Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Stories from the ground
ECOM activity in July 2009
Translated from the ECOM website
3 July 2009
Exhibition opening: The Lawless Skyscraper
At 3pm on Monday 6 July in the St. Petersburg Union of Architects (52 Bolshaia Morskaia Street) an exhibition will open entitled “The Lawless Skyscraper” (Neboskreb vne zakona). The co-organizers are VOOPIiK, the All-Russian Society for the Preservation of Historical and Cultural Monuments, and the Research Center ECOM. They invite all Petersburgers to familiarize themselves with the exposition, which presents the results of a visual-landscape analysis of the influence of the skyscraper “Okhta-Center” on the legally protected historical landscapes of Petersburg.
In the Union of Architects, the exhibit will be open for visitors through 9 July from 12 to 6pm. From Monday 13 July it will be accessible to Petersburgers for another three weeks at the press club “Green Lamp” (Zelenaia lampa) at 3 Gagarinskaia Street. … Follow news about the exhibit on the ECOM site, on the Contact page or the ECOM blog “Diary of an Ecoist.”
Visitors will become acquainted with an analysis of the evaluation of the skyscraper’s visibility completed by experts at VOOPIiK and ECOM; they will see photo-mockups created on the basis of computer models which can show how any panorama will change if the project is realized. In the Visitors’ Book all who wish to do so can leave their commentaries on the exposition.
The exhibit “Lawless Skyscraper” is associated to a public hearing on the the construction of the public-business center “Okhta” which will take place on 10 July with the participation of a public committee that includes various non-government organizations and movements.
[For examples of such images for other proposed high-rise projects, see the posting “Persuasive Images” from June 24, 2009]
13 July 2009
“A public discussion of questions related to the construction and function of ‘Okhta-Center’ took place”
On 10 July a public discussion took place on questions related to the construction and function of the public-business district “Okhta-Center.” Officials invited to the dialogue (from KGA and KGIOP) as well as representatives of the “Okhta” corporation chose to ignore the hearings.
We should note that until 7 July the two sides-- the “Okhta” corporation and the organizational committee of the public coalition-- were conducting negotiations, and in this process the rules for the proposed discussion were being worked out. Official invitations to the impending hearings were composed and signed by both sides. However, without informing the organizational committee of the public coalition, “Okhta” used the media to publish a refusal to take part in the discussion.
At the discussion the following questions were raised:
--How is the construction of a 396-meter high point in the Okhta neighborhood related to the requirements of urban planning law?
--What influence will a 396-meter-tall building in the “Okhta-Center” complex have on the legally protected historical panoramas of St. Petersburg?
--How will the construction of an office building for “Gazprom” affect the life of Petersburgers?
Participants at the hearings included deputies of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, representatives of non-government organizations and movements, residents of Krasnogvardeiskii District, and members of the Union of Architects and of the St. Petersburg Division of the All-Russian Society for the Preservation of Historical and Cultural Monuments, St. Petersburg State University Research Institute for Integrated Social Research, the Russian Geographical Society, and the Legal Defense Council of St. Petersburg.
The position of supporters of the “Okhta-Center” project in its current form was presented by the leader of the non-government youth organization “Right Bank,” Marat Kozlov. In his presentation, he attempted to reduce the polemics between supporters and opponents of the project to the statement “some like it, some don’t,” although he encouraged any dialogue and exchange of opinions.
It is unfortunate that immediately after his presentation Marat, who had so warmly called for dialogue between the project’s supporters and opponents, left the hall, thus missing the opportunity for dialogue with opponents-- including with representatives of the public organization “Okhta Bend,” which unites many residents of the Krasnogvardeiskii District.
Legislative Assembly deputy Aleksei Kovalyov in his presentation gave voice to several recommendations from the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO, saying in part: “The Okhta-Center tower fundamentally and irrevocably will change the horizontal skyline of this protected site, which has been an important feature of the city since the moment of its founding, and will thus place under threat its wholeness and evident universal value.” The committee considers that work on the “Okhta-Center” project should be halted. “In the case of a lack of substantial progress, the World Heritage Committee may consider inclusion of the site in the List of World Heritage Sites under threat.”
[An excerpt from the resolution of the 33rd session of the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO will appear in a future post.]
