Yesterday, Tokyo Governor Koike spoke at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan about the challenges Tokyo faces achieving a sustainable city. At the end of her talk, she was asked questions about the Jingu Gaien redevelopment project. You can watch the video here, this link takes you directly to the start of the Jingu Gaien related questions.  

As usual, Koike's answers were slippery and either outright incorrect or twisting the facts. In several cases, she used the Trump-like strategy of giving a simple answer, such as "the amount of greenery is increasing!", which is not actually true if you look at the details, but the simpler answer sticks in people's minds better than the more complicated actuality.

I appreciate that the moderator followed up and asked harder questions. I hope that at some point there will be an opportunity to force her to answer even more detailed questions about the Jingu Gaien project.

Below is my summary of the topics raised, Governor Koike's responses, and my rebuttal. This summary is based on my listening to both the Japanese and the English; although the interpreter was doing her best it seems she wasn't familiar with the specifics of this project and some of the terminology, so things got a little confusing.

The first question asked whether Koike was going to use her powers under Tokyo's Environmental Impact Ordinance to ask the developers to reconsider or revise their plan.

In her answer Koike talked about the Environmental Assessment Committee continuing their deliberations and going through the process steps one by one. She however didn't mention that even though the committee is indeed continuing their deliberations, and the head of the committee has said that the committee cannot give a green light to the project at this time, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government went ahead and gave permission for the start of construction preparations and the developers have fenced off parts of Jingu Gaien and put in construction equipment. Also viewing the second ball stadium/golf practice center from above from the cafe in the nearby Seinenkan hotel this past Sunday, it could be seen that the field is already starting to be dug up, so construction is clearly beginning.

Koike called the Jingu Gaien redevelopment project "not a Tokyo government initiative", emphasized that Meiji Jingu is the main "operator business entity," and said that Meiji Jingu and the other developers are the ones planning which facilities to keep or not. This ignores that fact that a 2012 meeting record obtained by Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly member Akira Harada shows that the TMG presented the idea to former Prime Minister Mori, including the idea of switching the locations of the baseball stadium and the rugby stadium (which would require tearing down and rebuilding both). The attendees then discussed how to convince Meiji Jingu to go along with the plan. So trying to claim that the Tokyo government is not responsible is disingenuous to put it mildly. 

Koike claimed that there are many people who mistakenly think that the gingko trees will be cut down. Although the four rows along the road leading to the Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery will not be cut down, the smaller two rows leading to the rugby stadium will indeed be removed (the developers claim that they are going to try to transplant them, but that seems unlikely to be realistic given their large size). Also, scholars have said that the placement of the new baseball stadium only a few meters from the gingko trees is sure to damage the roots and kill them.

Koike then showed a slide showing that the number of trees will go from 1904 to 1998. This is due to planting of more trees. However, not all trees are equal -- huge hundred year old trees provide significantly more CO2 sequestering and cooling effect than small new saplings. Scholars have pointed out that this is a problem with the plan. 

Koike claimed that the % of greenery will increase. However, that calculation is done using surface area covered by green, and includes lawns and also small spots of potted plants that will be placed on the roof of the baseball stadium (these are visible shaded green in the diagram she showed). Although the surface area of green will increase, the volume of green will go down significantly due to the felling of huge large trees.  And even if her calculation were true, it wouldn't make up for the increase in CO2 created by building high rises and two new stadiums (as she claimed in response to the moderator's last question).

Koike also said that the % of open space will go up, but on her chart the current softball fields -- a wide open expanse -- are shown as not being open space. So this is misleading also.

Koike then tried to invoke the spirit of the creators of Jingu Gaien. But how would those people feel about having the trees they donated cut down in order to make room for high rise office towers. 

She even had the gall to claim that projection mapping (a type of event held at Jingu Gaien last year) was one of the things people loved about Jingu Gaien. She clearly was grasping at straws. 

Lastly, she dismissed concerns about potential damage to the gingko trees by claiming that the current cafes are closer to the gingko avenue than the new baseball stadium will be. That is not true, as the baseball stadium will be only 6 meters from the trees. Also, the gingko trees are starting to show damage that experts believe is from the building of the cafes 40 years ago, so it's not as it it's ok to build there. Furthermore, the deep pilings that will be used in the construction of the large baseball stadium will be significantly larger and go farther underground than those used in building the small cafe buildings, and thus will do significantly more damage to the roots of the gingko trees. The tall fence of the stadium will also cut off natural light to the trees. 

I hope journalists will see through these Trump-like tactics!