Carolina Planning Journal

Bridging Theory and Practice Since 1974

Tag: Theory

Too Big to Dismantle: Planning for Reuse of the Tarheel Army Missile Plant

January 24, 2023 /

By Ian Baltutis

As cities grow and develop and the national economy fluctuates, the industries that occupy cities change too. When the economy is booming, built structures of immense scale are constructed to accommodate the surge in industry. However, when the economy subsides, there is rarely the economic energy necessary to dismantle or repurpose those same structures. The Tarheel Army Missile Plant (TAMP) in Burlington, North Carolina is an example of such a structure.

TAMP is a 22-acre complex located only two miles away from the core of the city. It includes 16 buildings and contains nearly 800,000 square feet of space. It was once a booming factory site, but now it is a vacant, crumbling liability for the community.

There are many risks and uncertainties related to a facility of this immense size and heavy industrial use. For many years, these unknowns prevented any pursuits of site reuse. After 28 years of minimal activity, it took a dedicated plan conducted through the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Sustainable Design Assessment Team (SDAT) program for the site to begin to see incremental redevelopment progress. Despite flaws, the plan allowed multiple public and private organizations to take a role in reshaping activity at the site.

TAMP’s History

Originally constructed as a rayon textile factory in 1928, TAMP became an aircraft plant for Fairchild Aviation during World War II. Following the war, it was again repurposed by Western Electric through government contracts to become a primary production site of communications and missile guidance equipment during the Korean and Cold War. The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties (SALT I and II) would eventually diminish its activity and mothball the sprawling facility (AIA 2019, 6-12).

The varied industrial and military uses of TAMP contributed to the site’s high risk of environmental contamination conditions (AIA 2019, 18). Each industry that operated at the site brought with it a series of risks. Manufacturing activities on the site were conducted by contract companies with the understanding that any long-term environmental responsibility would be borne by the federal government.

The combination of this risk transfer and the war industry economic factors during WWII, the Korean War, and the Cold War allowed the facility to expand and serve as the largest employer in the City of Burlington for decades. When operations ceased following SALT II, the economic factors that kept the factory complex in use diminished. Then, in 1991, AT&T Lucent (formerly Bell Laboratories and Western Electric) terminated activity at the complex, leaving it vacant.

A Complicated Complex of Buildings
The TAMP site has numerous environmental contamination issues. Disturbing any of the paved surfaces and ground can potentially release environmental contamination into the surrounding environment. While future technologies may reduce the cost and time required to bring the site into compliance for residential use, uncertainty about when these technologies will mature prevents action by the private sector (AIA 2019).

The scale and design of the site is also a barrier to private sector redevelopment. To streamline manufacturing operations, many of the buildings were connected to each other. This design element requires that any redevelopment done today must encompass all the buildings simultaneously. Also, the secretive nature of the military manufacturing at the site meant that the complex was built with limited external accessibility. That limits access to the buildings if they are redeveloped for a mixture of use types. Also, the building’s scale and durability– which were constructed to wartime specifications – makes demolition and redevelopment complicated and expensive. Together, these design factors result in an indivisible site which poses challenges to partial and phased redevelopment.

While the US Army Installation Management Command (IMCOM) maintains responsibility for the legacy environmental issues at the site, that remediation and responsibility is ultimately shared by multiple state and federal agencies. Current environmental activities are managed for IMCOM by the Department of Defense following the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) procedures. These procedures are implemented by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ). The site is subject to permitting and use policies established by the City of Burlington. In addition, the site is on the National Register of Historic Places. This designation enables access to historic tax credit financing, and also requires that work on the site must preserve the site’s historic assets. This complex web of responsible agencies creates a highly challenging and interdependent regulatory environment for any activity at the site.  

The combination of these development barriers has resulted in minimal activity at the TAMP site. In 2004, it was sold to Hopedale Investment, LLC and used for storage of industrial equipment. It was then sold in 2013 to Saucier, Inc, of Tallassee, Alabama (AIA 2019). Saucier undertook salvage operations at the facility to generate revenue from the significant quantity of valuable metal remaining in and on the site. They concluded salvage operations in 2015 when no more materials could be cost effectively extracted from the facility.

While the site is considered a historic asset, it represents a significant liability for the federal government and the City of Burlington. Private sector storage and salvage activities on the site only increased the liabilities and risks related to the site (AIA 2019, 6-12). The City of Burlington determined that while it did not maintain any ownership or active control of the site, it was best positioned to take planning action that could impact redevelopment.

Taking a Phased Approach
The City of Burlington engaged the American Institute of Architects (AIA) through their Sustainable Design Assessment Team (SDAT) program to produce a plan for the reuse of the TAMP site. The SDAT Team produced the A New Future for the Western Electric Facility plan. The plan recommended a phased approach that enabled redevelopment progress while also allowing for additional time to address the environmental risks and uncertainties.

In the SDAT plan, the team recognized the attachment the community had to the facility (AIA 2019, 25). By focusing on aspirational imagery of what could be built within the historic structure, the SDAT team utilized elements of visioning to build community support for their plan. Community feedback received during community engagement sessions became the basis for the earliest phases of the plan and informed the later designs. By dressing up the grounds and structures with art and imagery that recalls the site’s history, this plan provided an opportunity to show visible progress while invisible background engineering and analysis activities progressed in preparation for later phases.

Community Engagement Flaws
The site is surrounded by low-income households and families with children. It is located one quarter of a mile from the East Lawn Elementary School. As a result, much of the feedback that they received from residents included comments about a design for children’s activities, specifically a children’s museum like the one that opened in the county in 2012 (Abernethy 2012). Faced with significant feedback for this specific site use, it became central to the first phase and design depictions. The significant flaw with this inclusion occurred when the team included an image of a building bearing the identical name of the recently constructed nearby children’s museum (AIA 2019, 31).

