Gordon

Urban Studies, Vol. 34, No.
1, 61 83, 1997
Managing the Changing Political Environment in Urban Waterfront Redevelopment

David L. A. Gordon
{Paper rst received, July 1995; in nal form, April 1996}
Summary. Political issues in urban waterfront redevelopment projects are examined in this paper, based upon case studies in New York, London, Boston and Toronto. The perspective of the redevelopment agency is adopted when considering techniques for managing the changing political environment over the decades that it takes to implement these projects. The speci c issues which are addressed include start-up politics, managing changes in political leadership, allocation of bene ts and managing relations with residents and local government. Effective waterfront redevelopment agencies take a long-term approach towards management of their political environment.
This paper examines the efforts of waterfront redevelopment agencies to manage their changing political environment during the implementation process. It reports upon the techniques used by the public authorities to assemble a development coalition, manage changes in their political leadership, allocate the bene ts of waterfront redevelopment and manage relations with municipal governments and local residents. It concludes with suggestions for improving the long-term political effectiveness of the public agencies which manage publicprivate partnerships for waterfront redevelopment. Urban waterfront redevelopment projects were among the most prominent examples of physical planning and urban renewal in the 1970s and 1980s (Bruttomesso, 1993, 1991; Breen and Rigby, 1993; Hall, 1991). Many cities are redeveloping older port facilities
made obsolete by technological changes in the shipping industry (Hershman, 1988; Hoyle et al., 1988). However, much of the academic research into this phenomenon has been dominated by political analysis of urban redevelopment (Fainstein, 1994; Harvey, 1989; Savitch, 1988), obscuring many practical lessons for planning and implementing major projects. For example, waterfront redevelopment projects take decades to complete and span several electoral cycles. It is inevitable that the original politicians who supported a project will eventually retire or be defeated, so a waterfront redevelopment authority must manage its changing political environment at several levels, particularly with the sponsoring government, local elected of cials and nearby residents. Many waterfront redevelopment projects started in the late 1960s and early 1970s,
David L. A. Gordon is in the School of Urban and Regiona l Planning , Queen s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6. Fax: 613 545 6905. E-mail: gordond@post.q ueensu.ca. The author was a project manager for the Harbourfront Corporation from 1984 88. The research for this paper was funded by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the Harvard Graduate Schoo l of Design, the Taubman Center for State and Local Government at Harvard s Kennedy Schoo l of Government and the Waterfront Regeneration Trust of Toronto. The Urban Research Center of New York University and Birbeck College of the University of London provided collegial homes during the eldwork. Current and former of cials of the BPCA, LDDC, DJC, BRA and Harbourfront Corporation were most generous with their time and provided many key documents. The author is grateful for the comments and suggestions of Mohammad Qadeer, Alan Altshuler, Jose Gomez-Iban ez and Gary Hack re earlier versions of this work.
0042-0980 /97/010061-2 3 $7.00
1997 The Editors of Urban Studies
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DAVID L . A . GORDON
after the peak period of large-scale urban renewal projects but prior to the boom in downtown shopping centres and festival markets analysed by Frieden and Sagalyn (1989). The waterfront sites incorporated a unique set of urban design characteristics (Eckstut, 1986; Gordon, 1996) and nancial problems associated with former harbour uses (Gordon, 1997). However, the political problems involved in implementing waterfront redevelopment are somewhat similar to urban renewal and downtown retail projects. Most of these projects were justi ed with economic development arguments, implemented by semi-independent redevelopment agencies and had to maintain good relations with local government. Analysis of the political management of urban waterfront redevelopment might therefore be useful for some of the publicprivate partnerships currently underway. However, the waterfront sites are often much larger than the well-documented downtown retail projects, so their implementation agencies cannot rely on one deal done between one developer and one city council. A waterfront agency with multiple sites must expect to be there for the very long term. The public agencies which implement waterfront redevelopment were not working from a strong theoretical base for their tasks. They were largely ` making it up as they went along , perhaps based upon previous experience in urban renewal or new town development. The planning literature includes a few single case studies for London (Brownill, 1990; Ledgerwood, 1985) and Manhattan (Buttenweiser, 1987) and the London Docklands has also had extensive attention in several journals, perhaps because its size and implementation have sparked much controversy. The recent American urban politics literature gives similarly little guidance for the practice of redevelopment agencies. Peterson observed that the pursuit of economic development is the single most important objective of many city governments. He suggests that developmental politics would be consensual and implemented by autonomous agencies to insulate this key activity from the inef ciencies
and hurly-burly of local politics (Peterson, 1981). In response, Logan and Molotch (1987) identi ed the social and environmental costs of these economic development policies. They recommended that progressive municipalities ` up the ante for growth through referenda, development charges and growth management regulations similar to those enacted by San Francisco. Stone and Sanders (1987) noted that the implementation stage of urban redevelopment projects was often lled with local con icts, rather than consensus, and political skill was needed for effective action. Drier (Drier and Keating, 1990; Drier and Ehrlich, 1991) drew on his Boston experience to suggest that some cities could pursue economic development and redistribution during periods of economic growth with linkage fees and exactions. DeLeon (1992) points out the limitations of this approach, even for San Francisco, which has a tradition of progressive local politics. Several observers of cross-national trends in urban politics noted an increasing policy convergence among North American and western European cities, with increasing emphasis on private-sector involvement in planning and development (Fainstein, 1994, 1991; Keating, 1991; Savitch, 1988). The structuralist critics viewed the increased private in uence with alarm (Harvey, 1989) but even Susan Fainstein, who is generally sympathetic to their analysis, chides them for their lack of alternative prescriptions (Fainstein, 1994, pp. 228236). Four prominent case studies were examined in detail to search for insights into the implementation of urban waterfront redevelopments, including over 100 interviews with key planners, politicians and developers. Other data sources included the plans, annual reports, legal agreements and legislation of the implementation agencies and local governments. The four case studies are brie y described in the next section, followed by a discussion of the start-up politics of waterfront redevelopment. The paper then examines the agencies efforts to manage change in their political leadership and con icts over the allocation of bene ts from waterfront
POLITICS AND URBAN WATERFRONT REDEVELOPMENT
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redevelopment. Finally, the methods used to manage relations with the local government and residents are considered in some detail, with a view towards effective implementation. Although the four case study projects are not yet complete, many planning and implementation lessons were drawn from their experience of the past three decades. The W aterfront Case Studies Battery Park City is built on 92 acres of land ll adjacent to the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. The State of New York established the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) to implement the project in 1968, after several years of con ict between Governor Nelson Rockefeller and Mayor John Lindsay. Although a master plan was approved in 1969, the project was hobbled by political, nancial and design problems. The site remained vacant for more than a decade. The BPCA irted with bankruptcy in 1979, forcing the state and city governments nally to set aside their differences and to approve a new plan and nancial structure which were remarkably successful in turning the project around (Gordon, 1993). The agency has since attracted 2500 medium- and highincome housing units (BPCA, 1990) and has secured its nancial future with a major of ce complex developed by Olympia and York. Battery Park City s urban design guidelines and public spaces have been acclaimed as among the most in uential American planning and design achievements of the 1980s (Dixon, 1993; Time, 1990; Barnett, 1987). The London Docklands 5500-acre site is one of the world s largest urban regeneration projects, stretching from the City through the East End, the poorest part of the metropolis. Technological change in the shipping industry forced the closure of the massive enclosed docks in the 1960s and 1970s, leaving thousands of unemployed workers in the adjacent communities. All three major planning initiatives for the vacant docklands suffered political controversies and implementation problems. The 197173 Docklands Study was rejected outright by the local govern-
