PARKS IN CRISIS part 6: Are privately

owned public spaces the answer to

parks deficit?
APRIL 21, 2015 | BY KIMBERLEY NOBLE

Over the next year, City of Toronto politicians and planners will be
faced with an unprecedented challenge: how to create amenable
public open spaces in and around a massive re-development proposal
for the north-west corner of Front Street and Spadina.
Three developers Diamond Corp., RioCan and Allied have
combined forces to spend an estimated $1 billion dollars to transform
the 3.1 hectare block that has been home for decades to The Globe
and Mail and a Toyota dealership.

The 2 million sq.-ft project, one of the largest proposed for the citys
core, is known as The Well, for its location on the historical block of
Wellington Street West. The builders are proposing a mix of roughly
half commercial (office and retail) and half residential to create what
designers envision as this citys version of developments like
Londons Butlers Wharf.
To accomplish this, the builders want to be trusted to provide, and take
care of, most if not all the public amenities traditionally required as
trade-offs for the development approval.
The consortium has already asked the city to drop conventional
demands for internal roads through the project in favour of pedestrian
walkways and bike paths. Whats more, the developers hope to forego
the usual parkland dedication in exchange for an agreement to
construct and maintain a network of privately-owned plazas and
walkways that will be open to the public.
As part of the deal, which would ultimately enable these companies to
build a series of large office and condo towers, theyd also like to
landscape, and look after, adjacent sections of public land on
Wellington, Front and the historical enclave of Draper Street.
Participants called the ongoing negotiations complex and delicate. How
they end will provide the best look yet at to how the city views the
provision of so-called privately-owned public spaces (POPS) in highgrowth downtown districts. The policy, picked up from New York City
three years ago, is intended to create a network of plazas, pathways
and other open spaces that can augment the dearth of conventional
parks in an increasingly dense downtown.
In New York, planning officials in the late 1950s began offering private
developers additional height and density in exchange for light and
public open space. This incentive zoning generated hundreds of
plazas, arcades, walkways and pocket parks owned and maintained by
property managers. New York journalist Adee Braunhas described the
Big Apples POPS as urban nesting dolls [that] were built to provide
the public with shortcuts, shelter and gathering spaces.
Will Torontos POPS achieve similar results? Or is this primarily a public
relations exercise that does little toward ameliorating the underlying
problem?

Last week, Spacing revealed that hundreds of millions of dollars have

flowed into parkland reserve funds, much of it from high-density
development in the core. But while the city can point to a handful of
new park acquisitions and partnerships, its struggling to invest in new
public open space in areas experiencing significant population growth.
To counter those difficulties, city planning officials point to the growing
inventory of POPS downtown, which, they say, have added a million
square-feet of open space in the core since 2000. The planning
department is also aiming to improve signage and encourage builders
to create better open spaces at the base of their buildings, using tools
such as site plan agreements.
Approving and promoting POPS looks good to this municipality.
Piggybacking on or expanding slightly plans that developers
already have in place, in exchange for a bit more height or density,
appears to be highly economical. POPS, in theory, provide some of the
benefits of public parks without requiring the city to maintain lawns,
trees, gardens or infrastructure. Whats more, POPS can be built
without depleting the citys parkland reserve funds.
As Toronto continues to grow, according to a May, 2014, staff report
adopted by council, there is an increasing need and demand to create
new parks and open spaces as places of retreat, relaxation and
recreation that contribute to the health and well-being of City
residents. As land values increase, however, it is not always possible to
purchase properties to create new public parks in areas of the City that
are most in need. New POPS guidelines include classifications for past
and future POPS, plus standards for access, materials, lighting and
signage.
Yet theres no consensus on the effectiveness of POPS policies. Given
the whole dysfunctional nature of whats going on in PFR, I think the
whole POPS thing has been relatively successful, said a former city
insider. But, he added, POPS should never have been seen as a
replacement for public parks.

Indeed, POPS policy remains contentious even in its birthplace. Some

of New Yorks best-known urban explorers spent years scrutinizing
POPS to get a sense of whether the city was selling its light and air too
cheaply. William (Holly) Whyte closely examined these spaces, and
compiled his findings in a 1980 book and related film called The Social
Life of Small Urban Spaces. Almost a generation later, Harvard urban
planning expert Jerold Kayden visited all 503 of the citys designated
POPS and published his findings in a 2000 study entitled, POPS,
Privately-owned Public Space, The New York Experience.
Kaydens research found that 41% of New Yorks POPs were of
marginal quality. As he wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times in
2011, many of Manhattans POPS were and are practically useless,
with austere designs, no amenities and little or no direct sunlight.
During a panel discussion at New Yorks Centre for Architecture last
summer, Kayden also described a process he called POPS creep.
Whereas advocates point to the beauty and popularity of successful
spaces such as the Seagram plaza and Paley Park, about half of New
Yorks landlords are not in compliance with their POPS agreements.
Violations range from minor infractions (allowing garbage to pile up in
the spaces), to making designated POPS space inaccessible or
inhospitable (by removing seating or locking gates), and even

