Review by the DRB will come before a developer’s meeting with nearby residents for each project – which is already required as part of the citizen participation ordinance. While the DRB process is required, conformance with the recommendations of that body is voluntary.

The city council had previously approved the design guideline review program at its Feb. 7, 2011 meeting. The city planning commission unanimously recommended the change to the city’s ordinance at its April 5, 2011 meeting. [Previous Chronicle coverage, which includes a detailed timeline of the design guidelines work, dating back to a work group formed in 2006: "Ann Arbor Hotel First to Get Design Review?"]

This brief was filed from the city council’s chambers on the second floor of city hall, located at 301 E. Huron. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

Light pink areas are all city-owned land. The red outlined area is the DDA tax district. The green rectangle is the smaller area of focus for which the DDA has been given responsibility to lead a process to explore alternative uses of city-owned surface parking lots. The green rectangle is bounded by Ashley, Division, Liberty and William streets. (Links to higher resolution image. Map data is available on the city's website at a2gov.org/data)

The parcels are currently used as surface parking lots – except for the Library Lot, which is the construction site for an underground parking garage that, when completed, will offer around 640 parking spaces. It was previously a 192-space surface parking lot.

The committee meeting included a presentation on the city’s sewer system from Cresson Slotten, a manager with the city of Ann Arbor’s systems planning unit.  The agenda also included a conversation with Doug Kelbaugh, former dean of the University of Michigan’s college of architecture and urban planning, and Kit McCullough, who teaches at the school. The two are interested in helping facilitate the public process stipulated in the city council parcel-by-parcel resolution. Also interested in sharing information he’s gathering from downtown property owners is Peter Allen, a local developer who attended the partnerships meeting.

One major theme that emerged during the committee’s discussion is the idea that a public space can be successful if it is programmed, used and supported by the community, even if its design is lacking.

The parcel-by-parcel resolution was passed at the same meeting that the council voted to terminate the review process for proposals the city had solicited for use of the top of the underground parking structure.

The termination of that RFP review process came just before the council was supposed to consider formally signing a letter of intent to hammer out a development agreement for the finalist project – a hotel/conference center proposed by Valiant Partners. [Chronicle coverage: "Ann Arbor Council Focuses on Downtown"]

Sanitary, Stormwater Sewer System

Cresson Slotten, an engineer who is a manager in the city’s systems planning unit, gave the DDA partnerships committee an overview of Ann Arbor’s downtown infrastructure, focusing on the sanitary and stormwater sewer systems. The sanitary system is designed to handle everything that goes down toilets, sinks, and showers, and that is treated at the wastewater treatment plant on Dixboro Road near Geddes Dam, before being piped into the Huron River. The stormwater system handles rain – the curb drains in streets, for example, lead to that system.

Slotten’s presentation came in the wake of a recent communication delivered by interim city administrator Tom Crawford at the city council’s May 2, 2011 meeting, which advised the council that the city’s sanitary sewer system had been threatened by recent rainfall. The system had been filled to the point of overflowing during recent heavy rains, he said, telling the council that local soils are saturated to the point that they cannot absorb additional rainfall. That means that all additional rain becomes runoff.

If the city maintains two separate systems – one for wastewater and one for rain – why does rainfall affect the wastewater system? As Slotten laid out to the partnerships committee, the sanitary sewer also receives flow from rainfall – because the footing drains of some buildings, including many residential properties, are connected directly to the sanitary sewer. Footing drains run around the perimeter of a building’s foundation, collecting water and leading it away from the foundation. Before 1981, it was common practice in southeast Michigan to connect footing drains to the sanitary sewer system.

It’s undesirable to have rainwater flowing through the sanitary sewer system, because it winds up at the wastewater treatment plant, where it gets treated. That’s an expense to the city – even though rainwater obviously does not need treatment before flowing into the river. The additional burden on the sanitary sewer can also cause sewage backups in basement drains.

By way of background, residents on Iroquois Place, near the intersection of Packard and Stadium, experienced dramatic sewage backups in their basements in June 2010 during a heavy rain. The city prioritized its footing drain disconnect program for the neighborhood, but city has denied damage claims, which for one homeowner amounted to $15,000. [Previous Chronicle coverage on the footing drain disconnect program from two years ago: "Drain Disconnect Time for Homeowners"]

Money for the Iroquois Place disconnections came in part from the University of Michigan, and was related to the renovations at the football stadium, which added load to the city’s sanitary sewer system. Due to the added burden, UM paid the city for 140 disconnections at a cost of $10,040 per project.

In fact, all new developments in the city are subject to a standard specification requiring that the additional burden to the sanitary sewer system be offset with footing drain disconnects. The offset specification was authorized by the city council in 2003, in response to an administrative consent order from the Michigan Dept. of Environmental Quality. [.pdf of city's standard specifications on added sanitary sewer burden] [.pdf of 2003 city council resolution authorizing standard specifications]

In his presentation, Slotten explained to the DDA partnerships committee how the standard specifications include a 20% system recovery factor: For 1.0 gallons of increased burden on the sanitary sewage system, 1.2 gallons of flow needs to be reduced elsewhere.

Slotten also outlined for the committee how new investment in additional capacity for either the stormwater system or the drinking water system is limited by the requirement that only the existing infrastructure that has reached the end of its useful life can be replaced at a cost to ratepayers – consumers who pay for drinking water and sanitary sewer service. That is, ratepayers don’t subsidize development or invest speculatively on system expansions. [This legal principle factored into the 1998 Bolt v. Lansing court decision, which involved a stormwater system expansion in Lansing.]

Slotten described it as a challenge for the future to contend with how developers are charged for localized expansions in the sewer system that are required to support a development. One scenario is that an initial development uses all of the available capacity, which means that the next development needs to mitigate the additional need. A third development might then be able to use that additional capacity paid for by the second development – which he said does not seem equitable. [.pdf of Slotten's infrastructure slide presentation]

Public Process: City Council Resolution

Slotten’s presentation on the downtown infrastructure was invited in the context of the DDA’s city-council assigned responsibility to lead a process to explore alternative uses for some of the city-owned surface parking lots in downtown Ann Arbor. The amended resolution narrowed in scope the original resolution, which called on the DDA to look at the entire DDA tax district. [.pdf of city council resolution as amended on April 4, 2011] [.pdf of city-owned parcels to be considered by the DDA]

Slotten’s presentation is part of the Phase I activity described in the resolution:

Public Services: Obtain detailed public infrastructure information for Parcels, including data on adjacent storm, water, and sanitary main capacity, hydrant coverage and other capacity-related information.

Somewhat more controversial than the public infrastructure component of the DDA’s process was the part of the resolution that addressed the kinds of input the DDA would seek from the community.

The council required several months to pass the resolution. Councilmembers had considered but postponed the resolution at its March 7, 2011 meeting, and before that at its Jan. 18, 2011 meeting. At the March 7 meeting, Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) had complained that no revisions had been made to the resolution to accommodate objections made at the Jan. 18 meeting. [.pdf of the unamended resolution with the parcel-by-parcel plan] At that meeting, objections to the proposal included “resolved” clauses in the resolution that would (1) require placement of items on the city council’s agenda; and (2) under some circumstances require the city to reimburse the DDA for its expenses.

At its Jan. 5 board meeting, the Ann Arbor DDA board had approved a resolution urging passage of the council resolution, which had been circulated as early as the city council’s Dec. 20, 2010 meeting. At that time, Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) had attached a copy of the draft resolution to the council’s meeting agenda, and alerted his council colleagues to it at the Dec. 20 meeting.

Receiving a good deal of discussion by the city council was wording in the resolution that, in its final form, reads as follows in relevant part:

Phase II …

• Solicit robust public input and conduct public meetings to determine residents’ Parcel-level downtown vision
• Solicit UM, EMU, and other higher education faculty to authorize class participation in the visioning process
• Meeting(s) with UM Planning staff to maximize coordination
• Meetings with business and community leaders to obtain their analysis of downtown’s strengths and weaknesses, its opportunities and inherent obstacles …

Phase III …

• Solicit robust public input and confirm the extent of community consensus for the Parcel-by-Parcel Plan through public meetings and surveys
• Hold meetings with business and community stakeholders to determine professional assessment of the Parcel-by-Parcel Plan …

Conversation with Kelbaugh, McCullough, Allen

Doug Kelbaugh is former dean of the University of Michigan college of architecture and urban planning. Kit McCullough is a lecturer at the college. Peter Allen is a local developer. All three attended the DDA partnerships committee meeting.

Conversation: Introductions

Kelbaugh told the committee members that two years ago he’d stepped down from the deanship of the the UM college of architecture – he’d moved to Ann Arbor 12 years ago to take that job. He said he thought it’s great that the city controls four key sites in the downtown area that the DDA is being asked to look at. He noted that he’d used the sites as student projects. Kelbaugh told the committee he lives downtown “right around the corner.” [He lives in the Armory building at the corner of Ann Street and Fifth Avenue. It was converted to residential living space by local developer and former DDA board member Ed Shaffran.]

Kelbaugh noted that he has a history of involvement in downtown Ann Arbor planning issues, having participated on a task force a few years ago. He said he enjoys living downtown. [.pdf of 2004 Downtown Residential Task Force report]

He mentioned that his colleague, McCullough, does not have a driver’s license, is thus sensitive to walkability issues. He stressed the need to have a 5-25 year vision for the downtown, so that the whole can become greater than the sum of its parts. Public expectations shouldn’t be unreasonable, he said – those expectations should be aspirational, yet feasible.

Conversation: Constraining the Issues, Public Engagement

Board member Russ Collins mentioned to Kelbaugh that the partnerships committee had invited David di Rita of the Roxbury Group to its last meeting and he’d suggested that in terms of requests for proposals from developers, a somewhat more specific RFP would create a better outcome.