ments and the 197481 Docklands Joint Committee (DJC) was unable to attract much new development (Hebbert, 1992; Brownill, 1990; Ledgerwood, 1985). Margaret Thatcher s Conservative government established the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) in 1981 with the power to overrule local planning authority and a mandate to stimulate private investment. While the agency developed over 17 000 new homes and 24m sq ft of commercial space in its rst decade (LDDC, 1991), it was bitterly criticised for limited social bene ts and transport problems (DCC, 1992, 1991; Church, 1990, 1988; Marris, 1987, ch. 3; House of Commons, 1989, 1988; National Audit Of ce, 1990, 1988). The LDDC s private revenues dried up in the last recession, culminating with the bankruptcy of Olympia and York s massive Canary Wharf of ce project in 1992. Much of the literature on the Docklands was driven by ideological outrage over the deregulatory zeal and private-sector orientation of the Thatcher government s urban programme (Ambrose, 1994, 1986; Thornley, 1991; Brownill, 1990; Campbell, 1990; Marris, 1987). Only recently have political temperatures dropped suf ciently that a quarter of a century of poor planning and implementation for the London Docklands can be examined in its own right (Hebbert, 1992; Hall, 1988). The Charlestown Navy Yard (CNY) is a 105-acre mixed-use redevelopment located across the Charles River from Boston s downtown waterfront. The site was a naval shipyard from 1800 to 1974, leaving a fabric of industrial buildings which were functionally obsolete but historically signi cant. In 1978, it was acquired by the Boston Redevelopment Agency (BRA), a city-wide planning and development agency effectively controlled by the Mayor s of ce. The agency had little success in attracting investment to the site until the mid 1980s real estate boom. A populist new mayor and state government legislation protecting public access caused a complete replanning of the site during the boom. Approximately half the site was redeveloped by the mid 1990s with 1000 housing
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units and 2m sq ft of commercial uses. The CNY is now a highly visible (and hotly debated) component of Boston s waterfront, the anchor of the City s new Harborpark plan and the last stop on the Freedom Trail, a popular tourist route. The 92-acre Harbourfront site is the western half of Toronto s central urban waterfront. The project was a 1972 election gift from the Canadian government, and was originally proposed as a waterfront park. After six years of debate with the City of Toronto, the federal government set up a quasi-independent agency, the Harbourfront Corporation, to develop a mixed-use urban waterfront. The agency s parks, public programming and initial redevelopment projects were acclaimed and popular with local citizens (Breen and Rigby, 1993). However, the corporation was required to be nancially self-suf cient and aggressively pursued private development in the mid 1980s. Public protests over new high-rise buildings led to demands for more parks and a moratorium on development (Baird, 1993). The Harbourfront Corporation was dismantled in 1990, with only half the project completed. The public programming centre lost its permanent nancing. Various nancial rescue attempts have left its long-term future uncertain at best.
clearly abandoned and deteriorating. Underutilised, publicly owned land appears to be regarded as ` up for grabs and several different government agencies struggled for control of the docklands in the four case cities. The planners could sense the importance of the waterfront, even if private developers were not interested because the image and service de ciencies of the sites depressed their initial market value. Port authorities often tried to hold onto the property, proposing new marine uses, such as a super-liner terminal in New York or new general cargo facilities in London. Radical technological change in transport made most of these proposals redundant. The harbour agencies allowed the old piers and quays to decline after the cargo facilities relocated to coastal container terminals. The port agencies in the four cities were in the shipping business and few were skilled at urban redevelopment.1 Their land was expropriated or sold for nominal sums in all four cities. Assembling the Development Coalition The government which focused the most political will and money generally seized direction of the projects, with examples at all four levels in this study. A national government founded the LDDC and Harbourfront Corporation, while New York State controls the BPCA and the former Greater London Council was the prime sponsor of the Docklands Joint Committee. The only consistent factor was that municipal governments did not directly implement redevelopment, perhaps indicating some cross-national concerns about the scal and political capacity of local government to carry out complex, long-term development projects. Boston does not quite t this taxonomy since the state-chartered and nominally independent BRA is controlled by the Mayor s of ce in practice. The governments that initiated waterfront renewal mobilised the local development coalition using economic development and urban blight arguments. There was a remarkable similarity in the economic development rationale used in all four cities, de-
Start-up Politics Starting a major urban waterfront redevelopment project requires a level of political and technocratic consensus that takes 510 years to build. The start-up phase is characterised by struggle for control of a site and debate about its future use. Most large urban waterfront sites were at least partly publicly owned by port or harbour agencies. Their decline was often gradual and almost unnoticed, except when there were high-pro le closures such as the St Katherine s Dock, London, (1968) or the Boston Naval Shipyard (1973). However, the central location of the former ports ensured that there would be other proposals for their use once the wharves were
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spite the different political cultures involved in the US, Canada and Britain. Keating (1991, pp. 163169; 1993) suggests that this convergence in development politics over the past two decades is a result of globally mobile investment capital and local attempts to use increasingly scarce public funds to maximise leverage in attracting private investment. The regime that started waterfront renewal did not induce the members of the development coalition (business, local government, institutions) to attack the problem directly. Instead, the sponsoring government negotiated the development coalition s acquiescence to implementation by a semiindependent public development agency. The political consensus for waterfront redevelopment was therefore somewhat more shallow than many publicprivate partnerships for downtown redevelopment, where the local government and the private sector were directly engaged and mutually dependent for success (Frieden and Sagalyn, 1989). The private sector was initially involved in waterfront redevelopment through collective organisations like the Downtown Lower Manhattan Association and the Toronto Downtown Business Council. Local business leaders were often included on the board of the redevelopment agency. On the other hand, when the private sector was not signi cantly involved in preparing the 1976 London Docklands Strategic Plan, the agency had dif culty attracting investment (Ledgerwood, 1985). The economic development argument had broad appeal during the start-up phase, as predicted by Peterson (1981, p. 132). It was established with the usual costbene t and scal-impact studies. These technical arguments appeared to be targeted at funding sources such as the sponsoring government (and the bond market for Battery Park City), but they were also used to convince local governments and tax-payers that the property tax base would increase. Economic development arguments were effective with local government, especially when the dramatic closures of the Charlestown Navy Yard and the London Docks created local unemploy-
ment and union pressure for action. Even the democratic socialist London borough governments did not oppose redevelopment of the docks if the economic bene ts were tightly targeted for local residents, as in the 1976 London Docklands Strategic Plan (Brownill, 1990). Similarly, the Harbourfront plan was strongly supported by John Sewell, perhaps the most radical Toronto mayor of this century. Other groups which were mobilised in the early approval stages were construction unions (New York and Boston) and affordable housing advocates (Toronto, London and New York). The second rationale for waterfront redevelopment was the symbolic ` abandoned doorstep argument described by Peter Hall (1991). The early planning reports often included stark black and white photographs of abandoned buildings and collapsing piers. Derelict central waterfront property was a high pro le affront to the civic leaders, blighting cherished ` postcard views of the city in New York and Toronto. The London Docklands and Charlestown Navy Yard were hidden behind walls, but politicians were aghast at the sight of hundreds of acres of abandoned warehouses virtually adjacent to the downtown core (Heseltine, 1987, pp. 134135). The sponsoring regime had to deal with opposition from several sources. The port agencies were usually reluctant to lose their lands. They were often expropriated by a higher level of government, which had leverage since the abandoned marine facilities were losing money. Other public landowners were reluctant to lose centrally located property, even if it was underutilised, since they viewed the land as a potential source of revenue. In contrast, private landowners were often quite happy to be expropriated and get cash out of lands that they valued at declining industrial rates in London and Toronto. Interim commercial users were relocated or did not have their leases renewed. Only the London Docklands had residents on-site, but the LDDC initially ignored them, leading to political dif culties outlined below. After dealing with these oppo-
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sition groups, the coalitions supporting the projects enjoyed a period of shallow consensus during approval of the redevelopment plans, since there was general agreement that something had to be done about the derelict waterfronts. The sponsoring governments provided the substantial start-up grants needed for capital works and operating subsidies during this phase (Gordon, 1997). Media coverage was usually quite positive, and most levels of government participated in the traditional ground-breaking ceremonies. The sponsoring regimes used this period of consensus to empower semi-independent redevelopment agencies with responsibility for implementing the project. The new authorities were often placed somewhat outside the scope of direct local political interference, but with some control from the supporting government. New York State, the Canadian federal government, the Greater London Council and the British government all created special-purpose waterfront redevelopment agencies. The CNY was acquired by the Boston Redevelopment Authority, a citywide planning and development agency. The relative consensus on economic issues and use of special-purpose agencies re ected cross-national trends in urban development politics as described by several observers (Keating, 1993, 1991; Savitch, 1988; Peterson, 1981). Starting Up Takes a Long Time It took many years to achieve the level of political and technocratic consensus needed to start a major urban waterfront redevelopment project. The actual length of time required to approval of an initial plan varied from ve and one-half years in Boston to over a decade in Toronto, as shown in Table 1. It was sometimes dif cult to pin-point when the start-up process began, unless there was a major political announcement, as in Toronto and Boston. The year of the rst serious redevelopment proposals was used as a starting benchmark in the other cases. On the other hand, the start-up phase could be considered completed after the approval of a
