Matt Naud, Ann Arbor's environmental coordinator, moderated a panel discussion on resource management – the topic of the first in a series of four sustainability forums, all to be held at the Ann Arbor District Library. (Photos by the writer.)

It was the first of four public forums, and part of a broader sustainability initiative that started informally nearly two years ago, with a joint meeting of the city’s planning, environmental and energy commissions. The idea is to help shape decisions by looking at a triple bottom line: environmental quality, economic vitality, and social equity.

In early 2011, the city received a $95,000 grant from the Home Depot Foundation to fund a formal sustainability project. The project’s main goal is to review the city’s existing plans and organize them into a framework of goals, objectives and indicators that can guide future planning and policy. Other goals include improving access to the city’s plans and to the sustainability components of each plan, and to incorporate the concept of sustainability into city planning and future city plans.

In addition to city staff, this work has been guided by volunteers who serve on four city advisory commissions: Park, planning, energy and environmental. Many of those members attended the Jan. 12 forum, which was held at the downtown Ann Arbor District Library.

The topics of the forums reflect four general themes that have been identified to shape the sustainability framework: Resource management; land use and access; climate and energy; and community. The Jan. 12 panel on resource management was moderated by Matt Naud, the city’s environmental coordinator. Panelists included Laura Rubin, executive director of the Huron River Watershed Council (and a member of the city’s greenbelt advisory commission); Kerry Gray, the city’s urban forest and natural resource planning coordinator; Jason Tallant of the city’s natural area preservation program; Tom McMurtrie, Ann Arbor’s solid waste coordinator, who oversees the city’s recycling program; and Chris Graham, chair of the city’s environmental commission.

Dick Norton, chair of the University of Michigan urban and regional planning program, also participated by giving an overview of sustainability issues and challenges that local governments face. [The university has its own sustainability initiative, including broad goals announced by president Mary Sue Coleman last fall.]

The Jan. 12 forum also included opportunities for questions and comments from the audience. That commentary covered a wide range of topics, from concerns over Fuller Road Station and potential uses for the Library Lot, to suggestions for improving the city’s recycling and composting programs. Even the issue of Argo Dam was raised. The controversy over whether to remove the dam spiked in 2010, but abated after the city council didn’t vote on the question, thereby making a de facto decision to keep the dam in place.

Naud said he’s often joked that the only sure way to get 100 people to come to a meeting is to say the topic is a dam – but this forum had proven him wrong. The city is interested in hearing from residents, he said: What sustainability issues are important? How would people like to be engaged in these community discussions?

The forum was videotaped by AADL staff and will be posted on the library’s website. Additional background on the Ann Arbor sustainability initiative is on the city’s website. See also Chronicle coverage: “Building a Sustainable Ann Arbor,” and an update on the project given at the November 2011 park advisory commission meeting.

Sustainability & Resource Management: Setting the Stage

Dick Norton, chair of the University of Michigan urban and regional planning program, began the panel presentation by saying that he’d been asked to talk about the big picture concepts related to these themes, and challenges that local governments face in dealing with them. He emphasized that the concept of sustainability encompasses more than just the environment, but that this first forum would focus on environmental issues.

Dick Norton, chair of the University of Michigan urban and regional planning program, and a member of the Huron River Watershed Council executive committee.

Norton gave a brief overview of possible ways to think about attributes of a clean environment, related to topics that would be discussed by panelists. For air and water quality, it’s important that those resources are unpolluted, available in sufficient quantity, and that residents have adequate access. Viable ecosystems are one way to provide clean air and water, he said. Ecosystems provide filtering functions, and are a source of biodiversity – we suffer if we homogenize our environmental base, he said. Ecosystems also provide an aesthetic quality, making places pleasant to live.

Regarding responsible resource use, Norton pointed to the three Rs: Reduce, reuse, recycle. Recycling is good, he said, but reuse is better and reducing is the best approach to responsible resource use. It’s also important to think about the waste stream, and how waste can be used as input for new systems. Composting is one example of that.

Norton then outlined four challenges that local governments face when dealing with these issues. The first is factual uncertainty. The world is complex, and there is a great amount of scientific uncertainty. That gives people ammunition to argue against environmental protection, he said. There’s uncertainty over when a substance becomes pollution, for example. Carbon dioxide or arsenic are common elements – at what amounts do those elements become pollutants? Another uncertainty relates to resource depletion. The environment is a resilient receptor, Norton said – it can take a lot of shock to its system. But at what point does disruption and depletion of resources become too great? That uncertainty makes it difficult for government to act, he said.

Moral disagreements are another challenge for governments, Norton said. Is nature a form of sacred life, or just toilet paper on a stump? Should nature be preserved at the expense of jobs? And who gets to decide? Norton said he tells his students that if you have a collaborative planning process, you’ll encounter a plurality of values. That’s a challenge.

Capacity problems – both legal and financial – are also an issue, Norton said. Local governments are creatures of the state, he said, and can only do what the state enables them to do by law. A lot of local officials are reticent to undertake proactive environmental protection, but they have a lot more capacity to act than they think, he contended.

Regarding fiscal capacity, Norton noted that financial resources are highly strained, and there’s a sentiment that local governments can’t afford this “sustainability stuff.” But Norton argued that energy efficiency, for example, is often less expensive in the long term, though it usually requires a higher upfront investment. He encouraged officials to make decisions based on a longer timeframe.

The final challenge Norton cited is a category he called “unhappy propensities” – localism, parochialism and inertia. Localism is the attitude that “we get to decide,” he said. Parochialism is the belief that if something is happening outside of our borders, we don’t need to worry about it. That works if the problems are downstream, but not so much if it’s an upstream problem headed our way.

Then there’s the challenge of inertia: We’ve always done it this way, so why change? Norton noted that sustainability is a different way of looking at things, and that means change. Ann Arbor is stepping out in front of other communities, Norton said, and is pushing these boundaries. He encouraged a broader perspective, looking at decisions as they fit into a bigger system.

Water Resources: Protecting the Huron River

Laura Rubin, executive director of the Huron River Watershed Council, began by describing the history of HRWC. The nonprofit was founded in 1965 by 17 communities along the Huron River who were concerned about protecting this water resource. They knew they couldn’t just look at it from the perspective of where the river flowed through their individual jurisdictions.

Sometimes people overlook the value of the watershed, Rubin said. In addition to providing drinking water, the river also is an asset for recreation, property values, wildlife habitat and stormwater control. The watershed – including the Huron River and its tributaries – is arguably the region’s largest natural feature.

Laura Rubin, executive director of the Huron River Watershed Council.

The Huron River is the only river in southeast Michigan that’s a state-designated “natural river.” The designation affords the river special protections, she said, related to development and vegetation. The watershed also is protected by strong local and regional regulations and partnerships, Rubin said, citing the Huron Clinton Metropolitan Authority as one example.

The watershed offers a wealth of recreational and fishing opportunities, Rubin said, and provides a habitat to threatened and endangered wildlife, including the northern madtom, the snuffbox mussel, the prairie fringed orchid, the least shrew, and the massasauga rattlesnake.

But although the Huron River is the cleanest urban river in Michigan, she said, there are also problems. Many sections are classified as “impaired,” based on the inability to meet certain uses, like swimming or fishing, as laid out in the federal Clean Water Act. Two major problems are excess levels of phosphorus and E. coli – a problem that’s especially common in urban areas, Rubin said. Sources for E. coli include animal and human feces, which can be discharged into the river from wastewater or sewer overflow during storms.

Other problems causing the impaired classification relate to sediment, erratic flows, low dissolved oxygen, mercury and PCBs.

Rubin outlined several broader threats to the area’s water resources. The region, sandwiched between the urban areas of Detroit and Lansing, has lost many of its natural areas, she said. Ann Arbor itself has become more urbanized, which has contributed to the loss of habitat, as well as to pollution, warmer temperatures and erratic flows.

Hydrologic changes are another threat. The river has 97 documented dams, Rubin said, and this changes flow patterns tremendously. It leads to the loss of wetlands, causes sedimentation, and alters the way that the ecosystem functions.

Rubin also identified “non-point” source pollution as a threat to the watershed. As rain falls onto roofs, into gutters, and onto roads, it collects pollutants that eventually flow into the river. That’s the No. 1 cause of water pollution in the U.S., she said.

A variety of tools are used to address these issues, Rubin said, including watershed-wide partnerships, data that’s collected and analyzed, advocacy and education. Due to efforts by the watershed council and the University of Michigan, the Huron is one of the best studied rivers in Michigan, she said.

The watershed council pushes people to do more to protect the river, Rubin said. Staff and volunteers work on water-quality monitoring, for example, as well as an adopt-a-stream program, which includes data collection and experiential learning.

There’s value in having “eyes on the river,” Rubin concluded. Among other things, it enables the long-term tracking of trends, and provides a scientific basis to advocate for local and state protection policies.

Following Rubin’s presentation, Matt Naud asked the audience a trivia question: How many cities use the Huron River for their drinking water? Just one – Ann Arbor, he said. That’s why the city cares about its upstream partners.

Solid Waste: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Tom McMurtrie, the city’s solid waste coordinator, began by saying that recycling is one of the most effective things that people can do to reduce their carbon footprint. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified Ann Arbor as one of the nation’s top recycling communities, he said. So how did the city get to this point?

From left: Kerry Gray, Ann Arbor's urban forest & natural resource planning coordinator; Jason Tallant of the city's natural area preservation program; and Tom McMurtrie, solid waste coordinator.

In the 1970s, the city brought curbside recycling to every home in the city, McMurtrie said. Back then, recycling required more work – residents had to separate green glass from brown glass, cardboard from newspapers. It reminded him of a favorite New Yorker cartoon: “Recycling in Hell.”

In 1991 the city introduced two-stream recycling. And every multi-family building was added, which doubled participation. The city built a sorting facility at the location of the current drop-off site.

Then in 2010, McMurtrie said, the city moved to another level of recycling: single stream. New plastics were added to the list of recyclables, and new carts with radio-frequency tags were deployed, which allowed single-family homes to record their recycling and be eligible for a rewards program.

In mid-2010, a $3.5 million overhaul was completed to the city’s materials recovery facility – known as the MRF (pronounced “murf”)– at 4150 Platt Road. Overall tonnages of recyclables have tripled, he said, with materials coming from as far away as Toledo and Lansing. Four new hybrid recycling trucks were purchased, which use less fuel.  Four more hybrid trucks will likely be added in 2012, he said.

McMurtrie also pointed to the concepts of “reduce” and “reuse.” His suggestions included shopping for fresh food at the farmers market, where less packaging is used, and using reusable bags whenever possible. About two years ago, the city also added the option of including food waste in its composting program, he noted. Every pound of food or yard waste that’s composted greatly reduces the burden on landfills, he said.

Showing images extracted from a core boring taken at the closed Ann Arbor landfill, McMurtrie noted that most materials in the landfill haven’t decomposed.

McMurtrie concluded by saying that the city is working on an update of its five-year solid waste plan, and he encouraged residents to participate by giving their input. The first meeting will be held on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012 from 4-6 p.m. in the 4th floor conference room in Larcom City Hall, 301 E. Huron. The meeting is open to the public.

Urban Forest Management

Kerry Gray, the city’s urban forest and natural resource planning coordinator, said that until recently, the city didn’t have a comprehensive understanding of its urban forest resources. In 2009, city staff finished an updated tree inventory, cataloging location and maintenance needs, among other things. The city has 42,776 street trees, 6,923 park trees (in mowed areas), and 7,269 potential street planting locations, she said.

Maintenance needs were also inventoried, with 1,642 trees identified as priority removals and 3,424 trees that needed priority pruning. An additional 43,271 trees needed routine pruning, and 1,362 stumps needed to be removed.

In 2010, the city completed an evaluation of its urban tree canopy, Gray reported. The canopy covers nearly 33% of the city. Of that, 46% is located in residential areas, 23.7% is in the city-owned right-of-way, and 22% is in recreational areas, such as parks. Compared to other cities, Ann Arbor’s tree canopy is average, she said.

Chart of tree diversity in Ann Arbor. (Links to larger image)

Gray addressed the issue of tree diversity, and said the city discourages the planting of maple trees, which account for 37% of the public tree population. ”Plant something other than a maple – that’s my take-away message,” she said.

Ann Arbor’s urban forest is a tremendous asset, Gray said. Public trees provide an estimated annual $2.8 million in benefits related to energy, property values, stormwater control, air quality and other benefits.

But in the past, there hasn’t been a management plan for the urban forest, unlike the city’s other assets, Gray said. So in 2010, city staff began developing an asset management plan, with the goal of maintaining the urban forest and maximizing its benefits. The city is doing a lot of public engagement related to this plan, she said – more information is online at a2.gov/urbanforestry.

Matt Naud added a coda to Gray’s presentation, noting that the city lost about 10,000 city street trees that were attacked by the emerald ash borer several years ago. The city spent over $2 million just to remove the trees, he said, and that doesn’t count what it cost residents for tree removal on private property. That’s why tree diversity is important – you don’t know what’s coming next, he said.

Natural Area Preservation

Jason Tallant of the city’s natural area preservation program (NAP) began his comments by showing a slide of the Furstenberg Nature Area – it’s the image he sees when he closes his eyes to think about the topic of sustainability, because it integrates the built environment with the native landscape.

NAP straddles the line between providing services for people, he said, and empowering them to preserve natural features in the city’s parkland and on their own property. He read NAP’s mission statement: “To protect and restore Ann Arbor’s natural areas and foster an environmental ethic among its citizens.”

Ann Arbor resident David Diephuis, center, talks with urban forester Kerry Gray, left, and Jason Tallant of the city's natural area preservation program.

A lot of sustainability practices are based on history, Tallant said, specifically what occurred prior to European settlement. He quoted from the 1836 land survey notes of John M. Gordon, who described the land between Ann Arbor and Dixboro: “Oaks of the circumference of 9-15 feet abound in the forests… White Oak and Burr Oak at intervals of 30-40 feet with an undergrowth 5-6’ high which has the appearance of being annually burnt down as I am informed it is.”

The history of the land is really important when thinking about how to move into the future, Tallant said. He showed a slide of the types of vegetation on land in the Ann Arbor area prior to settlement, and noted that much of the area had been covered by a mixed-oak or oak-hickory forests, with wetlands along the river. It wasn’t a monoculture, he noted, but rather a mixed environment, depending on topography, hydrology, soil type and other factors.

NAP facilitates restoration work in all of the city parks and natural areas, Tallant said. Their work includes conducting controlled burns, taking detailed inventories of the plants and animals within the city, and knowing what’s occurring in the landscape. They also do invasive species control, he said – when you see someone walking along with an orange-colored bag full of garlic mustard, they’re restoring the land so that its biodiversity isn’t diminished. That work helps create a resilient ecosystem, he said.

Outreach, Education

Chris Graham, chair of the city’s environmental commission, said he hoped that the previous speakers had given the audience an idea of the extraordinary things that Ann Arbor is doing related to sustainability. Residents should be very proud, he said.

Graham explained that the original “Ann’s arbor” was a grove of large burr oak trees – the “children” of those early oaks are obvious in the area near St. Andrew’s Church, he said, north of city hall. Underneath those oaks were roughly 300 species of plants that the native Indians burned every year.

Just a few decades ago, there were no regulations related to landmark trees, Graham noted. Controversies in the 1970s and ’80s, when development resulted in the removal of many of those trees, led to changes in Chapter 62 of the city code – what’s known as the natural features ordinance, Graham said. Ann Arbor stepped up courageously, he said, and added a natural features standard that must be met in order to gain site plan approval for any development.

What are natural features? Graham asked. His list includes woodlands, native forest fragments, some wetlands, waterways, and floodplains. Related to native forest fragments, Graham said there’s an idea hatching to develop a stewardship program, similar to the city’s natural area preservation program. The new program would look at native forest fragments in all parts of the city, including the University of Michigan and private land – the fabric of natural features knits itself across the city, he said. The plan would be to do outreach and education, so that property owners would know what’s in their back yards.

The children of trees that existed in the 1820s won’t last without help, Graham said. “Come join us in this endeavor.”

Questions & Comments

During the last portion of the forum, panelists fielded questions and commentary from the audience. This report summarizes the questions and presents them thematically.

Questions & Comments: Recycling

Question: Why doesn’t the city’s recycling program accept No. 3 plastics or biodegradable materials?

Tom McMurtrie noted that No. 3 plastics – made from polyvinyl chloride – are a significant contaminant if mixed with other plastics. The city needed to be responsible, he said, and fortunately there aren’t a lot of No. 3 products in the waste stream.

As for biodegradables, McMurtrie said that’s been a challenging issue. On the surface, it looks like a good idea, he said. However, research shows that biodegradable products break down into very small particulates that aren’t necessarily good for the environment. Most of the particulates are petroleum-based, he said, and end up staying in the environment in that form. The other issue is that if those particulates end up in the recycling stream, they act as contaminants.

Question: Are there plans to eventually accept post-consumer food waste? And how much contamination ends up in the compost stream?

McMurtrie fielded this question too, inviting the speaker to participate in the city’s solid waste plan update. This issue of post-consumer food waste will be explored, although there are some repercussions around that issue, he said. Regarding contamination in the compost stream, that hasn’t been a problem, McMurtrie said. The city switched to a private operator about a year ago, and it’s worked out well, he said. [At its Dec. 6, 2010 meeting, the city council approved contracting with WeCare Organics to operate the city's composting facility.]

Question: If reducing waste is really the goal, how will incentives be built into the program to achieve that goal? There are incentives to recycle, but how can the city encourage reduction?

McMurtrie called this a great question, and said that a simplistic approach might be to use a graduated fee system for trash collection – to charge more for large trash containers, and less for smaller ones. The city is already doing that to some extent, he said. Households that use 96-gallon trash containers pay a fee each year – $38 – while there’s no fee for 64-gallon or 32-gallon containers. Perhaps the city could incentivize more in that area.

Jeanine Palms asked city staff about whether there are plans to give incentives to residents for reducing their waste, not simply for recycling it.

Jeanine Palms, who had asked the original question, wondered if there was any way to charge for the actual amount of waste that a household produced. McMurtrie replied that it’s an option, but that city council has been hesitant to take that approach. It risks becoming a kind of regressive tax on low-income people with large families, he said.

Dick Norton weighed in, saying that the answer depends on what you want to reduce. Palms’ question and McMurtrie’s answer had focused on trash, he said, but there are other things that people consume, like energy, water and land. Urban planners try to design cities to create greater density and transportation systems so that people can live more compactly. The ways that cities are built out impacts how much people consume, he said.

Norton also pointed to research on the impact of monetizing behavior. One study looked at a daycare center, which started charging parents who showed up late to pick up their kids. The intent was to create a disincentive for people, and to eliminate the late pick-ups. But instead, more people started showing up late, Norton said. When a monetary amount was attached to that behavior, people decided it was worth the amount charged. So incentives can result in perverse outcomes, he noted.

We have to start changing our cultural expectations, Norton continued. We have to stop thinking about living the big life, then throwing it away later. And that’s a tougher nut to crack, he said.

Chris Graham pointed to another thing that could be reduced: Turf grass. The amount of energy, pollutants, time and effort that’s spent on maintaining lawns in the city is counterproductive when trying to achieve sustainability, he said.

Laura Rubin addressed the question from the perspective of water resources. She noted that the city has a graduated water rate structure, so that heavier users pay more. The Huron River Watershed Council have been holding focus groups on the issue of water conservation. Because water is plentiful in the Great Lakes region, the issue of saving water isn’t always compelling. It’s better to tie the issue to energy conservation, she said.

When people talk about reasons why they might want to save water, the knee-jerk answer is to save money, Rubin noted. But when asked, no one in the focus groups could report what their water bill is, she said. Rubin concluded by noting that while our culture seems to be driven by money and economics, other motivations are often at play.

Matt Naud pointed out that information on water consumption per household is available on the city’s website. Residents can get a lot of data about their water usage by typing in their address and water bill account number, he said.

Comment: Portland, Oregon, has mandated that residents compost their food waste – that’s a direction that Ann Arbor should be headed. Currently, compost pick-up in Ann Arbor runs from April through December. I still eat fruits and vegetables in the winter – compost pick-up should be year-round.

Matt Naud encouraged the speaker to participate in the city’s solid waste plan update, saying that this type of feedback is exactly the kind of thing the city needs to hear.

Question: I live in an apartment in order to be environmentally sound. When will food compost pick-up be available for multiple family dwellings? I now take my food scraps to friends who live outside the city and raise chickens. So there’s no lack of motivation.

Matt Naud again suggested that this kind of feedback would be useful for the city’s solid waste plan update. Tom McMurtrie said that most multi-family buildings can get compost carts. Requests can be made by calling 99-GREEN.

Questions & Comment: Air Quality – Fuller Road Station

Question: The proposed Fuller Road Station will be a parking structure with almost 1,000 spaces that will bring 1,o00 cars into an area near Fuller Pool and Fuller Park. It seems like this will affect the air quality along the Fuller Road corridor and the Huron River. It’s already a heavily used traffic corridor with a lot of emissions, and it seems like Fuller Road Station would really change the quality of air.

Matt Naud said he wasn’t sure if a formal air-quality study has been completed for the Fuller Road Station project. He offered to contact Eli Cooper, the city’s transportation program manager, and find out what’s being done or what the plan is.

Questions & Comment: Water Quality – Argo Dam

Comment: I was really surprised to see the number of dams along the Huron River. Fred Pearce wrote a book called “When the Rivers Run Dry.” He has almost nothing good to say about dams.

Laura Rubin noted that there are 97 documented dams along the Huron River – until recently there were 98, but one was removed in Dexter. Beyond that, there are at least 50 other dams that the Huron River Watershed Council has discovered while taking inventory for a new dam management tool it’s developing. A lot of the dams are connected to aging infrastructure, she noted – used at former wastewater treatment plants, or to generate electricity. Some dams have been retired from their original uses. Some are just piles of rubble.

Dams are very detrimental from an environmental point of view, Rubin said, but socially they can be very successful. They can have recreational value. For the Huron River, flood control isn’t a problem, so dams aren’t generally needed for that purpose, she said. A lot of river systems and social systems have been engineered, she noted, and it’s hard to change that mentality.

Dick Norton said the issue highlights the fact that “green” and “nature” don’t have the same meaning for everyone. Norton, who’s on the executive committee of the Huron River Watershed Council, noted that the council was involved in discussions about whether to remove Argo Dam, and it had been painful. [The watershed council advocated for dam removal.] A lot of people who would typically be on the same side of an environmental issue were on different sides of the Argo Dam issue, because they valued natural resources in different ways, he said. The debate was emblematic of issues that society struggles with, he added. Norton said he sympathizes with local officials, who get hammered by people on various sides of an issue.

Questions & Comment: Public Outreach

Comment: I’ve been a townie since 1967 – and have been to a lot of the concerts that are in the posters hanging around the room. [The concert posters were part of a retrospective organized by the Ann Arbor District Library called "Freeing John Sinclair."] Outreach needs to go much further.

My neighborhood is concerned about the Gelman 1,4 dioxane plume, and about property values. Very few of my neighbors are paying attention to other issues that were mentioned tonight. They don’t want taxes to go up, or property values to do down, and they don’t want to pay more for a trash cart. They need to understand sustainability issues in ways that make sense to them. I’d like to see more outreach.

Matt Naud acknowledged that outreach is a challenge. Funding for this kind of effort is one issue – many people who work on sustainability issues are funded by grants, and “that’s not sustainable,” he said.

Questions & Comment: Land Use, Natural Areas – Library Lot

Question: Will the city have a public conversation about the future use for the top of the new underground parking structure – the Library Lot? A lot of people would like to see a park or green space there. Is the city going to ask for ideas from the public?

Sabra Briere, Ward 1 city councilmember.

Matt Naud asked city councilmember Sabra Briere – the only elected city official who attended the forum – to comment.

Briere noted that early last fall, at the city council’s direction, the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority began to explore alternate uses of  the five city-owned parcels in downtown Ann Arbor. Those parcels include the Library Lot on South Fifth Avenue north of William; the former YMCA lot north of William between Fourth and Fifth avenues; the Palio lot at the northeast corner of Main and William; the Kline lot on Ashley north of William; and the bottom floor of the parking structure at Fourth and William.

This is a plan that hasn’t been developed yet, so no one can say what will happen, she said, but part of the plan will be to solicit public input. In the near term, she said, the Library Lot will be a surface parking lot, with trees planted. That’s not the long-term plan, she said. However, Briere added, no one knows how long the near-term will last.

Dick Norton commented that there’s a need to see how to make urban environments more green, but it’s also important to worry about maintaining farmland outside of the city. Development should go into already developed cities – it’s important to think about how to accommodate more people in urban areas so that large tracts of farmland and forest can be preserved outside of cities. It’s a difficult trade-off, he noted, especially because different jurisdictions are involved, and different perspectives. Residents of the city don’t want it to change and grow bigger, while farmers don’t want to be told that they can’t sell their land for development – in many cases, that’s their retirement plan.

