Commentary Buzești - Berzei - Uranus: guest Liviu Ianași

Adrian Bălteanu: Why is the project necessary?

Liviu Ianăși: I would like to start with a preliminary remark regarding the Buzești-Berzei axis. After the elaboration of the socio-urban marketing study, a component of the 2006 Zonal Urban Plan, I, personally, have not been involved in other phases of the project, so I do not know how the recommendations of the study, which I made together with Claudiu Runceanu**, were taken into account by the beneficiary - the City Hall. Looking from the outside, it seems that not many things in that study were taken into account.

From my point of view, very often, the focus in the debate on this project has been far too much placed on "this project should not have been done", to the detriment of what, in my opinion, is the most painful issue, "how was this project thought to be implemented and how was/is it implemented?".

The arguments for the necessity of the project are relatively simple. Bucharest has lacked urban interventions after 1990, maybe because of the dramas and horrible interventions before, maybe because of the lack of public funds on an urban scale during the first 10 years, and after that, in my opinion, because of a kind of non-assumption, both by the state and the municipality, of major projects, except in reactive situations (like "we are doing a project because the traffic problem has gotten so big that only this street can save us"). Bucharest must continue to build a system of traffic arteries as part of a mobility system (taking into account: a careful balance between the various modes of transportation in the city, the territorial allocation and the channels on which movements - at different speeds, with different capacities, at different times of day - take place). I think this artery is necessary. It helps to free Bucharest from the unfortunate approach of Bucharest built on two major arteries that intersect in the center. I think it needs to be designed in a system with the other north-south arteries. I believe that this artery is necessary to take over north-south traffic in relation to North Station and to redistribute traffic and investment pressures in the central area. The central area will only be able to be depressurized by cars (through a complex of measures of which this operation is a part) if it is sufficiently well accessible perimetrically. I think that the artery helps to irrigate the area near the Parliament Palace, even in the current less happy configuration (with the under-crossing of the hill). My view on the historical justification of this artery (the existence of an interwar plan) is that we have a happy case where a project retains its actuality (there are more recent projects where this is no longer possible). I also believe that it is a necessary project for the urban reconfiguration of areas close to the center, which are victims of urban decay.

A.B.: What do you mean when you talk about a complex of traffic measures?

L.I.: I would emphasize the systemic thinking of the three axes: the Magheru Boulevard, the Victoriei Way and the Berzei-

Buzești. I have said it before, I would be very pleased if, when Berzei-Buzești is inaugurated, the traffic capacities on the other two arteries, especially Calea Victoriei, would be reduced. The project, if it had not been thought reactively, "we need this axis to ease impossible traffic", but thought in an integrated way, public transportation first of all, should perhaps have provided for a subway line with nearby stations on this boulevard, which would satisfy what the tram is now trying to do. On the surface, perhaps, the roadway would have had fewer wires, pedestrian circulation would have been beyond the norm, and would have enjoyed the change in construction mode and functional relationship to the ground and first level retail. If the decision on this diametrical had been more carefully thought through and taken more courageously, the results could have been better than what the correct functioning of the artery under the current design could have brought. One of the things that characterizes the artery is a certain frequency of intersections, which saves it from being an urban motorway (the insistence on using this formula is sad), but makes it a boulevard that will not have a very high speed, but which takes well the adjacent traffic and some north-south traffic.

A.B.: You have said on other occasions that the intervention can be a great "social project". What did you mean?

L.I.: Any change in the city has a social character. There is less talk about the problems of comfort of living in the area (I am not referring only to the artery, but to the whole perimeter between Știrbei Voda, North Railway Station to Basarab Railway Station, the streets behind Căi Căi Căi Căi Griviței, up to Bd. Al. I. Cuza, and then Calea Griviței to Calea Victoriei). It does not mean that the problems are solved by demolition and that the area does not have or did not have virtues in terms of heritage values, and I am thinking not only of heritage objects, but of the urban landscape. That a community spirit exists is true, but we need to see if it is really for the benefit of the residents. There is a social polarization in the neighborhoods: on the one hand, there is an investment interest in some plots or larger buildings, and on the other hand, due to the poor state of some buildings and the fact that nothing was done to save some of them, even though they were protected or valuable, fragments of communities have emerged where we are witnessing an accumulation of poverty. The effect is continued environmental degradation.