comprehensive plan for redevelopment of the waterfront and the establishment of an agency to implement the plan. De ning the end of the start-up phase at plan approval rather than the rst ground-breaking ceremony allows some separation of the political factors from real estate market cycles, since construction timing is strongly affected by local economic conditions. The complexity of the political environment was the most important cross-case factor affecting the speed of the start-up phase. There appeared to be a direct relationship between the number of levels of government with approval power in the start-up negotiations and the length of time elapsed. This relationship between delay and the number of signi cant players makes sense, since political control of the project is a major issue. Boston and New York took 56 years to complete an essentially two-party negotiation, while it took over 10 years for four levels of government to approve the Harbourfront plan in Toronto (Table 1). This pattern would appear to support Pressman and W ildavsky s (1984) observation that implementation becomes more time-consuming as the number of participants and critical decisions increases. Restarting development after the initial consensus falls apart took less time, ranging from 18 months in New York to over 5 years in Toronto. The restarts were probably shorter because they could build on some of the existing planning approvals. Completed infrastructure and buildings also limited the number of alternatives under discussion, creating development constraints in New York, London and Toronto. Once again, the variations in elapsed time to approval appear to be more related to the number of government approvals than to the project size (Table 1). The restart of the London Docklands does not quite appear to t this pattern, since the new Thatcher government acted unilaterally to set up the LDDC in 1981, but approvals were needed in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Surprisingly, the project size does not appear to explain signi cantly the variation in
Table 1. Time required for the start-up phase
Project
Initiation
Approval
Elapsed time
Government levels approving
Initial start-up Charlestown Navy Yard (103 acres) Federal Government transfers site, July 1978 Battery Park City zoning, October 1969 LDSP adopted Autumn 1976 Eight years Three (National/GLC/ Borough) Four (Federal/Provincial/ Metropolitan/City) Two (State/City) Six and a half years (78 months) Two (State/City) Five years (64 months) Two (Federal/City)
Pentagon closes shipyard April 1973
Battery Park City I (92 acres)
New York City Dept. M & A. plan, April 1963
London Docklands Strategic Plan (5800 acres) Plan and zoning approved December 1982 BPCA/NYC agreement, June 1980 LDDC created by Parliament July 1981 Provincial freeze lifted January 1993 One and a half years (18 months) Two years (22 months) Ten years (122 months)
St Katherine s Dock closed, 1968
Harbourfront Corporation I (92 acres)
Federal gift announced, October 1972
Restart Battery Park City II
BPCA Board takeover January 1979
London Docklands Development Corporation
Urban Development Corporation announced September 1979
One plus one (House of Commons/House of Lords)
Harbour Front Corporation II
City development freeze February 1988
Five years (59 months)
Three (Federal/Provincial/City)
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start-up time for the four cities. The sites in Boston, New York and Toronto were all approximately 100 acres, but they varied from 5 to 10 years in initial approval time. In contrast, approval of the rst plan for the London Docklands took ` only 8 years, even though the site was far larger, at 5800 acres. Managing Changes in Political Leadership Waterfront projects take decades to complete, so it was inevitable that politicians in the original development coalition are defeated, retire or move on to other of ces. The essential long-term relationship for the redevelopment agency was with the government which appoints its board and had ultimate nancial responsibility for its actions. The authority must manage this relationship to survive and to obtain the working capital needed for the start-up process. All the redevelopment agencies in the case studies had Boards of Directors with terms of of ce which were staggered and longer than the regular electoral cycle, a structure that is common practice for public authorities (Doig & Mitchell, 1992:20). In theory, the Board promotes continuity and prevents a new government from changing the agency immediately. In practice, it simply provided a breathing space for the agency to respond to a new agenda. A patient and determined government eventually seized control of each waterfront agency, since most politicians no longer grant autonomy of the type Robert Moses once amassed in New York (Caro, 1975). The critical question for the authority was whether the new government permitted it to continue its broad mission to redevelop the waterfront. The agency was dismantled in two of the nine major changes in regime after the initial plans were approved, as shown in Table 2. An election which produced a change in the governing party that controlled a redevelopment agency could create dif culties for the authority, especially if the change in regime was accompanied by a signi cant shift in ideology, such as Britain s 1979 transition from Labour to Conservative rule.
Margaret Thatcher s government had a radical right ideological agenda with urban planning and development speci cally targeted for change (Thornley, 1991; Ambrose, 1986; Parkinson, 1989). It was somewhat ironic that its reform instrument was an Urban Development Corporation, which was essentially an inner city version of the New Town corporations imposed by Labour governments on the rural Conservative shires in the 1950s and 1960s (Hall, 1988). A change in the controlling party had less effect on the agency when the ideological gap was narrower, such as the 197980 switch from the Liberals to the Red Tory Progressive Conservatives in Canada or the 1974 transition from liberal Republicans to Democrats in New York state. A change in regime also had little effect upon an agency if the same party remained in power. The new leaders generally restricted their activity to appointing their own Board members when terms expired. Minor policy changes were made in New York (1973, 1982) and also Boston (1983). Lack of visible progress toward redevelopment could exacerbate an agency s troubles during the program review which typically takes place after a change in regime. While it may be dif cult to de ne success in waterfront renewal, politicians typically consider the absence of signi cant developments after several years as evidence of an authority s failure. The Docklands Joint Committee had few tangible results to show for its six years of effort when the new Thatcher government dismantled it in 1981. A redevelopment authority could also incur the wrath of its political masters by presenting them with unanticipated nancial demands. Although the LDDC produced spectacular and highly visible results in its rst 6 years, its entrepreneurial CEO, Reg Ward, began to run into trouble with his new Minister when he needed large new infrastructure investments for Canary W harf. Ward did not manage the relationship with his banker (interview with A. Pelling, Under Secretary, Department of the Environment, 29 July 1992) and was forced to retire
Table 2. Effects of changes in political leadership Chair replaced? No No Yes Laid off No Yes New staff No No No Yes As retired No No Yes Bonds cut No No No No Board changed? CEO changed? Staff changed? Funding changed? Comments
Change in Regime
Mission changed?
No
BPCA 1973 Rockefeller (R) Wilson (R) BPCA 1974 W ilson (R) Carey (D)
No
BPCA 1978 Carey (D) re-elected BPCA 1982 Carey (D) Cuomo (D) Yes New agency No No Yes As retired Yes As retired Yes As retired Yes As retired No No No No No Yes New board Yes
No
Yes Minor
Yes 1979 Yes 1984
Yes 1979 Yes As retired
Yes 1979 Yes 1984
Yes Bail out Yes Diverted Yes Increased No Yes Increased No
Caretaker regime Preoccupied with NY scal crisis Agency near default Surplus diverted to social housing Radical shift in ideology
London Docklands 1979 Callaghan (Lab) Thatcher (C)
Yes Replaced
Harbourfront Corporation 1979 Trudeau (Lib) Clarke (P. Cons) Harbourfront Corporation 1980 Clark (P. Cons) Trudeau (Lib) Harbourfront Corporation 1984 Turner (Lib) Mulroney (P. Cons) Yes 1984
No
Yes Minor Yes Minor
Brief government Job-creation initiatives Emphasis on publicprivate partnerships No No Linkage, access, affordable housing
Charlestown Navy Yard 1983 W hite (D) Flynn (D)
Yes Minor
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in 1987. His successor was also forced out after costs rose and the Canary Wharf deal began to unravel. The government installed a senior Department of the Environment of cial as the new CEO and substantially reduced the agency s freedom of action. An agency which had not carried out its mandate could not be protected by policy adjustments or board structure. No visible progress and impending nancial demands left the Battery Park City Authority in a weak position in 1979, when Governor Hugh Carey took over the agency following his re-election. He was concerned by the BPCA s impending bond default and embarrassing dearth of development after a decade of effort. The staff were laid off and the of ce was closed. A nimble agency could survive a dif cult change in regime if it had produced some results. Harbourfront Corporation endured the defeat of the Trudeau Liberal government in 1984 with some quick footwork. The Conservative party was strongly oriented to privatisation, so the Corporation repositioned itself from an urban renewal agency into a publicprivate partnership. The federal government discovered that no additional investment was required and merely replaced the board Chairman and lled vacancies with partisan supporters. While relatively painless in the short term, these board changes may have contributed to the eventual demise of the agency. Harbourfront Corporation pleased its new masters by vigorously pursuing its nancial objectives over the next 5 years but the new board may have lost touch with prevailing public sentiment and other levels of government. There were several changes in political control in the City of Toronto, the Metropolitan Council and Ontario during the mid 1980s, as power shifted to Liberal and New Democratic party supporters. When the controversy over the design of the project heated up to a boil, Harbourfront s Tory board could not maintain its political coalition at the local, metropolitan or provincial levels. The national government dismantled the agency. The lesson here is that an authority s board must add
