been saying
 day-after-day for the past 18 months. The question becomes .. NOW,
will you take a stand?

In clarifying my presence here tonight .. which “HAT” am I wearing:

Scaledown

Mission:           To promote the cultural identity, social fabric
and economic prosperity of Windsor, Ontario through open discussion
and grass-roots advocacy.

Vision:             To connect every Windsorite to their own
walkable neighbourhood that has its own public spaces, vibrant
local independent businesses and artists.

For several years, I have listened to and heard professionals
from the International Downtown Association, CEO’s for Cities,
Project for Public  Spaces and The Brookings Institute. All
of these experts have recommended that the key to revitalization
is to fix your core and create great neighborhoods 

It is now time to follow their recommendations. Many complain
about the costs involved in hiring consultants and experts,
 and the time spent preparing studies and developing long-term
plans. They’re only a waste of money if you ignore their advice.
 If you embrace and act on their recommendations, it can and
should be the best investment we’ve yet seen.

And then along comes the Official Plan Review. You now have
a choice. To ACT on it or not. To ADOPT and follow its
recommendations, or not. I tell you this, what you have before
you is nothing less than the choosing between right and wrong.
This may seem melodramatic but this
is about our future, this is about doing what’s right.

Very simply, the consultants, professionals, experts and
 the City’s own planning department have said:

1. “Infill residential development, no new greenfield sites.”
2. Residual Market Demand and Impact analyisis - freeze on
 commercial bldg until 2011 to protect main streets or until
commercial vacancy rates drop below 12% 

The only problem with this is that the target is so low due
to Windsor’s current and short-term economic climate. I understand
 and appreciate that our economy plays a major role. However,
 you need to at least acknowledge that other areas in Ontario
have set targets as high as 40%. In order to mitigate and address
 this issue, we need to get specific. We don’t need some vague
wishy-washy target of approximately 10% that affords us some
sense of satisfaction when we come close to achieving it.

What we need is specific unit targets - how many rental
 units created, how many vacant units filled, how many
 single unit development, and how many condominium units
created. And then we need to develop a critical path that
clearly indentifies the tactical deliverables necessary in
 order to achieve each individual target. That’s how successful
cities fulfill their objectives. Not by asking whether there
 are any consequences to missing the target, and in so doing
 implying that it’s not something we actually HAVE to DO but
just one of those projects that we need to approval ..simply, a
platitude. This is Windsor’s FUTURE, and every resident and
small business owner is counting on you. Their livelihoods
and quality of life depend on it.

2Residual Market Demand and Impact Analysis - No new commercial
building until 2011

Why? We need to scaledown our development. We need to create
density in our core. We need to protect the small businesses
 on our main streets such as Ouellette, Pelissier, Wyandotte,
 Erie, Tecumseh and others.

What is the biggest threat to these businesses? It’s the
decrease in population in the core areas and the creation
of new big box retail on the edges of our City. Is doing
 the right thing easy? Of course not, but as Councillors
your duty is to make the right decisions.

What are the challenges to doing the right thing? It’s simple,
 there are primarily three challenges.

Developers, Lawyers and Engineers . OH MY! 

You have developers in this City that will tell you that
you are costing jobs and that the economy will suffer. The
 answer to that is that the jobs created in these big box stores
 are simply transferred from the closing of businesses on our
 main streets. There is a zero sum gain. As far as the
economy goes, the fact is that 68 % of monies spent at small
businesses stay within our community versus 43% of monies spent
on big box. As you may have read in this report, big boxes
do not integrate into neighbourhoods.

You have the lawyers telling you that this will expose you
 to OMB challenges. Well the expertise of the consultants you’ve
hired will protect you from that. Also, just like our border
crossing, we need to do the right thing regardless of the legal
ramifications and costs.

You have engineers that will tell you that this will not work
 if it’s not a regional approach. Are we going to let towns
like Tecumseh, Lakeshore, Lasalle and Amherstburg dictate our
policy? If Windsor doesn’t show leadership in this region, are
we expected to wait for these smaller communities to lead the
 way for us? Are they the proverbial tail that wags
the dog?

