Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board members Roger Hewitt (left) and Keith Orr. They're examining a Girl Scout badge created for assisting in the Downtown Blooms event. The car on the wall in the background is a mockup of the planned wayfinding system for the levels of the new underground parking structure, anticipated to open by mid-July. (Photos by the writer.)

One of those structures farther west of the campus is the new underground parking garage on South Fifth Avenue, which is nearing completion. The garage, which the DDA is currently calling the “Library Lane” parking structure, is now expected to open by the time the art fairs begin, which this year fall on July 18–21. South Fifth Avenue between Liberty and William is expected to re-open by Memorial Day.

A characterization of that timing as “on schedule” was disputed during public commentary by Ali Ramlawi, owner of the Jerusalem Garden restaurant. Jerusalem Garden is adjacent to the construction site. Ramlawi noted that the structure was originally due to be completed by August 2011.

The future use of the top of the underground garage was the subject of public commentary from advocates who’d like to see it used as a green plaza. That suggestion was met with remarks from mayor John Hieftje, who sits on the DDA board, with a description of his expectation that three major parcels would soon be incorporated into the city’s park system – 721 N. Main, 415 W. Washington, and the MichCon property (located between the Amtrak rail station and the Huron River near the Broadway bridges). Hieftje’s point was that the additional financial burden for the maintenance of those parcels as parks might impact the city’s ability to add a downtown green plaza to the park system.

Requests for better information about the parking system and suggestions for disseminating information about the availability of open parking spaces were topics of additional public commentary.

Although it was not an action item, the board discussed a draft policy on supporting “brownfield” projects – a policy prompted by discussions at the board’s partnerships committee over the last few months. [.pdf of draft DDA brownfield policy]

The committee has been discussing a proposal by Dan Ketelaar for support of a proposed development at 618 S. Main, which received a positive recommendation from the Ann Arbor planning commission on Jan. 19, 2012. If the project moves forward, the 7-story building would include 190 units for 231 bedrooms, plus two levels of parking for 121 vehicles. Ketelaar has estimated that the tax on the increment between the current valuation of the property and the final built project would yield around $250,000 a year in TIF (tax increment finance) revenue to the DDA. If adopted as it’s currently worded in the draft, the formula in the policy would translate into up to $625,000 of support for 618 S. Main.

The board also received updates on the third-quarter financial statements for the DDA, as well as an update on the Connection William Street planning project. 

The DDA manages the city’s public parking system under a contract with the city of Ann Arbor that ensures the city receives 17% of the gross parking revenues, which amounts to around $3 million annually.

So parking is typically a topic at DDA board meetings that receives a great deal of time and attention. The May 2, 2012 meeting was no different. The construction of the new parking garage on South Fifth Avenue was highlighted at the meeting in three ways: (1) public comment on future planning for the top of the underground parking garage from advocates of a public park to be constructed there; (2) a resolution to help foster usage of the new garage through differential pricing; and (3) and the regular update on construction progress.

Parking Structure Park

A request for proposals (RFP) process that could have led to the selection of a development project on the top of the underground parking structure was terminated by the Ann Arbor city council on April 4, 2011. The structure includes reinforced footings designed to support future development on the site.

Parking Structure Park: Public Comment – Library Green

Will Hathaway told the board that he was speaking on behalf of group of Ann Arborites advocating for a downtown public park – a Library Green on the Library Lot. He allowed that there are other competing views for the future of the Library Lot. He also allowed that there are also concerns about the possible impact of public open space in the downtown.

He reviewed the site plan for the top of the parking structure, given the absence of any future development on the top of the lot. The design includes 40 parking spaces, he said.

The red rectangle outlines the area where Hathaway and the Library Green advocates would like to see a public park/plaza constructed, instead of using all the available area for surface parking. (Image links to higher resolution .pdf file)

Hathaway then reviewed the configuration of the spaces that are currently planned for the top of the structure. He suggested that a public plaza be created now and proposed a configuration that would leave 18 parking spaces, but would allow for a plaza too.

He invited the DDA board to think about an interactive water feature or an ice rink or a piece of public art like The Cube as elements of the plaza. He reported that he’d been on a tour of the underground garage, which is nearing completion, and he allowed that in some ways it’s architecturally beautiful.

But it needs a better “crown,” Hathaway said, than a surface parking lot.

Eric Lipson introduced himself as a resident of Ann Arbor and former city planning commissioner. He told the board he was also wearing the hat of a Library Green advocate. He explained that as general manager of the Inter-Cooperative Council, he was also representing a stakeholder in the Connecting William Street project. The ICC houses 600 members, and its headquarters is located on East William Street, within the area of study for that project.

Lipson reminded the DDA board of the Calthorpe process that the community had engaged in around 2005. He described it as an extensive process that had included a series of design charettes. One of the ideas that had emerged was the need for a public plaza, or a “town square.” The Calthorpe report mentions a town square over a dozen times, Lipson said, and depicts such a square on the Library Lot.

Lipson called it a perfect time to revisit the question of what to put on top of the underground structure. He told the board it was doing an excellent job on the Connecting William Street project. The DDA’s planning and research specialist, Amber Miller, and executive director Susan Pollay were doing a good job, he said. The speaker series that Concentrate is sponsoring as a part of that is very useful, he said.

Right now the plan for the top of the Library Lot is for it to be a surface parking lot [until some other possible future use is identified]. But surface parking lots are anathema to active downtowns, he said. He encouraged the DDA board to put something on the site that is not a surface parking lot. He acknowledged the concern about crime and panhandlers, but characterized that as a broader issue. The community shouldn’t sacrifice the idea of a plaza because of the issue of the homeless. He said that as he moved through downtown Ann Arbor walking along the sidewalks, he was approached more and more by panhandlers – but no one is suggesting we abolish sidewalks.

Ray Detter, during his report from the downtown citizens advisory council (CAC), said that Lipson and Hathaway had spoken to the advisory council at its meeting the night before. Detter said the CAC agreed with them that a plaza space should be part of the plan. But he said that a plaza space has always been part of the plan. The CAC agreed there should be a clear-cut process for using Library Lane when it was finished. [Library Lane is the mid-block cut-through from Division Street to Fifth Avenue just north of the current location of the downtown district library.] Detter said the CAC had affirmed a long-held commitment to tax-producing private development on top of the parking garage. The CAC has always believed that whatever goes on the top of the parking garage should benefit the library, Detter concluded.

Parking Structure Park: Board Response – Three Other Parks

Responding to the remarks of Library Green advocates about the perceived problem of panhandling as an argument against additional open space in the downtown, mayor John Hieftje noted that panhandling had been the focus of a task force that had done some work on the issue. He mentioned that people would start seeing posters appear that give suggestions for ways to help without giving money to a panhandler.

[By way of background, the city of Ann Arbor previously staffed a downtown beat patrol, which many officers chose to cover by bicycle. With the reduction of the police officer force, that specific patrol assignment has been reduced to the point of elimination. Many people have contended that there's an increased panhandling and other nuisance-type crimes in downtown Ann Arbor and that it can be attributed to the elimination of the downtown beat patrol.]

So in connection with panhandling, Hieftje then took the occasion to point out that later in May, the city council would be likely to approve a budget that does not cut 9 police officers as had been planned last year, but would add one, for a net gain of 10. He also pointed out that some additional personnel would be added as part of a recruitment program.

[In May 2011, the city council approved a budget that eliminated six police officer positions, with a plan to eliminate nine additional positions this year. So compared to 2010 budgeted levels for sworn officers, preserving the nine positions and adding one leaves Ann Arbor police officer staffing at five fewer for next year. That doesn't include the proposed recruitment program, which calls for potential new hires to the department to work under the direction of sworn officers.]

Image from the city/county flood map website showing the 721 N. Main parcel. The blue area is floodway. The green area is floodplain. Two of the three buildings on the parcel are in the floodway. They could be demolished with a FEMA grant described by mayor John Hieftje. Acceptance of the grant from FEMA would require a deed restriction against development in the floodway. (Image links to floodway mapping tool.)

Continuing his remarks on panhandlers, Hieftje noted that most of them are not homeless.

Hieftje then pitched a framework for discussing the future of the top of the underground parking garage – which Library Green advocates are suggesting should become a public park. Hieftje contended that it should be considered in the context of other significant anticipated additions to the city park system.

Hieftje indicated that the city council’s May 7 meeting would include a presentation about a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant for demolition of buildings on the city-owned 721 N. Main property.

By way of additional background, Jerry Hancock, the city’s floodplain manager, provided some explanation about the grant, which has been awarded but still awaits some steps on the city’s part. One of those steps is updating the city’s All-Hazard Plan, which had expired, delaying the award of the grant by FEMA.

From The Chronicle’s March 5, 2012 city council meeting report:

Hancock responded by saying there’s only one other site on which the city has moved forward with FEMA applications: 721 N. Main St., a city-owned property.

The city had received approval of a grant to remove two storage structures in the floodway on the 721 N. Main site, but that grant has been delayed because the city’s All-Hazard Plan has expired. The city’s emergency manager, along with the city attorney’s office, is updating that, Hancock explained. Once that All-Hazard Plan is complete, the city will be able to move ahead with that grant. However, no other sites besides the two storage structures at 721 N. Main have been identified for FEMA applications, Hancock said.

At the DDA board meeting on May 2, Hieftje also said there was a real push being made to get the area across Main Street from the 721 N. Main property cleaned up – it’s the site of Avalon Housing‘s Near North affordable housing project, which currently has several vacant houses on it. Hieftje indicated that the city would be pursuing a state Natural Resources Trust Fund grant to make the 721 N. Main site the first of the greenway parks. It would have a linkage across Main Street under the railroad tracks to the countywide Border-to-Border Trail, he said. City staff would be investing time in planning for that, he said. Washtenaw County [parks and recreation], Hieftje reported, had agreed tentatively to participate in the project by making a match for the Natural Resources Trust Fund grant.

[Hieftje appears to have somewhat overstated the currently expected level of participation by the county's park and recreation program. In a phone interview, Bob Tetens – director of Washtenaw County parks and recreation – told The Chronicle that there was not anything yet on the table in front of the parks and recreation commission. He indicated that there'd been conversations with the city about the project, and that the idea of connecting the 721 N. Main property would be a good fit with the Connecting Communities grant program – a $600,000 annual program over five years, for a total of $3 million. Tetens also said that a project that's already partly funded through another source (like the state's Natural Resources Trust Fund) would enhance a project's application. However, there are more applications for various projects every year than Washtenaw County parks and recreation can fund through the Connecting Communities program, Tetens said.]

Hieftje characterized the land at 721 N. Main as something that the city needs to do something with – because the city doesn’t want to contribute to blight. [The property was previously the city's fleet maintenance yard, but was closed when the Wheeler Service Center opened in 2007.] He also reported that he’d been working with community members on the city-owned 415 W. Washington property. He said that not much progress has been made because of the condition of the old building. By council resolution, he said, that parcel will be a greenway park. [The council resolutions to which Hieftje is referring don't appear to commit the entire parcel to becoming a greenway park.]

Environmental cleanup work is being done on the MichCon property, located between the Amtrak rail station and the Huron River, near the Broadway bridges. Hieftje stated he hoped that would also become a park – across from the new whitewater features to be constructed in connection with the Argo Dam bypass, now called the Argo Cascades.

So as people start to think about adding parks, he said, people need to think about how to maintain them. According to the park advisory commission, Hieftje said, the city is at the limit of being able to maintain parks. Because the city already owns the 721 N. Main site, and because the MichCon property is one the city has wanted for 40 years to be cleaned up and added to the park system, those would be “first in line,” he stated. The capacity to care for another park will stretched, Hieftje said. He recommended to people who are working on the Library Green to take that into account: How will we maintain the park? Also, Hieftje invited Library Green advocates to think about how that fit into the competing interests of three large new parks that will need planning, development and maintenance.

Hieftje also said that he’d be recommending to the park advisory commission that they take up the issue of how to re-design Liberty Plaza [at Division and Liberty streets] so that it becomes a more active center and not something that people avoid. It’s fortunate that First Martin cares for the park, Hieftje said. [First Martin is an Ann Arbor firm that owns the building adjacent to Liberty Plaza.]

Picking up on Hieftje’s comments, Sandi Smith noted that the Connecting William Street committee members would have the future of the top of the underground parking garage on their radar as well, and noted that Liberty Plaza is within the boundary of the study area. Trying to maintain and activate two parks within the same block seems to be a difficult chore, she said.

Responding to Hieftje’s comments during the second opportunity for public comment at the end of the meeting, Jerusalem Garden owner Ali Ramlawi suggested that one idea of funding the maintenance for a public park plaza on top of the parking garage would be to take a fraction of a percent of the parking revenues collected from the structure.

Parking Demand Management

Parking demand management is basically a strategy of differential pricing – higher for higher demand areas and lower for lower demand areas – to try to optimize the available parking spaces in the system. At an April 9, 2012 city council work session, Ward 1 city councilmember Sabra Briere had asked DDA board member Roger Hewitt when residents could expect to see demand-management strategies implemented. At that work session, Hewitt had been presenting the DDA annual budget to the council.

Parking Demand Management: Resolution on Permits

At their May 2 meeting, the DDA board considered a resolution authorizing its operations committee (aka bricks & money and transportation committee) to use demand-management strategies to price monthly parking permits in Ann Arbor’s public parking system. The goal of adjusting monthly parking permit rates is to expand campus-area parking to structures other than those immediately adjacent to the University of Michigan campus. In broad strokes, “demand-management strategies” means pricing the most desirable parking options higher than those that are less desirable.

The move comes as the opening of the new underground parking structure on South Fifth Avenue, offering around 700 total spaces, is set to open by the start of the Ann Arbor art fairs, which this year run from July 18-21. Monthly permits for some of the spaces will be offered at the new structure, which will add to the five public parking structures where permits are available: Ann & Ashley, Forest Avenue, Fourth & William, Liberty Square (Tally Hall), and Maynard.

Under a demand-management strategy, prices of monthly permits at the underground parking structure are likely to be lower than at other structures.

The Ps denote parking structures offering monthly permit parking. (Image links to Google map.)

Hewitt noted that the DDA has been focusing on the completion of the new underground parking garage and has not had time to pay as much attention to parking demand-management initiatives.

As the DDA gets closer to opening the new underground garage, Hewitt said, the idea is to look at carrots and sticks for evening out the usage in the system. Rather than forcing people to move their permits from structures in high demand to those that are in lower demand, the idea is to offer incentives. There’s a number of ideas to relieve the pressure on the structures closest to campus – Forest, Maynard and Liberty Square. The idea is to move those folks into the new underground structure or the Fourth & William structure, he said.

The resolution authorized the operations committee to use parking demand management to alter rates to even out the demand in the system, he said.

Newcombe Clark questioned why there was an explicit mention of “two blocks west” in one of the “whereas” clauses. Hewitt assured him that the intent was to explore parking demand management for monthly permits throughout the system, without any particular boundary.

Outcome: The DDA board unanimously approved the resolution authorizing the operations committee to use parking demand management strategies to alter monthly parking permit rates.

Parking Demand Management: DDA-City Contract

The  Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority manages Ann Arbor’s public parking system under contract with the city. The DDA has the unilateral ability to set parking rates. To implement an increase, the DDA is required under the contract to complete a series of steps designed to ensure adequate notice and public input before implementation of a rate increase. From the contract [emphasis]:

Notwithstanding the foregoing, DDA shall not implement any increase in the Municipal Parking System’s hours of meter operation or parking rates intended to persist for more than three (3) months without first: (i) announcing, and providing written communication regarding, the details of such increase at a meeting of the DDA Board; (ii) providing all members of the public an opportunity to speak in a manner similar to a public hearing before the DDA Board at its next regularly scheduled meeting on the subject of the proposed increase (“Public Hearing”); and (iii) postponing any vote on the proposed increase until at least the regularly scheduled meeting of the DDA Board after the Public Hearing

The changes to the monthly permit system, which Hewitt characterized as “incentives,” do not appear to involve rate increases, but perhaps only decreases. So the various steps outlined in that contract clause would not apply.

Parking Demand Management: Public Comment

Edward Vielmetti addressed the board during the second opportunity for public commentary, and focused on the topic of demand management pricing. He ventured that sometimes people don’t have much of a choice as to where they can park and they pay whatever price they have to pay – because they don’t know much about what their alternatives are.

In addition to improved communication about availability of spaces, Vielmetti asked for better communication about information on the parking system performance – as opposed to simple pronouncements about the parking system being at full capacity.

Vielmetti also addressed the board at the start of the meeting on the topic of relatively low-tech ways to get parking space availability information to people who need it – people who are looking for a place to park.

He shared an experience he had visiting Toledo to watch the Toledo Mud Hens play. It’s usually easy to find a place to park, he said, and if the lots near the stadium are full, there are usually other lots that are easy enough to find. But on the occasion of the visit he described to the DDA board, the Detroit Tigers were playing, and all the lots were filled up. So he had to navigate using his wits and found the farmer’s market, which offered free parking.

Part of the challenge of parking in an unfamiliar place, he said, is not knowing the lay of the land. You have to figure out if the place you want to park is legal, and you might not know if the structure you know exists is already full. He said that what was fascinating about Toledo was not any kind of fancy smart phone application that anyone had running, but rather a sign at the border that advised people to tune their radios to AM 1640. That’s a station that tells you how much traffic was on the roads to get to the stadium, or to get to downtown Toledo from the Michigan border.

The radio station, Vielmetti said, would give estimated travel times to different places, on a constant loop. Every few minutes the information would be updated. It’s a low-power AM station that you can only hear in Toledo, he said. He suggested that setting up such a station would be within the means of any municipality or a public body like the DDA, and the radio station could tell people a little bit about what they need to do in the downtown. The DDA already has realtime parking information available, so potentially that information could be broadcast every three minutes and listeners could hear something like “All the lots have spaces available,” or if the Fourth and Washington structure is full, then it could advise people to use the underground garage.

Vielmetti said he wanted to revisit the realtime parking information issue that he’d raised with the DDA back in 2009. This time around, he said, he didn’t want to look at “fancy things” that only people with fancy phones could use, but something that people could tune into from their car radio.

Parking Demand Management: Parking Report

A report of the monthly parking figures are a standard part of every DDA board meeting. Generally, the message conveyed by Roger Hewitt is that revenues are up in excess of the rate increase, which he interprets as an indicator that demand for parking is increasing.

For the past few months, The Chronicle has charted out revenues and hourly patrons in the system as reflected in the DDA’s monthly reports over the last couple of years. Hourly patrons don’t include people who park at on-street meters, but rather those who pay hourly at a parking structure – as opposed to parking there using a monthly permit.

Ann Arbor public parking system revenue through March 31, 2012. (Image links to higher resolution file.)

Ann Arbor public parking system hourly patrons (in structures) through March 31, 2012. (Image links to higher resolution file.)

Parking Garage Construction

At its monthly meetings, the DDA board typically receives a report on the progress toward completion of the new underground parking garage on South Fifth Avenue. It will offer around 700 spaces underground. The surface lot that existed there previously offered 192 spaces.

Parking Garage Construction – Public Comment

Ali Ramlawi introduced himself as the owner of the Jerusalem Garden and a resident of Ward 5 – but he allowed that board members already knew who he was. [Ramlawi has addressed the board previously to raise essentially the same issues he did at the May 2 meeting.]

He described the construction of the underground parking structure as stretching now into its fourth calendar year, but was not yet complete. [The ceremonial groundbreaking took place in October 2009.] He reviewed some of the issues he’s raised before – loss of income, disruption in deliveries, forced evacuation [due to the emergence of a sinkhole]. He questioned how the construction contract was awarded to the Christman Company and contended that the choice of subcontractors by Christman had raised some eyebrows. He contended that the original contract with Christman had no penalties for being late and no reward for finishing on time. No one is held accountable, he complained. With the powers and budget the DDA board members have, they need to do a better job of awarding contacts, he said. If this were the private sector, he contended, someone would have been fired. Where are the penalties for the lateness? he asked.

He told the board that when they have the ceremonial opening celebration he would not be around for it because he didn’t want to “puke over [himself].”

Parking Garage Construction – Board Report

John Splitt gave the update on the construction of the underground garage. Work continues on the mechanicals. The most exciting part of things, he said, is that the backfilling on the plaza level is going along nicely and the waterproofing is almost complete. Backfilling on the “bridge” section, which will allow the re-opening of South Fifth Avenue, is almost complete, he said. Curbs are beginning to be formed on South Fifth Avenue. It’s on schedule to reopen by the end of May, and it’s anticipated that the underground garage will be open by the time that the art fairs start, he said. The fairs run from July 18-21 this year.

During the second opportunity for public commentary near the end of the meeting, Ali Ramlawi objected to Splitt’s use of the phrase “on schedule to open,” saying that the project is a year behind schedule. He contended that saying it was on schedule undermined the DDA’s credibility.

Following up on Splitt’s construction summary, Newcombe Clark asked that the depiction of the Lincoln Continental on the meeting room’s wall be explained, so that people did not think the DDA was getting into the sponsorship business. Splitt explained that it’s part of the underground garage wayfinding system – which will use both colors and four different automobiles to identify floors. The car is a mockup of a wayfinding sign.

