Core of contention
Controversy has been brewing aplenty around the Rizal Park and encroaching urban development, which has been perceived as compromising the historic integrity of the park and its central national monument.
Much has been reported on the progress of a 46-storey condominium building rising right behind what used to be the Jai Alai building, a magnificent art deco structure that was lost in 2000 ...collateral damage in a war for heritage between the Mayor of Manila then and the Heritage Conservation Society (HCS) led at that point by the likes of Bambi Harper, Doris Ho, Joan Orendain and architect Dominic Galicia among others. New reports also focus now on on-going demolition work at the Army Navy Club (ANC), which has taken many by surprise.
I am a founding member of the HCS and currently sit on its board. For full disclosure, I am or have been involved as consultant to the National Parks Development Committee (NPDC), the Department of Tourism (DOT), the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), and the Intramuros Administration, in connection with the master planning for the redevelopment of Rizal Park, Roxas Boulevard, and sections of Intramuros.
These three urban entities, the park, boulevard and walled city, along with the monuments, architectural landmarks, and civic spaces within them, form the historic core of our national capital Manila (technically now, Metropolitan Manila by presidential decree). It is essential to conserve our historic core lest we lose over four centuries of heritage, the distinctiveness of our capital metropolis, the specificity and character that lends a sense and pride of place not just for metro-Manilans but for all Filipinos.
It has been this context that has been lacking in reportage and debates involving the condominium, and now the old ANC. Focus has been on the “photobombing” aspects of rising skyscraper compromising view of the Rizal monument. The argument is valid considering the height and mass of skyscraper when completed and the fact that it stands alone in the area forming the background of the monument. Facts unearthed at the Senate hearing conducted by Sen. Pia Cayetano recently also point to questions of propriety and legality in the building’s height and development density, which exceed current limits set by Manila’s ordinances.
The case of the ANC involves a tower or two of similar height as the one behind the monument. The difference is that these towers are within the area which defines Manila’s historic core and involves drastic intervention that cannot by any stretch of the imagination be a “restoration.”
The historic core of Manila owes it genesis to the walled city and the wide open space which set it apart from surrounding districts of Ermita, Malate and Paco. The Intramuros walls were built to replace the bamboo palisades of the original Filipino settlement at the mouth of the Pasig River. The space of Bagumbayan was cleared after the British invasion to guarantee Intramuros safety in any future attacks. The open field eventually became the Luneta, a site that Daniel Burnham intended to turn into the Philippine’s version of the National Mall in Washington DC. The focal points of that plan were a national monument-Rizal’s-, a legislative complex (of which only three buildings were built, now the National Museum complex), a hotel-the Manila Hotel —, and clubhouses — the Elk’s Club and the Army Navy Club. The most important events of our national history, colonial upheaval, regime change, blood shed, happened within this core’s two square kilometers, making it the most sacred of all places in the country.
Recovering the integrity of this historic core has not been a road smoothly paved. Resurgent nationalist movements in the late fifties eventually led to the establishment of the IA and NPDC. This enabled the reconstruction of lost walls, conservation of remaining structures and the development of a de facto central park for the capital. For a while in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the area enjoyed the patronage of both citizens and tourists. The flight out to the suburbs from the 1970s onwards, however, led to the district’s decline.
At the turn of the millennia, in the aftermath of our centennial, we rediscovered our history and heritage; as well as the historic centricity of Manila’s storied core. At the same time, the folly of urban sprawl reared its ugly twin head of traffic and loss of lifestyle choices. People and developers rediscovered that it was smarter to build near central business districts (like Makati) or other mixed-use districts like Ortigas, Cubao, North Triangle and of course Old Manila. Inward-looking Smart city growth eliminates four hour commutes and the numbing lack of choices for culture and entertainment that suburbia and exurbia (beyond Metro Manila but tied to it) brings.
All this has led to pressures on our central historic core to urban encroachment. Towers of 30-50 stories are now normal in Ermita, Malate and Binondo, despite the average reported density limit of four to five FAR (Floor area ratio) that should see towers of a maximum of about twenty stories (depending on your lot size), which was prevalent up to the 1990s.