A better socio-economic assessment was needed. In such urban operations there is a classic principle: no one should come out worse off than at the start of the operation. Of course, this could have increased the price of the operation. The fact that someone was living freely but illegally in the area does not allow dumping on the street. With differentiated measures, many of the residents could have stayed there. On the other hand, it remains to be seen how many were not staying in the area precisely because of the "gray" in the local economy.

As in other similar urban projects, the seeds of a different community, different residents, different needs will emerge. I don't think it will necessarily be a gentrification, but I think the way the real estate industry reacts to this operation is very important. This brings us to the big problem of this operation, namely that it has not been seen as an urban project (in the sense in which the phrase has been used for a long time, see the articles by Prof. Sandu Alexandru in his book on the urban project as a budding seed) nor as a large-scale urban operation with all its components (social, economic, quality of public space). The fault lies in the combination of gaps in the legislation and the local administration's strong desire to put such a project into practice and see it realized as soon as possible.

A.B.: What measures should the administration take to propagate the welfare of the new artery in the adjacent area?

L.I.: The economic added value is not wholly owned by the administration (so it cannot dispose of it). In the absence of public-private partnership practices, this is more difficult to negotiate. The administration can seek to avoid negative effects, it can manage the impact. To spread economic welfare, things had to be done differently. It was necessary for the operation to be at least a public-private partnership between the municipality and the owners of the surrounding land, but here the Romanian legislation is very weak. In my view, expropriation is an extremely simplistic approach. The fact that the legislation is insufficient should not have stopped the attempt to make a joint venture. The values of the plots will increase as a result of the operation, but it is clear that their layout cannot remain as it is. Lots of 9 m wide cannot be allowed on such an artery. As we have shown in our study, this project, because of the scale, would have been an opportunity to set back property lines or to consolidate so that such an arterial could be functionally used. With the creation of a service arterial system, which we also recommended, and the opportunity that a three to four-fold multiplication of the amount of built arterial space with a lower land occupancy than the current one brings. We proposed some illustrations in our study, maybe not the happiest, we didn't even think about the architectural expression (nor should we have at that stage, although architectural quality is extremely important for the success of the arterial), but we tried to realize a shift from the continuous regime of Berzei Street to something close to what is happening around, similarly, we tried a shift in terms of the height regime.

A.B.: Please add a few words about the Romanian legislation in such cases.

L.I.: Things go quite far, up to the regulations of the new Civil Code and the understanding of urban planning regulations as an easement affecting property. The moment the urban planning legislation would clarify these things in line with the Constitution and the Civil Code, then, under the imperative of the possibility of restrictive regulations, enough pressure would be created for the private factor to want partnerships. In the last ten years, urban development has been predominantly private and very few operations have created public spaces, which has made private actors accustomed to being very independent and to the belief that property rights automatically mean an unlimited right to build. They therefore believe that they have no reason to negotiate with the public authority. The unpleasantness of this operation would be offset if, seeing the negative effects, a process of amending the legislation were generated. Perhaps we should discuss this more. We should just see how other countries do it.

A.B.: If I understand you correctly, you have said on other occasions that the integration of the project into a strategic and operational system leaves something to be desired. Please elaborate.

L.I.: Because the intervention is on the scale of the city and in a certain economic context, the post-1989 context, in which we have never had such an operation, I was pointing out in 2006 that there would be major effects. It is obvious that such an artery, in terms of activities, construction and land use (including changes to the land parcels), generates a very large-scale economic, social and urban impact. In addition to the effects at the level of the city as a whole, we have effects at the scale of the area (I am referring to an area determined by an appreciable distance around the intervention) and that of the immediate neighborhood (what we have considered to be at least the first row of islands on both sides of the new diameter).

Integration must be achieved at all three levels. The macro one is about understanding the operation as part of a strategic orientation. We should first of all think about the second half of the ring road and what it reshapes in the overall structure of the city, not only in terms of traffic, but also in terms of the allocation of activities. Berzei-Buzești should not look like a "neighborhood" boulevard flanked by housing. The functional mix of functions specific to the central area, the concentration of activities due to its accessibility and its proximity to certain areas of interest should give it a different character. That character that I would like to see found or amplified on Calea Victoriei and Bd. Magheru with the possibility of narrowing the land now affected by automobile traffic.

So, one scale is that of the city, it is to be seen what new territories (I am referring, in particular, to those around the Parliament Palace and those in the south of Bucharest) become closer to the center in terms of time and thus are more interesting for investment. The pendant of Victoriei Square somewhere on Bd. Regina Maria puts us in touch with another area of great urban dynamics in Bucharest (we will see this as we come out of the crisis), the area that starts at Leu and ends in Ferentari, along Șos. Progresului. This is the scale at which things are integrated in the minds of those who worked on the PUG or subsequent documentations, but not very clear in the minds of those who decide.

