A planning expert at Knights believes a solid exit strategy will be key when determining how this year’s Winter Olympics will be viewed in the future.
The games in Milan Cortina are taking place this month with the event being billed as one of the most sustainable and heavily reused Winter Games in history.
However, there is concern over how the infrastructure will be used going forward with Planning team Associate at Knights, Hannah Smith, warning against so-called “white elephants.”
She said:
“The sustainability of the ongoing games in Italy is a solid foundation for the hosts to build on with approximately 85% of venues already existing.
However, it’s where they’ve constructed new facilities that is proving controversial. For instance, the original sliding track in Cortina had been closed for some time having become very expensive to run and upkeep. There had been a thought that it was be reopened for the Games, but it was demolished in favour of a new facility.
This is an area of outstanding natural beauty so there’s been a bone of contention with this new build as hundreds of mature trees have been chopped down whilst they have used thousands of cubic meters of new concrete, in addition to demolishing the original track. Retrofitting is by far the more environmentally friendly option, as this takes advantage of that embedded carbon in the existing infrastructure.
Although this new sliding track is top of the range and supposedly uses eco-friendly technology, people locally are feeling a little misled about what is happening in this very picturesque area.
And this is where there is a clear difference between hosting the Winter Olympics to the Summer. Quite often, hosts of the summer games use brownfield sites to develop their facilities whereas it’s much harder for winter hosts to do that – with the most appropriate locations often areas of natural beauty set high in the mountains.
This makes it even more important that they learn from other Winter Olympic hosts when it comes to how these new, rebuilt or recycled venues are using going forward. Planning and infrastructure have a major role in a Games’ legacy so it’s vital there is an exit strategy in place to ensure they build on the momentum created by hosting, be that using the athletes’ accommodation, creating destinations for tourism, or encouraging local communities to use these sports venues.
Having said that, this isn’t always as straightforward as it sounds, and a lot of Olympic sites have become white elephants.
Now, that's not necessarily because there wasn't a plan in place. Occasionally, it relates to the economic situation that followed. Turin paid the price for the financial crash that followed shortly after they hosted the Winter Olympics in 2006. The anticipated market for all the infrastructure they’d planned didn’t materialise, and while the International Olympic Committee maintain that the games revitalised the city, it was quite difficult for them to make use of those facilities, and many were left unused for a decade.
Although not everything is to do with the physical infrastructure of the Games, it’s key that a futureproofing strategy is in place. I think a lot of the controversies that came along with both Paris and London particularly were the gentrification and the removal of existing communities - which is really very difficult to square with the idea of placemaking.
For example, the idea behind the athletes’ village in Paris, was to provide a large proportion of affordable housing and that doesn’t seem to have materialised with some of these homes now going on the market at a relatively high price, even for Paris.
London saw almost a decade pass before development on some of the tower blocks in Stratford took shape. This saw hundreds of potential homes lying empty for a substantial period in an area where affordable housing is at a premium.
Milan-Cortina, and indeed future hosts, can learn from these cities by ensuring that a realistic plan is in place – ensuring they work out their priorities ahead of times whilst are able to challenge themselves over what is possible in the here and now – and what can wait.
I think one of the main things that tends to happen with these new sporting spaces is that they are amazing for a short window of time but, due to poor preparation, there is not necessarily ongoing investment – with many of the stadia used in Athens in 2004 left to crumble. So, ensuring there is a scheme and the funding in place to maintain these buildings and ensure they continue to have a life after the month of the Olympics and Paralympics is really important.
To conclude, it is nice to see that things relating to placemaking and futureproofing the infrastructure of an Olympic games is moving in the right direction with Paris 2024 one of the first required, as a rule, to have a plan in place for what was going to happen afterwards. This is overwhelmingly positive as it’s not something that historically has always been considered.
There can be no guarantee that there will be no more white elephants, but this leads me to be hopeful as we’ll be able to use data from these plans and reports to help future cities make more informed planning decisions going forward, including where they should target their investment.”