“Brownfield” Policy Draft

The DDA board considered a draft policy on supporting “brownfield” projects – a policy prompted by discussions at the board’s partnerships committee over the last few months. [.pdf of draft DDA brownfield policy] The board was not expected to act on the policy, and did not vote.

“Brownfield” Policy Draft: Background

The DDA’s partnerships committee has been discussing a proposal by Dan Ketelaar for support of a proposed development at 618 S. Main, which received a positive recommendation from the Ann Arbor planning commission on Jan. 19, 2012. The 7-story building would include 190 units for 231 bedrooms, plus two levels of parking for 121 vehicles. Ketelaar has estimated that the tax on the increment between the current valuation of the property and the final built project would yield around $250,000 a year in TIF (tax increment finance) revenue to the DDA.

Ketelaar is asking that the DDA pledge 80% of its TIF capture money for six years – about $1.3 million – to support certain aspects of the project in connection with the state’s Community Revitalization Program. The CRP is the successor to the brownfield and historic preservation tax credit programs. In order to approve the tax credit, the state would like to see a commensurate commitment from local units – and Ketelaar is proposing that it take the form of the DDA’s support.

At the April 11, 2012 DDA partnerships committee meeting, one of the points that resonated strongest with some board members in favor of supporting the 618 S. Main project was the ability of the contribution to leverage state money that would otherwise not be invested in Ann Arbor. The amount of money from the state that could be leveraged is in the range of $3 million.

Under Ketelaar’s proposal, taxes on the property would still need to be paid. In other words, the DDA would not simply waive its tax capture on the property. The 618 S. Main project would be reimbursed for a portion of those taxes it would normally owe. In the draft policy, that’s reflected in the following passage: “The DDA will not forgo its TIF capture from a project; the DDA may elect to provide a grant to a project utilizing its funds, or it may elect to provide all or some of its support using such in-kind elements as access to parking for contractors or construction staging.”

The maximum amount of a possible grant described in the draft policy is “calculated by estimating 25% of the total TIF captured by a project over ten years.” In the case of the 618 S. Main project, that amounts to .25*(10*$250,000) = $625,000. That’s about half what the 618 S. Main project is requesting.

The DDA board has heard about the proposal on several occasions – first at the full board meeting on Feb. 1, 2012, and at four subsequent DDA partnerships committee meetings. DDA board members are cautious about the precedent that such a pledge might set, and the appropriateness of the DDA’s role at this early stage in the project. (Ketelaar has not yet acquired the land.) At the March 28 partnerships committee meeting, DDA board member Newcombe Clark expressed concern that, depending on the precise role defined for the DDA’s participation, the DDA could effectively be artificially inflating land values.

“Brownfield” Policy Draft: Board Discussion

Sandi Smith introduced the draft policy. Looking at the 618 S. Main project caused the partnerships committee to take a really hard look at the reasons why the DDA would participate in the project at all, some or a lot, she said. The committee felt that it was struggling with the idea of creating a precedent. So the committee wanted to make a strong policy statement that the DDA would be able to honor for the 618 S. Main project, as well as for projects that came after it.

She walked the board through some of the highlights of the draft policy. She said she was looking for board-wide feedback for further work by the partnerships committee.

Roger Hewitt said that a lot of his concerns were addressed by the draft policy – about the subjectivity of picking projects. He liked the idea of getting rid of as much subjectivity as possible. The idea of a state match was good, he said, as well as the idea that the only costs to be reimbursed would be public infrastructure, not parts of the development itself. He also wanted to make sure that the DDA would not be paying out more than the DDA would receive in TIF capture.

Smith assured Hewitt that nothing would be paid until the taxes have been paid. The DDA would never be in a position of being ahead of the taxes it had received. Hewitt said his concern was that the amount of the grant could become a larger percentage of the TIF, if the value of the project actually went down. He wanted some way to protect against that. Keith Orr suggested some kind of clause that states that while the grant amount would be based on the estimated value of the TIF capture, the payout would be capped by the actual value.

Russ Collins noted that the scenario that Hewitt was describing involved possibly paying out more than anticipated, but not more than the DDA was capturing. John Splitt noted that there could be flexibility to pay out sooner than the actual TIF capture was received, so that’s where the issue could arise – if it were paid out on a schedule sooner than the 10 years.

Splitt wondered if 25% was enough to make a difference in the project. Bob Guenzel clarified that “enough” meant whether it was enough to actually provide the matching leverage for state funds. Smith responded by saying that for past projects, the Liberty Lofts project [a residential development at Liberty and First] had been the most significant one – and that had amounted to 17% of the TIF over 10 years. Taking all that into account, she wondered if 25% was too high or too low.

Keith Orr agreed with the idea of making it as objective as possible and focusing on public infrastructure.

Newcombe Clark said he was happy that the DDA has continued to be creative even when the organization doesn’t have a lot of money. He appreciated the patience of Ketelaar, watching the “sausage making.” Clark said he’d enjoyed the process. Maybe the DDA didn’t make everyone happy or didn’t get it right the first time, he said – that’s always possible. He knew it was not perfect, but he felt that as a group the DDA board could pick it back up and shine it up some more. He said he’d had the fear that for a few years there’d be nothing the DDA would be able to do [because of diminished financial capacity] and he’d been proven wrong.

Collins quipped that he found Clark’s positive and optimistic attitude completely inappropriate, which drew laughs around the table. On a more serious note, Collins said that the DDA had structured itself as an organization that tends to assets. That causes a certain amount of fiscal conservatism. The draft brownfield policy, therefore, is very conservative, he said. But by being conservative, the DDA could miss the chance to be a stimulus to other private investment, which is the core of the DDA’s mission, he said. That’s the constant tension a DDA has, he ventured.

Clark suggested that based on past experience, once the DDA creates policies, it lays down the rules of engagement, and then people will line up with proposals. Collins continued with his friendly ribbing of Clark, saying that Clark’s unmitigated optimism was completely out of character.

During his report from the downtown citizens advisory council (CAC), Ray Detter congratulated the DDA on the formulation of the draft policy. He said the CAC supports the project and is confident the DDA is developing a consistent policy that will be fair to everyone.

Outcome: The draft policy was not before the board for a vote. It will be subjected to further discussion by the partnerships committee.

Third Quarter Financials

Roger Hewitt reviewed the financial statements for third quarter, through March 31, 2012. The DDA’s accounting system includes four funds: the TIF (tax increment finance) fund, which gets its revenue from tax capture; the parking fund, which receives revenue from the public parking system; the parking maintenance fund, which gets revenue through transfers from the parking fund; and the housing fund, which gets revenue through transfers from the TIF fund. [.pdf of DDA  financial picture through March 31, 2012]

The tax increment finance (TIF) income is anticipated to be $200,000 below budgeted – $3.7 million instead of $3.9 million, Hewitt reported. The drop, he said, is primarily due to changes in personal property, not changes to real property. Personal property depreciates quickly, he said. Operating expenses will be about $250,000 below budget, primarily from less use of consultants and lower administrative expenses. Only about $45,000 in capital expenses are shown so far, he said, but he anticipated that number would be right around $1 million at the end of the fiscal year.

That figure will come from the Fifth and Division streetscape improvements project and a portion of the “Library Lane” parking structure. Overall, he said, the DDA had budgeted for around a $1.5 million use of fund balance. Now, said Hewitt, it looks like it would be around $1.44 million of fund reserves that would need to be used. Hewitt pointed out that the use of fund balance was planned, and the natural consequence of accruing capital funds to pay for major construction projects and then using the money.

Revenue for the public parking system is anticipated to be around $17 million, or about $800,000 more than anticipated. The rate increases had been budgeted into the anticipated revenue, he said, so he attributed the additional revenue to increased demand. He stated that the DDA continues to see strong growth in demand for parking. It’s fortunate that the “Library Lane” parking structure is coming on line when it is, because the system is at capacity, he said, at least in the campus area and at the Ann Ashley parking structure.

Direct operating expenses are expected to be $800,000 less than expected. That has to do with the fact that Republic Parking – the DDA’s contractor for day-to-day parking operations – is doing a good job at belt-tightening and is efficient in its operations, Hewitt said. He commended Art Lowe, Republic Parking manager, and his staff for keeping costs in line. Overall, it looks like the parking fund will be around $1 million to the positive.

Parking maintenance has received around $2 million, he said, which is right where the DDA anticipated being. The DDA has not spent money on maintenance that it would have ordinarily done, but the DDA is so far ahead on preventive maintenance that it was able to scale back without any concern about the structural integrity or long-term durability of the structures, he said. So parking structure maintenance has been conservative. There’s been about $1.6 million less spent on maintenance than what had been budgeted. That money will be there for future years as needed, Hewitt said.

The only income into the housing fund was due to interest. About $500,000 had been budgeted for Avalon Housing’s Near North project, but that project has not gone forward. The $500,000 is not due to be paid until Avalon has a certificate of occupancy, and that shows as under budget on the expense side for the housing fund.

Summarizing the financial picture in terms of fund balances, Hewitt gave the following round figures: TIF fund – $6.5 million; housing fund – $1 million; parking fund – $2 million; and parking maintenance – $1.8 million. Total fund balance is $11,444,000, he said. That will certainly be drawn lower as the Fifth and Division streetscape and the “Library Lane” parking structure projects are paid off, he said, but the DDA still has adequate cash.

Communications, Committee Reports

The board’s meeting included a usual range of miscellaneous reports from its standing committees and the downtown citizens advisory council, as well as public commentary. To the extent that significant issues are not already included in the other parts of the meeting report, we include them here.

Comm/Comm: Connecting William Street

Joan Lowenstein gave an update on the Connecting William Street project – an effort the DDA is making under the direction of the city council to find alternate uses for city-owned parcels currently used for surface parking. Lowenstein said that the DDA’s leadership and outreach committee is continuing and increasing efforts to bring different “scenarios” to the public. The scenarios won’t be exact building drawings, but there would be more detail in them, she said. In mid- to late June there’d be something concrete to bring to the public.

Focus group meetings will continue in an effort to shape scenarios. A meeting with members of the city’s park advisory commission had taken place. On May 16, the committee would hear the market analysis findings that will shape the scenarios, based on survey feedback and the market analysis. Throughout the month of June, the committee was moving ahead to have something to show people and get feedback.

The next event in the Concentrate speaker series, focusing on land-use economics, will take place on May 17 at 5 p.m. at Conor O’Neill’s, Lowenstein said.

Comm/Comm: Commuter Challenge

Nancy Shore, director of the getDowntown program, gave the board a brief update on the Commuter Challenge, which getDowntown sponsors annually during the month of May.

Comm/Comm: Girl Scouts

Girl Scout badge design for "Spring Blooms" park cleanup day. The DDA is camouflaged into the design.

Board members were given a Girl Scout badge that’s been created in connection with the parks cleanup day, Spring Blooms. Girl Scouts can earn the badge by participating in the event, DDA executive director Susan Pollay said.

Pollay noted that the DDA name was hidden within the badge design.

This year, the event falls on Saturday, May 19. The assembly point is Liberty Plaza at Division and Liberty. Said Pollay: “We will go forth and clean up the downtown!”

Present: Nader Nassif, Newcombe Clark, Bob Guenzel, Roger Hewitt, John Hieftje, John Splitt, Sandi Smith, Russ Collins, Keith Orr, Joan Lowenstein.

Absent: John Mouat, Leah Gunn.

Next board meeting: Noon on Wednesday, June 6, 2012, at the DDA offices, 150 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 301. [confirm date]

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Before the meeting started, Scott Rosencrans, right, knocks on wood in conversation with Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2). Behind them are Sandi Smith (Ward 1) and Nicholas Nightwine, president of the city's AFSCME union Local 369. Nightwine was there to oppose the outsourcing of city composting operations. Rosencrans, former chair of the park advisory commission, attended as part of a presentation made by the Ann Arbor Skatepark. (Photos by the writer.)

Council rules factored prominently later in the meeting, when a motion to suspend them failed. Had the rules been suspended, it would have cleared the way for the council to reconsider their previous decision to reject a residential planned unit development (PUD) on Fifth Avenue – Heritage Row. The project, which began as a conditional rezoning proposal three years ago, went through iterations since 2007 that included a brownstone-style PUD and a matter-of-right proposal called City Place, which eventually did win approval from the council.

After their previous council meeting, which featured water as a prominent theme, the council focused much of its attention on land-related issues like Heritage Row. In another land-use related item, the council approved revisions to the city’s area, height and placement (AHP) zoning provisions in the city code. But amendments to the AHP resolution were substantive enough that the approval process was reset to the initial, first-reading step. The AHP changes – which, as amended, provide that height limits do not apply in so-called “employment districts,” unless they abut residential areas – will need approval at a second reading in order to be enacted.

A land-use item that was intended mostly as administrative housekeeping – several park areas previously designated as residential, office, and business districts were rezoned with the public land (PL) designation – generated substantial public commentary and council deliberations. Several public commenters expressed concern about whether the PL designations, which the council approved, afforded adequate protection for the continued use of the land as parks.

Although not strictly a land-use issue in a zoning sense, a proposed contract with WeCare Organics to operate the city’s compost facility was linked to terra firma by acreage owned by the city where the facility is located, plus the fact that it processes yard waste generated from residents’ property. The council approved the WeCare contract after extended questioning of city staff and a representative from WeCare.

Also tangentially related to land use was an item that introduced a licensing scheme for medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivation facilities in the city. After questioning the city attorney about several provisions of his proposed licensing requirements, councilmembers decided to postpone the issue until their Jan. 3, 2011 meeting. The new zoning regulations regarding where medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivation facilities can be located, which were scheduled to be heard at second reading on Dec. 20, were rescheduled for Jan. 18.

A land travel-related agenda item the adoption of the Michigan Vehicle Code (MVC) as part of the city’s traffic ordinances. Two years ago, the city had adopted the MVC but excluded portions of that state law relating to the setting of speed limits. The adoption of the full MVC came in response to a possible class-action lawsuit against the city.

As heavily land-centric as the agenda was, Ann Arbor city council also dealt with $9 million worth of water issues. It approved petitions of the Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner (WCWRC) office for five different projects in drainage districts that lie at least partly inside the city of Ann Arbor. The total cost of all the projects, including the non-city share, is a bit over $9 million. They qualify for low-interest state-revolving fund loans, up to 50% of which may be forgiven by the state. The payments on the loans will come from the city’s stormwater fund.

New Council Rules

The council formally adopted its rules for the coming year, without commentary. The rules included two revisions, which can be traced to the filing of a lawsuit by the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center in 2009. The lawsuit included allegations that the city council violated the Open Meetings Act by engaging in deliberative email communications with each other out of public view, but during their public meetings.

The council had previously enacted a rule that limits their use of email during their meetings and provides that any emails that are sent or received during a meeting by councilmembers are routinely attached to the meeting’s minutes. But the lawsuit settlement, which left open the question of whether the city council violated the Michigan Open Meetings Act, required the city council to consider formally the enactment of an additional rule stipulating that they only use their government accounts for city council business. That consideration took place at the council’s April 19, 2010 meeting in the form of a resolution remanding the issue to the council’s rules committee. [Coverage and analysis of that meeting: "Ann Arbor City Council Also Remands Email Rule to Committee"]

The rules committee is – by council rule – required to report back to the council at its next meeting. However, the rules committee did not mention its work on the email rule until Oct. 19, 2010. From The Chronicle’s coverage of that meeting:

Comm/Comm: Email Rule

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) reported out from the council rules committee that in November they would likely have a recommendation for a change to email rules. By way of background, as part of a lawsuit settlement, the council agreed to formally consider a rule on use of non-government email accounts. The council satisfied the requirement of the settlement in the spring by remanding the question to its rules committee, which – by council rule – should have reported back to the council at the council’s subsequent regular meeting.

The two revisions to the council rules adopted at Monday’s meeting were as follows [added material in italics and deleted material in strike-through]:

RULE 15 – Committees and Officers Must Report

All committees and officers shall make immediate report on matters referred to them at the first stated meeting after such references unless further time shall be given them by the Council or unless requested to report to the working committee.

All committees and officers shall make immediate report on matters referred to them at the first stated meeting of Council after such referrals are first addressed by the committee or the officer unless another time shall be given them by the Council or unless requested to report to the work committee. In any event, a status report should be given to the Council by a committee after each meeting of the committee at which the referred matter is discussed.

…

RULE 18 – Council Email

Councilmembers shall use the City electronic mail system for their electronic mail communications for City business.

Outcome: The city council voted unanimously to adopt its new council rules.

Heritage Row

The  council was set to take a sequence of three votes on the Heritage Row PUD (planned unit development) project, which would have concluded with the scheduling of a reconsideration of the proposal as a first-reading agenda item on Dec. 20. [.pdf of the set of parliamentary motions]

The residential project, located on the east side of South Fifth Avenue, would renovate seven houses and construct three new 3.5-story apartment buildings behind those houses, with an underground parking garage. The city council has already reconsidered the project once before – at its July 6, 2010 meeting. That reconsideration came after the council had initially rejected it on June 21 with a 7-4 vote in favor. The project needs an 8-vote super-majority due to a successful petition filed by adjoining property owners. At the July 6 meeting, the project was nearly reconsidered yet another time at the same meeting, as Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) appeared ready to change his vote – but he withdrew his motion to suspend the rules, and no additional reconsideration occurred.

On Monday, the proposal that was intended to be reconsidered by the items sponsors –  Sandi Smith (Ward 1) and Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) – included the following revisions: (1) the top floor of the new south building would be removed from the design; (2) the density would be reduced from 79 units to 76 units and the number of bedrooms would be reduced from 154 to 147; (3) the project would include five affordable units at the 50% AMI (average median income) level, in addition to six affordable units at the 80% AMI level; and (4) the three new buildings would be LEED certified [.pdf of current proposal] [Previous Chronicle coverage: "Heritage Row Redux: Again"]

The first in the sequence of three votes was a motion to suspend the council rules:

RESOLVED, That the following requirements of Council Rule 12 be suspended for the sole purpose of allowing Councilmember Derezinski to request City Council reconsideration of the Heritage Row PUD Zoning and the PUD Site Plan and Development Agreement:

• The requirement that the motion for reconsideration be made by a member voting with the prevailing side
• The requirement that the motion be made at the same or the next regular meeting of Council
• The requirement that a motion only be reconsidered once

When the council came to the item on its agenda, Derezinski began to introduce the substance behind the motion. But Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) objected, noting that a motion to suspend the council rules is, from a parliamentary point of view, not debatable. That observation was confirmed by city attorney Stephen Postema. Derezinski ventured that explaining what the motion would do did not amount to debating it. Postema stated that the motion was self-explanatory.

[Editor's note: The agenda item was labeled a "motion" but in every other respect resembled a "resolution," including written text with "whereas" and "resolved" clauses. We leave to parliamentarians the question of whether the issue could have properly been debated as a resolution.]

Without the benefit of any debate, the council voted.

Outcome: The 2/3 majority of members present that was needed to suspend the council rules was not achieved – the vote was 6-5 in favor of suspension. All four councilmembers who had previously voted against Heritage Row voted against suspending the council rules: Mike Anglin (Ward 5), Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5), Sabra Briere (Ward 1), and Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3). They were joined by Marcia Higgins (Ward 4).

On July 6, when the council had successfully suspended the rules, the 2/3 majority had been achieved with Higgins’ vote, which made seven. That was enough for the 2/3 majority – out of 10 present – because Mike Anglin (Ward 5) had been absent on that occasion.

Christopher Taylor and Stephen Kunselman, Ward 3 council colleagues, share a smile.

At Monday’s meeting, Kunselman had left the table and was outside council chambers when the rollcall vote was called. Briere, possibly alert to the possibility that his absence could have resulted in a 7-3 outcome – enough to get the rules suspended – asked for a brief delay, which lasted only a few seconds until Kunselman returned to his seat. Christopher Taylor, Kunselman’s Ward 3 colleague, congratulated him on his timing.

The developer of the project, Alex de Parry, and his wife Betsy de Parry were in council chambers for the vote, having returned to Ann Arbor from Denver earlier in the day. In a phone interview with The Chronicle on Tuesday, de Parry said that he landed in Ann Arbor to find a voicemail on his phone from Sandi Smith indicating that the one vote she’d counted on changing to give his project approval would not be forthcoming.

De Parry said that through August, he’d worked with Briere and Derezinski to revise the project in a way that would gain enough support to win council approval. [Additional insight from Chronicle coverage of a September city council caucus: "Council Chess Talk: Building City Place"] De Parry indicated that as they were working on LEED certification requirements, Briere had decided not to continue in the discussions, and her Ward 1 colleague, Sandi Smith, had taken up the issue. [The project itself is in Ward 5.]

In a phone interview Tuesday afternoon, after the Monday council meeting, The Chronicle asked Smith why she and Derezinski went to the trouble to bring the item forward to the agenda, if they were not certain there were sufficient votes. Smith indicated that she had confirmation from a councilmember who’d previously voted no, that they would support the project in the way it had been revised.

As far as what happens next with the Fifth Avenue properties, de Parry was not certain – he’d been working on the assumption that Heritage Row was on a path to approval. [Among his options are: (1) to start from scratch with the city's site plan approval process for the revised version of Heritage Row; (2) build the matter-of-right City Place project that already has approval; or (3) sell City Place to another developer.]

Area, Height, and Placement

At Monday’s meeting, the council considered a set of changes in the city’s zoning code for areas outside the downtown, across most of the city’s zoning classifications, for regulations affecting area, height and placement (AHP).