But if the city wants to reduce energy and preserve farmland, turning the Library Lot into open space probably isn’t the best use for it. The site should probably be put to a more urban use, Norton said. It’s something to think about.

Matt Naud noted that at one of the future sustainability sessions, the city’s greenbelt program will likely be included. [Laura Rubin of the Huron River Watershed Council is a member of the city's greenbelt advisory commission, which oversees the greenbelt program. The program, funded by a 30-year millage, preserves farmland and open space outside of the city by acquiring property development rights.]

Comment: Some years ago, we dug out the grass on our lawn extension and replanted it with native plants – and we were ticketed by the city. The city needs to straighten out that disconnect.

Jason Tallant of the city’s natural areas preservation program applauded the planting of native plants in the easement. Some residents are putting in rain gardens or bioswales, which is great, he said. But the key point, he said, relates to public safety. If the plantings obstruct the view – of pedestrians using a crosswalk, for example – that’s a problem. That’s why the city enforces height restrictions on plants in the easement, he said. The thing to remember is “the right plant for the right place.” [The height restriction limits vegetation to an average height of 36 inches above the road surface.]

Questions & Comments: Future Forums

Question: It was interesting to hear about what the city is doing, but this forum didn’t match my expectations. I thought you’d have more opportunities for asking questions and engaging in dialogue. As I decide whether to attend future sessions, I wonder if the format will be the same?

This is an experiment, Matt Naud said. The first forum was intended to give people a taste of what the city is doing toward sustainability in different areas – city staff are never quite sure how much information is getting out, he said. The question is whether to hold longer sessions, to give the public more time to ask questions and give commentary, or to hold smaller focus sessions that take a deeper dive into these issues.

Naud said the city staff would like to hear what kind of format would be most effective – feedback forms were provided at the forum. Basically, if people want a certain kind of meeting and will attend it, the city will hold it, he said.

Naud said he’s held public meetings about the Gelman 1,4 dioxane issue and only a dozen people would come. It’s hard to know what issues will draw a turnout. He said he’s often joked that the only sure way to get 100 people to come to a meeting is to say the topic is a dam – but this forum has proven him wrong, he said. The city wants to know how people prefer to give feedback, and how this discussion should move forward, Naud said.

Future Forums

Three more forums in this sustainability series are planned. All forums will be held at the downtown Ann Arbor District Library building, 343 S. Fifth Ave. starting at 7 p.m.

• Feb. 9, 2012: Land Use and Access – including transportation designs, infrastructure, land uses, built environment, and public spaces.
• March 8, 2012: Climate and Energy – including an overview of Ann Arbor’s climate action plan, climate impacts, renewable and alternative energy, energy efficiency and conservation.
• April 12, 2012: Community – including housing, public safety, public art, recreation, outreach, civic engagement, and stewardship of community resources.

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From left: Earl Ophoff of Midwestern Consulting talks with Jeff Kahan of the city's planning staff about proposed changes at Traver Village. (Photos by the writer.)

The owner, First Martin Corp., plans to reconfigure retail space that the Blockbuster video store previously occupied, at the southern part of the complex near Plymouth Road, converting it into three smaller retail spaces.

Plans call for adding a new 25-space parking lot to serve that location, between the south side of the building and Plymouth. Elsewhere within the complex, 128 parking spaces will be removed – primarily in the northwest area behind the Kroger grocery. More bike spaces and landscaping are part of the plan as well, which was approved unanimously by commissioners after brief discussion. It will now be forwarded to the city council for consideration.

Communications during the 30-minute meeting included a reminder of a series of public forums on sustainability starting early next year. The first one, on Thursday, Jan. 12, will feature a panel of city staff on the topic of resource management. All forums will be held at the Ann Arbor District Library’s downtown building, 343 S. Fifth Ave., beginning at 7 p.m. It’s part of a broader sustainability initiative that began earlier this year, funded by a Home Depot Foundation grant.

Traver Village Site Plan

The only action item on Tuesday’s agenda was a site plan for changes at Traver Village, a shopping center owned by First Martin Corp. at 2601 Plymouth Road, on the northwest corner of Plymouth and Nixon.

The southern-most store in the complex, nearest to Plymouth Road, formerly housed a Blockbuster video outlet but has been vacant for more than a year. The owners plan to convert it into three smaller retail spaces, with entrances from the south side of the building. As part of that change, they want to build a new 25-space parking lot between the south side of the building and Plymouth.

In addition, the plan calls for removing 128 parking spaces in other parts of the site, mostly in the northwest area behind the Kroger grocery, where a shallow bio-retention area will be built instead. Other parking spots will be removed and replaced with landscaped islands. Overall, the number of parking spots will be reduced from 609 to 506 – closer to the city’s maximum parking requirement of 492 spots for that development, according to a staff report.

The site plan for changes at Traver Village indicate where parking will be added and removed. Plymouth Road runs along the right side of this map, with Nixon Road at the top. (Links to larger image.)

The new parking area will cover 9,530 square feet, but 16,334 square feet of impervious surface elsewhere in the complex will be eliminated. The result is a net reduction in impervious surface of 6,804 square feet. To build the new parking lot, 13 evergreen trees will be removed. The plan calls for planting 46 new trees, and adding new landscaping between the edge of the new parking lot and Plymouth Road.

More bike spaces will also be added. Currently there are 38 uncovered bike spaces throughout the complex. The plan calls for adding 22 covered bike spaces and 26 more uncovered spaces.

The staff report on this proposal notes that the developer is required to pay $3,075.15 into a street tree escrow account, to conform with Chapter 57 Attachment C of Ann Arbor’s city code. The escrow fund is for the planting and maintenance of trees on the public street right-of-way abutting a development. The fee must be paid before the city issues building permits.

Eric Ophoff of Midwestern Consulting and Chris Grant of First Martin Corp. attended the Dec. 20 meeting. No one spoke at a public hearing on the plan.

Traver Village Site Plan: Commissioner Discussion

Bonnie Bona clarified with city planner Jeff Kahan that new trees would be located on the northern side of the sidewalk – Kahan indicated that the city’s forester preferred that location so that the trees wouldn’t interfere with utility lines. Bona noted that from a pedestrian’s perspective, it’s preferable to have trees between the sidewalk and the street. Placing trees so that there’s no conflict with utility lines does not comply with the concept of “complete streets,” she said.

By way of background, at its March 7, 2011 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council adopted a resolution expressing its commitment to the concept of “complete streets” – the idea that streets should be constructed to accommodate a full range of users, from pedestrians, to bicyclists, to public transit vehicles, to privately owned automobiles. The impetus for the city’s proclamation came from the state of Michigan’s enactment in 2010 of Public Acts 134 and 135, which amended the state’s planning enabling statute and the transportation funding law. The city’s resolution was meant to ensure that Ann Arbor continued to qualify for state transportation funding.

Bona said she hoped that in the future, the city can head in the direction of the “complete streets” approach.

Tony Derezinski noted that the staff report mentioned the owner had mailed out 786 postcards to nearby residents, but that no one had responded. “That says a lot,” Derezinski said, adding that the complex is located in Ward 2, which Derezinski represents on city council.

Ophoff said most of the residents live in multi-family complexes, and getting no response is not uncommon.

Derezinski also wondered whether the Traver Village entrance onto Nixon Road was near the roundabout there. It is, Ophoff said, but the reconfiguration and new parking in the complex isn’t expected to change the traffic patterns there. The entrances off Plymouth Road are used the most.

Diane Giannola asked where the new bike spots will be located. The bike spaces will be spread along the eastern and southeastern frontage of the shopping center, Ophoff said.

Outcome: Planning commissioners voted unanimously to recommend approval of the Traver Village site plan. It will now be forwarded to city council for approval. No further approval is required.

Misc. Communications

There are several opportunities for public commentary and communications from staff and planning commissioners during any meeting. On Tuesday, no one spoke during public commentary.

Misc. Communications: Sustainability Forums

Jeff Kahan of the city’s planning staff reminded commissioners of the upcoming series of public forums on the topic of sustainability. All will be held at the downtown Ann Arbor District Library building, 343 S. Fifth Ave. starting at 7 p.m.

• Jan. 12, 2012: Resource Management – including natural areas, waste reduction, recycling, compost, local food systems, water and air quality. Panelists will include Matt Naud, the city’s environmental coordinator; Kerry Gray, the city’s urban forest & natural resource planning coordinator; Tom McMurtrie, Ann Arbor’s solid waste coordinator; and Dave Borneman, manager of the city’s natural area preservation program.
• Feb. 9, 2012: Land Use and Access – including transportation designs, infrastructure, land uses, built environment, and public spaces.
• March 8, 2012: Climate and Energy – including an overview of Ann Arbor’s climate action plan, climate impacts, renewable and alternative energy, energy efficiency and conservation.
• April 12, 2012: Community – including housing, public safety, public art, recreation, outreach, civic engagement, and stewardship of community resources.

The four forums reflect categories in a framework that the city is developing to organize its existing goals as they relate to sustainability. The project, which began earlier this year, is being led by Jamie Kidwell and funded by a $95,000 grant the city received from the Home Depot Foundation. Four city commissions – park, planning, energy and environmental – participated in a Sept. 27, 2011 joint working session focused on prioritizing existing goals for the city that touch on sustainability issues. [For additional background, see Chronicle coverage of Kidwell's briefing at the Nov. 15 park advisory commission meeting.]

Misc. Communications: Public Notice of Land Division

As an item of information, planning commission chair Eric Mahler read a public notice of a request to divide a 2.8-acre parcel at 500 Huron Parkway into two parcels. Access to both parcels is to be provided via a shared driveway from Huron Parkway. Public input on the land division can be made by calling the planning staff at 734-794-6265, or emailing planning@a2gov.org. The deadline for feedback is Jan. 11, 2012.

Land division requests are handled administratively by the city planning staff, and do not require planning commission action.

Present: Bonnie Bona, Tony Derezinski, Diane Giannola, Eric Mahler, Evan Pratt.

Absent: Eleanore Adenekan, Erica Briggs, Kirk Westphal, Wendy Woods.

Next regular meeting: The planning commission next meets on Thursday, Jan. 5, 2012 at 7 p.m. in the second-floor council chambers at city hall, 301 E. Huron St., Ann Arbor. [confirm date]

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At left: Lynn Bowen, an administrative assistant with the city who provides staff support for the park advisory commission, is retiring and was honored at PAC's November meeting. She has worked at the city for 26 years, including the last six years with parks and recreation. To the right are PAC chair Julie Grand and Colin Smith, the city's parks and recreation manager. (Photos by the writer.)

Commissioners were briefed by city staff about annual finances related to the land acquisition for parks and greenbelt programs, which are funded by a 30-year millage. They also got an update on the city’s marketing efforts for parks and recreation, and heard a report on the status of a sustainability project – several PAC commissioners had attended a September joint work session to help prioritize city goals related to environmental quality, economic vitality, and social equity.

Updates were also given about a sediment removal project in the Ruthven Nature Area, and about two parking-related projects at Riverside Park and Veterans Memorial Park.

In his manager’s report, Colin Smith noted that he’d taken a canoe run through the under-construction Argo Dam bypass pools – the new channel was a ”bit sportier” than he had expected, and is still being tweaked. He also told commissioners he’d received word that two state grant applications made by the city of Ann Arbor – $300,000 for the proposed Ann Arbor skatepark at Veterans Memorial Park, and $300,000 for improvements at the Gallup Park canoe livery – had ranked in the top 12 out of 100 applications statewide for funding from the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund. That bodes well for the possibility that the grants will be awarded – a decision from the state is expected in December.

During the meeting commissioners also honored two volunteers with the city’s natural area preservation program – Sarah Newman and Drew Lathin – and said farewell to Lynn Bowen, the administrative assistant who works with PAC. The meeting was her last before retiring from the city.

An item not on the agenda – the proposed Fuller Road Station – drew focus from public commentary as well as some questions from commissioners later in the meeting. 

Fuller Road Station

The issue of Fuller Road Station has raised concerns for several members of PAC dating back nearly two years. The large parking structure, bus depot and possible rail station is proposed near the intersection of Fuller Road and Maiden Lane, near the University of Michigan medical campus on city-owned land. The land has been used as a surface parking lot since 1993, leased to the university, but is on property designated as parkland. It’s a joint project of the city of Ann Arbor and UM, but a formal agreement regarding its construction and operation hasn’t yet been finalized.

In June 2010, the commission passed a resolution that asked the city council to make available a complete plan of Fuller Road Station – including any significant proposed agreements, such as what the university will pay the city for use of the structure – allowing sufficient time for a presentation at a televised PAC meeting before the council votes on the project. The resolution also asked that staff and the council ensure the project results in a net revenue gain for the parks system. PAC most recently got a detailed update on the project at its May 2011 meeting. The commission has not formally received word about whether the city council will agree to the requests made in the 2010 resolution.

There was no agenda item for the proposed Fuller Road Station, but the issue came up during public commentary as well as at the end of the meeting, with questions from commissioners.

Fuller Road Station: Public Commentary

Nancy Kaplan told commissioners that she was there to speak about transforming Fuller Park into a Fuller Road parking garage, saying it set many negative, troubling precedents. One precedent is that it’s OK to change a part-time surface parking lot into a parking garage. The fact that it’s a surface lot to accommodate parking for the University of Michigan is being used to justify building a parking garage with up to 1,600 spaces, with an expected structural life of 75 years, she said. This decreases the chances of reclaiming the Huron Valley as a beautiful amenity. Another negative precedent, Kaplan said, is circumventing the expectations of a 2008 ballot initiative passed by Ann Arbor voters, which requires a referendum in order to sell city parkland. This circumvention breaks with the trust of voters, who had a common understanding of what it meant to sell parkland, she said, and although this situation isn’t technically a sale, the result is the same.

A third negative precedent is accepting that the project will move forward without a due process hearing. Aside from the memorandum of understanding, no city council vote on the overall project has been taken. Yet at the Nov. 14 council work session, Kaplan noted, it was stated that a groundbreaking is expected this spring, and that public art is already being planned. Finally, she said the university has embarked on a sustainability initiative, but bringing up to 1,600 cars into the parking garage is counter to sustainability. She pointed out that Stanford University in California doesn’t subsidize employee parking, as UM does. Instead, as part of its reward system, Stanford pays employees not to park, and offers bus passes and free shuttles. The side benefit is that Stanford doesn’t have to build a lot of parking garages. Kaplan said that hopefully these negative precedents, plus the model of Stanford, are issues to be considered seriously.

Rita Mitchell continued the topic of Fuller Road Station. She began by noting that she’s a steward for the city’s natural area preservation (NAP) program, and takes great interest in parks. She said she appreciated PAC’s work. She asked that commissioners discuss and forward a series of questions to city council, to be reviewed in public, regarding plans to build a parking structure in Fuller Park. She gave a brief history of the property, noting that it was acquired by the city in the 1920s for use as parkland, and was the city’s first golf course. Starting in 1993, it was temporarily leased to UM for parking, and many problems have stemmed from that use. It’s already an area of great traffic congestion, and adding up to 1,600 more cars will create a range of problems, including air pollution, more polluted runoff, and conflicts with pedestrians, buses and bicyclists. Air pollution and health risks will increase in the summer for people, including children, who use Fuller Pool, located across the street, Mitchell said.

The city has spent significant money already, without discussing with the public whether parkland should be repurposed in this way, Mitchell said. She asked that PAC advise the city council to hold a public hearing on the issue, at a time that’s not influenced heavily by upcoming holiday schedules, so that the community can express their concerns. She noted that the council’s Nov. 14 work session had included discussion of art for the structure, and called it “outrageous” that this discussion would happen for a project that hasn’t yet been approved. The university is the primary beneficiary for this project, but the public doesn’t know who is negotiating with the university on this project. “Do you, as commissioners?” she asked. PAC should ask council to be provided with the names of those negotiating, and the specifications of the negotiations. Repurposing parkland subverts the letter and intent of the 2008 ballot initiative that requires a voter referendum on the sale of parkland, she said. The structure would have a 75-year lifespan, and 75 years for use of land is in effect a sale. But there’s been no discussion of a fair market value, or compensation to the citizens or parks system for the use of the land.

Mitchell also said she’s heard about the possible transfer of the Amtrak station to that site. While rail travel is a great idea, she said, there are also a range of concerns. Is it in the best interests of the city to build and run a train station? Should it be placed on parkland? If Ann Arbor is just one commuter stop, why do we need a 1,600-space parking structure? There hasn’t been adequate public discussion on this issue, Mitchell said. In addition, this summer a major water and sewer line were moved in Fuller Park – had that been discussed with PAC? Is the sign that’s now missing from the south end of Fuller Park a silent indication that the land is no longer part of the park system? Park commissioners are stewards of all city parks, Mitchell said. She urged them to start asking pointed questions and advocate for greater public participation in decisions that relate to parkland.

Fuller Road Station: Commissioner Questions

Later in the meeting, Gwen Nystuen asked city staff a series of questions about the Fuller Road Station project. She wondered about the legal status of the city’s parks, and how that relates to the project. She asked about the site plan for Fuller Road Station – if council approves the project, would it constitute a change of land use, and no longer be part of the parks system? These are issues that have never been discussed by city council, she noted. The land is part of the central Huron River valley, an area that has some of the least parkland per capita in the city, she said. This project would reduce it even more, she said, so it’s of concern to PAC. She also wondered about the status of the soccer field that had been in that area.

Colin Smith, the city’s parks and recreation manager, said these are legitimate questions. He asked Nystuen and other commissioners to send him whatever questions they had, and he would forward the questions to the city attorney or other relevant staff. He said the soccer field will be put in place again after utility work is finished on the south side of Fuller Road.

Tim Berla suggested asking representatives from the city attorney’s office, systems planning unit and Eli Cooper, the city’s transportation program manager, to attend a future PAC meeting to discuss the Fuller Road Station project. He noted that sometimes their answers are a bit opaque, and that it’s better to have the chance to ask follow-up questions in person, rather than to just get their answers in writing.

Open Space Millage Update

Ginny Trocchio of The Conservation Fund briefed commissioners on the annual financial report related to the land acquisition for parks and greenbelt programs. [A similar update was given to the greenbelt advisory commission by Kelli Martin, financial manager for the city’s community services unit, at GAC's Sept. 14 meeting.] [.pdf of land preservation annual report]

Under contract with the city, Trocchio is a Conservation Fund staff member who helps administer the city’s greenbelt program and land acquisition program for parks, which are both funded by the 30-year open space and parkland preservation millage. The 0.5 mill tax was approved by voters in 2003. Two-thirds of the millage proceeds are used for the greenbelt program, and one-third is allotted to parkland acquisition. PAC oversees the portion related to parkland acquisition.

Revenues from the millage were $2.164 million in fiscal 2011, down slightly from $2.262 million the previous year. In addition, the greenbelt program brought in nearly $2.8 million in federal grants during the year – the highest amount it has ever received. Those grants are from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm and Ranchland Protection Program, or FRPP. Investment income was $233,614 for the year, down from $492,576 in FY 2010. In total, $5.185 million in revenues came in for the combined greenbelt and parks acquisitions programs in FY 2011.

On the expense side, items included $1.2 million in debt service on the $20 million bond that the city issued in FY 2006. The greenbelt program spent $8.3 million during the year, related to land preservation projects. Parks spent $985,900 during the year, including two major purchases: (1) $592,503 for property off of South Pond owned by Wes Vivian and Elizabeth Kauffman, and (2) $369,160 for property next to the Bluffs Nature Area, owned by the Elks.

In FY 2011, $120,338 was paid to The Conservation Fund, which manages the greenbelt and park acquisition programs. Total administrative costs – including items like information technology (IT) and bond insurance – were $161,195. Administrative expenses accounted for 1.5% of the $10.672 million in total expenditures.

The fund balance stands at $10.3 million, down from $15.79 million a year ago. Of that, the portion for land acquisition for parks is $4.24 million.

Commissioners had no questions for Trocchio about the report.

Promoting Parks and Recreation

Kimberly Mortson, communications liaison for the city of Ann Arbor, gave a presentation on communications, marketing and social media for the parks and recreation system. She said that although she also does some work for other parts of the city’s community services area, 95% of her efforts are for parks and recreation.

Mortson noted that she started using Facebook and Twitter to promote city programs and events about two years ago. One of the advantages is that she can post a message one time, but there are an infinite number of people who’ll see it – and it doesn’t impact her budget, because Facebook and Twitter are free services. There’s a general Facebook page for parks and recreation, and other pages for specific units of parks and recreation, like the Ann Arbor farmers market, Cobblestone Farm and canoe liveries, among others

Twitter page for Ann Arbor parks. (Links to Twitter)

On Twitter, the @a2parks account has over 1,800 followers, Mortson reported. Over the past year, staff has tweeted from events, like the re-opening of West Park after its renovations, or the Heisman Trophy appearance at Hanover Park. They also use the account to promote other activities and programs.

Parks and recreation has also started using FourSquare, a social networking website that allows users to “check in” from their smart phones or other mobile devices, when they arrive at their destination. Mortson said she’s uploaded all the city’s parks and recreation locations to FourSquare – it’s another free marketing tool, she said.

Turning to the city’s website, Mortson told commissioners that the parks and recreation page is one of the most visited pages on the a2gov.org site. There will be changes to the page in the coming weeks and months, she said, to help people use the site more easily. Staff is also working with the state of Michigan on a new mobile application – the MI Camping and Recreation Locator. Now, people can use the application to search for information about state parks, she said. Ann Arbor will be the first city in the state to have its information loaded on that application, so that people can search for Ann Arbor parks information, too.

Some marketing materials for parks and recreation include QR codes, Mortson said – a marking similar to a bar code, which can be read by smart phones. The code is used to direct people to different websites for parks and recreation.

In addition to cost savings, social media and other online marketing is green, Mortson said – it saves paper.

Mortson said the city also advertises parks and recreation events and programs in traditional media, and showed several examples of ads that have run in the Ann Arbor Observer, Ann Arbor Chronicle, AnnArbor.com and other publications. Other venues for promoting parks and recreation include ads on buses and posters within city facilities.

Following Mortson’s presentation, Gwen Nystuen praised her efforts, saying the information showed that her marketing work is succeeding. Colin Smith, the city’s parks and recreation manager, noted that the programs are being well-run, and are being promoted exceedingly well. He gave the example of this summer’s day camps. In an extremely competitive area, two of the city’s four day camps were filled. Smith credited Mortson’s marketing efforts for helping achieve that level of participation.

Sustainability Project

Jamie Kidwell is working for the city on a sustainability project funded by a $95,000 grant the city received from the Home Depot Foundation. At the Nov. 15 meeting, she briefed commissioners on a Sept. 27, 2011 joint working session that involved four city commissions: park, planning, energy and environmental. The session focused on prioritizing existing goals for the city that touch on sustainability issues.

A Sept. 27, 2011 sustainability work session at Cobblestone Farm involved four city commissions: park, planning, energy and environmental.

By way of background, the concept of sustainability focuses on what’s called the triple bottom line: environmental quality, economic vitality, and social equity. The goal of the sustainability project for Ann Arbor is to review the city’s existing plans and organize them into a framework of goals, objectives and indicators that can guide future planning and policy. Other project goals include improving access to the city’s plans and to the sustainability components of each plan, and to incorporate the concept of sustainability into city planning and future city plans.

There’s an 18-month timeline for the project, which started earlier this year. For the first phase, Kidwell reviewed existing city plans – such as the downtown plan, the non-motorized transportation plan, the natural features master plan and others – and interviewed key city staff to determine which plans they use to guide their decision-making. Included in this project are 26 plans, and the second phase has involved organizing the goals for each plan. [.pdf of the list of 26 plans]

Kidwell and other city staff started to develop a framework for these plans, and to identify gaps that exist – goals that the city might want to pursue, but that aren’t laid out in existing plans.

At November’s regular PAC meeting, Kidwell characterized PAC as well-represented among the 26 commissioners at the three-hour sustainability session on Sept. 27. [Among the PAC members attending were Julie Grand, Tim Berla, Tim Doyle, Gwen Nystuen, Sam Offen, and John Lawter.]

Kidwell explained that the staff had identified four planning areas – climate & energy, community, land use & access, and natural systems. During the work session, commissioners met in breakout groups and started to prioritize the 226 goals that staff had pulled out from the city’s 26 planning documents and sorted into the four planning areas.

Kidwell provided a handout that listed the top goals identified at the work session in each planning area:

Climate & Energy

(1) Reduce community-wide greenhouse gas emissions 8% from 2000 levels by 2015.

(2) Commit to energy conservation measures and methods.

(3) Reduce greenhouse gas emissions in municipal operations 50% from 200 levels by 2015.

(4) Use 5% renewable energy community-wide by 2015.

Community

(1) To encourage cooperation between the City educational institutions and between the City and Townships that surround Ann Arbor (Ann Arbor, Pittsfield and Scio) on development issues that affect each other.