This flaw was noticed by prominent community leaders when the plan was publicly released. These stakeholders, who were not involved in the SDAT steering committee but were needed as critical advocates and potential financial backers, immediately rejected the plan. Unfortunately, this element would linger in local decision-making and support discussions for private engagement with the plan. Developers and investors from outside of the community, however, did not interpret the plan with this same level of negativity.

Progress Amid Unanticipated Challenges
At the beginning of the SDAT process, the TAMP property was owned by Saucier, Inc. In 2018, before the SDAT report was complete, Saucier, Inc. sold the property to David Tsui, who expressed interest in completing the report (Bollinger 2018).  

However, Tsui was not the competent and reputable developer that the SDAT process was expecting (Groves 2022). Instead, Tsui, who had been indicted previously on federal fraud charges, tried to resell the property speculatively based on its completed SDAT. Also, in an unsanctioned and dangerous effort to attempt to address the source of the environmental contamination, Tsui conducted the unpermitted demolition of several buildings on the property. Disrupting the soil and structures aggravated the environmental concerns and led to increased environmental scrutiny of the property.

Following the unsanctioned demolition, the City of Burlington ordered Tsui to stop all non-permitted work on the site. Investigations identified other causes for concern and inadvertently attracted the attention of reporter Lisa Sorg with NC Policy Watch (Sorg 2021). Sorg researched and published a series of articles detailing the environmental and health dangers of the plant. This additional attention provided the necessary traction for the City of Burlington to accelerate the NCDEQ remediation work on site. While this progression was not in the phased SDAT plan, it achieved similar progress to the plan recommended.

The accelerated cleanup efforts are an example of how the planning process often realizes related actions differently from the proposed plan. While the environmental contamination still represents the largest barrier to the site’s redevelopment, the progress generated by the SDAT plan continues to regularly attract development interests from around the country.

Conclusion
After decades of minimal activity, it took a dedicated plan conducted through the American Institute of Architects Sustainable Design Assessment Team program to enable development progress on TAMP’s site. With a web of stakeholders involved, the immense facility required planning to identify the phased steps necessary to make the project digestible by the local and national development community.

While the major uncertainties of the environmental contamination on the site remain, the SDAT report has enabled advocates like NC Policy Watch and the City of Burlington to apply pressure on the responsible federal government agencies to accelerate the pace of remediation. The exact timeline on when the site will return to a productive state remains unknown, but through the planning process, this once seemingly impossible project is now on the road to redevelopment at an accelerated pace.

Citations

Abernethy, Michael. 2012. “Children’s Museum Celebrates Grand Opening.” The Times News, October 6, 2012. https://www.thetimesnews.com/story/news/2012/10/06/children-s-museum-celebrates-grand/34162879007/.

AIA. 2019. “A New Future for the Western Electric Facility.” AIA SDAT. https://www.burlingtonnc.gov/westernelectric.

Bollinger, Luke. 2018. “Western Electric Site Sold, Burlington to Receive Grant to Assist Redevelopment.” Triad Business Journal, June 1, 2018. https://www.bizjournals.com/triad/news/2018/06/01/western-electric-site-sold-burlington-to-receive.html.

Groves, Isaac. 2022. “Burlington’s Contaminated Western Electric Site Years Away from Cleanup and Development.” The Times News, March 1, 2022. https://www.thetimesnews.com/story/news/2022/03/01/redevelopment-of-western-electric-plant-in-east-burlington-would-take-years-and-there-is-a-lot-left/9324568002/.

Sorg, Lisa. 2021. “Clear and Present Danger: Former Army Missile Plant Has Polluted a Black, Latino Neighborhood in Burlington for More than 30 Years.” NC Policy Watch, September 8, 2021. https://ncpolicywatch.com/2021/09/08/clear-and-present-danger-burlington-missile-plant-english/.

Ian is an inventor, serial entrepreneur, planner, and Master’s student at UNC DCRP. After founding Burlington Beer Works, the first co-operatively owned brewery and restaurant in NC he made the jump into public service when he was elected Mayor of the City of Burlington, NC in 2015. He served 3 terms leading the launch and expansion of the city’s Link Transit bus system, construction of a greenway network, and modernization of planning, zoning, and development ordinances. He is passionate about place-making, walkable communities, and trains. He loves riding trains and visiting railroad museums all around the world.

Edited by Kathryn Cunnigham

Featured Image: Tarheel Army Missile Plant. Photo Credit: Kerry Alfred.

How Decisions are Made: The People’s Park Housing Project in Berkeley, CA 

December 6, 2022 /

By Kathryn Cunningham

Back in 2017, UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ and City of Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín announced a housing development project at People’s Park. This project, set to start construction in late 2022, will redevelop the park into housing for students, low-income residents, and the unhoused. The City also promised to preserve 60% of the land for historical commemoration and green space.  

Not everyone supports the decision to transform People’s Park into housing. The park has a long, storied history. Locals know and love this downtown Berkeley park. They consider it to be the “most consistent place of support that exists in this city” (Ravani and Talley 2022). To them, it is not just a park, but a “…a symbol of activism that is worthy of protection” (Liedtke 2022). It also already serves as a (unsanctioned) housing ground for 55 unhoused people.    

With the understanding that this project is controversial and sensitive, the University and the City attempt to gain support from the public and mitigate adverse reactions. They describe the move as a rational choice. This approach to decision-making is a classic example of planners deploying the Rational Comprehensive Model (RCM). Behind the scenes, however, planners will recognize a more muddled process. This private process resembles less rational paradigms like the garbage can model and the Organization Comprehensive Model. The public should be empowered to see the difference and react appropriately.  

