Mechanisms for supporting investment and renewal of urban cores. Regeneration or New Quality?

Richard Hamilton

12th September 2010

European Urban Summer School

www.urb.ie

richard@urb.ie

twitter.com/UrbTownplanning

www.lifeafterroundabouts.blogspot.com/

aspirationaspiration

Where does investment go?

Where does investment go?

Image of suburb

realityreality

Image of business park

Image of shopping centre

the vicious circle

Urban Investment – how do we do it?

• Policy, Masterplan, Action Plans, Code

• Private Developer

• Management / Control Development

• Funding Initiatives/interventions

What has changed?

• Economic collapse and depression

• Banking crisis

• Impoverished Government

• Developers bankrupt (in their villas)

• Integration between policies and funding breaks down (Pietro Elisei)

• Importance of Local governance & initiative (Krystof Mularczyk)

Approaches

• Interventions– Follow or lead (private v sector public )– Direct or Indirect

• i.e. Physical improvement v tax incentive etc

– Linear or site specific• Public Realm Improvement vs Pump prime

• Landlord led renewal

• Town Centre Management & Business Improvement Districts

Hardware • Quality of Building Stock

– Internal– External – Façade & Signage

• Quality of Built Environment– Pavements (width, quality)– Lighting– Street Furniture– Trees and Soft Landscape

• Maintenance and Tidiness– Cleaning strategies– Refuse collection

Software

• Quality of Shopping – Shopping Mix – Anchoring– Shopping+

• Quality of additional services– Legal– Medical– Banking– Insurance etc

• Culture and Third Space Uses

• Environmental Quality

Landlord-led renewal

Marylebone High Street, London

Howard de Walden Estate

http://www.marylebonevillage.com/

Repositioning the High Street to lead area regeneration

qualityquality

independentindependent

•Howard de Walden Estate not Westminister Council has made change happen

•Improvement and management of the mix of the High Street has raised property values in the neighbourhood

•Common Sense Approach –What do we need?

•Changing the fabric to adapt to modern requirments

•Keeping whats good (bookshop, repairshop)

•Not all tenants and locations valued the same

•No linear intervention

•10 year project

US: Approx. 1,000

New York – 57LA - 32Milwakee - 19San Diego - 12

UK: 68

London: 17

Total: £9.9mMax: £2,472,000 Min: £40,000Leveraging Ratio: 1:.094

Small BID: $20K – $250k

Times Square $6m

Business Improvement Districts (BIDs)

Examples of town centre management bid initiativesInHolborn BID

Heart of London BID ((Westminister)

BIDs are an innovation intended to improve the conditions of city places by taking care of the small things that make up the larger picture

- Jerry Mitchell (2008) Business Improvement Districts and the Shape of American Cities

Criticisms:

•Malls without walls

•Privatisation of public space

“A downtown is a living thing and it needs effort to survive. Considering the competition from the malls, I don’t think a town can live today without a BID”

John Bowers, Real Estate Broker, Red Bank, New Jersey, Business Improvement Districts, p.130

Other interventions……

Arts Centre, Carlow, Ireland

One-off 15% increase in commercial rates

Asset Transfer

Iveagh Trust

Housing Association

Dublin, Ireland

Innovation comes from individuals

Innovation comes from individuals

The Virtuous Circle

What community ever screwed up by providing too much quality of life?

What Makes a City Entrepreneurial? Edward L. Glaeser (Harvard University) and William R. Kerr (Harvard Business School) Rappaport Institute/Taubman Center Policy Briefs