4 million benches, logging…over 10 billion “Tamagawa-josui greenway” redevelopment plan “Does the Shibuya Ward Mayor’s personalization ever stop?”

MIYASHITA PARK, designer toilets…Shibuya Ward projects full of flashy measures

Shibuya Ward’s Miyashita Park, which was established in 1953 as a children’s park, was reborn in July ’20 as MIYASHITA PARK, a commercial facility that can hardly be called a “park,” after the land was leased to Mitsui Fudosan at a discount.

In the “THE TOKYO TOILET,” a project promoted by the Nippon Foundation and Shibuya Ward since 2008, it was discovered that the “transparent toilet” system, in which the glass in the private rooms becomes opaque when in use, did not function properly and the inside was in full view, causing an uproar. The “transparent toilet” system, in which the glass in private rooms becomes opaque when used, did not function properly. Other security concerns have been raised about the unique toilets created by Kengo Kuma and other famous designers for this project.

For better or worse, these are flashy and straightforward measures typical of Shibuya Ward Mayor Ken Hasebe, a former advertising executive (formerly of Hakuhodo).

In addition, Shibuya Ward is currently moving forward with a project to redevelop the 2.6-kilometer “Tamagawa Josui Old Waterway Greenway” that runs through the six districts of Sasazuka, Oyama, Hatagaya, Nishihara, Hatsudai, and Yoyogi, which has become the target of criticism from local residents.

The project is described as costing more than 10 billion yen, mainly for the cutting down of numerous trees along the greenway to create a farm, and the installation of 15 benches at 4-4.5 million yen each. Where in the world did this story come from?

Noriko Takao, a member of the Shibuya Ward Tamagawa-josui Greenway Users’ Association, expressed her surprise and indignation.

At a briefing for residents held on September 7 last year, when asked if the greenway redevelopment would cost about 10 billion yen, Mayor Hasebe said, ‘I wonder if 10 billion yen will be enough.

Furthermore, at the Budget Committee meeting in February of this year, the 1.45 billion yen budget for this year’s greenway redevelopment plan was decided, and when the ward assemblyman asked about the breakdown of the 10 billion yen in March, he replied, “I don’t know the breakdown.

It is a five-year plan that runs through Reiwa 2029, and work is scheduled to be done in five blocks, but it seems odd to say more than 10 billion yen when it is unclear how much money will be spent on what and when the breakdown is unknown.

Takao and the others had never been to a council meeting before, and had never even heard of the terms “petition” or “application. However, they started the association because they had questions and a sense of crisis about the plan to cut down trees along a familiar greenway and the way Shibuya Ward was spending money. They went to the assembly, consulted with ward assembly members and experts, and requested information disclosure, and in the process discovered various unnatural things.

One of them is the benches, which cost 4 million yen each. The price looks like a custom-made bench of a luxury brand, but the image shown in the “Main Details of Greenway Re-development” section of the “Overview of Re-development of Tamagawa-josui Old Waterway Greenway” (updated April 12, 2012) on the Shibuya Ward website shows a pink bench with a cork or tile-like joint pattern. The description there is as follows. The description is as follows.

The bench will be made of terrazzo or wood, the same material as the pavement. Terrazzo is a paving material made of crushed stone, brick, and concrete.

(From the “Outline of the Re-alignment of the Tamagawa-josui Old Waterway Greenway” on the Shibuya Ward website.) If you look for terrazzo benches on Amazon.com, you can find them for around 200,000 yen, so why the 4 million yen budget?

Normally, a typical bench in a park in Tokyo costs 200,000 to 300,000 yen. A “kamado bench” for disaster use, which can be used as a bench at all times and as a kamado for cooking food in the event of a disaster, costs about 340,000 yen. And yet, each bench costs 4,000,000 yen.

When I asked if the ward assemblyman had any ideas about using them as disaster benches, he replied, “Anyway, we only put up design-oriented ones. The pink “ I don’t even know where the pink “blocks” came from,” said Takao.

The design is more important than functionality, just as in “THE TOKYO TOILET. Unlike toilets, however, big names such as Kengo Kuma do not appear in the brief.