HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Center for Community Design RECEIVED
FEB 2 d RECT
To: City Council, City of Port Angeles City of Part Angeles
From: The Center for Community Design
Re: Waterfront Design, we deserve better!
The Port Angeles harbor and waterfront is a living thing. The
story of the Port Angeles waterfront, known up until the time at
which the native peoples were ordered off of it as Tse Whitzen,
is a story of a place where the life of the water and the life of
the land meet in a way that serves its inhabitants in a balanced
and sustainable way. It is an elegant and complex whole
comprised of parts and pieces too numerous to count or fully
understand. Nevertheless, it functioned in a continuous and
sustained way over millennia.
Following European contact and possession of the waterfront
for the exploitation of natural resources this whole, or holistic,
system was divided into separate uses by a system of ownership
and economic form which depended on dividing the land into
parcels. Each successive regime of power since that initial
division, zoning and assignment of economic uses has continued
to dissect and/or rebuild areas based on this "`divide and use"
approach. This is true even to the present day policies and
practices of the current Department of Community
Development.
This model and approach have endured as a consequence of
slow but steady strengthening of a bureaucratic approach to
economic development by jurisdictional governments including
the City of Port Angeles, Port of Port Angeles and Clallam
County. The cardinal rule of these bureaucracies is that all
decisions made by the bureaucracies are not measured as one
would expect "progress" to be measured. Bureaucratic decisions
do not focus on results, efficiencies, innovations or creative
ideas for the maintaining of the sustainable whole. Bureaucratic
decisions are made in an economy of Time and Effort for one
purpose only. That purpose is to ensure that the decision
makers continue to remain in power, firmly holding on to their
desks (bureaucracy: holding on to one's desk) and to insulate
those positions from any fault or "failure" being traced to those
desks. Decisions are made primarily for the protection of that
desk's occupant in an ongoing regime of power and control.
This is a systemic and structural leadership without name, face,
empathy or consideration for things beautiful, wholesome or of
delight. It is a systematic, heartless "plan by the book" approach
which cannot be truly progressive. It can only be restrictive. Its
purpose is merely survival of the system.
No advancement, no progress, no "new", or one could argue, no
"living and growing"' things will result from these bureaucratic
processes. This is often known as "designing to the status quo",
in other words planning for no change. Planning and designing
at this level of aspiration results in, at best, "good enough"
buildings, mediocre neighborhoods, a downtown business
community that struggles and a waterfront that is absent of
active daily life. In essence the heartbeat and respiration of the
place is maintained without the patient growing or thriving. It is
keeps the community on "life support".
Therefore designs like the one now being proposed for our
waterfront often emerge from a padded cell of small town
political power as "safe" variations of borrowed themes
(Bremerton or Bellingham or Spokane Riverfi ont), old recipes or
as of-the-shelf generic schemes which are then sold to the
public as "awarded winning" designs. Who could question
them? They are, after all, crafted through an "all inclusive public
process". Unfortunately, this approach can be the straightest
road to a homogenized and lifeless urban design.
A recent Forbes magazine article title "The Secret Power of
Introverts" points out that extrovert, charismatic leaders do not
have better production performance; that brainstorming results
in lower quality ideas....that the extroverts lead the passive and
compliant, while introverts working out of the spotlight often
come up with more well thought-out, innovative and creative
ideas. And that makes all the difference.
If you look at how the public process was conducted on our
waterfront planning every event surrounding the design process
was carefully orchestrated and controlled to satisfy the
appearance of a design without more than a token measure of
controversy or discomfort for the participants; essentially a
design by Cesarean Section. Now we find ourselves looking at
the results of that process with the nagging question in the back
of our minds, "Where is the soul of it?" The esplanade will
undoubtedly look very clean and competently detailed and neat
and tidy but will it have life? Can it sustain growth? What about
it's edges? How do they relate to the adjoining uses and the
ecosystems as a whole? How does it relate to the "whole
place""?
