Thursday, May 21, 2009

Urban Planning Nostalgia

Over at the blog The Ottawa Project is a story of visiting Lorne Ave and the not-unreasonable assumption that what is visible on Lorne represents that which was demolished on the Flats in the early 1960's.

I think that overview is overly sympathetic to the demolished areas. I do not wish to take the view that it was right to demolish whole neighborhoods/built up areas in favor of total rebuilding, which was the big government view of urban renewal then (note to today's amateur city rebuilders and commentators who too often wish for bigger govt action - be careful of what you wish for ... ).

The Flats was a mixed use neighborhood. There were grotty warehouses and rail tracks and SLUMS there as well as some nice houses. We dont do ourselves a favor by sugar coating or idealizing the old neighborhood. Granville Island or Old Montreal or old Halifax represent the effects of millions of dollars of disneyfication and not the normal evolution of old mixed use neighborhoods. Sometimes cheap housing is just that - it serves a purpose and then should be demolished and replaced by something better. As successful as Granville Island is, Vancouver is busy demolishing old stock in the adjcent neighborhoods for redevelopment from scratch. And who in Ottawa is clamoring to declare Hintonburg or Mechanicsville historic districts with every building preserved from demolition? If not Mechanicsville, then why LeBreton?

It is just plain wrong to assume that Lorne avenue represents what was built and demolished on the Flats. The NCC demolition targetted the polluted lands, the obsolete industrial uses and the structurally impaired housing. Their demolition continued south only as far as the worst structures went ... for eg they went half way up Booth and stopped at Primrose but left the houses backing onto these from Lorne because the Lorne houses were structurally sound (and when I moved here 30 plus years ago, certainly not nice nor trendy). Similarly, only some units were demolished on Rochester, Preston, Primrose ... leaving a gap-toothed landscape. But it was the bad-condition houses that were demolished and the good ones were left in place. Once a high percentage of the area is demolished, there were no doubt some structurally sound and maybe even attractive structures demolished simply because they were isolated in a non-functionable landscape.

Fortunately, the era of widespread urban demolition is past. Or is it? Will the Carling-Bayview CDP, which Councillor Holmes has agreed to try to resurrect, aim to preserve the old industrial buildings and every old house? Or will we view this area as a brownfields to be majorly redeveloped with townhouses and apartments and new park space?

Phase one of Lebreton flats in 1980 built new housing around some of the survivors and this makes a fortunate transition zone from new townhouses to old community. Note that it was the city/government that built the remarkably ugly and ill-suited townhouses at the Albert St end of Lorne Ave that blight that otherwise admirable streetscape.

In short, many of the houses on the Flats were demolished because they were substandard, slums, or structurally compromised. Certainly today, we MIGHT spend vast sums of public money to "save" and reposition such a neighborhood. Look at neighborhoods that were better than the Flats that were left alone - like Hintonburg, Mechanicsville, etc - which evolved to what they are today, with a lot of infill development of mixed quality and scale.

I dont think we should idealize the past and be nostalgic for a quality residential neighborhood that exists more in our imaginations than reality. Eddy McCabe wrote a lot about what it was like to grow up in that neighborhood, and it was anything but wonderful.

8 comments:

  1. Vancouver is busy demolishing old stock in the adjcent neighborhoods for redevelopment from scratch."Vancouver" isn't.

    Individual property owners and developers are.

    Big difference between that, and a government (whichever level) marching in and flattening everything, and then sitting on the wasteland for decades.

    Given the location, I have no doubt that Lebreton would have evolved rapidly in the decades that it was denied, just as the rest of the city did.

    And you'd be amazed at what the NCC considered "slums" in the 1960s... It's a good thing they didn't flatten them all.

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  2. Two reasons why the flats are urban planning Epic Fail.

    1. If you look at some of the most interesting neighborhoods in cities across the world, a lot of them were once down and out industrial mixed-use neighborhoods like Lebreton Flats. SOMA in San Francisco was once an industrial and warehouse district that serviced the docks. Even in Ottawa, the beloved and trendy Glebe was once pretty much a slum, at the same time as Lebreton Flats. Many of the houses were falling down as well. Think of what would have happened if the NCC had destroyed the Glebe. If we had kept the old buildings and warehouses, we could have had an interesting and lively space right next to Parliament Hill, rather than the lunar landscape that we have now. Which brings me to my second point.