But most importantly, your consultants and your planning
department have been faced with all three of these challenges.
 They did not perform their work in a vacuum. After they were
 confronted with all of these concerns and challenges they
decided to stick to their guns. Basically what leading
experts as well as your own planning department are saying is:

            We acknowledge that Tecumseh, Lakeshore and Lasalle
may not cooperate - stay the course

§  We acknowledge that new construction jobs will be
lost but in order to protect existing jobs on our main
 streets -stay the Course

§ We acknowledge that there could be OMB challenges
but our experts who can support their findings in
court say - STAY THE COURSE

You now know what you must do. Will you stand firm?
 Will you do what’s in the best interests of the residents,
 small businesses and main streets of our City? I call out
 to all small businesses and all residents to pay very
close attention to your actions on this report.

I’m asking you tonight to listen to the experts and
 your own planning department. Hear their recommendations
 and how they’ve addressed the questions put before them.
We’re not breaking any new ground on this issue.
We’re following the same direction as other cities
including Kingston, Ontario.

Infill residential development and protecting our main
 streets is what scaledown is all about. It’s the means in
 which to accomplish our mission and vision which I believe
 this Council shares. If there was ever any
misunderstanding or confusion about what our group wants
or promotes it’s sitting right in front of you in this Report.

I’m asking you tonight to THINK OUTSIDE THE BIG BOX.

What did PAC 1 really say about new commercial bldg???

Apparantly last night Thom Hunt said that I misinterpred the Q&A Contained in PAC 1. Thet
there was never any recommendation to limit the building of new commercial space. I think
you should read the PAC 1 Q and A as I maintain and hope I did not misinterpret it. (IF I did, so did
Karl Tanner and others)- PAC 1 will be attached here.

Please read PAC 1 and tell me whether I misinterpreted. pac1

What amazes me is the complete disgregard to the facts contained in this report by ALL councillors
other than Alan Halberstadt

that it was quoted that these commercial developments do not integrate into our neighborhoods,
that we have one of the highest commercial vacancy rates in Canada
that actions need to happen to protect main streets

I’ll never understand how developers have some sort of Rasputin like hold on our councillors, that the
concern of how we’re viewed by the outside reigns paramount over the utter disregard of how we’re
viewed by the people who actually live here and own small businesses here.

Its instulting to me that these same developers would never consider living next to the developments they
want us to have in our cities and many don’t even live within Windsor’s limits. They have the audacity to say
that Limiting commercial growth in Windsor wont’ work as long as lasalle, lakeshore and tecumseh won’t cooperate while they actually
live and have influence in those same communities that are obstacles

I call on Alfie Morgan, chair of the small business taskforce (whose only
concern was red tape while big box plaza’s were completely unaddressed) to debate and discuss this once again

Here is my speach but read PAC 1 and decide for yourself how much I “misinterpreted” or “misrepresented”
the comments by Thom Hunt and Urban Metrics Rowan Faludi

——————————

Before you this evening is the Official Plan Report - a document that
exemplifies the very reasons that I chose to become involved in my community
and scaledown.ca. You have qualified analytical consultants and city
administrators confirming what Chris Holt, James Coulter and I have been
saying day-after-day for the past 18 months. The question becomes .. NOW,
will you take a stand?

In clarifying my presence here tonight .. which “HAT” am I wearing:

Scaledown

Mission: To promote the cultural identity, social fabric and
economic prosperity of Windsor, Ontario through open discussion and
grass-roots advocacy.

Vision: To connect every Windsorite to their own walkable
neighbourhood that has its own public spaces, vibrant local independent businesses
and artists.

For several years, I have listened to and heard professionals from the
International Downtown Association, CEO’s for Cities, Project for Public
Spaces and The Brookings Institute. All of these experts have recommended that the key to
revitalization is to fix your core and create great neighborhoods

It is now time to follow their recommendations. Many complain about the
costs involved in hiring consultants and experts, and the time spent
preparing studies and developing long-term plans. They’re only a waste of
money if you ignore their advice. If you embrace and act on their
recommendations, it can and should be the best investment we’ve yet seen.

And then along comes the Official Plan Review. You now have a choice. To ACT
on it or not. To ADOPT and follow its recommendations, or not. I tell you
this, what you have before you is nothing less than the choosing between
right and wrong. This may seem melodramatic but this
is about our future, this is about doing what’s right.