The council had already given initial approval of the AHP revisions at its Sept. 7, 2010 meeting. The changes are intended to allow more compact use of land, preserve natural systems, accommodate new growth along transit corridors, and locate buildings to promote non-motorized access. [Previous Chronicle coverage of the city planning commission’s deliberations on AHP changes: “AHP Zoning Revisions Go to City Council”]

The measure was set to be voted on for final, second-reading approval the council’s Oct. 4 meeting, but was postponed at the request of Marcia Higgins (Ward 4). At the council’s Oct. 18 meeting, Higgins brought forth amendments that removed some of the height restrictions that were part of the revision to the code. After some deliberation on the merits of the amendments, Higgins withdrew them and the council again elected to postpone the measure. At its Nov. 15 meeting, the council again put off a vote on the proposal.

At Monday’s meeting, Higgins again brought forward her set of amendments, to ensure that zoning districts that provide for employment uses – Office (O), Research (RE), Office/Research/Limited Industrial (ORL) – are not subject to a cap on building height, except in areas directly abutting residential areas.

The amendments proposed by Higgins, which the council approved, changed the ordinance revision in a substantial enough way that the council’s eventual approval of the AHP proposal on Monday counted only as a first-reading, initial approval.

AHP: Council Deliberations

Higgins led off deliberations by thanking her council colleagues for their patience. She proposed her amendments, which removed the height caps in areas that are considered to have potential for high employment – Office (O), Research (RE), Office/Research/Limited Industrial (ORL). She had originally included M1 (Limited Industrial) districts as well, but told her colleagues that she’d taken them off the table.

Hearing that M1 was no longer part of the set of Higgins’ amendments, Sandi Smith (Ward 4) (Ward 1) was prepared to support the amendments without modification. She’d had concerns about property near the railroad and the Huron River, zoned M1, that would have had no height cap.

Outcome on Higgins’ amendment: The council unanimously approved Higgins’ amendments to the AHP revisions.

Smith then proposed an amendment of her own, to remove the minimum square footage and width requirement for residential, single-family dwelling districts. Smith’s proposed deletion is indicated by strike-through:

(2) Permitted principal uses.

(a) Single-family dwelling firmly attached to a permanent foundation, connected to a public sewer and water supply, at least 14 feet wide and contain at least 900 square feet of floor area. Single-family dwellings in the R1E district shall not exceed 2,000 square feet of floor area.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) inquired what the rationale was for the minimum width and floor area. Upon confirmation from Wendy Rampson, head of planning for the city, that it was to prevent placement of mobile homes in these districts, said that he would not be supporting the amendment.

Mayor John Hieftje elicited from Rampson the fact that attachment to a permanent foundation would also mitigate against mobile homes. Sabra Briere (Ward 1), Mike Anglin (Ward 5) and Kunselman batted the amendment around, in the course of which various facts about mobile homes emerged: a single-wide trailer typically measures 12-14 feet wide, while a double-wide measures 25-30 feet.

Smith noted that the difficulty in trying to prevent the use of manufactured housing is that it’s a building method more-so than a type of housing.

Outcome on Smith’s amendment: The council approved Smith’s amendment, with dissent from Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2), Christopher Taylor (Ward 3), Stephen Kunsleman (Ward 3) and Mike Anglin (Ward 5).

Before the vote on the whole set of revisions as amended, Higgins expressed her thanks to the planning staff, and Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) added a layer of thanks.

Outcome: The AHP revisions were unanimously approved by the council, but the amendments were substantial enough that the approval was considered to be only the initial, first-reading approval. An additional approval will be necessary to enact the revisions.

Rezoning of Parks to Public Land

Before the council was a resolution to rezone several park properties (Arbor Oaks Park, Berkshire Creek Nature Area, Bluffs Nature Area, Glacier Highlands Park, Mallets Creek Nature Area, Scheffler Park) from various zoning classifications – AG (Agriculture District), R1B and R1C (Single-Family Dwelling Districts), R4A and R4B (Multiple-Family Dwelling Districts), O (Office District), C1 (Local Business District) – to PL (Public Land District). The resolution is part of an ongoing comprehensive effort by planning staff to identify land used as parks and to assign it the zoning classification that the city deems appropriate to parks.

Parks to Public Land: Public Hearing

Thomas Partridge addressed the council on the rezoning, making a point that he’s made in connection to many similar rezoning proposals – that it does not go far enough because there is no stipulation that areas be set aside for use as affordable housing.

Several other speakers – Ethel Potts, Kathy Boris, Rita Mitchell and Dorothy Nordness – expressed their concern that the PL designation does not afford adequate protection for the park areas. [.pdf of full text of Mitchell's commentary]

That concern stems from the fact that other land – along Fuller Road, which is also designated as PL – is now planned for use as a parking garage and eventually a rail transit center: Fuller Road Station. [A council work session on Fuller Road Station, originally scheduled for Dec. 13, 2010, has been canceled. The cancellation was announced at Monday's meeting by city administrator, Roger Fraser.]

The land where Fuller Road Station is planned is currently used as a surface parking lot. At its July 6, 2010 meeting, the council had approved a change in the definition of the PL designation to include “transportation facilities” as a possible use, to make clear that the Fuller Road Station fell within the possible uses for PL. Before the council enacted that change, based on a recommendation from the city planning commission, the possible uses included municipal airports, among other things.

In that context, Boris, during her time at the podium, asked the council what assurance the public had that the land being rezoned to PL that night would not be repurposed as a transportation facility. Potts challenged the council to provide assurance that park land can be protected for continued use as parks. Mitchell pointed specifically to the part of the zoning code that provides: “No structure shall be erected or maintained upon dedicated park land which is not customarily incidental to the principal use of the land.” [The city's analysis of the Fuller Road property is that it is not technically "dedicated park land."]

Parks to Public Land: Council Deliberations

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) inquired why the Arbor Hills Nature Area – which had appeared on an original list of park areas recommended by planning staff to be rezoned as PL – was not included in the recommendation. The conclusion of that discussion with Wendy Rampson, head of planning for the city, included the fact that the land is currently zoned as a planned unit development (PUD) in connection with a condominium development, with includes various utilities.

Outcome: The rezoning of the parks properties was unanimously approved by the council.

Compost Facility

Before the council was a resolution to approve a five-year contract with WeCare Organics for the operation of the city’s composting operations. The arrangement would result in the payment of tipping fees by the city to WeCare in an amount not to exceed $200,000 a year, and the transfer of current city union workers at the facility to other open positions at the city. The move is estimated to save the city’s solid waste fund about $65,000 in the current fiscal year and more than $375,000 a year starting in FY 2012, which begins July 1, 2011. The resolution had been postponed from the council’s Nov. 15 meeting, when it received considerable discussion by the council and commentary from the public.

The proposal to transform the city’s compost center to a merchant operation had previously been discussed with the council during the FY 2011 budget planning process at a March 8, 2010 budget work session. From Chronicle coverage of that session:

Conversion to Merchant Composting Operations

McCormick’s budget impact statement for solid waste also indicates a net gain of $150,000 for the possible transfer of the city’s composting facility to a merchant operation. That gain was due to a one-time capital recovery for the sale of equipment to the successful bidder on the request for proposals (RFP). The city’s RFP for the composting operations indicates that the equipment would include items like front-end loaders, light-duty trucks, and tub grinders.

Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) inquired about any implications for the city’s labor agreement. McCormick told him there were two full-time positions at the city that would be lost – a mechanic and a supervisor – but that the city had held vacancies open for them in other parts of the organization.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) wondered what would happen if the city contracted with a merchant, then elected to decide against that contractor based on performance and then opt for a different contractor. McCormick indicated that the city had received four strong responses to the RFP.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) was clear about his opposition to the the proposed conversion to merchant operations: “I’m really opposed to this,” he said. At the second round of budget talks he had already expressed skepticism about the idea.

Kunselman’s opposition is based in part on an inherent skepticism about the viability of yard waste compost as a commodity, along the lines of recyclable material. [The city uses a merchant operation for its materials recovery facility.] Because it’s not a commodity that can be reliably sold in large quantities, said Kunselman, the city would essentially be providing the merchant with tax-free land to store compostable material, until it could eventually be moved on the market. He said he did not imagine that they would be able to sell the material in 50-pound bags at Lowes.

Kunselman’s opposition is also based on the idea that there’s a built-in assumption that the merchant operation will accept yard waste from other surrounding communities – even while the city is trying to encourage its own residents to “keep it home” and reduce the amount of yard waste that is hauled from one place to another. [The elimination of the loose leaf collection program is one example.] Conversion to merchant operations, he said, was a way of subsidizing yard waste collection for surrounding suburban communities. Promoting the idea of trucking and hauling yard waste, Kunselman said, is “going in the wrong direction.”

Kunselman also noted that the composting facility was located in the southeast part of the city – his ward – and he did not want to see additional truck traffic on the roads in that part of town.

Compost: Public Commentary

Scheduled to address the council during public commentary was Phyllis Ponvert, who also attended the Sunday night city council caucus the previous evening to express her objections to the proposed contract with WeCare. Ponvert chose not to address the council; however, the sentiments she conveyed in an email to The Chronicle touched on many of the issues expressed by councilmembers and other members of the public. She questioned whether adequate effort had been put into making the city’s compost operation competitive with privately produced compost products, and expressed concern about any possibility that WeCare might contract with other communities to introduce biosolids from sanitary sewer systems into the city of Ann Arbor’s composting facility’s operations. She called for the creation of a taskforce:

City Council must put a hold on the decision to outsource the facility. Hold public hearings and create a task force to come up with a plan to keep the compost facility. Responsible oversight with on site management and creative marketing will enable the compost facility to pay for itself.

Appearing before the council was Jeannine Palms, who described the quality of the city’s compost end product as “black gold.” She asked the council to postpone action on the proposal so that the city staff could review the details of the proposal at a citizen meeting. She appealed to the notions of investment in social capital, shared prosperity and ecological equity.

Again delivering her public commentary in the form of a song – this one to the tune of “You Better Watch Out” – was Libby Hunter. The lyrics included a characterization of the contract with WeCare as a “sweetheart deal.”

Following Hunter at the podium was Nicholas Nightwine, who is president of the AFSCME Local 369. In response to a quip from mayor John Hieftje, Nightwine indicated that he would not be providing music. Nightwine noted that he’d addressed the council on previous occasions on the same topic. He reiterated his point that some of the compost facilities financial losses are due to pricing the end product at below-market rates. He asked the council to consider working to fix some of the operating shortfalls, before outsourcing the compost facility’s operation to a company based in another state. [WeCare Organics is New York-based, whereas another bidder, Spurt Industries, is based in Michigan.] Nightwine rejected the characterization of the proposed arrangement with WeCare as a partnership, saying that it was a “privatization of services.” If it were a partnership, he said, then WeCare would also share in the financial losses – which are expected to continue for the city, but at a much reduced level.

Lou Glorie noted that the composting facility is not a “greenish frill” but rather a state-mandated core service, because the dumping of yard waste in landfills is prohibited by state law. The cost of maintenance for the facility, she said, would continue to be shouldered by the city, which would result in a situation where the profit is privatized, but the cost is socialized.

Compost: Council Deliberations

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) led off council deliberations by making a gambit for a postponement in order to facilitate additional public engagement, saying it was no different than the current process underway to determine if the city wanted to contract out for operation of Huron Hills golf course. Sandi Smith (Ward 1) said she also had concerns but felt they could get answers in two weeks, which was shorter than the timeline that Kunselman seemed to have in mind.

Hieftje said he wouldn’t support a postponement at that point in the meeting, given that there was a lot of false information that had been put out. He felt the council meeting was an educational opportunity. If there were questions at the end of the discussion, he said, he might be willing to entertain a postponement.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) said she was also hoping for some kind of discussion that evening, which would be precluded by a successful vote to postpone, so she asked Kunselman to withdraw the motion to postpone, which he did.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) echoed concerns expressed during public commentary that the city had not made an adequate effort to make the compost facility profitable. He noted that several acres had been purchased to create the facility and the challenge is how to make the facility a benefit to our community. He expressed concern that the state law could change and allow for inclusion of biosolids. He called for the inclusion of the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment as a part of the effort.

Smith ticked through a number of questions for the city’s solid waste coordinator, Tom McMurtrie. She wanted some clarification about the setting of prices – in the context of the possibility that prices for the end product were set too low by the city for the compost facility to have been profitable. McMurtrie allowed that pricing was not in the core competency of the city.

McMurtrie outlined how circumstance this past spring had led to the setting of very low prices in order to try to liquidate some of the inventory of compost that had accumulated on the compost facility site –  state law limits the amount of compost that can be stored on property, and it also has a shelf life. Those same circumstances led to a lack of availability of compost for local residents, who were accustomed to being able to purchase a finished compost product from the city.

An explanation from McMurtrie for the shortage of compost available to city residents was conveyed to The Chronicle last spring. McMurtrie’s explanation described how it was not a policy decision, but rather an operational error that resulted in the shortage:

… For these reasons, and the fact that finished compost loses its nutrient value over time, we were interested in selling this substantial backlog of materials.

In an effort to gauge the wholesale market for this material, the city issued an invitation to bid in 2009 requesting pricing for 1,000 cubic yards or more. This bid was sent to approximately 100 landscape suppliers in the area. Two bids were received: One at 50 cents per cubic yard, and the other at $2.75 per cubic yard, for 1,000 cubic yards. The City decided to reject the 50 cents per cubic yard bid, and price the bulk purchases at $2.75 per cubic yard.

Normally, a small amount of compost would be retained for small quantity sales such as to homeowners. Due to operational error, that small set aside was not retained. Changes in operations are being reviewed to prevent that from happening again.

Later in deliberations, Briere established that the city did not track statistically how much compost local residents used. She pressed McMurtie to account for the city’s estimate that the 1,000 cubic yards that would be set aside for sale to residents under the WeCare contract would be sufficient. McMurtrie said the figure was based on input from staff at the compost facility and at the scale house.

Sue McCormick, public services area administrator, responded to a query from Smith about the business case for adopting the contract with WeCare now, as opposed to waiting a year. McCormick said that everything is about the cost of providing the service – $600,000 for the city to run the operation versus $200,000 to pay WeCare to do it. “I don’t know how to put it more simply,” she concluded. She said it was a possibility for the city to try to bring in increased tonnages of yard waste from surrounding communities and to charge those communities tip fees – essentially playing the same role that WeCare would play under the proposed contract.

However, McCormick pointed out that the city staff had asked the council to do that when Waste Management had expressed interest in establishing a long-term contract with the city to roughly double the tonnages it brought to the city’s compost facility. But the city council had turned down the request. By way of specific background, the vote came on April 3, 2007. From the resolution:

…

Whereas, Waste Management of Michigan, Inc. is interested in initially delivering approximately 10,000 tons/year and ultimately 20,000 tons/year of compost from its Central Wayne Disposal Authority communities, including Wayne, Westland, Inkster, Garden City and Dearborn Heights to the Ann Arbor Compost Center;

Whereas, The City expects to generate approximately $335,000.00 in tipping fee revenue during the first full year of the ten year agreement with Waste Management for the processing and buy-back of finished compost;

Whereas, It is forecast that a net return to fund balance of $1,500,000.00 will be generated by the City during the life of this agreement;

…

RESOLVED, That City Council approves a ten-year agreement with Waste Management of Michigan, Inc. commencing May 1, 2007 and continuing until June 30, 2017 subject to the terms of the contract for the delivery and processing of yard waste at the Ann Arbor Compost Center;

That 2007 vote was 5-4. Voting yes were [councilmembers currently serving on the council are in italics]: Joan Lowenstein, Leigh Greden, Margie Teall, Chris Easthope, and John Hieftje. Voting no were:  Ron Suarez, Stephen Kunselman, Marcia Higgins, Wendy Woods. Stephen Rapundalo and Bob Johnson were absent.

At Monday’s meeting, McCormick said that without the guaranteed throughput of long-term contracts, it was difficult to market the finished product. McMurtrie indicated that when the city subsequently raised its tipping fees, Waste Management had elected to stop bringing any material to the city’s facility.

Kunselman quizzed McMurtie on the terms of the WeCare contract: Could WeCare charge other communities less per ton as a tipping fee than it charges the city of Ann Arbor? Matt Kulhanek, fleet and facility manager with the city, confirmed this is the case. Kunselman said he objected to that on basic principle. Hieftje indicated that he did not see how the city would be damaged by that – Kulhanek concurred.

With respect to the pricing of Ann Arbor’s tipping fee versus what WeCare might charge other communities, Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) wondered if some kind of “most favored nation” status for the city could be explored with WeCare. McMurtrie said that the contract with WeCare is modeled on the one that the city has with FCR to operate the city’s materials recovery center.

Mike Nicholson, senior vice president with WeCare Organics, put the tipping fee charges in the context of the total cost to another community to tip yard waste at the Ann Arbor facility. Compared to the $19/ton that Ann Arbor would be charged under the contract, Nicholson suggested by way of a purely hypothetical example that the city of Detroit could be charged $17/ton, but that their cost for transfer from Detroit to Ann Arbor might well work out to $10/ton, so that their total cost would come to $27/ton – more than what it cost Ann Arbor, which has no transfer costs after collection of the material.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) drew out the fact that the length of a contract WeCare might be able to achieve could also affect the tipping fee – WeCare might offer a lower tipping fee in order to secure a longer-term deal.

Smith asked Kulhanek to explain how the New York-based WeCare was selected over a Michigan company, Spurt Industries, which had submitted a proposal that appeared competitive on cost. Kulhanek clarified that the bidders where evaluated on their technical competency separately from the financial proposal. WeCare not only had more experience, Kulhanek said, but also specific experience working with municipalities. Spurt’s tipping fees, he said, were lower and went up each year of the contract, whereas WeCare’s went down. He also said that Spurt’s estimated additional tonnages they could achieve contracts for – 30-40 tons– may not be realistic.

Smith also established with city staff and with Nicholson that the combination of state law and the contract language with WeCare meant that there is no possibility biosolids would be introduced at the city compost facility.

Hohnke elicited an assurance from McMurtrie that the quality of the end product would continue to be high – it would be tested three times a year. Councilmembers engaged in some discussion of the possibility that some amount  of compost might be made available to Ann Arbor residents at no cost to them for the compost – it would cost something for the city to make that part of the contract.

Kunselman allowed that the deliberations had dispelled much of the misinformation, but noting the late hour – the meeting did not conclude until after 1 a.m. – said that many residents don’t stay up past midnight or get the news. So he made another bid for postponement. Hieftje said he didn’t see a reason to postpone, but also did not see a downside. Smith asked McCormick if a two-week delay would have a negative impact on the city and WeCare’s ability to implement the transition before the spring. After consulting briefly with Nicholson, McCormick indicated that “a two week delay may not kill us,” but did not convey any enthusiasm for delaying.

Outcome on postponement: The motion to postpone failed, with only Briere, Kunselman, Anglin and Smith voting for it.

Outcome on the resolution: The council approved the five-year contract with WeCare, with Kunselman and Anglin dissenting.

Medical Marijuana Licensing

Before the council was a draft of a licensing scheme for medical marijuana dispensaries, cultivation facilities and home occupations that the city attorney’s office had put together. Key elements of the licensing to be considered included: no more than 15 licenses will made available citywide for cultivation facilities and dispensaries; preference for applications will be given to facilities operating before Aug. 5, 2010, when the city council passed a moratorium on use of facilities for dispensing and cultivation; provision of names and addresses of various individuals associated with a facility; installation of security measures; posting of signage advising that use of marijuana is against federal law; consent to inspections of unspecified frequency. [.pdf of original draft licensing ordinance]

The specific direction to undertake the drafting of the licensing scheme came at the council’s Oct. 18 meeting from Tony Derezinski (Ward 2), who serves as the city council’s representative on the planning commission. By council rule, the introduction of ordinances like medical marijuana licensing is stipulated to come from councilmembers, but ordinances can be referred by councilmembers to other entities within the city, like the city attorney’s office:

RULE 13 – Ordinances, How Introduced

Proposed ordinances shall be introduced by one or more individual members of Council. Ordinances may be referred to any or all of the following: the City Attorney, the City Administrator, appropriate agencies, and Council committees, for study and recommendation. Ordinances shall be reported back to the working committee of the Council.

As a member of the planning commission, Derezinski had voted to recommend a zoning ordinance, as well as an unspecified licensing scheme. The zoning ordinance, which came before the city council at its Oct. 18 meeting and was approved then at its first reading, also enjoyed unanimous support on the planning commission. In broad strokes, under the proposed zoning ordinance, medical marijuana dispensaries can only be located in zoning districts classified as D (Downtown), C (Business), or M (Industrial), or in PUD (planned unit development) districts where retail is permitted in the supplemental regulations. Also, medical marijuana cultivation facilities would only be located in C (Business), M (Industrial), RE (Research), or ORL (Office/Research/Limited Industrial) districts.

However, the licensing proposal did not enjoy unanimous support on the planning commission. From The Chronicle’s account of the Oct. 5 planning commission meeting:

There were no additional details in the planning staff report about a possible license. Although it had been mentioned at previous meetings that the city attorney’s office was developing a proposal about licensing medical marijuana businesses, planning commissioners had not previously discussed the topic in depth.

