terra non firma

grand intervention going, um, grandly

excerpt of an update from my friends at the norman lear center:

Grand Avenue Intervention: August 2005 Update

In the month since our call in The Los Angeles Times for an infusion of democracy into the planning process for the new downtown civic park at Grand Avenue, our invitation for proposals and comments has been met with a very encouraging response. Yesterday, The Los Angeles Times reiterated the call for citizen input through creative proposals for the park.

We've heard from community activists, architects, urban planners and park lovers from all corners of Los Angeles. Many have urged us to put a deadline on submissions, so now we have: The cutoff for this first round is December 9, 2005.

In these last few weeks, scores of submissions and a steady stream of comments have come in. A number of our correspondents have asked us to start putting them online, and to encourage community discussion, so now we have: A sampling of proposals and comments has been posted, with more to come, and we're inviting reactions to them. The more dialogue, the better.

[some name dropping in the middle here, suffice it to say there's a lot of interest.]

A number of people have asked us what the reaction of the developer, The Related Companies, has been. The answer: They've welcomed our grand intervention and are eager to find a way to collaborate with us. While they're understandably concerned about the constraints of designing this park--especially financial limitations, and the challenge of designing what amounts to three terraced parks going up the hill--they also recognize that public participation is essential. We're happy to offer this forum, and the ideas that appear on it, as a way to jumpstart their outreach, and the continuing outreach by the Grand Avenue Committee.

GO TO SUBMISSIONS GALLERY

posted by marissa @ 6:24 PM