Stories indexed with the term ‘First Martin’

Editor’s note: This “Live Updates” coverage of the Ann Arbor city council’s June 16, 2014 meeting includes all the material from an earlier preview article published last week. The intent is to facilitate easier navigation from the live updates section to background material already in this file. Outcomes of council votes are also available in the Civic News Ticker.

The city council’s last meeting of the 2014 fiscal year, on June 16, 2014, features an agenda packed with items related to the city’s physical infrastructure like bridges (including art), the sanitary sewer system and the stormwater system, as well as several resolutions related to construction of new sidewalks.

Related to new sidewalk construction is a resolution that would authorize a $75,000 contract with the Greenway Collaborative, to support the work of a pedestrian safety and access task force established by the city council in late 2013. Part of the task force’s responsibility is to create a tool for setting priorities for funding and filling sidewalk gaps in the city.

The $75,000 cost for the pedestrian safety task force consultant is the same amount the council will be asked to allocate to support the work of Ann Arbor SPARK, a local economic development agency. The contract with SPARK is renewed annually, as is another contract on the June 16 agenda – for lobbying services from Governmental Consultant Services Inc. The GCSI contract is for $48,000.

Also on the council’s June 16 agenda are three items with a connection to the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority. One is the approval of an end-of-year budget adjustment that was already approved at the DDA board’s June 4, 2014 meeting. Another is approval of a $37,500 expenditure from the city’s affordable housing trust fund to help pay for an affordable housing needs assessment. At its June 4 meeting, the DDA board authorized a $37,500 grant for the same study.

In the final item with a DDA connection, the council will be asked to authorize $69,555 for the conversion of 223 mercury-vapor cobrahead streetlights to LED technology. This project would convert streetlights that are all outside the DDA district. The project is on the city council’s agenda because the DDA board recently declined to fund a similar LED conversion project – for streetlights inside the DDA tax capture district.

Several other June 16 agenda items relate to the downtown area, even if they don’t have an explicit DDA connection. Two of them involve changes to downtown zoning ordinances that have been recommended by the planning commission. The zoning question to be given initial consideration by the council is whether to downzone the southeast corner of William and Main streets from D1 to D2, but with a 100-foot height limit.

Other downtown items on the council’s June 16 agenda include site plan approvals for First Martin’s hotel project at Ashley and Huron, and the Bank of Ann Arbor expansion at Fifth Avenue and Washington Street.

A resolution to improve Liberty Plaza, a downtown park at the southwest corner of Division and Liberty streets, also appears on the agenda – sponsored by mayor John Hieftje and Christopher Taylor (Ward 3). Added as sponsors since its initial appearance on the agenda are Sabra Briere (Ward 1) and Margie Teall (Ward 4).

The council will be asked to approve four items related to supportive services for the criminal justice system: (1) a $76,242 contract with Washtenaw County Community Support & Treatment Services for mental health treatment services for the 15th District Court’s sobriety and mental health courts; (2) a $44,200 contract with the Washtenaw County sheriff’s office to provide drug abuse screening and monitoring services for the mental health court; (3) a $108,174 contract with Dawn Farm for drug abuse counseling and rehabilitative services; and (4) a $40,000 contract with Reiser and Frushour PLLC to provide legal representation as court-appointed counsel to indigent defendants.

Recycling is the final topic with multiple items on the June 16 agenda. The council will be asked to approve funds for a $95,694 contract with Recycle Ann Arbor to create a multi-family recycling incentive pilot program. The council will also be asked to approve $39,480 to reimburse the city’s operator of its materials recovery facility for repair of a conveyor that feeds the baler. And finally, the council will be asked to approve $35,000 for Recycle Ann Arbor to provide solid waste services associated with student move-out activity.

The June 16 council meeting will also feature the annual historic district commission awards and the introduction of one of the Ann Arbor police department’s K-9 units, who won highest honors at a recent national certification trials event. This article includes a more detailed preview of many of these agenda items.

More details on other agenda items are available on the city’s online Legistar system. The meeting proceedings can be followed Monday evening live on Channel 16, streamed online by Community Television Network starting at 7 p.m.

The Chronicle will be filing live updates from city council chambers during the meeting, published in this article below the preview material. Click here to skip the preview section and go directly to the live updates. The meeting is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. [Full Story]

The city council’s last meeting of the 2014 fiscal year on June 16, 2014 features an agenda packed with items related to the city’s physical infrastructure like bridges (including art), the sanitary sewer system and the stormwater system, as well as several resolutions related to construction of new sidewalks.

Related to new sidewalk construction is a resolution that would authorize a $75,000 contract with the Greenway Collaborative, to support the work of a pedestrian safety and access task force established by the city council in late 2013. Creating a tool for setting priorities for funding and filling sidewalk gaps in the city is part of task force’s responsibility.

The $75,000 cost for the pedestrian safety task force consultant is the same amount the council will be asked to allocate to support the work of Ann Arbor SPARK, a local economic development agency. The contract with SPARK is renewed annually, as is another contract on the June 16 agenda – for lobbying services from Governmental Consultant Services Inc. The GCSI contract is for $48,000.

Also on the council’s June 16 agenda are three items with a connection to the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority. One is the approval of an end-of-year budget adjustment that was already approved at the DDA board’s June 4, 2014 meeting. Another is approval of a $37,500 expenditure from the city’s affordable housing trust fund to help pay for an affordable housing needs assessment. At its June 4 meeting, the DDA board authorized a $37,500 grant for the same study.