new roles during implementation: starting as a consensus-builder, adding scal guardians in the periods of massive subsidy and nally becoming stewards of a public-bene t corporation. Allocating the Bene ts of Waterfront Development The local politics of urban waterfront redevelopment change as the project moves from start-up into implementation. As Peterson (1981) suggested, the early consensus of the development coalition was built around economic development issues. Civic embarrassment about the appearance of a highpro le blighted area also added some impetus to the collective will to do something about the situation. Although it took years to start redevelopment, once the project appeared to be viable, interest-groups within the city competed for larger shares of the bene ts. These bene ts were largely non nancial and symbolic because waterfront redevelopment was not a pro table real estate venture for the implementation agencies due to high start-up costs, infrastructure investments and site clean-up requirements (Gordon, 1997). The initial consensus on economic development gave way to the fractious internal debates characteristic of allocational politics. The major debates focused upon three themes: affordable housing, employment and public access. Affordable Housing Urban planners regard waterfront redevelopment projects as an opportunity to add to the downtown housing stock on a large scale. The question of the proportion of affordable housing inevitably arises in the planning process. Since there are usually few existing residents in waterfront sites, the initial discussions of affordable housing often take place without ` not in my back yard pressures. Housing advocates can press for higher proportions of subsidised housing with less chance of a backlash. On the other hand, market pressures often push towards
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higher-income housing. The waterfront s central location and ne views make it a potentially valuable residential area. The public transit, utilities and community services are often poor, since the site was previously in industrial use. All four agencies discovered that it was pro table and relatively simple to develop housing for small, high-income, professional households (young urban professionals or ` yuppies ) who appreciated the central location and placed few demands upon the social service system. Waterfront views in the formerly derelict ports turned out to have some social cachet for this group in all four cities. On the other hand, households which were attempting to raise children in construction-site conditions protested to all levels of government. The housing battles were most severe in London, where policy was entangled in class, race and ideological issues. Less than 5 per cent of the housing in the Docklands area was privately owned and occupied in 1971 and most of the residents lived in deteriorating council housing estates. The Conservative central government pushed private housing, while the Labour boroughs and GLC demanded more council housing to deal with their long waiting lists (ChiCL, 1988). Demands for ` housing for local people were partly a re ection of the tensions over racial integration as changes to social housing allocation policies allowed homeless people (often black) access to units in close-knit Docklands communities (Brownill, 1990, p. 115). The issue continued to fester, most recently when the Isle of Dogs elected a representative of the National Party to Tower Hamlets Council, the rst member of this openly white racist organisation voted into of ce in Britain (Miller, 1993). The local governments imposed social housing quotas on the Harbourfront and CNY redevelopment plans. However, the local government did not always pursue affordable housing in waterfront development. Ironically, Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller initiated Battery Park City as a mixed-income housing scheme, but the concept was opposed by Democratic Mayor
John Lindsay, who felt that the area was more suited for luxury housing (interviews with John V. Lindsay and Donald Elliot, former Chairman NY City Planning Commission, 25 June 1992). The BPCA considered adding affordable housing in the 1980s, but discovered that New York housing advocates preferred that any available funds be spent in older minority neighbourhoods where more units could be provided by renovating abandoned buildings (interview with Meyer S. Frucher, former President BPCA and Senior VP Olympia and York, 10 June 1992). Although this proposal was ef cient, some observers criticised it since it did not promote integration (Boyer, 1994; Deutsche, 1991, p. 200; Russell, 1994, pp. 207208). The BPCA eventually agreed to provide New York City with up to $1bn for housing by issuing bonds secured by future of ce revenue. The City diverted most of this money to its general fund to deal with its 1991 budget de cit. Although it could be argued that the City was simply recapturing payments in lieu of taxes that it would otherwise receive, capitalising future property revenue with bonds to cover a current operating de cit is highly questionable public nancial strategy (Sagalyn, 1993, p. 15). In summary, the affordable housing issue was strongest during the planning phase of waterfront redevelopment. Once implementation was underway, the local governments were willing to reduce housing in favour of more pressing political priorities open space in Toronto, budget relief in New York and job training in London. Public Access The security requirements of port facilities meant that the public had been excluded from most of the lands for over a century. As a result, few citizens had walked the water s edge on the project sites. Redevelopment agencies had some dif culty in attracting the public to their relatively inaccessible and somewhat run-down sites. While the master plans and urban design guidelines all called for open space and increased access to the
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waterfront, they differed in the physical strategies they employed to reach these goals. Access is not only a matter of design; it is also a bene t allocated by public policy. New York and Toronto reserved the entire water s edge for public use, but London and Boston did not and were later excoriated for the omission. The Battery Park City Authority did a ne job on the design and implementation of the public open spaces of the 1979 plan, phasing them ahead of the development. The strategy met with praise and support (Gill, 1990; Time , 1990; Wiseman, 1987). In contrast, the BRA was criticised when it allowed developers to build completely private projects on the water s edge, and the state government stepped in to legislate public access. The Harbourfront Corporation s public programming raised the pro le of the site to the extent that the citizens embraced the waterfront as a major municipal asset. The bad news for the agency was that this success did not translate into support for its development programme. Harbourfront Corporation s opponents succeeded in destroying the agency s supporting coalition by adopting the symbolically powerful arguments of open space and public access, while the authority s staff defended their new plan with narrow technical rationality: superior urban design, positive costbene t analysis and conformity with approved plans, zoning and development agreements. The agency was dismantled and its property assets were pledged to buy-out developers who had approved projects on waterside parcels, including two outside the authority s site. The lesson here is that long-term support for the arts and community programming was not valued as highly as additional waterfront open space by the site residents or any level of government. London spent little effort or money to obtain public access to the Thames. The LDDC placed a higher priority on historic preservation, which translated into less waterfront access, since historic riverside warehouses often precluded development of a continuous walkway (interview with E. Hol-
lamby, former LDDC and Lambeth Chief Architect, 21 July 1992). The class differences in the new luxury development were exacerbated by prominent gates, fences, guards and barbed wire which excluded outsiders from private developments on the water s edge. These measures were visually jarring, symbolically offensive and often needlessly insulting to the surrounding residents. The second wave of developers, like Olympia and York and Rosehaugh Stanhope, had learned the lesson of Battery Park City. They offered waterfront access to the local government as a public bene t. Public access is an area for joint gains during negotiations between a developer, a waterfront agency and a local government. High-quality public space is relatively inexpensive in comparison to the capital costs of a major waterfront project. It improves the value of adjacent property while providing a bene t that is both appreciated and available to everyone. Jobs and Economic Development Although economic development was a prominent rationale for waterfront renewal in all four cities, the projects had little success in creating jobs for the workers displaced by the closure of the ports. The relatively sudden and highly visible closing of the London Docks and the Boston Naval Shipyard left a vocal constituency of unemployed residents who demanded that redevelopment of the sites address their speci c needs. The long start-up and implementation periods for waterfront redevelopment resulted in frustration and anger for these groups. The commercial residential mixed-use programme eventually adopted for each site also made it dif cult to provide high-wage employment for modestly skilled blue-collar workers. London made repeated efforts to use redevelopment of the Docklands as a redistributive employment policy. Labour s 1976 London Docklands Strategic Plan deliberately did not allow a switch from the traditional industrial employment to the expanding of ce and service sectors, despite the transition to a post-industrial economy
