From left: Ray Detter, Hugh Sonk and Christine Crockett. At the planning commission’s May 6 meeting, they all spoke against a 100-foot height limit for the 425 S. Main site. (Photos by the writer.)

Commissioners voted unanimously to recommend rezoning a large parcel at the southeast corner of Main and William – another step in a review of downtown zoning that began last year under direction from the city council. The recommendation is to rezone the site at 425 S. Main from D1 (downtown core) to D2 (downtown interface), a lower-density zoning. Currently, a two-story 63,150-square-foot office building – where DTE offices are located – stands on the southern part of that site, with a surface parking lot on the north portion.

In a separate action, commissioners were split on adding new requirements to the Main Street character district, where 425 S. Main is located – but that recommendation was approved. The commission voted 6-3 to recommend changes that include setting a maximum height of 100 feet for properties in that district that are zoned D2, and requiring upper story stepbacks from any residential property lines. That maximum is 40 feet taller than the 60-foot height limit specified for D2 zoning elsewhere in the downtown. Dissenting were Sabra Briere, Ken Clein and Jeremy Peters. Briere serves as the city council’s representative to the planning commission.

During deliberations on May 6, Briere pointed out that the 60-foot maximum height had been cited specifically in the city council directive, and she opposed raising that height limit. The 425 S. Main property would be the only D2 site in the Main Street character district, if the city council approves the rezoning recommendation. Because the requirements would apply to just one site, it seemed like spot zoning to Briere.

Neighbors and others had previously raised concerns that D1 zoning – which allows the highest level of density downtown – would result in a negative impact to that part of town, and had supported downzoning to D2. Several neighborhood advocates attended the May 6 meeting and again supported D2 rezoning, but strongly opposed the 100-foot maximum height.

Andy Klein, one of the property owners of 425 S. Main, also attended the meeting, saying that the site would be unbuildable with D2 zoning and a 60-foot height limit, and that the property’s value would be destroyed. He supported the 100-foot maximum.

Members of the commission’s ordinance revisions committee – which brought forward the proposal – defended it, saying that the combination of D2 zoning with a taller height would allow for more flexible design and less massive structures.

At this time, no new development has been proposed for this site. The recommendations approved on May 6 will be forwarded to the city council for consideration. In the coming months, the planning commission’s ordinance revisions committee will tackle other aspects of the council’s downtown zoning directive.

The other major item on the May 6 agenda related to the Ann Arbor Housing Commission, as part of its major initiative to upgrade the city’s public housing units by seeking private investors through low-income housing tax credits. Planning commissioners recommended rezoning for three AAHC properties: (1) Baker Commons, at the southeast corner of Main and Packard, from public land to D2 (downtown interface); (2) Green/Baxter Court Apartments, at the northwest corner of Green and Baxter roads, from public land to R4A (multi-family dwelling district); and (3) Maple Meadows at 800-890 S. Maple, from R1C (single-family dwelling district) to R4B (multi-family dwelling district).

AAHC director Jennifer Hall explained that PL (public land) zoning doesn’t allow housing to be built on it. As AAHC seeks private funding to rehab its properties, it needs to ensure if a building burns down, for example, it could be rebuilt. In general that’s why the rezoning is being requested. It’s also being requested to align the zoning with the current uses of the property. Hall stressed that the highest priority properties to be rezoned are Baker Commons, Green/Baxter and Maple Meadows, because investors have already been found to renovate those sites.

Two other properties were also on the agenda for rezoning: Mallett’s Creek Court, at 2670-2680 S. Main; and 805-807 W. Washington, on the southwest corner of Washington and Mulholland. About a dozen neighbors of Mallett’s Creek Court spoke about concerns that the vacant part of the parcel, adjacent to Cranbrook Park, would be sold or developed. Hall assured them that there’s no intent to sell, and in fact federal regulations that govern pubic housing prevent such a sale. She said AAHC hadn’t been aware that the vacant land, which includes a wooded area, was part of the parcel until they started the rezoning process. There are no plans to develop that side of the parcel.

Neighbors of the West Washington property are concerned about the amount of impervious surface on that site, and chronic flooding problems in that area.

Action on West Washington and Mallett’s Creek Court properties was postponed by the commission. AAHC and city staff will continue to evaluate these two properties, which will likely return to the planning commission for consideration at a later date.

In other action, planning commissioners recommended the annexation of an 0.22-acre lot at 375 Glenwood Street – currently in Scio Township – and to zone the site as R1C (single-family dwelling district), which matches the zoning of surrounding sites. It’s located on the west side of Glenwood, south of Dexter Road.

And commissioners held a public hearing on a master plan update, as part of an annual review process. Only one person – Changming Fan – spoke during the hearing, asking the commission to include his company’s technology in the master plan.

The master plan resolution that commissioners will vote on at their next meeting, on May 20, will highlight work that the commission intends to undertake in the coming year that’s related to master planning efforts. That work includes the Washtenaw Avenue and North Main corridor plans; helping the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority develop a streetscape framework; and helping implement the city’s sustainability action plan.

Downtown Zoning

Two items on the May 6 agenda related to an ongoing process of making revisions to the city’s downtown zoning. Planning commissioners were asked to consider rezoning a large parcel at the southeast corner of Main and William – at 425 S. Main – from D1 (downtown core) to D2 (downtown interface), a lower-density zoning. Currently, a two-story 63,150-square-foot office building – where DTE offices are located – stands on the southern part of that site, with a surface parking lot on the north portion. [.pdf of staff memo on 425 S. Main rezoning]

Alexis DiLeo of the city’s planning staff, who’s been working on downtown zoning revisions.

In a separate item, commissioners weighed new requirements to the Main Street character overlay district, where 425 S. Main is located. The changes include setting a maximum height of 100 feet for properties in that district that are zoned D2, and requiring upper story setbacks from any residential property. [.pdf of staff memo on overlay district]

These recommendations had been brought forward by the commission’s ordinance revisions committee (ORC). Members are Bonnie Bona, Diane Giannola, Kirk Westphal and Wendy Woods.

In response to a council directive, the planning commission had studied and developed a broader set of eight recommendations for zoning changes in specific parts of the downtown. The overall intent was in large part to buffer near-downtown residential neighborhoods. The commission had unanimously approved those original recommendations at its Dec. 3, 2013 meeting.

That set of recommendations included a proposal to rezone 425 S. Main to D2. However, those original recommendations had also called for a maximum height of 60 feet for D2 zoning in the Main Street character overlay district – lower than the 100 feet put forward on May 6. The site’s current zoning allows for a maximum height of 180 feet. The previous zoning, prior to 2009, set no limits on height.

The city council voted to accept the planning commission’s recommendations on Jan. 21, 2014 – and directed the planning commission to begin implementing changes by proposing specific rezoning or ordinance revisions.

At this time, no new development has been proposed for this site.

Alexis DiLeo, a city planner who’s been working with the ORC on this effort, presented the staff report on May 6. She said the ORC met four times and approached this task “holistically,” and considered many alternatives – including the option of keeping the zoning as D1 and possibly rezoning other properties too. In the end, the recommendation is to rezone 425 S. Main to D2.

DiLeo noted that the city’s downtown plan recommends D1 zoning for that site, although the plan also has goals that address the livability of residential neighborhoods adjacent to downtown, and that encourage sensitivity to that development context.

The historic downtown area is located to the north and west of the 425 S. Main site, but to the east, separated by an alley, is a residential neighborhood zoned R4C. To the south is land that’s currently zoned public land – the site of the Baker Commons public housing complex, at the southeast corner of Packard and Main. But DiLeo noted that the planning commission had earlier that night recommended to change the Baker Commons zoning to D2. [That discussion is reported below.]

Sketch by city planner Alexis DiLeo showing proposed stepbacks for D2-zoned properties in the Main Street character district.

Separately, the ORC was recommending text amendments to the zoning ordinance – Chapter 55 of the city code – for D2 parcels in the Main Street character overlay district. The changes would result in a reduction of the allowable floor-area for this parcel from 400% (or up to 700% with premiums) to 200% (or up to 400% with premiums). [FAR, a measure of density, is the ratio of the square footage of a building divided by the size of the lot. A one-story structure built lot-line-to-lot-line with no setbacks corresponds to a FAR of 100%. A similar structure built two-stories tall would result in a FAR of 200%.]

If the site is rezoned, it would be the first D2 lot in the Main Street overlay district. The amendment would set a maximum height of 100 feet, and minimum side and rear setbacks.

DiLeo reported that the ORC evaluated several approaches to limiting the visual and shading impact on the residential district east of the 425 S. Main site. She noted that planning staff suggested an approach based on research regarding setbacks in the city code for Toronto, Canada. That city – which she pointed out is within one degree of Ann Arbor’s latitude – has a 45-degree stepback requirement. The requirement results in an angle that allows sunlight to reach the sidewalk during the seasons and times of day when people are most likely to be out walking, she said.

The stepbacks would apply to any D2 site that’s within 25 feet of residentially zoned property, and would be applied to any floors above the fourth floor of a building – which would be considered a “tower,” for purposes of the zoning code. Above the fourth floor, each additional floor would need to be set back from the edge of the floor below, based on a distance equal to the floor’s height. These upper floors could be designed like a stairstep, or could have a uniform setback – that is, with all floors above the fourth floor having the exact same setback from the edge of the fourth floor.

The ORC also recommended a 100-foot height limit. DiLeo noted that directly across Main Street to the west is the Ashley Mews building, which is about 110 feet tall. To the north, the properties are zoned D1, with a maximum height of 180 feet. The residential district to the east has a maximum height of 30 feet. The ORC’s recommendation of a 100-foot limit at 425 S. Main is roughly in the middle of the 180-foot limit to the north and the 30-foot residential limit to the east, DiLeo said.

For additional background on this downtown zoning review, see Chronicle coverage: “Feedback on Downtown Zoning Continues”; “Downtown Zoning Review Nears Final Phase”; “Priorities Emerge in Downtown Zoning Review”; “Downtown Zoning Review Moves Forward” and “Downtown Zoning Review to Wrap Up Soon.”

Downtown Zoning: Public Hearing – D2 Rezoning

Seven people spoke during the public hearing on the proposed D2 rezoning.

Eppie Potts told commissioners that rezoning the 425 S. Main site to D2 was in keeping with public input and the committee work that had been done for months leading up to the original set of recommendations. So she supported that.

Aerial view of 425 S. Main – outlined in green – between William and Packard. An alley separates the site from a residential neighborhood along South Fourth Avenue.

Ray Detter said he was speaking on behalf of the downtown area citizens advisory council. In the past few weeks, he’s gotten calls from people concerned about the rezoning of Baker Commons. He had assured them that the Baker Commons site would be rezoned D2. But now, he’s learning that it would be coupled with a character area that would allow a 100 feet height, rather than 60 feet. [Baker Commons is actually located in a different character district.]

Detter said the citizens advisory council supports D2 as an interface, and their understanding is that the city council wants the height limit to be 60 feet. He suggested that a developer could use the planned project zoning to get additional height, rather than have a 100-foot limit – that’s the approach being taken at 618 S. Main. “We don’t really know where that 100 feet came from – it was not a part of the recommendation to city council,” Detter said, adding that “D2 to us means 60 feet.” He contended that’s what the consultants advised, too.

Detter also objected that ORC meetings were not well-publicized, so people like him didn’t know about the meetings and weren’t able to provide input.

Christine Crockett reminded commissioners that the reason these downtown zoning revisions were undertaken was, at least in part, because of the community’s alarm about very tall “behemoth” buildings going up next to residential neighborhoods. She took issue with the staff report mentioning the Ashley Mews building. She pointed out that it’s not adjacent to a residential district. She said she tried to go to all the ORC meetings “but they are a deep, dark secret.” She’d gone to two of the meetings, but thought the tenor was that the planning commission would adopt what the council had directed them to do – zoning the buffer areas to D2. Crockett also contended that the public and the consultants, ENP & Associates, had recommended D2 at 60 feet.

[By way of background, ENP did not recommend rezoning 425 S. Main to D2. From the report: "...our recommendation is to keep the D1 zoning on the site but with modifications to the maximum height and the addition of diagonal requirements." The maximum height recommendation was 150 feet. .pdf of ENP & Associates report]

Saying that he supported rezoning the site to D2, Steve Kaplan expressed concerns about the overlay district. Having an overlay district that allows for a 100-foot building height fails to achieve the desired effect of protecting the smaller houses to the east, he said. Kaplan noted that he previously owned the parcels that were assembled to build Ashley Mews. That lot is more than triple the size of the 425 S. Main site, he said. The Ashley Mews development took care to ensure that the highest part of the structure was as far away from the Old West Side residential neighborhood as possible, he said. The west side of Ashley Mews, which has only four floors, should be used for comparison – not the Main Street side, which is significantly taller.

From left: Andy Klein, representing the owners of 425 S. Main, and architect Scott Bonney.

Scott Bonney introduced himself as an architect with Neumann/Smith Architects, who’ve been hired by one of the owners of 425 S. Main, Andy Klein, to review the proposed zoning revisions. He said his firm has designed Zaragon West, Zaragon Place, the YMCA and several other projects in Ann Arbor. He noted that the original A2D2 zoning process had designated density along Main Street, and the site was zoned D1 with a 180-foot height limit and up to 900% FAR with affordable housing premiums. The recommendation from ENP & Associates also was for D1, Bonney pointed out, with a height limit reduced to 150 feet, with a 50-foot diagonal requirement that would effectively reduce the size of a tower.

He thought the ORC’s recommendation might be appropriate – for D2 zoning with a 100-foot height. He noted that the D2 zoning calls for 80% maximum lot coverage, compared to 100% allowed for D1. That’s a “huge difference,” he said. D2 also requires 10% of the lot as open space. These things will protect the residential neighborhood and reduce the volume of the building, he said.

The city’s intent – reflected by allowing the Ashley Mews project – is to enhance the walkability and vitality of Main Street by continuing density south of William, Bonney said. Right across the street to the north of 425 S. Main is a vacant city-owned parking lot zoned D1, he noted, which could have a building that’s 180 feet tall. Bonney thought the ORC’s recommendation was appropriate, and provided transitional zoning while protecting the residential neighborhood.

Hugh Sonk said he wanted to address the issue of “messing with the size limitations” in D1 and D2. In the past, any changes have resulted in lowering the height, not increasing it, he said. The community has bought into the idea of D2 having a 60-foot height limit, he added. If it’s higher than that, it’s a disservice to the community. What if someone comes and wants to build a 250-foot building on a D1-zoned site? A 100-foot height in D2 throws out all the previous work that was done on these zoning revisions, he said. Regarding Ashley Mews, Sonk said the average height on that site is probably closer to 50 feet, if you look at the townhouses and the taller Main Street building.

One of the owners of 425 S. Main, Andy Klein, called it an interesting process in which “everybody and anybody seems to understand the best way to redevelop your site.” The property was developed about 30 years ago during a recession by his family and others, at substantial financial risk, he said. This parcel has been singled out because other sites that are being developed have received a negative reaction from the community, Klein said.

The 425 S. Main site is unique, Klein noted. ENP & Associates had recommended keeping it D1 because it’s part of a gateway to downtown – a special, transitional site. That’s why applying D2 with a 60-foot limitation doesn’t work, he said. But 100 feet does work, he added, and is consistent with the area. It also protects the residential neighborhood by stepping back the higher floors. Even at the 100-foot height, the D2 zoning reduces the buildable square feet by almost 60%, and significantly reduces the development of the parcel, compared to D1 zoning. “It’s not great. I don’t particularly like it,” he said. “But I can live with it and I can still in the future do something unique and valuable for the city.”

If the height limit is set at 60 feet, “I’m going to end up with a non-buildable parcel that pretty much the value’s been destroyed,” Klein concluded.

Downtown Zoning: Commission Discussion – D2 Rezoning

Jeremy Peters asked what would happen if the D2 rezoning were approved, but not the changes to the Main Street character district. Bonnie Bona, a member of the ORC, replied that there would be no height limit in that case – because the character overlay district is what sets the height maximum.

Diane Giannola.

Responding to comments at the public hearing, Bona noted that the ENP & Associates report had recommended D1 zoning for this parcel, not D2, and had recommended reducing the height limit from 180 feet to 150 feet when within 20 feet of a residentially zoned area. It was the planning commission and city council that had later recommended D2 zoning and a 60-foot height at 425 S. Main, she said.

Bona clarified with Alexis DiLeo that the site’s previous zoning was C2A, which had no height limit at 660% floor-area ratio (FAR). It’s now D1, with a by-right FAR of 400% and up to 900% FAR with premiums. The height, as specified in the overlay character district, is limited to 180 feet.

Diane Giannola asked a procedural question – because she wanted to discuss the resolution for the character overlay along with the D2 zoning, or address the overlay resolution first. “Some of our decisions might be based on how the discussion goes for both of those,” she said.

Ken Clein thought the issue of D2 was simply whether the site was a downtown interface – between the downtown core and residential neighborhoods. If it is, then it should be zoned D2, he said. It’s the character overlay district that determines factors like height, setbacks and massing, he said. Clein added that he’d be happy to discuss the two issues in any order, but to him, the D2 zoning was straightforward.