ECOM prepared a video from this hearing which can be seen at the following link:
Thursday, June 25, 2009
ECOM in St. Petersburg
Translated (by me) from the main ECOM blog at http://www.ecom-info.spb.ru/
The research center ECOM is a non-commercial organization. Its goal is the development of techniques that apply collective intelligence to decisions made by federal and local government authorities and entrepreneurs. One of the main aspects of the Center’s activity is the drafting of normative statements on ecology and city planning. ECOM has organized citizen research studies [impact statements] about the main city planning documents of St. Petersburg: the Master Plan, the Rules for Construction and Land Use, and legislation on the preservation of green spaces. ECOM specializes in nonstandard sociological techniques of public participation in decision-making, such as citizen and administrative public hearings, evaluation methods based on the participation of clients, citizen research, and others.
[ECOM’s actions and statements reveal the staff as bold independent thinkers who absorb what is useful to them from others’ practices and precedents. They believe in the potential of a market economic system to provide a useful system of incentives and opportunities, but they do not accept axioms of market inevitability (see below).]
Translated from Diary of an Ecoist,
a related blog at http://www.ecom-info.spb.ru/about/index.php?id=998
At a certain moment we realized that we are “ecoists.” Ecoism is when a person wants to live in an environment that is favorable for HIM or HER, without regard to “government interests” in economic development, ignoring the assertion that “progress cannot be stopped,” and not accepting as fact the UnConDitional InEvitaBility of the construction of new factories, roads, and so on. The chief motto of the ecoist is: “Whatever is good for Nature is good for me!”
How can such a person live in the contemporary world? And what should be done with the contemporary world so that we could live in it, and not merely survive? This is what we ponder on our informal blog, using the opportunity of live interaction with various people and participation in virtual break rooms/collectives.
In the words of ECOM: "About Us"
The main goal in the founding of the Center was the development in Russia of modern approaches in the area of environmental conservation, including: environmental impact statements, ecological management, sustainability indicators, the Local Agenda for the 21st century and others.
Currently the work of ECOM is focused around the problem of public participation in decision-making with environmental implications. The Center’s staff conducts work on the mechanisms of effective public influence on government and business.
For more than 6 years ECOM has successfully realized projects directed at:
- Increasing the role of the public in the process of preparation, deliberation over, and execution of environmentally significant decisions in the economic and social spheres.
- Development of methods for and immediate realization of professional evaluation of the impact of plans, programs and projects on the environment and social fabric.
- Construction of a partnership between public organizations, enterprises and government bodies for the achievement of common goals in environmental conservation. Integration of eco-technology and environmental management approaches in governance.
- Development of a legal foundation that shapes responsibility for the environmental and socio-economic impacts of decisions made by business and government.
The main aspects of the work of the Research Center ECOM are:
- Integration of improved methodology and procedures for environmentally oriented decision-making at the local and regional level in the Russian Northwest.
- Drafting legislation outlining public participation.
- Conducting of information campaigns, public hearings, and similar events.
- Defense of citizens’ environmental rights (legal representation, consultation).
- Consulting business-structures and local government bodies on questions of organization of public participation.
- Realization of educational programs in the area of public participation.
The staff of the Center participate in municipal and regional projects as experts and consultants on questions of organizing public participation. They have also originated academic courses which are offered at the leading universities of Petersburg: the Northwest Academy of Government Service, Nevskii Institute of Language and Culture, St. Petersburg Technological Institute, and St. Petersburg State University. The Center has an open environmental library with a unique selection of contemporary academic literature and reference materials.
ECOM is a partner of leading Russian and international organizations for nature conservation, and is a member of the European Eco-Forum, the Northern Alliance of NGOs for sustainable development (ANPED), and the Coalition of NGOs for the Kyoto Protocol. The experts of ECOM prepared recommendations on citizen participation for the Representative for Human Rights in St. Petersburg.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Height Developments in early 2009
It is a great step forward for the city that the Rules have been passed; they provide the city with standard zoning rules that govern any construction project. However, several scandals have persisted surrounding the height of a range of sites.
For example, the construction company LEK received retroactive permission to leave its large residential complex “Imperial” unchanged just days before the Rules were to go into effect on 9 March 2009. (The complex is located just north of the Novodevichy Monastery, along Moskovsky Avenue between metro stations Frunzenskaya and Moskovskie Vorota; see image in post below.)