enclosing and decorating POPS arcades so they become the formidably

elegant lobbies of private buildings. New York has learned the hard way
that creating and maintaining public space carries the usual caveat
attached to offers of a free lunch, Kayden said.
Kayden, who runs New Yorks own POPS database, has concluded that
POPS policies pose three substantial dangers: they undermine zoning
requirements; they signal to developers that zoning exemptions are for
sale; and they are not equitable because, unlike public parks, few POPS
are equally accessible to every citizen.

The Wells open space proposal

That hasnt stopped many North American cities, with the recent
addition of Toronto, from adopting and adapting a New York-style POPS
policy. But this trend raises the question: if the results fall so far short
of the mark in the city where this approach to public space originate,
what chance will the policy have of working in Toronto?
Spacing contacted people involved with The Wells POPS approval,
visited each of the approved POPS-designated sites and analyzed the
Citys new interactive database. Our conclusion: at this juncture,
Torontos 100-plus POPS fall short of establishing a network of high
quality open spaces, and certainly dont compensate for the inability of
the city to use existing resources and regulations to create new park
space in high-growth areas.

Some, certainly, provide iconic and well-used spaces, such as the

Pasture between the TD Bank towers, or the fountain tucked between
the wings of Commerce Court. A few have trees and ledges where
people can sit to talk and eat their lunches. But many including the
new Iceboat Terrace in CityPark, site of last summers unveiling of the
first POPS plaque, or the landscaped plaza in front of Tridels tower at
300 Front Street West appear to be desultory, and offer few
amenities to pedestrians.
Toronto architect and scholar Cheryl Atkinson who has studied the
history of POPS, as well as that of the Wellington West corridor
recommends that the city exercise a high degree of caution. POPS, she
writes in a study pending publication in the urban studies
journal Spaces and Flows, are generally often perfunctory responses
to an ever-diminishing, truly public realm in quantity, connectivity, and
collective consciousness.
Whats critically needed, Atkinson continues, is a strategy for
integrating public space of significant scale, continuity and impact into
the highly dense core neighbourhoods where they may form a part of
the daily social, cultural, and transportation network rituals of these
communities.
Everybody who agreed to be interviewed, on or off the record,
conceded that POPS are not, and should never be seen as, a
replacement for parks. City planners, however, defend the strategy.
POPS are important part of framing a citys open space, says James
Parakh, manager of urban design for the citys Toronto and East York
district. At a recent Canadian Urban Institutes symposium on placemaking, he offered a series of current and future examples [PDF]
showing how POPS can link downtown developments and networks of
urban plazas.

The open space planned for The Well is poised to become downtown
Torontos most ambitious POPS, and its evolution in coming years will
be well worth watching. The developers are going to great lengths to
appease the citys requests for light and air: the latest plans include a
complete redesign and repositioning of a 36-storey office tower to
create 37 additional minutes of sunlight on city-owned Clarence
Square.
A revised open-space proposal, submitted to the citys Design Review
Panel in late March, includes an ambitious internal network of
landscaped gardens, pedestrian walkways, glass-covered seating,
child-friendly water features and Parisian-inspired flexible furniture. It
will include wide leafy openings to both Front and Wellington.
POPS space will be extended to open onto Draper and a cantilevered
landscaped berm will turn public land on south side of Front Street into
a multi-level public parkette. All together, the owners have proposed
transforming 36% of the site about a hectare into new public
open space.
Its still a far cry from New Yorks largest and most successful POPS,
the Seagram Plaza, which takes up 75% of the sites Park Avenue
footprint. But by allowing The Well developers to create privately
owned public spaces instead of insisting that they turn over land for a
city-owned park, the city, The Wells landscape designer Claude
Cormier says, will receive high quality urban design and public

accessibility without incurring the cost of construction and

maintenance.
But what options does Toronto have? There is no money to maintain a
public park, Cormier adds. The city is limited in terms of what [it] can
do. He is optimistic, however, that this new synthesis of private vision
and public access will produce the sort of great public open spaces that
seem to be elusive under existing parkland funding mechanisms.
This will be open urban space, he says. This will not be a mall.
Seagram Plaza photo by Trevor Patt
Part 1: All built up but no place to grow
Part 2: Where the money flows
Part 3: The perils of cash-in-lieu
Part 3 sidebar: Section 42 explained
Part 4: The tale of two parks
Part 5: The system worked (slowly) for a west end park
Part 6: Are privately-owned public spaces the answer to parks deficit?