Giannola said discussing D2 separately and first makes it difficult for commissioners who are on the fence about D2, because the character overlay district is a compromise. For her, D2 zoning with a 60-foot height limit would be giving people what they don’t want – a big, massive building, lot-line-to-lot-line that would be 60 feet tall. The compromise of 100 feet is more what people want, she said. It wouldn’t be possible to build a 100-foot-tall building lot-line-to-lot-line, because FAR and setbacks would keep it in check, she said. So for her, the two items are linked and she wouldn’t support D2 unless she knew what would be in the character overlay district.

From left: Commissioners Bonnie Bona and Eleanore Adenekan.

Bona said one of the hardest parts of the city zoning code is the concept of floor-area ratio. The public commentary keeps focusing on height, but the most important issue for this site is the question of FAR. Should it be 200% FAR by right, with 400% for premiums? Or 400% by right, with a maximum of 700% for premiums? “The buildings that have caused the angst in town are at that maximum floor area,” Bona said.

Bona thought it was a question of floor area. She said it’s clear to her that in the master plan, any place that’s adjacent to a residential neighborhood should be an interface zone – that is, D2. She said she’d fight for that.

Peters moved to postpone the item about D2 zoning until after the commission considered the resolution regarding the Main Street character district.

Clein pointed out that most people during the public hearing had supported D2, including the property owner. It seemed like it would be counterproductive not to zone it D2, he said.

Outcome: The move to postpone the D2 zoning item until later in the meeting passed on a 7-2 vote, over dissent from Bona and Clein. That meant the planning commission considered the Main Street character district before acting on the zoning. 

Downtown Zoning: Public Hearing – Main Street Character District

The commission then held a public hearing about revisions to the Main Street character district. Seven people spoke, including six people who’d spoken during the previous public hearing on D2 zoning. They re-emphasized themes from their previous comments.

Ray Detter said this whole process is trying to fix mistakes of the A2D2 zoning. The D1 zoning of 425 S. Main had been a mistake, he said. The concern is that if the city starts messing with the concept of D2, making it something other than 60 feet for a height limit, where does it stop? Detter said planned projects are a good approach, rather than character overlay districts – the 618 S. Main project is a good example.

Ray Detter spoke on behalf of the downtown area citizens advisory council.

Eppie Potts thought the proposed overlay district is undercutting the work that was done in developing the proposed zoning revisions. “This is a proposal to change what D2 means,” she said. “A hundred foot height is not D2.” She didn’t think D2 should vary based on its location within the city. Potts called it an “unprecedented playing games with zoning.”

Steve Kaplan said he wasn’t sure what the character overlay concept means. If the idea is to preserve the vibrant restaurant and retail character of Main Street, he noted that most of the buildings are three or four floors. There are only a couple of exceptions to that, he said. Six stories – which would be possible with a 60-foot height limit – is a lot of density, he said, and would more than triple what’s currently on the site.

Hugh Sonk expressed concern that by having a 100-foot height limit, it would mess with buildable FAR on the site. He hoped commissioners could address that, to mitigate the fear that some people might have. He thought the community expected that D2 would have a 60-foot height limit.

In talking about zoning, Christine Crockett said it’s not just about a vibrant Main Street. It’s also about having a vibrant place to live. Zoning needs to work synergistically, she said, so that Ann Arbor doesn’t just have “a nice touristy atmosphere where we get the North Woodward crowd on the weekend, and the rest of the time it’s dead.” It’s about having people live and work and find their entertainment downtown. The downtown area citizens advisory council, on which she serves, recently talked about how the change to downtown – lots of restaurants, rather than a variety of other stores that used to be downtown – is posing all sorts of problems, including contributing to global warming. Everyone talks about density, like it’s “some great nirvana of urban planning paradise,” she said. Vibrancy is about the whole picture, and residential neighborhoods shouldn’t be compromised.

Scott Bonney, the architect working with the owner of 425 S. Main, said that many cities have a more stepped approach, with a gradual increase in height as you move farther away from the core urban area. In Ann Arbor, the overlay districts attempt to fine-tune that, he said. So there’s a level of granularity that exists in the overlay districts. He noted that he hasn’t been hired to design anything yet. But if he were asked to design a building there, he’d probably place emphasis on the north side of the site, with low density on the south. “It wants to be part of downtown, if it’s a tall thing,” he said. “It wants to be low if it’s to the south side.” He suggested that the stepbacks might be oriented north to south. Also, the requirement of 80% maximum lot coverage and 10% minimum open space for D2 will do a great deal to make a building with much less impact, compared to D1 zoning.

Pat Martz told commissioners she lived on South Ashley, and can see Baker Commons from her window. Looking up to Main Street, the buildings loom, she said. Even if floors are stepped back from the street, they’ll still loom over the neighborhood to the west. The Old West Side residential neighborhood is lower than Main Street. People tend to avoid walking south on Main, she said – when you reach William, you turn east or west, because the buildings are already too tall and it’s not friendly. There are no eyes on the street, and the buildings are too close to the sidewalk, she said. Character overlays will result in “planning chaos,” she said. And D2 already offers plenty of density, Martz said. “I would say to go to moderation.”

Downtown Zoning: Commission Discussion – Main Street Character District

Before turning to the specific discussion on the character district, Kirk Westphal asked staff to respond to allegations made about the ORC meetings, to review how the meetings are publicized. Planning manager Wendy Rampson replied that the meetings are posted on the city’s planning and development website, and sent to the clerk’s office for noticing. Announcements of committee meetings are not emailed out through the city’s email alert system, she said, nor are they posted on Legistar. The meetings are open to the public, although there are typically less than a quorum of commissioners present. Westphal noted that the media [The Ann Arbor Chronicle] have attended some of the committee meetings.

Kirk Westphal.

Westphal said the commissioners depend on public input, so if there are specific parts of the process that are failing, then those should be brought to the attention of the staff and commission.

Westphal also said there’d been insinuations about negotiations or behind-the-scenes dealings, “and I find those objectionable.” If there are specific instances or concerns, those should be brought to the attention of staff or the appropriate city councilmembers, he said.

Bonnie Bona addressed what she called the continuing confusion of floor-area ratio (FAR) versus height. The floor-area ratio of D2 is consistent throughout downtown. D2 has a 200% maximum FAR, 400% with premiums – that’s true for any property zoned D2. The different character areas modify how the building can be shaped, she explained. You can’t add more square footage based on the character overlay, but you can shape it differently.

The process of reviewing downtown zoning – including input from the public and the ENP & Associates report – considered stepbacks from residential neighborhoods, Bona said, with the focus primarily on East Huron. Other ideas included the use of diagonals, which would result in towers that are tall and thin, rather than buildings that are shorter and squat. But diagonals directly conflict with height limits, Bona noted.

The proposed change to the Main Street character district for D2 properties calls for a maximum base building height of four stories, with stepbacked floors allowed above that. For D2 sites in other character districts, a 60-foot building height is allowed, she noted – so a building could have a 60-foot wall without stepbacks. The Main Street character district wouldn’t allow a building to go straight up that high from the property line, she said.

It would be simple to just set a 60-foot height limit, Bona continued, but the planning commission and city council have wanted to explore the use of diagonals and stepbacks, Bona said. “So this was an opportunity to do that, to provide that nuance.” Zoning to a 60-foot height on the 425 S. Main site would probably mean a developer would use a planned project approach, similar to the 618 S. Main building, she said. [A planned project is one that seeks variations in height and setbacks.] The ORC really struggled with this issue, she added.

Sabra Briere.

Sabra Briere wondered why the ORC didn’t recommend D1, with a character district that sets the building height at 100 feet. That would be in keeping with other character districts in D1, and with the ENP & Associates report. In the past, the city has modified D1 to have shorter heights, but have never modified D2 to have taller heights, she said. “This is a jarring note,” Briere added, especially because the resolution from council that directed this work specified D2 at 60 feet.

Briere was also concerned that having only one parcel zoned D2 in the Main Street character district seems like spot zoning. Why didn’t the ORC recommend that it be part of the First Street character district, where other D2 parcels are located?

In addition, Briere wanted to know how the ordinance language would describe the 45-degree stepbacks. She’d originally thought it was intended to be east-to-west, but the architect, Scott Bonney, had indicated using the stepbacks north-to-south. If the ordinance doesn’t specify the orientation, she wasn’t sure what it would accomplish.

Responding to Briere, Westphal said the ORC didn’t include in its scope a redefinition of the character district boundaries – that’s why the 425 S. Main site remains in the Main Street character district. Setting the boundaries of the character districts had been done as part of A2D2, he noted, and people spent a couple of years looking at it.

Bona said the ORC looked at adjacent properties that might be appropriate for rezoning to D2, but “we couldn’t justify that.” She didn’t consider it spot zoning, since there were D2 properties adjacent to it. The overlay districts “are more of a nuance,” Bona added.

Regarding stepbacks, Bona said the only reason for them would be for the side that’s adjacent to residential property. For 425 S. Main, there would be no stepback requirements for the north, west or south sides. The concept of having a tower on the north side and stepbacks on the east would only work with a 100-foot height, she said – unless a developer wanted to go through a planned project, which allows for variations in height and setbacks. Bona pointed out that if the city wanted to force a developer to build a tower on the north side with stepbacks on the east side, they’d have to write that specifically into the character district requirements.

Westphal added that there’s nothing prohibiting a building from stepping back on the other sides. It’s simply required only on the east side.

Wendy Woods.

Diane Giannola, another ORC member, pointed out that a 100-foot building on a site zoned D1 would not be the same as a 100-foot building on a D2 lot. The shape and size – based on FAR – would be different. So if the 425 S. Main zoning is left as D1 yet the height is lowered to 100 feet, that could result in a bigger building than a 100-foot height with D2 zoning, she noted.

Wendy Woods, describing herself as another member of the “infamous ORC committee,” said it’s difficult to distill hours of discussion that took place during committee meetings. She apologized for those who couldn’t find the meeting times, and said the committee would try to make those meetings more visible in the future.

Responding to Briere, Woods said the reason the ORC was recommending D2 is because the site is an interface area, very near a residential neighborhood, and they were trying to be sensitive to that. She didn’t think it’s spot zoning. Although character district requirements haven’t received much attention, Woods said, they’ve been in place since A2D2 was approved in 2009. By modifying the Main Street character district, “we’re just using one of the many tools as a planning commission to really try to be sensitive to what we’re hearing,” Woods said.

Woods also stressed the need to be sensitive to the property owner of the site that’s being rezoned. “God bless him – because if people were talking about something I owned and acted as if I don’t have much of a say in it, I know I’d be sitting on my hands or zipping my lip trying to not react.”

Everyone who lives in Ann Arbor wants it to be a place where their children and grandchildren will want to live, Woods said, and no one has a corner on that attitude. As a volunteer group, the planning commission is doing the best it can, she added. They hope to get it right, Woods said, but when they don’t, “that’s why we send it on to city council – so they can then make changes. So the buck stops there.”

Paras Parekh.

Paras Parekh asked the ORC members to explain the advantages of their proposal, compared to the city council’s directive – based on previous planning commission recommendations – to pursue D2 zoning with a 60-foot height limit for this site.

Giannola replied that the main advantage is that D2 with a 100-foot height limit would result in a better-shaped building. If the height is limited to 60 feet, she said, the odds are that you’ll get a 60-foot high, blocky building.

Westphal said that the city council hasn’t encouraged planned projects, which allow for variation in height and setback. Rather, there’s a desire for a more predictable process, he added, and to encode in zoning what they’d like to see built.

Briere said that Westphal’s recollection is accurate for the time when there was still the opportunity to do a planned unit development (PUD) or planned project. The council at that time, including mayor John Hieftje, preferred PUDs over planned projects because PUDs offered more flexibility, she said.

But when A2D2 zoning changes were implemented, many councilmembers at the time felt that the creation of D1 and D2 zoning eliminated the need to have PUDs downtown, “because the zoning now allows the very types of things we were encouraging planned unit developments to produce,” she said. In that context, planned projects returned to the forefront in a positive way, she added, to allow developers to have design flexibility within D1 or D2 zoning.

Bona said she thought the city council resolution that directed the planning commission’s work had mentioned the idea of revisiting diagonals, and looking at steps to reduce shading to adjacent residential properties. That was part of the discussion at the ORC meetings, she said. The ORC felt it would be important to look at those issues downtown-wide, not on a parcel-by-parcel basis. That was especially true for diagonals, she said, because it directly conflicts with height limits. But the ORC felt that stepbacks could be tried at that location because of the narrow nature of the 425 S. Main site, she said. A building that’s 60 feet tall next to a residential neighborhood is still pretty tall, she said. So this was an opportunity to try something in one location without being disruptive.

As a designer, Bona said, she thinks a stepback is a better solution than a planned project. But you can’t really do a stepback with a 60-foot height limit. “We have to give them some flexibility to move that square footage somewhere,” Bona said.

Sabra Briere.

Briere indicated that she didn’t find any reference to diagonals in the council resolution. She said she couldn’t get past this specific statement in the council resolution: “Rezone the parcel at 425 S. Main from D1 (Downtown Core) to D2 (Downtown Interface) and establish a maximum height of 60 feet for D2 zoning in the Main Street Character District.” [.pdf of full resolution, as approved by city council on Jan. 21, 2014]

“That’s the resolution,” Briere said, adding that she couldn’t “get past the fact that we don’t have that result in front of us today.”

A maximum height of 100 feet for D2 exceeds everyone’s understanding of what D2 zoning is, Briere said. So the proposed changes to the Main Street character district are inconsistent with anything else that’s been done before, she added. “It’s not predictable, it’s not consistent, it’s not reliable – it’s just not all those things we’ve said zoning needs to be.”

The community has chosen to have height limits, Briere said.

Giannola asked about the East Huron character district, which has a different height limit for D1 than for D1 sites in other character districts. How is that different than what’s being proposed for the Main Street character district? she asked.

Briere said that when D1 height limits have varied, it has varied to a lower height limit. “And here we are varying D2 up,” she said, so the difference between D1 and D2 “becomes really mushy.” She acknowledged that there was a difference in FAR, but she described that as “inside baseball.”

Giannola pointed out that zoning isn’t just about height. “I know people think that, but we don’t think that,” she said.

Briere replied that perhaps if she knew the ORC’s broader vision, it might be clear. But she was just seeing a single proposal, and “varying upward by right makes me very uncomfortable.” She would be more comfortable with D2 at 60 feet, then allowing for a planned project if a developer wanted greater height.

Eleanore Adenekan asked Briere whether she wanted to make an amendment, so that the commission could vote it up or down. “This is getting to be rather much,” Adenekan said. [It was approaching 11 p.m.] No, Briere said. She’d be more inclined to just vote no on the proposed resolution.

Bona pointed out that the council resolution had indeed mentioned diagonals and stepbacks, though not directly tied to the 425 S. Main parcel. From the resolution: “Reduce the maximum height in the East Huron 1 Character District to 120 feet, include a tower diagonal maximum and consider a step-back requirement to reduce the shading of residential properties to the north.”

Bona said the north side of East Huron is a far more sensitive area to massing and height, compared to 425 S. Main – because residential properties are north of D1 sites on East Huron, and sun comes from the south. If council would accept this for the northern side of Huron, it should only be easier to accept it for 425 S. Main, Bona said.

Ken Clein.

Westphal said there’s been dissatisfaction with the bulkiness of buildings in D1, and there’s been talk about possibly making those buildings narrower and raising the height in D1 as a way of decreasing the shading on neighbors. So this hasn’t been the only time they’ve talked about potentially revising height upward, he said.

If the planning commission believes that height limits are the problem, Briere replied, “then I would rather see all of this come back at once with that addressed, rather than doing this piecemeal.” If the planning commission is going to have a coherent discussion about height limits, it would be best to address it at one time, she said. If the intent of the current proposal is to encourage less blocky buildings, “that is a point of discussion – but not a discussion I want to have multiple times.”

Parekh asked members of the ORC whether the proposal for 425 S. Main would also be appropriate for Kerrytown or First Street character districts. He said he was trying to build a case for consistency. Westphal replied that the planning commission was directed by the city council to look at specific sites, coming on the heels of a comprehensive A2D2 rezoning just a few years ago. The planning commission could look at all character districts, Westphal said, but that wasn’t the directive from council.

Giannola pointed out that 425 S. Main was a very large lot, and one that’s fairly unique in the downtown area.

Clein agreed that it’s a unique parcel, which he said might account for why it’s so difficult to deal with. He felt that the ORC was proposing a unique solution. The challenge from a zoning perspective is that it’s not consistent with any of the surrounding Main Street properties, so it creates a situation that seems like a precedent, he said. Someone else could also argue that other properties are unique, he noted, so “it’s a slippery slope.”

Clein said there’s also concern about the zoning on the east side of Main Street, north of William – but the council hasn’t directed the planning commission to look at that, he noted. Architecturally, he didn’t think 100 feet was a terrible thing. With the D2 zoning and proposed stepbacks, it would be very difficult for anyone to build something over four stories – beyond that, it would get very expensive, he said.

In December, when the planning commission made its recommendations to the council, they’d agreed that the site should be D2 at 60 feet, Clein noted. They had not discussed the possibility of it going higher, so he was hesitant to approve a 100-foot height at this point.

Westphal wrapped up the discussion by saying that this proposal allows for flexibility while removing a significant amount of floor-area ratio that’s been assumed for this property for decades. He was pretty happy with the outcome. Everyone had anticipated that the A2D2 process would need some tweaks, he said, but not a complete overhaul. “I think it’s better than what it is now,” he said. “And sometimes better is better.”

