TODAY'S WRITING TASK (No need for edits)

To Whom It Concerns

I'm initiating a development consulting business, working online. Today's communication technology allows me to communicate with tools that are universally available and make for widespread inclusiveness in development thinking.

 

Experience

- Collaboration on the Weeks Neighborhood Plan with the US national Park service, and Urban Ecology, Inc. of the San Francisco Bay Area.

http://www.urbanecology.org/downloads/WeeksNeighborhoodPlan.pdf

- Founding Director of East Palo Alto Historical and Agricultural Society (EPA HAS)

- I have received many citations from legislators and been the subject of many newspaper, book and magazine publications for my work tp promote culturally and ecologically sensitive development.

- Art Conservator for Jamaica, The Institute of jamaica

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JAMAICAN GOVERNMENT NEW PARLIAMENT BUILDING

- Living abroad and involved with my local planning issues, I was not alerted in time to have some proactive input on the new parliament building, which now is in the final stage of proposal selection.

- But it' might not too late for a process to ask top contenders to consider the following recommendations for adapting their designs:

There will be very complex considerations beyond those in the following list, and that fall outside the scope of an immediate and specific consultation proposal. But I will anticipate or accommodate these complex matters and see that what is done now doesn't foreclose on what will probably need to be done in the future. Where I deem mistakes to have been already made, I'll attempt to find ways to minimise, correct or compensate for them. As far as possible, work done now should not be tantamount to painting oneself into a corner.

THE NATURAL LANDSCAPE

- Trees and other markers of the existing landscape are too often taken for granted. but there are cultural, environmental and spiritual values in safeguarding them or leaving them in place in a development..

- Mature trees in a historic district might have been planted long enough to qualify them as  "Heritage trees" (If a heritage tree ordinance doesn't yet exist, a parliament development should promote its enactment. 

- Trees provide habitat for birds, insect and small animals.

- Trees provide shade, which is both a lifestyle amenity and counter to the "heat island effect" that is the bane of paved urban areas devoid of vegetation.

- Trees increase the value of properties.

- Digging and excavation should be selective; established root systems must be respected; patterns of subterranean life must be considered. To minimise the release of the carbon sequestered in the soil, follow the historical Jamaican building practice of placing buildings on piers ( also protecting existing root formation and subterranean life forms).

- Tread lightly on the land.

- Where excavation cannot or will not be foregone, archaeologists are required to examine and evaluate what is unearthed through digging. 

COSTS

- Avoiding extravagance and ostentation will likely minimize the development cost, as well as neighborhood costs that contribute to displacement and gentrification.

- Cheaper materials and techniques must be matched by extreme attention to details.

- Sophistication is essential to compensate for sparing expenditure of money/

- Money and sophisticated aesthetics are not interdependent. or might even have an inverse relationship.

- As Jamaica's source of affordable energy (Venezuela) teeters and lowered energy prices spell trouble for energy producers worldwide, energy conservation measures like cross ventilation and high ceilings must be installed.

CULTURE

- Take measures to immerse the visitor in the geography, economics and culture of the entire island. (Consider various kinds of mapping.)

- Demonstrate planning for systematization--how the island's water sheds and coastal systems interrelate--fisheries, marine sanctuaries, education, community tourism, small enterprise, etc.