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Better Ways
March 26, 2007
Your New Civic Square
What Would You Like To See Here?
This Tuesday, there is an opportunity for public input into something that will affect all of us, and generations to come. This Tuesday is your LAST chance to comment. There will be a public open house at the River Run Centre, hosted by the city. A survey for the public will be available at the Open House and is also available on the City's website at http://www.guelph.ca/survey.
Here are the details:
Tuesday, March 27
4 to 8 p.m.
Canada Company Hall, River Run Centre
35 Woolwich Street
A survey for the public will be available at the Open House and is also available on the City's website at http://www.guelph.ca/survey
If the seats are empty, city officials may conclude that too few people care about what the civic square looks and feels like. That would be a shame. We strongly encourage you to drop in, if only for a few minutes.
Why Is This Important?
Public spaces in the middle of a city are among the most valuable spaces we have. First, because they are rare. And second, because they can, if well planned, invite people to gather.
Great public spaces -- think of any European city square or piazza -- are people magnets. They are places to relax, interact, eat and drink, have fun, and socialize. They augment the flow of citizens to the core of the city. They enhance tourism. They add to the fabric, texture, and character of a place, which creates long-term community wealth. When done right, they are valuable assets.
The opposite is the problem. Without good design and an investment in public amenities, downtown spaces can be alienating windswept nothings. In North American cities, they too often are. When this happens, opportunity has been tragically lost -- often through ignorance or the unwillingness to invest in long-term civic beauty. This is a form of community and cultural poverty. An asset is wasted.
The Public Has No Idea What's Being Planned
Diagrams of the proposed square on the City of Guelph website are uninspiring. The project, including previous open house meetings, focused on the building and not the space in front. Clearly the appeal and function of our civic square has not been made a priority until now. See for yourself here: http://www.guelph.ca/civicadmin
Of great concern too is the lack of public information. Even as this was being discussed at the council committee level, many city councillors and staff members did not know what was planned for the civic square. And those are the insiders. The general public has had no idea. Is it because the contract for the square has already been signed, and making changes to facilitate more use of the space will be difficult?
Two councillors have brought the issue to the forefront. At a recent meeting of the Finance, Administration and Corporate Services Committee, councillors Lise Burcher and Mike Salisbury questioned the city's inadequate planning of the square. Burcher insisted that more public input was needed. Salisbury said most of the citizens of Guelph will only experience the new civic administration centre from the outside, making the quality of the civic square all the more important.
The Downtown Board of Management also addressed the committee. They too asked that the plan be revisited and opened to the public, with the goal of creating a vibrant and user-friendly space. The public space at Kitchener city hall was cited as a "best practice." Kitchener's city hall and public space has led to a renaissance in the downtown. New condos are being built close to the civic space, which has a summer reflecting pool and winter skating rink (as well as a public art gallery).
In the Guelph Tribune this past Friday, the project manager, Jeff Christy, questioned amenities such as these, claiming they would be "very expensive."
These combined comments resulted in Mayor Farbridge moving that there be a public open house.
It happens Tuesday. Be there if you care about this issue.
Three Choices, As We See It
1 - Default to the city's plan to construct the square of cement and grass, suitable for larger events, but not designed for day-to-day use as an outdoor social place.
2 - Ask the city to revise the plans, engaging landscape architects, so that the square is purposefully designed to enhance its social appeal with features such as a skating rink and fountain. In the least, do a serious review of successful spaces like this in other cities to determine what can be done cost-effectively.
3 - If investment by the city is not reasonable at this time, insist that the plans be changed to accommodate the building of special features in the future. Above all, do not build in a way that prohibits later enhancements. Then work to partner with private companies to create a highly attractive, socially beneficial public square based on best practices from other cities.
Think about these three options. Then consider these comments excerpted from a speech by former Winnipeg mayor Glen Murray at the GCL's "Amazing Possibilities" conference last May:
"One of the things that I learned is that people are motivated often by some very fundamental things. Some people, every time you make a decision, politicians know this, will look at their wallet. They will make a decision on what they vote on if it's going to cost them more. Some people will look at their children and ask what the legacy is going to be. Unfortunately in my experience in politics, that is a minority of people. As much as we want to be idealistic, too many people look down at their wallets and calculate every decision or tax change on how much it saves. That to me is part of the problem of the bankruptcy of our values."
"Every community has something that's authentic. But it's the first thing we give up when we lose our civic esteem, when we want to be like every other place, when we want to build cinder block buildings and stretch our tax dollars. So we save the 10 percent that makes the building ugly and leaves our children something that they'll have to tear down in 20 years."
"You should calculate into the financing of [civic] projects what the paybacks are and not just what the costs are. If you only look at the cost and you do it cheap and dirty and from a utilitarian perspective, only how many dollars in, you don't actually get the value on the payback."
In All Great Cities, "Placemaking" Matters
Too often we have little context for decisions like this; what to do with our new city hall square. We need to see what's possible. We need to see what others have done and how they have succeeded. That's how you get inspired. That's how you offer an informed opinion when the city does "public consultation." So where do you start? We highly recommend a visit to the Project for Public Spaces website. Read about their work, and then see their "Top 12 Public Squares in the U.S. and Canada. Then explore this wonderful site. http://www.pps.org.
What You Can Do:
1 - Attend the Open House this Tuesday, anytime between 4:00 - 8:00 pm at the River Run Centre.
2 - Complete the online survey. A survey for the public will be available at the Open House and is also available on the City's website at: http://www.guelph.ca/survey
3 - Email your Mayor and City Councillors from our web site. http://guelphcivicleague.ca/Talk_to_Your_City_Council
Let them know that this space is valuable to you. Feel free to cc comments to the Guelph Civic League at feedback@guelphcivicleague.ca
4 - Learn more about the current plan. Additional information on the Civic Administration Complex project is available at http://www.guelph.ca/civicadmin.
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