Outcome: On a 6-3 vote, the commission recommended approval of the proposed changes to the Main Street character district, with a 100-foot height limit for D2 properties. Dissenting were Sabra Briere, Ken Clein and Jeremy Peters.

Downtown Zoning: Commission Discussion – D2 Rezoning

Commissioners then returned to the item regarding D2 rezoning for 425 S. Main, which they had voted to postpone earlier in the meeting. There was no additional discussion.

Outcome: Commissioners unanimously voted to recommend rezoning 425 S. Main to D2. Both recommendations will be forwarded to council.

Rezoning of Public Housing Properties

Five properties that provide public housing were on the agenda to be considered for rezoning. The sites are part of the Ann Arbor Housing Commission’s major initiative to upgrade the city’s public housing units by seeking private investors through low-income housing tax credits.

All but one of the sites are currently zoned as public land, and are owned by the city of Ann Arbor. The agenda listed these five original rezoning requests:

• Baker Commons: Requested rezoning from public land to D2 (downtown interface). The 0.94-acre lot is located at 106 Packard Street, at the intersection with South Main, in Ward 5. It includes a 64-unit apartment building.
• Green/Baxter Court Apartments: Requested rezoning from public land to R4B (multi-family dwelling district). The 2-acre site is located at 1701-1747 Green Road and contains 23 apartments in four buildings and a community center. This site was damaged by fire in January 2014, so part of it will be rebuilt. It’s in Ward 2.
• Maple Meadows: Requested rezoning from R1C (single-family dwelling district) to R4B (multi-family dwelling district). The site is 3.4 acres at 800-890 South Maple Road and contains 29 apartments in five buildings and a community center. It’s located in Ward 5.
• Mallett’s Creek Court: Requested rezoning of the east portion of this 2.3-acre parcel at 2670-2680 S. Main from public land to R2A (two-family dwelling district). There are three duplexes on the east side, which is in Ward 4. The west part of the site, which is vacant and in a floodway, would remain public land. The city is currently looking into the possibility of splitting the parcel and making the west section a part of Cranbrook Park.
• 805-807 W. Washington: Requested rezoning from public land to R2A (two-family dwelling district). It’s a 0.18 acre-parcel in Ward 5 that contains one duplex, with a garage that’s used for AAHC facilities storage.

Commissioners were also asked to waive the area plan requirements for the AAHC rezoning petitions, because no new construction is proposed and surveys of the improvements have been provided.

For additional background on the AAHC process of renovating its properties, see Chronicle coverage: “Public Housing Conversion Takes Next Step.”

Rezoning of Public Housing Properties: Staff Report

The commission was briefed by Jennifer Hall, executive director of the Ann Arbor Housing Commission. She began by noting that Ronald Woods, AAHC’s board chair, was also attending the meeting. [Woods is married to planning commissioner Wendy Woods, though this was not mentioned during the meeting.]

Jennifer Hall, executive director of the Ann Arbor Housing Commission.

Hall provided background on this project. She noted that the housing commission is the largest provider of affordable housing in Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County, with 355 units of public housing within the city at 18 different locations. AAHC also has over 1,500 units of vouchers for low-income housing throughout the county.

Hall said that when she came to the housing commission about two years ago, one of the first things she did was examine the finances and take a tour of the AAHC properties. “As part of that process, I was a little bit disturbed by the condition of some of our units,” she said. Hall realized that there wasn’t enough money in AAHC’s budget to fix up the units, because the vast majority of funding comes from the U.S Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

There have been no new public housing units built in the U.S. since 1986, when there was a major change in HUD’s approach to public housing. The change involved more use of vouchers, as well as a focus on more privately funded affordable housing, she said. Now, the biggest form of funding is from low-income housing tax credits – an IRS program.

Public housing tenants pay 30% of their income toward rent, Hall said, but the cost of managing each unit far exceeds that amount. It costs about $600 per month to maintain a one-bedroom apartment and about $1,200 for a five-bedroom unit. HUD provides funding for capital improvements, like roof repair, but it doesn’t provide sufficient funding to cover ongoing maintenance. HUD itself recognizes that it lacks sufficient funding for public housing, Hall said.

The AAHC did a capital needs assessment, and found that they needed about $40,000 per unit of investment over 15 years. Right now, the AAHC gets about $475,000 annually from HUD for capital improvements. Just to replace an elevator at Miller Manor will cost $600,000, Hall noted.

About six months after she became executive director, HUD launched a new program called the rental assistance demonstration (RAD) project. The program allows residents in selected housing units to receive rental assistance through long-term Section 8 subsidy vouchers that are tied to the buildings, rather than held by individuals. The RAD program also enables entities like the AAHC to partner with private-sector developers on housing projects – something the AAHC couldn’t previously do. The Ann Arbor city council gave necessary approvals in connection with the RAD program at its June 3, 2013 meeting.

Ronald Woods, president of the Ann Arbor Housing Commission’s board. He’s married to planning commissioner Wendy Woods.

Hall explained that project-based vouchers, like the those in the RAD program, differ from typical Section 8 vouchers. Traditionally, when someone is awarded a voucher, they can then find a private landlord who’ll accept the voucher. You pay 30% of your income in rent, and the voucher covers the balance – as long as your rent falls within a cap set by HUD. In contrast, project-based vouchers are awarded to AAHC and are attached to specific public housing units. So no matter who lives in that unit, that same subsidy is available from HUD. After someone lives there for a year, they can get a “portable” voucher and move out of the public housing unit.

This RAD conversion is only possible by getting investors from the private sector to fix up the properties, Hall noted. And it’s not possible to get that kind of investment unless the properties are appropriately zoned, she said.

The AAHC is a separate legal entity from the city of Ann Arbor, Hall said. But Hall and her staff are city employees, and there’s a city ordinance that requires the city to buy any property on the housing commission’s behalf. The city could transfer ownership to AAHC at any time, she noted.

HUD has provided all the funding to acquire, maintain or build new units. It gets very confusing, she said, but HUD considers the properties that the city owns on AAHC’s behalf to be HUD properties. So HUD determines what happens with these properties. The city wouldn’t be able to turn any of the public housing units into market rate apartments, for example.

AAHC was selected to be part of the RAD program, Hall said, which has allowed the housing commission to seek funding for the properties included in this first cycle. They’ve secured about $25 million so far for the first set of properties that will be part of the RAD conversion: Baker Commons, Green/Baxter Court, and Maple Meadows. Most of that is private financing, she said.

The properties need to be rezoned so that if they were to burn down or were otherwise damaged, AAHC could rebuild them based on the zoning. The properties are primarily zoned public land, and are among the AAHC’s larger properties – because that’s what investors are interested in.

Hall noted that she’d received a lot of communications from neighbors of the West Washington property in particular. She said she was willing to remove it from rezoning consideration at this time, because it wasn’t one of the critical properties to rezone in the near future.

The West Washington site will either be rehabbed or sold, she said, adding that there’s a 99% chance that AAHC will keep the property. It was one of the first properties that AAHC acquired, and was designed as a duplex with a maintenance garage for AAHC beneath it. Now, the maintenance facility is located elsewhere, so the West Washington garage is used for storage.

The design of the building isn’t an efficient use of the site, she said, so she’d like to keep the option open of selling it. However, Hall added, if there’s any way to make public housing work on that site, that’s her goal. “But I do not have investors right now for that property.”

AAHC also is exploring the possibility of replacing the current asphalt at the back of the site with a pervious surface.

Rezoning of Public Housing Properties: Public Hearing – West Washington

Van Harrison spoke on behalf the Pumping Station Condo Association, a four-unit development on Mulholland that’s located south of the West Washington public housing property. He was pleased that the information they’d sent to AAHC had been understood. The association members supported postponement of the rezoning proposal.

After a recent storm, there was standing water at the Pumping Station Condos on Mulholland, across the street from the West Washington public housing property.

Their concern is “creeping incrementalism,” Harrison said. Several decisions have been made over the years, with each one seeming to make sense in its narrow scope but not coordinated with long-term planning, he noted.

The public housing property had originally been city property that was part of the water pumping station. When it became a public housing site, the area at the back of the lot – next to the garage – was gravel, Harrison said. But at some point, it was paved. Now, most of the property is impervious surface, so stormwater flows directly south onto the condo development. The concern is that the property will be sold without addressing these stormwater issues.

The condo association has appreciated AAHC and tried to accommodate it, but Harrison said they would pursue “legal remedies” to ensure that the stormwater management is taken care of and that their property is protected.

Rezoning of Public Housing Properties: Public Hearing – Mallett’s Creek Court

Eleven people spoke about concerns related to the Mallett’s Creek Court rezoning. Margaret Penirian, who lives in that neighborhood, brought a petition with 60 signatures opposing the rezoning. She said she felt better now that she’d heard about plans for the property. If the vacant part of the parcel were rezoned, it would split “the woodsy part” of Cranbrook Park in half, she said. She didn’t think it could be developed, because the area is in a floodway and is often muddy and “puddley.”

Margaret Penirian.

Penirian urged commissioners to visit the park, especially the wooded park, with a steep ravine, a rushing creek, wildflowers, and mushrooms. It’s “so deep and quiet, you could be in a forest anywhere,” she said. She supported rezoning the part of the land where public housing is already located, and splitting off the other section to remain as parkland.

Bill Sharp said he lives on Kingsbrook, on a lot that backs up to the wooded part of the public housing property. He was happy to hear that the recommendation would be to only rezone the part of the property where housing is already located. He noted that Mallett’s Creek is one of the main places where water drains when it storms. The water rises almost to the edge of the floodplain. He encouraged commissioners to keep the woodsy part of the property as public land. It would be appropriate to rezone the part where the houses are, he said.

Another Kingsbrook resident, Mark Meyerhoff, said his property backs up to the east side of the parcel in question. They bought it as a place to retire because of the view overlooking an open space, with their deck facing an open field – between the public housing and the woods. If AAHC sells the property, there’s no guarantee that his view wouldn’t be blocked by additional buildings, he said.

Marsha Meyerhoff also spoke, saying that everyone who attended the meeting from the Mallett’s Creek Court neighborhood is most concerned about preserving the trees and wildlife. Is there the possibility of a developer buying the vacant property and going through the park? “I don’t know if this is paving the way for that, but that’s pretty much our concern,” she said.

Kim Schreiner, who lives on Colin Circle, said not many people in Oakbrook Villas or the surrounding neighborhood had any idea that this was happening. Ann Arbor needs trees, and needs the oxygenation from the trees, she said, because there’s a lot of building that’s happening. She said she’s a certified registered nurse who works at the University of Michigan, and development is a huge concern. Her children love to play in the park. The reason she’s still living in Ann Arbor is because of the park. “Please don’t let people buy up all the land and destroy it,” she said. “Ann Arbor needs to stay green.”

Michelle Braun lives on Galen Circle, which also backs up to the park area. She supported what her neighbors had said, noting that most people moved there because of the park and green space. “We don’t need more building in that area. It’s a great little pocket of town that has this great forest area that not a lot of people have.” She’d hate to see it developed with housing.

Nela Humm, another Colin Circle resident, said she had no idea this was happening until she ran into one of her neighbors. She asked that the city do a better job of informing residents, beyond the 500-foot radius of the project. She would be directly affected, but she hadn’t received a mailing about it. The neighborhood could be affected in many ways, including house values, “riff raff,” and other impacts, she said.

Aerial view showing location of Mallett’s Creek Court at 2670-2680 S. Main, next to Cranbrook Park.

Ron Gardner lives on Kingsbrook property that backs up to the three existing public housing structures. He encouraged the city to split the property and maintain the part that’s vacant. He hoped the existing footprint of the public housing would be preserved and not expanded.

Jeff Dvorak told commissioners that splitting the property was a good compromise. He urged them to keep it as tight as possible, to minimize future development.

Eppie Potts noted that the neighbors have been using the vacant part of the parcel as a park, and she wondered if anyone at the city was working to get that site included in the parks and recreation open space (PROS) plan. That would really protect it, she said, and it needs some official protection.

Cindy Heusel, another Oakbrook Villas resident, asked that the city “not mess around with that park at all.” She noted that it’s used by elderly people, who enjoy taking walks through it.

Jeff Gearhart introduced himself as a resident of Pine Valley Boulevard. [He's also married to AAHC executive director Jennifer Hall.] He supported the overall rezoning package. It’s important to address the neighbors’ concerns, he said, but he wanted to emphasize that “the people who live in public housing are part of our community, too.” This overall project is about improving their lives, and addressing a long-term set of defrayed issues that will “raise all boats.”

Changming Fan spoke about his company, TiniLite. Midway through his comments, planning commission chair Kirk Westphal noted that this public hearing was specifically for the rezoning resolution. Fan asked if he could talk about the master plan or transportation. Westphal noted that there would be another opportunity for public commentary at the end of the meeting.

Rezoning of Public Housing Properties: Commission Discussion – Baker Commons

Wendy Woods moved to discuss these five properties separately. Her motion for separate consideration passed unanimously. Discussion began with Baker Commons, a rezoning request from public land to D2 (downtown interface).

Bonnie Bona.

Sabra Briere noted that the surrounding parcels around Baker Commons are also zoned D2. An item later on the commission’s agenda talks about “playing with D2 definition,” she said. [She was referring to proposed downtown zoning revisions, reported previously in this article.] Briere said some people who are avidly watching the downtown zoning revisions wonder what the D2 designation means for AAHC’s plans.

AAHC executive director Jennifer Hall replied that the AAHC needs for the zoning to be such that if a building burned down, it could be rebuilt. Beyond that, she didn’t have a preference about what that zoning should be. But public land doesn’t currently allow housing to be built on it.

Hall again noted that the three critical properties to be rezoned are Baker Commons, Green/Baxter and Maple Meadows. Those properties have investors and a deal that she hoped would close in the next couple of months.

Bonnie Bona asked planning manager Wendy Rampson to explain what character district applies to the Baker Commons site. Rampson clarified that it’s located in the First Street character district. Its boundaries roughly follow the railroad tracks and Allen Creek. It’s a different character district than the one that was being proposed as part of the downtown zoning revisions.

Bona noted that the First Street character district has a height limit of 60 feet, but Baker Commons is taller than 60 feet. She pointed out that based on allowable floor-area ratios for D2 in that character district, it would allow for a building double or triple the size of Baker Commons to be built there, even with the height limit. That’s true, Rampson said, but any new project would have to go through the city’s site plan review and approval process.

Outcome: Commissioners voted unanimously to recommend rezoning the Baker Commons site to D2 and waive the area plan requirements for the AAHC rezoning petition. The recommendations will be forwarded to the city council for consideration.

Rezoning of Public Housing Properties: Commission Discussion – Green/Baxter

Commissioners next considered the rezoning request for 1701-1747 Green Road, from public land to R4B (multi-family dwelling district). The 2-acre site – on the northwest corner of Green and Baxter roads – contains 23 apartments in four buildings and a community center.

Aerial view of Green/Baxter Court, at the northwest corner of Green and Baxter roads.

Bonnie Bona wondered why R4B was being proposed. All of the adjacent zoning is different, she noted. Bona also pointed out that a greater amount of density would be allowed if the site were to be redeveloped in the future.

Residential property on the opposite side of Green Road is zoned R4A. Bona wondered what the difference is between R4B and R4A. Wendy Rampson replied, saying R4B allows for slightly higher density. Rampson indicated that R4A would also work on that site.

Bona said she’d be more comfortable rezoning it R4A, because it more closely aligns with surrounding zoning. Otherwise, it would be the only site zoned R4B in that neighborhood.

Rampson said that as long as AAHC executive director Jennifer Hall was agreeable with the change, the planning staff would have no problem changing it.

Bona formally proposed amending the rezoning to R4A.

Outcome on amendment: It was unanimously approved.

There was no further discussion.

Outcome: Commissioners voted unanimously to recommend rezoning 1701-1747 Green Road to R4A and waive the area plan requirements for the AAHC rezoning petition. The recommendations will be forwarded to the city council for consideration.

Rezoning of Public Housing Properties: Commission Discussion – Maple Meadows

Maple Meadows – at 800-890 South Maple Road, south of Liberty – is currently zoned R1C (single-family dwelling district). The recommendation is to rezone it as R4B (multi-family dwelling district). The site contains 29 apartments in five buildings and a community center.

Wendy Woods wondered how the site got so “out of whack,” with so many multi-family units built on property that’s zoned for single-family homes. Wendy Rampson replied, saying that historically, the public housing was built where there was available land. Because it was bought by the city and funded through HUD, the development had been exempt from city zoning. The land was likely zoned in the 1960s as R1C, Rampson explained, and the public housing was built later – in the late ’60s or early ’70s.

Outcome: Commissioners voted unanimously to recommend rezoning 800-890 South Maple as R4B and to waive the area plan requirements for the AAHC rezoning petition. The recommendations will be forwarded to the city council for consideration.

Rezoning of Public Housing Properties: Commission Discussion – Mallett’s Creek Court

Jeremy Peters asked whether there are any plans to sell the property – that concern had been raised during the public hearing. AAHC executive director Jennifer Hall apologized to the neighbors, saying she had no idea that there had been concerns – she hadn’t received any emails or other communications about it until the public hearing.

Jeremy Peters wore an “I Voted” sticker during the May 6 meeting, which began an hour before the polls closed at 8 p.m. The only item on the ballot was a transit tax proposal, which voters overwhelmingly supported.