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(Savitch, 1988). Regional economic development policies which discriminated against London made the situation worse (Keating, 1991). The Conservatives LDDC did little better with its highly publicised Enterprise Zone in the Isle of Dogs. Tax exemptions, capital cost allowances and reduced planning requirements attracted about 2500 light industrial jobs in the rst 4 years, but there was a debate about how many of them were ` new or merely shifted from other locations with few openings for local residents (DCC, 1985; Church, 1988). The second wave of of ce projects was also heavily criticised for not providing jobs for unemployed local people (Church and Frost, 1992; National Audit Of ce, 1988, 1989). The Boston Redevelopment Authority faced similar demands to provide jobs to replace those lost in the closure of the Navy Yard, but the pressure was perhaps less intense than in London, since the displaced workers lived in many parts of the region. After 15 years of poor leasing experience, the BRA repositioned the Charlestown Navy Yard from industrial and of ce uses to biomedical research as one of the keystones in its new economic development programme (BRA, 1992). In New York and Toronto, the port relocated from the development sites long before redevelopment planning began, so they focused upon the usual economic and scal bene ts which would be created in a mixed-use redevelopment: construction, of ce and retail jobs and higher tax revenues. In the nal analysis, waterfront projects were probably no more effective in jobcreation for low-income people than mixeduse urban redevelopment in any other part of the inner city, despite good intentions on the part of several authorities. Justifying redevelopment on the basis of jobs for the previous employees of the port area raised unreasonable expectations which led to increased bitterness on the part of local residents. Based upon the outcomes in the four cities, the best chance for redistributing bene ts may be to offer retraining during the long start-up period and preferred access to future construc-
tion and service jobs. Policies which attempted to force high-wage, low-skill industrial development to settle in inner-city waterfronts were ghting signi cant locational and market forces and ultimately failed. Managing Relations with Local Government The hard-won political consensus of the start-up period can also be squandered in local friction. Waterfront redevelopment agencies must manage their relationship with local governments, which have ownership and control over most utilities, street access, education, social services, police and re protection. An intransigent municipal government can delay and frustrate implementation, even if the agency owns its land and was granted complete planning and building authority. The city government can often in ict the death of a thousand minor cuts by red tape and delay. W aterfront projects with multiple sites require a more cooperative local approvals strategy than the typical real estate proposal, since the agency must return to the well repeatedly, rather than focusing all its political resources on a single vote. Local Political Structure National and local differences between the cases strongly affected the nature and level of the tension between the redevelopment agency and the urban government. New York City and Boston both had strong executive power at the local level, while Toronto and London had weak mayors and strong technocrats (Keating, 1991; Savitch, 1988). Good relations with the mayor were essential in the political systems in Boston and New York City. It may be a moot point for the Charlestown Navy Yard, since the Boston Redevelopment Authority was a de facto mayoral agency which controlled both planning and economic development initiatives. However, the agency s close identi cation with the Mayor hurt the Charlestown Navy
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Yard, since Mayor White s priorities were elsewhere and the project was starved for cash. His successor s commitment to neighbourhood planning also slowed the BRA s implementation of the CNY plan, since all responses to proposal calls were debated by a neighbourhood council. While this process may be democratic, it added time, complexity, cost and risk to the selection of the builders for an approved plan. This process may have caused the BRA to miss development opportunities during the greatest real estate boom in Boston s history, due to its slow response. In New York, the struggle between the Rockefeller and Lindsay administrations carried on for years, despite both men s origins in the liberal wing of the Republican party. Even though the two governments had entered into legal agreements to implement the plan, the animosity between their camps was suf ciently severe that it critically delayed development in the boom years of 196874. Good relations with the mayor of Toronto were necessary, but not suf cient, for Harbourfront Corporation to enjoy local support. In fact, the agency enjoyed a ne relationship with the mayor from 1978 until it was disbanded in 1991. Harbourfront was strongly supported by both radical Mayor John Sewell and pro-development Mayor Arthur Eggleton, despite their ideological differences (interviews with J. Sewell, 15 July 1992 and A.C. Eggleton, 18 August 1992). However, Toronto s ` weak mayor , ward-based elections and nominally non-partisan system meant that the agency had to maintain a plurality of support with the individual members of city council, since the Federal government had agreed to implement the project under local land-use planning regulations. Harbourfront also needed the support of the powerful senior of cials who had both tenure and civil service protection in the City of Toronto. The local politicians and staff by-passed the Mayor and Harbourfront Corporation Board to put pressure on the federal and provincial governments. Ironically, the City of Toronto actually lost planning control of its entire waterfront with these tactics as a
federal-provincial Royal Commission later prepared its own plan for the entire region s waterfront (Crombie, 1992). London s local government system also strongly affected the scope and nature of its relationship with the waterfront development agencies, which had to deal with ve boroughs and the Greater London Council (GLC). This fragmentation and weak executive powers were somewhat offset by in uential senior civil servants and strong party discipline on local councils. The Conservative national government and GLC were unable to make headway with the rmly entrenched Labour boroughs during the 197173 Docklands Planning Study. The subsequent Docklands Joint Committee was able to develop a shallow consensus by taking advantage of unique political conditions in 197477, when Labour controlled all nine governments at the local, metropolitan and national levels. Even with this level of support, the boroughs closely guarded their freedom of action and insisted upon undertaking all housing and industrial development within their own jurisdictions. The DJC was left to struggle as a coordinating body rather than as a redevelopment authority and little was accomplished. After the DJC was disbanded, the Docklands became a battle eld for a larger power struggle between Mrs Thatcher and radical elements of the Labour party (Thornley, 1991; Parkinson, 1989; Ambrose, 1986). Despite the different political structures in the four cities, the waterfront authorities developed at least ve strategies to maintain good relations with local government: (1) Co-opt the local leadership onto the agency Board of Directors. (2) Recruit local staff for key agency positions. (3) Retain trusted local consultants. (4) Exactions and public bene ts. (5) Unilateral action. The rst four approaches were sometimes successful, but unilateral action usually met angry and determined opposition.
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Co-opt the Local Leadership onto the Agency Board Adding local leaders to the board of the redevelopment agency improved relations with the municipal government if the move was part of a broadly representative structure (as in Toronto in 1975 and London DJC in 1975). However it failed when only token representation was offered on a board dominated by development interests (as with LDDC in 1981). Plan implementation was also hobbled when the governing body only represented local interests the 1975 London DJC board had no representatives from the private development industry, who were expected to produce 20 per cent of the housing and most of the new industrial jobs.
New York, local consensus was forged in the executive of ces. Staff mobility was in the opposite direction in these cases, with agency of cials who developed good relations with the mayor s of ce recruited to ll senior executive positions in both cities. Recruiting local staff opens the doors for ethical dilemmas when city planners switch from a regulatory role with local government to an advocacy role as a developer in the same jurisdiction. When one government authority performs the functions of both regulator and developer like the BRA in Boston it increases the potential for con icts of interest (Frieden, 1990; Kayden, 1990). The BRA certainly appeared to have a con ict when it replanned the Charlestown Navy Yard to increase the value of its remaining parcels in 1991.
Recruit Local Staff Several development agencies built bridges to the local government by recruiting key local civil servants to ll senior management positions. These staff knew their way around City Hall and had wide networks of professional and political contacts which increased their effectiveness as of cials of a redevelopment agency. Staff recruited from local government were also more likely to understand local values and policies, which reduced the risk of serious errors in judgement with respect to City priorities. The authorities which made the strongest effort to recruit local staff (Toronto and London) had to deal with local governments with weak executives and strong staff. This tactic worked for several years in Toronto, where the redevelopment agency hired the City s chief planner as its general manager. LDDC Planning Director Ted Hollamby, the former Lambeth Chief Architect, gave that agency some initial credibility with the borough planners. However, political differences quickly overwhelmed professional relationships to the extent that the GLC and borough governments issued gag orders prohibiting all communications, even telephone conversations, between the staff. On the other hand, in the ` strong mayor cities of Boston and Retain Local Consultants Another method of coopting the municipal government is to usurp their ideas by retaining local consultants who have credibility because they understand indigenous concerns. The BPCA used consultants effectively during the 1979 negotiations over a new plan and nancial arrangements by hiring urban designers and appraisers who perfectly incorporated the City Planning Commission s vision of a New York waterfront (interviews with S. Eckstut, architect and urban designer, 16 June 1992 and R.E. Wagner Jr, former Deputy Mayor and CPC Chairman, 12 June 1992). Harbourfront Corporation retained leading Toronto consultants to prepare the popular 1978 site plan, which incorporated local design values. Unfortunately, the agency did not stick to the medium-rise/high-density urban design strategy incorporated in the plan and ran into severe criticism for two mediocre high-rise projects. The local consultant strategy was not effective during the intense political debate that followed. A new scheme prepared by a blueribbon design panel won critical and professional praise, but was swamped in the wave of public protest over the agency s
