Plans for World Trade Centre site come under fire

The six proposals for the redevelopment of the World Trade Centre site in New York have been accused of lacking imagination and are driven by "hard economics" rather than concerns for the area.

Urban planner Margaret Helfand, from the New York New Visions group, said they did not meet the spirit of design principles previously outlined by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.

"That called for a vibrant, mixed use community. What we got was what was there before, packaged differently," she said.

Architect Beverly Willis, the founder of civic group Rebuild Downtown Our Town, said the plans were driven by hard economics.

"There's no heart in them and no recognition of what we all had been led to believe would occur, that we would wind up with something wonderful on this site," she added.

Even New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg seemed unenthusiastic, commenting that the plans were simply "a start."

The similar blueprints all include a cluster of buildings around open space and a September 11 memorial. The highest proposed structure is 85 storeys high, 25 less than the 110-storey World Trade Centre.

The six proposals will be narrowed down to three by September with the final design chosen in December.