"In Canada too, the people that decide how plans look and whether or not they will be implemented are the planning committees. But over there, public participation is a legal requirement, so a developer that does his homework and consults widely with as many authorities as he can, will not have his plans rejected. Ultimately, once the programs go the statutory public consultation process, their final shape very clearly has the mark of public input on it," Robert Freedman, director of urban design in the City of Toronto's planning division, told "Globes" in an interview during a recent visit to Israel. One can only wonder what changes he would make to the design of cities in Israel, if it were up to him.
Height isn't the issue
Freedman, 47, has been in his post for six years. He oversees urban design in Toronto, with a vision of the future that defines how the city will look 50 years hence. He has introduced a variety of initiatives since taking up his post, one of which was the setting down of guidelines for low and high-rise construction, , and the setting up of a city design audit panel. He was in Israel at the invitation of the Council for a Beautiful Israel and the Merhav Association for Urban Renewal in Israel, to speak to local organizations and businesses on sustainable development, mixed land use, density, and high-rise building.
Over the last 15 years, the face of Toronto, whose population numbers 2.5 million, has changed. The defining point came a decade ago, when the city's municipal jurisdiction was extended to five outlying areas - York, North York, East York, Etobicoke, and Scarborough. Once dormant suburbs became vibrant commercial centers, and isolated run-down industrial zones made way for inviting parks and residential projects. Dilapidated main roads turned into flora-lined avenues with sidewalks alongside medium height buildings, or mid-rise condominiums as they are called in Toronto.
Freedman graduated in architecture from the Vancouver University, and holds a degree in law from the University of Toronto. At the beginning of the 1990s, he lived in the US, and worked in urban design and planning in projects in neighborhoods in Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, and St. Louis. It was this work experience that exposed him to urban architecture in the US and neighborhood blight. For Freedman the criterion for success of a project is neither size nor height, but whether the project blends into the surrounding urban landscape. Height is not the issue; the question for him is whether height is in the right context.
Globes: How much does design in Toronto differ from what you've seen in Tel Aviv
Freedman: " First let me say that I was very impressed by much of what I saw in Tel Aviv. I had last visited the city in the early 80s and before that as a child in the late 60s. And it is so different from my early memories. Very urban, modern, clean, vibrant, sophisticated. A real delight to walk the streets - the city appears to be alive with vitality. I was also delighted by the "White City". The early modern design in Tel Aviv was and still is very urban and pedestrian in scale and created a wonderful, walkable, vibrant environment.
“The 1970s and 80s were not kind to Tel Aviv, and it appears that the city fell into some of the worst examples of city building, as we did in North America. For example, some of the buildings in your hotel strip by the beach are very unfortunate and do not relate at all to their urban context. It appears that Tel Aviv would also benefit from tall buildings guidelines. The way a tall building meets the street and the transition from tall tower scale to street scale is crucial, and I saw several very bad examples of otherwise good tower designs completely failing in the way they meet the ground. It's as if they were permitted to completely ignore the context of their sites. In Toronto, we have a negotiated rezoning process to ensure that tall buildings meet the street in an appropriate way and fit into their city context.
"At the same time Tel Aviv, surprisingly, did not build a higher-order public transit system, which I find to be a major mistake, and one that needs to be rectified if the city is to thrive in the future. The automobile traffic appears to be congested at all times of the day. At medium densities, dedicated light rail transit rights-of -way work well and are much less expensive than transit.”
If you were in charge of the planning of the city of Tel Aviv how would you adapt it to your vision of the city of the future?
"That's a difficult question, I don’t know Tel Aviv very well, I spent some time in Jerusalem back in the 1980s, but I don’t know Tel Aviv too well so I wouldn't even begin to offer advice on how to plan the city. Tel Aviv is often built one parcel at the time,. Obviously a very big parcel sometimes, so that the trick is how you get interests into trying to maximize the return for the individual, how you get them to pay attention to the greater picture. What we do in Toronto is hold design charrettes, a process whereby we bring many of the people that may be affected by the development together to weigh in. Everyone gives their own reaction to the idea, everyone is in the same room, and you let them see it before the plan is even drawn up. In Pittsburg, over 80% of our work was done through design charrettes, so I find it a very effective tool. Then we arrange big symposiums on the big subjects, we set up a design review panel, so there are ways in which we can try to bring big ideas to the little projects.
"The other thing I would add is that there's sometime an assumption that public involvement would probably offend the planners. You have an official plan and you're done, this is what the city should be like. I think the designers see the official plan as the beginning. When we have a public meeting many, many people come to weigh in and have their say. By law you are required to hold a public meeting, but again, they are not as effective as the charrette process, where it is not just a matter of getting the public to see the proposed plan - they are more involved earlier, so you get a very meaningful input from the public.
"It is very complicated in Toronto as well because it is the city council that makes the decision but there is a judicial body called the Ontario Municipal Board that can overturn the council, even if we have gone through all that process and the public has been involved. Typically if you have made your homework properly and consulted widely, I don’t think either the council or the board can overturn a plan.
"The other thing that should be mentioned and that is very effective is a professional designer review panel. We have people from Vancouver and other cities - there are 12 designers who volunteer to look at major projects in our centers and in our towns, and they provide advice to us, and that is ultimately very helpful. A designer panel in Tel Aviv could be very effective."
Is sustainable development very costly?
"It depends how sustainable development is defined. If you make the city more dense so it does not spread to other landscapes, it will be less expensive to buy a condominium downtown than to buy a single family house in the suburbs, and you don't have to commute. The price of building green buildings is dropping, so it becomes more affordable, and soon everyone will be doing it because it will be cost effective. All new office building are now going to use it. If one person has done it, the next has to as well. And it also more efficient in terms of air conditioning and heating costs."
What does your ideal city look like?
"There's no such thing as an ideal city. The cities around the world that are considered successful and which people admire are the ones with a sense of scale. When you're in Paris, for example, it is pretty clear that it has a certain sense of order, an attention to design and detail, excellent public transport, incredible use of public spaces, housing opportunities for everyone, mixed up, not just for the wealthy. There is also an emphasis on mixed use there as well. Everything is there, apart from toxic industries."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on April 21, 2008
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