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implementation of the previous plan (Baird, 1993). The London Docklands Development Corporation also demonstrated that a high-pro le consultant strategy may not lead to better relations with local politicians. Gordon Cullen and David Gosling s Isle of Dogs Development Framework had little impact upon the LDDC or the boroughs since the underlying political problem was tied to larger issues such as local autonomy and public versus private development. The lesson here is that professional staff and consultants who hold local values have more in uence upon municipal civil servants than politicians (for example, BPCA in 1979 and Harbourfront in 1978). When the problems are deep-seated issues of ideology and control (as with the LDDC in 1981), technical expertise and professional courtesy have limited effectiveness. Exactions and Public Bene ts Waterfront renewal agencies levied exactions (planning gain) and offered public bene ts in all four case studies. This technique met the local government demands for more bene ts from waterfront development without surrendering the authority s control over implementation. Municipal governments placed more emphasis on exactions and fees in the 1980s, as political support declined for direct intervention by cities. The trend was most visible in Britain, where Mrs Thatcher s Conservative government undermined the New Urban Left by abolishing the metropolitan county governments, establishing UDCs and liberalising planning regulations. London thus embraced New York, Toronto and Boston s position, perhaps re ecting a general trend to increased emphasis on developmental politics in all three countries (Keating, 1991, pp. 174177). The attitude of the local government changed so dramatically that when Canary Wharf went bankrupt in 1992, the boroughs joined their former enemy, the LDDC, in lobbying the government to save jobs and the critical subway line. In Toronto, government agencies required
land and funds for social housing, public facilities, road widenings and transit corridors. The Harbourfront Corporation extracted further public bene ts from private developers, concentrating upon cultural facilities for its public programming activities. In New York, future BPCA surplus revenues were pledged as collateral for bonds used for affordable housing and budget relief. Boston took a mixed approach, increasing its affordable housing quotas in the Charlestown Navy Yard plan and also imposing linkage fees for housing and employment upon private development. The limitations on the exactions tactic were demonstrated in Toronto and London. The development parcels at Harbourfront were compressed by the many demands for land, squeezing the permitted buildings into high-rise forms which were ultimately rejected by the politicians and public. Public bene ts based upon cash exactions in London, Boston and Toronto came to an abrupt end when the recession crippled developers. The goose that lays the golden eggs can only be squeezed so much. Unilateral Action A Tactic Which Did Not Work Unilateral action by the sponsoring regime always sparked serious opposition from the local governments and residents. Implementation was stalled in most cases and it sometimes took years to undo the political damage. In New York, Governor Rockefeller s pre-emptory announcement of plans for the City s property near Battery Park alienated the local government for over a decade. The BRA created a lengthy controversy by announcing a new aquarium in a Charlestown Navy Yard park and community groups stalled plans for the entire site. Unilateral action by the Canadian government was particularly inappropriate, since urban affairs fall entirely within provincial jurisdiction. The federal government made serious mistakes at the beginning of the Harbourfront project, using Montreal consultants, staff from Halifax and administering the project from Ottawa. With hindsight, it is
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not surprising that their plans were summarily rejected by the City of Toronto for years. Mrs Thatcher s government was the only regime to enjoy some success with unilateral action. The LDDC was granted suf cient authority that it operated despite the vigorous opposition of the local governments from 1981 to 1986. W hile the sheer volume of redevelopment accomplished during that initial period was impressive, the planning and design of parts of the site leave much to be desired, for reasons that are closely related to the dearth of inter-jurisdictional cooperation and planning. The boroughs eventually forced the agency to negotiate when it needed access to local infrastructure. Managing Relations with Local Residents The waterfront redevelopment agencies were forced to deal with residents of the site directly, creating another level of political activity. The authorities suddenly lost the freedom of action associated with a vacant site when their rst housing opened. The residents appropriated the site for their own purposes and demanded community services, waterfront access and quiet enjoyment during a period when the agencies were preoccupied with development and construction. All the projects suffered from poor community services in the initial stage of the development. The former industrial uses meant that a waterfront site was unlikely to have schools, day care, community centres, health clinics or signi cant local retail, despite locations close to the CBD. New waterfront neighbourhoods often had initial populations that fell well below the service thresholds for community services, so the children were bussed to school, the library was a ` bookmobile , etc. They blamed the agency for their plight, even if other governments were responsible for community services. New residents proved easy to organise, since they were spatially concentrated and often had a condominium, cooperative or tenants association. They were usually somewhat disgruntled, since a stressful relo-
cation to a new home was complicated by living in a building site due to the common practice of phasing move-ins before the contractor is completely nished. The residents brought their grievances directly to the media, their local government representatives and the political masters of the authority, undermining the support of key members of the agency s development coalition. The waterfront authorities did not do a good job of community liaison during either the planning or the implementation stages of the project, if judged by the residents protests in all four cities. The agencies tended to ignore or give lip service to community concerns initially, concentrating on the big issues in the politics of economic development. A short-term approach failed the implementation agencies again. Standard project management techniques treat residents and tenants as a nuisance to be accommodated during construction of the building. Since waterfront projects take decades to complete, early residents may think that they are living in a construction site for many years. An agency which needs local political support cannot afford to make implacable enemies from thousands of residents. Careful phasing plans to complete distinct neighbourhoods can help. Residents in each precinct are not disturbed by further construction in their immediate area. The agency can also provide exible temporary space for early community facilities until the population threshold is reached for construction of permanent day care, schools and recreation centres. The interests of the residents were predictable and could be anticipated by a redevelopment agency with even medium-range vision. The most effective approach was to appoint a senior of cer for community liaison, to negotiate early and sincerely, and then to budget for legitimate needs. The community expenditures were relatively small when compared to the capital costs of waterfront projects, and there were opportunities for cost-sharing with local governments that could improve relations at that level. Since the implementation agencies
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claimed most of the credit for redeveloping the waterfront neighbourhoods, their attempts to shift responsibility for community facilities to local government were not particularly credible or effective. Finally, waterfront agencies should not underestimate the power of residents to change the development plans in the middle of implementation. The Battery Park City Authority was forced to redesign two major parks and the Boston Redevelopment Authority saw its aquarium project delayed until it was cancelled. In Toronto, residents succeeded in changing the plan so that all remaining development parcels adjacent to the harbour were designated as parks. The residents were also leaders in the successful campaign to dismantle the redevelopment agency. Former Toronto mayor John Sewell suggested that the agency made a basic political mistake by trying to save several of its best water s edge sites in its approved plan for later phases. Although their nancial value increased, the vacant parcels became immediate targets for residents interested in expanding the parks system and preserving their waterfront views. Sewell, a progressive mayor elected by a coalition of community organisations, suggests that the agency should have built the water s edge sites rst, so that later buildings would not block the most valued views (interview with J. Sewell, 15 July 1992). Site residents formed effective blocking coalitions with other civic groups around the open space issue in three of the case study cities. Other waterfront redevelopment agencies ignore this example at their peril. The strong public appeal of waterfront open spaces appears to have added political pressures beyond those normally associated with urban redevelopment projects.
Conclusions Implications for Theory from Practice To examine large-scale urban waterfront redevelopment is to report upon an area of practice that is still underway in its rst iteration. While there is no grand theory of