Deliberations were brief. Jean Carlberg asked whether a license would only apply to dispensaries, or if it would be required of cultivation facilities and “home occupation” businesses as well. Kristen Larcom of the city attorney’s office said she didn’t know, because they hadn’t yet drafted a proposal for the license. Kirk Westphal asked if the license might include a cap on the number of dispensaries in the city, or require that there be building security. Larcom said that it might.

Outcome: In a 7-1 vote, the planning commission approved a motion to recommend that city council institute a medical marijuana business license. Eric Mahler dissented, and Wendy Woods was absent from the meeting.

Mahler did not comment during the public meeting on this issue. When asked by The Chronicle following the meeting about his reason for voting against it, Mahler indicated that they didn’t know what the license would entail at this point, and it was difficult to support something without that information.

The planning commission had undertaken their study and recommendation of a zoning ordinance at the direction of the city council as part of the moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivation facilities, which it passed on Aug. 5, 2010. However, the resolution establishing the moratorium did not reference a licensing scheme.

Medical Marijuana: Public Comment

Chuck Ream appeared before the council to criticize the draft licensing proposal that the city attorney’s office had produced. He began by complimenting the city’s planning commission for the tremendous work they’d done on the zoning ordinance, but he did not lavish the same praise on the city attorney’s office for its work on the licensing scheme. The inspection of dispensaries as home occupations, he said, is illegal under the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act. The current draft of the licensing scheme inappropriately mixes dispensaries with cultivation facilities, he said.

Ream said that the people of Ann Arbor did want the council and the city attorney’s office to do things that are illegal, cautioning against any attempt by the Michigan Association of Municipal Attorneys to take over the state act. He noted that ACLU lawsuits have begun, and cautioned against Ann Arbor setting a bad example for other communities in the state.

Medical Marijuana: Council Deliberations

City attorney Stephen Postema began by giving his perspective on the issue, which appears heavily influenced by the general prohibition in federal law against use of marijuana. “Federal law does not allow any of this,” he stated. The signage required of licensees under the licensing scheme would read:

THE MICHIGAN MEDICAL MARIHUANA ACT ACKNOWLEDGES THAT “FEDERAL LAW CURRENTLY PROHIBITS ANY USE OF MARIHUANA EXCEPT UNDER VERY LIMITED CIRCUMSTANCES.” SEE, MCL 333.26422(c). IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS PLEASE CONSULT WITH YOUR ATTORNEY.

Postema cited the unclarity of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, which was enacted by statewide voter referendum in 2008. He contended that there is a question about whether the absence of reference in the state law to dispensaries indicates that such facilities are allowed or rather that they are prohibited.

Postema indicated that the proposed licensing scheme combined businesses and home occupations into a single ordinance. It was this point on which Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) focused in opening the council questioning of Postema: Why were both businesses and home occupations subject to licensing? In answering Hohnke, Postema indicated dispensaries were felt to need regulation, based on the negative experience of other communities in California and Colorado. An approach where there was no regulation, Postema said, was acknowledged as a “clear error.” Postema then said that Colorado now had a much higher level of regulation than what he was proposing. He alluded to various safety concerns, and contended that federal authorities have not taken a hands-off policy. Postema did not mention home occupations in his response.

Hohnke followed up by asking specifically why home occupations were included. Postema suggested that a licensing mechanism for home occupations would help prevent LAWNET (the Livingston and Washtenaw Narcotics Enforcement Team) and the Ann Arbor police department from raiding a suspected illegal operation, only to find out after the fact that it was a licensed operation. Hohnke concluded that this was potentially a benefit to the licensee.

Hohnke pressed Postema on the issue that Ream had raised during public commentary, namely the apparent conflict between Postema’s proposed regulations and the state law provision that those who apply for registry cards not be subject to inspection. From the state law:

Possession of, or application for, a registry identification card shall not constitute probable cause or reasonable suspicion, nor shall it be used to support the search of the person or property of the person possessing or applying for the registry identification card, or otherwise subject the person or property of the person to inspection by any local, county or state governmental agency.

Postema said that the state law does not prohibit all inspection, but does afford a broad provision against prosecution for personal or caregiver use. Postema alluded to the broad powers that municipalities have to ensure safety. He indicated that he thinks the licensing requirements are reasonable, but that they may have to be tested in court.

Picking up on the idea that it would be useful to know “who not to go after,” Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) floated the idea of getting addresses from the state registry, but Postema seemed to indicate that this would not be feasible. Taylor wondered if people who grow orchids indoors are subject to the same kind of ventilation requirements that would be imposed on licensees.

Sandi Smith (Ward 1) suggested that a portion of the licensing fee be allocated to an educational effort. In response to a question from Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) Postema suggested that the licensee fee might be a few hundred dollars. The fee has not yet been specified, but will eventually be set by the council, according to the draft ordinance.

Kunselman wanted to know what the rationale was for the limit of 15 licenses. Postema allowed that it was a good question. He said that some kind of cap was appropriate, due to the ambiguity of the state law and safety concerns. He deferred to Wendy Rampson, head of planning for the city, for the rationale for the number. She said there were bit more than 43,000 registered patients in the state of Michigan so far, but she allowed the number would go up. That’s less that 1% of the population of Michigan.

If 5% of Ann Arbor residents were registered patients, she said, that would work out to 5,700 patients. For dispensaries already operating, she said, the number of patients they serve ranges between 300 and 1,000. Assuming that a typical dispensary might serve 500 patients, 12 dispensaries could serve the needs of the estimated 5,700 patients. She concluded that 15 would be a good starting point, and after a year, the city would have a clearer understanding of what an appropriate number would be.

Kunselman asked if limiting the number of licenses could have the consequence of driving the creation of larger dispensaries. Postema allowed that it could.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) observed that the ordinance was before the council at its first reading and that the council should have more answers to their questions than they currently did. She suggested that they could either work on it more between the first and second reading of the ordinance, or they could postpone its consideration. She asked Postema what he thought the council should do. Postema suggested a postponement.

Outcome: The council unanimously voted to postpone the medical marijuana licensing scheme until its Jan. 3, 2011 meeting. The new zoning rules regulating where medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivation facilities can be located, which were scheduled to be heard at second reading on Dec. 20, were rescheduled for Jan. 18.

Michigan Vehicle Code Adoption

Before the council for its first reading was a measure that proposed to adopt the complete Michigan Vehicle Code (MVC) as a part of the city code – Chapter 126 Traffic. In early 2008, the council had adopted the MVC, but excluded portions of the MVC addressing speed limits. [.pdf of corresponding Michigan Vehicle Code]

Part of the background to the proposal is that the city of Ann Arbor lost an August 2008 court case in which two speeding tickets issued in late 2007 were thrown out, because the city of Ann Arbor’s posted speed limits did not conform to state law with respect to the number of access points in a half-mile stretch of road, or a guideline that stipulates posted limits not be lower than the travel speed of the 85th percentile of traffic. From an Aug. 23, 2008 Ann Arbor News article:

An Ann Arbor judge’s decision to throw out two speeding tickets last January – along with the way the city sets speed limits  – was upheld on appeal in Washtenaw County Circuit Court on Friday.

…

Two Ann Arbor residents who were ticketed for speeding last year challenged the legality of the posted speed limits. They based their argument on a 2006 state Motor Vehicle Code that requires the use of the number of access points – driveways and intersections along a half-mile stretch of road – to set speed limits. The fewer access points, the higher the speed that must be set under the law.

One of the ticketed drivers, James Walker, is a recognized expert on speed limits. He’s testified before state lawmakers on setting 85th percentile speed limits.

National studies indicate that setting limits at or below the speed that 85 percent of drivers travel reduces friction between drivers and boosts safety.

Walker said Ann Arbor’s posted limits typically fall in the 10th to 30th percentile of the speeds drivers actually travel.

Walker’s attorney, John Shea, argued that the city cannot legally set a limit other that what’s allowed under the access-point law unless it adopts the 2006 Uniform Traffic Code, which allows cities to use the 85th percentile formula.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1), Tony Derezinski (Ward 2), and Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2).

On Monday, Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) introduced the proposal to adopt the MVC by noting there’d been some sentiment expressed in the community that some of the local speed limits appear to be set too low, and part of the impetus to change the city’s code to bring it into conformity with the MVC was based on the implicit threat of a class-action lawsuit.

In the back-and-forth among city attorney Stephen Postema, mayor John Hieftje and Sabra Briere (Ward 1), it emerged that Postema felt that adoption of the complete MVC would allow the city to contemplate additional speed studies as part of the method it uses to set speed limits.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to adopt the MVC as a part of its traffic code for the ordinance change on first reading. To enact the change will require a final approval at a second reading after a public hearing.

Communications and Comment

Sometimes city council meetings include presentations at the start of the meeting that fall under the “introductions” section of  the agenda. There are also multiple slots on every agenda for city councilmembers and the city administrator to give updates or make announcements about important issues that are coming before the city council. And every meeting typically includes public commentary on subjects not necessarily on the agenda.

Comm/Comm: Christmas Trees

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) asked the question: What are people supposed to do with their Christmas trees after Christmas? The question arose because the city has announced it will not be picking them up immediately after the holidays. Sue McCormick, the city’s public services area administrator, sketched out three options: (1) take trees to the drop-off station, at 2950 E. Ellsworth, (2) leave them in the backyard for the birds, or (3) cut them up and place them in a compost cart – they’ll be picked up when yard waste collection resumes in April.

Comm/Comm: Library Lot

Alan Haber addressed the council on the topic of the future use of the city-owned Library Lot, on the top of the underground parking garage currently under construction on Fifth Avenue. He criticized what he characterized as an inclination to transform public property into something private. He suggested that The Roxbury Group’s report – evaluating the two finalist proposals that had come in response to the city’s RFP (request for proposals) for the lot’s future – was a matter of hiring a consultant to tell the city to do what the city already wanted to do. He contended that the Library Lot is the only suitable spot for a public gathering place in the city, that could serve as the center’s city. [In response to the city's RFP, Haber had helped to put forward a proposal for a community commons, which was ultimately rejected by the review committee. Coverage of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board's Dec. 1 meeting includes that body's reaction to The Roxbury Group's report.]

Haber’s wife, Odile Hugont-Haber, also addressed the council on the topic of the future use of the Library Lot. She said she wants to see a green area there. She described how there is no place for citizens of Ann Arbor to interact other than perhaps the “gourmet ghetto” of the Main Street area. Creating a community commons at the Library Lot site, she said, was not a matter of money, but a matter of will. She called for the inclusion of children’s playground equipment at the site.

In his time for communications, Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2), who chairs the committee that is reviewing responses to the Library Lot proposals, indicated that no decisions have yet been made. [The Roxbury Group's report indicated a preference for the proposal from Valiant for a hotel/conference center, over Acquest's proposal for a hotel.] Rapundalo stated that it had not been the task of the consultant to do a feasibility study, but rather to determine whether the proposers had the wherewithal to bring their proposals to completion.

Comm/Comm: Affordable Housing

Lily Au appeared before the council to criticize an Avalon Housing plan to demolish apartments at 1500 Pauline Blvd. and built new units. [Chronicle coverage of the Avalon proposal: "Low Income Housing Project Planned"] She told the council she was wearing black to mourn the death of a homeless person who had died behind the Kroger at Westgate.

Comm/Comm: Progressive Agenda

Thomas Partridge called upon the city council to renew a spirit of goodwill, and called upon the new governor’s state administration to enact measures to support affordable housing, transportation, health care and education.

Comm/Comm: Liquor License for Bar Louie

Tim Hull addressed the council on the topic of an agenda item involving a liquor license transfer from one corporate entity to another related one – from Bar Louie Ann Arbor, Inc. to BL Restaurant Operations, LLC.  d/b/a Bar Louie. Hull told the council that he’d tried to get service from Bar Louie, using his state ID for proof of age, but had been denied service because he could not produce a driver’s license. Hull told the council he does not own a car and does not have a license. He encouraged the council to use the occasion of a liquor license transfer as an opportunity to raise those types of issues with licensees. The council later approved the request for transfer without comment.

Comm/Comm: Budget, Economics

Kirk Profit – director of Governmental Consultant Services Inc., which the city retains as its paid lobbyist in Lansing – gave the council a presentation on the condition of the state’s budget, in the context of a transition to a new governor and new leadership in the legislature.

Councilmembers and city administrator Roger Fraser reported out in various ways from the  council’s 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Dec. 4 budget retreat. One key theme of the retreat, which was organized around a list of city services, was communication. The topic came up in the context of communication between the administration and the public, between the public and the city council, between the city’s labor unions and the administration, and between individual councilmembers.

The Chronicle will offer coverage of the Dec. 4 retreat and discussion of it from Monday’s council meeting separate from this meeting report.

Comm/Comm: Dundee’s Appreciation

Representatives from Dundee Village and Dundee Township appeared before the council to express their thanks for assistance the city had provided to them in connection with the June 6, 2010 tornado disaster that had struck their community.

Comm/Comm: Human Rights Award

Leslie Stambaugh appeared before the council on behalf of the city’s human rights commission to present the city with a plaque from the Michigan Alliance Against Hate Crimes, recognizing the Ann Arbor community response group.

Comm/Comm: Ann Arbor Skatepark

Trevor Staples and Scott Rosencrans gave a presentation to the council on behalf of the Friends of the Ann Arbor Skatepark, tracing the history of the group from a loosely organized collection of individuals to a formally established nonprofit corporation. A highlight of the presentation was the group’s participation in a $250,000 challenge sponsored by Pepsi. In the Pepsi Refresh challenge project, proposals compete for votes each month – one vote per project is allowed each day. The skatepark is competing for the month of December. To vote for the Ann Arbor Skatepark proposal, Chronicle readers can visit the website: Pepsi Refresh Project.

Comm/Comm: Rugby NAP Volunteers

At one of the council’s two council meetings per month, a proclamation is made to honor specific volunteers in the city’s parks program. This month, recognition was given to the rugby community, which includes men’s and women’s teams at the University of Michigan as well as city-based teams. The park they’ve adopted is the one where they practice and play, Riverside Park. [Chronicle Rugby coverage: "Football Saturday, Not Just at the Big House"]

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

Next council meeting: Monday, Dec. 20, 2010 at 7 p.m. in council chambers, 2nd floor of the Guy C. Larcom, Jr. Municipal Building, 100 N. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]

Left in the frame, scanning through the protest petition documents, is Scott Munzel, legal counsel for Alex de Parry, developer of the Heritage Row project. De Parry is seated in the row behind with his arms resting on the bench back. In the foreground is Bradley Moore, architect for Heritage Row. (Photos by the writer.)

Councilmembers were also informed that a protest petition had been filed on Heritage Row Monday afternoon, which – once validated – would bump the requirement for approval from a simple six-vote majority to eight out of 11 council votes. Petition filers have calculated that they’ve collected signatures from 51% of adjoining property owners, weighted by land area. That exceeds the 20% required for a successful petition, but as of late Wednesday, the city had not completed its verification process for the signatures. [Update: Early Thursday afternoon, the city confirmed the 20% threshold had been met.]

In other business, the council approved increases in water and sewer rates and gave initial approval to changes in the city code language on the placement of recycling carts.

A wording change in the list of permissible uses for public land was also given initial approval, but not without discussion. Thematically related to land use was a presentation during the meeting’s concluding public commentary in response to a request for proposals (RFP) for the privatization of the city-owned Huron Hills golf course.

Also receiving discussion was an item pulled out of the consent agenda that authorized $75,000 for Ann Arbor SPARK, for economic development.

Criticism during public commentary on the appointment and nomination process used by the mayor to fill seats on boards and commissions stirred mayor John Hieftje to defend shielding individual members of those bodies from public demands.

Public commentary also elicited from Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 1) an update on the development of the Library Lot – he chairs the committee charged with overseeing the RFP process.

Heritage Row

Heritage Row is a residential project proposed for South Fifth Avenue just south of William Street. In its current form it includes 79 units – 12 efficiencies, 9 1-bedroom, 43 2-bedroom, 14 3-bedroom, and 1 5-bedroom apartment. Those units will be distributed over seven renovated existing houses and three buildings to be constructed behind the existing houses. [Additional Chronicle coverage: "Heritage Row Moves to City Council"]

Heritage Row is a planned unit development (PUD), which would require a rezoning of the property. That’s because, as proposed, the project does not conform to the existing R4C zoning on the land.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1), Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) and Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) confer before the start of the council meeting.

The project has a history stretching back over two years, when it was called City Place. In January 2009 the city council considered a different version PUD, consisting of a single building that would have replaced the seven houses. Subsequently, a matter-of-right version of the project has been proposed and approved. The city also has established an historic district study area that includes the site of Heritage Row. [See Chronicle coverage: "S. Fifth Avenue: Historic District, Development"]

Events of the last two weeks have a certain déjà vu flavor with respect to the project’s long history. A procedural error on the city’s part involving proper publication of the public hearing notice for the site plan led in part to the council’s decision to postpone both votes on Monday night – for the site plan and for the rezoning. [See Chronicle coverage: "Heritage Row Vote Likely Delayed"] That was reminiscent of a procedural error last year that led the city council to remand a matter-of-right version of City Place back to the planning commission.

On Monday, the council learned that a protest petition had been filed about Heritage Row – by Tom Whitaker, who is former president of the Germantown Neighborhood Association. The petition had been filed around 3 p.m. the afternoon of the meeting.

That recalled the late-hour submission of a protest petition in January 2009, which came the Friday before the Monday meeting. From The Chronicle’s report of the Jan. 3, 2009 meeting:

[Kevin] McDonald said the protest petition had been received late Friday, then turned over to planning and development services on Monday (the day of the meeting). The calculations of area were done by a planner working with a GIS specialist. It’s a calculation made complex because public area must be subtracted. Names of owners on the petition were compared with names in the assessor’s system. McDonald indicated that 24% of the area was covered, and thus met the requirement of at least 20%. [Mayor John] Hieftje elicited from McDonald an assessment of the late-hour submission of the protest as not unusual.

As of late Wednesday, the city had not yet verified the petition submitted Monday afternoon on Heritage Row.

That meant there were two reasons for postponing the vote on the project. First, there had been a public noticing issue with the site plan public hearing, so the site plan vote needed to be postponed – and that is intimately related to the rezoning issue. Another reason for postponing was the still-uncertain status of the petition’s validation.

Heritage Row: Protest Petition

The impact of a protest petition is that it bumps the required majority for city council approval from six votes to eight. A recent vote on The Moravian – a PUD in the same neighborhood – failed when it had six votes, but not the eight required for approval. [See Chronicle coverage: "Six Vote Majority Leaves The Moravian Short"]

On the protest petition, Chapter 55 Article XI, Section 5:107 (5) of the city code specifies that:

(5) A protest against any proposed amendment to this chapter may be presented in writing to the City Clerk at or before the public hearing thereon. Such protest shall be duly signed by the owners of at least 20% of the area of land included in the proposed change, or the owners of at least 20% of the area of land included within an area extending outward 100 feet from any point on the boundary of the land included in the proposed change, excluding any other publicly owned land. Following the filing of a valid protest petition, adoption of an amendment to this chapter shall require at least 8 affirmative votes of the Council at the second reading on the ordinance.

Heritage Row: What Lies Ahead

The decision on Heritage Row, now projected for June 21, 2010, would overlap with the first reading before the city council of a proposed historic district, tentatively scheduled for the same meeting.

If the council approves the Heritage Row PUD, it’s also possible that the historic district would be approved, and that the Heritage Row project would not pass muster with the city’s historic district commission – although developer Alex de Parry has said that he thinks the project would meet historic restoration standards. [See Chronicle coverage: "Fifth Avenue Project to Meet Historic Standards"]

If the council rejects the Heritage Row PUD and also declines to establish the area as an historic district, then the matter-of-right version of the project that has already won council approval remains a possibility.

The Chronicle asked Whitaker in a phone interview whether he thought it wasn’t somewhat of a risk to file the protest petition, thus helping to defeat the Heritage Row PUD, when the historic district is also not certain, and the matter-of-right project was already approved for the R4C zoning. But Whitaker was still sanguine, pointing to the possibility of zoning reform for R4C – reforms that would address the definition of setbacks for properties without perfectly uniform edges and the definition of a dormer.

Those specific reforms would have an impact on the matter-of-right City Place project already approved. Whitaker contends the reforms could still be enacted and would apply to the City Place matter-of-right project, and at The Chronicle’s request he emailed a description of a case supporting his contention:

A Michigan case that affirms this is Belvidere Township v. Heinze, 241 Mich.App. 324, 615 N.W. 2d 250 (2000). In that case a hog farmer planned and spent a considerable sum in preparing (designs, permits, estimates, access road, etc,) to build a consolidated animal feeding operation, but in the meantime, the township changed the zoning ordinance. He had not put a substantial amount of money into actual construction of the feeding operation itself and the court held that he did not have vested rights and the new zoning would apply, so, no CAFO.

Heritage Row: Public Hearings

Ethel Potts stated that she did not think the council could approve the rezoning, citing the Chapter 55 requirement in the city code that there be a compelling justification for the requested departure from the existing zoning.

In this case, Potts said, the departures were an increase in height, a decrease in the setbacks, an increase in the density, and a request to put aside parking requirements. Against that, she questioned what the public benefit was. She asked the council to state their compelling justifications before voting, which was something that the planning commission had not done, and it left everyone “mystified,” she said.