Rather than saying, “Here’s a plot of land, we’re accepting proposals,” Collins reported that di Rita’s advice had been to be more specific. [Di Rita had consulted for the city on the Library Lot RFP, a process which the city council terminated this spring. Chronicle coverage that includes parts of the April DDA partnerships committee meeting: "Balancing Ann Arbor, Detroit and a Vision"]

Kelbaugh responded to Collins by saying that good designers welcome constraints – they don’t necessary want a blank slate.

McCullough suggested that the public process could be used to get community consensus that can inform what the RFP says. Bob Guenzel – former Washtenaw County administrator and the newest appointee to the DDA board – wondered how much should be presented in advance of the public process. He ventured that you don’t just go out there and say, “What do you want the downtown to look like?”

Kelbaugh noted that Peter Allen, who was in the committee meeting audience, had volunteered to do a study, canvassing all the surrounding property and business owners around the sites. Kelbaugh felt that Allen’s work would be useful preparation. [The Chronicle encountered Allen downtown recently as Allen was beginning that canvassing work.]

So for the public engagement process, Kelbaugh told the committee that he and McCullough were thinking of two or three town hall meetings. McCullough said first meeting would be educational and would “set the table” for the public. For the second meeting, they would come back with two or three concepts. Kelbaugh said there will never be unanimous agreement, but there might be some overlapping agreement. He suggested that there are two ways to handle the public meetings: (1) hire a professional facilitator without subject matter knowledge; or (2) hire someone with subject matter knowledge – the Kelbaugh-McCullough alternative.

Kelbaugh made a case for a subject-matter expert by saying that it should not just be a list-making exercise. It wouldn’t just be a feel-good taking down of every idea that everyone has, he said. They could provide some real-time feedback. The session would have some “viscosity,” he said.

Responding to Collins’ concerns about the kind of reactions from the public that might be encountered, Kelbaugh said a certain amount of “ventilation” is good. You have to let people vent, he said, but you have to separate the wheat from the chaff.

DDA board member Sandi Smith noted that as much as the DDA is limited in focus to just the four parcels in the rectangle, she wondered how planning for the limited area could take into account how it should fit into a broader context – it’s not located in a vacuum. “How do you work that into public process?” she wondered.

McCullough suggested that an initial meeting can address what people’s aspirations are for the downtown. Kelbaugh observed that if there is any light rail planned for downtown, a choice for running it down Liberty Street would make a big difference, compared to bringing it down William Street.

Smith cautioned against inviting people to attach everything they want to a single parcel – that sets the whole thing up for failure, she said.

Conversation: Subject Matter of Downtown Ann Arbor

Part of the subject matter knowledge, Kelbaugh said, involves understanding what some of the physical constraints are. There are, for example, physical constraints on the Library Lot, which are further complicated by the nearby Ann Arbor Transportation Authority’s Blake Transit Center. Smith noted that the “air rights” to a newly constructed Blake Transit Center would need to be factored into the thinking.

Kelbaugh said that he and McCullough actually think Kline’s Lot is “a different animal” from the rest of the parcels. McCullough thought that Ashley Street – which bounds the Kline’s Lot on the west – might need its own vision. Kelbaugh allowed that it’s true that the Kline’s Lot also fronts on William, like Palio’s Lot and the old Y Lot, but it seems like it might still need to be treated separately.

Kelbaugh said he was glad Library Lane is a done deal. Blocks that are that large tend to “clog up,” Kelbaugh said. [Library Lane is the east-west connection between Division and Fifth that's being created as part of the underground parking garage project.]

The community’s appetite for parkland would never be satisfied, Kelbaugh said. He observed that Ann Arbor doesn’t have a piazza that works, yet. He characterized Main Street as a real jewel, but said it has no place to gather – it’s just linear. Kelbaugh said the Library Lot is not really big enough to be a piazza, but it’s a possibility. As for an “outdoor living room”-type space, he said the Palio Lot doesn’t really work, because that kind of space needs to be mid-block.

Conversation: Programming, Design

Collins responded to Kelbaugh’s concerns about the Palio Lot by saying that it’s not just a matter of the space – it’s what goes on there. Collins related his experience as executive director of the Michigan Theater by noting that the community had rallied to save the theater, but a lot of people think that once the space is there, you don’t need to do anything else.

Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board member Russ Collins before the May 11 partnerships committee meeting started. The board positions are volunteer. Collins earns his livelihood as executive director of the Michigan Theater. (Photos by writer)

The Ark, a nonprofit acoustic music club on Main Street, exists because of programing, not because there’s a natural market for folk music, Collins said. It’s well-programmed and the community supports it, he said – that’s why it exists. DDA board member Keith Orr noted that The Ark is not the easiest thing to spot or see, yet people throng to it. Collins reiterated that The Ark exists because the community supports it beyond ticket prices. He urged his colleagues on the committee to think about separating design from purpose. The community can create a space that’s valuable, even if it’s terrible space. He mentioned the Kerrytown Concert House and the Ann Arbor District Library as other entities that exist because the community supports them and because of their excellent management and programming.

Collins said the same could be done for Liberty Plaza – which is widely thought to be a poorly designed space on the corner of Liberty and Division. If there was $250,000 a year to put programs on in that park, it’d be a different story, he said – ice sculptures or an active stage on a regular basis, and the like. Josie Parker – director of the Ann Arbor District Library, who typically attends DDA partnerships committee meetings – noted that during the summer months, the Bank of Ann Arbor sponsors the Sonic Lunch concert series at Liberty Plaza, and that costs the bank money.

For programming, McCullough suggested that Campus Martius in Detroit as a good model. It’s programmed and supported as a space – the idea of an urban living room needs to be supported like that.

Conversation: Peter Allen’s Role

Amber Miller, a planning and research specialist with the DDA, asked how Kelbaugh and McCullough planned to bring into the process business owners and other stakeholders, in addition to public. Kelbaugh answered by saying Peter Allen’s role would be valuable. Kelbaugh also observed that McCullough would not be teaching during the fall term and would be available to do some of that work. He stressed the need to get people to participate who don’t normally come out to meetings – they need to get younger voices. Collins suggested that perhaps it’s the DDA’s job to figure out how to do that.

Asked to elaborate more on his role in the process, Peter Allen said what he’s trying to do in the next three months is talk to around 25 property owners about their business needs – he’s just getting started. He reported that he’d already talked to Herb David, who owns Herb David Guitar Studios. David has very strong feelings, Allen reported.

Allen said that the guitar studio, on the southeast corner of Liberty and Fifth, gives the area a lot of character – and David wants it to grow. He’d also talked to Ali Ramlawi, owner of the Jerusalem Garden restaurant (around the corner from Herb David), who sees good days coming. So far, Allen had only talked to about 10% of the people he plans to meet.

Peter Allen, standing, points out to DDA partnerships committee members the area he's focusing on in conversations with property owners.

One important property owner in the area is Bill Martin, who owns the building just west of Liberty Plaza. Allen said he wanted to talk to Martin about bulldozing the building – Allen stressed that he didn’t know if Martin would be open to that idea, and felt that fair market rate would need to be offered. Allen had two words for the credit union building on the block’s south side, east of the library: bulldozer bait.

The Kempf House, though, Allen characterized as an anchor. Allen felt like some of the other historic houses on the block could be picked up and moved around on the same block. Allen said he wanted to find out: What do property owners on the block think is good for their business?

Guenzel wanted to know in what capacity Allen was currently talking with business owners: “Are you doing that independently?” Allen told him he was doing it as a real estate broker, trying to help property owners analyze the situation – he’s doing it “on my own nickel.” The property owners would be potential clients, he said.

Guenzel wanted to know if Allen would share information. Yes, answered Allen, just as he had a decade earlier, when Washtenaw County had been looking for a site to place a consolidated homeless shelter. He said he’d helped point the county towards the property on East Huron Street, which was owned at the time by National City Bank. [.pdf of Jan. 19, 2000 Washtenaw County board of commissioners resolution]

Conversation: Next Steps

Kelbaugh said he would like to hit the ground running in the fall by preparing this summer, but noted that he and McCullough can’t do it for free. He’s found that work you do for free is not taken seriously.

Kelbaugh emphasized that the work he and McCullough were proposing to do would be parallel but independent and separate from Allen’s work.

Guenzel asked about a timeline. Kelbaugh suggested the start of school in the fall as a potential start of the public process. The summer would be a good window for gathering data.

Next steps: McCullough and Kelbaugh will come back to the DDA’s June partnerships committee meeting with a specific proposal. A calendar of all DDA meetings is available on the DDA website.

Pre-premiere socializing at the Workantile Exchange for films on urban planning and forms of local government. (Photos by the writer.)

The first film, “The Great Street Toolkit,” focuses on urban planning. The second, “The Council-Manager Form of Local Government,” is an introduction to how the council-manager system is different from a strong mayor system. The city of Ann Arbor uses a modified version of the council-manager form.

As Westphal himself noted lightheartedly, it was the “true wonks” in the audience who stayed for the second film – on council-manager government.

And it turns out that most of the 30 people in the audience were true wonks.

But linked indirectly to the evening in multiple ways was one person who was not in the audience at all –  local developer and downtown property owner, Ed Shaffran.

The wonks included people like Wendy Rampson, head of planning for the city of Ann Arbor; Ed Koryzno, Ypsilanti’s city manager; Diane Giannola, Ann Arbor city planning commissioner; Doug Kelbaugh, former dean of the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning; and Steve Bean, recent independent candidate for mayor of Ann Arbor.

Doug Kelbaugh, former dean of the University of Michigan College of Architecture and Urban Planning, talks with Wendy Rampson, head of Ann Arbor's planning staff.

Westphal, a video producer and urban researcher, will be recognizable to many Chronicle readers as one of the city’s planning commissioners; he also serves on the city’s environmental commission. His previous work includes the film “Insights into a Lively Downtown,” a case study of Ann Arbor.

Each of Westphal’s new films had a running time of 23 minutes, and there was opportunity for the audience to discuss the content of the films before, between and after the showings. Prompting much of the discussion was how the material in the “Great Street” film relates to the Washington-to-Huron block of Main Street, where the Workantile Exchange itself is located. The Washington-to-Huron block includes a number of banking opportunities: Citizens Bank, Chase, KeyBank, and PNC Bank. In addition, Comerica is located just north of Huron, in the One North Main building.