Jane Tyska / East Bay Times via Getty Images file

What is the Rational Comprehensive Model? We might recognize RCM in the general sequence of purportedly rational steps that the powers that be took to get to their decision. In Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Life Decisions, authors Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa describe the process for making well-grounded decisions in a rational manner. Their process is as follows: a unified party recognizes the problem, develops solutions, identifies the trade-offs among the solutions using selected criteria, and then ultimately picks the remaining solution as the most rational choice. UC Berkeley and the City of Berkeley followed a very similar process to come to their final decision.  

In this example, the problem the City and University seek to solve is clear to any outsider: Berkeley and the greater Bay Area faces an extreme housing crisis. A sub-crisis of student housing is “driving up rents and displacing long-time Berkeley residents” (Dinkelspiel 2021). Leaders are paying attention. Upon taking office in 2017, Chancellor Christ committed to doubling the number of university beds in the housing system within 10 years. She has made public her view that the university holds responsibility to address this issue and increase the supply of the below market-rate housing in the area (Kell, 2022).  

To address this problem, the university formed a Housing Task Force in 2017 to “enumerate and evaluate potential sites for development …[and] establish criteria that should guide decision making around the development of housing” (Christ et al. 2017). In essence, the task force followed what Graham identified as the RCM process: they established alternatives to the problem and then identified criteria to evaluate the alternatives. This sequence imbues the solution with a sense of rationality and thoroughness. 

Another hallmark of RCM, according to Graham Allison of Harvard Kennedy School, is a unified front. In his essay, Essence of Decision: Cuban Missile Crisis, Allison describes how parties involved in RCM are unified and are taking the rational path forward. He further explains that rationality is derived from the unified party’s preferences, and these preferences then dictate and justify their decisions. The institutions at the heart of the People’s Park decision, including the Mayor and UC Berkeley Chancellor, are certainly presenting a unified front to the public.  

While Mayor Arreguín and Chancellor Christ serve as representatives for the City and the University respectively, they maintain that the two of them – and the two entities they represent – are wholly united in the management and the success of this project. Chancellor Christ said in a UC Berkeley press release, “We are thrilled and humbled by the coming together of this new alliance in support of a new People’s Park…Together, we will provide a true win-win-win …” (Kell 2022). Similarly, Mayor Arreguín said that the “partnership that’s formed is dedicated to solving critical issues facing the city and campus, and to doing so together” (Kell 2022). These leaders project confidence. Confidence fosters trust. The Mayor and Chancellor may hope that their unified approach will generate goodwill for the project among the public. 

By presenting a unified front and displaying their rationality, the University and the City would garner public support for this contentious project. The private decision-making process, however, is riddled with power jockeying and inconsistencies. Here, planners recognize another decision-making model: the garbage can process. In this process identified by J.G. March,  solutions beget problems, and not the other way around. That is, the City and UC Berkeley seized on People’s Park—the asset and potential solution—and crafted it to respond to the problem and context at hand.  

In the People’s Park project, critics of the plan believe that the university always planned on developing People’s Park despite publicly identifying and analyzing alternatives because “an unspoken justification for UC’s dorm is to displace homeless people who hang out at the Park” (Montigue 2021). Many locals say that while they support building more student housing, their central argument against this plan is that they do not think the university examined all their developmental options before ultimately deciding on the park. These critics list the Chancellor’s Mansion, the former site of Tollman Hall, and Clark Kerr campus as viable sites. These were not considered in the housing analysis. Instead, the critics believe that UC Berkeley is intentionally engaging in forced removal of the park’s residents by zeroing in on People’s Park without giving a good enough explanation for why it is being developed over the other options they analyzed–and the options they overlooked. 

Planners might recognize another decision-making process at work: Allison’s Organization Comprehensive Model (OCM). In this model, participants influence decisions through political gamesmanship. Those in positions of power bargain for the best-case scenario for their interests. While the University and the City put on a united front for the public, there is an underlying power-struggle and negotiation between the two entities that ultimately resulted in this decision. 

UC Berkeley and the City of Berkeley signed a 2021 agreement that succinctly relates their negotiated outcome. The University agreed to pay the City $82.64 million over the next 16 years. This sum of money would support City services and various city-related projects. In exchange, the City agreed to withdraw from two lawsuits they are involved in with the University over enrollment and development issues. The city will also not go forward with their plans of filing a lawsuit for a separate issue, nor will they oppose the People’s Park housing project (Dinkelspiel 2021). This latter piece of the agreement is critical for the University. It  guarantees the City’s support for UC Berkeley’s highly contentious project and others like it down the line.  

In the case of the People’s Park project, the Chancellor and the Mayor are not the amiable partnership they project to the public. The two institutions, often at odds, engaged in a series of political back-and-forth’s to get the best-case scenario for their respective parties. The City gets a large monetary sum as well as a win for the mayor’s legacy. This project does add more affordable housing, and voters in Berkeley see this as a priority.  

The University benefits from the agreement because expanding enrollment is a means to increase tuition revenue. Tuition revenue is critical because it accounts for 31% of the campus’ total funds, while state funding only provides 12% of the school’s funds (“People’s Park and the Future of the Public University” 2022). Currently, the university is $2 billion in debt (Dinkelspiel 2022), so more revenue from students, particularly from international students and out-of-state students who pay three times more than in-state students, is an appealing incentive. Because a higher capacity for more beds on campus justifies increased enrollment, getting the support of the project from the city has future monetary payoffs for the school.  

The impression of rationality gives people comfort. Officials hoped the community would believe this decision was rational, practical, and thoughtful if they presented it as a unified front and offered several alternatives. Behind the scenes we find a better explanation for this decision. People’s Park presented a solution, and they matched it to the housing problem. Along the way, the University and the City both accrued perks.  