Ethel Potts prepares to speak against the Heritage Row project.

Potts spoke at both the PUD rezoning hearing as well as the site plan hearing. She allowed that a PUD can deviate from the existing zoning, but that the amount of deviation proposed by Heritage Row was unacceptable – there would be only a 15-foot setback instead of the big backyards currently behind the houses, she said. She cautioned the council against being fooled by the new name and proposal to renovate the old houses. They would be lined up in a rigid row like a “pseudo-historic theme park,” she said.

Adam de Angeli introduced himself as a resident of 427 S. Fifth, one of the houses that is slated to be renovated as part of the project. During the construction, he said, he would not be able to live there, so the project would effectively put him out of his home. However, he noted that there was nothing in the lease that said he could live there as long as he liked. It was the landlord’s property, he said, and he did not see a reasonable cause to prevent the landlord from developing his property.

Joan Lowenstein – a former city councilmember, former planning commissioner, and current member of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board – told the council that she did not think that leaving the property the way it currently is would improve the city. As a planning commissioner, she allowed, she had voted against an earlier version of the project, saying that it “would break [her] heart” to see the houses lost.

Joan Lowenstein speaks in support of Heritage Row.

But the current proposal, Lowenstein said, would restore the houses and take off the additions that had been made over the years. She said the new construction would provide more places for people to live, provide public space that didn’t now exist, add to the amount of affordable housing available and improve the streetscape.

There were a few minor changes, she said, that needed to be made to the city’s zoning to accommodate the project. The idea that a single family would come and purchase one of the houses for half a million dollars and invest another half million to fix it up so that a family could live there was, she said, a “fiction.” She characterized the new building proposed for construction behind the seven houses as within the character of the neighborhood.

Piotr Michalowski told the council he lived one block away from the proposed project. He said he’d spoken many times before about the project – on the first occasion he’d talked about the fact that the whole point centered around where the project is proposed and how that related to plans like the city’s Central Area Plan. Plans such as those, he said, had been subject to substantial public interaction. Speaking from a “moral point of view,” he said, those plans are the basis for “what we’re supposed to do.” The project, he said, breaks the pact between the government and the area residents. He allowed that the changes between earlier versions of the project and the current version represented tremendous progress, but it was still too massive and did not work.

Nick Collins introduced himself as a resident of one of the houses on Fifth Avenue that is part of the project site: 433 S. Fifth Ave., the Herbert Slauson house. Collins noted that he’d attended Slauson Middle School. He commended the developer, Alex de Parry, for his efforts to include restoration of the seven houses in the current plan. However, he urged the council to reject the proposal, saying that the PUD option should be reserved for extraordinary situations. If the council was considering an historic district designation, why would it grant the PUD rezoning? Collins told the council that they needed to have the rezoning debate out in the open instead of letting it be fought out between neighborhoods and developers.

Tom Petiet wondered how many times he needed to appear to speak against this proposal. The citizenry, he said, kept getting beat on until they were tired. The number of units proposed in the project, he said, had not changed from the first proposals and he contended that they would be student rentals. The neighborhood, like the Old West Side historic district, he said, was worth preserving.

Kathy Boris urged the council to vote against the proposal. A PUD should be the exception, not the rule, she said. She asked the council to uphold the social compact.

Christine Crockett said that several weeks ago she’d been a guest at the Downtown Citizens Advisory Council to hear a presentation on Zaragon Place 2 – it would be a high rise and she was delighted to see it. It was the right project in the right place, she said. [The proposed 14-story apartment building would be located at the southeast corner of Thompson and William, next to Cottage Inn.] The Heritage Row project, said Crockett, would destroy seven of the most historic homes in Ann Arbor. If the city needed more density – and she believed there was a demand – then density should be put into the newly defined D1 areas.

Kim Kachadoorian cited the goals of the city’s Central Area Plan in arguing against the Heritage Row project. One of the goals, she said, was to protect houses from conversion to business use. It was a largely intact neighborhood, she said.

Deanna Relyea said she appreciated the gradual changing of the project from the original proposal, but concluded that it was “not there, yet.” She contended that the massiveness of the buildings behind the houses to be renovated canceled out the benefit of the renovation. She also asked that the project be postponed until a decision on the recommended historic district is voted on.

Bill Kreighbaum said there was a compelling public interest in higher density. The location was within walking distance to the University of Michigan campus as well as downtown, he said, and would allow a 2-3 car household to get by with 1-2 cars. It would help provide a critical mass for improved public transportation, he said.

Jim Mogensen described the city as being in a battle that was larger than the project. On one extreme was a view – the Libertarian view – that took as a premise that there shouldn’t be zoning at all and that it would all work itself out. He noted that there would be a final meeting of the R4C/R2A review committee, and the decision on a recommended historic district in the area would be made, but as the debate over what happens in the neighborhoods downtown continued, projects happened in the meantime. A PUD was a way to negotiate the view on each side of the spectrum, he said. He was concerned about the debate taking place through a PUD.

Susan Whitaker spoke in opposition to the Heritage Row project.

Susan Whitaker, alluding to Joan Lowenstein’s description of a family purchasing a house in the neighborhood in order to live in it as a “fiction,” introduced herself as a “fiction” who lived with her school-aged children on Fifth Avenue. She then cited various sections of the Downtown Plan adopted last year by the city council, including “[p. 24] improve downtown’s appeal as a residential location by protecting the stability of its adjacent residential neighborhoods edges.” She concluded by saying, “Zoning matters. Please don’t throw it out.” She added that the residents of the neighborhood are opposed to the project – council could see that from the petition that had been signed.

Outcome: With no discussion, the council voted to postpone the votes on the Heritage Row site plan and rezoning until June 21, 2010. The council received advice from legal counsel during a closed session, added to the agenda in a slot before the public hearings, which was presumably about the Heritage Row project.

Water/Sewer Rate Increase

To illustrate the increase for water and sewer rates, here’s the proposed changes for the Residential 1 rate. A unit is 100 cubic feet, or 748 gallons:

UNITS    $Old  $New

1-7      1.14  1.23
8-28     2.43  2.53
29-45    3.99  4.23
over 45  5.75  6.10

-

From the city code:

(5) “Residential 1 rate” shall mean the rate applied to the domestic meter usage for residential customers where 4 or fewer dwelling units are served off of the same meter.
(6) “Residential 2 rate” shall mean the rate applied to the domestic meter usage for residential customers with both a domestic and a water only meter where 4 or fewer dwelling units are served off of the same meter.

Water/Sewer Public Commentary

Thomas Partridge spoke against the water and sewer rate increases.

Jim Mogensen referenced the cover memo accompanying the resolution that increased water and sewer rates. He noted that we are “not out of the woods yet” but that the city now had better plans. He observed that one effect of less consumption was a greater need to raise rates. He noted that one approach was to wait until everything fell apart and then try to fix it, citing the approach that had been taken with the city’s parking structures. He reminded council that the University of Michigan recently had to “help us out” with work done in connection with the Central Campus Transit Center on North University by giving the city a “gift” [$450,000] to do work related to utilities and street repair that the city would ordinarily have paid for.

Water/Sewer Council Deliberations

Before the council approved the rate increases, mayor John Hieftje asked Sue McCormick, the city’s public services area administrator, to comment. She described how they planned by looking six years out, but focused on the first three years. The idea was to “levelize” rate increases – to smooth them out so that increases were smaller in any given year. The strategy also allowed the city to develop a reserve to help fund major infrastructure projects. As examples, she gave the solids handling facility at the wastewater treatment plant, which was nearly complete – a $42 million investment. Half of the liquid processing plant would also be reconstructed, she said, with $28 million to be spent next year on the $70 million project.

In future years, she said, they were projecting increases in rates of 3-3.5%.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) indicated that he’d done research on utility rate increases in other cities and that in communities like Sterling Heights, Lansing and Grand Rapids they were looking at increases of 6% to 10% this year. He concluded that it demonstrated the rate increases in Ann Arbor were having the desired effect.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) asked for information on citizens’ conservation efforts through rain barrels and other measures. McCormick indicated that she’d assemble some data.

Outcome: The council unanimously approved the increases in water and sewer rates.

Ann Arbor SPARK Allocation

Sandi Smith (Ward 1) asked that a $75,000 allocation for Ann Arbor SPARK, which is an organization that does economic development work, be pulled out of the consent agenda.

She stated that she didn’t think that $75,000 reflected enough energy directed to economic development. She asked Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) to provide some comment – he recently served on SPARK’s executive committee.

Hohnke indicated that he no longer served on the executive committee.

[The recent round of new executive committee appointments for Ann Arbor SPARK, announced in late May, included: Elliot Forsyth, senior vice president at ProQuest; Jan Garfinkle, managing director for Arboretum Ventures; Leigh R. Greden, former Ann Arbor city councilmember and attorney for Miller Canfield, but now executive director of government and community relations for Eastern Michigan University; Verna McDaniel, Washtenaw County administrator; Michael Staebler, an attorney with Pepper Hamilton LLP; and Maria Thompson, former president of A123’s Ann Arbor operations.]

New members to the Ann Arbor SPARK board of directors are EMU president Susan Martin and Ann Arbor mayor John Hieftje.

Hohnke suggested that people who had more experience with the local development finance authority (LDFA) might be better able to comment. It was an allusion to Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2), who serves as the city council representative to the LDFA and currently chairs that body. The LDFA is a tax increment finance district created as a Michigan SmartZone. It contracts with SPARK to operate a business accelerator. [Previous Chronicle coverage: "Budget Round 5: Economic Development"]

Rapundalo began his remarks by stating that the $75,000 the council was authorizing was not a membership fee. It was likely an allusion to the cover memo accompanying the resolution which indicates: “Funding for this contract is included in the city-wide membership account in the approved FY 2010/11 budget.” The funding source is likely a legacy of the previous entity with which SPARK merged – the Washtenaw Development Council – a membership-based organization to which the city belonged.

Rapundalo noted that historically the amount of funding that had been allocated to SPARK was $50,000. The ostensible purpose of the funding, he said, was to help in the promotion of the city in SPARK’s recruitment efforts and with some aspects of the business accelerator. He indicated that other support came from Washtenaw County and from the University of Michigan.

Smith expressed an interest in continuing the dialog about economic development and increasing the amount of support.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) had a number of questions about SPARK. Was the funding an extra incentive to give extra attention to Ann Arbor? Had other communities in the Ann Arbor area given extra? He asked for a reminder of what the projected deficit was for next fiscal year. Could the city afford the extra $25,000?

Hieftje responded to Kunselman’s question about the deficit by saying that the city had just recently balanced its budget.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) indicated that the additional $25,000 was based on the idea that SPARK would leverage the entire southeast Michigan region and that several other communities contributed to SPARK’s funding as well. Some of the money went to “overhead,” not specific activities, she said. The money Ann Arbor gave, she continued, did not give Ann Arbor any more leverage than any other group. The idea, she said, is that what’s good for the county is good for the city. She concluded that Ann Arbor had gotten a return on its $75,000 investment.

Outcome: The council unanimously approved the $75,000 allocation to Ann Arbor SPARK.

Recycling Code Revision

Before the council were amendments to the city code that are being enacted in anticipation of the city’s conversion to single-stream recycling in July – two separate small totes will be replaced with a single 64-gallon cart. Some examples of changes [italics indicates new language, while a strike-through indicates that the language will be deleted from the code]:

The weight of the recyclables inside the recycling curbcarts must not exceed 224 pounds for a 64 gallon curbcart or pro-rated amount for a different sized container.

Recyclable containers and bundles must not exceed 50 pounds.

[...]

Upon lease signing, property managers must provide new residents with recycling educational materials and show them where recycling containers are located at rental properties. Property managers must also provide annual reminders to all tenants about recycling. Recycling educational materials are available free of charge by contacting the city’s recycling contractor, Recycle Ann Arbor, at 734-662-6288 or info@recycleannarbor.org.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) noted that under the section on points of collection, the city could refuse collection if snow was not cleared to provide access. She got clarification that residents were not expected to shovel the city streets in order to provide access – the reference was to access points on private streets or in multi-family complexes.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) wanted to know who had reviewed the code changes. Tom McMurtrie, the city’s solid waste coordinator, told Kunselman there was no longer a solid waste commission, but that it had been reviewed by the Washtenaw Area Apartment Association as well as the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce and the city attorney’s office.

Kunselman asked if the actual weight limits could be included as part of the ordinance instead of requiring someone to perform the calculations for the pro-rated limits – “that’s a lot of math,” he said.

He also wondered if the trucks were actually capable of lifting some of the larger containers if they were loaded to the maximum pro-rated amount. McMurtrie indicated that the truck arms could lift the containers.

Kunselman questioned whether it was appropriate to revoke a certificate of occupancy – as allowed in the code – if the requirements of the code were not met. He also questioned whether the educational requirement on landlords should be included in a piece of legislation. McMurtrie indicated that the rationale for including the educational requirement was to encourage as much compliance as possible. Kunselman agreed with McMurtrie on the goal of compliance and the role of education, but still wondered whether it should be legislated – “How do you enforce that?” he asked.

Mayor John Hieftje offered that there were other requirements on landlords that they provide educational information, which Kevin McDonald of the city attorney’s office confirmed. Sandi Smith (Ward 1) gave another example: the federal requirement that information on lead-based paint be provided.

Outcome: The amendments to the city code on recycling carts were approved on first reading. The city council will need to approve them on second reading in order for them to take effect.

Permissible Uses of Public Land

Before the council was a change to the list of designated uses for land zoned as public land (PL). The planning commission had considered and unanimously recommended the change at its May 4, 2010 meeting. It’s been the subject of conversation in the community over the last couple of months in connection with the proposed Fuller Road Station – the project that prompted the desire to change the possible uses in the PL designation. The proposed change would replace “municipal airport” with “transportation facilities.”

5:10.13. PL public land district.
(1) Intent. This district is designed to classify publicly-owned uses and land and permit the normal principal and incidental uses required to carry out governmental functions and services.
(2) Permitted principal uses.
(a) Outdoor public recreational uses, such as: playgrounds, playfields, golf courses, boating areas, fishing sites, camping sites, parkways and parks. No structure shall be erected or maintained upon dedicated park land which is not customarily incidental to the principal use of the land.
(b) Natural open space, such as: conservation lands, wildlife sanctuaries, forest preserves.
(c) Developed open space, such as: arboreta, botanical and zoological gardens.
(d) Educational services, such as: public primary and secondary schools, and institutions of higher education.
(e) Cultural services, such as: museums and art galleries.
(f) Public-service institutions, such as: hospitals, sanatoria, homes for the elderly, children’s homes and correctional institutions.
(g) Essential services, buildings containing essential services and electrical substations.
(h) Municipal airports Transportation facilities.
(i) Civic center.
(j) Government offices and courts.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) wanted to know why the change was a replacement of one term with another – why not add a term instead? Wendy Rampson, head of planning for the city, indicated that adding a list of possible facilities would possibly be seen as exhaustive. Higgins got confirmation that the impetus for the change was one project – Fuller Road Station.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) said it was an interesting question as to whether parking structures were transportation facilities. Rampson commented that before the A2D2 initiative, which rezoned downtown Ann Arbor, parking lots and structures were zoned P for parking district. They’ve moved away from that approach, she said, and the result of the A2D2 process was to zone those areas either D1 or PL in order to reflect the expectation that their use could be multi-faceted.

Briere asked about the park-and-ride lots, which were simple parking not associated with any use. Rampson explained that the new park-and-ride lots were located in the public right of way and were zoned PL.

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) wanted to know if “transportation facility” had an established definition. Rampson indicated that it was not listed out separately and defined in the code, but rather it was taken to be what is commonly understood by a reasonable person. Taylor got confirmation from Rampson that within the industry it’s an established and understood term.

Higgins indicated that while she’d support the change at its first reading, she’d prefer to see the word “airport” included in the language. Margie Teall (Ward 4) concurred with Higgins on leaving in the word “airport.” Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) said that Rampson had accurately depicted the rationale from the planning commission’s discussion – Derezinski is the council’s representative on the planning commission. He urged the council to go along with the change.

Kunselman suggested that the language be made parallel with the “such as” language in other possible uses for PL. He wondered if that change would be significant enough to require a second first reading. Kevin McDonald from the city attorney’s office indicated he didn’t think it would require an additional reading – it would amount to an explication of what a particular term meant.

Outcome: On first reading, the council unanimously approved the wording change for possible PL uses. Approval at a second reading will be required for final approval.

Golf Courses

Also related to public land was some public commentary made near the end of the meeting.

The city is currently working on a request for proposals to privatize certain operations at Huron Hills golf course. The city council gave its tacit approval for the city to develop an RFP at a meeting it held earlier in the year on Feb. 8 devoted to the topic of the city’s budget.

Left to right: Jane Lumm, Ted Annis, and Leslie Morris.

On Monday during public commentary general time at the conclusion of the meeting, three people spoke about the issue.

Leslie Morris, who served on the Ann Arbor city council in the late 1970s and early 1980s, addressed the council about the possibility of privatizing part of Huron Hills. She began by noting that Ann Arbor likes parks and that was demonstrated by the passage of every parks-related millage since 1966.

Morris concluded by stating that residents did not want the city to sell parks, lease parks, or to use parks for opportunities for someone else’s private business development. She cautioned that any attempt to privatize operations at Huron Hills would be met with opposition from the community, and hinted that some community support for a possible future income tax ballot proposal would be contingent on the city not pursuing privatization at Huron Hills. [.pdf of Morris' complete statement]

Myra Larson was next up to address the council on the topic of the golf courses. Larson is professor emerita at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design. She referred the council to an Other Voices piece she’d written for The Ann Arbor News about Huron Hills – “Huron Hills site is valuable even if no one is golfing there,” which is available through the Ann Arbor District Library’s online archives of News articles. [Registration is required, but it is free.] At Monday’s meeting, Larson hit some of the same themes as in that piece, which included the line: “To alter the environment of the Huron Hills site in any manner will have a very direct and negative impact on the river and the green infrastructure of our city.” On Monday, she noted that in 2003 the voters of Ann Arbor had voted to tax themselves for the greenbelt millage – why not have green space in the city as well? She noted that the 90-year-old course had been designed by Thomas Bendelow, who was the “Johnny Appleseed of golf.”

Jane Lumm was the third speaker to address the council about the golf courses. Lumm served on the city council in the mid- to late 1990s, and gave mayor John Hieftje the most serious challenge he’s faced in a November election – in 2004, gaining the endorsement of the now defunct Ann Arbor News.

Lumm offered some reasons why the privatization of Huron Hills didn’t make sense. The plan to increase revenues at both of the city’s golf courses – Leslie Park and Huron Hills – was working, she said, so she encouraged the city to “work the plan.” The total revenues for FY 2009 and 2010, she said, had exceeded their targets by over $100,000. Over the last three years, she added, Huron Hills had show 39% growth in revenues and Leslie had shown 37% growth. The total revenue from both courses for the FY 2011 budget, she noted, was $1.176 million.

Lumm objected to the portrayal in the community of golf courses costing the city a fortune, with Huron Hills as the main problem. On an operating basis, she said, Leslie showed a $98,000 surplus while Huron Hills showed a $10,000 loss. Only when the municipal service charges were factored in to compute the fully allocated costs, she continued, did the picture change to one where Leslie showed $220,000 and Huron Hills $250,000 worth of losses.

She asked the council not to place a “90-year-old jewel” at risk.

AATA Board Appointment

At their May 17 meeting, the council had confirmed the nomination of Anya Dale to the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board to replace Paul Ajegba. Nominated, but not confirmed at that meeting, was Roger Kerson as a replacement for Ted Annis. The confirmation of Dale came with dissent from Sabra Briere (Ward 1) and the suggestion from Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) that both nominees introduce themselves to the council.

AATA: Public Comment on Appointments

Tim Hull introduced himself as a resident of Ward 2. He stated that there needs to be adequate citizen representation on the board of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority, but that there seems to be no available contact information for board members. He asked how board members could represent the public interest if the public cannot contact them.

Hull characterized the process for making appointments as flawed and disorganized. Aside from occasional brief comments made at the council meetings, there was no information presented about the process or the appointees, he said. He stated that he agreed with Kunselman’s suggestion made at the previous meeting that nominees for board appointments introduce themselves to the council and take questions. He said that mayor John Hieftje’s response to Kunselman – that they should do things the way they’d always done it – was a poor reason to do things that way. Hull said he expected better from elected officials. He said that elected officials should represent us, not sit back and do what’s always been done.

AATA: Mayoral Comment and Confirmation

The council approved the nomination of Roger Kerson to the board of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority, to replace Ted Annis. That nomination had been placed before the council at its last meeting.

Annis was in the audience as part of a group that addressed the council on the topic of the possible privatization of some operations at the Huron Hills golf course. Annis himself did not speak during public commentary. Hieftje took the opportunity to thank Annis for the work he’d done on the AATA board, bringing his financial and management expertise to bear on the AATA.

Hieftje then responded to Tim Hull’s comments made at the start of the meeting by stating that all appointments are taken seriously. He said the reason that there is a period of time between nomination and confirmation was so that people could have a chance to read the resumes of nominees and give them a call.

Hieftje said that the city asked a lot of its board and commission members, and that they tried to shield them from being individually approached by the public. This was different from what was expected of city councilmembers, he said, who campaigned for the job.