The West Washington site is the only one of these five sites that HUD has approved for sale. For the other properties, including Mallett’s Creek Court, HUD will require that AAHC sign a 20-year commitment for public housing. AAHC will be required to sign subsequent 20-year contracts in perpetuity – as long as HUD exists – to keep the sites as affordable housing.

Hall added that AAHC staff had no idea that the Mallett’s Creek Court parcel stretched into the park, until they started looking at the possibility of rezoning. That portion of the site has never been maintained or used by AAHC, she said. The city has maintained that portion as if it were part of the city’s park system, “and we just assumed it was part of the city’s park system,” she said. They had no intent to ever build on the parcel.

Hall reported that she’s already talked to the parks staff about splitting off that portion of the site, and the city attorney’s office is helping with that. AAHC doesn’t want the housing portion of the parcel to be in the floodway.

If it’s necessary to postpone this rezoning so that details can be worked out, Hall said that was fine with her.

Wendy Rampson reported that HUD might have some issues with splitting the parcel, so more work needs to be done to explore that option. She suggested postponing action indefinitely on this site, as well as the West Washington site.

Ken Clein wanted to emphasize that AAHC doesn’t have any intention of selling the property, and that even if they wanted to sell it, there would be restrictions placed on a sale by HUD.

Outcome: Commissioners unanimously voted to postpone this item to a future meeting.

Rezoning of Public Housing Properties: Commission Discussion – West Washington

The proposal called for rezoning 805-807 W. Washington – at the southwest corner of Washington and Mulholland – from public land to R2A (two-family dwelling district). It contains one duplex, with a garage that’s used for AAHC facilities storage.

Bonnie Bona clarified with Wendy Rampson that based on the lot size and rezoning, only a single unit could be built there in the future.

Wendy Woods wanted to get some information about issues that were raised during the public hearing. She asked what happens in that area when there’s a major rainfall.

Rampson replied that this area is a very stressed section of the Allen Creek system – as the creek runs through an underground drain in that area. The pavement on the public housing site contributes to the problem, but it’s a much broader issue, she said. It’s a drainage problem that the city often deals with.

Woods said she didn’t know what it costs to return pavement to gravel, but she wondered whether AAHC has considered any ways of mitigating the runoff problem from that site. Jennifer Hall replied that the AAHC facilities manager estimates it would cost about $5,000. There are other problems with the property, she noted – for example, the roof needs to be replaced or it won’t last through next winter. They’re planning to put on a metal roof, which is a more permanent roof, she said. AAHC is also exploring whether it can break up the pavement. “I fully intend to deal with that this summer,” Hall said.

Bona thought there might be an opportunity to get grant funding for a rain garden or other way of dealing with the drainage issue.

Outcome: Commissioners unanimously voted to postpone this item to a future meeting.

Glenwood Annexation

Planning commissioners were asked to recommend the annexation of an 0.22-acre lot at 375 Glenwood Street – currently in Scio Township – and to zone the site as R1C (single-family dwelling district), which matches the zoning of surrounding sites.

375 Glenwood is outlined in black with hashmarks.

The parcel is on the west side of Glenwood, south of Dexter Road. The owners, Kelly Anderson and Victoria Pebbles, also own the adjacent lot. They want to build a single-family home on the 375 Glenwood site, which is currently vacant. The annexation would allow the site to connect with city water and utility services.

According to a staff memo, the 2014 water improvement charges are $5,345.10 and the 2014 sanitary improvement charges are $8,667.10.

The construction would require installing a public sidewalk.

No one spoke during a public hearing on this item. [.pdf of staff memo and resolution]

Glenwood Annexation: Commission Discussion

Wendy Woods asked about language in the staff memo:

There are city utilities available to service this parcel, including a 6” water main and a 12” sanitary sewer. Storm sewer is not available. Connection to the sanitary sewer may require detailed design by an engineer. No representation is made as to ability to connect.

Woods wondered about the statement “No representation is made as to the ability to connect.” She didn’t think she’d seen that kind of statement before.

Katy Ryan, an intern with the planning unit who gave the staff report, noted that Glenwood is an unpaved road. Planning manager Wendy Rampson elaborated. Because the road is gravel, the drainage is provided via ditches in that neighborhood, rather than connections to the city’s storm sewer system. Sewer and water systems are available, but the elevation of the pipes in that area might make it difficult to connect. The “no representation” statement is just the staff’s way of saying that they haven’t reviewed it, and that it’s up to the property owner to address, she said.

Woods asked about potential flooding. Rampson replied that there’s a long history to that area, where property has been annexed from Scio Township. In the past, residents have explored whether to pave the roads. Some of the lower-lying properties have experienced drainage issues, she noted. But every time the issue of paving emerges, the cost has been prohibitive to residents, she said.

Bonnie Bona followed up, noting the city’s interest in rain gardens and infiltration approaches to handling stormwater. She wondered if that “more progressive approach” had been looked at in this neighborhood. Rampson didn’t think it had been studied there, saying it had been about 10 years since the issue had been brought up. She wasn’t sure the soils are amenable to infiltration, but said it’s something that can be explored in the future.

Sabra Briere asked if there are other sidewalks in the neighborhood. Ryan indicated that this would be the first sidewalk. Briere noted that it’s a situation where the sidewalk is considered an improvement, even though it doesn’t connect to anything. Ryan replied: “We’re currently looking into that right now.”

Outcome: Planning commissioners unanimously recommended annexation and zoning. The recommendation will be forwarded to the city council for consideration.

Master Plan Review

The planning commission’s bylaws call for an annual review of the city’s master plan, including a public hearing.

Planning manager Wendy Rampson.

Seven documents constitute the city’s master plan: (1) the sustainability framework, adopted in 2013; (2) parks and recreation open space (PROS) plan, as adopted in 2011; (3) land use element, as adopted in 2013 to add the South State corridor plan; (4) downtown plan, as adopted in 2009; (5) transportation plan update, as adopted in 2009; (6) non-motorized transportation plan, adopted in 2007 and updated in 2013; and (7) natural features master plan, adopted in 2004.

Collectively, the documents are intended to describe a vision for the city’s future and guide decisions about land use, transportation, infrastructure, environment, housing, and public facilities.

The annual review is a time for commissioners, staff or the public to suggest changes or topics that should be studied for possible inclusion in the master plan.

Planning manager Wendy Rampson noted that within the past fiscal year, commissioners adopted the South State Street corridor plan as an element of the land use plan, and also adopted the non-motorized plan update. Now, commissioners seem to be interested in looking at the North Main corridor, Rampson said, so that’s something to consider working on this coming year. Other possibilities include a corridor plan for Washtenaw Avenue, and working with the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority on a streetscape framework plan.

A resolution on the May 6 agenda laid out these topics, among others. From the resolved clauses:

Resolved, The City Planning Commission will continue the process of developing a corridor plan for Washtenaw Avenue and begin the process of developing a corridor plan for North Main Street to address land use, transportation and economic development in these areas;

Resolved, The City Planning Commission will assist the Downtown Development Authority in creating a Streetscape Framework Plan;

Resolved, The City Planning Commission will assist in the implementation of the Sustainability Action Plan, in coordination with the Energy Commission, the Environmental Commission, Park Advisory Commission, Housing Commission and Housing and Human Services Board;

A separate resolution listed 16 documents that are used as resources to support the master plan.

Rampson recommended postponing these resolutions until May 20, to give commissioners time to incorporate additional input. [.pdf of staff memo and resolutions]

Master Plan Review: Public Hearing

Last year, the master plan hearing drew six speakers on a range of topics, including development in Lowertown, a park in downtown Ann Arbor, and a push for adequate sidewalks, cleared of vegetation, so that kids can walk to school safely.

This year, only one person spoke the May 7 public hearing – Changming Fan of TiniLite World. He noted that the company was registered in 1996 in Ann Arbor and has never moved away. He said he lost his house because of the economic downturn. He wanted to use his technology to help people, especially the poor. But small businesses and innovators are ignored, he said. He urged commissioners to include this technology in the city’s master plan.

Master Plan Review: Commission Discussion

Discussion was brief. Regarding the resource documents, Bonnie Bona wanted to replace the North Main Street/Huron River Corridor Summary Land Use Policy of 1988 with the new North Main/Huron River task force report that was completed in 2013.

Bona also wondered whether the city’s climate action plan should be included as a resource document.

Rampson said she’d incorporate those changes into the resolutions that would be considered on May 20.

Outcome: Planning commissioners voted unanimously to postpone action on the item until the May 20 meeting.

Communications & Commentary

Every meeting includes several opportunities for communications from planning staff and commissioners, as well as two opportunities for public commentary. Here are some highlights from May 6.

Communications & Commentary: City Council Update

Sabra Briere, who serves as the city council’s representative on the planning commission, reported that the only council action on May 5 that directly affected the planning commission was the reappointment of Kirk Westphal to the environmental commission, as the planning commission’s representative to that group. She noted that the council will be voting on the fiscal 2015 budget at its May 19 meeting, and she encouraged everyone to review it and let her know what they thought.

Briere did not mention that his reappointment came on a 7-4 vote after 20 minutes of debate. Dissenting were Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), Jack Eaton (Ward 4), Mike Anglin (Ward 5) and Sumi Kailasapathy (Ward 1). The controversy on the appointment stemmed from a decision by mayor John Hieftje last year not to nominate Jeff Hayner to the public art commission – because Hayner was running for Ward 1 city council against Sabra Briere. Those who dissented on Westphal’s appointment argued in part that the same principle should be applied to Westphal, a Democrat who is running for the Ward 2 city council seat this year.

Communications & Commentary: DDA Streetscape Framework

Ken Clein, who represents the planning commission on the partnerships committee of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority, reported that the DDA held its first advisory committee meeting for the streetscape framework project on May 1, which included a walking tour. He’s representing the planning commission as part of that effort. [The DDA board authorized a $200,000 contract for development of a streetscape framework plan at its Nov. 6, 2013 meeting.] Clein said it was exciting to walk around town and see things in a new light.

Communications & Commentary: Written Communications

Bonnie Bona addressed a written communication that had been received from Rod Sorge, president of the Earhart Village Homes Association. [.pdf of Sorge's email] His email referred to an Ann Arbor Chronicle report about comments made by planning commissioners at a March 4, 2014 meeting. From Sorge’s email:

In [Mary Morgan's] article about the commission’s consideration of a proposal from Concordia University,” Concordia Takes Step in Campus Upgrade” in the Ann Arbor Chronicle, March 8, 2014, she reports some comments she attributes to commission members. Among these comments about the Concordia University’s expansion plans and the neighborhood she reported that a commissioner [Clein] wondered whether the city should talk to the university about rezoning the entire site, rather than having to grant a special exception use for each project. Her article continued quoting a commissioner [Bona] as stating, “There’s not a lot of development in that area.”

Some confusion arose from the vagueness of the phrase “a commissioner” in Sorge’s email.

Bona noted that she was the commissioner who had been quoted as saying “There’s not a lot of development in that area.” She said that the only thing stated in the minutes is that the city is interested in the university’s overall master plan, and that it’s important to incorporate the neighborhood into that conversation. She wanted to clarify that rezoning was never mentioned. She said she was bringing it up because there hadn’t been a lot of public input at the March 4 meeting, and her desire was “to have [Concordia] have a more comprehensive plan that we could look at, instead of just a knee-jerk reaction every time they wanted to do something.”

She wanted to assure Sorge that the city had no intention of rezoning the Concordia property.

By way of background, it’s true that Bona did not mention rezoning during her comments at the March 4 meeting. However, Sorge’s email is likely referring to a comment by commissioner Ken Clein, who did bring up the rezoning issue, which was reported in The Chronicle:

Ken Clein wondered whether the city should talk to the university about rezoning the site, rather than having to grant a special exception use for each project. City planner Jeff Kahan replied that this is how the city handles private colleges. Such uses are allowed by special exception in office districts and single-family residential districts. Kahan said the city staff believes the existing zoning is reasonable, and it’s reasonable to require that the university request a special exception use for each project.

The March 4, 2014 meeting minutes – which the planning commission approved on May 6 – also reflect that exchange about rezoning. From the minutes:

Clein asked staff if the City would rather have the University rezone their site for future development rather than have them return before the Commission requesting Special Exception Use.

Kahan explained that the City handles all private colleges in this manner, through Special Exception Uses, when they are located in single-family and office zoning districts. He stated that staff believes the parcel is zoned appropriately for this type of use and is reasonable, given the size of their site.

Communications & Commentary: Public Commentary

During public commentary at the start of the meeting, a resident of Green Brier Boulevard spoke to commissioners, noting that he lived across the street from the public housing complex on Green Road. He’d called the city because his apartment was at 80 degrees, and someone from the city told him it would be inspected in June, he said.

Changming Fan, who has frequently addressed the planning commission and other public bodies over the past few months, spoke about his company, TiniLite World Inc. He said he appreciated the democratic system. Ann Arbor is the first city that used LED lighting. He said he’d like to contribute his firm’s technology, called TiniLite. It’s a lighting display using LED lights, cell phones, and wireless Internet. He hoped it could be used to interconnect people socially, spiritually and emotionally to help Ann Arbor. He thought that the technology should be included in the city’s master plan.

Fan also spoke during public commentary at the end of the meeting, stressing the same themes.

Present: Eleanore Adenekan, Bonnie Bona, Sabra Briere, Ken Clein, Diane Giannola, Paras Parekh, Jeremy Peters, Kirk Westphal, Wendy Woods. Also: City planning manager Wendy Rampson.

Next meeting: Tuesday, May 20, 2014 at 7 p.m. in council chambers at city hall, 301 E. Huron. [Check Chronicle event listings to confirm date]

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Matt Kowalski, right, gives a report on recommendations from the R4C/R2A advisory committee at a May 8, 2012 work session of the Ann Arbor planning commission. Next to him is Tony Derezinski, a planning commissioner and city council member who served on the advisory committee. To the left is Wendy Carman, an advisory committee member who took issue with some aspects of the final report. Two other committee members – Eppie Potts and Julie Weatherbee – attended the working session.

Both kinds of zoning districts were established in the 1960s, and applied to existing neighborhoods. R4C allows for multiple-family residential dwellings, such as apartment buildings, while R2A zoning limits density to two-family residential structures. Planning manager Wendy Rampson described the R4C zoning as “broken” –and most of the committee recommendations relate to R4C districts.

Concerns about R4C/R2A districts have been raised since at least the mid-1980s, and are tied to the question of how dense these areas can be. Although there were smaller projects that caused concern,  two more recent large housing proposals – The Moravian, and City Place – brought the issue to the forefront for people on both sides of the density debate.

In particular, the controversial City Place project on South Fifth Avenue, which combined multiple lots and demolished seven residential houses to build two apartment buildings, has been cited as an example of the need to address R4C zoning. City Place changes the streetscape of that neighborhood, but is analyzed as conforming to current zoning code.

The final committee report includes 10 recommendations, with accompanying analysis. [.pdf of recommendations] The major recommendations relate to: (1) rebuilding structures that don’t conform to existing zoning; (2) rezoning certain areas from R4C to R2A; (3) reducing minimum lot sizes and minimum lot widths; (4) exploring the creation of zoning overlay districts; (5) revising density calculations; (6) revising parking standards; and (7) changing requirements for lot combinations.

Commissioners praised the work of the committee, but much of the discussion related to future process: What are the next steps to take, now that the report has been completed? It’s likely that the group’s ordinance revisions committee will tackle the job of making recommendations for specific ordinance language to implement the changes. Those ordinance revisions would then be reviewed by the planning commission, which would forward its recommendations to city council.

In terms of content, commissioners mostly focused on the idea of overlay districts, which would be a way of preserving the character of different, distinct R4C neighborhoods. Commissioner Bonnie Bona floated the concept of form-based code as an option. Described in a very general way, a form-based approach tends to be more proscriptive regarding the types of buildings that the community wants to see in a particular district, including their design. In contrast, traditional zoning typically sets an allowable range of uses, sizes, placements, and other aspects for a development, but generally leaves the details of those decisions to the developer.

It was generally acknowledged that either approach – form-based or one with overlay districts – would be a complex issue to tackle.

Three advisory committee members – Wendy Carman, Ethel “Eppie” Potts, and Julie Weatherbee – attended the May 8 session. Carman and Potts spoke during public commentary to amplify written comments they had provided as supplements to the report, expressing concerns that some aspects of the report don’t accurately reflect the committee’s views.

During the May 8 session, commissioners also were updated on the city’s sustainability goals, which they’ll be asked to vote on at their May 15 meeting. This report focuses only on the R4C/R2A portion of the working session.

R4C/R2A Zoning: Background

The city of Ann Arbor has undertaken several major initiatives to overhaul regulations related to development. Two of those  are completed: A2D2 (downtown zoning) and AHP (revisions to area, height and placement requirements). A third one, ZORO (zoning ordinance reorganization), which is a comprehensive zoning code review, is wrapping up. The city council was briefed on a consultant’s report on ZORO at its May 14, 2012 working session.

Another major initiative has been the review of R4C (multiple-family residential dwelling) and R2A (two-family residential dwelling) districts, which were set up in the 1960s, The issue has been around since at least the mid-1980s. At that time, city planning staff conducted a review of the North Burns Park area, which ultimately led to a downzoning of that neighborhood to R2A from R2B – a zoning category that allows for group housing like fraternities and sororities. The sense at that time was that R4C districts were appropriate places for greater density and student housing.