The public should be aware of this discrepancy between the public and private decision-making processes for the People’s Park housing project. It offers a helpful reminder that “players who make government decisions…” do not make them “…by a single rational choice but by the pushing and pulling that is politics” (Allison 1999). 

Citations

“About Berkeley | University of California, Berkeley.” n.d. Accessed September 29, 2022. https://www.berkeley.edu/about. 

Allison, G. T. and P. Zelikow (1999). Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile 

Crisis. Longman. 

“Call It What It Is: Forced Removal at People’s Park.” 2022. June 16, 2022. https://dailycal.org/2022/06/16/call-it-what-it-is-forced-removal-at-peoples-park/. 

Christ, Carol, Fiona Doyle, Ben Hermalin, and Rajiv Parikh. 2017. “Housing Master Plan Task Force Report.” https://evcp.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/housing_master_plan_task_force_final_draft_january_2017.pdf.  

“Community Support.” 2021. People’s Park Housing. August 3, 2021. https://peoplesparkhousing.berkeley.edu/community-support. 

Dinkelspiel, Frances. 2021. “UC Berkeley Will More than Double What It Pays the City under New Settlement Agreement.” Berkeleyside. July 14, 2021. https://www.berkeleyside.org/2021/07/14/uc-berkeley-payment-settlement-agreement. 

Dinkelspiel, Frances. 2021. “The End of the 1960s? Regents Vote to Put Housing in People’s Park.” Berkeleyside. September 30, 2021. https://www.berkeleyside.org/2021/09/30/student-housing-berkeley-peoples-park. 

Dinkelspiel, Frances. 2022. “Why Hasn’t UC Berkeley Built More Student Housing?” Berkeleyside. May 8, 2022. https://www.berkeleyside.org/2022/05/08/uc-berkeley-student-housing-building. 

Hammond, J. S., R. L. Keeney, and H. Raiffa (1999). Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to 

Making Better Decisions. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. 

Kell, Gretchen. 2022. “Campus, City Form Model Alliances to Aid Unhoused People in People’s Park.” Berkeley News. March 9, 2022. https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/03/09/peoples-park-press-conference-coverage/. 

Liedtke, Michael. 2022. “Plan for People’s Park Pits Housing Against History.” KQED. August 29, 2022. https://www.kqed.org/news/11923876/plan-for-peoples-park-pits-housing-against-history. 

Montigue, J. 2021. “People’s Park – Rumors of Its Demise Have Been Grossly Exaggerated.” March 27, 2021. https://slingshotcollective.org/3-peoples-park-rumors-of-its-demise-have-been-grossly-exaggerated/. 

March, J. G. (1997). “Understanding How Decisions Happen in Organizations”. In: Organizational Decision Making. Ed. by Z. Shapira. Cambridge University Press, pp. 9–32. 

“People’s Park and the Future of the Public University.” 2022. Versobooks.Com. Accessed September 28, 2022. https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/5406-people-s-park-and-the-future-of-the-public-university. 

Ravani, Sarah, and Emma Talley. 2022. “UC Berkeley Can Move Forward with $312 Million Housing Plan at People’s Park, Judge Rules.” San Francisco Chronicle. July 30, 2022. https://www.sfchronicle.com/eastbay/article/UC-Berkeley-can-move-forward-with-312-million-17339457.php. 

Tucci-Berube, Giancarlo. 2021. “In Defense of People’s Park.” February 21, 2021. https://dailycal.org/2021/02/02/in-defense-of-peoples-park/. 

Kathryn is a first year Master’s student with the Department of City and Regional Planning whose interests include climate change adaptation, parks, and public space. She studied Environmental Studies at Williams College, and before coming to graduate school, she was in the San Francisco Bay Area managing sustainability projects for a law school. When not in class, she enjoys reading, running, and checking out all of the many concert venues the Research Triangle has to offer.

Edited by Lance Gloss

Featured image: People’s Park. Credit: Jeff Chiu (AP)

Drawing Lines is Hard and We Need to Be More Decisive About It  

November 22, 2022 /

By Ian Baltutis

(John W Powell’s 1890 proposal to the US Congress about redrawing western state boundaries to match watershed districts as a method for effectively managing the limited water supply)

Having grown up in the Midwest, I remember fondly how easy it seemed to fill in the names of some states and not others on elementary school geography assignments. The clean geometric lines of the western states always made logical sense in my mind. However, those strange curvy, complex state boundaries in the east were problematic, and I can’t even count how many times I mixed up Vermont and New Hampshire. It took living in southern Vermont for a year to finally get it right. Despite my confusion, those early cartographers drawing lines that followed the natural geologic features of rivers and mountain ranges may have been on to something.

I had the honor of serving as Mayor of Burlington, North Carolina for six years. Public service exposes one to all sorts of unique community stories, anecdotes, and questions. But it also allows for unique opportunities to explain the weirdness that is government to people. Boundaries were one of those strange concepts. On a map, the line between one city and another is clear, but driving or walking across that same delineation in person often provides no indication that you have left one jurisdiction for another. Short of the occasional rusty city limits sign, most people have no clue where one community ends and another begins.

Zoom out on a map a little further and you’ll see state boundaries. In your personal travel, you may have noticed that these are usually marked slightly more obvious, with a drastic change in pavement quality as you’re driving a road. If you take a road trip through some of those New England states whose borders tormented me in grade school, you may stumble upon an old wooden covered bridge over that border defining river. Our geometric western states may have featured more organic borders if the US Senate had decisively followed the advice of John Wesley Powell. On January 17, 1890, Powell proposed to the United States Senate that western state boundaries should be based on an important hydrologic feature, watersheds. Following years of harrowing exploration, braving whitewater rapids across the west, Powell had quantified how arid the west truly was.