We predict the design as it's currently presented will not survive
the test of these questions. Why will it have no life? Because the
results of the AIA SDAT report were sliced and diced and
divided and categorized and ranked and voted upon and
prioritized and arranged so the public, and the City Council
members, could "understand" it. No fuss, no mess.
Unfortunately, the more you dissect something to understand it
the sooner you realize that the whole is lost and, consequently,
everything being studied becomes even more mysterious. Its
form and wholeness becomes lost in the study of the pieces of
itself.
Ironically, there was a volunteer group of local, willing,
passionate, loyal and talented professionals working through
The Center for Community Design who took it upon themselves
to dig deeper and drill down to the depths of the implications of
the SDAT study beyond the obvious recommendations. They
contemplated our waterfront as a unique place, a place that
cannot be compared with other places. They spent many , many
hours mind-mapping, arguing, sketching and studying the
history, culture, anthropology and environment (both built and
natural) of this whole place. Finally, driven by no incentive other
than their love of the place, they were able to precipitate a few
concentrated drops of the essence of this place. It wasn't
surprising to them that those catalytic drops of design-essence
didn't look very much like the design to which we are now being
asked to give our communal blessing.
So now we are again, as a community, perched on the brink of
building yet another "Gateway to Nowhere in Port Whatever".
Little will actually change with this design for the business
owners around the waterfront other than it being easier to
sweep and a better skateboard platform. We firmly believe that
the design as currently envisioned will be a major
disappointment in terms of a harbor and waterfront economy
that deserves to live and grow.
Using the accepted measures of "sustainability and resilience"
for an economy that ultimately relies only upon the talents
embodied in our local population we think we will look back on
this design and give ourselves a failing grade if we buy into the
"good enough" standards and grade ourselves on a very forgiving
curve.
Studio Cascade will eventually return to their homes in Spokane
and to their riverfront with their exemplary downtown business
opportunities. Poor Angeles, however, will be left in a declining
or, at best, flat-line business environment still wondering... "who
were those guys" , "who are we?", "why do investors and
developers avoid us like the plague?" and "what could we have
discovered about ourselves and this truly unique place in which
we live?" had we taken full advantage of this opportunity "on
the waterfront"'.
You may want to know if we at the Center for Community
Design have something more constructive to suggest,
something more to offer now that we have been so critical of
this most recent setback in our city planning and design. After
all, it's the project that no local designers or planners were hired
to do. What could we have to offer?
Our answer to this is that we already possess the seeds of a
better alternative plan. Growing those seeds was not something
the leadership of the City of Port Angeles supports. The Center.
for Community Design group could have been allowed to pursue
a lively and sometime uncomfortable debate on the uniqueness
of this place, on the measures we should use to make informed
decisions about what really does set us apart and how that
unique character could be expressed in the best waterfront
design we are capable of creating. But it was not given that
opportunity. The last thing we needed was a nice, tidy, civilized
presentation of competent design but that`s what we got. No
emotion, no controversy, little debate, smooth sailing, only
consensus, and without soul.
We have seen little in the recent design presentations that calls
out "this is our unique place". So far, we have seen grim, lifeless
and colorless presentations. Where is the "life" that design team
said they would inject into our waterfront? We feel we are again
losing an opportunity that can never be regained if the current
design is adopted and constructed. We believe the City has not
delivered a design which respects the whole and will be
sustainable and living for generations to come.
We recommend that a forum be sponsored by the Center for
Community Design (funded by the City), along with other citizen
representative groups such as the Port Angeles Downtown
Association, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and others to re-
evaluate the current design. This review should address the
current design in terms of the uniqueness of the entire
waterfront including surrounding business interests and areas of
future development such as the Tse Whitzen Village, PenPly site,
Salish Village (Payonier site), Nippon Paper and Ediz Hook.
Furthermore, we recommend that as alternatives and
improvements emerge from this process that those
recommendations be presented in a fair and transparent manner
and in a neutral location such as the Center for Community
Design, allowing all citizens to give comment and participate in
the customization of the waterfront design that truly expresses
our unique sense of place and maximizes opportunities for
economic development.
The Center for Community Design