The power of one and other Spring thoughts

Written by Neil Fraser Friday, 28 August 2009 14:42

Nearly thirty years later, in 2004, on a visit to Mexico City, I experienced the same feeling. In fact, I wrote in Citichat in October of that year “The city’s downtown is called El Centro……In the early 20^th century it suffered all the negative effects of decentralisation when the wealthy residential inner-city communities moved to newer areas that allowed for easier security provision. In addition, in the 1950s, El Centro suffered a major blow when the university moved out of the area to a decentralised campus. Their buildings were generally abandoned and the area became infested with squatters and informal traders, crime sharply increased and the downtown went into what was prophesied as ‘terminal decline’. More recently, Mexico’s richest businessman, Carlos Slim, established a private initiative known as the Fundacion del Centro Historico into which he initially invested $300 million and developed a long term regeneration plan for the city centre. The Fundacion initially bought seventy historic buildings and set about a major refurbishment programnme to turn them generally into middle to high income residential. Then he brought the city government into the act in upgrading the infrastructure - pavements, beautiful period lampposts, etc as well as providing a new Centro police force complete with CCTV system and relocating all the informal traders - they are now banned from El Centro! The result is a highly walkable public environment amongst some truly beautifully restored historic buildings. The refurbed residential has in turn attracted new restaurants and high quality retail.”

This visit to Mexico City reminded me again of the extent that one person’s influence on a city can exert through ownership of a substantial area when combined with energy and vision.

On Thursday last week I had the privilege of walking a quadrant of the city with lawyer/property developer Gerald Olitzki. Gerald has maintained a geographic focus on a large area centred around Gandhi Square but now stretching well beyond it. When I first met him in the mid ‘90s it was to discuss his proposal for rejuvenating the then named van der Byl Square. Over the last decade, he has made a remarkable impact on this area of the city slowly working towards his ultimate dream and quietly demonstrating the power of a focused and visionary approach.

One of the refurbed patches I also visited last week was the “BG Alexander Estate” on the corner of Smit & Claim Streets with my old colleague Chris Lund of Madulamoho. After reading my last Citichat, he decided that I needed cheering up and invited me to see some of the great work that is being done in the inner city in relation to the provision of low income housing. The complex was the former BG Alexander College of Nursing which was opened in 1947 and was vacated in 2001 –part of the crazy decision to close teachers and nurses training colleges. Thereafter the buildings had become a massive slum and ‘sinkhole’ with slumlords exploiting the illegal residents and the buildings rapidly decaying as services were cut off - it became a rat-infested hell-hole. It again raises the question of accountability for public sector assets but we’ve been there before! The BG Alexander complex was eventually handed over to the City by Province and Joshco, the City’s social housing wing, together with the JDA, converted the building into “semi social housing” in partnership with Madulamoho Housing Association, which manages the complex. Madulamoho is a Christian-based social housing company that has built itself an admirable track record in managing low income housing in the inner city. The complex boasts 400 units housing about 1000 people with monthly rentals from R500.00 to R1200.00 dependant on the accommodation provided. It has a magnificent and well used playground and crèche, a ‘creativity centre’ and offers, through Metropolitan Evangelical Services (Mesaksie), individual assessment and all types of training courses including literacy.  Across Claim Street, on its west, is the Europa and the eKhaya neighbourhood – both the results of different but highly successful urban regeneration projects whilst to the north of BG Alexander is a hijacked residential building. Extraordinary!         

A great deal of the capital funding for these particular social housing projects has come from the City. It is, of course, not a developer in the accepted meaning of the term, but its initial capital investment in the late 1990s, together with that from Blue IQ, at a time when many were happy to give away their buildings in the inner city, was critical in order to re-establish confidence in the inner city by private investors. The public sector initial investment took form through the development of, amongst others, Mary Fitzgerald Square, the Nelson Mandela Bridge, Metro Mall, Faraday Market & Taxi Rank and No. 1 Central Place in Newtown. The latter was a good example of a public sector development undertaken specifically to demonstrate to the private sector the opportunities offered by the area. At the end of the day, it is private sector investment that provides the majority of investment with various levels of government, in particular local, providing the support and environment to make that investment welcome and comfortable.         

One potential failure with this approach appears to be the Fashion District on which I have been writing for some years. In fact, I first covered the background to the establishment of the District in 2000 and have written about it at least once a year every year since! Here was an innovative approach to again use public money to attract private sector investment. On one level it worked - the City sank about R36 million into building what would be the world’s first outdoor fashion ramp, the Fashion Kapitol, complete with ancillary designer boutiques, shops, etc etc and, in turn, the project attracted probably R750 million-plus in private sector investment in its immediate area – a 20 to 1 leverage factor which is brilliant. But then the wheels came off – because of construction delays the opening date moved from 2007 to 2008 to 2009 and currently is unknown, something that hardly provides confidence to would be tenants. The whole philosophy of using the Fashion Kapitol as the magnet was originally agreed to by Council to the extent that the initial operating costs that were to be provided by the Council, were actually included in the Inner City Charter, a schedule of commitments that the Mayor signed off in 2007. To date that commitment has not just been ignored but actively reneged on to the extent that the original investment is now at considerable risk. It joins the New York Garment District, once providing substance to the claim that New York was a fashion capital rivaling Paris and Milan, in battling for its existence according to a recent New York Times report. 