In the final item with a DDA connection, the council will be asked to authorize $69,555 for the conversion of 223 mercury vapor cobrahead streetlights to LED technology. This project would convert streetlights that are all outside the DDA district. The project is on the city council’s agenda because the DDA board recently declined to fund a similar LED conversion project – for streetlights inside the DDA tax capture district.

Several other June 16 agenda items related to the downtown area, even if they don’t have an explicit DDA connection. Two of them involve changes to downtown zoning ordinances that have been recommended by the planning commission. The zoning question to be given initial consideration by the council is whether to downzone the southeast corner of William and Main streets from D1 to D2, but with a 100-foot height limit.

Other downtown items on the council’s June 16 agenda include site plan approvals for First Martin’s hotel project at Ashley and Huron, and the Bank of Ann Arbor expansion at Fifth Avenue and Washington Street.

A resolution to improve Liberty Plaza, a downtown park at the southwest corner of Division and Liberty streets, also appears on the agenda – sponsored by mayor John Hieftje and Christopher Taylor (Ward 3).

The council will be asked to approve four items related to supportive services for the criminal justice system: (1) a $76,242 contract with Washtenaw County Community Support & Treatment Services for mental health treatment services for the 15th District Court’s sobriety and mental health courts; (2) a $44,200 contract with the Washtenaw County sheriff’s office to provide drug abuse screening and monitoring services for the mental health court; (3) a $108,174 contract with Dawn Farm for drug abuse counseling and rehabilitative services; and (4) a $40,000 contract with Reiser and Frushour PLLC to provide legal representation as court-appointed counsel to indigent defendants.

Recycling is the final topic with multiple items on the June 16 agenda. The council will be asked to approve funds for a $95,694 contract with Recycle Ann Arbor to create a multi-family recycling incentive pilot program. The council will also be asked to approve $39,480 to reimburse the city’s operator of its materials recovery facility for repair of a conveyor that feeds the baler. And finally, the council will be asked to approve $35,000 for Recycle Ann Arbor to provide solid waste services associated with student move-out activity.

The June 16 council meeting will also feature the annual historic district commission awards and the introduction of one of the Ann Arbor police department’s K-9 units, who won highest honors at a recent national certification trials event.

This article includes a more detailed preview of many of these agenda items. More details on other agenda items are available on the city’s online Legistar system. The meeting proceedings can be followed Monday evening live on Channel 16, streamed online by Community Television Network starting at 7 p.m. [Full Story]

Final approval has been given for the rezoning of land that’s been donated to the city by developer Bill Martin, founder of First Martin Corp. The 2.2-acre parcel at 3301 Traverwood Drive is being added to the adjacent Stapp Nature Area, near the Leslie Park golf course.

Land donated by Bill Martin to the city of Ann Arbor indicated in red … [Full Story]

Ann Arbor planning commission meeting (Nov. 6, 2013): In its one matter involving a substantive vote, the commission recommended all necessary approvals for the Traverwood Apartments project – a planned complex of 16 two-story buildings on the west side of Traverwood Drive, north of Plymouth Road. Commissioners recommended approval of the site plan, development agreement, rezoning and wetland use permit.

In a non-voting item, the commission was presented with a possible change to its bylaws – that could clarify whether someone is allowed to speak more than once at the same public hearing. The bylaws themselves prescribe that changes to the bylaws can only be voted on after their presentation at a previous meeting. The city council would need to give final approval to any bylaws changes.

The following evening, on Nov. 7, the city council delayed consideration of an earlier bylaws change that the planning commission had approved (dealing with accessibility issues) – to allow for the possibility that the council could eventually approve both changes in one action.

The bylaws issue involving public hearings had stemmed from an Oct. 15, 2013 debate among commissioners about the ability of a person to address the commission more than one time during the same public hearing. The Oct. 15 public hearing involved the downtown zoning review that the planning commission was directed by the city council to complete by Oct. 1. That public hearing continued at the commission’s Nov. 6, 2013 meeting. It marked the third time in the past month that commissioners have heard public input on a consultant’s report with recommendations to changes in the city’s downtown zoning.

The commission didn’t vote on the zoning review item, however. It will be taken up again at a Nov. 12 work session, with an eye toward eventually making a recommendation to the city council.

The majority sentiment among the nearly dozen people who spoke to the commission about the zoning review on Nov. 6 was that the consultant’s recommendations did not adequately address the need for buffering between areas zoned D1 and those zoned residential. However, the owner of the building on property at the southeast corner of William and Main – where DTE offices are located – did not share that sentiment. He offered his perspective that the parcel should not have zoning applied that splits the parcel between D1 and D2 zoning, which is the consultant’s recommendation.

Planning commissioners did not engage in substantive discussion on the downtown zoning review. Instead they focused on what procedure to use in delaying consideration of a resolution that would make a recommendation to the city council. The inclination to delay stemmed from a request by two commissioners who were absent due to illness – Sabra Briere and Wendy Woods.

The outcome of the scheduling discussion was to postpone consideration until the commission’s next working session on Nov. 12 – which will start at 7 p.m. in a basement conference room at city hall. The public will be heard at the end of the commission’s working session discussion. Commissioners at the Nov. 6 meeting indicated that they’ll likely need more than just one additional discussion to come to a consensus on what the recommendation to the city council should be. They won’t be voting on anything at the Nov. 12 working session.

This report also includes material on the downtown zoning review from the meeting of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board earlier in the day on Nov. 6.  [Full Story]