Development philosophy, attitude has pervaded city hall for decades
Winnipeg Free Press,
Saturday, Jan 11, 2003 (A17)
By Dave Nelson
I was interested to read David O'Brien's recent article, Build it and pray they'll come, about urban planning and in particular about the standards of architecture in the downtown.
The comment by architect Ron Keenberg is right on the mark when he says that Winnipeg's architecture is the "architecture of desperation," for development at any cost. This is a development philosophy and attitude that has pervaded the political circles and some higher planning levels at city hall for decades and is not a recent phenomenon.
As a City of Winnipeg planner for many years (I retired in 2000), I can attest to the frustration of front-line planners and architects, both past and present, about the way that planning issues and development proposals are often dealt with. This frustration, with what is referred to by city planners as "bargain basement architecture and planning" extends beyond downtown development and into the design of our suburbs.
In addition to the mediocrity of many of our downtown buildings, one only has to look at the blandness of recent big-box stores and sites, the competing proliferation of large pylon signs along our major thoroughfares and on shopping malls, and the particular ugliness and frequency of mobile signs, to appreciate that good urban design has been mostly sacrificed to the developers' pursuit of maximum commercial exposure and minimum development costs.
Where city bylaws require that new developments be built with landscaping, it is often the case that the developer will ask for and receive permission to reduce or sometimes eliminate that requirement. When special conditions are imposed in conjunction with new development, for example with regard to land use, parking or signage to satisfy community concerns, it is not unusual for the developer to be back, once the development is built, for those restrictions to be lifted.
All these factors together have unfortunately tended to reinforce Winnipeg's reputation to outsiders as a "wholesale" city, both in economic terms and also visually. I would suggest that we should not place the blame too squarely on the shoulders of developers. If developers know that civic politicians are more concerned about the quantity rather than the quality of development, then developers simply respond appropriately. Developers often approach local politicians with development proposals before input from city planners and architects is obtained. Concerns voiced by front-line city planners are often dismissed as being "anti-development" and are not infrequently watered down within the planning department prior to reports being released. Pressures both from within and outside the planning department are frequently put on planners to prepare applications for pubic hearing before full and appropriate research on an application is complete.
I do not suggest that there is one simple solution to planning problems in Winnipeg. Indeed, it is probably much easier to encourage high development standards in cities with higher population growth rates than Winnipeg. However, despite the wishful thinking of Mayor Glen Murray and his policy planning team, who argued forcefully in the last review of Plan Winnipeg that the city would grow to nearly 850,000 people by the year 2020, it is very likely that Winnipeg's population growth will be moderate at best, or could even cease within that time frame. If Winnipeg's physical image is to improve, therefore, it must be attended to as a priority now and cannot be left to depend on some future, and very uncertain, development boom. The architecture that is being approved and built now will be around for generations to come.
Aspects of the approval process for new development urgently need attending to. Perhaps here the argument for term limits on council members has relevance. There is a need to place a new political realism, new civic priorities and new challenges before the development industry. At what point do the benefits of experience generated by length of tenure in political office become outweighed by stagnation, the lack of new ideas, the development of over- familiarity between developers and politicians, and the resulting frustrations within the private and civic planning and architectural professionals. I believe we have reached or even passed that point.
Similarly, parochial attitudes to development continue to persist on council. Community committee and citizen boards that review development proposals tend to assume that if there is no public opposition, despite planning administration concerns, then the development should be approved. The statement by the planning director Harry Finnigan that a new system to review development design is to be initiated leaves me with little confidence. It has been tried before and has quickly become the victim of political influence and developer pressure. Unless Finnigan is prepared to truly challenge himself and his management staff in ways they have not dared before, then these good intentions will quickly fade.
In short, I believe that the lack of political vision and the unwillingness, for whatever reason, of the planning bureaucracy to forcefully and publicly challenge the quality of development proposals in Winnipeg are prime causes of the justified criticism stated by Keenberg and others.