Hieftje said it would be a burden if nominees had to appear before the council to answer questions, which could wind up being a “grilling.” These were not appointments to the Supreme Court, he said. The public should have to “go through the front office” for access to board and commission members, he said.

It was a good system that had been used for a very long time, Hieftje concluded, and until a better one came along, it would be the one that was used.

Sandi Smith (Ward 1) noted that people who wanted to serve on boards and commissions needed to apply in order to be considered.

Hieftje continued by saying that often people stopped by to talk to him during his office hours on Fridays when they picked up the application.

Later, Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) thanked the mayor for nominating him to the planning commission back in 2004.

Outcome: The council unanimously confirmed the appointment of Roger Kerson to the AATA board.

Library Lot

Alan Haber said he wanted to continue to put before the council the issue of the Library Lot. The committee overseeing the request for proposals (RFP) process had received a variety of proposals, he said, but had not found any of them satisfactory. The committee was “just sitting on this,” he said, when they should report back to the council what they’d found. Many people were interested, he said, in a self-development process through some kind of community consortium – not in a commercial context, but in a human context. He noted that the construction currently underway on the underground parking garage is amazing and that there needed to be a viewing area so that people could see it.

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) responded to Haber’s comments on the Library Lot by describing the process as being in a “holding pattern.” The committee had been prepared to engage a consultant to assist in the review of the two finalist proposals, and the potential consultant had been reviewed by city administrator Roger Fraser and executive director of the DDA Susan Pollay, but they’d stopped short of signing a contract with the consultant. An unanticipated change in personnel within the consultant’s organization had led them to re-evaluate the pool. Rapundalo said it was unfortunate that Fraser himself was not there at the meeting to provide more details.

Other Agenda Items

The council handled a variety of other items as a part of its agenda. They included the following:

Other: Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) Legislation

The council considered a resolution urging the state senate to pass enabling legislation already approved by the state house that would allow residents to leverage their property tax bill in order to undertake energy improvements in their homes. Sandi Smith (Ward 1) noted that the good thing about the initiative was that the improvements would stay with the property. Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) praised the efforts of the city’s environmental coordinator, Matt Naud, to make sure that the city was ready to take advantage of the legislation when it passed. [Previous Chronicle coverage: "Special District Might Fund Energy Program"]

Outcome: The council unanimously approved the resolution urging passage of PACE legislation.

Other: Near North Brownfield

Before the council was a resolution that amended the development agreement for the Near North project on North Main Street. The amendment, said Marcia Higgins (Ward 4), had come as a suggestion from the brownfield review committee. The city had an interest in seeing that the soil was actually cleaned up, and the amended agreement simply reflects that the developer will provide documentation that the clean up has taken place. Near North is an affordable housing complex being developed by the nonprofit Avalon Housing.

Outcome: The council unanimously approved the resolution.

Other: Tiger 2 Application

Before the council was a resolution supporting the city’s Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) 2 grant application for the East Stadium bridges replacement project. Margie Teall (Ward 4) urged everyone to support the resolution, saying it was similar to the county’s resolution and would be provided as part of the application packet.

Outcome: The council unanimously approved the resolution.

Other: Compost Carts

On the agenda was a $386,470 item that authorized purchase of 8,000 compost carts from Toter Inc. Sandi Smith (Ward 1) wanted to know how many carts the city kept on hand as inventory. Tom McMurtrie, the city’s solid waste coordinator, told her that the city typically purchases carts a truckload at a time, which corresponded to their on-hand inventory – about 500 carts, he said.

According to a memo accompanying the resolution, the city is switching vendors for the carts, due to some reported problems with wheels breaking and slippage in the automated arm for the carts from the previous vendor. Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) wanted to know what happens if there’s wheel breakage on a cart supplied by the previous vendor. McMurtrie explained that there’s a 10-year warranty provided by that vendor, Cascade Corporation.

The city is making the carts available at a cost of $25, which is less than the city’s cost for the carts, in order to encourage their use. The city is moving to a completely containerized approach to fall leaf collection.

Compost carts can be ordered online at www.a2gov.org/compost. They can also be purchased at the city’s customer service center, 220 E. Huron, or by calling 734-994-7336.

Outcome: The council unanimously approved the resolution.

Other: Airport-Related Items

Three agenda items related to the airport. The main items were a $101,200 contract with the Michigan Department of Transportation for an airfield marking and signage project, as well as a mapping project. The $101,200 consists of $96,140 in federal funds, $2,530 in state funds and $2,530 in airport matching funds.

The other two items were part of the MDOT project – $54,190 for the airfield marking and signage, with a local share of $1,355. And the final item was $25,000 for the mapping project.

In response to a question from Sabra Briere (Ward 1), the airport manager, Matthew Kulhanek, confirmed that the agenda items would not result in anything resembling a runway expansion.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) asked about the “Exhibit A” referenced in a cover memo. Kulhanek said it included a boundary survey of the property – the airport was made up of several parcels, he said. Asked what future purpose the survey had, Kulhanek indicated that it would be used to satisfy MDOT and FAA requirements.

Outcome: All three airport-related items were unanimously approved.

Communications and Public Commentary

Beyond public commentary already mentioned, several other people, including some pubic officials, spoke on topics not necessarily on the agenda.

Comment: Couch Ban

Kim LeMasters addressed the council on the topic of a possible ban on porch couches. She introduced herself as the mother of Renden LeMasters, who had died in a house fire on South State street the day before Easter this year. The final report on the fire, she said, was not complete, but there were strong indications that it had started in a trash container, spread to a couch, and then caught the house on fire. She noted that previous attempts to pass an ordinance banning porch couches had met with opposition from the student community.

Kim LeMasters' son Renden died in a house fire in which a couch is thought to have played a role in the rapid spread of the flames.

LeMasters said that if Renden were here, he’d advocate for such a ban. She said that she’d simply wanted to introduce herself to the council and asked for verification that some kind of ordinance had been drafted. She also inquired about a possible timeline for its consideration, then concluded by saying that she would be a strong and active voice for such an ordinance.

[In the wake of the fire, Bob Snyder also called for a review of the possibility of a couch ban ordinance – at the council's April 5, 2010 meeting and at the council's April 18 Sunday caucus.]

Comment/Communications: Heavy Rains

Mae Keller introduced herself as speaking on behalf of residents of Village Oaks Court and Chaucer Court, located off Ann Arbor-Saline Road. She related how stormwater flowing over land in the neighborhood had resulted in 70,000 gallons of water coming through an egress window in the basement of the home of Larry and Linda Fingerle, a torrent that had posed an immediate danger to life. She also described other damage to homes in the neighborhood. The Fingerles’ house had sustained $100,000 to $150,000 in damage, she said, which was not covered by insurance because it had not been a “flood.” The excessive overland flow of water, she said, was the result of a poorly designed stormwater sewer system. Improvements had been undertaken to the system, she said, but the area had not been tied into it. She concluded by saying that the neighborhood was willing to work with anyone who was willing to work with them.

Filling in for city administrator Roger Fraser for the evening was Sue McCormick, the city’s public services area administrator. In her report, the recent heavy rains were a main topic. Depending on the specific area of the city, she said, up to 2.7 inches of rain had fallen. Just after midnight between Saturday and Sunday, she said, an inch of rain had fallen in a half hour. As of 4 p.m. on Monday, the city had received 42 calls with various issues – McCormick said each one would be investigated. There’d also been several reports of downed trees and limbs, as well as erosion along gravel roads.

Communication: Residential Parking Permits

In her communications time, Sandi Smith (Ward 1) told her colleagues that she and her Ward 1 colleague, Sabra Briere, would be bringing a proposal at the following meeting for a residential parking permit program for the Old Fourth Ward. [The program is meant, in part, to ensure that residents' street parking will not be taken up by residents of the University of Michigan North Quad dormitory, which is due to open this fall.]

Comment: Traffic Safety

Kathy Griswold noted that there was an item on the council’s consent agenda that addressed traffic calming. She said she supported traffic calming, because the goal of traffic calming measures is the safety of citizens. However, she said that the most cost effective measure that can be taken to improve safety – according to the book “Roadway Safety and Tort Liability”– was improving sightlines at intersections. She pointed out that traffic calming measures had been installed at the intersection at 7th & Washington, but that the sight distance at two of the four corners of the intersection is in violation of the city’s ordinances.

She told the council that in 2000 she was hired by the Ann Arbor Public Schools (AAPS) as a consultant to improve the safety of students while traveling to and from public school by doing a school walk zone analysis. She said that in response to a question from Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) about the King Elementary School crosswalk – she’s advocated for moving that crosswalk from its mid-block location to a nearby intersection – she’d looked at the situation at Thurston Elementary. She reported that there was graffiti covering some of the signs there and that this needed to be addressed. She stated that the joint city/school transportation safety committee, on which she serves, would be meeting to update a safety plan, and she asked the council to support it when it came before them. She thanked the councilmembers who’d attended the previous night’s caucus meeting for their discussion on the issue.

Comment: Advocacy for Most Vulnerable

Tom Partridge introduced himself as a Washtenaw County Democratic candidate for the District 18 state senate seat. He said he was an advocate for all people of Washtenaw County – seniors, the disabled, and the economically challenged. They need representation that will protect them, who are the most vulnerable, he said. He called for affordable housing, public transportation, education and health care.

Comment: Palestine and Israel

Blaine Coleman began his remarks by asking the Community Television Network camera operator to focus on the sign he’d placed in front of the podium, which read “Ann Arbor hereby boycotts all products from Israel.” He stated that he was bringing the resolution printed on the sign before the council for consideration that night. The Ann Arbor boycott of Israeli products, he said, had been proposed back in 1984, so the council had had 26 years to think about it. A week ago, Coleman said, the Israel military had killed nine people on boarding a humanitarian aid boat headed for Gaza and had shot an American citizen in the head. That was the kind of state they were supporting, Coleman said, when mayor John Hieftje and councilmember Mike Anglin attend the “Celebrate Israel” event.

Coleman repeated the resolution on the sign and queried councilmembers individually on how they would vote, beginning on the right: “Sandi Smith, how do you vote?” He noted the lack of response of each councilmember – Smith, Briere, and Derezinski – before moving on to the next, reaching Rapundalo before his time was up.

[Editor's note: By custom, councilmembers do not respond to direct questions during public commentary. Doing so would likely violate the council rule against allotting speaking time to someone other than the person signed up to speak. However, councilmembers often do use their own communications time on the agenda to respond to public commentary.]

Mozhgan Savabiesfahani noted that she’d personally been appearing before the council since 2002, and that subsequently the state of Israel had committed various crimes, including the most recent case involving the killing of people aboard a humanitarian aid boat. The council had ignored her, she said, and concluded: “I hold you responsible. You are guilty.” She used the remainder of her three-minute speaking time to hold her sign aloft, which read “Boycott Israel.”

Comment: U.S. Census

Tarik Green addressed the council as a member of the U.S. Census. He indicated that as of May 27 on a national level, 75% of the survey was complete. As the work wrapped up, he asked that people cooperate with census workers when they knocked on the door – it would only take 10 minutes, he said. He asked that the community “look out for” the census workers’ safety and noted that all workers would be equipped with a badge with a logo, a flag, and a signature.

Communication: Good News

In the category of good news, Sue McCormick highlighted the city’s LED streetlight program, which is one of three U.S. nominees for the EnergyGlobe Awards.

The Veterans Memorial Park ice arena had also received two awards, she reported.

McCormick gave an update on the construction for the municipal building – they’re currently working on bathroom tile and plumbing, among other projects. Concrete barriers have been repositioned to accommodate the contractors who’ll be coming down Fifth Avenue in connection with the Fifth and Division streetscape improvements being done by the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority.

McCormick reported that the warm weather over the weekend had resulted in 4,000 visitors to the city’s public pools and 1,110 canoe rentals.

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

Next council meeting: June 21, 2010 at 7 p.m. in council chambers, 2nd floor of the Guy C. Larcom, Jr. Municipal Building, 100 N. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]

Park advisory commissioners Gwen Nystuen, David Barrett and Doug Chapman at Tuesday's meeting of PAC's land acquisition committee, held at Cobblestone Farm. Nystuen has been pushing for more input into the Fuller Road Station project. (Photos by the writer.)

Spurred by concerns that Ann Arbor parks are being shortchanged, members of the city’s park advisory commission (PAC) discussed a resolution on Tuesday that would urge city council not to proceed with plans for Fuller Road Station at its proposed site on city-owned land that’s designated as parkland.

The draft resolution also states that if the city council does continue with the project, the city should renegotiate the deal to get additional revenues from the University of Michigan, with those funds being allocated to city parks. The resolution calls for an annual payment of $127,500 from the university – under the current agreement, UM would pay $19,379 per year, starting in 2012.

Park commissioners didn’t take any action, and plan to discuss the draft resolution further at their May 18 meeting.

But Tuesday evening, the city’s planning commission did take action related to Fuller Road Station. They voted unanimously to amend the list of permitted principal uses of public land – specifically, changing a “municipal airports” use to “transportation facilities.” During a public hearing on the issue, several speakers – including park commissioner Gwen Nystuen – objected to the change.

It’s expected that the project – located on the south side of Fuller Road, just east of East Medical Center Drive – will be submitted by the design team on May 17 for review by planning staff. It will likely come before the planning commission at its first meeting in July. A public meeting on the project is set for Thursday, May 6 at 7 p.m. in the second-floor city council chambers, 100 N. Fifth Ave.

Fuller Road Station: Shortchanging the City?

At PAC’s April 20, 2010 meeting, Gwen Nystuen introduced a resolution to form a subcommittee that would evaluate the $46 million Fuller Road Station project. From The Chronicle’s report of that meeting:

If approved by PAC, the subcommittee would review the environmental, financial, legal, operational and visual impacts of the project, as it relates to the city’s parks and recreation program, Fuller Park, and the Huron River valley.

In 1993, Nystuen noted, there were no surface parking lots in that area, other than those around the pool at Fuller Park. Today there are several lots, including those that are leased by UM. “What are we doing?” she asked. “This is awful.” Though the city’s stated goals are to develop parks along the Huron River, she said, “we seem to be filling the space up with a big parking lot.”

The Fuller Road Station, a structure which will have about 1,000 parking spaces but the capacity to eventually contain 1,700 spaces in eight levels, poses legal questions because it’s being proposed on city land that’s designated as parkland, Nystuen said. She also cited financial concerns about how the city would pay for its share of the project. Additionally, she wondered why alternative designs – like one shown at PAC’s March 16, 2010 meeting by architect Peter Pollack – weren’t being considered.

Eli Cooper, the city’s transportation program manager, has made two presentations to PAC, but Nystuen said commissioners just listen and ask questions – they’ve taken no action. It’s been brought to them as though it’s all done, she said. Her proposal for a subcommittee would allow PAC to take a more active role in evaluating the project’s impact on parks.

Nystuen had suggested discussing her resolution at Tuesday’s May 4 meeting of PAC’s land acquisition committee, which includes all members of the commission. By that date, however, she had worked with commissioners Sam Offen and Julie Grand – PAC’s new chair – to craft a different resolution. Rather than forming a subcommittee to study Fuller Road Station, the draft resolution handed out on Tuesday aims at halting the project, or at the least renegotiating its terms. There are two “resolved” clauses:

Resolved, that PAC recommends that the City Council does not proceed in its approval of plans for the Fuller Road Station at the site where it is currently proposed.

Resolved, that if such plans are approved by Council, that the agreement with the University of Michigan is renegotiated to include a significant increase in revenue allocated to the Parks and Recreation Department. 100% of payments should come from the University of Michigan. Revenue at the current FY 2010 rate of approximately $125 per space would result in an annual payment of $127,500 to the Parks Department.

According to a footnote in the resolution, the figure of $125 per space was calculated based on the city’s current lease agreement with the university for the surface lots, but doesn’t take into account the value of (1) covered parking or (2) the university’s ability to park cars in the structure 24/7.  Those two factors could increase the payment “by a substantial margin,” the resolution states.

The resolution lays out several concerns that have been voiced by some commissioners at previous PAC meetings:

• UM parking on city-owned lots is currently restricted to workday hours, but at Fuller Road Station, the university would be allowed to use the parking structure 24 hours a day.
• Fuller Road Station wouldn’t offer any amenities to users of the city parks, and parking is not one of the goals outlined in the city’s Parks, Recreation and Open Space (PROS) plan.
• PAC has “serious reservations” about setting a precedent for agreeing to a long-term lease of parkland.
• Building a permanent parking structure on parkland raises concerns that the city is potentially violating its zoning ordinances.
• There are safety issues for park users, pedestrians and bicycle commuters, due to the increased traffic.
• The city’s parks and recreation unit will lose revenue, compared to what it currently receives from UM’s lease of surface lots along Fuller Road. Currently, UM pays the city $31,057 to lease 250 parking spaces in the “south lot,” where Fuller Road Station is planned. The memorandum of understanding with UM for Fuller Road Station calls for the university to pay $19,379, with a 3% annual increase. In addition, because of the added parking capacity at the new structure, there’s no guarantee that UM will continue to lease spaces from the city’s two “north lots” on Fuller Road, which bring in roughly $38,500 each year.

Ann Arbor park advisory commissioners at Tuesday's meeting of the PAC land acquisition committee. Clockwise from far left: Sam Offen, Julie Grand, Ginny Trocchio (staff of The Conservation Fund), Tim Berla, Karen Levin, Gwen Nystuen, David Barrett, Mike Anglin, Doug Chapman.

On Tuesday, Julie Grand began discussion by saying she wanted feedback from other commissioners. The first reaction from some was this: Isn’t it a done deal? Will this resolution have any effect?

Grand said that’s why there are two parts – first, urging council to hold off on approval at the current site, and barring that, at least to renegotiate a better deal to get more revenue from the university.

Gwen Nystuen noted that when the concept was first introduced to the community in early 2009, it was presented as a transit station that included some parking, with a pedestrian bridge to the university’s medical complex to the south. The idea of a train station for commuter rail was part of the original plan – it was only later that the project was split into phases, with the initial phases being primarily a parking structure and bus station. City officials hope a train station will eventually be built, but no funding has been secured for that.

The push for parking is coming from the university, Nystuen said, adding that UM had been planning to build additional parking along Wall Street, near the Kellogg Eye Center. [The Chronicle's first encounter with the Fuller Road Station project was at a Jan. 27, 2009 meeting for residents of the Wall Street area. At that meeting, Eli Cooper, the city's transportation program manager, briefed neighbors on initial plans for the transit station.]

On Tuesday, Nystuen said that the memorandum of understanding between the city and UM stated that as part of the agreement, the university would suspend its pursuit of parking along Wall Street “at this time.” But she noted there’s no guarantee, and UM might eventually build even more parking there: “They, of course, can do whatever they want.” [.pdf file of the memorandum of understanding on Fuller Road Station]

Commissioners also discussed the issue of building on land that’s designated as parkland. Grand noted that the city is allowed to violate its own zoning laws. Offen agreed, saying it wasn’t an issue of zoning but an issue of land use. Nystuen added that in the city code, parkland has a special status. The relevant section from Chapter 55 of the city code is this (emphasis added):

5:10.13.  PL public land district.

(1) Intent. This district is designed to classify publicly-owned uses and land and permit the normal principal and incidental uses required to carry out governmental functions and services.
(2) Permitted principal uses. (a) Outdoor public recreational uses, such as: playgrounds, playfields, golf courses, boating areas, fishing sites, camping sites, parkways and parks. No structure shall be erected or maintained upon dedicated park land which is not customarily incidental to the principal use of the land.

Offen noted that even though the land wasn’t being sold, construction of a parking structure certainly violated the spirit of the voter-approved amendment to the city charter, which requires a voter referendum on the sale of parkland.

David Barrett asked whether it would be useful to have Eli Cooper come back to a PAC meeting and answer questions. Cooper’s past presentations to PAC had been more akin to a “magic show,” he said.

At this point Tim Berla weighed in, saying that he’d talked to Mayor John Hieftje when they’d gone out for beers at Casey’s on the occasion of Scott Rosencrans’ last meeting. [Rosencrans, who previously chaired PAC, did not seek reappointment when his term ended in April.] Berla reported that the mayor had said there’s still a lot in play in the Fuller Road Station project – it’s not a done deal. But Hieftje did indicate that the university’s participation is critical to eventually getting the rail service, Berla said.

Nystuen was glad to hear that the mayor thinks there’s room for change in the project.

Asking for A Better Deal

Saying they seemed to be in agreement that the current deal was bad for the city’s parks, Grand asked for feedback on the suggested revenue request contained in the draft resolution.

Julie Grand, chair of the Ann Arbor park advisory commission.

They’d settled on the $125-per-space amount because it was better than the current deal, but “not laughable,” she said. It was calculated by taking the current annual amount that UM pays the city – $31,057 – for leasing the south lot on Fuller Road, divided by the number of spaces there: 250.

Doug Chapman pointed out that the original numbers in the memorandum of understanding were based on building an intermodal station – that’s not happening at this point, he said. So it makes sense to raise the amount now, then renegotiate later if the train station is actually built.

Sam Offen also noted that given the city’s current financial condition, they need more money for parks. And with the current deal, “we’re getting short-changed,” he said. The city isn’t even keeping revenues at the same rate – they’ll be getting less money.

