The Scope

Back before Facebook groups and Photoshopped would-be cityscapes, a grassroots movement fought what it viewed as irresponsible development plans for downtown St. John’s.

In 1972 and 1973, the People’s Planning Programme (PPP) tried desperately to stop the building of Atlantic Place on Water Street.

Organizer Roger Bill’s 1974 master’s thesis — An Ethnography of the People’s Planning Programme— deals with the battle in detail. On March 22, 1972, then-mayor William Adam announced council had approved the concept for Atlantic Place, a building to be occupied primarily by the Canadian National Railway.

There was no public input before council approved the plans in principle and no city plan to guide development at the time.

Bill argues the approval had a lot to do with personal connections and Liberal party ties.

“The point that I would like to make is that the developer was a powerful man and enjoyed peculiar access to public decision making units,” the thesis states.

The PPP, and later ad hoc committees and other groups, demanded public input into this plan, which they argued threatened to mangle the downtown atmosphere and skyline.

By 1973, the Atlantic Place plans were for a building 50 per cent larger than council had initially approved, and the lobby effort to quash them intensified.

There was a protest, a petition, and calls for the provincial government to intervene.

“The mayor and city council said some unkindly things about … the PPP. We said some unkindly things about them. There was a genuine and mutual distrust,” Bill states.

Bill says the developer, Andrew Crosbie, did not acknowledge the opposition as legitimate. The group wanted a public hearing into the matter, but the mayor wouldn’t agree.

At the time, a TV station poll on the subject of downtown development was opposed 60-40.

Deputy Mayor Shannie Duff says the current debate over Fortis’s $75 million, 15-storey proposed office development is “getting up there in terms of Atlantic Place proportions.”

She was around during the days of movement against Atlantic Place and has been an advocate for urban planning in her more than 30 years in politics.

The issue is not just that these proposed buildings will violate the area’s 15-metre height restrictions, she says. City council’s decision on Fortis—a major downtown property owner—will set a precedent.

“I think people are understanding how critical this particular proposal is to the whole future of the downtown,” she says.

There are big differences between 1973 and 2010, though. In ’73 there was no municipal plan and no legislative requirements for public consultation.

“So you really had large frustration in the public that their voices couldn’t be heard,” Duff says.

She remembers large, angry meetings at city hall, demonstrations, and arts community involvement.

These days, the debate—mostly occurring online—doesn’t make as good a photo op, but it’s better informed, Duff says.

Though the city’s planning department recommended against it, Atlantic Place was approved in ‘73, and backed in part by city cash.

The efforts of the PPP failed, and the organization collapsed not long after the site that would house Atlantic Place had been demolished. Duff ran in the next possible election.

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