That sentiment is reflected in the city’s central area plan, which was developed in the early 1990s and later incorporated into the city’s master plan. [.pdf of central area map] The central area plan included several recommendations related to zoning, but the planning commission at that time didn’t act on those proposed changes.

The issue emerged again a few years ago, when there seemed to be a change in attitude about whether R4C was still appropriate for certain areas in the city. In particular, residents in Lower Burns Park lobbied for rezoning of R4C districts to R2A or R1A (single-family houses). And in October of 2007, the council passed a resolution directing planning staff to explore rezoning in that neighborhood. According to reports in the Ann Arbor News, in late 2007 the planning commission recommended that only Golden Avenue be downzoned to R1D (single family) – a recommendation that the council approved on Feb. 19, 2008. Other parts of Lower Burns Park were not rezoned.

At that same Feb. 19, 2008 meeting, the council unanimously passed a resolution directing the planning commission and planning staff to do a more comprehensive review of residential zoning in the central area. However, no action resulted from that resolution. A nearly identical resolution was introduced a year later by Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) – which the council passed at its March 2, 2009 meeting.

The resolution identifies the rationale for undertaking this zoning review effort:

Whereas, the Central Area Plan, dated December 21, 1992, recommends four Implementation Program “Priority Action Strategies” as follows:

• HN1 – Analyze zoning nonconformities related to area, height and placement regulations for the Central Area neighborhoods and determine if amendments are needed to make the regulations more consistent with established development patterns;
• HN12 – Amend the zoning ordinance and map to clearly identify areas to be maintained or encouraged as housing;
• HN14 – Reinforce student neighborhoods in the area south and west of Central Campus by developing new zoning definitions and standards that support organized group housing opportunities;
• HP17 – Develop site design standards that encourage creative design while maintaining sensitivity for existing neighborhood character;

Whereas, The Non-Motorized Plan, dated December 6, 2006, provides guidance for land use and zoning to support walking, bicycling and transit;

Whereas, The Downtown Plan, amended December 1992, recommends in Section III to protect the livability of residentially-zoned areas adjacent to downtown;

Whereas, A majority of the lots in the residential districts in the Central Area are non-conforming due to lot size and lot width, and a significant number require variances from the Zoning Board of Appeals to make modifications or additions to the existing non-conforming structures;

Whereas, The resolution of October 15, 2007 directing the City Planning Commission to review rezoning in the Lower Burns Park neighborhood revealed (through the staff report, public hearing, written public comments and Planning Commission discussion) the need to review the R2A and R4C zoning districts more comprehensively within the Central Area rather than one isolated neighborhood at a time;

Whereas, The City Planning Commission believes that modifications to the zoning and ordinance requirements for residential districts in the Central Area could enhance the livability of these neighborhoods for owner-occupants and renters through a comprehensive review and appropriate changes to the minimum lot size, minimum lot width, setback, density, building height, open space, parking, landscaping and possibly other site related issues; and

Whereas, The City Council has requested that the Planning Commission and City staff find ways to reduce the need for developers to utilize Planned Project development applications as a way to accomplish the City’s goal to ensure that development proposals are more sustainable and that all efforts involving changes to City Zoning regulations involve extensive public involvement …

That resolution led to the formation, in the summer of 2009, of an advisory committee that was charged with studying the R4C/R2A issue, getting input from the public and community stakeholders, and presenting recommendations to the planning commission and city council for possible changes in these zoning districts. The committee convened for the first time in December of 2009.

One of two apartment buildings in the City Place development on South Fifth Avenue, south of William. Walking in front on his way to the library is local attorney Kurt Berggren.

Underpinning discussions of changes to R4C/R2A is the question of how much dense these areas should be. Though there were smaller projects that caused concern, two large housing proposals in particular – The Moravian, and City Place – brought the debate to the forefront for people on both sides of the issue.

The Moravian, a five-story, 62-unit building proposed for the section of East Madison Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues near downtown Ann Arbor, was ultimately rejected by the city council in April of 2010. It was proposed as a planned unit development (PUD), located in an area zoned R4C.

City Place is a “by right” housing project that was proposed in an R4C district on the east side of South Fifth Avenue just south of William. Approved by the council in September 2009, it called for tearing down several older houses and constructing two new apartment buildings. However, its developer, Alex de Parry, subsequently proposed a different project on that same site (Heritage Row) – which would have renovated the houses and built new apartment buildings behind them. That project, a planned unit development (PUD), was rejected by the council.

Earlier,  in in July 2009, Mike Anglin (Ward 5) had proposed a moratorium in R4C/R2A districts, with the intent of halting the Moravian and City Place projects until the advisory committee work was completed. The moratorium was voted down at the council’s Aug. 6, 2009 meeting, though a different moratorium was approved at that same meeting. It applied to demolition only in a limited geographic area. It was the assigned area of study for a committee appointed by the council to weigh the possibility of establishing a historic district there – a two-block area just south of William Street on Fourth and Fifth avenues. The study committee recommended establishing a historic district in the area, but that recommendation was rejected by the council, and the moratorium expired.

Subsequently, de Parry sold his interest in the City Place development and the new owners moved ahead with that project – it is now well underway and is expected to be finished later this year. [Chronicle timeline of events related to the City Place project.]

R4C/R2A Zoning Committee Report

The planning commission had first been briefed on a draft report of the R4C/R2A committee at a June 2011 working session. At that time, planning staff had indicated that the committee had been unable to reach consensus on the recommendations, and  frustration about the outcome was expressed by two planning commissioners who had been appointed to the committee – Jean Carlberg and Tony Derezinski. [Carlberg's term on the planning commission ended on June 30, 2011 and she did not seek reappointment.]

Yet advisory committee members disputed the characterization that they couldn’t reach consensus, and continued to work on the report.

Since meeting for the first time in December of 2009, the committee has met a total of 11 times, and provided feedback and input via email and individual communications with planning staff. Opportunities for public commentary were provided during the committee meetings, and members of the group met with various stakeholders, including representatives of neighborhood associations, landlords, city boards and commissions, city rental housing inspectors, and students. An online survey was also emailed to all University of Michigan students, receiving more than 240 responses.

Some of the members of the R4C/R2A advisory committee at a November 2011 meeting.

Committee members are: Chuck Carver (rental property owner representative), Ilene Tyler and David Merchant (Ward 1 residents), Wendy Carman and Carl Luckenbach (Ward 2 residents), Ellen Rambo and Michele Derr (Ward 3 residents), Julie Weatherbee and Nancy Leff (Ward 4 residents), Ethel Potts (Ward 5 resident), Tony Derezinski (city council representative), Jean Carlberg (former planning commission representative). Anya Dale, who had previously served on the committee as a Ward 5 resident, was not listed in the final report.

The final report includes 10 recommendations, with accompanying analysis. [.pdf of recommendations] The major recommendations relate to: (1) rebuilding structures that don’t conform to existing zoning; (2) rezoning certain areas from R4C to R2A; (3) reducing minimum lot sizes and minimum lot widths; (4) exploring the creation of zoning overlay districts; (5) revising density calculations; (6) revising parking standards; and (7) changing requirements for lot combinations.

The report also recommends no changes to zoning for rooming houses or group housing (such as fraternities or sororities).

Aside from a general recommendation regarding non-conformance, the recommendations all relate to R4C districts. The report did address R2A zoning, but noted that the issues for that zoning district were minimal. No changes to lot area, lot width, density or parking were proposed for R2A, though the committee suggested downzoning some current R4C districts to R2A.

City planner Matt Kowalski was the city staff point person for the R4C/R2A committee, and he briefed commissioners on the report at their May 8 working session. Three committee members – Wendy Carman, Ethel “Eppie” Potts, and Julie Weatherbee – attended the session. Carman and Potts spoke during public commentary to amplify written comments they’d provided as supplements to the report, expressing concerns that some aspects of the report don’t accurately reflect the committee’s views. Their remarks are reported below.

The report’s introduction ends with this caveat:

Due to the complexity and extent of the issues identified, the goal of the study was not to reach consensus on all issues, but rather to identify possible solutions based on majority opinion of the Advisory Committee. The draft recommendations below are the best effort at addressing the concerns of the Advisory Committee and the general public, and represent the majority opinion of the Advisory Committee.

R4C/R2A Zoning Committee Report: Non-Conformance

The report’s first recommendation relates to zoning non-conformance. The fact that many structures don’t currently conform to R4C/R2A zoning was a big issue, Kowalsk told commissioners. As an example, existing zoning requires an 8,500-square-foot lot area, but 83% of parcels don’t meet that requirement, he said. Many of the current buildings were constructed before existing zoning standards, and are non-conforming – especially related to lot size and setbacks. If a building is destroyed, current ordinances would require that whatever is rebuilt would need to conform to existing zoning.

Most of the committee and the overwhelming public feedback were in favor of keeping the existing streetscape in R4C/R2A neighborhoods, Kowalski said. So the committee supported allowing buildings to be reconstructed, under certain conditions, with a similar size and dimensions as the original structure, even though the new building would not conform to zoning.

Recommendation: Chapter 55, Section 5:87 (Structure Non-Conformance) should be revised to allow reconstruction of non-conforming structures in R2A and R4C districts when construction meets all of  the following standards:

• Allow the ability to re-construct a structure if damaged due to fire, flood, or other calamity. Reconstruction should not be allowed in the case of voluntary destruction or demolition by neglect.
• Establish time limit (18 months) on how long after destruction the reconstruction of a non-conforming structure is permitted.
• Establish time limit (18 months) on building completion, once construction has started.
• Require that replacement structures must be of similar style, placement, massing dimensions of the original structure and character as the building before destruction.
• This section would apply to non-conforming structures only, and does not include non-conforming uses.

Two recommendations related to non-conformance that were in the original draft report presented at the June 2011 working session were subsequently removed, and are not in the final report:

• Allow non-conforming multiple-family structures to add units and floor area without ZBA [Zoning Board of Appeals] approval, if the additional units or floor area is located within the existing building footprint. Additional units must meet density requirements; however structure can be non-conforming for lot area and setbacks.
• Allow for additions to existing multiple-family structures without ZBA approval if the addition complies with all setback and required open space standards for that district. This is currently permitted for single-family houses ONLY.

R4C/R2A Zoning Committee Report: R2A District

No significant changes were proposed for the R2A zoning districts. Many of the issues that arise in R4C districts aren’t a problem in R2A neighborhoods, Kowalski said. Aside from the non-conformance changes, the report does not recommend any changes to R2A lot area, lot width, density, setbacks or parking.

However, the committee does recommend that some areas now zoned R4C would be more appropriately zoned as R2A. [See R4C Rezoning section below.]

R4C/R2A Zoning Committee Report: R4C Rezoning

Kowalski said the committee looked at recommendations from the city’s central area plan, which was adopted in 1992. Many things have changed over the past 20 years, he said, so those recommendations aren’t all applicable.

According to Chapter 55, Section 5:10.8 of the city’s zoning code (for multiple-family dwelling districts),  the R4C zoning is intended for the central area of the city, near to the central business district and the University of Michigan. However, there are some parcels outside of the central area that are also zoned R4C, Kowalski noted – along South State Street, for example. It wouldn’t be appropriate to apply some of the recommended R4C zoning changes to those parcels, so the report suggests downzoning those areas:

Recommendation: Select areas should be rezoned from R4C to R2A and additional study be given to other areas that could warrant rezoning based on current conditions. Large R4C parcels outside of the Central Area should be rezoned to a more appropriate zoning district.

The 1992 central area plan recommended that another specific area be rezoned from R4C to R2A – the  Hoover/Davis neighborhood. That recommendation was supported by the current advisory committee. [The previous draft report had also specifically recommended rezoning the Dewey/Packard/Brookwood area to R2A, but that reference is omitted from the final report.]

The final report notes that there might be other areas where rezoning should be considered, stating that “but more research is needed in order to determine where additional rezonings are appropriate based on a more detailed analysis of existing land uses.”

R4C/R2A Zoning Committee Report:  Minimum Lot Size/Lot Width/Setbacks

“This was a big one,” Kowalski told commissioners. The existing minimum lot size in R4C districts is 8,500 square feet, but 83% of parcels – 1,970 lots – are non-conforming for this requirement. The majority of these parcels are also non-conforming for lot width. The committee felt it was important to bring zoning closer to the established development in these areas.

Recommendations: Reduce the minimum lot size to 4,350 square feet for all parcels in R4C zoning districts. Require the minimum lot width requirement for existing original platted lots and reduce the minimum lot width to 40 feet if not an original platted lot. No changes to existing setbacks are proposed.

Kowalski noted that the current average R4C lot size is 6,052 square feet – but he said he did not include large church lots or UM property in his calculations of that average. The proposed recommendation would bring 875 lots into conformance. If the proposed revisions are implemented, 62% of R4C lots would conform to the minimum lot area requirement. [The draft report from 2011 had recommended a reduction of minimum lot sizes to 4,000 square feet for all parcels in R4C zoning district and elimination of the minimum lot width requirement.]

The final report’s recommendation not to change existing setbacks, which are 12 feet on each side, will help reduce the scale of new construction and prevent larger additions from being built closer to the property lines, according to the report. Existing setbacks could help preserve the scale and massing of existing streetscapes, the report states.

The report notes that when combined with a revised density standard (see below), the changes could allow for more flexibility in configuring new buildings or remodeling existing buildings. The revisions could also result in increased density for some parcels, according to the report.

R4C/R2A Zoning Committee Report: Overlay District

Kowalski noted that R4C neighborhoods differ widely. Some R4C areas have tiny lots with almost no setbacks, while in other parts of the city – like the Oakland neighborhood – lots have 60-70 foot setbacks. You can also find everything in between those two extremes, he said.

To create one set of regulations for all neighborhoods would be really difficult, he said. One of the goals is to preserve what already exists, so overlay districts could be used to “customize” regulations and keep future development compatible with the current streetscape.

Recommendation: Zoning overlay districts should be explored as a tool for protecting massing, setbacks and streetscape of unique neighborhoods experiencing redevelopment pressure within the R4C zone. Overlay districts should be implemented on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis.

Planning manager Wendy Rampson likened the R4C overlay districts to those created for D1 and D2 zoning, as part of the A2D2 zoning process.

According to the report, the advisory committee identified several issues that an overlay district might address:

• Out-of scale development: A maximum building footprint could be instituted based on the historic development patterns of the neighborhood.
• Design not compatible with neighborhoods: Guidelines can be developed on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis to control general massing and front setbacks.
• Increased/decreased flexibility of site design: For example, an overlay district could be created that modifies the area, height and placement (AHP) standard based on existing development pattern for a selected neighborhood.

R4C/R2A Zoning Committee Report: Density Calculation

Committee members felt that the current way of calculating density acts as an incentive for a developer to add more bedrooms, Kowalski said. Specifically, current zoning encourages the construction of six-bedroom units, because the same minimum lot area is required (2,175 square feet per unit) no matter what size the units are – one-bedroom or six-bedroom. The report notes that the majority of units recently built in R4C districts have had six bedrooms – and those typically appeal more to students, compared to other potential renters.

Recommendation: Adopt a graduated scale of calculating density based on the total number of bedrooms provided in each unit. As detailed below, the majority of the committee recommends requiring 2,175 square feet of lot area per unit for 0-4 bedroom units and 3,000 square feet of lot area for 5-6 bedroom units.

The committee received strong input that a mix of bedroom unit sizes – from one to six bedrooms – was desired, Kowalski said. According to the report, a majority of committee members support code revisions that would encourage construction of units with four bedrooms or fewer, and discourage five- or six-bedroom units. Existing zoning code regulates only the number of occupants in a unit, not the number of bedrooms.

The new density calculation relies on the interplay of (1) lot size, (2) required lot area per unit, and (3) caps on the number of bedrooms/occupants. The report states that when combined with proposed reductions in lot area/width, the proposed graduated scale will create incentives to build smaller units with fewer bedrooms per unit.

As an example for comparison, the existing minimum lot size in R4C districts is 8,500 square feet. A lot that size currently allows for up to three units with as many as six occupants each, or as many as 18 occupants/bedrooms total. Under proposed density standards, up to three units would also be allowed on that same size lot if the units have 0-4 bedrooms each, based on the requirement of 2,175-square-feet per unit. So under the proposed standards, only up to 12 bedrooms, not 18, would be allowed.

What happens with the proposed minimum lot size of 4,350 square feet? For a lot that size, the proposed density standard (with the requirement of 2,175-square-feet per unit), only two units with 0-4 bedrooms would be allowed – or a maximum of eight bedrooms. Six occupants would still be allowed for each of those two units however, for a maximum of 12 occupants. (A limit of 20 units per acre would remain in place in these examples. One acre is 43,560 square feet.)

Or consider again a 8,500-square-foot lot, but built with 5-6 bedroom units. Under the proposed density standard, which requires 3,000 feet for each 5-6 bedroom unit, only two units would be allowed – which is a maximum of 12 occupants/bedrooms. Currently, as many as 18 occupants/bedrooms are allowed on a lot that size.

Another feature of the proposed density standard, which applies to 5-6 bedroom units, would drop the maximum number of such units per acre from 20 to 14.

For a 4,350-square-foot lot, only one unit with 5-6 bedrooms would be allowed under the proposed density requirements – or a maximum of six occupants.