But as the “Great Streets” film makes clear, neither professional planners nor Westphal are fans of banks as a ground-floor use in a downtown environment. [The film was funded in part by a grant from the Urban Design and Preservation division of the American Planning Association.]

Westphal has expressed the same view before, most recently in an early November presentation he made to his colleagues on the planning commission. Describing a surveillance camera photo of a bank robbery in progress, said Westphal: “What I’d like to convince you of tonight is that there are two crimes being committed in this photo. I contend that what this thief is stealing from the bank doesn’t even come close to what underused banks, like this one, steal from the vitality of a downtown.”

Kirk Westphal answered questions as the credits rolled.

And in an opinion piece published in the April 5, 2009 Ann Arbor News, Westphal expressed the general view that ground floor uses should be regulated in the zoning code to give preference to “active uses” – like retail stores, cafes and restaurants.

So how did Ed Shaffran factor into the evening?

When Westphal’s opinion piece was published in The News, it appeared side-by-side with one from Shaffran, who’s a downtown property owner and developer, and who offered a view opposing Westphal’s. From Shaffran’s piece: “On a theoretical level, to say a bank is not an active use and should be located to a secondary street borders on National Socialism.”

The impetus for the two opinion pieces was the city’s A2D2 rezoning initiative for downtown Ann Arbor, which at the time was being debated by the city council. The original A2D2 proposal included some restrictions on ground-floor uses in certain areas – preference was given to active uses. But those restrictions were removed from the version of the A2D2 rezoning that was approved by the Ann Arbor city council in November 2009.

And Shaffran, as it turns out, was featured in a serendipitous cameo in Westphal’s “Great Streets” film, which included footage shot by Westphal in downtown Ann Arbor. In the frame, Shaffran can briefly be seen walking towards the camera east along Liberty Street, talking on his cell phone.

At left: Jesse Bernstein, chair of the board of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority, chats with Ray Detter, president of the Downtown Citizens Advisory Council, before the film premiere. In the foreground is Trek Glowacki, co-owner of the Workantile Exchange.

Another Shaffran connection to the film premiere: He owns the building at 118 Main St. that houses the Workantile Exchange, where the films were shown.

And it was the Workantile Exchange itself that generated some of the conversation after the “Great Streets” showing. Why? Parade examples of non-active uses of space are banks and offices. And the coworking space offered by the Workantile Exchange is somewhat similar to shared office space. Does coworking space constitute an active use in an urban planning sense?

The day before the showing, Trek Glowacki, co-owner of the Workantile Exchange, explained to The Chronicle that one key difference between a coworking space and a shared office arrangement is the business model. In a shared office space, every tenant would have an assigned desk, and the rent for the space would be divided equally among the tenants. If a tenant moves out, the remaining tenants would pay slightly more rent. If tenants were added, the rent would decrease accordingly.

In contrast, the Workantile’s coworking space doesn’t guarantee a permanent desk in a specific location. The furniture is on wheels, and will be configured differently on any given day, depending on who shows up to work, when they show up, and who they might be collaborating with. The Workantile is calibrated to a culture that is inherently more collaborative than an arrangement where the only expectation is that you pay the rent for your desk. This community of coworking is a key part of what Glowacki describes as the Workantile’s role in the city’s economic development.

So, the monthly fee paid to the Workantile is not a desk rental, but rather a membership that gives access to a working community and the expectation of a contribution to that community. The space itself includes all the typical amenities that you’d expect in an office, including access to two conference rooms.

Window view of the Workantile Exchange last Wednesday night.

The configurable space inside the Workantile makes it suitable for hosting various kinds of events. For example, on Friday, Dec. 3, the same day as Midnight Madness in downtown Ann Arbor, author David Erik Nelson, a Workantile member, hosted a book-signing event for his latest title, “Snip, Burn, Solder, Shred.” The book is written for parents who’d like to make things with their kids – like boomerangs. With all the tables rolled to the walls, there was plenty of room to fling the boomerangs around the main floor. The Workantile Christmas tree is now bedecked with boomerangs.

And of course the space is suitable for hosting a film premiere.

So one of questions at the conclusion of the film came from the Workantile’s Glowacki, who told Westphal to be honest: Is the Workantile Exchange an active use of space?

Before answering, Westphal wanted some clarification about what the usage patterns were. Glowacki told him there was generally someone working 20 hours out of every day. Westphal noted that the use was certainly more active when Mighty Good Coffee had its storefront at the front of the space – but in September 2010 Mighty Good moved up the block to a new location at 217 N. Main St. Now, the whole space is occupied by the Workantile.

At a meeting of Workantile coworkers soon after Mighty Good Coffee departed, they discussed possible alternatives for the area previously used by the coffee shop’s store front. One idea batted around at the meeting was rotating window displays showing off the work of members. Attractive windows offering things of interest to pedestrians is one feature that Westphahl’s “Great Streets” film highlighted as important for a vibrant downtown.

From outside the Workantile on Wednesday night, the film premiere taking place on the other side of the glass wasn’t necessarily accessible to every member of the public – the sign on the door indicated a private event was taking place. But through the window it was clear the space was filled with activity.

Dave Askins, editor and co-founder of The Chronicle, is a member of the Workantile Exchange.

Map of proposed BIZ area: Main Street from William Street in the south to Huron Street in the north. (Image links to complete .pdf file of the Main Street BIZ plan.)

On Wednesday, a cold and rainy evening, a group of downtown Ann Arbor property owners gathered in the city council chambers for a public meeting gaveled to order by the city clerk, Jackie Beaudry.

They were there not to discuss rain, but rather snow. At least in part.

On their agenda was consideration of a plan for a business improvement zone (BIZ) on Main Street – bounded by William Street to the south and Huron Street to the north – which would assess an extra tax on owners of property in the zone.

That plan for the BIZ includes snow removal as one of three main categories of services to be paid for through the BIZ. The other two categories of service in the plan are sidewalk cleaning and landscape plantings.

The plan was approved on a roll call vote of the property owners in attendance on Wednesday night, but not without some dissent. And the approval of the plan on Wednesday is not the final step before the BIZ can be implemented. Still ahead lies a formal public hearing by the city council, a vote by the city council, followed by another vote by property owners – this one by mail.

Background on the Ann Arbor Main Street BIZ

Almost exactly a year ago, the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority‘s partnerships committee reported out to the full board at its Dec. 3, 2008 meeting that Ed Shaffran and Ellie Serras had expressed an interest in creating a self-assessment zone centered on Main Street. They’d inquired about start-up funding, which would entail mostly a consultant and some legal work. Shaffran is a local developer and former chair of the DDA board. Serras is former executive director of the Main Street Area Association.

Ann Arbor city clerk Jackie Beaudry chaired the public meeting for property owners to vote on the business improvement zone proposed for Main Street between William and Huron. (Photo by the writer.)

And four months later, at its April 1, 2009 meeting, the DDA board authorized $83,270 to support the creation of a business improvement zone (BIZ) on South Main Street. The amount included roughly $75,000 plus a 10% contingency. A series of public meetings were held to pitch the idea to downtown property owners, including one at Conor O’Neill’s in June. [Chronicle coverage: "In the Business Improvement Zone"]

The series of public meetings resulted in submittal of a petition to the city clerk supporting the creation of the BIZ, signed by at least 30% of property owners in the district, where each signature is weighted based on the value of the property owned.

That weighting applies to all votes of property owners on matters related to the BIZ. The Ann Arbor city council also heard a presentation at an October work session on the proposed Main Street BIZ. [Chronicle Coverage: "Work Session: Trains, Trash, and Taxes."]

With the 30% petition submitted and a work session under its belt to get familiar with the notion of a BIZ, the city council then voted at its Oct. 19, 2009 meeting to move the BIZ along to the next step of its creation: the city clerk provided written notice to property owners of a public meeting to vote on the plan –  which includes the budget and the formula for assessing property owners.

It was this vote that took place on Wednesday evening. It required a majority of property owners in attendance to pass – weighted based on the value of property they own. [For the state enabling legislation for a BIZ, see Public Act 120 of 1961].

Services Planned Through the Main Street BIZ

The services to be paid for through the Main Street BIZ are divided into two categories – those that are analyzed as providing a “direct benefit” to a property owner and those providing a “common benefit” to all property owners. The distinction between direct and common benefit services is important for the calculation of the tax owed by each property owner.

But first, what are the services?

The direct benefit services are sidewalk snow removal (budgeted at $60,000 per year) and sidewalk cleaning (budgeted at $10,000.) The common benefit services are landscape improvements and maintenance (budgeted at $12,000 a year).

Stephen Kelly questioned whether the cost of the snow removal was reasonable. (Photo by the writer.)

In response to a question from property owner Stephen Kelly and other property owners about what they perceived to be the excessively high cost allocated for snow removal, Ellie Serras explained that in getting estimates from potential snow removal contractors – names they had solicited from property owners in the proposed zone – they had specified: “We want Main Street to be like a hospital zone.”

More specifically, the snow removal service is triggered by accumulations of 1 inch or more, with provisions for the  major accumulations of snow to be physically removed from the downtown area, not just shoveled into the street. The budgeted $60,000 covers up to 40 snowfalls per season.

The warm-weather equivalent of snow removal to be provided by the BIZ is sidewalk cleaning – weekly vacuuming of the sidewalks and semi-annual power washing. In addition, handbills will be removed weekly from public surfaces, and graffiti will be removed on demand. [For Chronicle coverage of Ann Arbor's relatively new graffiti ordinance: "Council OKs Graffiti Law, Questions AATA"]

The landscaping services – categorized as a common benefit – consist of contributing funds (budgeted at $12,000 per year) toward the maintenance of the 44 planter boxes within the district.

Calculating the Tax Owed: Direct versus Common Benefit

In addition to the common benefit service of landscaping, in the BIZ plan budget there are organizational expenses also categorized as common benefits to property owners of the district. Those organizational expenses are budgeted at $36,848 per year.