    2. Why did they demolish with no firm plans of rebuilding?? It's one thing to say that these were old, falling down hunks of junk. Maybe they were right to tear down some of the buildings, but the way in which they did it, which was to tear down an entire neighborhood, and then not allow anyone to rebuild there, so as to have vistas of parliament hill (over the lunar landscape...) is just a waste, not only of space, but of money. And the fenced-off lunar landscape is a direct result of that ineptitude.

    In conclusion. Now, given the state of all other neighborhoods close to downtown, it can be very reasonably concluded that Lebreton flats would have become at least a vibrant, lively neighborhood.

    Instead, because of the continuing neglect, Lebreton Flats is ripe for being turned into another Centrum, or RioCan place that's ugly and unlivable. Look at what has gone up so far on the flats as evidence for future developments.

    In a way, the few remnants of Lebreton Flats gives us an indicator of what might have been. Lorne Ave, was fixed up by residents over the past twenty years, and is now a lovely tree-lined street. The old brewery was demolished, and in it's place is an ugly townhouse subdivision.

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  3. I agree with Matt that the flats would be a more exciting place if rebuilt with prior elements in place, reused, and updated. I dont prefer the clear and rebuild model of urban planning used in the 50's and 60's.

    But the NCC was not the only party at fault. The city cleared vast areas too, eg Rochester Heights, parts of Lower Town, and these rebuilt areas are not great. My key points are two fold: large scale govt urban redevelopment was not unbridled goodness in the past nor will it be in the future, and too many people want bigger govt to impose their benificent view of how a city should be planned. Secondly, nostalgia for a demolished area can be misleading. The Flats, as one example, was not nirvana, full of nicely coexisting industrial and mixed income residences with cute gardens out front.

    Eric Darwin

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  4. "Lorne Ave, was fixed up by residents over the past twenty years, and is now a lovely tree-lined street."

    My first house in the area was on Booth, backing onto Lorne. At the time, 1980, the street was a mix of boarding houses, rentals, and few owner occupied. They were even then being gobbled up by property flippers and PM6's with aspirations to make a quick buck speculating on real estate. Much of the original population was pretty unceremoniously moved out as gentrification took place.

    We got the trees on the street as part of a federally funded neighborhood improvement program. I was very active in community politics then. I recall clearly the conflict facing St Rolf Hassenack, the alderman, as neighborhood improvments lead to low income families being displaced and yuppies moving in. Rolf even opposed trying to reduce traffic on Booth St because it would make it more attractive to gentrification!

    I still live in the neighborhood, on Primrose, facing the new townhouses (which rated very high in user satisfaction surveys, much higher than did Crombie town and False Creek, the similar CMHC projects at the same time.)

    -Eric Darwin

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  5. Think of what would have happened if the NCC had destroyed the Glebe.

    And they wanted to.

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  6. Instead, because of the continuing neglect, Lebreton Flats is ripe for being turned into another Centrum, or RioCan place that's ugly and unlivable. Look at what has gone up so far on the flats as evidence for future developments.
    Look at the intended street layout. It's not integrated with the rest of the city. It's basically a suburb with a view of Parliament Hill.

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  7. WJM - I think that goes back to the point that we should beware the incursion of larger governmental bodies. The best example of this is the inidious nature of the OMB. I call it insidious not because of the outcomes from the OMB but because the message it sends is that City Council is not fit to make decisions.

    Bottom line for me is that the Glebe was saved from teh NCC because of the socioeconomic class of the inhabitants. LeBreton Flats was not for the same reason - which population base is better equipped to mobilise and to manipulate the levers of city hall and the NCC? Why are there more parks in the Glebe than in Chinatown?

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  8. WJM - I think that goes back to the point that we should beware the incursion of larger governmental bodies. The best example of this is the inidious nature of the OMB. I call it insidious not because of the outcomes from the OMB but because the message it sends is that City Council is not fit to make decisions.
    City council isn't! But then again, neither is the OMB, which makes essentially anti-urban, pro-suburban decisions, time and time and time again.


    Why are there more parks in the Glebe than in Chinatown?
    Largely because the Glebe inherited them.

    But what's so virtuous about parks anyway? The suburbs are full of the damn useless things. Ottawa waterways are smothered in dead "green" space. The cult of "green space" is run amok in this town (along with its cousin "open space").

    If anything, Ottawa, especially in the central city, needs less of the stuff. Fewer pointless ceremonial mumbo-jumbo Garden of the Provinces nonsense, fewer setbacks and boulevards. More streetwalls.

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