The second scale at which we are discussing the integration of the project is the zonal scale, I have already referred to it, here we need to see what is the result of the redistribution of traffic and activities on the cross arteries. There may also be dangers, as in the case of Calea Griviței, because there will be pressure to capitalize on the accessibility of the segment of Calea Griviței from the intersection with Berzei-Buzești and Bd. Dacia. In this regard, I believe that the direct link with the North Station area is crucial, including for the reorganization of an intermodal hub at North Station.

The third scale of integration is that of the immediate neighboring area, which will probably be the most sensitive, where we will see that this difficulty of public-private integration will result either in a waiting by deterioration of the existing built environment, as happens in many places in Bucharest, or in an attempt to over-assign some lots or even islands unprepared to take over a different land use and a different intensity of use. As in the whole inner ring of Bucharest, the drama lies in the fact that owners and investors want to change the intensity without decreasing the occupancy, on the contrary, the plot is increasingly overburdened. There is a risk of replicating what is happening on the streets in the north-eastern part of Bd. Dacia, where the over-occupation of the plot and the height regime are disastrous. Unfortunately, this is starting to spread slightly to the south.

A.B.: Tell us some of the recommendations of the 2006 study?

L.I.: We recommended then that urban research studies be carried out on the neighborhoods to try to estimate the impact that the artery has, given that we are talking about mostly privately owned land, over which public control of development, beyond regulation, is less. We also recommend that particular attention be paid to the artery as a public space and not just as a traffic artery. Subsequently, it seems that these studies did not exist. In 2006, the intervention was considered as a first emergency to improve traffic flow, then, for a while, there was no intervention.

A.B.: What can be done in situations of forced use of the plot?

L.I.: In my opinion, this is a strategic problem for the capital, it should be studied in order to allow the administration to take structural measures. Bucharest has some remnants of rural land parcels, which should make us either think about a city development policy that maintains this type of occupation in certain areas (and this, on a large scale, is detrimental to the city and unrealistic, especially because in the vast majority of cases, the built-up area is compromised), or a median attitude, of careful choice, of preservation and valorization of valuable elements and "mini-areas", with a moderate change of use, which I would take towards P+4-5E, but on condition that plots are mixed and a different attitude towards the street is adopted. Finally, there is a stronger attitude for certain arteries (and this is probably what the Berzei-Buzești would tend towards), of increasing the height regime, but again, regrouping the plots. The first consequence of overburdening the plots is the externalization of the parking of vehicles into the circulation space, the difficulties of access (let's not forget what the JICA study and the 2008 Traffic Master Plan tell us, that more than 35% of the area that should be intended for circulation is affected by long-term parking).

A.B.: How do we deal with the tendency of investors to radically change land use in areas of cultural heritage value?

L.I.: In my perception, investors have learned to mind their own business. I don't know if it will change them, the operation will rather generate new ways of collaboration between them, in the private sector, but not necessarily for public benefit. Although they often understand that there could be long-term benefits. The thing that needs to be nipped in the bud is the attitude towards the old built environment, which is seen as a hindrance to more intensive use of the plot. The solution, in my view, is very clear planning regulations with two alternatives: retaining the current building and land use with no overbuilding of any existing indicators, sometimes even imposing reductions, or, the other alternative, increasing the current land use, as long as the plots are regrouped and valuable buildings are retained.