Offen said he’d like to see more information on rates that the university currently charges for its own parking permits, as well as rates that the city charges to park in its structures. Grand said she had that information, and would provide it to commissioners. [.pdf file of UM 2009-10 parking permits] [link to Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority website with information on parking permits]

The group also discussed the value of the land – both financially and as a community asset – as a factor in opposing the location of a parking structure at that site. Nystuen said that city staff had initially said an appraisal of the land wasn’t relevant because there was no intent to sell. However, they did report that in 2004, the property had been considered by the city for an affordable housing project and was appraised at that time at $4.25 million.

“It’s prime land,” Offen said.

The fact that it’s land along the river – the Huron River runs nearby, on the opposite side of Fuller Road – should make it inviolable, Nystuen said.

Tim Berla noted that it wasn’t as if they’re paving paradise – that happened in 1993, when the surface parking lot was installed there, he said. Grand agreed, but pointed out that a surface lot can be dug up in a day. That’s not the case with a permanent parking structure.

The commissioners voted to table the discussion until PAC’s next meeting, on Tuesday, May 18. The meeting begins at 4 p.m. in the Washtenaw County administration building boardroom, 220 N. Main St.

Planning Commission: The Policy, Not the Parcel

Later that day, at their Tuesday evening meeting in city council chambers, the Ann Arbor planning commission addressed a change to language in Chapter 55 of the city code, which relates to the Fuller Road Station project. Two words were proposed to be changed under (h) in the list of permitted principal uses for public land (PL):

5:10.13.  PL public land district.

(1)   Intent.  This district is designed to classify publicly-owned uses and land and permit the normal principal and incidental uses required to carry out governmental functions and services.

(2)   Permitted principal uses.

(a)   Outdoor public recreational uses, such as: playgrounds, playfields, golf courses, boating areas, fishing sites, camping sites, parkways and parks. No structure shall be erected or maintained upon dedicated park land which is not customarily incidental to the principal use of the land.

(b)   Natural open space, such as: conservation lands, wildlife sanctuaries, forest preserves.

(c)   Developed open space, such as: arboreta, botanical and zoological gardens.

(d)   Educational services, such as: public primary and secondary schools, and institutions of higher education.

(e)   Cultural services, such as: museums and art galleries.

(f)   Public-service institutions, such as: hospitals, sanatoria, homes for the elderly, children’s homes and correctional institutions.

(g)   Essential services, buildings containing essential services and electrical substations.

(h)   Municipal airports. Transportation facilities.

(i)   Civic center.

(j)   Government offices and courts.

PL Text Change: Public Hearing

Seven people spoke at the public hearing on the proposed text amendment, all of them raising concerns about the change.

Rita Mitchell and John Satarino read parts from the same prepared statement, representing the Ad Hoc Citizen Group for Sensible Planning. The language change will broaden the types of uses allowed on property zoned as public land, Mitchell said. Noting that the staff report explicitly mentions the Fuller Road Station, she said the goal isn’t to clear up the regulatory language, but rather to assure that the project passes muster during review by funding sources.

They cited several concerns: (1) the planning commission isn’t adequately reviewing background information in the Parks, Recreation and Open Space (PROS) plan and project documents; (2) building structures on that site would violate city zoning; (3) the planning commission should challenge the concept of “municipal immunity,” which exempts the city from its own zoning; (4) the commission hasn’t followed a city charter-mandated process for making this kind of amendment; and (5) the commission hasn’t sufficiently defined the meaning of a “transportation facility.”

They urged the commission to table the resolution.

Gwen Nystuen, the park advisory commissioner who has been instrumental in bringing forward the PAC resolution regarding Fuller Road Station, told planning commissioners that she was mostly coming to them with questions. What is a transportation facility, she asked – are there any conditions regarding how it would function? What do they think the public’s understanding is of parks? Most people see the PL zoning and think it’s parkland, when parkland is actually a special category of the PL classification, with its own conditions, she said. How can the city legally go about building structures on land that’s dedicated parkland?

Eppie Potts said the change would open the door to any public land being used for any purpose that’s listed. She referred to it as “repurposing.” As another example, she pointed to the recent proposal by the city administrator to use Allmendinger and Frisinger parks for parking on football Saturdays. She said that the planning commission had previously approved rezoning parkland to public land, because staff had given them assurance that it would remain parkland if it were designated as such in the PROS plan. She asked them to explain why this was no longer the case for the Fuller Road Station site.

Alice Ralph told commissioners that changing a couple of words might not seem significant, but it is. She recalled listening to deliberations on the ballot language for the charter amendment to require a voter referendum on the sale of parkland. By chipping away at the language, the final version provided “little or no additional protection for parkland,” she said. The language change being proposed really amounted to spot zoning, and conflicted with the PROS plan. She urged commissioners to understand the public’s expectations – the public really does expect parkland to be used for parks.

Jim Mogensen said that the PL zoning conveyed expectations about what kinds of things will happen on that land. Public schools are on public land, but charter schools are not. The Blake Transit Center is, but the Greyhound bus station isn’t. Mogensen recalled the concepts that students in local developer Peter Allen’s class at UM had come up with to develop the Fuller Road site – he noted that their ideas entailed using public/private partnerships, and it seems that the city is moving toward that. It might end up being a way that the city deals with funding the project, he said.

Margaret Wong said she had a gut feeling that the difference between park and parking structure was getting smaller. She urged commissioners to consider unintended consequences of the change – the need for precision of language is relevant.

PL Text Change: Commissioner Deliberations

Bonnie Bona, chair of the planning commissioner, noted that generally speaking, property zoning has nothing to do with whether land is designated as parkland. Parkland is designated as such under the PROS plan, which is currently being updated.

Wendy Rampson, the city’s planning manager, clarified the process that would need to occur to shift parkland to another use. If parkland were being sold, it would require the approval of voters. Otherwise, a park evolves based on what the community is looking for, she said, and by working its way through the parks planning process.

Regarding Fuller Road Station, the surface lot was put there about 15 years ago, Rampson said. It was a decision make by UM and the city, with input from the park advisory commission. Fuller Road Station had evolved the same way. She said there has not been a park turned over for another use. Like what? As Rampson paused to come up with an example, some residents attending the meeting called out: “a parking structure!” The example Rampson settled on was “governmental office.” She noted that the conference center at Gallup Park might be an example. [On the city's website, it's described as a meeting room.]

From left: Jeff Kahan of the city's planning staff; planning commissioners Eric Mahler and Wendy Woods.

Wendy Woods noted that several of the speakers at the public hearing had been past or current members of the park advisory commission, as had she. Woods wondered whether the project had been vetted by PAC. She said the question was especially relevant given that the planning commission had just recently discussed the importance of communicating and coordinating among other city commissions, like the energy and environmental commissions. [Woods was alluding to an April 13 joint meeting of the planning, energy and environmental commissions. See Chronicle coverage: "Building a Sustainable Ann Arbor"]

Rampson said that presentations had been made to PAC about Fuller Road Station, to get their comments. [Eli Cooper, the city's transportation program manager, made presentations at PAC's Sept. 15, 2009 and March 16, 2010 meetings. See Chronicle coverage: "City Seeks Feedback on Transit Center" and "Concerns Voiced over Fuller Road Station"] Rampson also pointed to the upcoming May 6 public meeting as another way that public input is being sought.

Clearly, she said, the project is viewed as a continuation of the parking use that’s currently on the site. She said the language change in the zoning code is being proposed because it was pointed out to staff that transportation facilities weren’t part of the current list of permitted principal uses.

Woods asked whether the language change needed to happen before the planning staff reviewed the project – it’s expected to be submitted on May 17. Rampson said the city was exempt from zoning.

Tony Derezinski – a planning commissioner who also represents Ward 2 on city council – picked up on that comment. The basic principal is that as a city project on public land, the city is exempt from zoning. “If it comes right down to it,” he said, “this (language change) is not necessary.” It’s being done to clarify to the public what’s happening, he added.

From left: Planning commissioners Evan Pratt and Kirk Westphal.

Evan Pratt acknowledged that people had raised solid concerns that need to be discussed. The city needs to be careful in making any change. However, his view was that the commission was being asked to make a determination on policy, not on a specific parcel. In addition, the city has gone above and beyond what it’s required to do, given its exemption from zoning, he said.

Parkland is protected by virtue of its principal use, Pratt said, but in the case of the Fuller Road Station site, its principal use is parking – UM leases the lot for its employees. He didn’t feel that by moving forward they would be opening up the parks to be used for any purpose. Decisions are made project by project, he said, parcel by parcel.

Erica Briggs agreed that a lot of legitimate concerns had been brought up – some that likely couldn’t be resolved at this meeting. Among them was an expectation that parking structures wouldn’t be built on parkland. Obviously, the language change they were voting on was designed to facilitate the Fuller Road Station, she said. A parking lot has been tolerated because it’s reversible – a parking structure is not. She recalled that at a previous meeting, commissioners had been assured that if public land was designated as parkland in the PROS plan, then it was protected. Now, that doesn’t seem to be the case, she said, and they should openly address that.

Jean Carlberg said the term “transportation facilities” made more sense than the outmoded “municipal airports.” The change to her seemed unrelated to the Fuller Road Station project. It seemed that many of the people objecting to the word change believed that if the language wasn’t altered, it would somehow hamper the project, Carlberg said. She didn’t believe it would matter one way or another: “That train has left the station and is on its own track.”

Diane Giannola agreed, saying she looked at it from a bigger picture perspective. The new wording allows the city to put a bus station or other transportation facility on any piece of public land. It allows more flexibility, and isn’t tied directly to Fuller Road Station.

Woods said it was difficult not to link the wording change to Fuller Road Station – the project was specifically cited in the staff report, she noted. [The staff report states: "This proposed amendment would ensure that projects such as Fuller Road Station are consistent with the permitted principal use section of the PL zoning district."]

Bonnie Bona, chair of the Ann Arbor planning commission.

Bonnie Bona said it wasn’t in the planning commission’s purview to deal with restrictions on the uses or sale of parkland – that’s up to the park advisory commission and city council. She voiced support for the term “transportation facilities,” especially since the city was moving into a time when there would be more alternative transportation options. She’d like to keep the definition as open as possible, she said.

Outcome: Commissioners voted unanimously to change “municipal airports” to “transportation facilities” in Chapter 55 of the city code. The amendment will next be considered for approval by city council.

Public Commentary: Coda

During the time set aside for public commentary at the end of the meeting, three people again addressed Fuller Road Station.

Acknowledging that it wouldn’t make any difference, John Satarino said he wanted to correct some statements that planning commissioners had made as motivations for their vote. It was never intended for the parking lot at Fuller Road to be permanent, he said. In fact, the university coerced the city into providing the parking lot there, he said, as part of a land swap deal to save some centuries-old burr oak trees near a planned expansion of the VA Medical Center. [The headline of a June 26, 1993 Ann Arbor News article states: "Oak trees to be spared from ax – A request from U-M officials for a temporary parking lot may be the key to saving condemned burr oak trees." The article describes negotiations between the city and university as "tortuous."]

Regarding principal use, greenspace just sitting by itself is a principal use, Satarino said – a very special one. Parking is secondary. He said he was also bothered because he didn’t feel that commissioners had read all of the available information on the project. To make it easier to get federal funding, the city needs the land to be given status as a transportation center on public land. The wording change in the city code is very clearly a device to get that, he said.

Lou Glorie said it seems like parkland is being dissolved into public land.

Rita Mitchell argued that the commission’s action affected precedent. The parking lot at Fuller Road was once a park. Think about what this means for the future of Allmendinger and Frisinger parks, she said. It might not happen now, but what about in 15 years, if the university decides it needs more parking for Michigan Stadium? Parkland should be thought of as a principal use, and that should lead the city’s thinking as they move into the future.

Commissioner Response to Public Commentary

Bonnie Bona asked Erica Briggs to report to the PROS plan committee the concerns that had been raised that evening. [Briggs is the planning commission's representative on the PROS plan committee.]

Bona asked what the timeline was for putting together the PROS plan update. Briggs reported that the staff is doing a survey to seek public input. [An online version is available here.]

Wendy Rampson said that Amy Kuras, the city parks planner who’s leading the update efforts, hopes to meet with the planning commission as a focus group on the PROS plan, perhaps at a June working session.

Mike Anglin's (Ward 5) amendment with edits made by Sabra Briere (Ward 1) at the council table.

Ann Arbor City Council meeting (July 6, 2009): The word “public” covered much of the ground of this past Monday’s meeting: public art, public land, public input.

The council got an annual report from the Public Art Commission highlighted by a reminder that Herbert Dreiseitl will be visiting Ann Arbor on July 20 to introduce plans for the storm water art he’s been commissioned to design for the new municipal center. The designs have not yet been accepted.

The council also heard a report from the Greenbelt Advisory Commission on a slight strategy shift in the use of $10 million of public money so far to protect 1,321 acres of land. The  council also approved a resolution to preserve the First & William parking lot as public land.

The discussion of another parcel of public land, the library lot, led to long deliberations on the wording of a resolution to establish an RFP (request for proposals) process for development of the site – below which an underground parking structure is planned. At issue was the timing of the RFP and the explicit inclusion of a public participation component in the process. The deliberations provided some insight into how councilmembers work together when the outcome of their conversations at the table is not scripted or pre-planned.

Planning in the sense of “land use” was also a topic addressed in multiple agenda items by the council. Councilmembers passed a resolution establishing a study committee to review the R4C and the R2A residential zoning districts – a bid by the Ward 3 council contingent to eliminate R2A from the purview of the committee got no support from others.

Having received a recommendation from the Downtown Development Authority board on the A2D2 zoning package that they wanted to examine more closely, the council postponed for two weeks the first reading of the A2D2 zoning package. The site plan for Walgreen on Jackson Road, near Maple Road, was approved with permits contingent on an easement for ingress and egress.

The November city council campaign in Ward 4 began to take shape when independent candidate Hatim Elhady took a turn at public commentary, and he took the occasion to ask some questions of Marcia Higgins (Ward 4), the incumbent he’s challenging.

Site Development Committee and RFP for the Library Lot

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Background

The planned underground parking garage along Fifth Avenue has generated discussion about the “What goes on top?” question. In March, the DDA passed a resolution in support of making DDA resources available for facilitating a public process. From The Chronicle’s meeting report:

Community Vision for 300 Block of South Fifth Avenue: What Goes on Top? [Sandi] Smith introduced the resolution, which states support of a process to develop a community vision for the 300 block of South Fifth Avenue. She said that it was prompted by the dialogue about the undergound parking garage, which had prompted the frequent question from residents: What goes on top? The idea, said Smith, was to begin a community conversation that was vague, free from preconception, and not steering towards some pre-set notion.

[John] Hieftje said he was happy to begin the discusison and that the reason it hasn’t come before is that it’s not a good economic environment to start a project. People needed to understand, he said, that it would be a few years before that climate would change.

[John] Mouat said it was an interesting urban planning exercise involving potentially a lot of different groups. “Are we really prepared to take it on?” he wondered.

John Splitt stressed that the DDA would just be offering resources: “We’re not trying to steer it into any direction; we’re there to help.” [Jennifer] Hall said she supported it, and pointed out that the discussion would include the whole block, not just the library lot. “Somebody needs to get out the door,” she said. “It should have been done ages ago.”

Public Commentary on Library Lot Site Development

During public commentary reserved time at the start of the meeting, Alan Haber and Hatim Elhady addressed the council, speaking on the topic of the library lot site development.

Alan Haber: Haber began, “By the time questions get here, the fix is in and the deal is done and this is ceremonial democracy so that the people will think that we had something to do with this.” Haber sketched a scene of an America that is owned by banks, and the local landscape dominated physically by the “elite monumentalism” of the university. He gave the newly renovated Michigan Stadium as an example. He expressed the hope that sometimes people can actually change their minds and let the people’s voices come in. Haber proposed that the council dedicate the parcel as public land, dedicated to the culture of peace and nonviolence for the children of the world. “Build a park on the Commons, on the public land. Build it all-season, make it solar, geothermal, a place for community, embrace the vision of The Commons, a place for people to come together to sustain themselves and each other.”

Hatim Elhady: [Councilmember Marcia Higgins will be unchallenged in her August Democratic primary, but will face Hatim Elhady, who's running as an independent, in the fall.] Elhady began with a point blank question: “I would like to ask councilmember Higgins just what the rush is to build atop a nonexistent parking lot a project threatened with a lawsuit from an environmental group – when the Stadium bridge has gone unrepaired since you and George W. Bush were elected into office?”

Elhady noted that there were emails from the mayor and other councilmembers to constituents saying there were no plans to build anything on top of the library lot and that it could be years before anything is built, but that soon after the emails were sent it had been declared there must be something built. He focused on two clauses in the resolution. [The first of these was eventually taken up during council deliberations by Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5).] The first clause that Elhady highlighted specifies that the the site must bring financial return to the city. The second says that the city administration shall incorporate a design committee with residents. From that Elhady reasoned that residents can have whatever they want – as long as it brings revenue. This immediately tosses out the idea, he contended, that a park should be made with swings in it. The citizens of Ann Arbor deserve honest and open answers to their questions and an inclusive and thoroughly deliberate discussion about what gets built in their city before council votes to issue RFPs, he concluded.

Deliberations by Council on the Library Lot Process

Sandi Smith (Ward 1) introduced the resolution by acknowledging that it had morphed a little bit based on input from the public and from the council. At the immediately previous council meeting, Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) had moved successfully for a postponement of the resolution to establish a committee on site development of the library lot.

The general context described by Smith in which the resolution was being brought forward was one in which the council had received an unsolicited proposal from a developer. Drawings had been provided to councilmembers at their January 2009 budget retreat. The idea, said Smith, was to throw the door open wide to any and all other proposals to see what they get.

Mike Anglin then offered amendments to the resolution, couching them in terms of the council’s commitment to public participation in development decisions. He said that the same requirement for public participation should apply to city projects as well as private developments. Anglin circulated printed copies of the amendment language to all of his council colleagues. Anglin noted that there was a feeling in the community that the space itself was very special and that it has the potential to become something spectacular. Anglin’s amendment:

RESOLVED: That the city conduct a series of public meetings to determine citizen opinion on the desired use of the site before the RFP is prepared.

Anglin’s amendment also proposed to strike the date-related resolved clauses specifying an RFP issuance on Aug. 3 and a 60-day time frame for submissions.

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) began deliberations on the amendment by saying that he appreciated Anglin’s motives, saying that they were “well served.” But he reminded his colleagues that this was an RFP process and that removing the dates reflected a non-standard way of moving forward. Having dates certain ensured that everyone had the same amount of time to respond to the proposal, Rapundalo said. He echoed Smith’s view that the process really did open the door wide to anything and everything that someone might propose. He said that once the RFP process was finished that it was reasonable to expect that there would be some kind of public review of proposals. He characterized the RFP processes that he’d been a part of over the years as “very deliberate.” Rapundalo concluded that he would not be supporting the amendment.

Anglin then challenged his fellow councilmembers to describe what the public input to date had been on the subject. A longish pause ensued.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) responded to Anglin by saying that the community had been talking about the downtown for six years. Over the years, she said, they’d talked about what might happen to the parcel if it were ever developed: There’d been ideas about selling the parcel, and they’d heard from groups about making it into a park; they’d heard a proposal to put an ice rink there; and it’d had been discussed as a possible location for the municipal center. During that whole period, Higgins said, they’d heard many different ideas about what should happen on the lot.

What they had not yet heard, she allowed, was council saying that they would like to hear from everybody, and that’s what this RFP process was about.

[Analysis: Here Higgins acknowledged that there'd been a lot of talk by a lot of people, but never a specific directed process meant to achieve some specific design proposal. It could have been used as a common ground gambit, but was mostly missed in subsequent deliberations by Anglin, Rapundalo and Leigh Greden. Higgins' characterization allowed that there'd been a lot of discussion up to now (which occupied subsequent focus by Greden and Rapundalo) but none as specifically directed and as wide open as this one they were about to contemplate – the only part that Anglin focused on.]

“We are not saying that it is a done deal,” Higgins stressed. She allowed that people had heard there was a group who had convinced the council that the parcel should be used for a conference center. She’d also heard from greenway advocates that the parcel could become another park area. She’d heard the mayor advocate for a very long time that he would like to see an ice skating rink downtown as a part of any project that might be done there.

Part of this proposed process, Higgins emphasized, was to say that there were no particular criteria that they were looking for. She said she was hoping for lots of different ideas to be proposed. The proposals would all go forward for review by the committee, she said, which would include citizens. That, she declared, would start the public process. She concluded that it was the most wide-open RFP process that she had ever seen the city council do.

Higgins said that if, after 60 days, the city administrator reported that they had received no proposals, then the council could easily extend the time frame.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) and Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) read through an amendment by Mike Anglin (Ward 5).

Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) weighed in by saying that it was not a question of whether to have public participation but rather when. Once council had a series of proposals, he said – with different themes and with different uses for that property – then it was appropriate to have public input as to which one might be picked. Restricting the process of beginning, he said, would simply choke off the flow of potential alternatives. He stressed that council should wait and see what proposals they received, noting that the public input on the proposals was going to be incredible in any case. “It’s a question of what you choose from,” Derezinski concluded.

Leigh Greden (Ward 3) said he agreed with the idea of some additional public process associated with the site, and that the question was when and in what form. He allowed that he did not know if he had a position on the “when” question– is it after the bids come in, or is it earlier in the process?

