epi logue The neighbourhood surrounding the site has changed; the power plant site will eventually be redeveloped and reconnected to the community and the city. The question is not if it will happen but how it will happen. My role was to conceptualise an overall strategy for the site. The process was intended to be a test case for a system-wide approach that proposed new ways of working and conceiving infrastructural space. The conventional practices that situate infrastructure, as Pierre Belanger writes, 'a background process of essential services', 7 seemed no longer appropriate as the process of urbanisation had upended this dynamic. The steps taken at Hunters Point were intentionally designed to reconnect the site to the community, to lay the foundations for redevelopment, and to propose new ways of designing and implementing the next generation of infrastructure. The process crafted for Hunters Point was meant to be replicable system-wide. Twelve years on, the effort continues, with apparent successes and misses.
The NOW Hunters Point project, which ran for eight years and directly informed the design and construction of the Hunters Point Shoreline, was a platform where the team could connect with the community, build capacity and host events that have had a lasting impact. The sustained presence on the site provided a new model for engagement that was less transactional than project-based outreach methodologies which typically target stakeholders on an intermittent basis for specific feedback. The community wanted to be an active partner providing guidance and input to the developments and projects taking place in their neighbourhood, rather than simply being a box to be checked to satisfy regulatory requirements. It is too soon to evaluate the success of the Hunters Pont Substation project since as it is still in progress The most ambitious piece, the Vision Document that provides a framework for the equitable redevelopment of the site, has not yet made any meaningful impact, seemingly lost in the shuffle as the utility rebuilds from its 2018 bankruptcy. Despite this, the document is a tool that demonstrates the future potential of the site and how this informs remediation and the disposition of properties. PG&E has taken some of the lessons learned and developed a working group to rethink how properties are wound down at the end of their operational lives. Today, at Hunters Point, the power plant is gone, the site is remediated, a new substation is scheduled to be built, and most of the thirty-two-acre site sits empty. p
2022
Jonathan Manzo runs a small practice called urb-in based in San Francisco. https://urb-in.com
7 Pierre Belanger, 'Redefining Infrastructure', Ecological Urbanism. Baden, Switzerland : Lars Müller Publishers, ©2010. p 344
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