From my point of view - that any protected building that is lost is a wound - it is all the more serious when we are talking about ensembles, about areas that have a protected status. In some cases we do not need monuments in order to decide to protect an area, which we protect for its qualities and not because we want to preserve its flaws. I am astounded by the professionals I meet who have difficulty in even distinguishing between a monument, its area of protection and a protected area. In our country, the attitude towards heritage is put in terms of extremes, there is a savage attitude of destruction and, on the other hand, there is no realistic policy, there is a kind of anguish about any intervention. I don't want to sound cynical, but Bucharest, as a city, will preserve as many monuments as it is capable of preserving - financially, institutionally, culturally, with or without political will. Whether this is done through private will, public will, the will of civil society, etc. - we can discuss. Whatever laws are passed, saving monuments is a matter of economics. The restoration and enhancement of monuments is a matter of investment. We should perhaps, in a realistic, lucid and responsible way, move beyond an idea that denotes a mentality from the Ceausescu era. We are making a very long list, to be sure that some will escape. It is collectivist thinking in the trivial sense of the term. Of course, we shouldn't go to the other extreme, listing only those that are in good condition. There must be a balance and certain priorities. I believe that what should be done, together with the Beers-Buzești axis, is to protect some adjacent areas, which perhaps do not have a protection regime. There are several groups of houses which are not scheduled for demolition, between which there are no monuments, but which, in my view, should be protected, because they will not be the victims of the city hall's operation, but will be 'collateral victims'. Suddenly, that site will become attractive, and if the social project I was talking about and the functional mix do not succeed, as there will not be enough customers for restaurants in former negustorești houses, P+1, the result will be that they will be replaced - I am referring in particular to the curved front behind the bust and the adjacent area, which were kept in the PUZ in the current conformity.

A.B.: Please elaborate on the earlier statement about the unfortunate completion of the diametral on the Uranus section.

L.I.: The success of the Buzești-Berzei segment, apart from solving the traffic problem between Victoriei Square and Hasdeu Bridge, depends a lot on what happens on the next section. I think that, on the second section, the artery should have been on the surface of the land (without the underpass), it should have been a boulevard passing behind the People's House, with buildings along it, precisely to take over the development pressures and leave as much of Izvor Park as possible to be a planted public space and perhaps, in the end, a gesture of cultural restitution, by relocating the "Mihai Voda" Church. It should be a boulevard that will open up the Parliament Palace area to the public and bring those activities that will at least facilitate the redevelopment of the area behind the People's House. The time will come when we will openly discuss how much it costs to maintain this monster. The boulevard should be used as a modifier of the urban image, as an opening to the park area near the new Cathedral and to capitalize on its presence, as an axis that favors the propagation of development to the south of the capital. The strategic concept emphasizes the fact that Bucharest has a gap between north and south which, apart from the area of poverty in Ferentari, will give rise to a whole series of problems. Opening traffic to the south is a way of encouraging investment to "migrate" to that area.

A.B.: Is the 2006 study still up to date?

L.I.: In 2006, we had a situation in which the administration expressly requested a solution. If the administration asks for something, the professional can admit that it is beyond his honor to get involved, he can find the best solution or he can be a slug, there are of course many nuances between these variants. The tragedy is that when things seem to have gone too far, surprisingly, there is always someone to make things worse. From that point of view, given the administration's decision, "finally, we really, really want this street open!", even if the answer had been "no!", the street was probably still getting done, one way or another. The answer then was "if it's so urgent, for traffic reasons, do it with these recommendations". From my point of view, I am consistent. Today, if asked, I can say what has not been done well and my advice is for the future and some of the things recommended then might still be valid.

We are in a similar situation city-wide. I am working on the Bucharest 2035 Strategic Concept. All the experts I consulted and to whom I showed the strategy from the 1999 PUG told me it was a very good strategy and asked why it was not implemented. In a discussion with the professionals I examined which of these objectives are still valid. As with the diametral, some things are still valid, although the global context has changed since 1999, and others are difficult to achieve. There were some areas in the 1999 PUG that should have been developed, but which today can no longer be developed, since they have been built under their own valences. These are elements of lost potential. The same applies to the diametral. Perhaps some lost things are harder to recover. Today, I can say what can still be done based on the current situation.

A.B.: Is it necessary to publish the socio-urban marketing study on which the PUZ was based? What would this publication bring?

L.I.: The publication of these studies would reassert some of the opinions, because a trend that I have unfortunately noticed for about 8 years since urban problems have worsened in Romania, not only in Bucharest, is that the administration very often, if it does not take a back seat, minimizes its own responsibility, blaming professional choices. The city is not just the result of the work of the architect or urban planner. If there is a multi-stakeholder intervention and if the decision making is clarified, then responsibilities must also be assumed. From this point of view, beyond the questionable hubris of "we told you so", it is important to parallel what was known or told to the administration at the time (I am not just referring to the municipal administration, but to all levels of administration) with what actually happened.

*lect. dr. drd. arh. Liviu Ianăși, "Ion Mincu" University of Architecture and Urbanism, Bucharest, author of the socio-urban marketing study (2006) for the PUZ "Doublare diametrala nord-sud. Buzești-Berzei-Vasile Pârvan section"

** asist.dr.dr.arh. Claudiu Runceanu, study co-author