In keeping with general city policy and sections of the Rules, an architectural firm was charged with conducting a study of whether the building’s height would affect the visual environment around the Novodevichii Monastery (St. Petersburg’s overall historical architectural appearance and skyline have been designated as objects of conservation). The building’s final height of 73 meters more than doubles the height that eventually made it into the Rules for this district of the city – 35 meters. In April 2009, that firm was scapegoated for the final result. On 6 March 2009, city officials decided that it was most reasonable to let the construction company complete the buildings, partly because many of the apartments located in the top floors of the new buildings had been presold.
On the positive side for those who see new tall buildings as a damaging interruption to the city’s appearance and infrastructure (see post from 8 June), the Legislative Assembly did vote in late January to reduce the permitted heights for at least 78 proposed new vertical “dominants” around the city (see post below with new PZZ maps for the same locations shown on 8 June).
On 23 June 2009, new procedures were approved for obtaining exceptions to the Rules. This is meant to be similar to common procedures in the U.S. for obtaining variances to codes and ordinances. In Petersburg, clearly the most urgent departure that developers want approved is a building height that exceeds what the Rules permit. Reports suggest that developers for some 150 projects would like such a variance… More on this when I have processed the information from various sources.
Persuasive images
The image above shows what the view down Izmailovsky Avenue would look like if several proposed buildings in the project "Izmailovsky Vista" were actually constructed.
In a similar computer simulation, this image shows what an observer would see from Peter and Paul Fortress looking southeast towards St. Isaac's cathedral IF buildings were built that exceeded recommended heights (in red).
This Zhivoi Gorod photo shows the residential complex "Imperial" along Moskovsky Avenue under construction in March 2009.New maps of height guidelines
On sheet 104, the permitted heights indicated in a previous post at 150 meters have been reduced to 120 meters. The Gazprom site (at No. 70) is still set at 100 meters.
Monday, June 08, 2009
This map (sheet 93) reflects decisions made in Resolution 1731 (now superseded) and shows the area around the proposed Zenith Stadium (Zenit is the name of the city soccer team). Note that the maximum height of the stadium is 57 meters; notice also the cluster of heights over 100 meters just north of the stadium in an area of assigned "vertical dominants."
This sheet (104) shows the area around the Gazprom Okhta-Center project and eastward. The Gazprom skyscraper is designated here as "vertical dominant No. 70" and given a height of 100 meters. To the southeast, at the bottom of the sheet, notice two spots designating 150 meters maximum height. Both images are publicly available on the St. Petersburg city planning site.City Maps and the Height Regulation
This map shows the results of Resolution 1731, proposed in December 2007. The different colors signal different heights permitted in different areas of the city; these detailed heights vary even within the same colored zone, and are printed on larger-scale maps that accompanied this one. Of particular interest is Zone 8 (purple), which specifies minimum heights ranging from e.g. 64 meters to 129 meters. I accessed this map from the St. Petersburg city planning website. The maps took a while to download, but they are freely available-- which, it should be noted, is a significant public service.
This map shows some of the prestige projects proposed or underway around Vasilievsky Island in the Neva delta (located at the center of the city map above). The yellowish areas at center right are the Peter and Paul Fortress (top) and the Winter Palace (center); you can see how near the center some of the projects are.
This map shows some of the projects proposed to the east of the historic center. The Stockmann Shopping Center is actually under construction after the demolishing in fall 2006 of a historic building at the top of Nevsky Avenue on Vosstaniya (Uprising) Square.St. Petersburg Height Regulation
***
The original Height Regulation was established in St. Petersburg during the nineteenth century and was observed throughout Soviet times. Its fundamental tenet is that no building in the historical center may exceed the height of the cornice of the Winter Palace (24 meters), except for churches and the Admiralty. Its effects were extended over the rest of the city via a corollary that no building be visible from the Neva River embankment or interrupt the “horizontal silhouette” created by the effect of low buildings extending around the expanse of the river; permitted heights vary from district to district. During the 1990s, citizen outcry based on the Regulation successful prevented construction of a skyscraper on the western edge of Vasilievsky Island; Academy of Sciences member and Russian literature scholar Dmitry Likhachev, the city’s “conscience,” warned residents to preserve the city’s horizontality and low skyline.