Broken down in terms of common benefit and direct benefit costs, then, the BIZ plan budget looks like this:

Direct Benefit
Snow removal          $60,000
Sidewalk Cleaning     $10,000
Total Direct Benefit:           $ 70,000

Common Benefit
Landscaping           $12,000
Organizational        $36,848
Total Common Benefit            $ 48,848

Total BIZ Budget                $118,848

-

The assessment formula is designed to generate the $118,848 for the BIZ budget by considering the direct benefit costs and the common benefit costs separately.

Despite appearances, this is not a "lineal foot." Its owner did, however, attend the BIZ public meeting and voted yes on the BIZ plan. (Photo by the writer).

Direct benefit costs, so goes the reasoning, is a function of the amount of frontage along the area where the service is performed, measured in lineal feet. So the cost per lineal foot is calculated by taking the $70,000 in direct benefit costs and dividing by the 3,349 lineal feet of frontage in the zone to get an assessment rate of $20.90 per lineal foot.

The organizers of the BIZ reason that the common benefit costs are a function of the square footage of a property. So the cost per square foot is calculated by taking the $48,848 in common benefit costs and dividing by the 575,998 commercial square feet in the zone to get an assessment rate of $0.0848 per square foot.

So to calculate the tax owed by a property owner in the zone, the formula is:

Tax Owed = [Lineal Feet]*$20.90 +[Commercial Square Feet]*$0.0848

The average BIZ assessment of property owners in the zone, said Ed Shaffran, would be around $2,200.

Concerns Expressed by Property Owners

Besides the high costs associated with the snow removal, a concern was raised about the fairness of the distinction between direct costs and common costs. One point of confusion was whether the tax imposed by the BIZ would change based on changes in property value through time – the BIZ is specified to have a term of seven years. The BIZ tax uses the commercial square footage in its calculation, but not the assessed values of that commercial square footage. The role played by the commercial square footage owned by a property owner merely establishes the percentage of the total BIZ burden shouldered by that property owner.

Beyond the actual mechanics of how the BIZ would be administered, the main worry expressed by a few property owners was that the extra tax burden would be passed along to tenants – retailers on Main Street. The retail environment was repeatedly described as “fragile” and the fear was expressed that even a little extra burden could make the difference between surviving and failing.

One Tenant’s View

It was a tenant who actually argued most energetically for the BIZ – Chris DeRuyver of Affinity Wealth Solutions, a commercial tenant at 122 S. Main. DeRuyver would serve on the board of directors of the BIZ.

Chris DeRuyver describes how clients cancel appointments on snowy days. (Photo by the writer.)

He described how snowy days inevitably led to cancellation of appointments – his clients would call to cancel, saying they didn’t want to trudge through the snow.

“Downtown is like a ghost town on snowy days,” DeRuyver said. He compared his previous experience working out of the 777 Building on Eisenhower, saying he never had cancellations due to snow, because the snow was always removed from the parking lot all the way to the door.

So DeRuyver said the BIZ would address a specific obstacle to the economic success of the Main Street area.

As for the concerns that some property owners had expressed about the additional expense of the tax threatening fragile businesses, he offered this advice: “In a down economy, you can’t be expense-driven; you have to be revenue-driven.”

The Vote

The Chronicle scored the roll call vote read out by city clerk Jackie Beaudry as 26 votes for the BIZ plan, with 2 votes against. Given that the votes had to be weighted by the value of property owned, the city assessor, David Petrak, was on hand to verify that the weighted majority had been achieved.

The next step is for the city council to hold a public hearing and a vote again on the BIZ – likely to happen in January 2010. Assuming approval by the city council, a final vote among property owners conducted by mail would then likely happen in February 2010. The first BIZ assessment would then be made in June 2010 and appear with the July tax bill. BIZ operations would commence in July 2010.

The topic came up after a presentation by DDA executive director Susan Pollay, who was filling in for Rene Greff, a DDA board member and co-owner of Arbor Brewing Company and Corner Brewery. Greff had been scheduled to give the same talk she gave at a DDA retreat in May, outlining the organization’s history, how it works and what it has accomplished. 

So how did panhandling usurp parking as the most-discussed topic related to the DDA? Why aren’t beat cops patrolling downtown? What do merchants think about “Arthur,” one of the regulars who asks passers-by for change along Main Street? It all comes down to money.

The DDA and Beat Cops

We won’t attempt to detail Pollay’s presentation, except to note the part relevant to the issue of beat cops. In 2005 the DDA and the city reached a parking system administration agreement under which the city could ask the DDA for up to $2 million each year not to exceed $10 million over 10 years. Pollay said that as part of that agreement, it was the DDA’s expectation that the city would fund beat cops to the downtown. However, this was not part of the contractual arrangement, she said – the city can use the $2 million for any purpose. So the DDA had no recourse when the city decided to restructure the way it handles patrols.

Until this week, six officers were assigned to walk or bicycle the downtown area, working in pairs at any given time. As part of a restructuring of the Ann Arbor Police Department, those patrols have been eliminated. The Chronicle’s coverage of the May 18 city council meeting reported the explanation that police chief Barnett Jones gave to council:

… Jones explained that the total number of uniforms downtown would actually increase. Officers are required to spend one hour every day outside of their cars – partly to conserve fuel, Jones said. And during these out-of-car breaks, they’d be walking around downtown. Sandi Smith (Ward 1) clarified that by “break” Jones didn’t mean sitting in a cafe eating lunch. Jones also clarified for Smith that the new way of organizing the policing of downtown was not a break from the notion of “community policing.”

One visible sign of this change at Thursday morning’s meeting was the uniform of Doug Martelle, who was formerly on bike patrol in the downtown area. At previous meetings of the Main Street Area Association, Martelle and his partner wore cycling shorts. On Thursday, Martelle was alone, and in a regular uniform.

During the Q&A following Pollay’s talk, Roger Pothus described an incident this week near Renaissance, his clothing store on South Division. There was a break-in at a home during the middle of the afternoon – Pothus said that people who witnessed the incident and called in to report it were “lectured” that there were fewer police officers on the force and that no one could come out to the scene. They were told that if they wanted to report the crime, they needed to come to the downtown police station, Pothus said.

The topic of security shifted to panhandling, as someone suggested that the city’s mayor, John Hieftje, be asked to walk the downtown area in the late afternoon, particularly when panhandlers gather around Starbucks at the corner of Main and Liberty.

Several people identified “Arthur” as one of the more aggressive panhandlers, known for walking with a single crutch. Rebecca Konieczny, owner of the Busy Hands yarn and gift store, said she’d gotten so mad that she followed him up and down Main Street, calling the police from her cell phone. Someone else suggested that perhaps merchants start carrying mace and pepper spray, to which Martelle responded: “I can’t condone the use of mace on the homeless population.”

Pollay said the best way to get increased levels of service is to call the city each time there’s a problem. Newcombe Clark, president of the Main Street Area Association board, said the association could make the non-emergency police phone number more widely available to downtown merchants. [The non-emergency number is (734) 794-6911]

“We urge you to call,” Martelle said. Even if the panhandler is gone by the time police arrive and they can’t write up the incident, the call will be logged, he said. The time of the call is recorded, as is the time that an officer is dispatched and the times they arrive and leaves.

Carl Ent, a former Ann Arbor police chief who is now a vice president at the Bank of Ann Arbor, told the group that even if it takes an officer 25 minutes to respond in one instance, the next time he might be right around the corner when the call comes in, and can respond more quickly.

Martelle said Arthur was one of their “no tolerance guys” – if he was violating the law, they’d write a ticket. For panhandlers they hadn’t seen on the street before, police first give them a warning and explain what was permitted and what was not. When Martelle told the group that Arthur had been successful in getting some of his tickets waived,  several merchants responded with groans of exasperation.

Later in the meeting, Pollay announced that the DDA was giving $16,000 to the four downtown merchant associations – $4,000 each – to use for window display contests, with the goal of making downtown more walkable.

Clark had this suggestion: “Put beat cops in all the windows.”

Sketch looking east of a possible result of the A2D2 zoning as it currently stands. Division Street, running north-south, is in the foreground. Ann Street (on the left) runs east-west, as does Huron Street (right). The currently proposed D1 zoning along Huron Street is to be mitigated by requirements that push buildings towards the street.

City council convened Monday night to hear public commentary on the downtown plan and A2D2 zoning revisions for the downtown area, which were approved by planning commission earlier this month, and which council had already begun contemplating at a working session two weeks ago. Nothing else was on the agenda.

About 30 residents took their 3-minute speaking turns on Monday, which did not preclude their participation at the public hearings when the amendments to the zoning ordinance are heard formally. The zoning ordinance’s first reading is planned for April 6 with a second reading on May 4. The  downtown plan will be heard April 20.

By 8:30 p.m. the Monday meeting had concluded, with many of the speakers and councilmembers mingling afterwards.

As they took their turns at the podium, a certain almost weariness seemed reflected by some speakers, who have been participating in the process over the course of the last three to four years. Beginning her remarks, Betsy Price, a South University area resident said, “You’ve seen me here before, I’m going to keep coming up!” And at least one resident, Jersusalem Garden owner Ali Ramlawi, said that he wished he’d gotten involved earlier than he did.

One concern expressed by Ramlawi was the need to make the surface level of the recently approved underground parking structure for the library lot as green and park-like as possible. It was a sentiment echoed by others as well, including John Floyd, who suggested four specific ways to “round off the sharper corners” of the recommended zoning changes, among them the idea of downtown park space that would not require residents to drive to outlying areas to enjoy open space.

Floyd said he also agreed with the idea expressed by Mayor John Hieftje during one of the candidate forums in the 2008 election campaign, when Hieftje suggested a 14-story height limit for downtown. Further, Floyd suggested a D2 zone around historic districts to help buffer them. And finally Floyd noted that there were no city residents who supported the D1 (core) zoning for the South University character district.