The report lays out proposed regulations for the two different unit types – 0-4 bedroom units, and 5-6 bedroom units:

Type A: 0-4 bedrooms: 2,175-square-foot lot area required per unit

• EXISTING: An 8,500-square-foot lot will permit 3 units, 20 units per acre maximum (up to a maximum of 18 occupants at 6 per unit and up to 18 bedrooms). Maximum occupancy is based on bedroom size under the housing code, but capped at 6 unrelated occupants per unit.
• PROPOSED new density standard: An 8,500-square-foot lot would permit 3 units, 20 units per acre maximum (up to a maximum of 18 occupants at 6 per unit and up to 12 bedrooms). Maximum occupancy is based on bedroom size under the housing code, but capped at 6 unrelated occupants per unit.
• NEW MINIMUM LOT SIZE: A 4,350-square-foot lot would permit a maximum of 2 units (with a maximum 4 bedrooms each and up to a maximum of 12 occupants, or a total maximum of 8 bedrooms). Maximum occupancy is based on bedroom size under the housing code, but capped at 6 unrelated occupants per unit.

Type B: 5-6 bedrooms: 3,000-square-foot lot area required per unit

• EXISTING: An 8,500-square-foot lot will permit 3 units, 20 units per acre maximum (up to a maximum of 18 occupants at 6 per unit and up to 18 bedrooms). Maximum occupancy is based on bedroom size under the housing code, but capped at 6 unrelated occupants per unit.
• PROPOSED new density standard: An 8,500-square-foot lot would permit 2 units, 14 units per acre maximum (up to a maximum of 12 occupants and up to 12 bedrooms). Maximum occupancy is based on bedroom size (in square feet) under the housing code, but capped at 6 unrelated occupants per unit.
• NEW MINIMUM LOT SIZE: A 4,350-square-foot lot would permit a maximum of 1 unit (with a maximum of 6 bedrooms and a maximum of 6 occupants). Maximum occupancy is based on bedroom size (in square feet) under the housing code, but capped at 6 unrelated occupants per unit.

R4C/R2A Zoning Committee Report: Rooming Houses/Group Housing

No changes were proposed for zoning related to rooming houses or group housing, such as fraternities, sororities and co-operatives. The existing 8,500-square-foot lot requirement and parking requirement are recommended to remain in place. For group housing, a requirement to obtain a special exception use from the planning commission would also remain unchanged.

R4C/R2A Zoning Committee Report: Parking Standard

Kowalski described parking standards as another big issue. Currently, the same number of parking spaces – 1.5 spaces per unit – are required, regardless of how many bedrooms are in each unit. It was felt that this approach encourages developers to put more bedrooms per unit, he said. Committee members and public participation indicated a strong desire to encourage a mix of different number of bedrooms per unit, so a graduated scale of parking requirements is recommended.

Recommendation: Adopt a graduated scale of calculating required parking based on unit type (above), increasing parking requirements as number of bedrooms in units increase. The Advisory Committee also recommends investigating an off-site parking storage concept and other alternative parking methods.

The recommendation calls for keeping the same parking requirement – 1.5 spaces per unit – for units with 0-4 bedrooms, but increasing the requirement to 2 spaces per unit for units with 5-6 bedrooms.

The 2011 draft report had recommended a more fine-grained parking requirement, corresponding to the three recommended unit types: 0.5 spaces for each 0-2 bedroom unit; 1 space for each 3-4 bedroom unit; and 2 spaces for each 5-6 bedroom unit.

According to the final report, a majority of committee members felt that the parking requirement shouldn’t control a building’s site design, and that open space shouldn’t be converted to parking in order to meet the requirement. But some committee members expressed concern about ensuring adequate on-site parking. The report states that the committee also recommends that parking requirements be studied further, in conjunction with all the other R4C recommendations.

R4C/R2A Zoning Committee Report: Lot Combinations

Lot combinations was another hot button issue, Kowalski told planning commissioners. The report states that no consensus was reached about how to address the issue, but that the committee recommends limiting or prohibiting lot combinations in order to help prevent construction of large buildings that would disrupt the existing streetscape.

Recommendation: The Advisory Committee recommends a limit on lot combinations within the R4C District.

Kowalski said most committee members who supported a limitation wanted to limit the maximum lot size to 6,525 square feet – the area needed to allow three units at the current density, or three units of 0-4 bedrooms each at the proposed density. It is a square footage that’s based on the current average R4C lot size, according to the report.

Kowalski noted that there are a lot of other limiting factors in place that would limit construction of large buildings.

The 2011 draft report had also indicated that the committee couldn’t reach consensus on this issue, but that the majority supported a recommendation that no more than two parcels be allowed to be combined, with the resulting parcel not to exceed 10,000 square feet.

R4C/R2A Zoning Committee Report: Conclusion

Wrapping up his staff report, Kowalski observed that it was a longer process than they’d originally anticipated, with a lot of complex issues. R4C zoning districts are one of the most complicated, diverse districts in the city, he said, and changing the zoning is not a simple fix.

He also noted that committee members are interested in pursuing other issues in depth – issues that weren’t part of the committee’s original council directive. Those issues include dealing with trash, noise from student parties, and code enforcement, among other things. The issues are relevant to the R4C district, he said, but are not part of the committee’s report.

R4C/R2A Zoning Committee Report: Public Commentary

Unlike the working sessions for city council, the planning commission’s working sessions include an opportunity for public commentary. On May 8, three members of the R4C/R2A advisory committee attended: Wendy Carman, Ethel “Eppie” Potts, and Julie Weatherbee.

Planning commissioner Erica Briggs suggested that since the committee members were there and it wasn’t a formal setting, perhaps the discussion could be more informal than just the standard three minutes for each speaker, which Briggs said seemed weird in this case.

Kirk Westphal was chairing the meeting at this point – commission chair Eric Mahler was stuck in an elevator for the first hour of the meeting. Westphal said he’d be open to sticking with the initial three-minute commentary, then playing it by ear during the discussion. He also felt the commissioners should limit the scope of their discussion for this meeting, perhaps by just focusing on the process they’d like to set for handling the report.

Tony Derezinski suggested sticking with a “semi-formal” process regarding commentary. The expectation for the outcome of the R4C/R2A work is high, he noted. Several actions by city council have been deferred, he said, waiting for the outcome of this process. [As an example, proposed revisions to the city's landscape and screening ordinance were rejected by council at its March 19, 2012 meeting, in part because some councilmembers wanted to wait until recommendations for R4C zoning had been completed.]

All of this effort and public input should yield something substantial, and there will be even more public forums in the future, Derezinski said. This working session obviously won’t be the only discussion that planning commissioners have on these recommendations, he said, but the product will ultimately be changes in zoning. He concluded by saying that no one wants this to be just another report on a shelf. [Derezinski is the city council representative to the city planning commission.]

Both Potts and Carman had submitted written comments to the commission that took issue with some aspects of the report, and they both spoke during public commentary to highlight their concerns.

Eppie Potts began by saying “I’ve given it a lot of thought, obviously.” She began by pointing to the areas that are zoned R4C but located outside of the city’s central area, and challenged commissioners to look at those areas and see if they could be rezoned to something more suitable.

Regarding parking, Potts said the committee had agreed that there should be a graduated scale for parking requirements, but that the recommendations included in the report “aren’t very graduated.”

Potts also took issue with the report’s conclusion, saying that it seemed too tentative. At some point, the report “is what it is,” she said. Who’s going to finalize the recommendations, and when? she asked.

In her written comments, Potts had suggested substituting the following paragraph, or something similar to it, instead of the conclusion provided in the staff report:

The recommendations above are the product of two years of comprehensive research, discussion and analysis. The issues identified throughout the course of this study are very complex. Those who gave input to the Advisory Committee expressed problems caused by such issues as unsustainable density, lack of parking, inadequate open space, and the number of small non-conforming lots. Our recommendations deal with these issues. The Advisory Committee recommends that the proposed changes be adopted, tried for a time, then be reviewed for effectiveness and possible amendment.

Wendy Carman said it’s important for everyone to recognize the hard work of the committee. The committee members had wanted to keep the density no greater than it is now, but to decrease the number of non-conforming parcels.  The R4C zoning had been imposed on existing neighborhoods, she noted. The committee had been unanimous in its desire to preserve the existing streetscapes, she said. They also had wanted to reduce the incentives for building six-bedroom apartments, which she noted are really targeted just for students.

Regarding the parking recommendations, Carman stated that the committee did not vote for the recommendations that are included in the report. They did vote to recommend a graduated scale for calculating required parking, to make it dependent not only on unit type and number of bedrooms, but also on a maximum potential occupancy and lot size, she said. The committee had asked Kowalski to develop a proposal, but they did not vote on the one that’s in this report, she said. That’s a staff recommendation, she noted, not one from the committee.

R4C/R2A Zoning Report: Commission Discussion

Evan Pratt asked whether the report was just an FYI to planning commissioners and would go directly to city council, or whether planning commissioners would discuss it first. Matt Kowalski replied that the council’s directive had been to the planning commission and staff. He noted that advisory committee recommendations don’t include language that could be inserted into city code at this point, so that would need to be done before the council could act.

The dark red areas are those areas zoned R4C in the city of Ann Arbor. (Image links to Google Map)

When Pratt said he was fishing to see what kind of action is expected of the planning commission, Kowalski said that would be up to commissioners to decide.

Planning manager Wendy Rampson said there’s no set format for proceeding. One option would be to simply send the report to the city council as an item of information. Or the commission’s ordinance revisions committee could take a look first, she said, and bring back recommendations with specific ordinance language.

Tony Derezinski stressed that there needs to be some concrete outcome to this work. It’s too central and too controversial not to result in ordinance changes, eventually. It might take another step or two, he added, but his sense is that the council wants an action item.

Pratt responded by saying it would be good to get some direction from city council, to make sure planning commissioners are going in the same direction in developing ordinance language.

Derezinski said the question is whether the planning commission simply forwards the report to city council, or whether they do something more with it first. Bonnie Bona felt it would be helpful to provide some suggestions to the council about approaching the recommendations. For example, while in some cases there’s a lot of detail, there are other issues – like the overlay districts – that didn’t really get addressed in depth. She said she could imagine sending something to councilmembers that suggested making base zoning changes, plus recommendations for handling R4C lots outside of the central area, and for overlay districts.

Erica Briggs said she thought this was a great report, with a lot of consensus in terms of direction. The report provides solid recommendations, she said. However, Briggs felt that more attention needed to be paid to parking, adding ”but you know how I feel about parking, so I won’t go into that.” [Briggs has consistently been an advocate for requiring less on-site parking in developments, and encouraging alternative transportation or using other means to deal with the parking issue.]

Diane Giannola said her hope from this work is to make R4C zoning simpler, but that some of the recommendations seem to make it more complex. The overall message of the report is that something is being fixed, she said. Are the proposed changes actually fixing a problem, or just switching the problem to a different place? she asked. Giannola noted that the parking recommendations conflict with the views of some people on the planning commission – it’s important to be mindful of that.

R4C/R2A Zoning Report: Commission Discussion – Overlay and Form-Based Code

Much of the commission’s discussion centered on the concept of overlay districts. Bonnie Bona noted that A2D2 overlay districts really helped with the downtown zoning, by acknowledging the different character and sizes of buildings. But she also said she’d prefer some kind of form-based code, instead of “shoehorning” zoning into neighborhoods that are distinct. [Described in a general way, a form-based approach is more proscriptive regarding the types of buildings the community wants to see in a particular district, including their design. In contrast, traditional zoning is structured to provide an allowable range of uses, sizes, placements, and other aspects of a development, but generally leaves the details of those decisions to the developer.]

Erica Briggs said her concern about overlay districts is that there’s no teeth to enforce them. She said she didn’t know much about form-based code, but she like the concept.

Wendy Rampson noted that true form-based code doesn’t look at land use, so it probably wouldn’t be an ideal candidate for R4C. But some aspects of it might be helpful, she said.

Briggs observed that a form-based approach might address some of the things that planning commissioners have discussed in the past, like having small neighborhood stores. Currently, residential zoning doesn’t allow for that. Briggs said she’d really like to see something substantial emerge from the recommendations.

Kirk Westphal said he’d like to think that the commission could expedite this process and produce draft ordinance language based on the committee’s recommendations. However, he noted that when he hears the word “overlay,” he thinks of lines on a map – and that becomes a much longer process. For R4C, it might be even more complicated than when the city created overlay districts for D1 and D2 zoning. He asked Kowalski whether there was general agreement on the committee regarding overlay districts or boundaries between neighborhoods.

Kowalski said there were only a couple of neighborhoods mentioned – like the Oakland area with large setbacks, or a street near Golden with really small lots. But the committee didn’t delve into details about possible overlay districts, he said. It could be a useful tool, he added, but not simple to do.

Pratt noted that historic districts are already one kind of overlay. If you look at a map, he said, most R4C districts are pretty distinct, and relatively small.

Rampson noted that compared to overlay districts, form-based code would be similarly complex. Kowalski added that a form-based approach would need to be citywide, and would not just apply to R4C zoning districts. That’s another complicating factor, he said.

Westphal noted that if the city opts for overlays, the other issue is to define the character of those overlay districts. You’d be drafting a whole new set of rules, he said, but if you don’t have them in place, some of the other zoning revisions might encourage development or renovations that wouldn’t fit the character of the existing neighborhood.

R4C/R2A Zoning Report: Commission Discussion – Next Steps

Tony Derezinski pointed out that other zoning projects were underway – most significantly, the ZORO (zoning ordinance reorganization) project, a comprehensive zoning code review. [A consultant hired by the city has submitted his recommendations, which were the topic of a May 14 city council working session. The ZORO recommendations have not yet been made available to the public.] He asked Rampson how the R4C/R2A effort fits into other zoning projects.

Rampson called R4C a broken district, and said she’d rather deal with a complexity of ordinances that make sense, rather than continuing to have a broken zoning district. The recommendations could be considered an evolution from the Calthorpe process, she said. [Calthorpe Associates was a California-based consultant whose work resulted in the city's A2D2 downtown zoning.]

Derezinski said it was good to start with the premise that R4C is broken, and he liked the description of the zoning revisions as an evolution. That helps justify doing things a little differently in R4C than in other zoning districts, he said.

Evan Pratt said there’s nothing to dislike in this report. The main problems are listed out, and the recommendations make sense. He asked staff if they had any advice on how to tackle the other issues in R4C that hadn’t been addressed – is it just a matter of prioritizing?

Rampon said the ZORO project will help, making it easier to find and understand the existing zoning.

As the discussion wound down, Eric Mahler asked for recommendations on next steps. Rampson said it sounded like commissioners were inclined to discuss the report in more detail, before starting to develop ordinance language. She suggested convening the ordinance revisions committee as a starting point. Derezinski, who also represents Ward 2 on the city council, offered to update councilmembers as an interim step.

Bonnie Bona said the ordinance revisions committee could perhaps develop a cover memo for the report, which could then be discussed by the planning commission as a whole. [Members of the ordinance revisions committee are planning commissioners Bonnie Bona, Eric Mahler, Kirk Westphal and Wendy Woods.]

Rampson suggested that this might be a topic for another commission working session. But first, she would look at their schedules and set a time for an ordinance revisions committee meeting to discuss the report, and then take it from there. She thanked Matt Kowalski and the advisory committee for their work, noting that it hadn’t been easy, but that the result was an excellent report.

Present: Eleanore Adenekan, Bonnie Bona, Erica Briggs, Tony Derezinski, Diane Giannola, Eric Mahler, Evan Pratt, Kirk Westphal.

Absent: Wendy Woods

Next regular meeting: The planning commission next meets on Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 7 p.m. in the second-floor council chambers at city hall, 301 E. Huron St., Ann Arbor. [confirm date]

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The $2 million payment was based on a term sheet that a “working group” of councilmembers and DDA board members had put together out of public view over the first four months of the year. The term sheet was adequate to convince a 7-member majority of the 12-member DDA board that the $2 million should be paid by the DDA to the city in advance of a long-term revision to the city-DDA contract, under which the DDA manages the city’s parking system.

The parking contract was most recently renegotiated in 2005 and provided for a maximum payment by the DDA to the city of $10 million over the period from 2005 to 2015. The city drew $10 million in the first five years and had requested in January 2009 that the DDA open discussions to renegotiate the contract.

With the term sheet now out in the open, it’s clear that its content is problematic for councilmembers and DDA board members who were not part of the working group that produced it. Several councilmembers and DDA board members alike have expressed strong opposition to one of the key ideas in the term sheet – that the DDA would assume responsibility for parking violations and other code enforcement.

But based on the term sheet discussion at the May 12 meeting of  DDA’s partnerships committee, the piece of the term sheet of most interest to DDA board members is one that is also the most politically controversial: The DDA would be acknowledged as the engine for developing city-owned land in the DDA district.

The DDA partnerships committee conversation on May 12 came against the backdrop of recent questions raised by the mayor and the city council about what kind of legal authority a DDA has in the context of the city’s system of governance.

And the outcome of the partnerships committee meeting was a decision to hold another full board retreat, this one on May 28 at 2 p.m. at the DDA board room. The general topic of the retreat, which is open to the public, will be the term sheet. The DDA already held its semi-annual retreat about two months ago, on March 16.