7 COMMENTS
Neither the author nor Spacing necessarily agrees with posted comments. Spacing reserves the
right to edit or delete comments entirely. See our Comment Policy.

1.

Sean Galbraith
11 MONTHS AGO

To me, in the current climate, POPS seem like a bit of a necessary evil. They
arent great, but really they are about as good as well get until the city nuts up
and spends some cash.
I dont like when they are in the form of large plazas in front of properties (like is
common in NYC and as in several examples in Toronto) they drastically breakup
a uniform street frontage, and shift any at grade retail way back from the street (I
presume impacting their commercial viability). Uniform street frontages are
comfortable for people. (This is also a reason why breaking up street frontages
with micro public parkettes instead of cash-in-lieu isnt great either)
But I also dont like that they arent necessarily permanent. If they remain in
private ownership, they can always be requested for redevelopment by the owner
and the onus is on the city to say no. Case in point, the NW corner of Yonge and
Eglinton. IIRC, this formerly open plaza (which while not great all there was at the
intersection in terms of open area) was provided in exchange for the city closing
a street through the block to allow for the development. Fast forward to a few

years ago when the owners wanted to build more retail on the plaza and
voila no more POPS (and no, the new rooftop open space isnt a satisfactory
replacement if takes an effort to get to it, it doesnt count).
Use of public spaces in Toronto is already so tightly restricted by city rules and
regulations. Do we want more spaces which are subject to the whim of private
landowners as well?
POPS take the Public out of Public Space what we are left with is just Private
Open Space a POS.
2.
Christopher King
11 MONTHS AGO

I remember the private/public raised park in St Jamestown. Fantastic idea until

the condo owners suddenly realized that they were going to be sharing it with
undesirables on occasion, at which point all public access points were removed
3.
Raymond
11 MONTHS AGO

Can someone point to some successful POPS in Toronto? I have not seen any
that impress me. Am I missing something? Seems to me just developers scams
to get more density and leave the public without decent open public space.
4.
Roger B
11 MONTHS AGO

As in NYC, Toronto needs to find a way to enforce violations of existing POPS

policies. Liberty Village has a townhouse development with publicly accessible
walkways that were closed off years ago with gates, but because the citys Urban
Design POPS group is taking many years to tabulate existing POPS, the vast
majority cant be verified by the city. I found out from the Development application
and local planner.
Ive also had a planner In North York request a property manager on
HumberStone Drive remove the large private property no trespassing signs
aimed at a public walkway that provides a convenient link in a development
where POPS paths were allowed to replace streets. The planner told me that
property management ignored his calls, and he told me that the (at that time
upcoming) city POPS program would solve these problems. It took me about a
year of requests, to finally get this overworked planner to spend some time in the
Archives and verify the POPS, but thats the only way it can be verified since its
not in any internet database.
Most property owners find legal ways to dissuade public use, for by example
enclosing the space with arches, naming the space, not using public looking

streets, adding stairs, not allowing through views so that a person can see that a
path traverses the development, and placing multiple private property no
parking signs pointed at pedestrian paths. The private property words are in big
type, and would give most people the impression that they are trespassing. In
law the sign is only supposed to be aimed at the (often unlikely or impossible)
person who wished to park on the path or park space.
5.
Frederick Emrich
11 MONTHS AGO

I see the line at the bottom of Torontos POPS map, Access to some POPS
locations may be refused in certain circumstances, and it makes me cringe.
These arent public spaces without a strong commitment to making them fully
public. Of course, in certain circumstances access even to fully public spaces
may be refused; but the disclaimer on the map suggests spaces that are less
than, possibly much less than, public. POPS can only serve as adequate publicish spaces to the extent the city and their owner/operators strive to keep them
fully public.
6.
Roger B
11 MONTHS AGO

As the article seems to point to, POPS can have some benefits and are usually
better than nothing, but generally they shouldnt be thought of as substitutes for
public parks, streets and connections. While some developers and property
owners embrace the concept, most will be constantly working against public
access. The city neither has the regulations or the manpower to make private
owners fulfill the goals of public park space and access. The Well is an example
of a replacing public with private.
7.
Henry Argasinski
11 MONTHS AGO

One of the best examples of a POP was the parkette which stood at the corner of
Bay and Dundas Streets for over two decades, owned by the developers of the
Eaton Centre. It was used by thousands during the day, but at night a desolate
no mans land. In my book (A Life in the
City, http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/175179) is a chapter which
deals with the park and some of the stories around it. POPs can be good, but
they can also be abused and bad.
Comments are closed.
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