Norm Tyler displays a sketch of a possible scenario under the recommended zoning.

South University was addressed by multiple speakers, most in favor of a D2 designation for that character district, instead of the D1 that had been recommended by planning commission. The height limit of 170 feet set for the South University area was also heavily criticized, on the grounds that it had been set to accommodate a project that was now not certain would be built (601 S. Forest). A proponent of a D1 designation for South University argued based on the 2006 rezoning to the central business district, which was, she said, based on the character of the area as a core area of downtown.

The other area that was frequently addressed by speakers was the E. Huron character district. Norm Tyler, a resident who lives on Division Street between Ann and Huron streets, had developed a sketch of possible 18-story buildings that could be built along E. Huron under the zoning changes recommended by planning commission, which he displayed from the podium in poster size to councilmembers. He said that Wendy Rampson, with the city of Ann Arbor systems planning unit, had vetted the drawing as consistent with the recommended zoning. He asked councilmembers to consider some kind of protection for the historic district along Ann Street, which could come in the form of a D2 designation.

However,  several family members who jointly own property along E. Huron spoke separately in favor of a D1 designation for the E. Huron character district, based on the argument that current zoning is commercial, and that historically it had always been commercial. A designation of D2, they said, would amount to a down-zoning, and would impinge on their property rights. The compromise worked out by planning commission, they said, was fair.

The compromise to which they referred is a stipulation in the massing requirements for the E. Huron district that reads as follows:

(2) Tower: Rear or side exterior wall of the tower shall be located no further than 150 feet from the East Huron property line and no closer than 30 feet to a lot line abutting a residential zoning district.

The intent of the provision is to push any future buildings towards Huron Street, away from Ann Street.

Bruce Thomson shows councilmembers how current buildings and zoning would create a "notch" if the E. Huron Street Character District were zoned D2.

More than one resident spoke in favor of increased density and development. One of those was University of Michigan senior, who described how he felt that too many of UM’s graduating seniors did not consider staying in Ann Arbor, because there was not an adequately vibrant urban downtown. Instead of staying in Ann Arbor, he said, they looked to Chicago and New York.

Besides the two character districts of South University and E. Huron Street, another focus was on the need to pass design guidlines as a part of the zoning package, or at least commit to their timely passage once the zoning was approved.

Councilmembers did not deliberate at the meeting, as it was designated only for public commentary.

Dream On Futon, at the southeast corner of Liberty and Ashley.

“It’s just so sad,” Doreen Collins told The Chronicle on Tuesday morning, standing in the front room of Dream On Futon. “I love this building. I love being on this corner. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like not to have this to come to every day.”

Doreen and John Collins opened Dream On Futon 15 years ago at the southeast corner of Liberty and Ashley. Last Friday, Doreen put up large “Store Closing” signs, and plans to shut down the business at the end of March. She said they just couldn’t pay their bills anymore – the monthly heating bill is around $400 – and they haven’t been paying themselves salaries for a while.

We heard the news when one of our readers saw the signs and filed a Stopped.Watched item about it, and so we stopped by Tuesday to find out what happened. Collins said the business has been struggling for about the past four years. The 2006 opening of Ikea in Canton was a blow, as was Pfizer’s closing and the general economic meltdown. “Nobody has any confidence in the world right now,” Collins said.

Doreen Collins describes some of the pictures on the Shakey Jake memorial wall in her store.

There’s something more fundamental at play, too. Collins says she’s treasured talking to customers and “just being a little part of people’s lives for a minute.” But she sees that society is changing and fewer people seem interested in that kind of exchange.

Her strong sense of place and her fondness for the building are clear. She took time to describe the structure’s history, showing where the mechanics bay was located in the back lower level when the building was a Sears tire store. Over the years it housed Monroe Antiques and after that a graphic arts firm.  One of those graphic artists, Zeke Mallory, designed the images on her store’s front awning and windows (he also painted the large seascape mural on the building that houses Tios on East Huron). Then the property was sold to its current owner, Phil Conlin, who added the glassed-in front room a few years ago.

There are memorials, too: A wall of photos in memory of Shakey Jake, and outside, embedded in the stone wall built by Dave Menefee is a small plaque in memory of Roger Davis, who was shot while working as a bouncer at Mr. Flood’s Party in 1975. “What I’ve learned on this corner is so amazing,” Collins said.

Back in the store, everything is for sale. Collins hopes to liquidate as much as possible – there’s also a warehouse “full of beauties” – because she wants to move and store as little as possible. Futons, of course, but also tatami beds and Shoji lamps, glass sculpture and vases, yoga blankets and pillows, statues of Buddha and more.

Doreen Collins, owner of Dream On Futon.

Collins said she won’t be giving up her work entirely. She plans to continue selling her handmade pillows and futon covers, possibly at the Farmers Market or through her network of local yoga instructors and chiropractors. “I’ll just need to get the word out that I’m not through forever,” she said. (After the store closes, she can be reached at 734-665-3826.)

And though she rents a home in Ann Arbor within walking distance of the store, she hopes to find some land in the country where her family – including her husband and two of her sons, who work as carpenters – can grow their own food, as they did years ago when they lived in a farm near Waterloo.

But don’t be surprised if you see her around even after the store closes. She laughs: “I’ll probably still come and sit on the corner every day.”

Dream On Futon is located at 303 S. Ashley in Ann Arbor. Store hours are Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m., Sunday noon-5 p.m. The store is expected to close by March 31.

Doreen Collins holds an old photo of Joe Tiboni and Shakey Jake.

At the corner of Liberty & Ashley, just outside of Dream On Futon, is a memorial plaque for Roger Davis, who was shot in 1975 at Mr. Flood's Party. The stone wall was built by Dave Menefee.

Zeke Mallory was a former owner of the building where Dream On Futon is located, and he designed the awning and window signs for that store. The photo above shows a seascape mural by Mallory on the building that houses Tios restaurant on East Huron.

Michael Kessler queries potential users of coworking space at 118 S. Main about what they'd commit to and at what price. (Special thanks to Bill Merrill, who lent The Chronicle his camera.)

At noon on Tuesday, around 50 people gathered in the space at 118 S. Main St. to evaluate its potential as a place for coworking by independent operators. Coworking includes income-earning activity that ranges from people working solo in physical proximity with other independent workers, to collaboration with some of them on a single project – without belonging to a common business concern.

But it wasn’t just the physical space that people were keen to see (over a free catered lunch). They also wanted to know what Michael Kessler had in mind for the actual space-use agreements. Kessler has an arrangement with Ed Shaffran, who owns the Goodyear Building which houses the potential coworking space.

So what people wanted to know from Kessler on Tuesday was: What do you get, and how much does it cost? And what Kessler wanted to know from attendees was: Would you actually use this space, and how much would you pay?

After brief introductory remarks by Kessler, the conversation threatened briefly to stall until Bill Tozier piped up. Tozier, who is affiliated with Not An Employee, which is a standard-bearer for coworking in Ann Arbor, exhorted Kessler: “Describe the space!” What everyone could see were the bare brick walls that are a common feature of Shaffran’s properties. Common enough, that Shaffran knows you are kidding if you suggest to him, as The Chronicle did, that what the bricks need is a good coat of paint. Patrons of Arcadian Too Antiques, which was the most recent tenant there, will not remember exposed brick walls in the store.  Part of the work Kessler has had done in the last few weeks is remove the plaster from the bricks.

The view from the mezzanine level. The bright light is from the Main Street side. (Special thanks to Bill Merrill, who lent The Chronicle his camera.)

What Tozier meant, of course, was that Kessler needed to describe what the roughly 3,000 square foot space would look like when configured for coworking. Kessler ticked off various features: a meeting area, a bathroom, a 12-person conference room, a training area, lockers for security, and a place to pick up mail.

The ability to receive mail at a Main Street Ann Arbor address was a real plus for Jessica Rauch, president of The Generation Project. After the presentation, she told The Chronicle that The Generation Project would be moving to Washington D.C. in a year and a half, but that in the meantime, she was keen to have space to work from that was not her apartment.

A concern expressed in small talk before Kessler’s presentation, as well as during the ensuing conversation, was: How does noise get regulated in the coworking space? The noise issue was illustrated perfectly during a back-and-forth between Kessler and Dan Cooney, who were both speaking from the middle of the room. Off to the front of the building, Cooney’s comments were rendered almost indiscernible on that side of the room by conversational noise in the same corner. Conversational volume management in that case came in the form of a finger snap.

Other logistical challenges of managing a shared space include access. One attendee wanted to know if she’d be able to get into the space during later, evening hours, because she works for a west coast company. Answer: The intention is to provide 24/7 availability though a key card system most likely to be installed on the side entrance. Users of the space would swipe in and out.

Michael Kessler one-ups UPS's whiteboard ads by using a piece of drywall to write on.

Swiping would not be necessary to open the door to get out, but having a record of exactly when the space was being used would be helpful moving forward in arranging availability. The idea of being able to check the current physical space usage without physically going there met with a lot of enthusiasm in the room:  If you can see online that there are already a full complement of people using the space, it saves showing up only to be disappointed that there’s no room for you to cowork at that particular time.

Generally there was a lot of positive sentiment expressed in the room on Tuesday, even if there was some caution that could be found in internet backchannels. People said they really wanted to see the space succeed. Interest in the existence of a coworking space in Ann Arbor (or at least interest in measuring interest) goes at least as far back as May 2008. Based on a Chronicle conversation with Jennifer Burn after the presentation, that interest could go back even further. Before moving to a South State Street location in late 2005, Burn said, ICON Creative Technologies Group used to lease out work space to independent operators. And according to Jacqueline Yang, of Zattoo Inc., sub-leasing work space to independents is a practice they have adopted as well after recent downsizing. Yang was attending the Tuesday lunch partly with an eye towards possible use of the coworking space by a local initiative for Tech Cocktail.

Drawing of the street entrance to the coworking space. (Special thanks to Bill Merrill, who lent The Chronicle his camera.)