Before reporting on some of the deliberations at the DDA’s May 12 partnerships committee meeting regarding the term sheet, this article first takes a look at some of the recent local conversation about the legal powers of the DDA. The deliberations at the partnerships committee are divided into a couple of subheadings, covering the public accessibility of the process up to now and in the future, as well as DDA board member views about what the mission of the authority should be: parking or development.

DDA Powers

Over the last year, the status of the DDA in the context of the city’s governance has received active discussion. There are also a couple of precedents for the exercise of city power over a DDA worth considering – one involving the city of Ann Arbor in 2007, and another just a couple weeks ago in Royal Oak. In that context, it’s also worth reviewing some key elements of the state statute that allows downtown development authorities to be created in the first place.

DDA Powers: Discussion

At the May 5, 2010 meeting when the DDA approved the $2 million payment to the city, DDA board member and former city councilmember Joan Lowenstein spoke in general, not legal, terms about the relationship between the city and the DDA. From The Chronicle’s meeting report:

[Lowenstein] found it distressing to hear the kind of “us and them” discussion. It’s not us and the city but rather it’s all the city.

At that same meeting, mayor John Hieftje portrayed the idea that the DDA was somehow a separate organization as one that could be traced to the mid-1990s. In rejecting that idea, he introduced the specter of the summary dissolution of the DDA by the city council:

So [Hieftje] wanted to make the point that the city council had the ability to create DDAs with a simple six-vote majority and also had the ability to end DDAs with a simple six-vote majority. It seemed to him that the DDA was indeed an “arm of the city” [...]

The fact that the city council controls the DDA via its confirmation of appointments to the board was a point that Hieftje had also chosen to make at the city council’s May 3, 2010 meeting. On that occasion, Susan Pollay, executive director of the DDA, had appeared before the council to answer questions about DDA bylaws revisions.

Also at the city council’s May 3 meeting, Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) had mooted the question of the DDA’s relationship with the city by asking Pollay if she was a city employee. From The Chronicle’s account of that meeting:

Kunselman asked Pollay if she was a city of Ann Arbor employee. Pollay allowed that it was an interesting question but said she did not believe so. She indicated that she was an employee of the DDA, but all of the DDA staff follow all of the city rules and the paychecks come through the city finance office. She said they actually did not take a lot of time reflecting on the question. They function as if they were a part of one whole organization.

Pollay indicated, however, that she worked at the pleasure of the DDA board. Her job, then, was to make sure that she met their expectations and goals, as expressed in their resolutions. Mayor John Hieftje added that the board of the DDA in a very real way serves at the pleasure of the city council – given that the city council appoints DDA board members. “So you can feel better about that,” he told Kunselman. Quipped Pollay, “I’m not sure I do!”

And a little over a year ago, during the March 1, 2009 Sunday night caucus, Hieftje had compared the DDA to the city’s planning commission, which serves almost exclusively as an advisory body to the city council:

As far as being “a part of the city of Ann Arbor,” Hieftje said the DDA was “no different from planning commission except that they had their own funding stream” – the tax increment financing (TIF) district.

The one situation in which the planning commission stands on equal footing with the city council is the adoption of master plans for the city. The two bodies must adopt the same master plan.

DDA Powers: Recent Examples

Included in The Chronicle’s report on the city council’s May 17, 2010 meeting, when it approved the FY 2011 budget, was a question that Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) raised: Did the city council even need a resolution from the DDA to authorize payment of $2 million to the city? Could the city simply move the money from the DDA’s fund to its own fund as part of the budget amendment process?

While there was not a clear answer given to Kunselman’s basic question, The Chronicle’s May 17 meeting report includes a vignette from 2007, when the city council reached into the DDA’s budget with an amendment to the overall city budget:

While the topic of the city’s authority with respect to the DDA budget was not explored further at the council meeting, it’s worth reviewing a piece of history from 2007, when the council passed its FY 2008 budget. That year, one of the budget resolutions approved by the council reached into the DDA’s budget and reduced an allocation for capital expenditures within the DDA’s TIF (tax-increment financing) fund. [The city calls this fund 0003.] From the May 21, 2007 city council minutes:

[FY 2008 budget] Amendment 11
Resolved, that the Downtown Development Authority fund (0003) expenditure budget be decreased by $1,600,000 to reduce the appropriated reserves for future capital construction projects.

On a voice vote, the Mayor [John Hieftje] declared the motion carried with one dissenting vote made by Councilmember [Joan] Lowenstein.

Based on that vote, it appears that the city council has in the past asserted some direct control over the DDA’s budget.

More recently, this month the city of Royal Oak enacted a rule that requires all Royal Oak DDA actions to be subject to approval by the city commission. But that rule may not stand legal scrutiny. From a Crain’s Detroit Business article by Chad Halcom:

Lawyers and Royal Oak officials said a city code amendment approved last month to make all DDA decisions subject to the approval of the City Commission is without precedent and may be open to a legal challenge.

The commission adopted the amendment after the DDA gave a $300,000 tax credit inducement March 24 to Emagine for its $19 million movie theater, bowling alley and entertainment complex proposed at 11 Mile Road and Troy Street. The credit helps the company become eligible for state tax incentives.

DDA Powers: Statutory Authority

The existence of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority is based on state level legislation (the “enabling legislation”) that was originally passed in 1975 to allow the creation of such authorities and the tax increment finance districts that fund them. [For background on tax increment finance districts (TIFs) see Chronicle coverage: "Budget Round 5: Economic Development"]

At the May 5 DDA meeting, reacting to Hieftje’s remarks about how the city could dissolve the DDA with a six-vote majority, DDA board member Gary Boren’s response to the mayor was based in part on the Downtown Development Authority Act 197 of 1975. From The Chronicle’s report of that meeting.

The state’s enabling act says that when the DDA has completed its mission, the city council shall disband it, Boren stated. It does not say that the city council can for any reason or for no reason disband the DDA.

From the act itself:

Sec. 30. (1) An authority that has completed the purposes for which it was organized shall be dissolved by ordinance of the governing body. The property and assets of the authority remaining after the satisfaction of the obligations of the authority belong to the municipality.

At the May 5 meeting, Hieftje indicated that he has resisted the calls from some in the community to dissolve the DDA. One of those calls came in the form of an email sent May 7 by Ted Annis to multiple parties, including city councilmembers:

Is it time for the DDA to become the DAC (Downtown Advisory Committee), which is to say that its status as an Authority would be eliminated and it would be folded into the City? City Council can do this.

It seems that the Mayor and City Council have enough on their plates without having to deal with an unaccountable, contentious quasi government-within-a-government.

Based on Halcom’s reporting in Crain’s Detroit Business, however, it’s not clear that the city council has the powers Annis claims it does:

Prior case law is unclear on whether a city or township can convert its DDA to a recommending body with no decision-making power of its own, said Michael Bogren, governmental law practice group leader at Bloomfield Hills-based Plunkett Cooney P.C.

Among the key powers that the enabling legislation gives a DDA is the ability to own property as a separate body corporate:

[...] An authority shall be a public body corporate which may sue and be sued in any court of this state. An authority possesses all the powers necessary to carry out the purpose of its incorporation. The enumeration of a power in this act shall not be construed as a limitation upon the general powers of an authority. [...]

The board may: [...] (h) Acquire by purchase or otherwise, on terms and conditions and in a manner the authority considers proper or own, convey, or otherwise dispose of, or lease as lessor or lessee, land and other property, real or personal, or rights or interests in property, which the authority determines is reasonably necessary to achieve the purposes of this act, and to grant or acquire licenses, easements, and options with respect to that property.

Partnerships Committee Deliberations

The ability of DDAs to own real estate, as specified in the DDA Act, was a key point made by DDA board member Newcombe Clark during partnerships committee deliberations about the term sheet on Wednesday, May 12. Clark related the question of the DDA buying land to the political realities of the situation – a topic that received a lot of discussion in its own right.

The key element of the term sheet about which there seemed to be consensus among DDA board members who were present at the partnerships committee is a brief one at the end of the document [emphasis added]:

Development of City-owned Property Within the DDA District

The working group envisions that the DDA would serve as a visioning, initiation and implementation engine for development of City-owned property within the DDA district. The nature and extent of this role will be discussed, considered and, if approved, implemented in parallel to any omnibus agreement, but would not be part of that agreement.

Partnerships Deliberations: DDA as Land Owner

It was near the end of the committee discussion when Newcombe Clark addressed the idea of the DDA owning land. He stated that a lot of the wrangling about the parking agreement as a mechanism for transferring the $2 million could have been avoided if the DDA had simply bought land from the city.

The DDA could have said, “Here’s $2 million and we’ll buy two lots,” or one lot – like the Palio’s lot at William and Main, suggested Clark. [The parcel currently serves as a surface parking lot.] Even though the DDA had elected not to do that, and instead decided to renegotiate the parking agreement, Clark said he thought that land purchase was still worth exploring.

Clark contended there were political reasons why that had not happened. The political reality, he said, was that some people are afraid of the idea of the DDA actually developing city-owned lots.

An interaction between Clark and Sandi Smith – who serves on both the DDA board and city council – unfolded about what zoning regulations would apply to parcels that might be sold to the DDA. Clark contended that the city-owned parcels downtown are not zoned according to the recently enacted A2D2 framework. However, he said, in theory you could sell them and say they’re zoned according to the A2D2 framework – and you’d get buildings out of it that conformed to A2D2 zoning. That would make it easier, Clark said, than going through the approval process for a PUD (planned unit development).

Smith questioned Clark’s contention that the city-owned parcels downtown were not zoned according to the A2D2 framework – she thought the A2D2 zoning regulations were overlaid on top of the public land designation. If that’s the case, Clark concluded, that would actually make it easier for the city to sell land. [Wendy Rampson, head of planning for the city, responded to an emailed query from The Chronicle, clarifying that the D1 zoning designation, which is part of A2D2, does not overlay public land designations – but the Palio's lot specifically is zoned D1, not public land.]

If a city-owned parcel is not a PUD that goes through a request for proposals (RFP) process, and the city were to simply sell the land, then maybe the DDA would be the one to buy it, suggested Clark. Or someone else buys a city-owned lot, and rents it until they are ready to develop it – but at least they’d now be paying property taxes.

At the partnerships committee meeting, Clark put the politically-charged issue of the DDA developing city-owned land in the context of the “working group” process that produced the term sheet – it had taken place out of public view. With the idea that “sunlight is the best disinfectant,” he said, if there are things the DDA board is talking about, it’s especially important that it be an open process.

Clark stated that avoiding the political implications of the DDA developing city-owned land was not a good idea. If political implications are a true barrier to moving forward, he contended, then it needed to be discussed openly, like the board discussed everything else – to see if that was a true boundary or if there was perhaps a workaround. Avoidance, Clark concluded, was not helpful.

Clark had been responding, in part, to comments made earlier in the meeting by DDA board member John Mouat, who was absent from the board’s May 5 meeting when it approved the $2 million payment to the city. Earlier in the partnerships meeting, Mouat had lamented what he concluded was an increased “polarization” on the board, based on media accounts he’d read about the meeting. And Mouat further suggested that the board refrain from the sort of politics that he felt those accounts showed.

So in response to Clark’s call not to avoid politically-charged issues and to discuss them openly, Mouat asked, “Did I suggest avoidance?”

Partnerships Deliberations: Politics and Open Discussions

Mouat had not explicitly suggested avoidance of the issue, but did seem to object to the self-described anger that had been conveyed by Jennifer Hall at the DDA’s May 5 board meeting over the fact that the conversations that produced the term sheet had taken place out of public view.

By way of brief background, that renegotiation of the parking agreement was originally conceived to have taken place in a publicly accessible process through conversations between two committees – the two so-called “mutually beneficial” committees – appointed by the city council (on July 20, 2009) and the DDA board (March 4, 2009), respectively, with the explicit charge to take on that task. [More detailed background here: "DDA to Tie $2 Million to Public Process"]

However, the two committees did not renegotiate the parking agreement. Instead, conversations between the city and the DDA took place out of public view through the early part of 2010 in the form of a “working group” – which produced a term sheet as a basis for future negotiations.

At the partnerships committee meeting on May 12, Hall attempted to win the committee’s endorsement of a resolution to be brought before the entire board. The resolution would have given the DDA’s mutually beneficial committee the status of a “standing” committee of the board, in order to provide some assurance that DDA board members and city councilmembers would make their meetings open to the public. The city council, at its May 17 meeting, stripped out language about transparency from its own resolution regarding future conversations with the DDA, with some councilmembers contending that such language was redundant.

The draft resolution circulated by Hall at the partnerships committee meeting received no traction from the committee, which was attended by 10 of 12 DDA board members: Jennifer S. Hall, Gary Boren, Roger Hewitt, John Mouat, Keith Orr, Russ Collins, John Splitt, Sandi Smith, Newcombe Clark and Joan Lowenstein. [The only DDA board members not present were Leah Gunn and John Hieftje.] The group was joined by city council representatives to the DDA’s partnerships committee, Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) and Margie Teall (Ward 4).

Only Clark and Hall raised their hands in response to executive director Susan Pollay’s request for a show of support.

Partnerships Deliberations: What Exactly Does the DDA Want?

Both resolutions passed by the DDA board and the city council specify that there will be monthly meetings and that there will be monthly reports to each body. But independently of the mechanism of the conversations, the central question that the DDA now faces is how to proceed with the substance of the term sheet.

Towards the beginning of the term sheet discussion at the May 12 partnerships committee meeting, Susan Pollay, executive director of the DDA, floated the basic question of what the DDA should be.

Pollay suggested that it was important not just to talk about what was on the list, but also about what was missing from the list. She said she’d had a 14-year tenure at the DDA, and she had come in at a time of crisis – the parking decks were falling apart and the DDA had taken them over from the city, which was how the DDA had gotten into “the parking business.”

The DDA had fixed the decks, continued Pollay, and they had hit a point where they then had asked, Now what do we do? At that point they had gone back to the organization’s fundamental roots, she said. And that was something they should do again, she said. “We are here as a development authority,” she said. “We are not a BIZ (Business Improvement Zone), we are not a merchant association, we are a development authority.”

Pollay reported that she had spent some time in Detroit the previous Friday visiting the Detroit DDA, which is actually doing development. She reported that the Detroit DDA is buying buildings and rehabbing them, or it’s demolishing them and selling them – it’s a development authority.

Pollay said the Detroit DDA was not encumbered by all the things that the Ann Arbor DDA had encumbered itself with. They do development. They are there to encourage development. And what was breathtaking about it, she said, was how unencumbered they are: “They know what they are there to do, and they’re doing it.”

Pollay cautioned that the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority, through expediency, found itself compromising its way into all sorts of areas. And maybe a place to begin, she said, was to go back and think about why the development authority was there in the first place. “Fundamentally, at the end of the day,” declared Pollay, “our measure of success should be as a development authority.”

Pollay said as she looked around, she did not see anyone redeveloping public land in the city. She said that she saw people doing services and code enforcement, but she saw no one doing redevelopment. She concluded by saying she was throwing that out as an idea for the committee to react to, and to start a dialogue.

Margie Teall said she totally agreed with Pollay. She said that she and Russ Collins had talked to city administrator Roger Fraser about that. Teall felt Collins had some great ideas in this area and that they should move forward. But there were other pieces on the term sheet, she said, that were there because they felt like they could move forward more quickly with those. But development of city property was definitely something she wanted to see the DDA go ahead with.

There was resistance on the part of most DDA board members to the items on the terms sheet that stated the DDA will absorb responsibility for aspects of code enforcement and provide various services downtown. A notable exception was Roger Hewitt, who had been part of the working group that had produced the term sheet.

Keith Orr acknowledged it was important that enforcement be part of the same system. But perhaps long-term, he said, being a parking authority is not part of the DDA’s mission, and maybe that operation gets spun off into a separate parking authority. But he felt it was important to assemble the management and enforcement all in one place.

The least developed part of the term sheet, Orr said, was the part about the development of city-owned land. If there were truly a functional development piece in it, he said, that in itself is worth working on. That was, he felt, the true purpose of the DDA. He said the reason the DDA was building a large underground parking lot was so that the downtown area would not need a lot of surface parking lots – that would be key to creating a vibrant streetscape downtown. He said his first thought on the non-parking code enforcement was, “Oh, well I guess that makes sense because the people who are going around doing the parking enforcement can do other code enforcement, too.”

But the more he thought about it, Orr said, the more he thought how he did not even want that piece. Two reasons he gave for not wanting it were: (i) non-parking code enforcement could not be dealt with in the same customer-service way that the DDA wanted to implement parking code enforcement; and (ii) the DDA had no control over the code – it would make them the “bad guys.” He feared that the DDA might wind up having to enforce ordinances that they not only did not believe in, but also felt counter to what they were doing.

Board member Roger Hewitt – owner of the Red Hawk restaurant as well as Revive and Replenish in the ground floor of the Zaragon Place building – offered a counterpoint. The part about services and code enforcement was something that he invested in for 25 years. He suggested that if you talk to a business owner in the campus area, you would understand the implications. He noted that the city had put in various services – they used to sweep the sidewalks, they used to water plants and trim the trees.  There are lots of things that the city used to do, when they were “flush,” he said.

By “code enforcement,” Hewitt said that he was talking about sidewalk cafes, alleys, trash and those sorts of things that are now handled on a complaint basis – but are frequently not even handled when complaints are made. Particularly in the South University area, he said, there is virtually no code enforcement done. He had personal experience with that, he said. Nobody is responsible for what happens on the sidewalks or in the alleys, Hewitt contended.