(2) Provide job opportunities, raise the standard of living of county residents, promote a sense of place and realize a tax base sufficient to provide public services through a comprehensive set of public and private strategies to foster and attract emerging industries.

Land Use & Access

(1) Encourage dense land use and development patterns which draw people downtown and foster an active street life, contribute to its function as an urban residential neighborhood and support a sustainable transportation system

(2) Establish a network of greenways throughout the City that provide non-motorized connections between various land uses, such as neighborhoods, commercial and employment centers, downtown and the University of Michigan, and that help retain the shape and continuity of natural features, especially along stream corridors, between parks and through new neighborhoods. The network also should extend to greenways located on adjacent township and County properties.

Natural Systems

(1) To protect and restore woodlands, landmark trees, steep slopes, endangered species habitats, prairies and savannahs, the Huron River, creeks and native flora and fauna from the impacts of development.

(2) To improve air quality to protect the health and welfare of the public

(3) Develop, complete and regularly update watershed plans for the City’s tributary waterways to improve water quality and to restore and preserve, waterways, banks, wetlands, floodplains, wildlife habits, native species and natural areas. Plans should include techniques to dramatically reduce the volume and speed of storm water runoff, increase water directed to infiltrate soil, and reduce the volume of toxics and pollutants reaching waterways.

(4) To protect, preserve and restore the natural resources of Washtenaw County through a comprehensive approach to water management and preservation of our natural features.

The 226 goals had been an exhaustive list, Kidwell said, with overlapping goals on a range of topics. The priority goals identified at the working session are a starting point, she said, providing feedback as the staff continues to refine what goals will fit into a sustainability framework.

Among the next steps, Kidwell said, will be to form a joint committee with representatives from each of the four commissions, to continue work on this project. There will also be a lecture series starting in January featuring issues in the four planning areas. Those lectures will be free and open to the public. At the same time, work will continue on developing a sustainability action plan, tying goals to measurable targets, Kidwell said.

Julie Grand, PAC’s chair, reported that she and Karen Levin will serve on the joint committee, representing PAC.

Parking Lot Improvements

Park planner Amy Kuras and Liz Rolla, a city engineer who primarily works on road resurfacing and reconstruction projects, talked about two parking lot improvement projects – at Riverside Park and Veterans Memorial Park.

Kuras said the projects represent a collaboration between the parks and public services units. At Riverside, the current parking lot is frequently under water, so Kuras was planning to address that issue as well as make other changes at the park. [For details, see Chronicle coverage: "Work Planned at Ann Arbor's Riverside Park"]

Sketch of proposed changes to Riverside Park. (Links to larger image)

Canal Street, a city street runs next to the park, also needs repair, so Kuras approached the public services staff to coordinate their work. The parking lot will be moved to a different part of the park – out of the floodplain – and Canal Street will be repaved.

Tim Berla noted that the path at Riverside, running next to the Huron River, is also frequently under water. Will the project address that too? Short of creating an elevated boardwalk, Kuras said, there’s nothing they could do to prevent flooding, given the path’s proximity to the river.

The second project involves the repaving of Dexter Avenue, which runs past Veterans Memorial Park. The road repaving needs to address stormwater issues, while the parks staff is concerned about the park’s path and parking lot, which are falling apart, Kuras said.

Rolla said the road will be reconstructed from Maple to Jackson. Typically, the requirement to capture stormwater runoff is handled through underground oversized pipes and swirl concentrators. But since the road runs past the park, the staff is looking at handling runoff with a bioswale in the park, which would include native plantings. There are federal dollars to pay for stormwater improvements, which will cover about 80% of the project’s cost, Rolla said.

Kuras said benefits include rebuilding the path that runs along Dexter Avenue, and reducing the parking lot’s footprint, though the number of parking spaces will remain unchanged. It’s a better environmental solution, she said, because of the bioswale.

Colin Smith, the city’s parks and recreation manager, said it’s good timing, since the city plans to renovate the softball fields there in 2012. The field renovation will likely start in mid-August, after the softball leagues finish their season.

Gwen Nystuen asked whether the parking lot would be paved with a pervious surface. No, Rolla replied. It’s too wet in that area for pervious pavement. Instead, the lot will be graded so that runoff will drain into the bioswale.

Karen Levin asked whether the park would be closed during this project. The section off of Dexter Avenue will probably be closed for some period, Kuras said, but the ice rink and pool – with an entrance off of Jackson Road – won’t be affected. Rolla added that the Dexter Avenue project will likely run from April through November, but they’ll leave it up to the contractor to decide when to do the parking lot and bioswale part of the project.

Aerial view of the site for the proposed bioswale at Veterans Memorial Park. The road at the top is Dexter Avenue. (Image links to larger file.)

John Lawter asked whether the bioswale will have standing water. There might be some minimal amount of standing water as the plants take hold, Rolla said, but the bioswale will be designed so that water will infiltrate. It’s similar to the bioswale at Buhr Park, she said. There will also be outlets leading to the city’s conventional storm sewer system, she added, in the event of a major rain.

Tim Doyle asked how much maintenance will be required in the bioswale. Rolla replied that the city will have an agreement with the contractor, who will provide maintenance in the area for three years. After that, the plantings should be established and it will be treated as a wet meadow by the city’s natural area preservation program. Smith noted that currently, the area proposed for a bioswale is included in the park’s mowing cycles. That maintenance would eventually be eliminated.

Julie Grand wondered what will happen if balls get hit into the bioswale – how are they retrieved? Smith said it’s a rare day when any balls are hit into the area proposed for the bioswale. Nor is it an area that’s typically used for team warm-ups. “It is really pretty much a dead space,” he said.

Grand also noted that the new parking lot will be closer to the playing fields. Is there more potential for balls to hit the cars? Rolla said it’s proposed to be moved only slightly closer to the fields. Kuras added that the location was discussed at length, and indicated that there’s little concern about the change.

Ruthven Nature Area

Lara Treemore Spears of the city’s natural area preservation (NAP) program updated commissioners on a wetland mitigation sediment removal project at the Ruthven Nature Area. The project involves removing sediment from Millers Creek, which flows through Ruthven, and repairing stream bank erosion that occurred when the creek bypassed its channel because of a sediment dam.

Like many streams in urban areas, Spears said, Millers Creek is surrounded by impervious surfaces. That creates runoff and sediment flowing into the creek, and over the years, has caused the creek to completely change its course.

The city risks losing some of its infrastructure along Huron River Drive and Geddes Road, Spears said – specifically, there’s the risk of damage to an undersized 24‐inch culvert under Geddes, which was not designed to receive the full volume of Millers Creek and could result in road flooding. Removing the sediment would redirect stormwater flow to a former open channel running through the wetlands at Ruthven, and into a larger 60-inch culvert under Geddes. It’s not an area that’s designated as a county drain, she noted, so it doesn’t fall under the purview of the county water resources commissioner’s office.

It’s best to remove the sediment when the ground is frozen, Spears said, so the work will likely begin in January. It will require some clearing, she said, but not nearly as much as has been done along Washtenaw Avenue for the county’s Mallets Creek drain project. The stream bank will be shored up with rock and restored with topsoil, mulch blanket, and native plant seed.

The city has submitted an application for a permit from the Michigan Dept. of Environmental Quality to do the work, and is awaiting review.

The ultimate goal, Spears said, is to reduce erosion. The city’s capital improvements plan (CIP) includes a sediment study of Millers Creek, to see if better long-term solutions can be found for preventing erosion.

Gwen Nystuen noted that there are a lot of  invasive species in Ruthven. She also wondered if the city had any plans to put in more trails through the nature area. There’s a trail with an entrance off of Geddes Road. But Spears noted that for a path off of Huron Parkway, after the first 325 feet it gets quite wet. There is one high quality area – a glacial kame, a hill created by glacial deposits. But most of the runoff flows straight south through a buckthorn thicket, she said – buckthorn is considered an invasive.

Tim Berla asked for Spears to give her best guess as to how long it would be before they’d have to repeat this work. Spears acknowledged that the problem comes from upstream, in an area that the city doesn’t control, and that erosion is aggravated by the surrounding impervious surfaces of roads and other development. Berla asked if there are any additional measures that can be taken, like adding underground swirl concentrators – devices designed to remove suspended solids from stormwater prior to reintroducing it into the city’s stormwater system. Spears said a long-term sediment study of the creek would look at those kinds of potential solutions.

Manager’s Report

Colin Smith, the city’s parks and recreation manager, updated commissioners on a range of items, starting with plans to renovate the city’s softball fields at Veterans Memorial Park, West Park, Southeast Area Park and Allmendinger Park. It’s analogous to the work already done at the soccer fields, he said. The idea is to bring the fields up to an acceptable level of play. Staff will be presenting a budget for the project to PAC at its December meeting. Smith and other staff had held a public meeting on the project earlier this month, which was attended primarily by managers of various leagues that use the fields. Smith reported that they seemed happy to see the project get underway.

Manager’s Report: Argo Bypass

Smith also noted that earlier in the month he had gone canoeing to test the new Argo Dam bypass, even though it had been snowing at the time. The design team is still tweaking the series of pools that make up the channel, and Smith described the stretch as a “bit sportier” than he had expected. It’s exciting to see that project come together, he said. Smith reported that the city council would be voting on a proposed change of scope to the project, which PAC had recommended at its August meeting.

View facing west of the first two pools in the Argo Dam bypass. The concrete pass-through at the far end will be replaced by a new, larger entrance.

The change will add a new entrance to the waterway from Argo Pond to the Huron River. The modification to the project is linked to an offer from DTE to pay for a whitewater section that’s part of the overall project, which freed up city funds for a new entrance from Argo Pond into the bypass. DTE is being required by the state to complete environmental remediation on its nearby property, which prompted its request that the city hold off on the part of the project that runs along the river.

Smith said the city’s agreement with DTE stipulates that the energy firm will hire the same consultant who designed the bypass – Gary Lacy – to design the whitewater features. TSP Environmental, which is building the bypass, will build the new entrance. [The city council subsequently voted to approve the change of scope at its Nov. 21 meeting.]

Tim Doyle wondered whether the change of scope will delay other aspects of the project. Only the whitewater features, which will be located in the river, will be delayed, Smith said. The bypass and new entry will move forward. It will likely be at least another year before the whitewater features are added, he said.

Manager’s Report: Update on Skatepark, Gallup Livery Grants

Smith reported that two state grant applications made by the city of Ann Arbor – $300,000 for the proposed Ann Arbor skatepark at Veterans Memorial Park, and $300,000 for improvements at the Gallup Park canoe livery – ranked in the top 12 out of 100 applications statewide for funding from the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund. Smith told PAC members that he received the application scores in the mail earlier in the day.

The skatepark application ranked 12th out of the 100 applications, based on a scoring system used to evaluate the grants. The Gallup Park application ranked 2nd. Smith also reported that a $300,000 grant application for Rutherford Pool in Ypsilanti had ranked 11th in the scoring system. The scoring is an indication of the likelihood that these grants will be awarded, but that announcement won’t be made until Dec. 7, Smith said. It’s also unknown how much money will be awarded this year from the trust fund. He told commissioners that the top 12 grant applications total $2.7 million. There’s a cap of $300,000 per project.

At its March 15, 2011 meeting, PAC had voted to recommend supporting the grant applications. The city council made a similar vote of support on March 21. The council’s resolution of support prioritized the skatepark project over the Gallup renovations – based on the opportunity to leverage $400,000 of matching funds from the Washtenaw County parks and recreation commission.

NAP Volunteers Honored

Toward the beginning of the Nov. 15 meeting, Dave Borneman, manager of the city’s natural area preservation program, introduced two volunteers – Sarah Newman and Drew Lathin – who had been honored in October by the city council as NAP Volunteers of the Year. Newman was recognized for work in the Miller Nature Area and Furstenberg Nature Area. Lathin was honored for work in the Miller Nature Area, as well as for volunteering for NAP’s burn crew and its frog and toad surveys. Borneman read the proclamations that had been given to the two volunteers at the Oct. 26 council meeting, and PAC gave them a round of applause.

Newman thanked commissioners, as well as the staff of NAP, for all their work. She described Furstenberg and Miller as areas that are at the opposite ends of the spectrum. Furstenberg is a gem in the parks system, located along the Huron River and constantly maintained by NAP. Miller, on the other hand, is a large but relatively unknown neighborhood park on the west side that’s full of invasive species.

Her time most recently has been spent at Miller, and her role has been to encourage neighbors to get involved, she said, including work with kids in Peace Neighborhood Center‘s summer day camp, helping them to learn about what a nature area is and to help preserve the trails. “It’s a privilege and pleasure to work with the dedicated, intelligent and super hard-working group that Dave heads,” Newman said.

Dave Borneman, center, head of the city's natural area preservation program, introduced two NAP Volunteers of the year: Drew Lathin and Sarah Newman.

Lathin said it was an honor to be honored, but that he and Newman wouldn’t have gotten much done in Miller Nature Area without the hundreds of hours that other volunteers worked. They’ve had close to 1,000 volunteer hours there since they started working on about a one-acre section of the park.

He said his work at Miller started one winter day when he was walking through and saw all the invasive honeysuckle and buckthorn there. In a moment of insanity, he said, he decided to do something about it. Borneman directed him to Jason Frenzel, who was NAP’s volunteer coordinator at the time. Lathin said he’s happy he has mental health benefits as part of his insurance, because he thinks they’re called for. He praised NAP staff under Borneman’s leadership, saying they aren’t typical government employees – they’re very committed to what they’re doing, and they do great work. Lathin said he’s just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of the volunteers who work for NAP.

Present: Tim Berla, Doug Chapman, Tim Doyle, Julie Grand, Karen Levin, Gwen Nystuen, John Lawter, councilmember Mike Anglin (ex-officio). Also Colin Smith, city parks manager.

Absent: David Barrett, Sam Offen, councilmember Christopher Taylor (ex-officio).

Next meeting: PAC’s meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2011 begins at 4 p.m. in the city hall second-floor council chambers, 301 E. Huron St., Ann Arbor. [confirm date]

The Chronicle survives in part through regular voluntary subscriptions to support our coverage of public bodies like the Ann Arbor park advisory commission. If you’re already supporting The Chronicle, please encourage your friends, neighbors and coworkers to do the same. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle.

Members of the Michigan Nurses Association union held banners during the Sept. 15 regents meeting, showing signatures from their supporters. (Photos by the writer.)

The Michigan Nurses Association, which represents about 4,000 UM nurses, is negotiating a new contract. Members brought large banners with signatures from their supporters, and three people spoke about the issue during public commentary – including Brit Satchwell, head of the Ann Arbor teachers union. The nurses are concerned that weaker benefits will affect patient care by hurting the UM health system’s ability to retain and recruit high-quality nurses.

Ora Pescovitz – UM’s executive vice president for medical affairs – read a statement to the board, asserting her respect for the nurses but saying the health system needs an agreement that’s market- and cost-competitive.

Also during the meeting, regents got an overview of UM’s annual development report for fiscal 2011, which ended June 30. The university received $273.14 million in contributions during the year, up from $254.08 million the previous year – an increase of 7.5%. The previous two years had shown declines from the $342.05 million raised in FY 2008, which marked the end of the multi-year $3.2 billion Michigan Difference fundraising campaign.

As part of that report, a couple who’ve given considerable financial support to UM – Bill and Dee Brehm – spoke to the regents about the motivation for their donations. They provide support for UM’s Brehm Center for Diabetes Research and Brehm Scholars program, among other initiatives.

Regents also heard from students and staff about work toward environmental sustainability on campus and in coursework. More is in the works: On Sept. 27, Coleman is scheduled to make an address to campus, expanding UM’s sustainability goals for both academics and operations. Her remarks will be shown via a webcast, starting at 11 a.m.

A range of action items during the meeting received little discussion and were all passed unanimously. They included several construction-related projects, the creation of two medical school departments, and authorization to buy a parcel at 716 Oakland Ave. in Ann Arbor, between Monroe and Hill streets near the law school campus. This is the fourth Ann Arbor property that UM has purchased within the past year with an apartment building on the lot.

President’s Raise

During the time for committee reports, regent Martin Taylor – who chairs the board’s personnel, compensation and governance committee – introduced a motion to award president Mary Sue Coleman a 2.75% raise, effective Aug. 1, 2011. Coleman’s salary before the raise was $570,105.

Taylor praised Coleman for her leadership, citing her role in the university’s economic development efforts. The Venture Accelerator program, a start-up incubator located in the North Campus Research Complex (NCRC), is 60% full, less than a year after opening, he noted. UM is in the top 10 universities for the number of spin-off companies created from technology developed there, with more than 90 firms founded since 2001. Research funding will top $1.3 billion by the end of this year, he said. And the university has created a masters degree in entrepreneurship.

UM president Mary Sue Coleman.

Taylor also commended Coleman for expanding the university’s global reach, and for overseeing the largest capital building effort in the university’s history – with projects that are all on schedule on on budget, he noted. She has also led development of an environmentally sustainable campus, and pushes on all fronts for academic excellence.

Coleman is focused on the future, Taylor said, citing the “deep” renovations of several residence halls during her tenure. She’s also a leader on the national level, he said. She was named by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to co-chair the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. She’s chair of the Internet2 board of trustees, and will be named chair next month of the Association of American Universities executive committee. Taylor also noted that Coleman joined president Barack Obama this summer in announcing his Advanced Manufacturing Partnership – UM is one of the partners.

Coleman “really puts the university in a place it wants to be,” he said, making it “the leaders and best.”

Taylor expressed regret that the regents weren’t proposing a higher increase, saying the raise amounts to a “whopping” $15,678. He said the board would like to award a higher amount, but must factor in the state’s economy.

Regents had awarded Coleman a 3% raise a year ago. Her compensation package also includes $75,000 in deferred compensation, a $100,000 retention bonus, $24,500 in retirement pay, and an additional $30,850 supplemental retirement payment. Her current contract goes through July 31, 2014.

Outcome: Regents voted unanimously to award a 2.75% raise to UM president Mary Sue Coleman.

After the vote, Coleman said she was deeply grateful. She praised her executives for their work, saying she was part of a team effort. She noted that she and her husband, Ken Coleman, recently received letters from students who’ve benefited from scholarships the Colemans funded to travel abroad. “I’m well-compensated,” she said, adding that she planned to donate her raise to fund scholarships for international travel. “This is the thrill of my life to be here,” Coleman said. She received a round of applause from the regents and staff.

Nurses Union Negotiations

There was no agenda item related to ongoing negotiations between UM administrators and the Michigan Nurses Association, which represents about 4,000 UM nurses. But with union members – wearing distinctive red T-shirts – packed into the audience, the issue provided a clear backdrop to the meeting. The previous contract expired June 30.

Ora Pescovitz, UM executive vice president for medical affairs, at the board table prior to the Sept. 15 regents meeting. Behind her is a banner held by supporters of the Michigan Nurses Association, which is negotiating with UM for a new contract.

During her report to the board, Ora Pescovitz – UM’s executive vice president for medical affairs – read a statement regarding the situation. She noted that the two groups had been negotiating since April, and that although they’d reached agreement on a variety of points, there remained some unresolved issues. The university needed to reach an agreement that is market- and cost-competitive, she said, allowing it to recruit and retain nurses of the highest caliber.

Pescovitz acknowledged that earlier in the week, the union had asked the Michigan Employee Relations Commission to conduct fact-finding for the two parties. She said the administration welcomes this process, and looks forward to a successful outcome. The university values and respects the nurses, she said.

Nurses Union: Public Commentary

There was no other discussion on the situation among executives or regents, but three people spoke in support of the nurses during public commentary at the end of the meeting.

Brit Satchwell – president of the Ann Arbor Education Association, the union representing about 1,200 teachers in the Ann Arbor Public Schools district – said he wasn’t there to talk about education. He went on to describe his mother, Clelia Steele, who was instrumental in the early push for Title IX legislation. She was compassionate yet formidable, he said, and not prone to fear – until she was diagnosed at age 79 with colon cancer.

Over the past year, she survived five major surgeries at the UM hospital. And while her doctor, Sandra Wong, was brilliant and helped save his mother’s life, “my mother will tell you that it was the many nurses who healed her that made all the difference.” Satchwell said he sympathized with the difficult choices that the administration needed to make as the state tries to pull out of recession, but he urged them to focus on the institution’s core priorities. “The nurses are the heart, soul and backbone of this great university’s health system, and you weaken that foundation at the system’s eventual peril.”

Keri Bokor told regents that she has a business management degree, but got into nursing because it’s her passion – she’s been working six years in the UM hospital’s surgical intensive care unit, and she’s proud of it every day. It’s difficult to become a nurse, she said, and to become a UM nurse requires a whole different level of skill and perseverance. She said she didn’t understand how administrators could expect concessions from the nurses while taking big raises themselves. [Pescovitz received a $21,000 raise for 2010-11, bringing her salary to $721,000. Doug Strong, CEO of the UM Hospitals and Health Centers, received a $53,637 raise for 2010-11 – his salary is $600,000.]

Bokor told regents that Washtenaw County sheriff Jerry Clayton took a pay cut when he asked his employees to do the same – that was honorable, she said. How can hospital administrators expect their staff to respect them when they fail to set an example? she asked. Bokor said that the situation is really about patient care. The administration risks too much if all they care about is the bottom line – high-quality, highly-specialized nurses could leave. She said there are 21 items that the administration wants to take away from nurses, and noted that the banners on display in the room show thousands of signatures in support of the nurses. “This is a game that hurts everyone,” Bokor concluded. “Please let’s not play it any longer.”

Julia Morrissey, a UM nurse and member of the Michigan Nurses Association, holds her baby while speaking to the board of regents during public commentary.

At the conclusion of Bokor’s remarks, regent Denise Ilitch asked her for some examples of the 21 items she had alluded to. Bokor said she couldn’t recall all the details, but that issues included limiting overtime, asking nurses to cover more of their health insurance costs, and taking away other benefits that the union had bargained for over the past 30 years. In essence, they’d be taking a pay cut, she said. Bokor told the regents that many of the nurses she worked with lived in Toledo, but worked at UM because the benefits were attractive. If you take those benefits away, you’ll lose high-quality nurses who have options to go elsewhere, she said.

Another UM nurse, Julia Morrissey, told regents that all the nurses and other supporters who turned out to the meeting were there because they are serious. They understand that if the administration undercuts respect for the profession, nurses will leave. Negotiations aren’t moving, she said, and the health system is more interested in the bottom line than about the people who care for patients.

Patient care suffers if there aren’t sufficient staffing levels to respond to the patients’ needs, Morrissey said. She noted that the health system will be hiring nurses for its new C.S. Mott children’s hospital, yet won’t be able to retain current staff if benefits are cut. [UM is expected to hire another 500 health professionals for the new C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Von Voigtlander Women's Hospital, which opens in November.]

Morrissey said negotiations are a distraction to their work, requiring that they come to meetings and picket in front of the hospital. If administrators will stop caring only about money, then “4,000 angry nurses can calm down,” she said. Nurses have been asked to be world-class patient advocates, and that’s what they’re doing. As to why the health system’s administrators are behaving this way, she concluded, “we frankly can’t believe it.”

Nurses Union: Follow-up

In a phone interview with The Chronicle later in the week, Ann Kettering Sincox, a representative with the Michigan Nurses Association, clarified that the state fact-finder will look at the issues and make an objective analysis. However, it won’t be a binding decision, she said, and negotiations are ongoing. The next meeting between the union and administration is set for Sept. 21.

Safe patient care is an overriding issue, Sincox said. There’s concern that if benefits are weakened, the highly skilled nurses that currently work for UM will leave – those working in specialized areas like the children’s transplant unit. As one example, Sincox said nurses are being asked to pay 30% of their health care premiums. In some cases, that would double the amount that nurses are currently paying.

If less attractive benefits are put in place, it will be difficult to recruit new nurses with the same level of skill and experience, Sincox said, because skilled nurses “don’t come cheap.”

When asked about the possibility of a walk-out, Sincox said there’s nothing like that planned at this point, noting that it would require a vote of the union membership. However, she added, “it’s something that you can’t rule out completely.”

Annual Development Report

During Thursday’s meeting, Jerry May – UM’s vice president of development – presented highlights from the annual development report for FY 2011, which ended June 30. [.pdf file of FY 2011 development report]

The university received $273.14 million in contributions during the year, up from $254.08 million the previous year – an increase of 7.5%. The previous two years had shown declines from the $342.05 million raised in FY 2008, which marked the end of the multi-year $3.2 billion Michigan Difference fundraising campaign. Turmoil in the economy had also been a factor in the decline, May said.

Jerry May, right, UM's vice president of development, talks with provost Phil Hanlon prior to the start of the Sept. 15 regents meeting.

By unit, the top five totals in FY 2011 were received by (1) the medical school – $61.90 million; (2) college of engineering – $34.40 million; (3) athletics – $31.31 million; (4) college of literature, science & the arts (LSA) – $29.17 million; and (5) law school – $19.85 million.