What the coworking space is imagined to be was clarified a bit on Tuesday when David Bloom, executive in residence at Ann Arbor SPARK, contrasted it with the space that SPARK offers through its business incubators. The incubators, said Bloom at Tuesday’s lunch, are “not about community – it’s about business acceleration.” The tenants of its incubators, continued Bloom, have the ambition to create lots of jobs and revenues.

So the coworking space on South Main is not meant as an incubator in that sense. But it’s also meant to be more than coffee houses – with their attendant overhead music, sometimes dodgy Wifi connections, and non-guaranteed access to electrical power for a laptop computer. Still, the South Main space will likely provide a coffee kiosk, staffed probably by Mighty Good Coffee, which had its brew on hand Tuesday for lunch. In addition to providing “eyes-on-site,” the kiosk at the entrance off the street would provide an interface zone between the public street and the private coworking space further back.

The public conversation on Tuesday yielded a show of about 30 hands of people who’d be interested in access to the coworking space at $100 per month. To get to the $10,000 a month that Kessler says he needs to make it work, that means the 30 hands will need to actually commit and get a couple of friends to commit as well.

Reached by phone the day after the lunch, Kessler said that followup communication with lunch attendees was positive enough that he’s got workers executing on the designs that people saw at the lunch, which had been drawn up by architect Clifford Cushard of Cushard Design Associates. Target date for the construction of the space is March 2009. The user agreements still need to be hammered out by legal counsel.

But now after hearing feedback from the potential users – about the physical space and the desired kinds of uses – Kessler said he’s developing a concrete and specific plan. As he put it at Tuesday’s lunch, he is “the decider,” which drew a laugh. But by phone, Kessler allowed that how the space actually gets used, and the day-to-day patterns that evolve, will be determined by those who are actually using the space.

[Editor's note: Please direct inquiries about the coworking space to Michael Kessler at coworkinga2 [at] gmail [daht] com]

Sites A, B, C, identified as possible locations to build affordable housing units. The image is linked to a higher resolution file in which dimensions are legible.

Ann Arbor City Council Working Session (Dec. 8, 2008) At a council working session on Monday evening, attended by all councilmembers including the mayor, one option (consisting of three different sites) was presented for how to replace the 100 units of affordable housing previously provided by the YMCA building at Fifth and William streets.

The three sites that were offered by city staff to council for consideration have some different constraints, but the proposed construction on each site is similar. All three sites are located along a roughly one-block long stretch of Fourth Avenue from the south side of Ann Street to the north side of Catherine Street.

Based on official council action to date, this set of three sites can be fairly seen as one option of three still under conceptual consideration for a replacement location for the 100 affordable units: (i) the old YMCA site, (ii) an alternate downtown location, and (iii) a location outside of downtown.

We begin with some brief background of the history of these 100 units before December 2007, trace the interaction between council and the Housing and Human Services Advisory Board between December 2007 and May 2008, and finally summarize the presentation and council discussion from the council’s working session on Monday in customary Chronicle meeting-watch style.

Brief background

In connection with the construction of the new YMCA building located at 2nd and Washington streets, the city acquired the old YMCA building in 2003 in order to preserve the 100 units of affordable housing that the building offered. The YMCA had no plans to incorporate residential units at its new site, and neither did the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority, which had contemplated redeveloping the old building as a transit center and office headquarters.

In 2005 mechanical systems in the old YMCA building failed to such an extent that residents needed to be moved out of the building. City staff led by Jayne Miller, community services area administrator, worked over the following few years to find alternate accommodations for them, which they did. The city maintained a stated commitment to eventually replacing the 100 units, but not necessarily at the site of the old YMCA. A private development at that site, William Street Station, was to include some affordable units, but city council pulled the plug on that project, when the developer failed to meet various deadlines.

Seeing no immediate prospects for re-development of the property, the city (in coordination with the DDA) took the first step that any re-development would require: demolition of the building. Since summer 2008 the site has served as a surface parking lot. At its last meeting on Dec. 1, city council refinanced the property at the site of the old YMCA, which it purchased for $3.5 million dollars.

December 2007 to May 2008

At its Dec. 3, 2007 meeting a little over a year ago, city council passed a resolution directing the Housing and Human Services Advisory Board (HHSAB) to research and study the question of where to develop 100 units of affordable housing to replace those at the former YMCA site at Fifth and William streets and to report back to council no later than May 31, 2008 with a recommendation. The directive from council was specific with the issues to be addressed. From the language of the resolution (in which “the Site” means the old YMCA site):

RESOLVED, That the HHSAB’s Report shall address, at a minimum, the following issues:

• Whether the 100 units of affordable housing should be located on the Site or elsewhere;
• Whether the 100 units of affordable housing should be developed on one site or dispersed in a variety of locations;
• Whether the 100 units of affordable housing should be located in the downtown area, outside the downtown area, or dispersed both inside and outside the downtown area;
• Likely requirements and possible sources of funding for development of the 100 units of affordable housing, including provisions of social services for the housing residents;
• Whether non-profit developers, for-profit developers, and social service providers in the community have sufficient capacity to develop and provide services for 100 units of affordable housing within the next four (4) years; and
• Any other challenges or opportunities related to the development of 100 units of affordable housing for low-income residents.

HHSAB returned its recommendation on May 1, 2008 in a memo to council that identified the old YMCA site as the best location for development of the 100 units of affordable housing, and recommended that city council direct the city administrator to issue an RFP (request for proposals) for the site:

Recommendation: Based on the information provided above, the HHSAB recommends that City Council charge the City Administrator with re-issuing an RFP to develop 100 units of permanent supportive housing on the former YMCA site.

However, in the same memo, HHSAB provided alternatives to that recommendation for city council to consider as well.

The HHSAB recognizes that Council’s decision to accept, reject, or amend this recommendation will be based on a complex array of issues that includes financial and neighborhood considerations. Alternative options are presented below for Council’s reference and consideration.
Alternatives:

1. Council directs the City Administrator to research and recommend an alternative downtown or near downtown location (within ½ mile of the DDA district) for 100 units of permanent supportive housing by October 2008.
   a. PROS
   i. Accessibility to public transportation and many support services
   ii. The City and County both own surface parking lots that could be developed as affordable housing, with underground public parking
   iii. A stand-alone facility would make the financing less complicated than a mixed-use development
   iv. Proceeds, after paying off debts, from the sale of the YMCA site could be used to provide support service to these units
   b. CONS
   i. Potential neighborhood opposition
   ii. The City will need to secure the site if it is not currently owned by the City
2. Council directs the City Administrator to issue a Request for Qualification to select a developer to work with the Office of Community Development to develop 100 units of permanent supportive housing on one or two sites anywhere in the City, including the downtown. Council directs the OCD to work with the HHSAB to draft an RFQ for Council by October 2008.

City council took no formal action based on the recommendation of HHSAB or its alternatives that resulted in the analysis of sites it heard on Monday evening. However, the presentation made by staff is consistent with the first of the two alternatives referenced by HHSAB.

Presentation by Staff to Working Session

[.pdf containing materials provided to council is here.]

Jayne Miller introduced the presentation by saying that she wouldn’t be delving into the history of the 100 units. The focus of the presentation, she said, would be the scenarios associated with constructing units on three different publicly-owned sites. She introduced staff who had been working on the analysis: Mary Jo Callan, community development director; Jennifer L. Hall, housing program analyst for community development; Pete Perala, with systems planning in the city; and Alexis DiLeo with the planning department.

Callan led off with a description of the population that the new units of affordable housing would serve: individuals (as contrasted with families) who have a history of struggling to achieve and maintain housing. It is a very low-income population that struggles to maintain housing, she said, which might have co-occurring challenges related to substance abuse, mental illness, or physical disability. It’s a population that requires intensive services to help them maintain housing. Success in providing housing for this population, Callan said, is contingent on wrapping supports around them, such as social services (including mental health), life skills, and a variety of other supports. To increase the stability and safety of this population, the approach being explored is a “front-desk model” which provides controlled access and a 24-hour desk for check-in.

DiLeo laid out the zoning issues connected with each of the three sites. Site A is at the southwest corner of Fourth Avenue and Ann Street. Site B is on the southwest corner of Fourth and Catherine. Catherine and Ann streets. And site C is at the northwest corner of Fourth and Catherine Fourth Avenue and Ann Street. Two of the sites, A and B, are surface parking facilities owned by the county. Site A includes underground parking as well. Site C is a surface parking lot owned by the city. The existing zoning for site A is PL, public land, which has no maximum or minimum setbacks, maximum or minimum heights, no floor area requirements. Sites B and C are currently zoned C2B/R (commercial business district with residential), which reverts to R4C standards (multiple family dwelling district) if developed for residential use.

Under current zoning, DiLeo said, anyone could build eight dwelling units on those sites. So under current zoning, she said, they would not be suitable for development as housing where economies of scale would be required, as is the case with affordable housing. But sites B and C are already slated to be rezoned as a part of the A2D2 rezoning effort, DiLeo continued, and no additional action would be needed for that rezoning to take place. Under A2D2, the parcels would be zoned as D2, which allows a 200% floor area ratio, with up to 400% with the affordable housing premium.

DiLeo explained that the 55-foot wide building design recommended for each parcel was a function of industry standards for a straightforward plain vanilla development: a double-loaded corridor – a hallway down the center with units on each side. The square footage of the buildings reflect individual unit sizes of around 450 square feet, whether that is a 1-bedroom apartment or an efficiency. All three sites, DiLeo said, could support 100 or more units. Four stories, she explained, is the threshold between stick-built construction (wood construction) and steel frame. Because steel comes from China, and steel is bought by China as well, she said that the initial construction costs for steel frame building would be significantly higher. That meant, she said, that to achieve economy of scale, a steel frame building would need to be built much taller than just five stories.

Their scenarios for the three sites would focus therefore on four-story stick-built options. DiLeo described how site A would really have only three stories of usable space, because the bottom story would be largely open, in order to preserve access to the ramp to the underground parking garage at that site. Sites B and C would have usable space starting from ground level. So all three sites, DiLeo said, could support 60 units on a stick-built scenario. The footprint of the buildings on all three sites would be in the 9,000-square-foot range.