Very simply, the consultants, professionals, experts and the City’s own
planning department have said:

1. “Infill residential development, no new greenfield sites.”
2. Residual Market Demand and Impact analyisis - freeze on commercial bldg until 2011 to protect main streets
or until commercial vacancy rates drop below 12%

The only problem with this is that the target is so low due to Windsor’s
current and short-term economic climate. I understand and appreciate that
our economy plays a major role. However, you need to at least acknowledge
that other areas in Ontario have set targets as high as 40%. In order to
mitigate and address this issue, we need to get specific. We don’t need some
vague wishy-washy target of approximately 10% that affords us some sense of
satisfaction when we come close to achieving it.

What we need is specific unit targets - how many rental units created, how
many vacant units filled, how many single unit development, and how many
condominium units created. And then we need to develop a critical path that
clearly indentifies the tactical deliverables necessary in order to achieve
each individual target. That’s how successful cities fulfill their
objectives. Not by asking whether there are any consequences to missing the
target, and in so doing implying that it’s not something we actually HAVE to
DO but just one of those projects that we need to approval ..simply, a
platitude. This is Windsor’s FUTURE, and every resident and small business
owner is counting on you. Their livelihoods and quality of life depend on
it.

2Residual Market Demand and Impact Analysis - No new commercial building until 2011

Why? We need to scaledown our development. We need to create density in our
core. We need to protect the small businesses on our main streets such as
Ouellette, Pelissier, Wyandotte, Erie, Tecumseh and others.

What is the biggest threat to these businesses? It’s the decrease in
population in the core areas and the creation of new big box retail on the
edges of our City. Is doing the right thing easy? Of course not, but as
Councillors your duty is to make the right decisions.

What are the challenges to doing the right thing? It’s simple, there are
primarily three challenges.

Developers, Lawyers and Engineers . OH MY!

You have developers in this City that will tell you that you are costing
jobs and that the economy will suffer. The answer to that is that the jobs
created in these big box stores are simply transferred from the closing of
businesses on our main streets. There is a zero sum gain. As far as the
economy goes, the fact is that XX % of monies spent at small businesses stay
within our community versus XX% of monies spent on big box. As you may have
read in this report, big boxes do not integrate into neighbourhoods.

You have the lawyers telling you that this will expose you to OMB
challenges. Well the expertise of the consultants you’ve hired will protect
you from that. Also, just like our border crossing, we need to do the right
thing regardless of the legal ramifications and costs.

You have engineers that will tell you that this will not work if it’s not a
regional approach. Are we going to let towns like Tecumseh, Lakeshore,
Lasalle and Amherstburg dictate our policy? If Windsor doesn’t show
leadership in this region, are we expected to wait for these smaller
communities to lead the way for us? Are they the proverbial tail that wags
the dog?

But most importantly, your consultants and your planning department have
been faced with all three of these challenges. They did not perform their
work in a vacuum. After they were confronted with all of these concerns and
challenges they decided to stick to their guns. Basically what leading
experts as well as your own planning department are saying is:

We acknowledge that Tecumseh, Lakeshore and Lasalle may not
cooperate - stay the course

§ We acknowledge that new construction jobs will be lost but in
order to protect existing jobs on our main streets -stay the Course

§ We acknowledge that there could be OMB challenges but our
experts who can support their findings in court say - STAY THE COURSE

You now know what you must do. Will you stand firm? Will you do what’s in
the best interests of the residents, small businesses and main streets of
our City? I call out to all small businesses and all residents to pay very
close attention to your actions on this report.

I’m asking you tonight to listen to the experts and your own planning
department. Hear their recommendations and how they’ve addressed the
questions put before them. We’re not breaking any new ground on this issue.
We’re following the same direction as other cities including Kingston,
Ontario.

Infill residential development and protecting our main streets is what
scaledown is all about. It’s the means in which to accomplish our mission
and vision which I believe this Council shares. If there was ever any
misunderstanding or confusion about what our group wants or promotes it’s
sitting right in front of you in this Report.

I’m asking you tonight to THINK OUTSIDE THE BIG BOX.

What did PAC 1 really say about commercial bldg??