waterfront development, it has been possible to observe how theory from political science, planning and public management has held up under practice for the quarter of a century that the case studies have been underway. The start-up phase was largely justi ed by economic development considerations and included transfer of the project to an independent implementation agency, as predicted by Peterson (1981). The visual impact of a high-pro le ` abandoned doorstep (Hall, 1991) also appears to have mobilised some bias towards action. The start-up coalition took years to assemble and often had wide support across party and class boundaries. It usually resulted in a publicprivate partnership headed by a government-controlled implementation authority. This formulation appears to resemble the concept of a ` development coalition put forward by Keating (1991), rather than the ` growth machine proposed by Logan and Molotch (1987). Keating s comparative study of urban politics in four countries de ned a development coalition as a place-based, interclass development effort, aimed at enhancing the economic competitiveness of a city (Keating, 1991, p. 188). The growth machine concept included a narrower view of development policy oriented to the enhancement of property values and supported by a social e lite. The start-up coalitions for waterfront redevelopment were often quite widely based, including local governments of all political persuasions, unions and the private sector. Once the project was underway, the newly established agency s political task was to maintain its coalition rather than to build it. Since the implementation period for waterfront redevelopment is measured in decades, the agencies had to deal with changes in two important relationships: their political masters and the local government (in Boston, these were the same). Successful transitions occurred when the authority quickly adjusted its programme to major ideological shifts in its master s agenda. The local government relationship often became more dif cult over time, since Peterson s (1981) conception of
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` value-free development , did not prevail throughout the life of the redevelopment agency, as predicted by Stone and Sanders (1987). The period of consensus after the agency was established was often relatively short. Local government switched from economic development politics to allocational politics (open space, public access) or even redistribution (affordable housing, jobs) once the bene ts of the project began to appear. Local problems grew worse after people moved into housing developed on the site. The complexity of the jurisdictional environment for waterfront development and the sheer number of stakeholders involved led to signi cant delays, as predicted in policy implementation theory (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1984; Bardach, 1977). The agencies dealt with delay by using a variety of tactics, but they seemed to have most success early in their mandate, when their initial development coalition was still in place. In later years, the authorities adapted to delays and changes in the policy environment by simply attempting to stay exible in both nancial and physical planning. Another surprise was the extent to which political regulation of the waterfront agencies development activities was coordinated with the cycles of the real estate market. Weiss (1991) predicted that after the negative effects of rapid urban development become apparent near the peak of a boom, new regulations would be put forward during the downturn. This was observed in London, Toronto and Boston, but not in Battery Park City (Gordon, 1997). In this case, affordable housing initiatives were instituted in the upturn, at the insistence of Governor Cuomo, to take advantage of the nancial rewards from the World Financial Center deal. In all four cases, we saw a switch from the consensus politics of economic development to more fractious politics of allocation. The market cycle seems to accelerate the rate at which an agency ` turns the corner to become nancially successful. When this happens during a period of general concern over the impacts of rapid development, it can result in
particularly tough scrutiny of the waterfront. Ironically, the agencies did their job too well the image of the waterfront changed so dramatically that the public demanded that it be protected as a public asset. The unique, place-based attributes of the waterfront created additional pressures to add to the usual politics of urban redevelopment. Implications for Practice: How to Manage the Politics of Urban Waterfront Redevelopment Starting an urban waterfront development project takes money, free land, power and a compelling vision of the future. The government which initiates the project also needs patience, since the start-up period can take a decade, and development of any signi cant portion of a port often takes another 1015 years. Managing the start-up process. The start-up process for an urban waterfront renewal project is dominated by the politics of development. If the sponsoring government is at the national, state or regional level, it should regard the waterfront as a long-term project that needs substantial local control and should not try to run it from the of ces of one of its line departments. Real progress only comes after the sponsor sets up a local implementation organisation and local planning process, so it might as well start as soon as possible. The only potential exception to this strategy is when the sponsoring government has the power and authority to impose its will on all other governments, and expects to do so for the foreseeable future. Even highly centralised countries like France are heading away from such a directive approach (Keating, 1991; Savitch, 1988). All other sponsors will eventually nd themselves in the consensus-building business. They should aim for a broadly based development coalition, including the major governments, private-sector umbrella organisations and citizens groups. The sponsor should foster suf cient consensus that a workable plan is approved during the start-up phase. The lim-
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ited consensus about the plan cannot be expected to last over the decades that are required to redevelop an urban waterfront, and the sponsoring government must recognise that implementation of the project cannot depend upon the agreements among the speci c politicians involved in the start-up process. Some form of quasi-independent public authority is a proven method of insulating a long-term, revenue-producing capital project from the hurly-burly of local development politics. The sponsoring government should consider the required degree of political insulation quite carefully at the outset and should avoid the temptation to stack the authority s board of directors with either patronage appointments or purely partisan supporters, since the agency will need active, broad-based support in sustaining its development coalition over the years. The authority will need a broadly inclusive view of the objectives for waterfront planning, especially during the start-up period. This vision could be generated by a large board or, perhaps more effectively, with a large planning committee reporting to a powerful and well-connected board. The agency s board will need good connections to other levels of government when political conditions change, so the links should be established at the beginning. The start-up period is the sponsoring government s best chance to secure its authority s independence, freedom of action and nances, since the consensus within the development coalition will be strongest at this point. The critical items to be obtained are ownership of the land, a powerful and independent board of directors, a streamlined development approval process, access to start-up capital and freedom from restrictive government personnel and budget policies. The most effective agencies started with an active board and a small staff led by an entrepreneurial chief executive. They some times raided key staff from the local government, a tactic which effectively coopted some early technical opponents. It helps if the agency s managers have both entrepreneurial and consensus-building skills.
Strong knowledge of local values and processes will also prove to be an asset. Long-term political management. The board of directors of the implementation authority should expect that the political issues it faces will change from economic development concerns during the start-up period to the more contentious questions of how to allocate the bene ts of waterfront redevelopment. A waterfront redevelopment agency which successfully managed its political environment over the long term might have these characteristics: It maintains a good relationship with its sponsoring government by supporting the latter s policy agenda, avoiding surprise nancial requirements and visibly succeeding in redeveloping its site. Its board of directors is well connected to all levels of government and can in uence its management on political strategy and long-range planning. It builds strong links to local governments, ideally with direct board appointments. Its senior managers and consultants are well connected to the staff of the local government and respected for their technical expertise and understanding of local values. It anticipates the arrival of residents on the site and appoints a senior of cer responsible for liaison and planning for their needs. It actively seeks opportunities to link public bene ts with private development. It seeks bene ts that serve the wider community, such as public parks. It manages the symbolic content of its physical development to highlight these public bene ts and vigorously promotes the bene ts of its efforts to the wider community. It can change the programme of its physical plan to adapt to new policy priorities. These suggestions are directed towards improving the effectiveness of the agencies which manage publicprivate partnerships for waterfront redevelopment. In an era where public funds for civic works are be-
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coming increasingly scarce, we can expect to have more pressure to attract private capital to rebuild the inner city. Some observers decry the effect of private developers upon public planning but the radical critique gives little guidance for practice. If the public sector wishes to remain engaged in implementation, rather than retreating to a purely regulatory role, it must increase the effectiveness and accountability of the agencies it entrusts with the task of rebuilding the city. The public sector must use the lessons from a quarter of a century of waterfront implementation to redevelop obsolete railyards, expressway corridors and industrial areas in the 21st-century city.
Note
1. The NY/NJ Port Authority s W orld Trade Center is a partial exception for the case study cities. British and Canadian waterfront redevelopment was largely implemented by single-purpose redevelopment authorities independent of the port authorities. In the US, several west-coast port authorities have been quite active in redeveloping the waterfront in cities like Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Francisco and Seattle. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pointing out the coastal differences.
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Urban Studies, Vol. 34, No.