May noted that UM has seen an increase in the number of individual donors giving $25,000 or less. In FY 2011, there were about 109,000 donors in that category, up from about $104,000 the previous year.

Gifts from corporations increased from $17 million to $19 million, and foundation support grew from $34 million to $46 million.

About $65 million for scholarships was available for distribution from the endowment in FY 2011. Coupled with $13 million in expendable gifts, there was $78 million distributed in scholarships during the year, helping over 11,200 students, May said.

Annual Development Report: Bill & Dee Brehm

As part of his presentation, May introduced two major donors to the university: Bill and Dee Brehm.

Before they spoke, May showed a video of Linda Saab, a graduate of Fordson High School in Dearborn who was the first Brehm Scholar. The Brehm Scholars program awards four-year full tuition scholarships to UM for students from Fordson, which Bill Brehm also attended, graduating in 1947. It’s one of several efforts at UM that are supported by the Brehms, who over the years have contributed a total of $52 million to the university.

Bill Brehm is founder of SRA International, a Fairfax, Va. firm that provides consulting and technology services to the national security, civil government and global health industries. He described how he returned to Fordson in 1997, and was impressed by the condition of the school and the quality of the students. He noted that he’d been the recipient of a regents scholarship to UM, and decided to give back by setting up a scholarship program for Fordson students. The Brehms later set up a program awarding four-year full tuition scholarships to UM medical school as well – Linda Saab received that scholarship, too.

The program has awarded 30 undergraduate scholarships so far, and three for medical school. All are given to students with three qualities, Brehm said: excellent academic scholarship, leadership, and community service.

Dee and Bill Brehm.

Dee Brehm explained the genesis of their support for the Brehm Center for Diabetes Research. She has suffered from Type I diabetes for 62 years. About 12 years ago, she was making dinner in the kitchen when Bill came in and asked how he could help, presumably with dinner prep. “I said, ‘You can find a cure!” she recalled. After pausing a few seconds, he told her he would. From that day on, she said, her husband has been focused on that cause.

In doing research about how best to support finding a cure, the Brehms had a meeting with Frances Collins, a former UM researcher who at the time was leading the Human Genome Project, and now is director of the National Institutes of Health. After they told him what they were hoping to do, Collins told them, “I think you should go to Michigan.” He then put his hands out and asked them to pray, Dee Brehm recalled – his prayer asked that they be guided to the best place for their goal of curing diabetes. Their dream is that the cure will come from Michigan, she said.

Bill Brehm also talked about the importance of outreach. He started the Brehm Coalition for that reason – it brings together nine leading researchers in the fields of immunology and beta-cell biology, which are critical to understanding diabetes and its potential cure. These researchers come from institutions that account for 95% of funding for diabetes research, yet until the coalition was formed in 2007, they’d never met in the same room. Now they say they’d never go back to the way it was, Brehm said. [The group includes Peter Arvan, director of the UM Comprehensive Diabetes Center.]

When asked by May to comment on their philosophy of philanthropy, Bill Brehm said they rarely respond to an ask. They strongly believe that dreams and ideas must come first, followed by funding. The development staff at Michigan doesn’t ask them for money, Dee Brehm said – the staff listens to what they want to do, comes back with some options, and only then is money discussed.

Regents thanked the Brehms for coming to the meeting and sharing their story. Andrea Fischer Newman, who’s been a regent since 1994, said the board hasn’t previously had a presentation like this one, and it really brought the university’s development efforts close to home. They often don’t hear this kind of personal story, she said.

Denise Ilitch, the board’s chair, told the Brehms they set a wonderful example, and that she had to hold back tears during their talk. The board and staff gave the Brehms a standing ovation.

Mary Sue Coleman told the Brehms they are a wonderful example of how individuals can change a paradigm.

Security on Campus

During her report to the board, Royster Harper – UM’s vice president for student affairs – addressed the issue of security on campus, in the wake of several sexual assaults this summer and more recently. The UM Dept. of Public Safety and the Ann Arbor police have increased their patrols in the late evening and early morning hours, she said, and there’s been good cooperation on that front.

Sue Scarnecchia, left, UM's general counsel, talks with Royster Harper, vice president of student affairs. In the background are supporters of the Michigan Nurses Association union.

Students have led the development of a pilot program focused on safety, she reported. Students are going door-to-door in neighborhoods around campus, helping do safety checks and encouraging residents to form neighborhood block clubs for additional security. Other plans include a focus on better lighting, cutting back shrubs, and creating Facebook pages specifically for student neighborhoods, Harper said.

She also noted that the university is increasing its capacity for late-night transportation, and reported that the Greek system is encouraging a buddy system for people who are out late at night. “We are working hard to reduce the risk,” Harper said.

Earlier in her presentation, Harper had praised the Michigan Student Assembly and other students for their efforts to pull off a successful tailgate at the Michigan-Notre Dame night game on Sept. 10, noting that the party drew about 8,000 people, and was safe and fun. Regent Larry Deitch responded by saying it was typical of Harper to give credit to everyone else. The great experience that students had was due in no small part to her leadership, he said. Harper received a round of applause from regents and staff.

Construction Projects

During the Sept. 15 meeting, regents were asked to authorize a range of construction-related projects. One request was for the athletics department to issue bids and award construction contracts for a $52 million renovation and expansion of Crisler Arena. The board had previously approved the project’s schematic design at its May 2011 meeting.

Construction workers at Crisler Arena were on the job Saturday as Michigan football fans held tailgate parties in the nearby parking lot.

The project is adding about 63,000 square feet of new construction. The renovation includes building new spectator entrances, retail spaces, ticketing areas and a private club space. In addition, roughly 54,000 square feet would be renovated to accommodate accessible seats, increase the number of restrooms and concession areas, and add other fan amenities. Construction is expected to be finished by the winter of 2014.

Regent Andy Richner asked whether winter commencement would be held at Crisler Arena this year – that’s the traditional venue for the ceremony. Mary Sue Coleman clarified that it would be held there, and that construction wouldn’t start until after the basketball season ends.

Outcome: Regents unanimously approved the request to issue bids and award construction contracts for work at Crisler Arena.

Several other building renovation projects were on the agenda for action:

• A $47 million renovation for the 220,000-square-foot G.G. Brown Memorial Laboratories, which was built in 1958 on UM’s north campus and houses the Department of Mechanical Engineering. The project is part of the fiscal year 2011 capital outlay request to the state, which is expected to provide about $30 million in funding for the renovation. Two years ago, regents had signed off on a $56 million, 66,000-square-foot addition to building.
• A $1.5 million upgrade to the electrical substation and related equipment at the Med Inn, which was built in 1953 and is part of the UM Health System. Renovation projects at UM campuses in Dearborn and Flint were also authorized at Thursday’s meeting.
• A $1.148 million renovation of leased offices for the UM ophthalmology department at the River Place Offices building, 1974 N. Huron River Drive in Ypsilanti. The renovations will allow the department to consolidate its two current locations in Ypsilanti into one clinical site. The project is expected to be finished by the winter of 2012.

Outcome: Regents unanimously approved all renovation requests.

Golf Facility Naming

At Thursday’s meeting, regents were asked to authorize naming the university’s golf practice facility the Weisfeld Family Golf Center. Barry and Sally Weisfeld and the Weisfeld Family Foundation have provided financial support to the new facility. The Weisfelds’ son, David, played varsity golf at UM and is a 2010 graduate.

The recently completed $2.5 million golf practice facility, located off of South Main Street, includes indoor putting and chipping areas, driving bays, offices and locker rooms. The low-slung building is designed in the Mission style.

Outcome: Regents unanimously approved naming the golf practice facility the Weisfeld Family Golf Center.

Property Purchase

On the agenda was a request to approve the $730,000 purchase of 716 Oakland Ave. in Ann Arbor, between Monroe and Hill streets. The 0.14-acre parcel includes a 2,018-square-foot apartment building. The tentative closing date is set for Sept. 30.

According to a staff memo, the property is strategically located next to the Law School’s South Hall and Weill Hall, which houses the UM Ford School of Public Policy. The law school in particular is expanding in that area – South Hall just opened this fall, and the university has been talking with the city of Ann Arbor to secure the right-of-way for a block of Monroe street for part of its law school campus. [See Chronicle coverage: "Column: Ann Arbor's Monroe (Street) Doctrine"]

Within the past year, the university has purchased three other properties – all with apartment buildings. The previous three purchases were bought to accommodate the expansion of UM’s Institute for Social Research, on South Division.

Regarding the Oakland Avenue property, the staff memo indicates that the apartment building on the site holds no historical significance, but regent Andy Richner shared one bit of history: “I used to live there.”

Outcome: Regents unanimously authorized the purchase of 716 Oakland Ave.

Conflict-of-Interest Disclosures

Regents were asked to sign off on 14 items that required disclosure under the state’s Conflict of Interest statute. The law requires that regents vote on potential conflict-of-interest disclosures related to university staff, faculty or students. Often, the items involve technology licensing agreements or leases.

This month, the items related to the following businesses: Cornell Farms; Civionics Inc.; NeuroNexus Technologies Inc.; Inmatech Inc.; Vortex Hydro Energy; Rolith Inc.; Lean Therapeutics; Electric Field Solutions Inc.; Diapin Therapeutics; Arbor Research Collaborative for Health; Absolute Nano Inc.; and Michigan Critical Care Consultants Inc.

Outcome: Regents unanimously approved all 14 conflict-of-interest disclosures.

Medical School Departments Created

The creation of two new departments at the University of Michigan Medical School – for cardiac surgery, and computational medicine and bioinformatics (CMB) – was on the agenda for approval at the Sept. 15 meeting.

The CMB department will be established as of Jan. 2, 2012. It has existed as a center since 2005, with funding from the National Institutes of Health for research and a graduate training program. Becoming a department will help CBM recruit faculty and trainees, according to a staff memo.

Cardiac surgery is currently a section within the department of surgery. The section has grown to a size in terms of faculty, financial resources, and academic productivity that it warrants becoming a separate administrative unit, according to a staff memo.

Outcome: Regents unanimously approved the creation of the cardiac surgery department and computational medicine and bioinformatics (CMB) department.

Sustainability on Campus

Early in the meeting, regents received an update on environmental sustainability efforts at the Ann Arbor campus. Andy Berki, manager of UM’s office of campus sustainability, began by noting that he had a connection with one of the regents – he’d graduated from Pioneer High School with regent Kathy White.

Berki said he usually talked about operations, and he provided a handout with some environmental metrics for the FY 2011 fiscal year, as well as trend data from FY 2004 through FY 2011. But rather than focus on that, he said, three students were at the meeting to describe their work on sustainability.

Samantha Schiebold, a UM senior, spoke to regents about her work on a sustainability guide for students. Behind her is Andy Berki, manager of the UM office of campus sustainability.

Samantha Schiebold spoke first. A senior studying interdisciplinary physics, Schiebold had worked on a student guide called “How to Be a Green Wolverine,” which is distributed to each UM dorm room at the start of the academic year. The guide covers a range of topics, from how to conserve energy and water to how to throw a sustainable party. (“Use beeswax candles” is one of the suggestions.)

Not only did the project teach her teamwork and the ability to work as a consultant for a “client” – in this case, the university – but it also introduced her to the “mysterious inner workings of this university,” she said – a line that elicited laughter from the regents and staff. Schiebold said she was proud of the guide, and thankful that she could contribute to the effort.

Up next was Matt Friedrichs, a senior studying civil and environmental engineering. Although he’s involved in several projects – including the Kill-A-Watt competition – he focused his remarks on a sustainable neighborhoods course he took at UM. The course is offered through the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute and the college of architecture & urban planning.

Students first studied urban planning theory, then spent two weeks at Wayne State University in Detroit, where they developed a master plan for the Delray neighborhood. Friedrichs said the area has been devastated – it’s disconnected from the rest of the city, polluted and desolate. The class suggested changes like redirecting truck routes, conducting an environmental survey of the area, and remediating structures into “green centers” that would connect through pathways to other parts of Detroit. The experience took students out of the bubble of the Ann Arbor campus, Friedrichs said, and let them deal with real-world political, social and environmental issues.

The final speaker was graduate student Jose Alfara, a co-founder of the student group Sustainability Without Borders. Last year, 10 students focused on projects in rural West Africa. They worked to implement “circular economies,” where everything serves as a resource for something else. For example, a toilet system was installed that creates biogas, which is used to fuel the school’s kitchen stove. The program is now starting to focus on training, Alfara said, so that people living in a community adopt sustainability as a way of life. “That community is starting in Ann Arbor,” he said, “and hopefully we’ll take it as far as we can.”

In wrapping up the presentations, Berki said that while the campus is growing in population and infrastructure, the university needs to be aware of its environmental footprint. How can they balance growth with being good stewards of the environment? Part of the effort includes linking academics with operations, he said, as well as supporting new ventures like Planet Blue. Success also requires continued strong support from the administration, he said.

Mary Sue Coleman noted that this is one of the times when students pushed for change, and it’s great to see students involved in addressing real problems on campus. [As an example, students spoke during public commentary at the regents March 2009 meeting, urging administrators to better coordinate UM's sustainability programs. There is also an active UM Student Sustainability Initiative.]

More changes are on the way. On Sept. 27, Coleman is scheduled to make an address to campus, expanding UM’s sustainability goals for both academics and operations. Her remarks can be seen via a webcast, starting at 11 a.m.

Misc. Public Commentary

In addition to commentary related to the UM nurses, three other speakers addressed a variety of topics.

Two dogs, trained through the PAWS program, sat quietly during the Sept. 15 regents meeting.

Jane MacFarlane spoke to regents about PAWS with a Cause, a program that trains dogs for people with disabilities. [She and a colleague brought two dogs to the meeting, one of them sporting a maize-and-blue bandana.] She briefly described the program, and noted that even though UM doesn’t have a veterinary school, it was amazing to see how the community has embraced the PAWS program.

Joan Knoertzer, a retired Ann Arbor Public Schools teacher, described the building and collections at UM’s Clements Library, calling it the most beautiful library in the United States. The library is known for its holdings of American history and culture from the 15th through the 19th centuries. Knoertzer has served on the library’s advisory board for six years, and she thanked regents for their support. “We are on the academic map worldwide.”

Linda Martinson, a former UM nursing student, began by noting that she’s previously been barred from speaking at regents meetings because of several trespass warnings that have been issued against her, dating back to 2007. Those warnings are still in effect, she said, despite a recent change in the university’s trespass policy.

Martinson gave an update on her lawsuit against the university, saying “the university has argued that students do not have a property interest in their education, without which they are not entitled to constitutional due process.” [An update on the case is also included in the litigation report that's part of the board meeting packet, prepared by UM's general counsel.] The bulk of her remarks focused on details of the trespass warnings against her. She noted that she was able to address the regents at their 2010 meeting in Dearborn, saying she believes that’s “the reason General Counsel Suellyn Scarnecchia expanded the trespass policy to all three campuses, in order to keep victims of the policy from speaking at all regents’ meetings.” [.pdf file of Martinson's remarks to regents]

Present: Mary Sue Coleman (ex officio), Julia Darlow, Larry Deitch, Denise Ilitch, Andrea Fischer Newman, Andy Richner, Martin Taylor, Kathy White.

Absent: Olivia (Libby) Maynard.

Next board meeting: Thursday, Oct. 13, 2011 at 3 p.m. at the UM campus in Flint. [confirm date]

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The view looking east down the dewatered Argo headrace, with the embankment on the right. The trail along the embankment to Broadway is closed, as the city prepares for major reconstruction of the headrace. (Photos by the writer.)

Commissioners approved a resolution recommending a change to the scope of work at the Argo headrace – a change that will add a new entrance to the soon-to-be-reconstructed waterway from Argo Pond to the Huron River. The modification to the project was linked to an offer from DTE to pay for a whitewater section that’s part of the overall project, which freed up city funds for the new entrance. A state permit needed to start the reconstruction is expected to be received by Aug. 23.

A second resolution introduced at Tuesday’s meeting urged the city council to incorporate design of a trail system – including the county’s Border to Border (B2B) trail – into the Fuller Road area in advance of building the proposed Fuller Road Station. Two members of the Washtenaw Bicycling & Walking Coalition were on hand with suggestions for where trails might be located to bypass the busy intersection of Fuller Road, Maiden Lane and East Medical Center Drive.

The topic of trails also emerged tangentially during a presentation by PAC vice chair John Lawter on dog parks. Some people walk their dogs off leash on park trails and in other park areas, violating Ann Arbor’s ordinance requiring dogs to be leashed. The exception is in the city’s two dog parks, on the north and south edges of town.

Lawter suggested that Ann Arbor might find other ways to let dogs off leash, either by creating another traditional dog park that’s more centrally located, or designating certain hours for dogs to be off leash in specific parks. PAC might form a subcommittee to explore options for a new dog park, and for how to increase enforcement of existing dog-control ordinances. Such an effort might uncover more data points like those Lawter provided in his presentation, which included the pounds of poo collected annually at Swift Run dog park.

Data collection has also been part of developing the city’s first urban forest management plan. Oliver Kiley of JJR, the consultant leading this project, updated the commission on the effort. Possible outcomes include a recommended maintenance plan, protections for mature trees, targets for new tree plantings, and proposals for relevant ordinances and zoning. The discussion among commissioners led to concerns over whether the city is prepared for something similar to the emerald ash borer – which decimated thousands of trees in the city over the past decade and chewed up the city’s forestry budget for several years.

The urban forest management plan will be among the 26 city plans in a sustainability framework being developed, focused on “triple-bottom line” goals of economic vitality, environmental quality and social equity. The commission was briefed on this project in preparation for a Sept. 27 joint meeting of the park, planning, energy and environmental commissions. The goal of that meeting is to start prioritizing goals from these existing city plans.

Argo Dam Update

Brian Steglitz gave an update on the city’s reconstruction project at the Argo dam headrace, as commissioners were asked to recommend amending the project scope with TSP Environmental. Steglitz is the city’s project manager for the Argo reconstruction. [.pdf of staff memo and resolution]

TSP, a Livonia firm, had been hired last year to build a dam bypass channel in the headrace for $988,170 and to add whitewater features for an additional $180,000. However, DTE is now offering to pay for the whitewater feature of the project, if the city agrees to hold off on construction of that piece until after DTE completes environmental remediation on its nearby property, as required by the state.

By having DTE pay for the work, the city is expected to save $163,636. The resolution at Tuesday’s PAC meeting recommended using some of these funds to improve the entrance to the headrace. That work had not previously been part of the project’s scope.

Steglitz told commissioners that the additional work would include modifying the entry into the headrace by removing the top of the concrete culvert, adding grouted limestone to widen the approach, building new concrete abutments, and installing an arched prefabricated steel clear span bridge with a concrete deck. The work is expected to cost about $85,000.

A July 25 memo from city staff reported that the city had been notified by DTE officials of upcoming remediation work that DTE plans to do in 2012, adjacent to DTE’s property on the south side of the Huron River, between Allen Creek Drain and the Broadway Bridge. The remediation is being required by the Michigan Dept. of Environmental Quality. The city is currently in negotiations with DTE about the details of the work it will do related to the headrace and whitewater features, Steglitz said.

Brian Steglitz gives a presentation on the Argo headrace project to the city's park advisory commission.

The overall Argo dam project, as previously approved, calls for removing the canoe portage and replacing it with a series of “drop pools” so that no portage is required. Originally, five pools were proposed, but that has increased to eight pools, Steglitz said. Grade changes on the drops between pools will be less steep, to accommodate fish movement through the headrace. The change will also make it easier for novice canoers and kayakers to navigate, he said. [.pdf of Argo headrace design and bridge info]

Other work includes improving the accessibility of the path – which is part of the county’s Border-to-Border trail – and addressing problems in the headrace embankment.

The work is tied to a consent agreement that the city reached with the state in May 2010, laying out steps that the city must take to deal with some of long-outstanding structural issues with the earthen embankment. TSP Environmental had been selected by the city council at its Nov. 15, 2010 meeting, following a recommendation by PAC in October 2010.

Steglitz told PAC that the city hasn’t yet received the necessary state permit to begin major work on the project. The city applied for the permit in April, and since then has been responding to comments and additional requests for information from the state. City staff expect to receive the permit by Aug. 23, after which work will begin immediately. There’s a Nov. 15 deadline from the state related to the consent agreement, Steglitz said, which had originally been set based on receiving a permit in May. Meeting that deadline now will be aggressive, he noted, but for the most part doable – and the state will likely be flexible, if necessary, given that work couldn’t begin when planned.

Steglitz also said that some work almost certainly won’t be completed by Nov. 15, such as paving the path and putting in plantings. That work will be finished up next spring.

Meanwhile, some work that didn’t require the permit has been done, including tree removal and dewatering of the headrace, which Steglitz said has been a battle. The trail along the embankment has been closed, and detour signs are up.

Argo Dam: Commissioner Discussion

Colin Smith, the city’s manager of parks and recreation, urged commissioners to visit the Argo site, saying it was exciting to see that some work has begun. He also noted that Gary Lacy, the Colorado consultant who’s designing the project, had previously talked about the benefits of improving the entryway to the headrace, if possible. City councilmembers had also expressed interest in that when they initially approved the project, he said.

David Barrett asked whether TSP Environmental will still build the whitewater feature, now that DTE is paying for it. Steglitz replied that it might not be TSP, because DTE will probably want to use its own contractor. The city still needs to negotiate with DTE about the role that city staff and Lacy will play. City staff might be indifferent to who builds it, he said, as long as the design remains acceptable.

Facing west, looking at the entry to the dewatered Argo headrace. Argo Pond is on the other side of the berm. If approved by city council, a proposed change in the project's scope of work will entail rebuilding the entry with a Trailblazer bridge to provide more headroom to travel from Argo Pond into the headrace.

Smith said DTE staff have been very helpful in working with the city. In response to a query from Sam Offen, Smith said it wasn’t yet clear what type of remediation needs to take place on the DTE site, but he promised to forward that information to PAC as soon as it’s available. Barrett noted that if the remediation is extensive, it might push back the timeframe for building the whitewater features. Tim Berla clarified that even if that occurs, the new headrace would still be open.

Berla asked whether the deal with DTE had been finalized – was it certain that they’ll pay? Smith said that DTE reviewed the memo about the project that was provided to PAC and the city council, so everyone is on the same page. Everything has been laid out, he said, though the agreement hasn’t been finalized. Smith felt it was solid. Offen later asked Smith to seek the city’s attorney’s opinion on the agreement, before PAC’s recommendation goes to city council.

In response to a question from Tim Doyle, Smith said the new bridge would be similar to one installed in Bandemer Park.

John Lawter confirmed that the city would still have the ability to close the headrace, following reconstruction. Steglitz said a stop log could still be used, which would allow staff to block water flowing into the headrace, if necessary.

Outcome: Commissioners unanimously approved recommending an amendment to the scope of work for the Argo dam headrace project. The recommendation will be forwarded to city council for final approval.

Trails and Fuller Road Station

Over the past two years or so, several PAC members have raised concerns about various aspects of the proposed Fuller Road Station, a large parking structure, bus depot and possible rail station to be located near the intersection of Fuller Road, Maiden Lane and East Medical Center Drive, near the University of Michigan medical campus on city-owned land. The land has been used as a surface parking lot since 1993, leased to the university, but is on property designated as parkland. It’s a joint project of the city of Ann Arbor and UM, though a formal agreement regarding its construction and operation hasn’t yet been finalized.

In June 2010, the commission passed a resolution that asked the city council to make available a complete plan of Fuller Road Station – including any significant proposed agreements, such as what the university will pay the city for use of the structure – allowing sufficient time for a presentation at a televised PAC meeting before the council votes on the project. The resolution also asked that staff and the council ensure the project results in a net revenue gain for the parks system. Revenues from the lease of the surface parking lot support the parks system.

PAC most recently got a detailed update on the project at its May 2011 meeting. At that meeting, there was a discussion about the status of trails – including the county’s Border-to-Border (B2B) trail – as it runs through that area. As a follow-up to that discussion, at Tuesday’s PAC meeting, commissioners Gwen Nystuen and Tim Berla presented a resolution recommending that planning for a trail system be incorporated into plans for the proposed Fuller Road Station.

Trails and Fuller Road Station: Public Commentary

Eric Boyd of Ann Arbor said he strongly supported including non-motorized trails in the Phase 1 design of Fuller Road Station. The overall Fuller Road Station project is worthwhile to improve transit services in Ann Arbor, he said. But he said it will poorly serve cyclists if improvements aren’t made to non-motorized trails in the area – either first or at the same time. Specifically, one of the city’s best non-motorized assets is the trail connecting Bandemer Park to Parker Mill – a key link in the Border-to-Border trail, he said.