Perala offered a description of the utilities infrastructure for the three sites. He said there were storm water pipes already in place that could move water from the sites. All three sites would require roughly similar investments to address storm water, probably in the $40,000-$50,000 range for onsite detention, and around $120,000 for installation of water quality improvements – swirl concentrators, for example. A green roof on any of the sites would cost in the range of $250,000, he said.

As for drinking water, Perala said that there are a lot of 6-inch and 8-inch pipes in the area, and that they would look to improve the grid system with 12-inch pipes, in order to ensure proper flow for fire protection. As you go from site A to B to C, heading north, the cost goes incrementally up, he said, to establish that grid. On the sanitary sewer side, he described how all three sites could use the following flow route: a southern route starting between B and C and heading east, turning south, then heading back west along Ann Street. On that route, some infrastructure improvement would be required. Site C has a second option, to flow straight north up Fourth Avenue, with no infrastructure improvements required. Footing drain disconnects for the three sites would cost in the range of $90,000-$100,000.

Hall explained why staff had looked at the three sites being presented. They had considered sites all around the city on acquisition and rehab scenarios both inside and outside of downtown. Citing the recommendation of HHSAB, she said that they had focused on downtown sites. There was already community support for a high number of low-income residents in one location downtown. In that environment, she said, they can more easily blend in to the surrounding community. She noted the difference in impact of 100 units of housing on a single-family neighborhood versus the downtown. Availability of services, like the Blake Transit Center, was another factor she cited.

One of the criteria for the land was that it be publicly owned, because the city or county cannot issue an RFP on a property that they do not own. Other sites the city owns (on Washington and Main streets) did not come into consideration because they are in a flood plain and thus did not meet basic environmental requirements. Two types of scenarios were considered: (i) a minimum of 60 units, which is the minimum to achieve the economies of scale for a secured front door and services, and (ii) a 100-unit scenario, which is more expensive from the point of view of construction (steel frame), but is less expensive in terms of the cost per resident to provide supportive services.

Hall contrasted the type of units proposed for any of the three sites with those in the old YMCA, which were 10×10-foot living spaces, with a common bathroom and kitchenette. In addition to not being a best-practice model, Hall said that such a project would result in funding challenges, because investors in tax-credits (the likely funding model) would be looking for a hedge, in case the project did not succeed for its originally intended purpose. Such investors, she said, don’t look at the fact that in the community we intend for the project to serve a low-income population, but rather at whether it’s at least possible to convert the building to market-rate housing. And the dorm-style accommodations of the old YMCA would not be convertible in that way.

Of the costs that were factored into the scenarios for each of the three sites, Hall said that land cost was not one of them. Donated land, she explained, enhanced the application for tax credits. It’s not an eligible cost to be paid by tax-credit funding, so if the land were not donated, the funding for land acquisition would need to come from elsewhere, perhaps federal funds.

The cost scenarios being presented, stressed Hall, were not estimates based on hiring architects and engineers, but rather on conversations with them, in order to get a rough idea. The rent to be charged for each unit would likely be $200-$300 per unit, depending on the person’s income. That means that annual revenue in rent would amount to around $3,000 per unit. Based on projects funded through other nonprofits, the cost of maintaining a facility is closer to $4,500 to $5,500 per unit per year. As a consequence, she said, it would be necessary to find a way to establish project-based vouchers to make up the gap. She’d had conversations with Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA) and the Ann Arbor Housing Commission to establish project-based vouchers, because otherwise, “it will not work.”

But Hall concluded by pointing to the financial summary in the materials provided to council and saying, “it appears to be do-able.”

Callan concluded the presentation by discussing the operational costs after construction. She said that the per-unit cost for services would be around $2,700 per year on a 100-unit scenario, versus $3,800 on a 60-unit scenario.

Council Discussion

Leigh Greden led off council questions by asking Callan how the $3,800 figure had been achieved, when previously the number $5,000 had been discussed. Callan stressed that the higher number did not include “mainstream” funding sources. Greden followed up with a question about the “city cash” required, an amount that is referenced in the tables provided in the council packet (the lowest amount for any scenario is $141,870 and the highest amount is $368,117). He got clarification that this could include various types of city funds (including HOME funds), not just General Fund dollars. In that light, he characterized the amounts as “reasonable.”

Councilmember Tony Derezinski asked about the percentage of potential clientele that would be veterans, and whether any outreach to veterans organizations had taken place. Callan said that she would be guessing about percentages but could provide that information. Hall also responded to the question by stressing that they tried to not predetermine the population. She said that while the developer is putting the proposal together, they would access various funding as set-asides for VA units, for example, and that the developer would pull funding from a range of sources in order to fund a mix of people. Derezinski also asked whether the population to be served would include families. Hall said that the idea was to serve individuals and not families, citing the individual units that were lost at the old YMCA as the gap that had been created in the housing inventory. Mixing the two populations, she said, would also be more challenging.

Derezinski also inquired about how the possible mix of retail on ground floors of the development would work. Hall clarified that on the 4-story stick-built scenarios (60 units), there would not be room for retail. On the 100-unit scenario, which would mean 8-9 stories, retail on the ground floor would be possible on sites B and C, but not on A, due to the need to keep access open for the underground parking ramp.

Councilmember Carsten Hohnke asked what other units had been created since the original 100 units from the YMCA had been lost. He also asked staff to speak to the overall need for this type of housing in the community. Hall cited the Blueprint to End Homelessness, which calls for creation of 500 units of supportive housing – a step beyond affordable housing. She described a 20-unit development by Avalon Housing, of which six were set aside for chronically homeless people. She also described other projects that would add between 20 to 40 units of supportive housing, which were not under development yet, but which had realistic prospects.

Councilmember Sabra Briere noted that the three locations cited are across the street from the Farmers Market, and across the street from the Fourth Avenue business district, which she described as “burgeoning business districts.” She said that a number of people would be concerned about the impact of construction, in an area that will be affected by other construction projects in the near future (an allusion to Fifth and Division street improvements as well as Farmers Market renovation). She also said that a number of people would be concerned about the population of people who would be coming in. She asked staff how they would address those concerns. Hall and Callan asked Jayne Miller to handle the question. Miller stressed that their intent was to take the presentation to the public and get feedback from the public on it about the three sites and to take feedback into consideration as decisions were made about moving forward.

Councilmember Sandi Smith got clarification that the parking at site A was not secured parking and that there were 85 spaces underground.

Councilmember Mike Anglin characterized the plan as “well-thought-out” and asked for examples of similar operations like the ones proposed, citing one in New York that he had seen, where residents seemed to fit into the community. Hall said that the model of supportive housing was used widely across the country and said she would send along examples by email. (Some of those are now attached to the working session agenda.) Locally, Callan suggested that an example of “fears that didn’t pan out” about the influx of the population into the neighborhood was the former YMCA residents who were relocated to Tuscan Creek.

Councilmember Christopher Taylor followed up on Briere’s question by asking whether there had been participation of the business community to date in connection with the formulation of the project. Hall said that the HHSAB in taking its charge from council (to make a recommendation about where to locate the replacement units) held two public hearings and had input from the business community, citing Jesse Berstein Bernstein, who is the president of the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce. She said that it was a project on which they would continue to seek input from the public, including the business community.

Taylor then asked whether Hall would characterize it more as “a beginning proposal” than “a semi-formulated” proposal, which Hall said she would.

Greden followed up on comments by Briere and Anglin by saying that council and community needed to approach the issue “without the initial assumption that this population consists of troublemakers.”

With respect to the long-term operating costs, Greden noted that vouchers seemed to be key to making it work and asked how they could be obtained. Hall said that a main source of project-based vouchers was MSHDA, which likes to see the local housing commission match them. Hall said that this would require an administratively intensive effort on the part of the local housing commission, but that they had begun discussion to make sure there was capacity to do that. Greden said that the council’s new liaison to the housing commission, Tony Derezinski, would look forward to working with staff and the commission to help the process.

Clarifications and Reactions

One point that took some time for The Chronicle to clarify was the fact that the presentation heard at their working session was not the result of a council directive. In particular, there was no directive from council as a body to staff to remove the old Y site from consideration for development of replacement units. Thanks to councilmembers Margie Teall, Leigh Greden, Sabra Briere, director of community services Jayne Miller, and Anissa Bowden in the city clerk’s office, who all helped us establish that – either by email or by phone. Thanks also to Jennifer L. Hall for insight into why tax-credit investors care about unit size in a development like this.

After the presentation, Ray Detter (Downtown Citizens Advisory Council) and Christine Crockett (Old Fourth Ward Association) spoke briefly with The Chronicle. They indicated that they still thought of the old YMCA site as “on the table” as far as where to build replacement units for those lost there. They also talked about the fact that the business district along Fourth Avenue was gaining strength but was “still fragile,” a sentiment addressed by Briere during the council discussion.

Speaking by phone with councilmember Briere, she said she saw the sites partly from the historical perspective of a decision-making process regarding location selection for the police-courts facility now to be built on the site of the Larcom building. With respect to the county parking lot, she wondered: “Why is the city willing to house homeless people there but not judges?”

Addendum: After this article was first published, we gained some insight into a natural question that might have arisen in some readers’ minds: if the city is contemplating some scenarios that would require the sale/donation of county properties, has anyone at the county been consulted? Leigh Greden provided this insight: “Roger Fraser organized a meeting of me, [Bob] Guenzel, and [Dick] Soble as a follow-up to the HHSAB report which recommended that alternative sites to the old Y would be OK. At that meeting, we agreed we should look at alternative sites, including County-owned sites. Roger then directed City staff to begin planning, which led to the report.” Guenzel is the Washtenaw County administrator, and Soble is chair of the Washtenaw Housing Alliance.

Editor’s note: The Chronicle did not cover other discussions at Monday’s working session, including discussion of the Community Success plan and the golf course finances.