Here lies the multi-faceted dilemma. Firstly, the urban design and infrastructure of Central Manila is not geared to support higher density development that necessitates additional water and power capacities, car traffic, parking requirements, higher mass transport efficiencies, along with better pedestrian connectivity and public safely. From the picture developers want to paint, they envision a Manhattan skyline of towers without the Big Apple’s efficient subway, wide sidewalks, municipal car parks, multiple bridges to surrounding boroughs, and one of the best fire and police forces in the world.
The Big Apple, Manila is not. Its urban core (including districts other than the historic center) is rotten from lack of maintenance, lack of upgrades, the loss of civic space and heritage structures, the blight of un-regulated development, the tyranny of jeepneys, crime, pollution, blight and the challenge of informal settlers. You cannot build a New York on old sewer pipes and crumbling infrastructure.
Secondly, the pressures that bear on land to be redeveloped push compromises on the both the fringes as well as the interior of the historic core. The loss of the Jai Alai, as well as the building of the extension behind the Quirino Grandstand are examples of battles lost and both landmark buildings and landmark views erased from the cityscape.
Thirdly, although there have been several master plans to conserve the historic core (from 1960s, 1970s and 1990s), none of these master plans have been fulfilled. The problem is overlapping jurisdictions as the IA, TIEZA (for the Manila Bay extension at the park) and NPDC (Rizal Park) are under the DOT, the national roads are under the DPWH, the port area nearby (the source of container freightage) is under the Philippine Ports Authority and the rest is under the City of Manila with some overlap too with the MMDA. The of course you have the utilities under their servi
It is more than difficult to get all 10 agencies or entities to sit at the same table but its not for want of proponents from all to make something happen. What the public sector is challenged with, in terms of speed of decision and action, is not a hindrance to private developer. They live by swiftness in the dog-eat-dog world of real-estate.
Hence we are caught is the positive aspects of in-city development, that is the mantra for even progressive cities worldwide, and the negative aspects of the lack of clear framework for urban redevelopment. This should be based on a rational management of urban resources for sustainable change, an appreciation of capacities of districts to carry additional physical development, and a clear vision of what we want our historic core and its surrounding districts (and even the whole of Metro Manila) to be.
The conundrum is clear, slow down and lose the impetus to develop, or give in to market forces and lose what we had special to begin with ...rather what it took four centuries to build.
There are hard and soft solutions to the problem. There needs to be an answer to overlapping jurisdictions and governance A Central Manila Authority similar to New York’s Port Authority or the Sydney Harbor Development Authority could provide a venue for cooperation between the myriad agencies involved. Unlike the current MMDA, however, it must be vested with real authority to be effective.
On the hard solutions or aspects of physical planning, what is recommended is matching the realities of infrastructure to capacities, improving one to expand the other, and that takes money. Urban investment is a chicken or egg situation. No one will invest if mayhem rules the day ... if building ordinances are not based on rational urban planning and kept sacred without (or with extremely limited) exceptions.
Finally, there is the heritage question related to limiting possible land values. Land owners complain restrictions to development of their heritage properties limit potential value. The only solution here is the introduction of the idea of Development Transfer Rights, where potential values for development in an area be credited to land owners of heritage sites (or site which could affect heritage structures or sites). These credits can then be traded for additional development allowances in other districts. This concept works in other cities worldwide but require a regiment of strict zoning and development control, something essential metro wide. Sadly we find Metro Manila governed as 17 separate entities, not as a region as is the case with every other Asian megacity but ours.
We ultimately will not be able to sustain any of our urban cores without strengthening peripheries. This applies in aspects of heritage conservation as it does in more general urban development. The core of contention raised in central Manila is how to best build a city for the future. The answer is that we should do it without erasing its past or providing for the present, involving everyone in rebuilding our urban frameworks from the center outward, based on rational, uniform and enforceable rules, most importantly giving up spot zoning, isolated non-inclusive development, and all the low-hanging fruit that puts profit and politics over the public good.
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Feedback is welcome. Please email the writer at paulo.alcazaren@gmail.com.