Right now, Boyd said, there are three obstacles preventing this from being a truly great ride, especially for families with young children: (1) access to Bandemer Park from the west is a mess, he said, (2) the dirt track along the headrace is difficult to navigate – he noted that the city is thankfully working on that now, and (3) the intersection at Fuller Road and Maiden Lane is an unwelcome obstacle and time-consuming to navigate safely. Boyd urged PAC to take a strong advocacy role in supporting non-motorized improvements – as called for in the Parks, Recreation and Open Space (PROS) plan – in the vicinity of Fuller Park, before or during construction of the Fuller Road Station.

John Satarino, a former PAC member, encouraged commissioners to look at a study that was done several years ago regarding the Border-to-Border trail, especially as it related to the Bandemer/Argo area. The rest of his comments related to Fuller Road Station, and a recent letter that mayor John Hieftje sent out to the community with comments about the project. Satarino asked who would pay the $15 million annual operating and maintenance costs for the facility – no one talks about that, he said, though it’s included in a consultant’s report on the project. Also, nothing was said about WALLY, the north/south commuter rail project. That will cost about $36 million to get up and running, Satarino said, plus $6 million to $8 million in annual operating costs.

The mayor minimized the issue of when the Fuller Road Station site became parkland, Satarino said – that was in 1932, when the city acquired the property. At that time, there had been provisions that the land remain parkland, but over the years “I guess the lawyers might have taken care of that,” he said. Satarino also wanted to remind people that there’s a paved parking lot on the land now because the University of Michigan bullied the city into building it – creating a “hostage situation” in order to save some old oak trees near the Veterans Administration hospital.

Trails and Fuller Road Station: Presentation

In starting the discussion, PAC chair Julie Grand suggested commissioners limit their focus to the issue of trails in the area of Fuller Road Station, and not discuss the facility itself at this point.

Tim Berla agreed, saying the resolution was a way to address having biking and pedestrian paths that would provide a safer way to navigate through an area where thousands of vehicles pass every day. He then introduced two members of the Washtenaw Bicycling & Walking Coalition (WBWC): Larry Deck and Joel Batterman.

Larry Deck of the Washtenaw Bicycling & Walking Coalition.

Deck and Batterman covered much of the information contained in a statement issued by WBWC in June. [.pdf of WBWC statement and map showing recommended trails] They showed a series of maps with options for trails – including maps from the city’s PROS plan and the 2006 non-motorized transportation plan.

The WBWC is suggesting three actions, Deck said:

1. Complete the trail system before construction of the Fuller Road Station parking structure.
2. Complete the trail system before the proposed bike center within Fuller Road Station is completed.
3. Have the university share in the costs of the trails and a bridge.

Batterman described several conflicts that pedestrians and bicyclists face with vehicles in the Fuller Road area, at intersections and at entrances to places like Fuller Park. A demand for improvements exists there, he said. A 12-hour traffic count in 2006 showed more than 4,000 pedestrians and 700 bicyclists used that area.

Batterman noted that in the early 1980s, when bridges on Fuller Road and East Medical Center Drive were built over the railroad and when the bridge was built over the Huron River on Maiden Lane, the design included room for future trails to go under the bridges. However, those trails haven’t yet been built, and there’s no continuity in that area for the B2B trail. Both the PROS plan and the non-motorized plan recommend completing these trails, he said. The non-motorized plan also calls for a bridge to be constructed over the Huron River, linking the trails on the south of the river to the trail that continues on the north side of the river through Riverside Park.

It seems reasonable to request funding for trail improvements that have been envisioned for roughly 30 years, Batterman said. The lack of trails is one of the last major gaps in the Huron River greenway system in the city’s center, he noted, and is a keystone in the corridor between UM’s central and north campuses.

Trails and Fuller Road Station: Commissioner Discussion

Berla began by noting that the traffic study mentioned by Batterman is five years old – given the university’s growth, those figures are likely higher today, he said. Berla referred to the text of the resolution, but did not read it – the resolution and memo had been distributed to commissioners via email before the meeting. [.pdf of memo and resolution]

Among other things, the resolution states that detailed plans for the design and funding of the trail system, including the B2B trail through Fuller Park and the connecting links on all sides, should be approved by PAC and the city council prior to action on the Fuller Road Station project. The resolution calls for trail improvements to be completed prior to or concurrently with changes planned along Fuller Road or construction of the Fuller Road Station, and recommends that any future transit improvements – including the “Signature Route” of the future University of Michigan rapid transit connector along Fuller Road – should preserve the integrity of the trail system.

Further, the resolution states that improvement of the trail system should be given priority over planned bicycle amenities within Fuller Road Station, and that costs of a complete non-motorized trail system and a source of funding should be established jointly by the city of Ann Arbor, the University of Michigan, and the Washtenaw County Parks & Recreation Commission.

PAC member Tim Berla.

Julie Grand clarified with Larry Deck that the WBWC was proposing trails underneath the bridges in that area.

Parks planner Amy Kuras was asked for her opinion about the WBWC proposal. She said she agreed that the intersection at Maiden Lane and Fuller Road was one of the most dangerous in the city for pedestrians and bicyclists. Trail connections under the bridges are probably the safest alternative.

Berla noted that the resolution prioritizes trails over the bike amenities planned inside Fuller Road Station. But he wondered whether it would be useful to be even more specific in the resolution. He directed his question to Christopher Taylor, an ex-officio PAC member who also represents Ward 3 on city council.

Taylor replied that in general, articulating priorities isn’t a bad thing. He wondered what the current plans are for trails at Fuller Road Station. Berla said it was difficult to know, since he hadn’t actually seen the plans. But the last time Berla had asked that question of Eli Cooper, the city’s transportation program manager, Cooper had indicated that the design entailed widening an existing path through the site to 10 feet, but that no other trail linkages would be part of the project’s first phase.

Tim Doyle asked how expensive it would be to build a non-motorized bridge over the Huron River. Deck indicated it could cost as much as $500,000.

Sam Offen had questions about two of the resolved clauses:

5) That improvement of the trail system, including the B2B Trail, be given priority over the bicycle elements of Phase I of FRS since there is use of and demand for trail continuity now, and

6) That the costs of a complete non-motorized trail system and source of funding be established jointly by the City of Ann Arbor, the University of Michigan, and the Washtenaw County Parks & Recreation Commission.

Regarding the #5 resolved clause, Berla clarified that while he’d like both the trails and the proposed amenities within the facility – bike lockers within the station, for example – priorities should be given to completing the trails first. Taylor observed that it seemed the clause oversteps the point of the resolution, which is to make sure the facility fits with the non-motorized infrastructure that feeds into it.

Offen was curious to know how Washtenaw County parks & rec was involved. Berla and Nystuen both emphasized that the county is a major funder of the B2B trail.

With no further questions, Grand called for a vote.

Outcome: Commissioners unanimously approved the resolution recommending action related to non-motorized trails in the Fuller Road Station area. The resolution will be forwarded to city council.

Dog Parks: More Needed?

John Lawter, PAC’s vice chair, has on several occasions raised the question of whether the city has a sufficient number of dog parks, and at Tuesday’s meeting he gave a formal presentation on the issue. He began broadly – by noting that dogs are believed to be the first domesticated animal, dating back more than 32,000 years. Dogs were hunting companions and guarded humans against danger, so in many ways, Lawter said, the evolution of humans is closely linked to the evolution of dogs.

The number of dogs is growing, both nationally and locally, Lawter said, including an estimated 75,000 dogs in Washtenaw County. And while there’s a leash law in Ann Arbor, there’s also a need for off-leash socialization and exercise. Leashes can cause dogs to be territorial, Lawter noted.

An off-leash dog area is fenced off from the rest of Olson Park, on the city's north side.

At the same time, complaints about off-leash incidents are on the rise, and enforcement is handled by police, who understandably don’t give it a high priority, Lawter said. But the challenge is that off-leash options in Ann Arbor are limited, he said – there are only two legal off-leash dog parks in Ann Arbor, at Ols0n Park and Swift Run. That’s led to informal off-leash gatherings, which Lawter characterized as common. In an “undisclosed” location in his neighborhood, Lawter said on Saturdays 50 or more people gather to run their dogs off leash. He knows of at least two other locations where this happens within a one-mile radius of the city’s center.

Possible solutions include increased enforcement and additional dog parks. The benefit of a dog park, Lawter said, is that it promotes responsible pet ownership and the enforcement of dog-control laws, while giving dogs a safe place to exercise. Dog parks provide seniors and the disabled with an accessible place to exercise their dogs, as well as a place for socializing for all people and dogs who visit the park – it’s a way to build community, he said.

On the flip side, concerns over dog parks include safety, sanitation, noise, traffic, effects on wildlife and natural areas, and the costs of construction and maintenance. Locations are often hard to find, he said, especially in areas adjacent to residential neighborhoods.

The two existing dog parks are located on the city’s edges – one in Olson Park, a fenced half-acre on the north side of town, and another 10 acres of fenced area at Swift Run in the south, which includes a separate section for small dogs. To reach these parks, most people need to drive there, Lawter said. Dogs aren’t permitted on AATA buses, and these aren’t walkable locations for most city residents.

Lawter also noted that while the number of permits to use these parks has dropped – from about 800 in 2008 to just over 400 in 2010 – the “pounds of poo” have increased, indicating that usage of the dog parks is increasing. About 12,000 pounds were collected by park staff in 2008, compared to over 14,000 pounds in 2010.

Traditional fenced-in dog parks cost about $40,000 to build, not including parking, Lawter said. Olson was cheaper – about $21,000. Maintenance costs are also a factor. Swift Run maintenance costs about $20,000 annually, he said.

In addition to traditional fenced-in areas, Lawter laid out several different options for dog parks. “Instant” dog parks can be created by putting up temporary fencing in areas that aren’t being used for other purposes, for example. Or unfenced dog parks can be designated in larger parks, he said, perhaps by setting restricted hours of use. Other ideas include having amenities like water areas for dogs to play in, benches that can be paid for by donors, and sponsorship opportunities – raising money by selling customized engraved bricks for paths, for instance. The goal is to “focus on the loot, not the poop,” Lawter quipped. He reported that a park planner in Indianapolis said permits for dog parks are “recession-proof” for that city, and that the dog parks could be money-makers, if managed well.

Lawter laid out a process the city could pursue, first by forming public/private partnerships to create additional options for dog parks, possibly by partnering with dog owner organizations. The city would need to identify an appropriate site – at least a quarter-acre minimum, and factoring in a capacity of 25 dogs per acre. Rules, regulations and enforcement issues would need to be developed, he said, followed by design of the park and eventual construction.

In conclusion, Lawter said there’s a need for another off-leash area in the central part of the city. He recommended incorporating this goal into the city’s park planning efforts, adding it as a consideration when looking at land acquisitions, and asking that parks staff actively look for potential sites.

Dog Parks: Commissioner Discussion

Julie Grand asked whether Lawter had suggestions for possible dog park locations. He did not identify any specific locations but said there are potential spots, depending on whether the dog park would be a small fenced-in area or a larger open space. However, the biggest issue is convincing neighbors to allow it, he said. It takes campaigning and advocating, which isn’t the role of the city staff, he said – that’s up to advocates for the dog parks.

Gwen Nystuen suggested setting up a PAC subcommittee to explore Lawter’s recommendations, and said she’d be willing to serve on it.

David Barrett jokingly described the informal off-leash gatherings as “spontaneous doggie flash mobs,” and asked whether there were a lot in the city. Lawter said he knew of at least three in his neighborhood alone, and he agreed with Barrett’s characterization that there was a kind of “doggie underground.”

Barrett also asked about the data regarding poo poundage. That’s collected by county employees at Swift Run, Lawter said – the dog park there is a joint city/county operation. Colin Smith, the city’s parks and recreation manager, reported that it’s one of the stranger data points he’s regularly received from the county over the past three years, but that Lawter had found it useful – “so you never know,” Smith said.

From left: Park advisory commissioners Sam Offen and Tim Doyle.

Sam Offen said he supported another dog park, if it’s in the right park with the right amenities. But it’s important that an increased effort to find a location for another dog park in the city’s center be accompanied by increased enforcement, he said. Bird Hills seems to be the easiest place to find people walking their dogs off-leash, Offen said – and when it’s politely pointed out to them that they’re violating a city ordinance, they often don’t care. However, it’s not cost effective to have police patrol the parks, he added, saying he didn’t know what the solution is.

Lawter agreed that more enforcement is needed. A lack of enforcement only encourages more people to break the rules, he said.

Grand supported the idea of designating limited hours to allow off-leash dogs in an area in an existing park. She suggested exploring that idea since it meant not having to build another dog park. Lawter said that in other cities where this is done, the hours are set to coincide with times that the parks aren’t used by children – early in the morning, or later at night.

Tim Doyle asked whether any section of Bird Hills might be used for this purpose – would there be public outcry at that? Yes, Smith said, there’d be outcry. Bird Hills is one of the higher-quality nature areas in the city, and there’s no area where dogs could run without damaging the plant life, he said.

Barrett asked if Lawter had ideas about how the dog parks could make money, as the park planner in Indianapolis had indicated. There are many ways, Lawter said. Some dog parks have gates requiring keys that must be purchased. Another option is to periodically go to the dog parks and check to see if people have permits – probably only a third of people who currently use Ann Arbor’s dog parks have permits, he said. Or occasionally a booth could be set up at the dog park to accept permit applications, and educate people about why permits are needed.

Offen noted that currently, permits must be purchased at city hall – it’s not possible to get one online or at other locations, so it’s not convenient to do. Lawter said that one possibility would be to have permit applications available at other park sites where staff are present. Smith said that for people who’ve already gotten a permit, the city mails reminders at the end of the year, urging them to renew. [.pdf of dog permit application]

There are other reasons why permits are important, beyond the revenue, Lawter said. It’s also a way to verify that the dogs are vaccinated – that’s important for public safety. Doyle suggested making permits available at local veterinarian offices.

Smith noted that a few years ago, when the two dog parks were created, the city did significant public outreach on the issue. It’s possible to draw on that information again, he said.

Urban Forest Management Plan

Commissioners received a presentation about development of the city’s urban forest management plan from Oliver Kiley, a landscape architect with the firm JJR, which has been hired by the city as a consultant for the project. [Cheryl Zuellig of JJR is working as a consultant on the project as well. She also serves on the city's public art commission.]

This is the city’s first urban forest management plan, Kiley told commissioners. The intent is to develop a long-term vision for how to manage this major community asset. Public engagement has been a big part of the process, he said, in working to establish a range of goals, objectives and an action plan. Possible outcomes include a recommended maintenance plan, protections for mature trees, targets for new tree plantings, and proposals for relevant ordinances and zoning.

The process started over a year ago, when a working group was set up of the consultants and city staff. An advisory committee of community members was also formed to give input. Beyond that, Kiley said, there’s been outreach to stakeholders and focus groups, as well as two citywide public meetings last year. Two more meetings will be held later this year and in early 2012. In addition, an online survey posted last year yielded about 400 responses, he said.

The draft plan is divided into three components: (1) tree resources, (2) resource management, such as policies, funding and staff, and (3) community engagement. Goals have been set for each component, and a draft of over 50 possible objectives has been developed, Kiley said. [.pdf of draft objectives] The timetable calls for a draft plan to be circulated in April and May of 2012, with city council reviewing and adopting it later that year.

Kiley pointed commissioners to the project’s website at www.a2gov.org/urbanforestry for more information. He noted that Connie Pulcipher of the city’s systems planning unit is the point person for this project, during the time when the city’s forester, Kerry Gray, is on maternity leave.

Urban Forest: Commission Discussion

Gwen Nystuen referred to stormwater management as a major issue for the city, and an important aspect of the urban forest. Will the urban forest management plan attempt to measure or quantify this impact? Kiley noted that the consultant Davey Resource Group did a tree inventory and benefits analysis in 2009 that addressed this issue. [.pdf of full report]

Sam Offen asked who serves on the advisory committee. Members include:

• Harry Sheehan: Office of the Washtenaw County Water Resource Commissioner
• Joel Dalton: Huron Valley Group of the Sierra Club
• Ann Lund: Broadway neighborhood
• Kathy Stroud: Traver Association
• Allison Stupka: Old Westside
• Lynn Borset: Ann Arbor Tree Conservancy
• Jeff Plakke: UM Botanical Gardens & Arboretum
• Neal Foster: Orchard‐Hills Maplewood Homeowners Association & Millers Creek Action Team
• Rita Mitchell: Neighborhood Alliance
• Jim Rogers: Friends of Greenview and Pioneer Nature Areas
• Peggy Sorvala: DTE
• Mike Martin: First Martin (representing business/property managers)
• Paul Bairley: Former city forester
• Kris Olsson: Huron River Watershed Council
• Matt Naud: Environmental Commission (city staff, sitting in for reporting purposes)
• John Lawter: Park Advisory Commission and UM Grounds
• Joan Doughty: Community Action Network

Offen noted that the city had been hit by the emerald ash borer several years ago, which decimated most of the emerald ash trees. He wondered if the city would have responded to the crisis differently, if an urban forest management plan had been in place at that time. Kiley replied that one of the plan’s goals is to be flexible and responsive to changing conditions. It’s important always to keep an eye on what the next disease or insect attack might be, he said, but it’s not clear how the city could have anticipated the emerald ash borer. The city was caught off guard, he said, and for several years the crisis consumed all of the city’s forestry budget and man-hours. That meant that other routine maintenance was deferred – the city just didn’t have the capacity to handle it.

Kiley noted that diversity of trees in the city is important, to prevent decimation of the urban forest by a single bug or disease.

David Barrett asked if the emerald ash borer crisis was over. The borer doesn’t attack trees under a certain size, Kiley said, so for the most part, those smaller ashes are all that remain in the city. Over the longer term, the question is whether the insect has moved out of the area so that the ash trees can grow.

Lawter noted that the plan will address many areas that relate to parks, including setting goals for tree canopy coverage, funding sources, and possible ordinances related to when trees can be removed. He said PAC will at some point receive a draft copy to review for input.

Julie Grand asked whether the interviews with stakeholders or focus groups yielded any surprises or common themes. Riley pointed her to a document on the urban forest website that lists common themes pulled from those interviews. [.pdf of common themes] A sampling includes: (1) the importance of communication and transparency of forestry activities, (2) the need for tree diversity, (3) the importance of tree maintenance and young tree care, and (4) the suggestion of incentives for tree plantings on private property.

Mike Anglin, an ex-officio PAC member who also represents Ward 5 on city council, wrapped up the discussion by thanking Kiley for the work he’s doing.

Sustainability Update

Jamie Kidwell, who’s working for the city on a sustainability project funded by a $95,000 grant the city received from the Home Depot Foundation, gave an update to PAC about those efforts. She had given a similar presentation at a city planning commission working session earlier this month.

The concept of sustainability focuses on what’s called the triple bottom line: environmental quality, economic vitality, and social equity. Kidwell told commissioners that the goal of the project isn’t to develop a new plan. Rather, it’s to review the city’s existing plans and organize them into a framework of goals, objectives and indicators that can guide future planning and policy. Other project goals include improving access to the city’s plans and to the sustainability components of each plan, and to institutionalize the concept of sustainability into city planning and future city plans.

There’s an 18-month timeline for the project, which started earlier this year. For the first phase, Kidwell reviewed existing city plans – such as the downtown plan, the non-motorized transportation plan, the natural features master plan and others – and interviewed key city staff to determine which plans they use to guide their decision-making. There are 26 plans that are included in this project, and the second phase has involved organizing the goals for each plan. [.pdf of the list of 26 plans]

Kidwell said she and other city staff are starting to develop a framework for these plans, and to identify gaps that exist – goals that the city might want to pursue, but that aren’t laid out in existing plans.

The final six months of the project will be focused on developing an action plan, Kidwell said. That will include prioritizing goals within the framework, and tying those goals to the city’s two-year budget plan.

Efforts in other parts of the country – Philadelphia, Miami-Dade, Santa Monica, Calif. and Asheville, N.C. – have provided some guidance in developing a framework for Ann Arbor, Kidwell said. Philadelphia’s model was particularly appealing for its simplicity, she said, using broad themes like energy and the environment.

The draft for Ann Arbor’s framework is centered around four themes: (1) climate and energy, (2) natural systems, (3) community, and (4) land use and access. Goals from each of the city’s 26 plans in the framework are being sorted to see how many of those goals fit into these four themes, Kidwell said.

Also in draft form is a document with summaries for each of the 26 plans, including the top 10 goals from each plan. It’s intended to be a reference resource, Kidwell said. [.pdf of draft sustainability summaries]

At the end of the project, Kidwell said, there will be two concrete products: a relative brief document that will be distributed with a summary of the city’s sustainability framework, and an interactive website – a centralized place where people can access all of the city’s plans, and can sort information based on different goals and themes.

Kidwell concluded by highlighting some upcoming events tied to the sustainability project:

• Tuesday, Sept. 13 at 7 p.m.: Lecture on sustainability by Dick Norton, chair of the University of Michigan’s urban and regional planning program. The venue has not yet been finalized.
• Tuesday, Sept. 27 at 6 p.m.: A joint meeting of the planning, park, environmental and energy commissions, to set sustainability priorities. The meeting will be held at Cobblestone Farm, 2781 Packard Road.
• Second Thursday of each month, January-April 2012: A lecture series on sustainability issues.

The events will be open to the public.

Sustainability Update: Commissioner Discussion

David Barrett asked whether there had been any outreach to the business community, given that one of the three sustainability goals is economic vitality. Not yet, Kidwell said. This initial phase has involved organizing what the city has already adopted. In later phases, the effort will involve community outreach, and the business community will be part of that.

Sam Offen described it as a tremendous project, and asked what outcomes Kidwell anticipates, in terms of recommendations and priorities. Kidwell replied that she hopes some priorities will be set at the Sept. 27 joint meeting of the four city commissions, perhaps identifying one priority from each theme that could be moved head in the coming year. That would provide direction for staff to focus. There are hundreds of goals within the 26 plans, she noted, and not all of them can be acted on at the same time. The hope is that an action plan will prioritize some of the goals so that staff can better track progress toward reaching those goals.

Colin Smith, parks and recreation manager, added that the priorities can be linked to the city’s capital improvements plan (CIP), which is used to prioritize projects for budgeting purposes.

Offen noted that if this kind of framework had been in place, then perhaps projects like the Fuller Road Station would have evolved from it by identifying transportation and environmental needs, rather than just appearing suddenly on someone’s To Do list. Fuller Road Station would have been more understandable if it had been part of a process, rather than just being “birthed,” he said.

Tim Doyle asked whether Kidwell had run across any inconsistencies or conflicts between goals in the different city plans. Not as much as anticipated, she said. There are some conflicts – between goals in the solar and urban forest plans, for example – but those will just have to be addressed whenever they’re encountered, she said. Conflicting goals will be highlighted in the database she’s compiling, Kidwell added.

Offen wondered why there weren’t any plans related to public safety. Kidwell said she wasn’t aware of any such plan, but that there was still time to incorporate suggestions for other plans to include.

Barrett observed that there also weren’t any plans specifically related to economic vitality. Kidwell said that no city plan focuses specifically on that issue, but that goals in many of the 26 plans used in the framework do address economic vitality. In response to a question from Offen, she said that no plans from the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority are being incorporated into the framework, though similar goals are in some of the city’s master plans.

Barrett then asked what’s meant by “social equity.” That’s a big question, Kidwell said, and one that the community needs to answer. Generally, it means ensuring that public health and affordable housing goals, for example, are part of the city’s planning. But part of the process to develop a sustainability framework is to define these terms, she said.

Julie Grand noted that several of the city plans address issues related to the Huron River and non-motorized transportation. She observed that PAC’s agenda that evening included an item related to that too – trails in the Fuller Road Station area.

Kidwell wrapped up the discussion by mentioning that she’s keeping a blog on the Sustainable Cities Institute website, giving updates on the Ann Arbor project.

Misc. Communications

At the end of Tuesday’s three-hour meeting, parks and recreation manager Colin Smith gave several brief updates.

Colin Smith, Ann Arbor's manager of parks and recreation.

He noted that stakes with white flags had been placed in the West Park detention pond in an attempt to “politely dissuade” water fowl from eating the plants there. He acknowledged that it would be helpful to put up signs explaining the purpose of those flags. He also noted that a memo had been sent to city council earlier this month, providing an update on West Park construction.

Earlier in the day, Smith said, an event to launch the RiverUp! project had been held at Island Park. [At its July 2011 meeting, PAC had been briefed on the project, which is spearheaded by a conservancy group called the Wolfpack, and involves several other partners, including the Huron River Watershed Council, the National Wildlife Federation, the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, and the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan.] The event had been well attended, he said, but it was also a chance to reflect on how much the city has done over the past decade or so to improve conditions along the river and provide exposure to the river as a recreational resource. It was good to know that the city has taken a lead on that, he said.

Smith also reported that Matt Warba has been promoted to assistant manager of field operations for the city, taking on broader responsibility for operations outside of the parks. Warba was on hand to give a very brief report, focusing on efforts at Plymouth Park. The city continues to battle stormwater runoff from the railroad embankment in that area along Plymouth Road, he said. Engineering work is underway for a longer-term solution, he said, with construction to start in the fall.