Present: Sandi Smith, Sabra Briere, Tony Derezinski, Stephen Rapundalo, Leigh Greden, Christopher Taylor, Margie Teall, Marcia Higgins, Carsten Hohnke, Mike Anglin, John Hieftje.

Absent: None

Old YMCA site at Fifth and William streets, looking northwest.

Site A: Fourth & Ann streets, looking southwest.

Site B: Fourth & Catherine streets, looking southwest.

Site C: Fourth & Catherine streets, looking northwest.

City of Ann Arbor systems planner Wendy Rampson responds to a question from Ed Walsh, a citizen who attended Monday's A2D2 briefing in city council chambers.

At a work session sometime in January 2009, city council is expected to discuss proposed zoning changes to downtown Ann Arbor, which have emerged from a process involving consultants, staff, and the public over more than two years. But before that, the A2D2 steering committee, which consists of Roger Hewitt (DDA), Marcia Higgins (city council) and Evan Pratt (planning commission), will meet in the Larcom Building’s sixth-floor conference room on Wednesday, Dec. 3 at 6 p.m. to review comments and feedback accumulated to date. (That is a public meeting, but there is no public participation component.) That feedback will have come in response to the numerous briefings of various neighborhood groups and the public at large given by city of Ann Arbor systems planner, Wendy Rampson. Remaining scheduled briefings by Rampson are:

• Wednesday, Nov. 19, 9 a.m. (Council Chamber, City Hall)
• Wednesday, Nov. 19, 6:30 p.m. (County Building, 200 N. Main)
• Thursday, Nov. 20, 3:30 p.m. (County Building, 200 N. Main)

Slides for the briefing and a video replay of the first briefing are available online. The Chronicle attended a noon briefing on Monday in council chambers, where more than a dozen other people showed up, including: Carsten Hohnke, a Ward 5 representative to city council; Bob Needham, opinion editor of The Ann Arbor News; Steve Bean, chair of the city’s environmental commission; and Ray Detter, chair of the Downtown Area Citizens Advisory Council. Developer Peter Allen briefly poked his head in the door.

Rampson began with a historical overview of downtown development dating from 1963, when there was support for building high-rise development, followed by a negative reaction to the high-rises that were built, which resulted in a study commissioned from the firm JJR (then a relatively new company). Two principles from that study, which still play a key role in planning for downtown Ann Arbor, are (i) the use of floor area ratio (FAR) to manage density – as opposed to height limits, and (ii) exemption of downtown development from parking requirements.

One key feature of the proposed new zoning for downtown is to replace the patchwork of C2A and C2A-R areas with two new zoning districts: D1 and D2. [map in .pdf format] The label for the process, A2D2, works as a mnemonic device for the two Ds in the proposed rezoning plan as well as the name of the process. But as Rampson clarified in a follow-up phone conversation, the A2D2 process was not initiated with the two Ds in mind. The D2 of A2D2 stands for “Discovering Downtown.”

D1 and D2 areas. D1 is darker. This image is linked to the full resolution .pdf file.

D1 covers core downtown, while D2 is conceived as a transition area from the core to the purely residential neighborhoods. The majority of the D2 area is located to the west of downtown in the Allen Creek floodplain along First Street. First Street is also a label given to one of eight character districts, which are overlayed on top of the D1 and D2 zoning districts. Those districts are: South University, State Street, Liberty/Division, East Huron, Midtown, Main Street, Kerrytown, and First Street. Rampson acknowledged that there was some dissatisfaction among various constituencies with the fact that the South University area had not been buffered with a D2 area, but said that the small size of the South University area precluded incorporation of a transition zone in addition to a core zone. Not expressed explicitly at the briefing on Monday, but voiced occasionally through the A2D2 process by members of the public, is the idea that if only one zoning designation is possible in the South University area, then that designation should be D2 as opposed to D1.

Though it is proposed to be D1, South University does have something in common with D2 areas that is not a general feature of D1 zones: the inclusion of a height limit (120 feet). That height limit is greater than the 60-foot limit proposed for D2.

Density of development is the key distinction between D1 and D2.

D1 – Core
• 400% FAR by right
• 700% FAR with premiums
• 900% FAR with on-site affordable housing
• No height limit (except in South University district)

D2 – Interface
• 200% FAR by right
• 400% FAR with premiums
• 60 ft height limit
• 80% lot coverage limit

Some of the comments and discussion at Monday’s briefing centered on the nature of the FAR computation. The FAR is calculated as the ratio of (total floor area of the building) to (area of the lot). Ray Detter asked Rampson to clarify whether the total floor area was meant to include elevator shafts, citing the Metro 202 project as an example where elevator shafts had not been included. Rampson said that the intent was to craft language for the new zoning that would make clear that it’s wall-to-wall gross floor area (i.e., elevator shafts included) that’s at issue.

Proposed character districts. This image is linked to the full resolution .pdf file.

A member of the audience at Monday’s briefing pointed out that many people might erroneously apply a rule of thumb something like “N% FAR means an N-story building.” Rampson confirmed that this was an erroneous interpretation and said that this was one of the challenges she was trying to meet during her briefings. She pointed to an example on one of the slides designed to illustrate an accurate interpretation, which shows a one-story building constructed with a footprint exactly half of the lot: 50% FAR.

A mathematical and editorial aside

The erroneous rule of thumb “N% FAR means an N-story building” arises from the fact that in the limiting case of a building that is built lot-line-to-lot-line, the rule gives correct results. It’s fairly silly to consider the limiting case in the opposite direction, which would entail a building with no floor area whatever. But it’s worth considering what happens to FAR when buildings are not built lot-line-to-lot-line. As an example, consider a lot size of 10,000 sq.ft. Suppose a developer decides on a building design with a 1,000 sq.ft. footprint. How many stories tall could the developer build “by right” in a D1 area? If h stands for height, then the equation to be solved is:

4 = 1,000h/10,000

In that example, h is 40 stories. That is to say, Chronicle Towers could be built to a height of 40 stories if we built it with a 1,000 sq.ft. footprint on a lot that is 10,000 sq.ft. in area. What will stop us from building the project? Nothing but the doomed economics of a building with that small a footprint built to that height.

Back to the Briefing

Rampson fielded questions and concerns from the audience throughout her presentation as well as at the conclusion. Ray Detter expressed his concern that the design guidelines that are intended to work in concert with the new zoning regulations were being placed “on hold” and not passed as a complete package with the zoning rules. The fact that the historic district guidelines were also being placed on hold added to Detter’s concern – as well as his feeling that one of the three A2D2 steering committee members would prefer to scrap the design guidelines altogether (as yet not clear to The Chronicle which of Pratt, Higgins and Hewitt was intended). Detter stressed that the whole package, including design guidelines, should be passed so that consistency could be achieved, which had been lacking in the past.

Among the proposed zoning concepts for massing of structures that Rampson presented is the notion of streetwall, and the goal of the massing requirements is to mitigate against an unpleasant pedestrian experience for people walking past tall structures by controlling the streetwall. For example, the idea is that a pedestrian could have the feel of walking next to a 4-story building when it was in fact much taller. One audience member asked that consideration be given to the experience of people who live in the vicinity of the taller buildings and not just those who are walking past them.

Although the D1 and D2 areas coincide very closely with DDA boundaries, there are areas where non-DDA areas are included, for example in the Washtenaw Dairy block and Fingerle Lumber property. Rampson stressed that even in those areas that fell outside the DDA boundaries, the current zoning includes commercial and that the proposed new zoning does not affect any areas currently zoned residential. Noting that the DDA boundaries had been set up in order to capture taxes, not necessarily as a planning boundary, Carsten Hohnke asked Rampson if planning staff also found the boundaries useful for planning, and asked if through their process they had followed the example of the Downtown Residential Task Force, which considered an area that extended 1/4 mile beyond the DDA boundary in its previous work. Rampson said that the DDA boundaries were very useful in planning, and that in this planning effort they had not extended the scope of consideration to the 1/4 mile mark.

Much of the conversation – which also evolved among audience members both during and after the briefing – centered on the difficulty in projecting the future market for property downtown. One woman in the audience asked why there was the expectation that there was a potential residential market for recent graduates and empty-nesters downtown. Another gentleman asked why there was a preference for residential units (reflected in FAR bonuses for building them), when the construction of a first-class headquarters building for a major company could reap benefits for downtown and the community as well. The idea of FAR bonuses for offering particular kinds of retail (for example, grocery) was also briefly explored. Rampson said that the strategy was to encourage more residential density and from that might follow the possibility that grocery retailers would recognize the potential market. In response to this, someone suggested it might be more effective to provide efficient transit for getting people to the large full-service grocery stores on the periphery.

Another concern brought up was the possibility that as students are “drained” from the student neighborhoods to student-centered housing developments downtown, a local economy based on landlord-ship could completely change. With respect to student-centered development, Rampson acknowledged the relative lack of flexibility for changing markets in a building with 6-bedroom units as compared to one with 2-bedroom units, but said that unit size was not envisioned as a part of the revised zoning code.

Rampson took copious notes on audience questions, but also urged audience members to convey their concerns in writing by Dec 1. directly to A2D2Feedback@a2gov.org.

After the Briefing: Land Use

Along with the two basic zoning districts and the eight character districts, the proposed revisions to downtown zoning necessarily include a specification of possible land uses inside the districts. When The Chronicle followed up with Rampson by phone after the briefing, she addressed the concern expressed by some citizens that adult entertainment is an allowable use throughout D1. Rampson said that Michigan case law seemed to indicate that some geographic opportunity must exist for categories of use, including adult entertainment. And she is working with Kevin McDonald of the city attorney’s office to determine whether the collection of M1, M1A, and M2 parcels in the city (currently zoned for adult entertainment) together constitute enough area to meet the case law standard for an geographic opportunity. She held open the possibility that adult entertainment could be eliminated from D1 as a possible land use.

The other land use in the proposed new zoning that has generated some discussion community-wide is a convention center as an allowable use. Use as a convention center is proposed to require a special exception, which would come from planning commission. City council would still need to approve the whole project.