He realized that the lack of water would be a major hindrance to the desires of manifest destiny enthusiasts preaching that the “rain follows the plow” as farmers pushed west. Powell hypothesized that it would only be a matter of time before agricultural expansion strained the limited water supply of the western region. He had the foresight, inspired by Stephen Long and William Gilpin years earlier that the only way to tame the planes was to harness the watersheds of the west. Long had explored the Missouri and Platte rivers as he traveled through what he termed, “The Great American Desert.” Two decades later, Gilpin would draft the first hydrographic maps showing the impact of rain and lack thereof in the west. Combining their maps and logs with his data, Powell determined that the scarce water resources of each watershed would need strategic management best carried out by unified state governance. It was from this that Powell boldly proposed his solution to mapping the west with a multi-color map of new states with boundaries following the peaks and valleys of the watersheds. Each state would control its own watershed and thus its destiny.

Powell warned that dividing these scarce resources among competing state governments would leave them open for exploitation and mismanagement. If you’ve read any of the latest headlines about water shortages today, then you know how well this proposal was received by the Senate. The bold delineation that Powell called for did not convince the Senate leaders in 1890. Bending to the lobbying of western territorial leaders and the rapid pace of expansion, the Senate opted to continue the process of drawing straight lines on maps and synthesizing their ideal western state pattern. Today, we are left with the finger pointing and blame transfer of leaders who did not create the problem and want no part in having to ask their populous to give up their quality of life in the name of water conservation.

We see this pattern time and time again in the history of planning. For anyone who has visited our nation’s capital, another case study is hurtling beneath their feet. The DC Metro subway line was conceived as a multijurisdictional solution to the growing transportation demands of the area. As the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) was formed and plans came together for the first routes, the designers got caught up in the mechanics of expansion and glossed over the key detail of taxation responsibilities. With no clear definition of taxing authority, the system administrators were left to return hat-in-hand each year to the multiple individual government councils of the region asking for their share of the funding to sustain and grow the system. If a funding request was granted, it usually came with new requirements for system expansion to meet the demands of that community. Growth and expansion overshadowed systemic issues. Growing ridership numbers were equated as success, while safety incidents and system delays piled up. Over the years those inconsistent funding payments failed to meet the maintenance needs and the system fell into disrepair and ultimately exacted its toll on human lives. Again, the fault was not bestowed upon the governing agencies that had to conceive the system, but on the Metro administrators tasked with managing this unmanageable feat.

As planners, we regularly tackle what many might consider lofty and complex problems. It is our responsibility to work through the difficult questions and interdependencies of these societal challenges. When we avoid the hard choices of putting pen to paper and rigorously defining jurisdictions and scope of responsibility, we miss the opportunity to build more resilient and lasting foundations for our communities. When we shy away from making timely and difficult decisions, we pass along a burden to future generations. As planners, it can be easy to get lost in the shiny details of the design, becoming fixated on growth, but without a strong foundation, all designs will crumble and faulter. What if those Senate leaders had taken Powell’s warning to heart? Would we still be talking about towing arctic icebergs to California to harvest for freshwater? Would visitors to our Nation’s capital still be riding on some of the oldest and least dependable metro trains if leaders had sorted the taxation plan from WMATA’s onset?  As a planner, you are faced with those difficult decisions, will you pause and call for a decision, or float with the current of popular sentiment?

Ian Baltutis is an inventor, serial entrepreneur, planner, and Master’s student at UNC DCRP. After founding Burlington Beer Works, the first co-operatively owned brewery and restaurant in NC he made the jump into public service when he was elected Mayor of the City of Burlington, NC in 2015. He served 3 terms leading the launch and expansion of the city’s Link Transit bus system, construction of a greenway network, and modernization of planning, zoning, and development ordinances. He is passionate about place-making, walkable communities, and trains. He loves riding trains and visiting railroad museums all around the world.

Edited by Abigail Cover

Featured Image: Arid Region of the United States, Showing Drainage Districts. Photo Credit: Eleventh Annual Report of the U.S. Geological Survey

Cheonggyecheon: A Revolution of Environment, Rule, and Interaction within Seoul  

November 15, 2022 /

By Nik Reasor

The Cheonggyecheon stream in Seoul, South Korea is considered a masterpiece of urban infrastructure, revolutionizing how cities look at old infrastructure and imagine change. Though it is best known for being a picturesque greenspace cutting through one of the most dense cities on the planet, what truly sets Cheonggyecheon apart is how it directly altered Seoul’s decision-making process. Previously, Seoul believed in its technical rational ability to push forward its solutions and decisions using a method called DAD, or decide, announce, then defend. This directly followed the Rational Actor Model, where the government is the sole actor and decision maker, and decisions are seen as rational choices that maximize value toward the state’s ends (Allison 1999, 274).   

As the Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project began, Lee Myung-Bak’s new government integrated multiple organizations into the decision-making process, creating a system akin to the Governmental Politics model. This allowed for public concerns to appear to be heard and conflicts attempted to be remedied, rather than ignored. However, as conflicts occurred with the Merchant’s Guild and cultural groups, it became clear that Seoul was not fully using the Governmental Politics model. Only certain solutions and decisions were fully implemented, while others were purposefully suppressed. Overall, however, the change in decision making that occurred within the Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project marks a notable change in how Seoul’s conceptualized its problem solving, altering its strict Rational Actor Model to a more inclusive yet still politically biased blend of Rational Actor and Governmental Politics models. Cheonggyecheon serves as the foundation of the decision-making model that Seoul is renowned for today, one that prizes the idea of sharing power and public identity in decision-making and stands in stark contrast to the rational models of the past.  