Present: David Barrett, Tim Berla, Doug Chapman, Tim Doyle, Julie Grand, Sam Offen, Gwen Nystuen, John Lawter, councilmember Mike Anglin (ex-officio), councilmember Christopher Taylor (ex-officio). Also Colin Smith, city parks manager.

Absent: Karen Levin

Next meeting: PAC’s meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2011 begins at 4 p.m. in the city hall second-floor council chambers, 301 E. Huron St., Ann Arbor. [confirm date]

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State Street runs north-south. Ellsworth, which runs east-west, is at the bottom of the frame. The large paved area northwest of the I-94/State Street interchange is Briarwood Mall. The proposed area of study extends farther north to Stimson. (Image links to Bing Map.)

The RFP, which will likely be issued next week, will solicit a consultant to develop a comprehensive plan for the 2.15-mile section between Stimson Street to the north – near a railroad crossing and the Produce Station – and Ellsworth to the south.

The corridor is the city’s main gateway from the south – the stretch includes an I-94 interchange, entrances to Briarwood Mall, and other retail, commercial and office complexes. Although there is one large apartment complex along that road, it is not a densely residential area.

Also at Tuesday’s working session, commissioners and staff discussed plans for an April 26 retreat that will focus on another major corridor: Washtenaw Avenue.

State Street Study RFP

A comprehensive study of the South State Street corridor had been scheduled for the current fiscal year – it was an item discussed at the planning commission’s annual retreat held in April 2010. But the city’s planning staff didn’t have the resources to do the work, according to Wendy Rampson, head of the planning unit.

So rather than having planning staff tackle the project, the city plans to hire a consultant for this project. About $150,000 is available for the project, though it’s unlikely that entire amount will be used. Those funds, which are in the budget for the current fiscal year, would require city council approval if they need to be carried over into FY2012, which begins July 1, 2011.

Jill Thacher, the city planner who’s leading this project, plans to issue the RFP next week, and on Tuesday evening asked planning commissioners for feedback on the draft she’d crafted. [.pdf file of draft State Street Corridor study RFP]

The RFP includes a proposed process for developing the corridor plan – a process that’s expected to take 12 months, beginning in July 2011:

1. Data Inventory and Analysis: A large amount of preliminary data on the corridor has been collected by staff, and includes information on related planning efforts, existing conditions for land use, transportation, natural features, and infrastructure, and issues and opportunities related to these conditions. A database of building parcel information, and a large number of GIS maps specific to existing conditions have also been collected. The consultant will utilize existing data and identify additional data requirements, and collect that data.

2. Market Analysis: A market analysis to identify market demand and redevelopment potential will be undertaken by the consultant. The analysis may include, but is not limited to, examination of existing conditions, identification of trends affecting demand for various land uses, identification of market and non-market based forces affecting the corridor, future market demand, and/or other relevant market information.

3. Identification of Goals, Issues, and Opportunities: Upon completion of market analyses and data collection, the selected consultant should analyze the data and work closely with the public, as well as business and institutional stakeholders, to complete a full SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis for the corridor. This analysis will be used to craft a preferred vision of future land use in the corridor.

4. Identification of Alternatives and Priorities: The consultant will work closely with staff and the Planning Commission, considering public input, to identify alternative scenarios that could be implemented over time as the corridor develops/redevelops.

5. Preparation of Plan Concepts and Selection of Preferred Scenario(s): Using the alternatives and priorities identified via the ongoing public process, corridor plan concepts will be developed that address the priorities and needs identified. The consultant will work with staff and the Planning Commission to recommend and select the preferred future land use scenario(s).

6. Identification of Action Strategies, Plans, Policies, and Best Practices: The consultant will work with staff and the Planning Commission to identify action steps and strategies needed for successful implementation of the preferred future land use scenario(s). This could include outlining methods to work with City leaders, local, regional, and state planning agencies, business groups, and members of the community at large to best implement the corridor plans, preserve the desired current aspects of the corridor, and to embrace future anticipated growth.

7. Development of Final Corridor Plan Report: Deliverables expected from the selected firm will include a final corridor plan report, in a format suitable for publication, including intermediate studies which were used in the planning process, such as future development scenarios, alternative scenarios, and market analyses.

Thacher told commissioners that the RFP will likely have a mid-May deadline for submitting proposals, with selection of a consultant taking place later that month. The planning commission’s master plan review committee – consisting of Wendy Woods, Diane Giannola, Evan Pratt and Erica Briggs – will help select the consultant. The goal is for work to begin in July 2011. Because the study is expected to cost more than $25,000, it would first require city council approval.

In a follow-up email to The Chronicle, Rampson said that the Ann Arbor city council had approved $70,000 to develop corridor design standards in FY2010 and $90,000 in FY2011 for consulting work on corridors. Of that, about $10,000 has been spent so far on inventory work, leaving $150,000 available. She said they do not intend to spend the entire $150,000 on this contract.

In addition, the council had allocated $85,000 for master plan revisions in FY2010 and $95,000 in FY2011. Following direction given by the planning commission, the city’s planning staff has not embarked on a full master plan revision effort, Rampson said, and they don’t intend to use the remainder of those funds.

[It was at its Oct. 18, 2010 meeting that the city council revised its FY 2011 budget by moving funds out of the general fund reserve and allocating them for corridor and master planning. The money had reverted to the general fund – after being previously allocated in the FY 2010 budget, but not spent. Because the unspent funds were not carried forward for FY 2011 when that year's budget was approved in May of 2010, the council needed to authorize the transfer back from the general fund reserve. That authorization came with dissent from Marcia Higgins, who represents Ward 4]

State Street Study RFP: Commissioner Feedback

Eric Mahler, the commission’s chair, began the working session discussion by looking at the eight deliverables listed in the RFP – items that the city will want the consultant to produce as part of the project. They include:

1. Data Inventory & Analysis: Interview and meeting summaries; analysis maps; narrative.

2. Market Analysis: Findings and summary report.

3. Issues/Opportunities/Goals: Overview of SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis; preliminary goals summary.

4. Choices/Trade-offs/Priorities: Summary of criteria and methodologies used; summary of choices

5. Recommended Plans/Policies/Practices: Draft plans and policies.

6. Action Strategies: Policy implementation and action strategies reports.

7. Draft/Final Corridor Plan: Draft and final plan text, illustrations, executive summary.

8. Two to four public meetings plus up to 25 targeted individual or small group interviews of key stakeholders.

Mahler said those are fine, but he noted that commissioners had also talked about incorporating sustainability goals into this project.

[By way of background, commissioners discussed sustainability and the State Street project at their April 2010 retreat, and more generally at a three-way joint working session of the environmental, energy and planning commissions that took place that same month. This year, the city was awarded a $95,000 grant from the Home Depot Foundation to: (1) create a sustainability framework; and (2) develop an action plan based on the sustainability framework. The funds are paying for a temporary employee, Jamie Kidwell, who's keeping a blog about the project on the Sustainable Cities Institute website. The goal is to develop a framework of goals, objectives and indicators, and a State of Our Sustainability Report.]

Mahler told other commissioners that this project is ideal for making the city’s sustainability goals concrete, though they need to settle on what specific goals they’d want to achieve. It might vary from one end of the corridor to the other, he said. There might not be a better opportunity to do this for a long time, Mahler added, saying that at the very least, the outcome would be something they could critique.

Rampson noted that Kidwell is just beginning her year-long project to build a sustainability framework, but she might be far enough along by the time the State Street consultant starts that they could work together.

Bonnie Bona added that it would help even if they simply developed questions to ask themselves relative to sustainability goals, and to identify where potential conflicts arise between the different goals of economic, environmental and social justice sustainability. The goals don’t always work together, she said.

Moving off the topic of sustainability, Evan Pratt suggested asking for the consultant to come up with alternative scenarios for the corridor. What would it look like in the future if the city did nothing? What might happen if there were different types of zoning changes?

Bona pointed to the city’s transportation plan – it would be nice to coordinate the State Street study with that plan, she said. Pratt added that an overview of traffic management issues should be part of the study.

Rampson later noted that the city will be able to provide the consultant with previously collected traffic data. City staff have also taken soil borings from the medians along State Street near Briarwood Mall, she said. The aesthetics of those medians has been an issue, and soil samples provide information about what can be done there – possibilities such as bioswales or native vegetation.

Kirk Westphal asked whether the consultant should explore funding possibilities, like a corridor improvement authority (CIA) that’s being considered for Washtenaw Avenue. Rampson felt it was more appropriate to ask the general question: What tools are available to implement the plan? She said they’ve already encountered the “realities” of possibly implementing tax increment financing (TIF) in the Washtenaw Avenue project, and she was reluctant to suggest that as a specific option for the consultant to explore.

Erica Briggs suggested that the study include information about where commuters who use the State Street corridor are coming from and going to. Westphal said the proposed Costco site on Ellsworth west of State – which will likely have a large surface parking lot – presents a huge park-and-ride opportunity.

Related to alternative transportation, Briggs noted that riding a bicycle along State Street is a problem.

Jean Carlberg described the diversity of development along the corridor, from “dilapidated” student housing on the north end, to the huge impact that Costco could have if it builds a store near State and Ellsworth, in Pittsfield Township. She also noted that the topography of the area isn’t mentioned in the RFP, but should be – stormwater issues are a concern.

A rendering of possible future development from Pittsfield Township's draft master plan, showing the northwest corner of State and Ellsworth. (Links to larger image.)

Thacher reported that she had attended a meeting in Pittsfield Township where the draft of the township’s master plan was presented. For the area near South State and Ellsworth, Costco would serve as an anchor retail store, but the plan also calls for offices, live/work units that are characterized as artist lofts, and a centralized parking structure.

Rampson said that when Pittsfield officials complete the master planning process, they’ll send out copies to adjacent municipalities – including Ann Arbor – for review. That will likely occur soon, she said. [At its April 13 meeting, the Pittsfield Township board of trustees approved release of the master plan for a 63-day public review period, beginning April 18.]

Diane Giannola clarified that land south of I-94 and to the west of State Street is in Pittsfield Township, while land south of I-94 to the east of State is in Ann Arbor. Rampson added that the road itself is in Ann Arbor’s jurisdiction.

Thacher asked for feedback about the public participation component – her draft suggested two to four general public meetings, plus smaller focus groups with stakeholders, including local businesses, residents at the apartment complex, and the University of Michigan, which has offices in Wolverine Tower near State and Eisenhower.

Pratt said they’ll probably need to knock on doors – getting meaningful feedback in that area will be difficult, he said. Mahler suggested that two public meetings would be sufficient.

Briggs noted that city staff had successfully used an online survey to get public input for the recent update of the Park and Recreation Open Space (PROS) plan. The city could contact businesses along State Street, and have employers ask their workers to complete the survey, she said.

Westphal said he assumed that overlays would be a potential option for tweaking zoning in this corridor, as would a possible premium for building affordable housing. Rampson replied that it would depend on the commission’s goals. If they want more density, they could recommend changing the zoning to allow for that, she said. Westphal clarified that the corridor study would include a discussion of goals.

Briggs pointed out that the community hasn’t yet clearly articulated its overarching goals, whether those goals include density, affordable housing, transportation or other things. As the city’s resources become more limited, she said, it’s important to know the community’s goals and direct resources into those areas.

Maher suggested adding to the RFP an indication of what kind of modeling they’d like to see. Words on paper are dry, he said – the consultant should develop some sort of visual representation, either a computer model or physical 3-D rendering.

Thacher noted that the draft RFP asks for a market analysis. She asked for feedback – the analysis could be tailored, or quite broad. Mahler weighed in on the side of keeping it basic, saying he was reluctant to get into a protracted discussion about the underlying assumptions needed to do trending forecasts. “The simpler we keep it, the better.”

Pratt agreed, noting that if you ask for a 20-year forecast, you get what the Library Lot proposal entailed – a lot of caveats. Carlberg suggested looking at what a five-year build-out might mean, then identifying possible opportunities beyond that.

Rampson said these types of projects have rarely included market analyses in the past, but that in this case, because State Street is an employment corridor, it would be useful to see what’s on the horizon. They don’t need to do a fine-grain analysis, she said, but to get a sense of where the market is heading in this region, so that the corridor can identify a niche.

When Briggs said that one thing they can predict with certainty is rising gas prices, Mahler replied that there might be a viable alternative fuel that’s developed, to offset that factor.

Westphal observed that even if they aren’t hiring an economic development consultant, it would still be useful to ask for comparisons to corridors in other communities that were anchored by a large retailer and near an interstate. What other areas have made those assets into an opportunity? He also suggested looking at other corridors in Ann Arbor – making sure that their vision for State Street doesn’t detract from other areas, like Westgate, Arborland and the Plymouth/Green corridor.

They’d talked about the North Main corridor previously as well, Derezinski said. But there’s no question that in terms of priority, State Street was second in importance only after Washtenaw Avenue, he said. Pratt added that State Street stood out as an opportunity because changes there were likely to raise fewer objections from residents – there are few residential areas there now.

Derezinski noted that it was remarkable to see the businesses that have sprung up around the Birch Run outlet mall north of Flint, or around the Cabela’s store in Dundee, south of Ann Arbor. Briggs commented that she hoped that kind of development wasn’t in Ann Arbor’s future.

Some of that development could happen in Pittsfield Township, Rampson noted – and the city will need to work with the township about it, in a respectful way.

Planning Commission Annual Retreat

Part of Tuesday’s working session was spent talking about the group’s April 26 retreat, which will focus on the Washtenaw Avenue corridor.

Tony Derezinski, a planning commissioner who also serves on city council, along with commission chair Eric Mahler have been planning the retreat with Wendy Rampson and Jeff Kahan of the city’s planning staff. It’s set to begin at 3 p.m. at the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority headquarters, 2700 S. Industrial, where they’ll get an update on the county’s transit master plan from Michael Ford, AATA’s CEO.

At least two hours are devoted to a bus tour with stops along Washtenaw Avenue, between the split at East Stadium in Ann Arbor, and as far east as Hewitt Road in Ypsilanti. Stops are likely to include the crossing at Arbor Hills; the Arborland shopping mall; Glencoe Hills, an apartment complex owned by McKinley Inc.; and the Washtenaw intersections with Golfside and Hewitt.

The group will return to the AATA headquarters for dinner and a discussion of the Washtenaw Avenue corridor improvement authority (CIA), a project that involves the four jursidictions that Washtenaw Avenue crosses through: Ann Arbor, Pittsfield Township, Ypsilanti Township and Ypsilanti. [For background, see Chronicle coverage: "What Does Washtenaw Corridor Need?"]

In describing the agenda at Tuesday’s working session, Derezinski said they planned to invite other community members to participate. Albert Berriz, McKinley’s CEO, will be joining them for part of the retreat, he said, as will Anya Dale, a Washtenaw County planner and AATA board member. The broad theme of the retreat will be regional planning – looking at how communities can work together, Derezinski said, noting that it’s an effort the current administration in Lansing is stressing.

Erica Briggs said she hoped they’d have time to get off the bus and walk along some of the sections of Washtenaw, to experience it as a pedestrian. It’s difficult for pedestrians, especially along the US-23 interchange – and biking is even worse, she indicated.

Rampson said they purposefully picked rush hour to take the bus tour, so that they could see the corridor at its most congested.

Also during the retreat, the commission plans to discuss its work program priorities for the coming year. The retreat, which is open to the public, will run until 8:30 p.m. However, it’s not yet clear how the commission plans to make the bus tour portion of the retreat accessible to the public.

Planning commissioners present: Bonnie Bona, Erica Briggs, Jean Carlberg, Tony Derezinski, Diane Giannola, Eric Mahler, Evan Pratt, Kirk Westphal.

Absent: Wendy Woods.

In deliberations on a resolution that would have authorized the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority to start designing a plan to develop city-owned surface parking lots, Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), who's speaking here, said he did not want to tie the city administrator's hands. The hands in question are visible in the right of the frame, clearly still untied. (Photos by the writer.)

After amending the licensing proposal heavily at its Jan. 3, 2011 meeting, the council had decided to postpone the measure until Tuesday’s meeting. After a relatively brief attempt to undertake further amendments, the council decided to postpone consideration again – until its Feb. 7, 2011 meeting. They also voted to extend the moratorium on opening additional marijuana dispensaries and cultivation facilities through March 31, 2011.

Not relatively brief were Christopher Taylor’s (Ward 3) opening remarks about a resolution that would have authorized the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority to design a plan to develop city-owned downtown parking lots.

In the end, the council decided to postpone consideration of the DDA parcel-by-parcel proposal – on a 6-4 vote, with some of those voting against postponement looking to vote it down. The effect of the postponement was likely similar to what outright rejection would have been. The clear message was this: Substantial revision to the proposal would be required to gain the kind of overwhelming support the measure will likely need to persuade DDA board members that the council is in agreement with the proposal.

Another piece of major business, which passed quietly, was approval of an overhaul of the ordinance language defining the city’s retirement system. An additional tax abatement for Edwards Brothers received a lot of discussion, but was ultimately approved.

The city also accepted a grant from the Home Depot Foundation for sustainability work, that earned praise for the city’s environmental coordinator, Matt Naud. In other city environmental action, David Stead was reappointed to the city’s environmental commission, and Steve Bean’s decision was announced that he had not sought reappointment to that commission, after a long tenure.

Th site plan for Lake Trust Credit Union at the southeast corner of West Liberty and West Stadium Boulevard was approved. And two additional parcels were added to the land that is protected by the city’s greenbelt program.

As budget season looms, Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2), who serves on both the city council’s budget committee and the labor and administration committee, gave a status update on the city’s negotiations with its unions.

DDA-Led Parcel-by-Parcel Surface Lot Plan

Before the council was a resolution that would have authorized the city’s downtown development authority to create a parcel-by-parcel plan for the development of downtown city-owned surface parking lots.

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

The proposal before the council would establish phases:

• Phase I – DDA assembles information and brings in development expertise. This includes information from the city’s relevant boards and commissions, Ann Arbor SPARK, and real estate professionals.
• Phase II – Visioning downtown development. This includes building on previous work done, for example, during the Calthorpe process, and would involve work sessions with city council, the city’s planning commission and public engagement.
• Phase III – Taking these ideas and shaping a strategic plan for city council approval. This phase would yield the draft of a “parcel-by-parcel” plan, with the idea that it be incorporated as an amendment to the city’s Downtown Plan.
• Phase IV – Implement the parcel-by-parcel plan. This would entail selecting a specific parcel and developing a request for proposals (RFP) for that parcel. This process would then be repeated for other parcels.

Two key “Resolved” clauses would require the city administrator to place items on the agenda for the council to consider, and would require the city to reimburse the DDA for expenses, if the council were to decline a specific site plan for any reason other than a failure to meet zoning regulations.

RESOLVED, that for items above requiring City Council approval, the City Administrator shall place such items on the agenda of City Council no later than thirty (30) days after the City Administrator’s receipt thereof and determination that such items comply with City requirements. In the event that such item is not voted upon within thirty (30) days of being placed upon the agenda, then at each subsequent meeting of the City Council where the item does not appear on the agenda, the City Administrator during Communications from the City Administrator shall provide a status report as to reasons for the item’s failure to appear on the agenda.

RESOLVED, that in light of the DDA’s expenditures of Phase IV monies in reliance upon City Council’s approval of the Parcel-by-Parcel Plan, any resulting RFP, and the DDA-proposal recommendation, if City Council declines to approve a Parcel site plan for any reason other than the site plan not complying with applicable zoning regulations, then the City of Ann Arbor shall reimburse the DDA for all direct DDA Phase IV costs related to such Parcel.

DDA-Led Plan: Public Commentary

Alan Haber spoke about the issue by characterizing the resolution as delegating responsibility to the DDA and saying that he hoped the council doesn’t do that, but instead puts the question to the people. Haber contended that the DDA has not been open to people’s views. There needs to be an integrated whole view of the area around the Library Lot that includes the old YMCA lot, he said. When this area gets discussed, he complained, the idea of a central park gets left off the map. The people of Ann Arbor should be consulted, he said, not people who are unaccountable.

Haber criticized the consultant’s report on the Library Lot – prepared by the Roxbury Group – as not a good report. He said that at first the underground parking garage bond payments were said to come just out of parking revenues, but now, it appears that the first five years’ worth of bond payments will come from the TIF fund. With respect to the idea of assigning the DDA the task of developing downtown surface lots, he concluded: “Just don’t do it.”

DDA-Led Plan: Council Deliberations

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) used his opening deliberations to introduce – with a fair amount of granularity – what the proposal would do. He reminded his colleagues that it had resulted from work that the council’s mutually beneficial committee [Taylor, Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5), and Margie Teall (Ward 4)] had done with the corresponding committee of “our friends at the DDA.”

The other piece of the conversation the two committees have been conducting in public view since early summer 2010 has been a renegotiation of the parking contract under which the DDA manages the city’s public parking system.

Before launching into details of the proposal, he began his bid to win support for the proposal by outlining five core principles:

1. It’s good to maximize the utility of downtown parcels of land.
2. City of Ann Arbor staff is burdened by other work priorities.
3. DDA has the expertise and the energy.
4. City assets are under control of the city and will remain under city control.
5. The process has no utility unless there is full-bore public buy in.

Taylor described the recent smoothness of the Zaragon Place II proposal – a residential development being built at William and Thompson – as resulting from the fact that it was deemed to be the right project at the right place. The goal of the parcel-by-parcel plan, he said, is to describe the community’s purpose for the parcels in the plan. Key to the design of the parcel-by-parcel plan, he said, is the idea that it would build on the consensus achieved to date – the work that had been done previously would not be thrown away.

Speaking during deliberations on the DDA parcel-by-parcel plan is Christopher Taylor (Ward 3). To his right is Mike Anglin (Ward 5). To his left are Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) and Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2).

In the proposal, Taylor identified four checkpoints where the city council would have the ability to revise, approve or reject something: (1) issuance of the RFP; (2) selection of a DDA-recommended bidder; (3) ratification of an agreement for redevelopment of a parcel; and (4) approval of the site plan.

In describing the two “Resolved” clauses, Taylor called them “the least we can do” for people that the city wants to work with in good faith.

Adding to Taylor’s remarks was another member of the council’s mutually beneficial committee, Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5). [The third councilmember on that committee is Margie Teall (Ward 4), who could not attend the council meeting due to illness.]

Hohnke noted that one of the primary goals of the proposal is to maximize the resources of the community. He reiterated Taylor’s points that the DDA has the expertise and capacity to do this kind of work. He said it is not a matter of delegating decision-making authority to the DDA – the proposal has a lot of moving parts. He indicated that if his colleagues wanted to postpone their vote, he would support that. But he wanted to make sure there was a thorough conversation.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) expressed her thanks to Hohnke, Taylor and Teall for their work on the committee. She lamented the fact that the parcels to which the proposal referred – downtown city-owned surface parking lots – had not been identified with the inclusion of a map. She wanted to know exactly what they were talking about before voting. Specifically, she wanted to understand if the resolution before them that night applied to the Library Lot RFP process, which is still pending. Her assumption, she said, was that passing the resolution would mean the DDA would take over a new process for development of the Library Lot – that is, the top of the underground parking garage currently under construction. She said she was not prepared to vote that night.

Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) said that the many checkpoints built into the system gave him confidence. In looking at Phase II of the proposal, which involves a vision for the downtown, he said he wanted to include the effect on the entire region. He said he had some of the same questions as Briere.

Mayor John Hieftje said he thought the city already had a good downtown plan, which was the result of seven years of work, and would be brought to completion with design guidelines that will soon be coming before the city council. Hieftje, who also serves on the DDA board, noted he’d predicted at the DDA board meeting that the parcel-by-parcel resolution would perhaps take a while to work its way through the council. He said he would like some upward bound on the monetary liability for the city expressed in the “Resolved” clauses, and that he would be in favor of a 30-day postponement.

[Hieftje's prediction, made at the DDA's January 2011 board meeting, was reported this way by The Chronicle: "Mayor John Hieftje concurred with Mouat's sentiments, but cautioned that the city council might take a couple of meetings to work through it."]

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) said he had contemplated making a motion to postpone. But that based on the deliberations to that point, plus the questions of his own he’d come with, he was not sure if he wanted to make that motion. [He seemed inclined to vote on it, and to vote against it.] He said by approving the proposal, the council would be placing a priority on planning for downtown parcels. He said he felt that the city already had a pretty darn good idea of what they’d like to put in the downtown, and where – concurring with the mayor’s remarks on the work that had gone into the downtown plan. Rapundalo said he was not sure how the priority of planning in the downtown fit into other planning priorities.