There is no person at the city, there is no person at the DDA, who is assigned to be concerned about code enforcement, Hewitt said. There is a gap, he said, between what the police do and what the parking enforcement people do and what needs to get done to make the streets in the alleys and the sidewalks look good and attractive. If it looks good and is attractive to people, they’ll will feel safe.

Aggressive panhandling has been an issue, Hewitt said, ever since he’d been downtown. And it’s mostly an issue in the campus area, he said, because the students are an easier touch than the patrons of Main Street. Now that the panhandling had started to move to Main Street, everyone is starting to talk about it, but in the South University area nearer to campus, Hewitt said, they had been dealing with it for decades.

So the parts about services and code enforcement were in the term sheet, Hewitt said, because nobody else seems to care about it. If the DDA does not care about it, he warned, nobody else is going to. That had been his experience of 25 years, he said, and that’s why those parts are in the term sheet. He said he recognized that it was a change in direction for the DDA and, as such, there would have to be a consensus or a significant majority that would support it. And he allowed that the support on the board might not be there. But he said he wanted to raise the question: If they did not do it, then who would? Or does it simply fall between the cracks as it always has?

Partnerships Deliberations: Beat Cops

At the May 5 DDA board meeting, the board remanded a resolution to the partnerships committee on reserving of funds for a possible contract with the city to provide downtown beat cops. The resolution had been brought to the board by Newcombe Clark via its operations committee.

At the May 12 partnerships committee meeting, Clark said he was content not to press the resolution forward unless there was an attempt to grab the funds for some other purpose. The funds in Clark’s resolution on beat cops would be reallocated in monthly $60,000 increments from the WALLY north-south commuter train project, between Washtenaw and Livingston counties. There is a total of $335,000 reserved in the DDA budget for WALLY.

Outside the DDA: Objections to Term Sheet

Opposition to the focus on parking plus other code enforcement, plus provision of city services by the DDA, is not limited to the DDA board itself. At the city council’s May 16 caucus – as well as at the May 17 meeting – mayor John Hieftje, who also sits on the DDA board, expressed his feeling that the city’s community standards officers could enforce the parking code with the same customer service attitude that the DDA wanted to see.

That point of view was also expressed by the city’s chief of police, Barnett Jones, at the city council’s May 10 meeting on the budget:

Jones said that the DDA wanted to manage the entire parking system, including enforcement, and that they wanted to handle enforcement in their specific way. He said he felt that his department could have handled it in the way that the DDA wanted to handle it. That, however, he characterized as a “business decision.” In response to Kunselman’s question about whether it could legally be done, he stated that it could be.

At the May 16 caucus, Stephen Kunsleman (Ward 3) also stated his opposition to the DDA taking over enforcement, raising the specter of a “shadow government.” At the council’s May 17 meeting, he stated that he would not be voting to abdicate his responsibility to the community’s health, safety and welfare by contracting it out to a third party.

Objections to the idea of the DDA enforcing parking and other codes were also heard at the council’s May 17 meeting from a representative of the AFSCME union – community standards officers are members of AFSCME. They see the city’s transfer of responsibility and jobs related to parking enforcement as a violation of their union contract.

DDA Retreat Redux

One outcome of the partnerships committee meeting was the scheduling of an additional retreat of the full board. It’s to be held Friday, May 28 at 2 p.m. at the DDA offices, 150 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 301. The general topic of the retreat will be the term sheet. The DDA already held its semi-annual retreat about two months ago on March 16. Minutes from that spring 2010 retreat are available from the DDA’s website.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) called for the ball to address a repaving contract on the agenda, as well as to float the idea of a parliamentary alternative to formal discussions –  ideas that are still rattling around the rim.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) arrived just as the 20-minute session concluded; he was not asked to run punishment laps around council chambers. An informal shoot-around, in the form of conversational pods among some councilmembers and members of the public, persisted until nearly 8 p.m.

Council’s Monday meeting starts at 7 p.m. on CTN’s Channel 16, which allows at least 2 hours and 21 minutes of council viewing before the NCAA finals begin.

After the break, we provide viewers with a playbook of sorts to follow the action in council chambers. It’s a set of 12 possible amendments to the zoning recommendations passed by planning commission that have been compiled by city staff.

Possible Amendments to A2D2 Zoning

The following are excerpted from a compilation by Ann Arbor city staff of requests for amendments to the A2D2 zoning proposal by councilmembers. The complete .pdf of possible amendments can be downloaded here.  Planning commission’s recommendations can be downloaded here.

Caveats include the fact that some amendments are not necessarily in their complete or final form. Further, not all amendments in this list will necessarily be brought forth. And finally, nothing rules out other possible amendments being brought forward.

Sponsors of amendments are indicated in parenthesis. The list of considerations include both the rationale for the amendment, plus possible downsides identified by staff. We’ve labeled Chronicle commentary as such.

Amendment 1 (Higgins): Eliminate Character Overlay Zoning Districts.

• Reduces complexity in administration of zoning ordinance.
• Removes massing requirements (i.e., upper story offset, diagonal, setbacks from residential) from downtown zoning districts.
• Inconsistent with Vision and Policy Framework and Design Guidelines Advisory Committee. recommendations for identifying overlay districts for areas of differing character.
• Would require amendment of the Downtown Plan (Future Land Use map and Zoning Plan), which was adopted by Planning Commission on Feb. 19, 2009.

Chronicle commentary: At the point when the design guidelines were split off from the zoning package, the thought behind inclusion of the character districts in the zoning, along with the massing requirements, was to put the quantifiable elements of the design guideline committee’s work  into the zoning. We interpret Marcia Higgin’s comments at the most recent DDA board meeting, when she discussed the prospect that design guidelines could be ready by fall with hard work over the summer, to mean that massing requirements would find their way into city planning code via these design guidelines – which would presumably also include character districts. Higgins serves with Roger Hewitt (DDA) and Evan Pratt (planning commission) on the A2D2 oversight committee.

At caucus, Leigh Greden (Ward 3) said he did not support the amendment eliminating character areas.

The DDA board passed a resolution at its last meeting recommending elimination of character districts from the zoning package.

The need to amend the Downtown Plan is not inconsequential. State law requires that master plans be adopted by planning commission and council. Otherwise put, if council changes an element to the zoning package that doesn’t affect master plans (like, for example, whether the height limit in a particular area is 60 feet, 120 feet, 170 feet, etc.) then council has the final say. However, if council amends the zoning package in a way that affects the master plan, then the master plan would need to be send back to planning commission, which could elect to modify its adopted plan, or not.

Amendment 2 (Greden, Taylor, Teall): Rezone properties in the South University commercial district that are outside of the DDA boundary to D2, rather than D1.

• Reflects “interface” area between South University retail core and adjacent residential.
• Inconsistent with Vision and Policy Framework and Downtown Zoning Advisory Committee recommendations.
• Represents a “downzoning” from the current C2A floor area ratio (by-right from 400% to 200% and premiums from 660% to 400%).
• Would require amendment of the Downtown Plan (Future Land Use map and Zoning Plan), which was adopted by Planning Commission on Feb. 19, 2009.
• Forest Street parking structure would not conform with D2 height, coverage and open space requirements.
• For consistency, should be linked with separate character area district (see Amendment 4).

Chronicle commentary: At caucus, this amendment received the support of two neighbors of the South University area. Amendment of the Downtown Plan, as noted in commentary on Amendment 1, would require reconsideration by planning commission. Here’s a map of the proposed D1-D2 split.

At caucus, Carsten Hohnke asked for clarification about the current zoning of the parcels that are outside the DDA boundary. Those present indicated that some were C2A, while others were R4C.

Christopher Taylor has indicated in an email to The Chronicle that the compiled memo does not reflect a 40-foot setback where D2 abuts residential properties, but this would be added before Monday’s meeting.

Amendment 3 (Greden, Taylor): Revise building frontage designations on Washtenaw Avenue and Forest Street.

• Reflects existing character along the street frontage segments.
• Will make buildings at 1338 Washtenaw and 1335 South University non-conforming due to insufficient building frontage (i.e., buildings have less than 15 foot front setback).

Chronicle commentary: Frontage requirements (which would remain, even if Higgins’ amendment 1 were to pass) are intended to support pedestrian scale character. There are three types of frontage:

1. Primary Street: Lot frontage where placement of buildings at the front property line is desired.

2. Secondary Street: Lot frontage where a range of building setbacks from the front property line is acceptable.

3. Front Yard Street: Lot frontage where a setback from the front property line is desired.

The proposed frontage changes in the amendment would make a section of Washtenaw Avenue a “front yard street” and section of South Forest a “primary street.” Here’s a map of the proposed frontage designation changes.

Amendment 4 (Briere): Subdivide the South University Character Overlay Zoning District into two separate districts with different massing standards, including a revised height limit and tower diagonal requirement in the proposed South University 1 character district.

• For consistency, should be linked with D2 rezoning (see Amendment 2).
• South University 2 side setbacks from residential may be insufficient, given potential 60 foot height in the D2 district.

Chronicle commentary: On comparison with the D1-D2 split proposed in Amendment 2, the proposed character district split appears to follow the same boundary. Here’s a map of the proposed D1-D2 split. And here’s a map of the proposed South University 1-2 split.

For the D1 part of the South University character district, the absolute building height limit (which planning commission recommended at 170 feet) is suggested by Briere to be reduced to 120 feet (here the compilation by staff is not accurate).

Amendment 5 (Briere): Subdivide the East Huron Character Overlay Zoning District into two separate districts with different massing standards, including a  height limit in the proposed East Huron 1 character district.

• Reflects unique massing requirements of D1 zoning adjacent to residential.
• May prevent parcels from fully using premium floor area bonuses if diagonal requirements in Character Overlay Districts are retained.

Chronicle commentary: The amendment would create another character district from North Thayer Street to Division Street along the north side of Huron Street and establish a maximum height limit of 120 feet for that area. At the public comment session held two  weeks ago on the proposed zoning revisions, some of the commentary focused on the area. Property owners in the area asked council to respect the compromise worked out by planning commission, which proposed D1 zoning. Neighbors in the historic area abutting the district asked for D2 zoning. The proposed amendment retains planning commission’s recommended D1 zoning, but adds a 120-foot absolute building height limit. Here’s a map of the proposed split of the East Huron character district into two character districts.

Amendment 6 (Higgins, Hohnke ): Eliminate “active use” requirements for retail streets in D1.

• Addresses concern about creating non-conforming uses for existing businesses.
• Removes tool for retaining pedestrian-attracting uses on retail streets.

Chronicle commentary: It’s a gross over-simplification, but “active use” can be roughly understood as “not an office and especially not a bank.” In public commentary and discussion to date, concern has been expressed that a non-active use – while less desirable than an active use – would be preferable to a space remaining unrented.

Amendment 7 (Greden, Higgins, Taylor, and Teall): Add and revise height limits in D1 districts.

• Provides clear direction for building design.
• May prevent larger parcels from fully using premium floor area bonuses if diagonal requirements in Character Overlay Districts are retained.
• Inconsistent with Downtown Zoning Advisory Committee recommendation.

Chronicle commentary: The proposed absolute building height limit for the D1 district would be 180 feet except for the South University overlay district, which would be 120 feet.

Amendment 8 (Greden, Taylor, Teall): Add and revise height limits in Character Overlay Zoning Districts.

• Provides clear direction for building design.
• May prevent larger parcels from fully using premium floor area bonuses if diagonal requirements in Character Overlay Districts are retained.
• Inconsistent with Downtown Zoning Advisory Committee recommendation.

Chronicle commentary: Amendments 7 and 8 have essentially the same effect, but differ in terms of how the absolute building height limits are expressed – in terms of the D1 district versus in terms of  character areas within that zoning district. Leigh Greden (Ward 3) explained at caucus that one or the other of the amendments would be brought forward, depending on whether Amendment 1 passed, which would eliminate character districts from the zoning package.

Amendment 9 (Higgins, Hohnke): Remove diagonal requirements from Character Overlay Zoning District massing standards.

• Provides maximum flexibility for building design.
• Inconsistent with Design Guidelines Advisory Committee recommendations.

Chronicle commentary: The “diagonal” is the measurement from corner to corner of a building floor plate. In the planning commission’s recommended zoning package, maximum diagonals are used on tower elements – parts of the building above the base – to try to encourage slender design allowing light and air. At its last meeting, the DDA board passed a resolution asking for the elimination of the maximum diagonal, partly on the grounds that it encourages square (not rectangular) floor plates, which are not the most conducive to residential development, which is one of the goals of the rezoning.

Amendment 10 (Briere): Revise Affordable Housing Premium to state that cash-in-lieu of units is not permitted.

• Reinforces that the purpose of the premium is to provide on-site affordable units.
• May not be necessary, since section refers specifically to providing on-site units.

Chronicle commentary: Related also to affordable housing premiums was speculation at caucus that Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) might propose an amendment related to the minimum square foot area for an affordable unit, which is currently set at 600 square feet. In the brief discussion among council members attending caucus, Carsten Hohnke said when he’d lived in Manhattan, he’d lived in a 400-square-foot apartment.

Amendment 11 (Taylor) : Increase penalty for failure to meet premium LEED commitment proportional to the benefit gained by the premium.

• Formula reflects increased penalty with increasing scale of premium.
• Formula is complex and may be difficult to explain.

Chronicle commentary: One concern that has been expressed is about additional square footage that a developer can be allowed to build based on satisfying various criteria. These are expressed in terms of premiums. Planning commission’s recommendation is for a variety of premiums: residential use, affordable housing, green building, historic preservation, pedestrian amenities, public parking.

What happens if a developer is not able to achieve certification of the green building (LEED) requirements that allowed construction of additional square footage?  The short answer is that there’s a penalty. Taylor’s amendment related the amount of the penalty directly to the amount of additional square footage that a developer was allowed to build because of the green building premium. Here’s the formula:

P = [(LC-CE) /LC] x CV x GPUP

P is the penalty; LC is the minimum number of credits to earn the requested LEED certification; CE is the number of credits earned as documented by the U.S. Green Building Council report; CV is the construction value, as set forth on the building permit for the new structure; and GPUP, the green premium utilization percentage, is the greater of (i) .075; or (ii) a fraction, the numerator of which is LEED FAR, the denominator of which is TFAR. LEED FAR is the minimum amount of floor area proposed that is attributable to the Green Building Premium; TFAR is the total floor area proposed.

Taylor has provided an Excel Spreadsheet that can be used to see how the formula reflects the interplay between the different variables by plugging in different values.

Worth pointing out is that the definition of LEED FAR, by specifying “minimum amount,” clarifies how situations might be handled when a developer has accumulated the right to build additional square footage through a variety of different premiums, but does not actually build all of the additional area. How does one assess how much of the actually-built area is attributable to the green building premium? The definition provides the implicit direction that all other premiums besides the green building are taken into account for as much of the actually-built additional square footage as possible, to measure the LEED FAR.

Amendment 12 (Briere): Add Small Business Premium.

• Currently no definition of “small business” in zoning ordinance.
• Standards for affordability would need to be developed.

Chronicle commentary: The idea is to extend the notion of “affordability” – typically associated with residential units – to small business use.

Repaving Maiden Lane

There’s a paving contract on Monday’s agenda, which drew Sabra Briere’s attention, because it includes Maiden Lane. She noted at caucus that the University of Michigan has plans for that area, which would make sense to integrate into any repaving schedule. Briere lives in that neighborhood.

Rule of Discourse

Briere also floated the idea of using a provision in Robert’s Rules of Order – which governs parliamentary procedures of the council – to allow for informal discussion, as opposed to the formal discussions that require, among other things, that councilmembers be recognized by the chair of the meeting before speaking and that their speaking turns are limited to two per councilmember on any item. Mayor Hieftje responded by pointing out that the two-turn limit applied to each item individually – including each amendment to any main resolution – so that on any resolution, a councilmember might well be able to speak far more than just two times. He said that a mechanism that could be used to allow for more speaking turns was to suspend the speaking rules by voting to do so. [This is not uncommonly used at council to provide members with an opportunity to speak again.]

Briere followed up by saying that within Robert’s Rules itself, there was a provision for informal discussion. Hieftje said that council speaking rules were somewhat different from Robert’s Rules, noting that in Robert’s Rules there is no provision for “calling the question.”

Chronicle commentary: According to the rules of the council, discussion is governed by Rule 8:

RULE 8 - Conduct of Discussion and Debate
• No member shall speak until recognized for that purpose by the Chair.
• The member shall confine comments to the question at hand and avoid personality.
• A member shall not speak more than two times on a given question, five minutes the first time, three minutes the second time, except with the concurring vote of 3/4 of the members present.
• A motion to call the previous question (call for cloture) immediately ends all discussion and shall be out of order until all members have had an opportunity to speak twice to the question on the floor, and shall require a concurring vote of 3/4 of the members present.
• A motion to lay on the table shall be out of order until all members have had an opportunity to speak once to the question on the floor.

Robert’s Rules factor in to cover issues not addressed in Rule 8:

RULE 18 - What Other Rules Shall Govern
The rules of parliamentary practice, comprised in Robert’s Rules of Order, shall govern the Council in all cases to which they are applicable, provided they are not in conflict with these rules or with the charter of the City.

Some rules of order allowed by Robert’s Rules, which allow for informal discussion, are described here.  However, it appears that Rule 8 supercedes Rule 18.