Background 

During the late 1990s, the crumbling highway at the heart of downtown Seoul began to attract attention. The highway, built in the 1970s, had several safety concerns as the amount of traffic started to cause noticeable wear (Kang 2016). City officials planned to repair the eighteen-lane highway; however, a group of academics began to suggest removing the highway and restoring the historic stream on which the highway was built (Worldbank 2015). During the Seoul Mayoral Election of 2002, candidate Lee Myung-Bak championed this cause, making it central to his campaign. This aided his campaign tremendously, as it played into the public’s want for increased interaction in public administration, and his subsequent election created a need to include the public in decisions. 

Before the Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project (CRP), Seoul believed it could act in absolute power, thinking it acted in “technical rationality and pressed ahead with projects by monopolizing information and forcing stakeholders to follow them” (Hwang et al. 2016, 207). Seoul followed this ideology with DAD, highlighting how the government would privately decide on a solution to an issue, announce it, and instead of seeking improvement, it would defend the solution (Hwang et al. 2016, 14). This aligns with the idea of agenda setting as well, as DAD was thought to “promote a project with ‘technological’ rationality as the absolute criteria while minimizing the negative aspects (project delays, social costs) associated with ‘procedural rationality’” (Hwang et al. 2016, 16). Seoul limited the amount of interaction that those outsides of the decision making process could have while presenting decisions it made as the most “rational” choice that could be made, downplaying any conflict that occurred with residents. This resulted in distrust in the decision making process between residents of Seoul and the government that the new mayor sought to remedy. 

Past and Present 

Knowing the public wished for a higher level of impact on the decision-making process, the new mayor started to change how Seoul made decisions. Upon creation of the CRP, multiple organizations were formed to assist in public engagement, including the Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project Headquarters (CRPH), the Seoul Development Institute (SDI), and the Cheonggyecheon Restoration Citizen’s Committee (Lah 2012, 4). This is an example of the Government Politics decision making model, which highlights the different organizational compositions in decision making processes, as the committees acted as different advisory and decision-making channels for Cheonggyecheon.  

Lee Myung-Bak purposefully chose to involve these different organizations, all with different objectives and foundations, to attempt to fully consider all possible concerns, creating a noticeable shift in how Seoul made decisions. These groups had the power to shape Cheonggyecheon, with the Citizens Committee postponing the start of the project until cultural relevancy decisions were made by the three organizations (Hwang et al 2016, 147). This is actualized power, not a form of venue shopping to shift focus away from protests which were common under the DAD model.  

Conflict Resolution Revolution 

The CRP was built upon the idea of the revitalization of Seoul and its culture. Lee Myung-Bak wished to push Seoul’s cultural identity, and accordingly prioritized the restoration of the cultural heritage surrounding Cheonggyecheon. Following the Governmental Politics Model, cultural groups raised concerns over Gwangtonggyo Bridge, the largest historical bridge of the Cheonggyecheon Stream. Cultural groups wished to have the bridge be placed according to historical accuracy, which the city did not believe possible. To prevent conflict, Seoul utilized agenda setting by stating the bridge would be built according to CRP but would be reevaluated later. This placated the cultural groups, who were presented with the choice of having no control at all, reminiscent of the Rational Actor Model, or could discuss and re-evaluate, similar to the Governmental Politics Model. Presented with this, the cultural groups closed their arguments (Kang 2017).  

The largest opposition faced by the CRP were merchants of the local area, who feared the demolishing of the highway would not revitalize the economy and instead would lead to loss (Yoon 2018, 14). These individuals feared the project, and though the CRP claimed to be reflective of local needs, all committees and meetings were lacking any local opposition leaders and were purposefully “excluded from the decision-making process even though they were direct stakeholders” (Hwang et al 2016, 71). This made the public doubt this democratic decision and believe the government was reverting to its “rational methods” (Hwang et al 2016, 73). In response, Seoul created a “governance scheme” to mitigate conflict while appearing to integrate public concern (Hwang et al 2016, 72). This reduced conflict by making external forces feel involved, while the city pursued its own desires. Merchants talked to the city and felt as if they were contributing, while government officials rarely integrated their concerns into the project. This is the venue setting, changing the arena of conflict from the streets to privately held meetings, and shows that the CRP was using a Rational Actor Model, despite presenting itself as a more publicly cognizant Governmental Politics model. The core of the Governmental Politics model is that “what happens is understood instead as a result of bargaining games among players in the national governments” (Allison 1999, 275); however, there was little bargaining with this process. Seoul believed that it was making “rational” choices but wished to make others feel that they were helping to create decisions to stop public outcry (Lah 2012, 10).   

Seoul utilized factors such as agenda setting to make their “rational” choices seem like the best decisions while making the public believe they are vital. Or the city used venue shopping to change how opposing forces could express their issues to not attract negative attention and promote their ideals over the concerns of others (Hwang et al. 2016). This false image of cooperation correlates with the fact that the two yearlong construction of the CRP began nearly a year before the “Cheonggyecheon Restoration Master Plan” was published, meaning that concerns could not be integrated until a year into the construction process (Worldbank 2015). That is not to say that there was no integration of external views and concerns, as the city did listen to the SDI and Citizens Committee when concerns were raised about flooding, safety, and transportation, but instead shows that the image of unity between the City’s government and residents was often more important to the CRP than implementing these concerns.   This conflict between rationality and outreach is why the CRP showcases how models cannot function in practical application. There is no true expression of any decision-making model, instead, there is a mix of models. 

Citations

Allison, Graham. 1999. “Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis.” In Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Cases. Edited by Steve Smith. 256-83. London: Longman Publishing.