On a brighter note, it would appear as if the Old Mutual has taken the deserved criticism of their extreme reluctance and tardiness regarding the Barbican refurbishment to heart. Budget approval has evidently been given for the work to commence before the end of 2009 and whilst there are some saying, “Yet another promise!” I feel that progress has actually been made and that we can look forward to something positively happening in the not too distant future.

On the Cape Town front I attended the Cape Town Partnership 10^th Anniversary conference last week which focused on “public-private partnerships for urban regeneration”. Andrew Boraine, the Partnership CEO presented “Lessons from the First Ten Years of the Cape Town Partnership” which quoted Hamman et al’s observation  that the central theme within most partnerships “is the need to build and maintain trust between participants in a partnership also because partners will need to take risks when relying on other partners fulfilling their part of explicit agreements or implicit expectations”  More about the Conference in the future but it is the failure of Council to meet its obligations in relationship to the Fashion District that regrettably now places a question mark over their commitment to real partnership.  

One of the other issues that struck me forcibly whilst in Cape Town was the preparations for 2010 and the fact that what these entail is known to all and sundry. Part of the plan is to make a celebratory walking route through the city from the station to the stadium – excellent planning – shouldn’t we be looking at something similar relative to Ellis Park or are we? I have a nagging concern that we in Jozi have little idea of what arrangements have been made, it appears that the council 2010 office is playing its cards very close to the chest.

I also attended a meeting called by the Western Cape MEC for Public Works. He wants to set about developing each of the hundreds of properties owned by the province in order to boost economic development and social transformation. Again this comes back to my “power of one” comments earlier. By tackling these issues through a new approach of en masse property development, the eventual impact can be huge and really meaningful.

An interesting argument is brewing internationally about whether iconic design and public space together can create more diverse destinations than iconic design alone. The situation evidently emerged at the Aspen Ideas Festival last month when Fred Kent, President of Project for Public Spaces (PPS), posed that question to the international “starchitect” Frank Gehry who promptly dismissed Kent and refused to answer the question.

Check out what has transpired by going into http://blog.pps.org/smackdown-with-frank-gehry/ It makes for interesting and thought provoking reading.

Talking about thought-provoking reading, if you get an opportunity try to get a copy of “Beyond Peak Oil: Will our Cities Collapse?” by Peter Newman. He has written extensively on city sustainability and this  paper appeared in the Journal of Urban Technology Volume 14, Number 2, published by Routledge. Newman points out that “nearly all cities have participated in a global economy which has been built around the availability of cheap oil” and poses the question as to how cities will manage in the age of reduced oil availability. He provides various scenarios including collapse (“some cities might easily collapse, most would be able to adapt”); the ruralised city (urban population disperses and creates a more sustainable semi-rural lifestyle – “not a likely scenario”; the divided city (wealthy move back to city centres which offer electric transit and short walkable destinations, suburbs increasingly house the poor) - and the resilient sustainable solar city (quality electric transport links city to suburbs and everywhere has genuine walkability) . What should cities be doing to ensure that they fall into the last category? Amongst a number of lessons he suggests that the threat of massive oil reduction in the not that distant future should be taken far more seriously than is currently the case and that, as a result, we should be planning and building cities with reduced car dependence. “This requires ensuring social housing initiatives in any transit oriented developments (TODs) and a crash program in public transport infrastructure for the middle and outer suburbs. Extensions of electric rail lines are the obvious way to go along with integrated local buses that can provide a service at least as quick as that provided by cars.” So, it looks as if Gautrain and BRT are right on the button! Or…….?  

In discussions with the City’s Transport Department some years ago I asked if they would be looking at alternative fuels as is now widespread in the US and elsewhere. To provide a cleaner environment, transit systems are implementing emerging technologies such as Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), clean diesel, and others. The answer was yes, they were investigating.

But, I seem to remember hearing now that the main BRT buses that have been purchased are at Category III level on the European Toxic Emission Schedules. In 1999 the European Commission agreed emission levels to come into effect in 2000 – those were the Category III level. So, all new heavy duty diesel powered vehicles coming onto the roads by 2000 had to comply with level III. However, there have been two distinct improvements required by then, in 2005 and then again in 2008 whilst another is planned for 2013.  So for instance carbon monoxide emissions standards developed in 1999 (ten years ago) for new vehicles coming onto the roads in 2000 were permitted at 2.1 but had to be dropped to 1.5 by 2008 then could remain at 1.5 for 2013. Hydrocarbons, however, were pegged in 2000 at 0.66 then to 0.46 by 2008 and to 0.13 by 2013. Nitrogen oxide 5.0 to 2.0 and then to 0.4; particulate matter from 0.10 to 0.02 and then 0.01 and smoke from 0.8 to 0.5 and then to 0.  

In December 2007, the Commission published a proposal for Euro VI emission standards. The new emission limits, comparable in stringency to the US 2010 standards, would become effective from 2013/2014

I tried to get confirmation of the fuel being used in the new buses but have had no reply from the City’s BRT query line so the above is my own conjecture at this stage. Surely whilst setting up the BRT as a model for the country, we should be taking the highly important issue of emissions into account and complying with the highest possible standards – or have we?