Kudos: The Big Kahuna’s Big Cojones
Kudos: The Big Kahuna’s Big Cojones
Today’s Herald features a local story entitled, “Mayor taking tougher stance with Port on waterfront”. It’s high time someone started considering the City’s interests in this fiasco!<br
Today's Herald features a local story entitled, "Mayor taking tougher stance with Port on waterfront". It's high time someone started considering the City's interests in this fiasco!
The story relates how Mayor Pike has questioned the overall level of development and the extensive road networks envisioned by the Port's consultants. Pike is reported endorsing a lower level of development, saying that even the lower end of Port projections, nearly four and a half times the size of Bellis Fair Mall, is "still a big number that would likely be enough to meet the city’s economic needs for the next 30 years". I'll say! Bellis Fair put downtown into a tailspin for decades - something the Port couldn't give a hoot about. Then Pike lays down an extremely intelligent principle: “We want to start building from the city out into the site".
It's worth revisiting the findings of the very first consultants on the project, Ann Breen and Dick Rigby, the world's preeminent (non-profit) authorities on waterfront redevelopment that have literally written the book(s) on the subject.
They proposed exactly what Pike is aiming at: Don't try to plan the entire site, swaddled in concrete frosting like a birthday cake for Port commissioners. Start with one good project that works for the downtown and let it evolve.
They also cautioned against leaving the public a narrow waterfront fringe with stingy little parks, stating that a broad public waterfront will do more good for more of the community than any amount of private development can ever accomplish.
They went on to recommend featuring the region's Native American heritage at the site, which is when the commissioners started looking at their shoes and sent them packing, back to the airport. That was our first sign.
As Herald reporter John Stark has so aptly and repeatedly reminded his readers, nothing is going to happen on the site without the City's approval. The City, not the Port, is in charge of land use regulation, permitting and development. The City, not the Port, is going to be the municipal agency holding the bag in perpetuity. The Port is doing what any private developer would do, trying to cram through the highest level of government sanctioned entitlements so they can sell it off for the biggest bucks. It's a cut and flip strategy proven to make money. The Port doesn't have the public's best interests in mind. They are working for themselves. They don't intend to build anything other than a marina in the treatment lagoon - and that is going to cost the public plenty, both in terms of losing the infrastructure needed to support business recruitment, and by the future cost of replacing that treatment capacity.
So it is refreshing to see our new Mayor stand up and say, "“I’m here now, and I intend to be giving direction". Thank goodness!
The story relates how Mayor Pike has questioned the overall level of development and the extensive road networks envisioned by the Port's consultants. Pike is reported endorsing a lower level of development, saying that even the lower end of Port projections, nearly four and a half times the size of Bellis Fair Mall, is "still a big number that would likely be enough to meet the city’s economic needs for the next 30 years". I'll say! Bellis Fair put downtown into a tailspin for decades - something the Port couldn't give a hoot about. Then Pike lays down an extremely intelligent principle: “We want to start building from the city out into the site".
It's worth revisiting the findings of the very first consultants on the project, Ann Breen and Dick Rigby, the world's preeminent (non-profit) authorities on waterfront redevelopment that have literally written the book(s) on the subject.
They proposed exactly what Pike is aiming at: Don't try to plan the entire site, swaddled in concrete frosting like a birthday cake for Port commissioners. Start with one good project that works for the downtown and let it evolve.
They also cautioned against leaving the public a narrow waterfront fringe with stingy little parks, stating that a broad public waterfront will do more good for more of the community than any amount of private development can ever accomplish.
They went on to recommend featuring the region's Native American heritage at the site, which is when the commissioners started looking at their shoes and sent them packing, back to the airport. That was our first sign.
As Herald reporter John Stark has so aptly and repeatedly reminded his readers, nothing is going to happen on the site without the City's approval. The City, not the Port, is in charge of land use regulation, permitting and development. The City, not the Port, is going to be the municipal agency holding the bag in perpetuity. The Port is doing what any private developer would do, trying to cram through the highest level of government sanctioned entitlements so they can sell it off for the biggest bucks. It's a cut and flip strategy proven to make money. The Port doesn't have the public's best interests in mind. They are working for themselves. They don't intend to build anything other than a marina in the treatment lagoon - and that is going to cost the public plenty, both in terms of losing the infrastructure needed to support business recruitment, and by the future cost of replacing that treatment capacity.
So it is refreshing to see our new Mayor stand up and say, "“I’m here now, and I intend to be giving direction". Thank goodness!
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