Hwang, Keeyon, Miree Byun, Tae Joon Lah, and Sang-min Lee. 2016. “Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project: Conflict Management Strategies.” The Korea Transport Institute 22: 1-273. https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAQQw7AJahcKEwiguNj7w736AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAg&url=https%3A%2F%2Fenglish.koti.re.kr%2Fcomponent%2Ffile%2FND_fileDownload.do%3Fq_fileSn%3D100590%26q_fileId%3D71cb6661-3fb3-43a2-8476-3ccb05723b2a&psig=AOvVaw1DKaBYC5ydfnzhhuRaeYFC&ust=1664662123226880

Kang, Myounggu. 2016. “Cheonggyecheon (Stream) Restoration 서울정책아카이브 Seoul Solution.” January 30, 2016. https://seoulsolution.kr/en/content/7477.

Lah, TJ. 2012. “The Dilemma of Cheonggyecheon Restoration in Seoul”. https://prospernet.ias.unu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/SPC-learning-case-2_final.pdf

Moynihan, David. 2017. “What Can Seoul Teach the UK about Community Engagement?” City Monitor (blog). November 29, 2017. https://citymonitor.ai/community/what-can-seoul-teach-uk-about-community-engagement-3517.

The World Bank. 2015. “Seoul Urban Regeneration.” Accessed September 22, 2022. https://urban-regeneration.worldbank.org/Seoul.Yoon, Yasmin. 2018. “Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project: The Politics and Implications of Globalization and Gentrification”  Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Politics, Economics and World Affairs, (1) no. 1: 92-110 https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1009&context=dujpew

Nik Reasor is a first-year Master’s student in City and Regional Planning at Chapel Hill where he specializes in Land Use and Environmental Policy. In particular, Nik is interested in climate change adaptation and how to best help disadvantaged communities survive the challenges the future presents. Previously, Nik earned his BA in Sociocultural Anthropology, Medieval studies, and Urban Planning at UNC. You can usually catch him around Chapel Hill biking to local cafes to catch up on work or at the gym coaching UNC’s boxing team.

Edited by Ryan Ford

Featured Image: Cheonggyecheon Stream in Seoul. Photo Credit: Nik Reasor

Boom Supersonic, North Carolina, and the Risks we Choose to Take  

October 11, 2022 /

By Henry Read

NC’s Big Bet  

In January 2022 NC Governor Roy Cooper, along with other political notables, announced that Boom Supersonic would be opening its “Overture Superfactory” at Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTI). This facility is intended to test and build supersonic airliners. Boom claims it will employ 1,750 people by 2030 and lead to over $0.5 billion in investment in Guilford County. Officials project that Boom’s presence in the state will expand GDP by $32.3 billion by 2035 [1]. This potential windfall won’t come cheap; to attract Boom NC and Guilford offered $236 million in incentives, including infrastructure improvements at PTI, tax abatements, expansion of aerospace-related community college programs, and the first-ever use of NC’s High-Yield Job Development Investment Grant (HYJDIG) [1]. These incentives were instrumental in outbidding Jacksonville, FL and Spartanburg, SC for the Superfactory [2].  

However, the deal has its detractors. Supersonic airliners have never made consistent profits or recouped their development costs, and no established aerospace firms are even attempting to build them [3]. Boom is a six-year-old startup headed by a CEO with no prior aerospace experience, who audaciously claims that the Overture airliner will be quieter, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly than older designs. Its functional scale model is five years late [4], and a similar startup abruptly declared bankruptcy after making an analogous deal in Florida last year [5]. Why and how then, did multiple levels of government make such a large and risky investment?   

Comprehensive Rational Model  

The first theory to consider in analyzing these decisions is the Comprehensive Rational Model (CRM). In this plan making conception, actors are assumed to use logic and investigation to define a problem, identify all possible solutions, categorize criteria to evaluate the solutions, judge each solution through the criteria, compare these judgments, and pick the solution that best satisfies the most important criteria. With sufficient care, this method guarantees a utility-maximizing conclusion. However, sufficient care is almost impossible to apply when dealing with complex problems. Analysis takes time and resources — the more factors to consider, the more likely an actor is to cut corners and end up with an inadequate result.  

In this case, the decision making process is obscured by the length of time involved, the number of actors, and a lack of insider sources. From the Governor’s perspective, the problem would likely have been defined as “how can NC be made more prosperous?” All potential answers would then have been considered and judged on various standards, like the potential for growth, cost, and cultural impact. It’s conceivable that all actors involved (who reportedly include every level of government, local universities, business organizations, and Duke Power [6]) collectively went through this convoluted process. But it’s unlikely that such an open-ended query would be answered with such a risky solution, particularly with so many different interest groups.  

Organizational Behavior Model  

A more illuminating theory is the Organizational Behavior Model. In this view, organizations’ actions are largely determined by their standard operating procedures (SOPs). Organizations are made up of many people who will make many different and conflicting decisions. To function as a collective their individual decision making is sublimated into rules and culture, establishing consistency at the expense of flexibility and creativity. “Outputs,” actions and their results, are considered appropriate when they mirror those made in the past rather than based on merit.  

The pursuit of Boom can be partially explained by the SOPs of NC’s government. The Department of Commerce, Economic Development Partnership, and significant portions of the state’s political class have long aimed to build up the aerospace industry. Many investments have been made over the years, including similar incentive packages to attract HondaJet and Spirit Aerosystems. When presented with the goal of “make NC more prosperous,” one of the SOPs is “recruit an aerospace company.” Additionally, there are specific advantages to locating in NC that these organizations promote; low taxes, low wages, quality logistics infrastructure, and a well-developed higher education system [7]. These appeal to particular kinds of companies, which further narrows the potential outcomes. By adhering to their SOPs, stakeholders in NC’s economic development sphere bounded the possible results of their efforts, leading to the recruitment of Boom.  