Greden said he wanted to point out that there had been extensive public process already to date on this particular site. Greden appealed to the historical record of a resolution passed in November of 2007 in which council had talked about the development of the area above what could eventually become the future underground parking garage.

The language of that resolution, which authorized the DDA to design and construct the underground parking garage, was quoted subsequently in deliberations by Stephen Rapundalo:

… Whereas, The land above an underground parking garage on the South Fifth Avenue lot could be used in the near future to support new residential, retail, and/or office development and open space for public use, thus increasing the number of downtown residents, employees, and visitors, increasing the tax base, creating jobs, and enhancing the experience of being downtown; and …

… Be it further resolved … the underground parking garage shall be designed to support above ground, in the short-term, surface public parking, and in the long-term, development which could include, but is not limited to, a residential, retail, and/or office building(s) and a public plaza;

Citizens had come and spoken at public comment on that, Greden said. In the process of the DDA designing the garage, Greden noted that the DDA had coordinated public activities to help design the underground garage itself and also to explore the question of what might go above the site. A second resolution, Greden said, had been passed in early 2008 that shows similar conversations were conducted.

While he agreed with the idea that there should be additional public input, Greden said that the language of the amendment was “too vague.” “Public meetings – what does that mean? How many?” he asked. Greden also allowed that the dates and times proposed in the original resolution (Aug. 3 and 60 days) might be too strict, but agreed with Rapundalo that there should be dates of some kind. He said he’d be open to an amendment of the dates but would not support eliminating them completely. He concluded that he would not support the amendment as written.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) said that over the years there had been a significant amount of input from the public that had been specific to the site. However, he felt that some additional public input would be useful. Having no deadline, he cautioned, was not constructive for the process. Hohnke wanted to know what was meant by having “a financial return to the city,” but he was advised by Mayor John Hieftje that he needed to focus the amendment – which did not include that phrase.

Anglin, advised by Hieftje that this would be his last speaking turn without a suspension of council rules, contended that there had been no public input specifically on the library lot. The DDA, he said, had done “invite only” meetings. He then said he believed that the financing was not yet in place for what was to go below or on top, saying that it was not a done deal. And he then introduced a phrase that caused momentary confusion by saying that he would be calling for a “voice vote” on the issue – subsequently Hieftje would clarify that the intended term was “roll call vote.”

Anglin then admonished his colleagues that voting no on the amendment meant that they didn’t want the public to say anything more about this. Zeroing in on a previous mention of public process on the library lot as having begun with the Calthorpe process, Anglin declared: “And this nonsense of saying that we started this at Calthorpe, that is erroneous.” Anglin then contended that the cost of the underground parking structure was 25% greater than it needed to be, because the city council had already planned to put something on top of it. “The public has not been consulted. So tell the public that you don’t want them to vote on something that is so important to them.”

Anglin said that he was certainly happy to change the dates and that conversation could happen once it was determined there would be public input.

If Anglin had been blunt, then Rapundalo was equally so: “With all due respect to councilmember Anglin, I think a lot of what you allude to is, quite frankly, in your own words, ‘nonsense.’” Rapundalo stated that the Calthorpe process had been fully open to anybody and everybody and not limited to select groups. He noted the example that Greden had previously cited was a resolution that passed on the public record. Based on that resolution, Rapundalo concluded: “We are in no way limiting what could be there.”

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) explaining that before asking the public to weigh in he felt there needed to be something "in hand" to show them.

Rapundalo related the timing of the solicitation of public input to having something specific for the public to evaluate: “I don’t have a problem going out to the public for their input. I’d like to have something in hand, and right now we have nothing.” Rapundalo reiterated that timelines are fairly standard for RFPs, then concluded with: “If you’re not up to speed on this, go back and do some homework on what has transpired at this body for years on end.”

Higgins then asked the city administrator, Roger Fraser, if the timelines were too restrictive. Fraser replied that he had provided input on the resolution and that he felt that it was doable to prepare the RFP by Aug. 3. Fraser characterized the 60 days as “tight but doable.”

Margie Teall (Ward 4) reported that at the last partnerships committee meeting of the DDA there had been discussion of putting the RFP out more widely, possibly on a national level. A longer timeframe, she said, might allow for something like that.

Greden analyzed Anglin’s reference to a roll call vote as an implication that councilmembers should be ashamed to vote no on the amendment. Greden said that he thought the amendment was a “poor proposal.” “It’s vague,” he said. Anglin’s proposal didn’t have any parameters for time, Greden said, but he allowed that Aug. 3 and 60 days were probably too strict – he would entertain some alternative proposal. He said he agreed that a proposal for some kind of specific public process might be useful before the RFP is issued – that was a fair debate, he allowed. Because the amendment lacked sufficient detail, he said, “I look forward to casting my vote on the record against this amendment and would happily entertain any alternatives that someone else at the table has to address those issues.”

[Link to a column: "How a Skilled Politician Plays Chess"]

Councilmember Sabra Briere (Ward 1) identified the points of commonality around the table, focusing on the willingness of several people to discuss different dates as well as an agreement that there should be a public process. Councilmembers then thrashed through amendments to Anglin’s amendment at the level of wording differences like “determining public opinion” versus “soliciting public opinion.” There was constructive input from many around the table. One example was from Higgins, who warned that the explicit inclusion of a provision for public input might imply that the usual practice was not to have public input. The final draft reconstructed by The Chronicle:

RESOLVED: That the committee conduct a public meeting to solicit public input, consistent with usual practice.

At this point, the Aug. 3 date had been left intact, and the 60-day window was extended to 90 days.

The roll call vote on Anglin’s amended amendment resulted in unanimous approval.

Greden then proposed delaying the date for issuance of the RFP by a month. Subsequent deliberations, which included an invitation by Smith to Susan Pollay, executive director of the DDA, to offer her perspective, resulted in an Aug. 14 date for the issuance of the RFP.

Hohnke then returned to the issue of the phrasing “financial return to the city.” He asked if the intention was that it required there to be a profit or rather that any proposal be at least revenue neutral. Higgins indicated that a proposal yielding profit was fine but that a revenue-neutral proposal would also be fine.

In summing up the deliberations, Hieftje said that a challenge facing the city council was the question of when public input should be solicited. On the one hand, he said, council strived to get public input as early as possible. On the other hand, in his experience, the public generally wanted something to react to, and that without something concrete for the public to consider, there was the risk that some members of the public would feel like their time is being wasted.

Outcome: The resolution passed unanimously as amended.

Planning: A2D2 Rezoning Package

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Public Commentary on A2D2 Rezoning

Bruce Thomson: Thomson owns property on the north side of East Huron Street. He noted that it had long been zoned as C2AR, so the idea that it was being “changed” to D1 was not accurate, he said. He noted that the currently proposed zoning as a part of A2D2 included a height limit that was 30 feet lower than the rest of downtown [150 compared to 180 feet], plus had a requirement of increased setbacks. He said he felt the proposal was a good compromise and reflected some good hard work. [Thomson's remarks came in the context of a relatively recent effort by residents of nearby tall buildings to see Thomson's property zoned D2 under the new ordinance, which would limit future building heights to 60 feet.]

Jerald Lax: Lax introduced himself as Thomson’s attorney and offered comment on a communication from a Michigan Department of Transportation employee that had been sent to the city related to the proposed D1 zoning on Huron Street. He cautioned that the letter had been elicited by the residents of a nearby tall building who did not wish to see another tall building built on Thompson’s property. He noted that the zoning designation that had been in place for decades – C2AR – allowed for unlimited height. He also noted that the property already had curb cuts.

John Etter: Etter said that he was the one who had provided information to MDOT and it had come as a surprise to him that MDOT had not been consulted in the context of the rezoning effort in Ann Arbor.

Bob Snyder: Snyder reminded councilmembers that they had received communications from a variety of sources and neighborhood groups recently on the subject of the A2D2 zoning ordinance that was on their agenda. He said there was overall support for the effort, which had included a lot of hard effort over several years. However, Snyder reported a certain anxiety over last-minute compromises that might take place without going back the citizens. He stressed that after five years of involvement in public process, the groups he’s involved with generally approved of the Downtown Plan, the Central Area Plan, and the DDA Renewal Plan of 2003. They supported the new zoning ordinances, but only in the context of the Downtown Plan plus a context-based design process. “Consistency is what we looking for,” he said. Snyder was critical of a last-minute attempt to increase the mass of buildings in the downtown.

Council Deliberations on A2D2

In response to the question raised during public commentary, Wendy Rampson, the city’s interim director for planning services, was asked to explain what the nature of the consultation had been with MDOT. Rampson noted that the communication conveyed to city council had come via MDOT’s Brighton service area. She noted that in addition to the Brighton office, the city of Ann Arbor dealt with MDOT via the Washtenaw Area Transportation Study (WATS). She indicated that she had given a presentation to that group in December of 2008 and in January of this year.

Rampson noted that the current zoning is similar to the zoning that is now proposed. She indicated that traffic would be addressed on a site-by-site basis.

The effort to increase building mass – to which Bob Snyder had referred in his public commentary – was rooted in a resolution passed by the DDA at its June 3 meeting. In relevant part, that resolution reads:

Given that City Council has resolved to impose building height limits in D1 and D2, the DDA respectfully recommends that if 33% or more of a floor of structured parking required by the zoning ordinance is being constructed within a development, the remaining parking needed to complete a floor of parking should not be calculated as part of the building’s FAR.

• We recommend that the ratio for residential premiums be restored to a 1 to 1 proportion as is current zoning.
• Now that a height limit has been established in the D1, we recommend that the by right zoning in the D1 be increased to 500%.
• Further, to increase the community benefits of new buildings, we recommend that the FAR with
  premiums be increased to 900%, and with affordable housing to 1,100%.

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) indicated he didn’t have enough information on the interpretation of the suggestions that had been made by the DDA regarding building mass. He therefore asked for a two-week postponement in order to query staff. After confirming that the postponement would be to a date certain in two weeks, Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) said that council would still be able to take care of rezoning in time for the Sept. 14 joint working session with the planning commission on design guidelines.

Outcome: The first reading of the A2D2 zoning ordinance package was postponed until the July 20, 2009 meeting.

More Planning: R4C/R2 Zoning District Study Committee

As an amendment to the resolution to appoint an R4C and R2A zoning district study advisory committee, Leigh Greden (Ward 3) moved that the R2A district be eliminated from consideration, saying that it unnecessarily burdened the committee members and city staff.

Tony Derezinski (Ward 2), who serves as city council’s representative to the planning commmission, appealed to a resolution from October 15, 2007 that specifically referenced the need to review both the R2A and the R4C districts. The idea, he said, was to do the review comprehensively: “Here’s the thing: Get it done!”

Higgins elicited from Jayne Miller, director of community services for the city, some of the rationale for consideration of the two districts together. First, these two districts represented the last classifications that planning staff needed to review in order to complete their comprehensive look at zoning for the whole city. R4C is more dense than R2A – R4C is multi-family housing, which also includes group housing, she explained. R2A is single- and two-family dwellings.

The idea, Miller said, was not to replace one zoning district with the other. The idea was that they should be considered together because there are many places, especially in the central area, where the two zoning classifications abutted each other. Higgins concluded that it would not be prudent to look at the zoning classifications separately, given their close geographic proximity, especially in this area.

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) said he could appreciate the view of geographic primacy, but he felt that the designations were sufficiently distinct that they could be teased apart analytically. Sabra Briere acknowledged that it was important to analyze the two districts separately. But she noted that she herself lived in an R2A district, whereas her neighbors lived in R4C. She noted that her street was not unique in that the two districts were interwoven. She concluded the two kinds of district should both be within the purview of the study committee.

Outcome: The resolution to appoint the review committee passed with dissent from both Ward 3 councilmembers, Greden and Taylor.

More and More Planning: Possible Moratorium in R4C

During Mike Anglin’s (Ward 5) communications to council, he announced that he would be bringing forward at the council’s next meeting, on July 20, a resolution to establish a moratorium on all demolitions, rezoning, and all new developments that require site plan approval within the R4C and R2A districts, effective immediately.

Anglin indicated that the city attorney’s office was working on the language of such a resolution. The moratorium, said Anglin, would extend for a period of six months in conjunction with the study and possible revision of zoning ordinances pertaining to those districts. Anglin said that one of the goals was to bring the zoning ordinances in line with the Central Area Plan, which was adopted in 1992.

It was supposed to be ready in draft form by Thursday (July 9). In his report to the planning commission on Tuesday, July 6, Tony Derezinski – the council’s representative to that body – alerted the planning commission to Anglin’s intended resolution, concluding: “I don’t know how much support he’ll get.”

Even More Planning: Preserving First & William as Open Space

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Public Commentary on First & William

Margaret Wong: Wong said that although she was affiliated with the Greenway Conservancy and the Friends of The Greenway, she was there to speak as a citizen. She said that she was encouraged by the resolution on the council’s agenda that would establish the First & William parking lot as open space, but noted that it was just the first step. She noted that there were specific concrete actions that need to be completed, which included seeking funds for the remediation, revising the mutually beneficial parking agreement with the DDA, and rezoning the land. She noted, however, that there was a crucial need to classify the parcel as parkland. She encouraged council to expedite all of these concrete steps.

Rita Mitchell: Mitchell said that she’d been working with Margaret Wong on the Greenway for a long time and she welcomed Mayor Hieftje and councilmember Hohnke to the effort. Mitchell echoed Wong’s sentiment that it is a first step. She noted the benefits deriving from turning the parcel into a park: flood risk mediation, and improvement of water quality. She stressed the need to make sure that this parcel becomes the first in a chain and to make sure that it is more than just a green space on a piece of paper.

Council Deliberations on First & William

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) began deliberations with a friendly amendment of the resolution he co-sponsored with John Hieftje, which confirmed Margaret Wong’s view – reported previously in The Chronicle’s analysis and expressed during public commentary – that the Park Advisory Commission needed to designate the parcel as parkland in its Parks, Recreation & Open Space (PROS) plan. The amendment directed the commission to add the parcel to its PROS plan.

Outcome: The resolution passed unanimously.

Yep, More Planning: Walgreen Site Plan Approval

Dave Prueter: Prueter, with Agree Realty, appeared at the podium to indicate that he was present and available to answer any questions along with Marc Levy, the owner of the property.

John Lagos: Lagos, who is an adjoining property owner, asked the council to maintain the requirement that an easement be granted to allow ingress and egress. The easement, he said, should be granted prior to the issuance of any permits.

Thomas Partridge: Partridge told the council that any site plan should require the consideration of access for people with disabilities. In particular he cited the need to require access to public transportation riders. He cited the case of the recent eviction of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority from the Arborland shopping plaza as an example illustrating why a necessary requirement of any site plan should include such access.

During deliberations, Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) clarified with staff that the easements mentioned by Lagos were in place to be granted in a manner that seemed acceptable to all sides.

Outcome: The resolution passed unanimously.

Fee Adjustments for Historic District Commission

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) gave the background for the resolution, which included the fact that application fees for a historic district permit had increased from $50 to $500 as a part of the recently passed budget by the city council. Briere noted that the fee increase had not been a part of the budget book circulated to councilmembers. Instead, she said that it had been provided in a packet that had been sent the day before they had voted.

The resolution changed the rules so that all application fees would be $40 until September, and directed city staff to develop a sliding fee schedule. Briere noted that it made little sense to charge a $500 application fee to someone who wanted to install a new door that might cost $100-$150. The fee schedule, Briere said, should not encourage residents to avoid going before the Historic District Commission.

Outcome: Passed unanimously.

Revised Park Advisory Commission Bylaws

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) thanked the city attorney’s office, in particular Kevin McDonald, for assistance in “getting into the weeds” with the review of PAC bylaws. There was a brief discussion about the fact that city council representatives to the Park Advisory Commission were non-voting members. Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) noted that a similar situation applied in the case of the housing commission and the cable commission. Anglin said that he was surprised at the last Park Advisory Commission meeting that some members said they did not want councilmembers to have a vote on the commission.

Outcome: Passed unanimously.

Greenbelt Advisory Commission

Laura Rubin, who is chair of the Greenbelt Advisory Commission, gave a presentation outlining progress to date on land protection activity and provided an update on some changes in their strategic plan. Rubin said that 12 deals had been closed that protected 1,321 acres of land. The city itself, she said, had invested around $10 million, which had been matched by almost $9 million – in federal funds, funds from surrounding townships that had also passed a similar greenbelt millage, Washtenaw County, as well as landowner donations.

She reported the fund balance at around $6 million. Each year the millage generates around $1 million, she said. The focus to date on land protection had been in the area north of the city. Rubin, who is also executive director of the Huron River Watershed Council, said that no land had yet been acquired on the Huron River itself, but that land on its tributaries had been protected with millage funds.

Rubin said there had been a change in the commission’s approach due to the overall economy. Whereas the commission previously had a real sense of urgency with the need possibly to pay top dollar to protect land, the market has slowed so there’s less need to act quickly.

In terms of general strategy, Rubin reported that the commission was placing a new priority on local food markets. Previously, land parcels greater than 40 acres had enjoyed a higher score on the metric used by the commission to evaluate parcels. Now, however, Rubin said that the commission had lightened its emphasis on matching funds when it came to smaller parcels that could be used for growing local food.

Leigh Greden (Ward 3) confirmed with Rubin that the dollars invested by the city had so far been matched on a roughly 1-1 ratio with other funds. Sandi Smith (Ward 1) asked Rubin to speak to the new strategy of a local food focus, asking if it was related to the scale or if the emphasis was on organic food production.

Rubin clarified that it is the scale of the operation that is at issue. She said the new strategy is intended to provide that parcels of 5-10 acres were also suitable candidates for protection under the greenbelt millage. Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) asked Rubin to clarify how easements are being handled for the smaller parcels. Rubin clarified that some of the easement language is more restrictive for investments that are matched by federal grants.

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) wanted to know whether the new emphasis on local food production amounted to a material change in scoring outcomes for parcels. Rubin clarified that there are still many other factors in the scoring metric used to assess suitability of protecting a particular parcel. But she said that the 40-acre threshold used to get quite a bit of weight. Rubin allowed that it amounted to an expansion of eligible properties.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) was curious about what Rubin had meant by “going it alone” in the case of protecting some of the smaller parcels. Rubin clarified that it might well be that the city of Ann Arbor could be the only purchaser of development rights for some of the smaller parcels. If a parcel is less than 40 acres, she said, then the federal government cannot be a partner.

Higgins noted that this represented a policy shift, saying that it had always been the intended policy that the city of Ann Arbor would never be the sole purchaser. She stated, “I’ll have a conversation with you off-line.” Higgins explained that she was not sure if there had been a public enough discussion on this shift in policy.

Public Art Commission Annual Report: Dreiseitl

Margaret Parker, chair of the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission, gave an annual report to the Ann Arbor city council during the agenda’s introductions section. Parker said that in the commission’s first year it had designated the new municipal center as the focus for public art projects and had convened a task force to identify such projects in connection with the center’s construction. That work had begun in August of 2008, she said.

In February of 2009 the commission had hired a half-time administrator, Parker reported. She noted that the DDA had set up its own Percent for Art program and that the Fourth & William parking structure addition had generated funds that could be spent on public art. The DDA had designated the Public Art Commission as the body to allocate those funds but had not included any funds for administration, Parker said. She characterized the coordination between the two bodies – the city’s public art commission and the DDA – as “still being determined.”

Parker said that one half-time person would be able to accomplish not more than one major project per year. She announced that on July 20 Herbert Dreiseitl would be visiting Ann Arbor and that from 4-5 p.m. on that day he’d be presenting proposed designs for the storm water art to be installed at the new municipal center. Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) inquired of Parker where the commission was currently getting its administrative help.Parker said that 8% of the money generated through the Percent for Art program goes to fund administration. She said that the city attorney’s office had been very helpful with legal concerns and that Sue McCormick, who is director of public services with the city, had also provided support.

Any arrangement with the DDA, Parker said, still needed to be clarified. “The DDA has their own way of doing things,” she concluded.

Airport Runway Expansion

Since the beginning of the year, public commentary at most, if not all, Ann Arbor city council meetings has included remarks on the proposed runway expansion at the Ann Arbor municipal airport.

Kathe Wunderlich: Wunderlich spoke against the proposed runway extension at the Ann Arbor municipal airport. She said that she wanted to correct some errors that had appeared in an Ann Arbor News article about a plane that had landed on the Stonebridge golf course recently. She stressed that the runway would be lengthened by 950 feet and that planes taking off from an airport took off directly over Stonebridge. She warned that the citizens advisory committee appointed in connection with the environmental review was loaded with Ann Arbor citizens and was therefore biased. She told city council that they would be asked to approve the runway extension without a safety study by the city, the state, or the Federal Aviation Administration. She noted that the Willow Run airport is just 6 miles away.

Miscellaneous Roundup

Two concerns leftover from the adoption of the FY 2010 budget were addressed formally: a Senior Center task force was appointed, and a task force to create a self-sustaining financial plan for Mack Pool was created.

Finally, a liquor license for the new Tios location on Liberty Street was approved.

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

Absent: none.

Next Council Meeting: Monday, July 20, 2009 at 7 p.m. in council chambers, 2nd floor of the Guy C. Larcom, Jr. Municipal Building, 100 N. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]