Far from just a romantic ideal, the Height Regulation was seen as a barometer of development and a safeguard for the character of many residential neighborhoods. In the regulatory chaos of the 1990s and early 2000s, numerous buildings stretched the limits of the Regulation. Extra height and density strained the infrastructure for water and other city services; also, a building that exceeded the Regulation by just a few meters could block the legislated quantity of sun in a courtyard or change the use profile of a neighborhood– that is, change the landscapes on which people built their notions of a good society and social space. Planner Vladimir Roshchin explained this relationship between functional zones and height regulations, noting that in the first version of the Rules (prior to initial citizen comment in fall 2006), certain rezonings would allow heights over 5 stories in some residential areas and “people were afraid precisely of this. … Where there is a possibility to preserve the current height, we’ll preserve it” (Roshchin Interview, 2006).
During the October 2006 hearings on the Rules, restrictions on building heights emerged as a key way that residents sought to track the quantity of building in their districts and the type of new construction (such as hotels or malls) that officials planned to permit. The Rules were supposed to include an updated Height Regulation. Roshchin’s words, in fact, indicate an intended compromise between existing heights and opportunities for growth.The Gazprom project negated the terms of this compromise. In November 2006, the effective regulations for height on the Okhta-Center site would allow nothing higher than 42 meters, 48 meters in case of proving extreme need (Delovoi Peterburg, 11-9-06; 4-28-04). ... Yet Miller openly insisted that the building could be no less than 300 meters tall, and the height of the winning design was 396 meters. Newspapers immediately began to report rumors that officials planned to abrogate the Height Regulation entirely in order to enable the Gazprom project to go forward; this would be a precedent that would enable further violations of the Regulation in other places (St. Petersburg Times, 1-12-07; 9-7-07).
...height (just as elsewhere in the world) signals prestige and global economic sway.
... The precise Height Regulation in effect in November 2006 was Resolution No. 648, passed by the city Legislative Assembly (under Matvienko) on 4 April 2004, referred to as the “Temporary Height Regulation” since a new one was expected to emerge with the new Master Plan. As implied above, the Master Plan document was framed generally and did not include such details of construction parameters; the Rules on Land Use and Construction included maps with a range of zones indicating intended use, but permitted heights remained unclear; this left the 2004 Regulation in force. Meanwhile, throughout 2007, the Rules were discussed and lobbied at KGA but did not advance to the Legislative Assembly. On 28 December 2007, a new Height Regulation was passed in that body as Resolution No. 1731 – by phone vote, or “poll,” as newspapers reported – without the required public consultation. City residents were first made aware of this new version at the hearing on 14 January 2008 for the Temporary Construction Permit specifically for Okhta-Center. A map appended to the Resolution (available on the city website) designates a new range of zones with greatly increased heights throughout the city... This new version allows a height of 100 meters at the Okhta-Center site. [see next post] ... The wording of the Resolution invalidates the Temporary Regulation of 2004; the resolution itself reportedly took effect in April 2008, but a note on the city website still stated in July 2008 that it had not.
In any case, as of autumn 2008 neither the Rules nor the Resolution were yet law. Resolution No. 1731 reportedly constituted a kind of appendix on height for the Rules; these were finally sent to the Legislative Assembly on 2 July 2008, with the intention of considering them in September 2008. However, according to Boris Nikolashchenko, head of the working group for the Master Plan, he has an order to reformulate the height parameters even after the submission of Resolution 1731 to the Assembly (Novaya Gazeta, 7-24-08). Public pressure on the city administration has again increased in light of a scandal that broke out in June 2008 after a published photograph “suddenly” showed how a new building in the center of Vasilievsky Island could be clearly seen behind historical landmarks when standing on central city bridges. In January 2008, Nikolashchenko was quoted as saying, “Everything is done in order to push through the irresponsible project for the Okhta-Center skyscraper. The authorities don’t consider the public (obshchestvennost′) at all. It wasn’t like this even in Soviet times. … In 2004 everything was very democratic and open” (Novaya Gazeta, 1-21-08).
[end excerpt]