Stream of Opportunities Model  

There is a third theory of plan making that also explains the choice to incentivize Boom to locate in Guilford; the Stream of Opportunities Model (SOM). In this paradigm, decisions are made through a confluence of four factors – issues, solutions, decision makers, and choice opportunities. Issues are the problems that planning attempts to address. Solutions are the tools that exist to address problems. Decisionmakers are people with the authority to deploy resources and connect solutions to problems. Choice opportunities are situations that allow decision makers to act. All of these factors exist independently, floating in the metaphorical “stream of opportunities.” When plans are made and actualized factors combine without much discernment; what’s available gets used, regardless of its efficacy [8].  

Viewed through the SOM lens the recruitment of Boom makes considerably more sense. The issue of economic development is a core concern of state government – it will always seek to address it. Over the decades a consistent set of solutions has developed; infrastructure investments, tax abatements, and grants are always ready to be applied. PTI was recently expanded and upgraded at great expense through an initiative from the General Assembly, colorfully named “Project Thunderbird [2].” Consequentially the choice opportunity of making planes at PTI was highly attractive since this investment demanded justification. Solutions also aligned for the deal; the HYJDIG offered to Boom was designed by the legislature in 2016 but never used, becoming a hammer in search of nails [9]. And one of the most significant decisionmakers involved in the recruitment process is both a former Commerce Secretary and a consultant at a Raleigh-based firm hired by Boom [10]. The combination of these preexisting factors made the decision to court Boom far more likely, and diminished the possibility of any serious attempt at using CRM.  

The Die is Cast  

Time will tell if NC’s high-risk, high-reward bet on Boom’s prospects will pay off – this summer has seen positive and negative news for the company, including preorders from American Airlines [11] and a falling out with contracted engine designer Rolls Royce [12]. But if NC and its boosters’ move to back the startup does prove successful it will not be the result of calculations and analysis. Rather, it will be due to a combination of inertia, social relationships, and luck. Organizational Behavior filled the Stream of Opportunities, and the serendipity of the stream led to the decision that was made.   

Citations

[1] Associated Press. “Officials: Boom Aims to Build Supersonic Jets in North Carolina.” FOX40. FOX40, January 26, 2022. https://fox40.com/news/business/officials-boom-aims-to-build-supersonic-jets-in-north-carolina/ 

[2] Doyle, Steve. “It’s Official: Boom Supersonic Coming to Piedmont Triad International Airport.” Queen City News. Queen City News, January 26, 2022. https://www.fox46.com/news/u-s/north-carolina/its-official-boom-supersonic-coming-to-piedmont-triad-international-airport/ 

[3] Furchgott, Roy. “Can Supersonic Air Travel Fly Again?” The New York Times. The New York Times, November 1, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/01/business/supersonic-plane-travel-concorde.html 

[4] Craver, R. (2022, January 30). Aviation boom? Hopes high, though skepticism remains, as Triad lands startup aircraft maker Boom Supersonic. Winston-Salem Journal. 

[5] Sheetz, Micheal. “Aerion Supersonic Shuts down, Ending Plans to Build Silent High Speed Business Jets.” CNBC. CNBC, May 21, 2021. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/21/aerion-supersonic-shuts-down-ending-plans-for-silent-business-jets.html 

[6] NCDoC. “Governor Cooper Announces Boom Will Manufacture Supersonic Aircraft in North Carolina” NC Commerce, January 26, 2022. https://www.nccommerce.com/news/press-releases/governor-cooper-announces-boom-will-manufacture-supersonic-aircraft-north 

[7] Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina. North Carolina Aerospace Industry. Raleigh, NC: EDPNC, 2019. 

[8] Hopkins, L. D. (2001). Urban Development: The Logic of Making Plans. Washington, DC: Island Press.  

[9] NCDoC. “Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG).” NC Commerce. Accessed February 24, 2022. https://www.nccommerce.com/grants-incentives/competitive-incentives/job-development-investment-grant#special-jdig-grant-categories 

[10] Brooks Pierce, “Brooks Pierce Assists Boom Supersonic in Site Selection for North Carolina Facility.” Brooks Pierce, February 2, 2022. https://www.brookspierce.com/news-brooks-pierce-assists-boom-supersonic-in-site-selection-for-NC-facility. 

[11] American Airlines. (2022, August 16). American Airlines announces agreement to purchase boom supersonic overture aircraft, places deposit on 20 overtures. Newsroom – Home – American Airlines Group, Inc. Retrieved October 6, 2022, from https://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2022/American-Airlines-Announces-Agreement-to-Purchase-Boom-Supersonic-Overture-Aircraft-Places-Deposit-on-20-Overtures-FLT-08/  

[12] Doran, M. (2022, September 9). Rolls-Royce quits boom supersonic airliner engine race. Simple Flying. Retrieved October 6, 2022, from https://simpleflying.com/rolls-royce-quits-boom-supersonic-engine/ 

Henry Read is a Master’s student in the Department of City and Regional Planning, with a focus on land use policy. He is fascinated with the minutia of development regulation and doesn’t understand why so many people think zoning is boring. He hopes to work in the public sector after graduation and would like to be remembered as the guy who got your town to stop requiring bars to have customer parking and start planting native fruit trees in parks. 

Edited by Candela Cerpa 

Featured image: Airport. Photo Credit: Openverse.

Carolina Planning, the oldest student-run planning publication in the country, is produced once a year in UNC's Department of City and Regional Planning. Articles selected for the journal are written by academics and practitioners, covering a wide range of topics relevant to today’s planning challenges.

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