Rapundalo noted that city planning staff time is valuable, and said it’s ironic under the proposal that it’s the DDA’s costs that would be reimbursed. Who’s going to pay our staff costs? he wondered. Rapundalo characterized the DDA as having been an excellent partner on the Library Lot RFP review process – they weren’t comprehensive, but they’d certainly aided the process. [Rapundalo chairs the RFP review committee.] He said that he felt there were a lot of unanswered questions.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) said she was not in favor of postponement. The city had already spent seven years looking at the downtown parcels. She noted that the DDA was not saying that it had the expertise to undertake the design of the parcel-by-parcel plan, but rather that they would hire consultants. She said she would just as soon have the city council decide which parcels they felt would be good to develop.

Higgins said there are still several projects on which the city and the DDA had partnered, which are still not finished. She stated her objection to both “Resolved” clauses – she felt she was being “strong-armed.” Regarding the “Resolved” clause that calls on the city administrator to place an item on the agenda, she said it’s not the city administrator’s agenda: “It’s our agenda.” She did not want to put the city administrator in that position, she said.

If the DDA is looking to be put in a developer’s position, Higgins said, they should be treated like other developers. At a city council work session on the topic, she said, DDA representatives said they had the dollars to spend on this. The city council does not reimburse other developers, so why would they reimburse the DDA?

Sandi Smith (Ward 1), who also serves on the DDA board, said there are a lot of advantages to the proposed arrangement. There was a shared vision already for the form, shape, and design of what should be built, she said. But the piece that the community had not yet talked about is function. It is easier to talk about function in the context of multiple lots, she said. It could turn out to be a 20-year process. She cautioned against placing too many functional demands on a single parcel. She characterized the proposal as the next step in developing a shared vision dating back to the recommendations of the residential downtown task force, the Calthorpe study, A2D2 zoning revisions, and design guidelines.

Smith observed that the “penalty phase” of the proposal – the requirement that the DDA be reimbursed – would apply only if the city council rejected a proposal for reasons other than a failure to meet zoning regulations. She called upon Wendy Rampson, head of planning for the city, to clarify that city-owned surface parking lots are zoned D-1 or D-2 and the existing parking structures are zoned D-1. Existing parking structures, Rampson ventured, would likely not be redeveloped, but they might be adapted to additional ground-floor uses.

Smith asked the city’s CFO, Tom Crawford, to explain the financial benefit to the city as new development takes place in the downtown tax increment finance (TIF) district. He clarified that the property taxes on the increment between what a property was worth before redevelopment and after redevelopment is captured by the DDA’s TIF. However, the appreciation on the added value over time is not captured by the TIF – the city, along with other taxing authorities, would get its share of that additional, appreciated value.

Smith indicated that she’d support a 30-day postponement.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) likely did not surprise anyone when he stated his opposition to the proposal – he has expressed his opposition to it from the earliest discussions. Kunselman favors development of city-owned land through sale of the land and attaching deed restrictions. Last summer, during deliberations on extending the purchase option agreement to Village Green for the First and Washington property, The Chronicle reported his comments this way:

[Kunselman] suggested that new direction was to take the design specifications for the project and put them into a deed restriction on the city-owned property, then put it up for sale with those restrictions. Now is the time to try that, Kunselman said.

The approach of public-private partnership doesn’t work, he said, and hasn’t worked for years. He ticked through examples of parcels where he felt that approach had failed, including: 415 W. Washington; the old YMCA lot; and First and Washington.

Kunselman characterized the two “Resolved” clauses as “poison pills.” He said he did not want to tie the city administrator’s hands the way the clauses sought to do.  He said that picking specific uses for parcels – like grocery stores and affordable housing – is not in the purview of elected officials. The proposal would need dramatic changes to win his support, he said.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) expressed concern about delegating authority to another agency. He noted that the city has its own planning staff. He characterized past experience as the city not having “picked the right horse.” He said he was interested in improving that process. The DDA could serve as an ally, he said, but he hesitated to give them the “whole show.” He said there was not enough public input in the plan early on.

Taylor then made an effort to address the points that his colleagues had cited, calling them “well-raised.” He said it would be useful to contemplate possible costs due to Phase IV monies, and observed that the city would not consider reimbursing a similarly-situated developer – thus acknowledging Higgins’ point. However, he said that would be an odd way to look at it, because there are no similarly situated developers. No developer would go through such a process from beginning to end. Still, he called it a fair point, and said that some articulation of the costs would be in order. He also said that it’s important to identify the specific parcels addressed in the resolution.

With respect to the track record of the city’s RFP process, he said he felt the reason for a lack of success was that the RFPs had not been sufficiently specific. And the proposal before the council was a way to help remedy that by generating RFPs that are cleaner, more specific and reflective of the community’s desires for a particular parcel. Rather than review all the points, he said he felt it would be useful to move for a postponement. He moved a postponement until the March 7, 2011 city council meeting.

Hieftje said he appreciated the possibility of a postponement – the issue could be re-visited by the two mutually beneficial committees.

Higgins said she was not in favor of a postponement. She wanted the council to make clear that it did not agree with what the proposal currently said. The resolution would need to be so re-worked that it would be completely different.

Hohnke asked for support of a postponement. He told Higgins he disagreed with her assessment of the width of the gap in their positions. He didn’t think they were that far apart and respectfully requested that the council give him and the other committee members a chance to recraft the proposal.

Derezinski concurred with Hohnke. He noted that the area, height and placement zoning amendments had required multiple meetings to work through and to get it right. He said it would be workable and they could come to a conclusion.

Rapundalo agreed with Higgins, telling Hohnke that “with all due respect, the gap is there.” He said he saw no point in postponing.

Briere said that Derezinski sometimes called postponing “kicking the can down the road.” She warned that if the council rejected it, instead of postponing it, they need to make clear whether they never wanted to see it again, or if they wanted to see it again, just in amended form.

Higgins said it should go back to the drawing table. The approval on this, she said, should not be a 6-5 vote. She wanted to send a message that it was not acceptable. She added that she had a problem not seeing the development proposal at the same time as the renegotiated parking contract.

Kunselman said he wouldn’t support the postponement. He noted that the DDA could undertake most of the activities outlined in the resolution without any particular city council authorization. He argued for voting on the resolution without postponing, and letting the DDA get on with their business.

In urging his colleagues to support the postponement, Taylor alluded to Kunselman’s phrase “their business” and said that one of the goals is to step aside from that way of thinking. He did not want to make this “their business” but rather wanted the DDA to do this thing “with us.” Taylor ventured that Teall was at home watching the local cable CTN broadcast and hanging on every word.

Outcome: The postponement was accomplished on a 6-4 vote – Margie Teall (Ward 4) was absent. Voting against postponement were: Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3); Marcia Higgins (Ward 4); Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2); and Sabra Briere (Ward 1). Kunselman, Higgins, and Rapundalo were clear that they were prepared to vote against the resolution, if the motion to postpone had not passed. Voting for postponement were: mayor John Hieftje; Sandi Smith (Ward 1); Tony Derezinski (Ward 2); Christopher Taylor (Ward 3); Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5); and Mike Anglin (Ward 5).

DDA-Led Plan: Coda

After a few other agenda items, including a recess, Anglin brought back the plan for reconsideration – he may have originally intended to vote against the postponement. Had the postponement vote ended in a 5-5 tie, it would have failed, which would have led to a vote on the main motion, which would have also likely failed on the same 5-5 split. The reconsideration vote, which is not a debatable motion, took two tries to get right, when Kunselman and Derezinski apparently voted in the opposite way they intended on the first try, but canceled each other out.

Outcome: The postponement was not reconsidered – it failed to achieve a 6-vote majority. Voting for reconsideration were Kunselman, Higgins, Anglin, Briere and Rapundalo. Voting against reconsideration were Taylor, Hohnke, Hietje, Smith and Derezinski.

Medical Marijuana Licensing

The council was set to consider initial approval of a licensing ordinance for medical marijuana. At its Jan. 3, 2011 meeting, the council had heavily amended the original licensing proposal, which was drafted by the city attorney’s office. Among the key amendments made at the first meeting in January was one that stripped “home occupation” businesses out of the proposal. At the Jan. 3 meeting, the council also increased the cap on the total number of licenses available to 20 for dispensaries and 10 for cultivation facilities. Another major amendment made on Jan. 3 was the creation of a board to govern the issuance of licenses. However, the council delayed voting on the first reading of the proposal. [.pdf of licensing ordinance language at the start of the Jan. 18, 2011 meeting]

Medical Marijuana Licensing: Public Commentary

Dennis Hayes addressed the council by first apologizing for sending them a copy of an uncorrected letter and for forgetting to add a file attachment. He spoke against the proposed marijuana licensing, expressing concerns that it would not help and assist patients and caregivers. The licensing would compel patients and caregivers to surrender their Constitutional rights, he said, due to the various levels of record-keeping required. Licensing would be totally contrary to the city’s history and tradition with respect to medical marijuana, he said. We don’t even know, he continued, how many people are being served with access to medical marijuana. He asked the council to keep foremost in their minds that the disclosure of information by patients and caregivers would incriminate people, when the point of the law should be to help people.

Chuck Ream told the council that he was happy about the progress that had been made, saying there were only a few steps left. He cited a requirement that contact information be conspicuously displayed for the owners and managers of dispensaries and cultivation facilities. He suggested that there was no need to have everyone’s contact information included, and said it would suffice to have just one person listed as the contact person. He also said there is no need to have all members of a corporation listed on the license application.

Ream also contended that the council had agreed to amend the licensing scheme at its last meeting by striking the requirement on labeling packages [6:419.4], but it was still included in the draft. [While the council did deliberate on an amendment to strike some of that language at its previous meeting, the amendment was withdrawn.] Ream also said that the introductory language of the ordinance points to the Michigan Marijuana Act as acknowledging that the federal government does not consider marijuana to be legal, but Ream pointed out that the MMA also says that it’s not legal to ask patients and caregivers to give up their confidentiality. Ream pointed out that the feds are already going after the state of Michigan’s lists of registered patients and caregivers.

Gersh Avery picked up on Ream’s discussion of lists, saying that they are an attractive pool for law enforcement. He wondered if the city of Ann Arbor could have the same quality of resistance as Lansing in deflecting demands by the feds for the names on the lists. Avery stressed that there needs to be an ability to have medical marijuana tested for purity. That includes generating the cannabinoid profile of the product. Testing facilities, said Avery, need to be protected so that they know they won’t be arrested for incidental amounts of medical marijuana that might be found at their facilities. He also call on the exploration of industrial hemp as an additional alternative.

Renee Wolf spoke from her wheelchair. She thanked the council for considering the issue. She told them that if she did not have her medicine she would not be able to manage her medical condition. She told the council that she had multiple sclerosis and was supposed to already be dead. She thanked the council for doing the work they do and wished them a good day.

Medical Marijuana Licensing: Council Deliberations

Council deliberations led off with Sabra Briere (Ward 1) handing around a printed list of proposed amendments.

Speaking is city attorney Stephen Postema. Seated to his left is Sandi Smith (Ward 1).

As they were passed around, Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) sought to clarify what the status of the proposal was for the purposes of friendly amendments, given that it had been postponed from the previous meeting. Amendments are treated by many public bodies as “friendly” – thus not requiring a vote to be implemented – if the amendment is agreeable to the mover and seconder of a motion. The nature of Taylor’s inquiry seemed to get at the question of whether the original mover and second from the previous meeting would determine whether an amendment would be friendly. City attorney Stephen Postema offered that the motion could be re-moved and seconded, if that’s what Taylor wanted to do.

[In recent comments made at a county board of commissioners meeting, Curtis Hedger, corporation counsel for Washtenaw County, indicated this is a non-issue – according to Robert’s Rules of Order, once a resolution is on the floor, it properly belongs to the entire body. If any member of the body objects to an amendment being incorporated as friendly, then it must be voted on. Who moved and seconded the original motion at the previous meeting or at the current meeting is thus immaterial to how friendly amendments are handled.]

Briere’s first amendment dealt with Section 6:417.(2)(d), which handles the kind of contact information required on the proposed licensing application form. The original language, with text proposed by Briere’s first amendment in italics:

6:417.(2)(d) Name, street address, and other contact information of all owners of the dispensary or cultivation facility who are not also patients or caregivers under the Michigan Medical Marijuana Law and, if the owner is a corporation, limited liability company, partnership, or sole proprietor with an assumed name, of all directors, officers, members, partners, and individuals, all of whom are considered collectively to be the applicant for the license.

Briere explained that the purpose was so that patients could retain their anonymity under the Michigan Marijuana Law. Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) wanted clarification on whether the word “members” would remain. Briere confirmed that it would and that she did not believe it referred to members of the public, or patients and caregivers in a cooperative. Rather, it refers to the part of the ownership of a corporation. Hohnke confirmed this is the case with city attorney Stephen Postema.

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) asked Postema to explain the rationale for the original language. Postema said the rationale was to identify the individuals who are actually the owners. He went on to say that his understanding was that the owners of such businesses would most often be either patients or caregivers. And the practical consequence of Briere’s amendment could be that the city would not have knowledge of the ownership of the business. Postema said that affording anonymity to business owners goes beyond what is set forth in terms of anonymity for patients and caregivers, as set forth in the state statute.

Briere asked Postema if there were any way to guarantee that the information collection on the application forms is protected. Postema indicated that there would be no guarantee. It could be protected against a request under the Freedom of Information Act, he said, but it could not be necessarily be protected from the federal government. He said that some clarity on that situation could be given from a case currently being heard in federal district court by District Court Judge Gordon Quist in Grand Rapids.

Sandi Smith (Ward 1) suggested that if all members of a dispensary are a patient or a caregiver, it might be possible to designate a “responsible party” for purposes of the license application, without identifying their status as a caregiver or patient.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) indicated that he assumed some information for the business would be on other business documents as public information, which Postema confirmed. Postema went on to say that the application form itself did not require anyone to indicate their status as a caregiver or patient. He continued by pointing out that the purpose is more than to collect contact information – it’s to establish a point of responsibility.

Kunselman wanted to know if city staff would be doing background checks on everyone. Postema allowed that it could be cumbersome.

Rapundalo said that if the business information is publicly available on other documents, it negates the argument that the information needs to be protected. He appealed to the similarity of the situation with liquor licenses. [Rapundalo chairs the council's liquor license review committee.] He described how the reason for having all the information is to prevent businesses from playing games about who the responsible party is. He concluded that he saw no problem with the collection of information and characterized the rationale for the requirement as completely appropriate.

Briere said she was looking for a way to protect the rights of the few people who as individuals might own a dispensary or a cultivation facility. She noted that the council was undertaking the creation of licensing from the ground up, and that it is not parallel to liquor licenses, as Rapundalo had contended.

Rapundalo noted that for liquor licenses, anyone who has even the smallest business interest is required to be included in the information that is submitted. Briere wanted to know what level of background check was done for liquor licenses. Rapundalo explained that at the very least a criminal background check is done. He questioned the need for anonymity. Anonymity from what? he wondered. What are they trying to hide? Some of these medical marijuana businesses, he said, are located next to schools and childcare centers. Neighbors, he said, have no problem with the existence of the businesses, but they “sure as hell want to know who’s doing it.” He also contended that public safety officers want to know.

If it’s meant to be legitimate and above board, Rapundalo said, they should be treated like any other medical dispensary. He concluded that it really would be better to wait and let it be sorted out at the state level. The city was essentially “opening up a can of worms” by trying to undertake this effort. He warned of a “quagmire.”

Briere allowed that it would be nice if the state had set forth the regulations. It had come as a surprise to many people to discover that there were medical marijuana businesses operating locally. Now, she said, the city is trying to “close the barn door.” Briere described how she was trying to find a way to reconcile disparate rights: (1) the right to know who runs a business, (2) the right to be protected as a patient, and (3) the right to anonymity.

Some back and forth continued covering points similar to those already raised. Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) weighed in, saying that the language in question had an appropriate purpose. He drew a distinction between a person’s status as a caregiver or patient, which one is in some sense compelled to be, compared to operating a business, which he characterized as a choice.

Outcome on amendment: Support for Briere’s amendment failed, with support only from Smith and Briere.

As it was apparent that the council would be setting itself up for a long and tedious set of deliberations on the amendments, which many councilmembers had only just received, mayor John Hieftje suggested that the measure again be postponed. The council did not clamor to continue deliberating.

Outcome: The medical marijuana licensing proposal was unanimously postponed. The licensing proposal will now be taken up for initial approval again on Feb. 7, 2011. The moratorium on additional facilities in the city to be used as medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivation facilities was extended by the council through March 31, 2011. Final approval of zoning regulations on medical marijuana facilities was rescheduled for Feb. 21, 2011.

Retirement System Language

Before the council was final approval to revisions in the city’s ordinance language that spells out how the retirement system works. The changes were administrative, aimed to ensure compliance of the plan with tax-qualification requirements of the Internal Revenue Code and to improve exactness and clarity of language. Other changes were made at the suggestion of the city retirement system’s board of trustees. [.pdf of ordinance as revised] [.pdf of changes and reasons].

The ordinance change does not change the city’s basic retirement plan from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan. The language changes also do not change the composition of the retirement system’s board of trustees. In 2005, a “blue ribbon” commission – tasked to make recommendations about the city’s retirement board and the city’s pension plan – had called for a change in the board’s composition to be a majority of trustees who are not beneficiaries of the retirement plan and, in particular, to remove the city administrator’s position from the board.

In 2008, a member of the retirement system’s board of trustees, Robert N. Pollack, Jr., resigned from the board in part due to the city’s failure to enact recommendations of the blue ribbon panel. The change in composition of the pension board would require a city charter amendment, which the city council could decide to place before voters. [.pdf of blue ribbon panel report] [.pdf of Pollack's resignation letter]

The city’s retirement program is supported in part by the levy of a retirement benefits millage [labeled CITY BENEFITS on tax bills], currently at a rate of 2.056 mills, which is the same rate as the city’s transit millage. A mill is equal to $1 for every $1,000 of taxable value of a property.

Retirement System: Public Commentary

Thomas Partridge complained that the reasons for the changes in the retirement system language had not been made clear to the public. If the reason for the changes had been to cheapen the value of the retirement benefits, he said, he opposed the change.

Retirement System: Council Deliberations

Council deliberations on the retirement system changes were limited to some remarks by Sabra Briere (Ward 1), who clarified that the impetus behind the changes were motivated by a desire to resolve tax code issues. She stressed that the changes did not affect the rights or responsibilities of participants in the retirement system or the city.

In conversation with The Chronicle before the council meeting, the city’s CFO, Tom Crawford, said that the effort to undertake the revisions to the language had reflected a collaboration between his office, the city attorney’s office and human resources that stretched back 18 months, and had been a major item for the last six months.

Outcome: The city council unanimously approved the changes in the language of the city’s retirement system.

Tax Abatement for Edwards Brothers

The council considered a request for a personal property tax abatement for Edwards Brothers – a book manufacturing company located on South State Street – on almost $4 million worth of new printing equipment. Granting the tax abatement does not mean that Edwards Brothers would be receiving a $4 million tax break, but rather that the new equipment would not be subject to taxation until 2023.

This would not be the first tax abatement that Edwards Brothers has requested and received from the city. The staff cover memo that accompanied the request included the following explanation:

City Council did approve a prior abatement to Edwards Brothers on 11/5/2007. It should be noted that Edwards Brothers was not able to sustain the employments levels identified in the previous abatement in this economy. Edwards Brothers had 480 jobs at this location in 2007. The agreement stated they would retain 95% of the jobs during the abatement. The abatement request filed on October 11, 2010 shows 415 jobs at this facility or a 13.5% decrease in jobs.

In addition to not being in compliance with the terms of the previously granted abatement, Edwards Brothers has started a legal action against the city – in the form of appealing its current real property tax assessment to Michigan Tax Tribunal. If the reassessment were granted, Edwards Brothers would be in noncompliance with the abatement on that ground as well.

The cover memo also indicates that the Edwards Brothers real property is located immediately adjacent to a University of Michigan park-and-ride lot, and it’s felt that UM may have some interest in purchasing the property, which would remove it from the city’s tax rolls. In that light, the city staff built a stipulation into the tax abatement that would give the city the right of first refusal on any future land sale. So if UM offered to purchase the property, the city would have an opportunity to make an offer – presumably with the idea that the city would then sell the land to some other private entity, thereby returning the land to the tax rolls.

City assessor David Petrak briefly introduced some of the background on the request to the council.

Sandi Smith (Ward 1) pressed for some additional explanation. Without additional information, she said, she could not support it. Why was the city considering the application? The answer was that by statute it must be considered.

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) reminded the council that Edwards Brothers has been in Ann Arbor for over 100 years. When the previous abatement was granted, he said, the company was “this close” to moving the operation to North Carolina. Instead, due to the abatement, the company decided to remain in Ann Arbor and preserved around 400 jobs in this community.

With respect to Edwards Brothers not meeting the employment numbers required by the first tax abatement, Rapundalo cited the dire economic times, noting in particular that the book business has not exactly been thriving. So he did not want to hold the job losses against the company. He called Edwards Brothers a long-standing corporate citizen. He also said that if the company left, he would not doubt for a second that UM would pick up the property.

From the city’s CFO, Tom Crawford, Sabra Briere (Ward 1) elicited the fact that the tax abatement would apply to a new press – a typical economic requirement in a very competitive industry, he said. Petrak went on to explain the right of first refusal on the possible sale of the real estate, if Edwards Brothers decided eventually to leave anyway.

City administrator Roger Fraser elaborated in more detail on Crawford’s description of the press to be acquired. It’s particularly suited to quick turnaround on small printing jobs, and offers an opportunity to pick up some additional business for the company. The right of first refusal on the land sale, he said, was an attempt to extract some additional public benefit from the agreement.

Smith pressed for information about what the approximate cost of the land would be, if the city found itself having to contemplate whether to exercise its right of first refusal. Petrak didn’t have that information, but when continued to be pressed by Smith, he allowed that it was between $1 million and $50 million.

Mayor John Hieftje established with Crawford that there’d been no negative impact to the city’s revenues due to job losses at the company. Hieftje said the right of first refusal did not matter to him at all, but the 400 jobs at the company represented good, if not fancy, jobs. They might not earn the average $80,000 salaries that Pfizer workers earned, but they were good jobs. Hieftje also noted that the percentage of property that is abated in the city is minuscule.

[By state statute, the total  assessed value of tax-abated property can't exceed 5% of the assessed value of all the property in the city. When the city council granted a tax abatement to NanoBio in September 2010, the relevant figures were presented as follows: The total state equalized value of all property in the city is $5,286,396,700; the total of abated property is $7,021,729, or 0.133% of the total. The city is thus comfortably under the 5% total abatement allowed by law.]

Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) observed that 415 jobs is a lot of jobs. The fact that there’d been only a 13% drop he characterized as a “great feat.” If it were a new company, he said, they would all be out helping to cut the ribbon.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) expressed his support for the abatement.

Rapundalo said, “We need to pass this one.”

Outcome: The Edwards Brothers tax abatement was approved, over the dissent of Sandi Smith.

Environmental Commission Reappointment

Before the council was the reappointment of David Stead to the city’s environmental commission (EC) for another three-year term. His previous term had expired in August 2010. While the majority of city boards and commission appointments are nominated by the mayor, environmental commission nominations are made by the city council.

In response to an emailed inquiry from The Chronicle, Steve Bean – whose term also expired in August 2010 – wrote that the city council was prepared to include his reappointment in the resolution reappointing Stead.

But Bean informed the council, as well as his colleagues on the commission, of his decision made last week to end his work on the EC. Bean served on the EC for a decade, starting with his appointment in 2000, when the EC was established by a city council resolution. His service on the EC included most recently a turn as chair. Before serving on the environmental commission, Bean served on the city’s energy commission from 1992-2000.

From the city code, the purpose of the EC is “To advise and make recommendations to the city council and city administrator on environmental policy, environmental issues and environmental implications of all city programs and proposals on the air, water, land and public health. Duties include holding public hearings on environmental issues and concerns, and publishing and presenting an annual report on the city’s ‘State of the Environment.’”

Environmental Commission: Council Deliberations

When Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) introduced the resolution to reappoint David Stead, he confirmed what Bean had earlier emailed to The Chronicle – that he’d decided to step down. Hohnke noted that this meant there is a vacancy on the environmental commission and he invited people to apply. Hohnke reminded his council colleagues of Bean’s record of public service dating back to the energy commission starting in 1992.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) recalled that she’d served on the environmental commission with Bean in 2000. Added to the praise of Bean was Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), who recalled attending graduate school together and playing soccer on the field at Fuller Park.

Outcome: Stead’s reappointment to the environmental commission was unanimously approved.

Home Depot Grant

Before the council was the acceptance of a $95,000 grant from the Home Depot Foundation to (1) create a sustainability framework, and (2) develop a sustainability action plan based on the sustainability framework. The goal of the project – which will include the funding of a temporary employee to provide technical assistance – is to develop a framework of goals, objectives, and indicators, and will include the release of a State of Our Sustainability Report. The city’s environmental commission already produces a State of Our Environment report.

