Yesterday I went to the opening of the new RCA Pier park on Camden’s waterfront. Phaedra Trethan over at the Courier captured both the mood and rhetoric surrounding the ribbon-cutting: 

But it’s more than just a pretty place, noted Shawn McCaney of the William Penn Foundation, which helped fund the $4 million park along with NJDEP and developer Liberty Property Trust.

“This is a high-quality public space that will help protect the quality of the Delaware River,” he said, noting the improvements in water quality, park development on both sides of the river and greater pollution controls.

“If people have access to the river, if they enjoy it, they will take care of it,” he added.

That language of celebrating access really struck me. Because development in Camden has become a Rorschach Test of sorts — people see all kinds of different things in it. And this park was no different. For the cynical, the park uses public and philanthropic funds for a space directly adjacent to the new American Water facility. It’s much easier for commuters to access than residents. One might reasonably ask “who is this park for?” 

But squint, and that Rorschach ink blot may also be something different. Is it public and philanthropic dollars making an amenity for a company that has already received public assistance to come to the waterfront? Or is it a good faith effort to open up a space that residents have been excluded from? 

Or, to put it another way, is it a coup to get the William Penn Foundation to make such a major investment across the river? Or is it an indictment that the place they would choose to make such an investment is directly in front of a corporate headquarters and set apart from the vast majority of residents? 

These issues are particularly tricky because the American Water infrastructure is built. It’s here to stay. How does quality development grow around it?

An example:

At the ribbon-cutting freeholder Jeffrey Nash stood in front of residents and made a promise. He said this “will be another park for the community to use twenty-four seven, 365 days a year.”

Fifteen minutes later, I was walking back with a few neighbors. One of them told me how days before he and his family had been turned away from cutting through the American Water lobby to access the waterfront. The company had put “No Public Access” signs on the doors. Without the ability to cut through the lobby, residents from surrounding neighborhoods would have to walk blocks around the facility to access the park. 

One might reasonably say that the park is an effort to avoid exclusion of residents. To give them a space on the waterfront and reasons to go there. A public space for public use. 

And one might just as reasonably say that without the ability to cut through a blocks-long private facility on the waterfront, the RCA Pier park might as well be a private park for the employees of a company that just received millions in controversial tax credits to come to the city. Because that’s who will be its primary users.

What do you see?