Managing the Changing Political Environment in Urban Waterfront Redevelopment

0042-0980 /97/010061-2 3 $7.00

1997 The Editors of Urban Studies

POLITICS AND URBAN WATERFRONT REDEVELOPMENT

POLITICS AND URBAN WATERFRONT REDEVELOPMENT

Table 1. Time required for the start-up phase

Government levels approving

Pentagon closes shipyard April 1973

Battery Park City I (92 acres)

New York City Dept. M & A. plan, April 1963

St Katherine s Dock closed, 1968

Harbourfront Corporation I (92 acres)

Federal gift announced, October 1972

POLITICS AND URBAN WATERFRONT REDEVELOPMENT

Restart Battery Park City II

BPCA Board takeover January 1979

London Docklands Development Corporation

Urban Development Corporation announced September 1979

One plus one (House of Commons/House of Lords)

Harbour Front Corporation II

City development freeze February 1988

Five years (59 months)

Yes 1979 Yes 1984

Yes 1979 Yes As retired

Yes 1979 Yes 1984

Yes Bail out Yes Diverted Yes Increased No Yes Increased No

London Docklands 1979 Callaghan (Lab) Thatcher (C)

POLITICS AND URBAN WATERFRONT REDEVELOPMENT

Yes Minor Yes Minor

Charlestown Navy Yard 1983 W hite (D) Flynn (D)

POLITICS AND URBAN WATERFRONT REDEVELOPMENT

POLITICS AND URBAN WATERFRONT REDEVELOPMENT

POLITICS AND URBAN WATERFRONT REDEVELOPMENT

POLITICS AND URBAN WATERFRONT REDEVELOPMENT

POLITICS AND URBAN WATERFRONT REDEVELOPMENT

POLITICS AND URBAN WATERFRONT REDEVELOPMENT

POLITICS AND URBAN WATERFRONT REDEVELOPMENT

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