Application for the grant was discussed at the planning commission’s Nov. 9, 2010 working session by city environmental coordinator Matt Naud. In early September 2010, the city of Ann Arbor was one of the finalist cities for a $1 million, three-year sustainability project funded by the Home Depot Foundation. Ann Arbor didn’t make the final cut for that grant – Charleston, South Carolina and Fayetteville, Arkansas were selected.

As part of the site visit conducted by the Home Depot Foundation last year to evaluate the city’s application, The Chronicle was asked by Home Depot representatives to meet with the foundation to discuss the city’s proposal. One issue identified by the foundation representative was the lack of an initiative that wrapped the various city initiatives into a single sustainability plan that would include environmental, energy and planning issues. The Chronicle pointed the foundation to the three-way joint working session of the environmental, energy and planning commissions that had taken place earlier in the year.

Mayor John Hieftje remarked that it was nice to receive grants.

Outcome: The council unanimously approved the resolution accepting the grant.

Greenbelt Acreage

Before the council was the approval of recommendations of the city’s greenbelt advisory commission to purchase development rights on two properties totaling more than $1 million.

The first was a transaction for the development rights on 218 acres, located along Pontiac Trail and Five Mile Road in Salem Township, owned by the Nancy M. Geiger Revocable Living Trust and Rose Ann Geiger Contingent Trust. The city’s cost for the Geiger property will be $728,412.

The second transaction was for land owned by the Lee A. Maulbetsch Trust and Lori M. Maulbetsch Trust, which is 128 acres located along Northfield Church Road in Northfield Township. The city’s cost for the Maulbetsch property will be $521,642.

During the brief deliberations, Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) asked Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) for the rationale behind selection of the properties. One of them seemed rather isolated. He wanted to know what the “grand plan” is. Hohnke, who serves as the city council representative to the city’s greenbelt advisory commission, explained that the strategy is to acquire large blocks. Mayor John Hieftje added that when building a larger block, you have to start somewhere.

Outcome: The council unanimously approved the resolutions authorizing the expenditures of greenbelt funds.

Lake Trust Credit Union Site Plan

Before the council was approval of a site plan request from Lake Trust Credit Union. The credit union plans to construct a new building at the southeast corner of West Liberty and West Stadium Boulevard.

The project had previously won site plan approval at the planning commission’s Sept. 21, 2010 meeting. The project includes demolishing the existing structure and constructing a new one-story, 3,686-square-foot building. The planning staff recommended approval of the site plan. No one spoke during the planning commission’s public hearing on the proposal. On that occasion, the project received two dissenting votes from the planning commission, from commissioners Bonnie Bona and Erica Briggs.

Lake Trust: Public Commentary

Thomas Partridge introduced himself as a consistent advocate for affordable housing and called upon the city to enact zoning regulations to support it.

Lake Trust: Council Deliberations

Outcome: The council unanimously approved the Lake Trust Credit Union site plan.

Communications and Comment

There are 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: Labor Negotiations

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) gave an update on the status of union negotiations. At the city council budget retreats in December and January, Rapundalo has lamented what he’s called the failure of some of the unions to recognize economic reality. But some of the bargaining units have been cooperative in offering concessions, he said. At the Jan. 18 council meeting, Rapundalo indicated he’d be giving a series of updates – as chair of the council’s labor committee – on the status of negotiations.

Rapundalo began by reviewing how in July 2010 the Teamsters police deputy chiefs unit, the Teamsters civilian supervisors, and Teamsters police professionals had all struck new contract agreements with the city that included concessions like: (1) participation in a new health care plan requiring higher contributions from employees; (2) increases in the employee pension contribution; and (3) a wage freeze. [Chronicle coverage of the July 6, 2010 city council meeting; and the July 19, 2010 city council meeting].

Non-union employees, said Rapundalo, had also taken similar concessions.

The city has been negotiating with its firefighters since February 2010, Rapundalo said, and has used the services of a state mediator on three occasions. The contract with the firefighters expired on June 30, 2010.

A year earlier, on June 30, 2009, the contract with its police officers expired. In that negotiation, Rapundalo said that a request for binding arbitration has been filed under Michigan’s Act 312. Rapundalo reminded his colleagues that the last round of negotiations with the police officers union had also resulted in Act 312 binding arbitration. [The outcome of that arbitration wound up costing the city $1.6 million. Chronicle coverage of that is included in the May 4, 2009 city council meeting report, when the council authorized the funds to pay for the settlement.]

Also expiring on June 30, 2009 was the city’s contract with the police sergeants and lieutenants, reported Rapundalo. The assistance of a state mediator has been requested for those negotiations. The city is also negotiating with its police service specialists – their contract also expired in June 30, 2009.

The contract with its AFSCME union will expire on June 30, 2011, Rapundalo reported. The city has requested to begin negotiations, but has not yet received a reply from that union, he said.

Rapundalo then ticked through at least a half dozen communities where unions have in the last year made concessions on salary, health care and other benefits, and use of furlough days – communities like Royal Oak, Mt. Clemens, Sheldon Township, Canton, Macomb County, and Novi.

Rapundalo concluded by saying that the city continues to negotiate in good faith with all the bargaining units and that he will give updates on progress.

Comm/Comm: Neglected Property

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) called attention to the property at 3680 Platt Road, which he said was neglected, as were a number of properties on the east side of the city. Residents are frustrated, he said. The address on Platt Road involved an absentee landlord – such properties have a blighting influence on the community, he said, and he asked the community for patience and support.

Comm/Comm: Budget, Transportation

David Sponseller addressed the council on the issue of budget challenges, and focused on the transportation millage. He said that when he was half as old as he is now, he’d asked the city to launch and operate a “basic bus service.” At the time, he said, a cab owner named A.J. Lalonde had suggested that the city would be better served by simply subsidizing cab rides for residents. Sponseller reported that Lalonde had died in November. Sponseller said he disagreed with Lalonde at the time, but he was beginning to think that Lalonde was right. Sponseller noted that the operating budget had grown by 5,000 times in the last 40 years, compared to the $50,000 initial grant. But despite the comfortable buses, with a well run system, he said, almost nobody rides the bus. None of his neighbors ride the bus, he said. He suggested that enough empty buses had run to give every person in the Western Hemisphere a three-mile ride.

Referring to the city’s transportation program manager, Eli Cooper, Sponseller said that all the Eli Coopers in the world would not be enough to break up people’s love affairs with their cars. People’s reaction to higher gas prices and global warming was to purchase more fuel-efficient cars, not to opt for the bus. Rather than continue to spend money – $700 million so far – on a failed experiment, he suggested, the AATA should abandon the development of its current county-wide plan, face up to reality, and focus on a very basic system: (1) one that serves the Ypsilanti-UM connection during rush hour; (2) a circulator between public housing units in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti; and (3) a dial-a-ride service that would use cross-over, fuel-efficient vehicles.

Sponseller concluded by suggesting a charter amendment that would cut the transit millage in half and apportion the rest of the millage to the city’s general fund. [The city's transit tax is currently levied at a rate of just a little over 2 mills. Each mill of tax levied in Ann Arbor brings in roughly $4.5 million. Without regard to the impact on the transportation system, Sponseller's proposal would thus net the city's general fund around $4.5 million.]

Comm/Comm: NAP Volunteer

William Price was recognized with a mayoral proclamation for his work using a chainsaw to help clear pathways in the Argo Nature Area. Price is a volunteer with the city’s natural area preservation program, or NAP.

Comm/Comm: Honoring Martin Luther King’s Legacy

Thomas Partridge introduced himself as a recent candidate in the Democratic primary election for the 18th District of the state senate. He called this a critical time in the history of the nation, the state, and the city, and called for leaders – on the day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day – to put forward an agenda that would support the most vulnerable in our society. He called on the council to pass a resolution asking the state to stop cuts to revenue sharing.

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

Absent: Margie Teall

Next regular council meeting: Feb. 7, 2011 at 7 p.m. in the Washtenaw County administration building, 220 N. Main St. [confirm date]

The grant was discussed at a working session of the Ann Arbor planning commission earlier this month. Matt Naud – the city’s environmental coordinator – told The Chronicle that the city will likely file the grant application in early December.

Ann Arbor’s Current Sustainability Efforts

The topic of sustainability has emerged in public discussions more frequently over the past year or so, and both city staff and appointed members to some of the city’s commissions have begun to focus on the issue. The city’s environmental commission has a “sustainable community” committee, formed in 2008, which has discussed ways to expand the city’s goals to include social equity and economic vitality, in addition to environmental considerations. Steve Bean, Anya Dale and Kirk Westphal serve on that committee, with staff support from Naud.

More broadly, an April 2010 joint working session of the city’s planning, environmental and energy commissions was convened to discuss ways that the city could work toward building a more sustainable future. From Chronicle coverage of that meeting:

The discussion touched on the conceptual as well as the concrete, with some commissioners urging the group to tackle practical considerations as well. The chairs of each commission – [planning commission chair Bonnie] Bona, the energy commission’s Wayne Appleyard, and Steve Bean of the environmental commission – set the stage by talking about the roles of their appointed public bodies, and how sustainability might be incorporated into their work.

Specific ideas discussed during the session included financing energy improvements in households through a special self-assessment on property tax bills, and tapping expertise at the University of Michigan.

More than midway through the meeting they were joined by Terry Alexander, executive director of UM’s Office of Campus Sustainability. He described UM’s efforts at implementing sustainable practices on campus as well as creating a living/learning environment for students, teaching them what it means to be a “green citizen.”

Toward the end of the meeting, Bona noted that the issue extended far beyond the three commissions gathered around the table. Housing, parks and other areas need to be involved as well, she said, if they were truly to tackle the three elements of sustainability: environmental quality, social equity, and economic vitality.

The topic of sustainability also had been part of the discussion at a March 2010 retreat of the planning commission. One of the aspects of that discussion included the need to define what sustainability means. From Chronicle coverage of the March retreat:

Jean Carlberg asked Bonnie Bona what she meant by sustainability, which Bona had brought up in the brainstorming session. Bona replied that it was something the community needed to decide: “That’s the first question – what is it?”

She added that sustainability is an all-or-nothing concept – something is either sustainable, or it isn’t. Bona also identified three elements of sustainability: environmental quality, social equity, and economic vitality. “I don’t think we look at any one of them as a planning commission,” she said. …

Kirk Westphal said that tangentially, the commission does deal with those elements of sustainability. He also stressed the importance of looking at a “sustainability watershed” – that is, a broader geographic area within which a community is sustainable. For example, adding another resident to the city increases its carbon footprint, he said, but “do we take one for the team?” Westphal also noted that even the worst non-LEED building in the city is better than the greenest structure five miles outside of town, if you have to drive there.

The concept of sustainability also touched on fiscal impacts of development. Westphal noted that when he talked about “the city’s money” earlier in the discussion, Pratt had remarked that it’s everyone’s money. Pratt is right, Westphal said – it’s taxpayers’ money. But the positive aspects of adding to the tax base through development are rarely mentioned. People talk about “greedy developers,” but they don’t look at how the taxes generated from a development go toward plowing the streets, for example.

Pratt noted that as the tax base shrinks, the current levels of service are no longer sustainable – unless people are willing to pay more for the same services.

Later during the March retreat, Wendy Rampson – head of the city’s planning staff – asked whether the commission wanted to make sustainability a staff priority. Commissioners indicated that while it was worth having more discussion about it, other issues took higher priority at that point.

The Home Depot Foundation Grant

At the planning commission’s Nov. 9 working session, Matt Naud told commissioners that while sustainability is an aspect of several city efforts – including its State of Our Environment goals and indicators, the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan, and the Parks and Recreation Open Space Plan – there isn’t a specific sustainability plan that brings all of these elements together.

Naud said the Home Depot Foundation has up to $100,000 available for developing a sustainability plan, one that would incorporate the city’s existing efforts into a more cohesive approach. The city’s proposal would likely entail hiring someone to take on the project for a year, he said. One aspect might be to do a gap analysis – what are the city’s current sustainability goals, and what needs to be done to reach them? He asked commissioners for their feedback about what elements to include in making the grant application.

Home Depot Grant: Commissioner Discussion

Jean Carlberg noted that cost always seems to be absent from discussions of sustainability. Almost all sustainability efforts are costly – and for the individual homeowner, she said, it’s generally too expensive. Bonnie Bona responded to that observation, saying that to take a house to “net zero” – a term indicating that the house uses only energy generated on-site – could be a 40-year process, with expenses spread out over that period. Naud noted that costs to achieve net-zero status are coming down. Just 10 years ago, it would have cost significantly more than today.

It would be more affordable using tools like the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program, Bona said, or if homeowners set aside money they see from energy savings to make additional energy-related modifications.

In a PACE program, the city could use municipal bonds to fund the upfront installation of a solar system to a resident’s home, for example. The resident would then pay the city through self-assessed property taxes, probably over 15 to 20 years. Enabling legislation for PACE sponsored by state Rep. Rebekah Warren of Ann Arbor passed the House earlier this year, but a Senate version scaled back the program to cover only commercial properties. That bill passed the state Senate in September, but hasn’t yet been acted on by the House.

During the Nov. 9 working session, Eric Mahler, chair of the planning commission, suggested that they needed to come up with a working definition of sustainability. The best one he’d heard, he said, described sustainability as meeting the community’s current needs without impacting the needs of future generations.

Bona referred to the discussion at the April joint working session, and said she walked away from that meeting with the sense that people were interested in setting targets and measuring outcomes related to sustainability. Naud said they didn’t want to propose a pie-in-the-sky project, but rather they could assess where the city stands now, envision where they want to be, and identify specific goals to get there.

Naud said that in the past there had been discussion of setting broad sustainability goals, but there’d been some pushback to that. Instead, the environmental commission and staff developed a set of environmental goals that were easier to measure, he said. With this Home Depot Foundation grant, there’s the possibility of developing a framework for the city’s sustainability efforts, Naud said. That would allow the city to pick three or four specific goals to work toward, then build funding for those efforts into the city’s two-year budget cycle, he said.

Rampson gave the example of looking at land use through a framework of sustainability, which might include issues of transportation access, or the balance of housing in relation to employment centers. That kind of framework could be used when looking at development along one of the city’s main corridors, like Washtenaw Avenue or South State Street.

Saying that the prospect of getting grant funding for this initiative sounded great, Mahler wondered whether the project would have the support of city council. Carlberg pointed out that councilmembers were unlikely to turn down money. Rampson noted that some city councilmembers – including mayor John Hieftje, Margie Teall (Ward 4) and Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) – had been involved in the round of interviews that Home Depot executives had conducted this summer for the $1 million sustainability project.

Commissioners suggested pulling in other groups – Bona noted that at the April working session, Hieftje had expressed the importance of working with neighboring communities in whatever sustainability initiative the city might take on. She also said they had discussed working with the city’s park advisory commission and housing commission, in addition to the planning, energy and environmental commissions. Carlberg added that UM should be involved too.

In making their current proposal, Rampson said, they need to identify a project that the Home Depot Foundation could use as a case study. It needs to be something the city can do within the grant budget and timeframe, she said. A project that seems achievable is looking at all the city’s master plans, finding the elements of sustainability that already exist, and developing that into a usable framework. After that, it would make sense to pull in UM and other groups, Rampson said, like the Washtenaw Urban County. The Urban County is a consortium of local governments – including Ann Arbor – that receives federal funding for low-income neighborhoods, and could help address the social equity aspect of sustainability, she said.

Home Depot Grant: Next Steps

In a phone interview last week with The Chronicle, Naud said that city staff are still finalizing the application. He’s working with Rampson and Connie Pulcipher of the city’s systems planning unit, and they’ll be talking with representatives from the Home Depot Foundation on Dec. 9 to present a draft of their proposal. The city is already involved to some degree in the foundation’s sustainability efforts – Ann Arbor is among the cities profiled on the Sustainable Cities Initiative website, funded by the Home Depot Foundation.

Part of the grant proposal could include figuring out how to engage the community, Naud said, likely by developing a website to educate people about what’s already happening, to solicit ideas and to give people a voice who might not have the time or inclination to attend public meetings.

Naud, Rampson and Pulcipher will also be working with the city’s environmental commission in shaping the sustainability project, Naud said – he noted that it’s the only city commission in which the city code specifies sustainability as part of its mission. Under the section of city code that establishes the commission, among its powers and duties are:

(g) To advise the City Council and City Administrator on all matters related to sustainable development, clean production, and environmental technologies.

Meanwhile, there hasn’t been additional action taken as a result of the three-commission sustainability working session in April. In a recent email to The Chronicle, Steve Bean – chair of the environmental commission – said the next step could include drafting sustainability goals and getting feedback from members of all three commissions and those goals, and about how to proceed. That could happen sometime early next year.

Pete Arbour and his daughter Lilly, who live in Rochester Hills, are on a mission to meet with all of their elected officials – including University of Michigan regents. A UM photographer took a photo of them with regents after the July 15 meeting. From left: Julia Darlow, Andrea Fischer Newman, Pete Arbour, Lilly Arbor, Mary Sue Coleman, Denise Ilitch. (Photos by the writer.)

The pair added five more names to the “met” category on Thursday, when they attended the UM regents meeting. They got their photo taken with regents and president Mary Sue Coleman after the meeting. During the meeting, they had a chance to see presentations, some rare public disagreement among board members, and votes on a range of items.

The disagreement stemmed from a proposal to lower the distribution rate on the university’s endowment from 5% to 4.5%. Tim Slottow, UM’s chief financial officer, made the case that the change will help protect the core of the endowment’s value. Julia Darlow, the board’s new chair, argued that they shouldn’t spend less at a time when families are struggling, noting that much of the payout goes toward financial aid and instruction. Other regents disagreed with her and the change was approved, with Darlow and Denise Ilitch dissenting.

Regents also voted – in each case, unanimously – to approve designs for three construction projects: at Crisler Arena, a golf indoor practice facility, and the Institute for Social Research, which is building an addition. Architects for each project gave presentations of the schematic designs before the votes.

Also unanimous was a vote to approve a $1.25 million purchase of assets of the Michigan Information Technology Center Foundation (MITC), located in the South State Commons on Oakbrook Drive. As a result of the sale – a voluntary turnover foreclosure – the university will be taking over MITC’s computing resources. Regents approved two conflict-of-interest disclosures as part of the deal, with regent Katherine White recusing herself from the votes.

Leaders of the Clements Library and the UM Film Office both gave presentations to the board, featuring celebrities past (George Washington, Abraham Lincoln) and present (Pierce Brosnan, Rob Reiner). Regents also heard a report from the chair of the Committee on the Economic Status of the Faculty, who in general indicated that the overall status was good, but could be better. Specific recommendations to improve conditions were outlined.

Finally, the meeting’s only speaker during public commentary, a board member of the UM Student Sustainability Initiative, described for regents a vision of “zero waste” sporting events. They tried it at a football tailgate last fall, and will aim for a zero waste men’s basketball game against Harvard in December. The ultimate goal: An entire campus that doesn’t send any material to the landfill or incinerator.

Opening Remarks

UM president Mary Sue Coleman touched on a wide range of topics during her opening remarks, starting by welcoming Phil Hanlon to the board table as the university’s new provost – the comment was greeted with a round of applause. Coleman also congratulated the UM Hospitals & Health Centers, noting that they placed 14th in the U.S. News & World Report ranking of the nation’s best hospitals, and that they were ranked in all of the specialties that the magazine rated as well. This is the 16th consecutive year that UM has been ranked among the best by this publication, Coleman said.

UM president Mary Sue Coleman chairs the monthly meetings of the UM board of regents, as an ex officio non-voting member of the board.

Coleman noted that earlier in the week, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke had visited campus as part of a daylong forum on innovation and the role of research institutions in economic development. The Obama administration is holding four such sessions, but this was the only one hosted in the Midwest, she said. Coleman said she was honored to be named one of three co-chairs of a new National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and the discussion from the July 13 forum – which included members of the Obama administration, researchers, university officials and business leaders – will help shape the council’s work.

Offering congratulations to UM students on the solar car team, who recently won the 2010 American Solar Challenge race, Coleman described the solar car as the “fastest ever built,” reaching speeds of 180 mph at the Ford proving grounds “for about 30 seconds.” She reported that she heard the biggest challenge during the race was dealing with a black widow spider in the car. This is the third consecutive year that UM has won the American Solar Challenge.

Finally, Coleman noted that in the fall, UM will be welcoming the largest incoming class in its history – roughly 6,350 students. Overall, there were a record number of applications for 2010-11 – over 31,000 – and of those, nearly 16,000 students were offered admission. She noted that Hanlon, UM vice president for student affairs Royster Harper, and others are working hard to ensure that campus is ready for the start of classes in the fall.

Endowment Distribution Policy Changed

At Thursday’s meeting, regents were asked to change UM’s endowment distribution policy, reducing the distribution rate from 5% to 4.5%, with a gradual implementation over several years, starting in the quarter that ends Sept. 30, 2010.

Tim Slottow, UM’s chief financial officer, told regents that changing the distribution rate “is not something we do lightly.” The goal is to safeguard the corpus of the pooled endowment funds, which stand at an estimated $6.7 billion.

Regents last approved a change in distribution rate in 2006, and before that in 1995. In 1995, the board lowered the rate from 5.5% to 5%, with the recommendation that they consider eventually lowering it to 4.5%. The rate was based on a one quarter lagged, 12 quarter (three year) average market value. Then in 2006, the rate remained in place, but regents approved extending the period for calculating the average market value from 12 quarters to 28 quarters.

Slottow noted that markets have been volatile. In a cover memo provided to regents, he described the end of 2008 as “brutal,” and said that the future investment environment might not be as favorable as the previous two decades of high returns and low inflation. That view supported “lowering the endowment distribution rate to a more sustainable level that will help endowment distributions keep up with inflation.”

Slottow told regents that inflation has averaged 4% over the past decade, while annual median investment returns on endowments was 4.1%. By spending 5% of the return, the value of the endowment corpus is eroded.

Slottow pointed out that this was just one of a range of investment strategies the university has in place – strategies that he characterized as prudent. He said they’d implement the change so that the actual distribution amount wouldn’t decline – that is, the amounts that academic units would receive won’t be affected. They’ll take as long as they need to make the change smoothly, he said, and that the deans and development officers have given the plan their full support.

Before the vote, several regents made statements about the change. Julia Darlow, the board’s chair, read prepared remarks, saying that it sends the wrong message to the public at a time when many families are struggling. She noted that universities have been cautioned against hoarding the tax-free funds in their endowments, while supporters of this approach argue that it’s preserving the funds in perpetuity. She said she suspected that “perpetuity” can sound like a long way off to families who are struggling to make ends meet, and she’s concerned that this move will fuel alienation between the public and the university.

Darlow said she respects the sophisticated calculation that’s intended to yield a higher endowment value in the future. But if they’ve learned anything in recent years, it’s that even seemingly reasonable assumptions can prove “mightily inaccurate.” It’s far more important to continue their remarkable development efforts and their talented investment strategy, she said, to achieve the same goals.

Darlow also noted that 20% of the endowment payout is applied to financial aid, and about 24% goes toward instruction. This is not the time to restrict spending in either of those areas, she said. It’s not a wise move. [.pdf file of Darlow's full remarks]

Several regents responded with opposing views. Andy Richner said he disagreed, citing the rate of inflation and the rate of return, and saying they simply can’t sustain a 5% payout. The university need to adjust in order to maintain spending at a sustainable level.

Libby Maynard said she had initially had concerns about the strategy, and had consulted with Slottow as well as others she knew in the financial profession. It seemed to her that lowering the distribution rate to 4.5% achieved a balance, allowing the university to maintain the value of its endowment.

Martin Taylor, participating in the meeting via conference call, said he also supported the change. The staff is best in class at fundraising, investing and managing those investments, he said. They have the confidence of donors to the university, and it seemed to him that regents should show support, too. Substituting their own judgment for the judgment of investment experts is ill-advised, he concluded.

Outcome: Regents approved lowering the endowment distribution rate from 5% to 4.5%, with dissent from Julia Darlow and Denise Ilitch. Larry Deitch was absent.

Regents Vote on Several Expansion, Renovation Projects

On the agenda were several items related to ongoing construction projects, including three presentations by architects working on 1) Crisler Arena, 2) the golf indoor practice facility, and 3) the Institute for Social Research.

Crisler Arena Renovations

At their Jan. 21, 2010 meeting, regents approved a $20 million renovation project for Crisler Arena. On Thursday, one of the architects for the project – Don Dethlefs, CEO of the Denver-based architecture firm Sink Combs Dethlefs – presented schematic designs for the infrastructure work. Tim Slottow, UM’s chief financial officer, told regents that this initial phase was taking care of “the stuff behind the walls.”

The project includes replacing the roof and conducting asbestos abatement; installing new fire detection, alarm, and suppression systems, an emergency generator, and new heating and ventilation units; and upgrading the electrical system. The project will also replace the seats in the lower level, making changes to meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Those changes include relocating and widening the aisles, and adding hand rails and an elevator.

The work is expected to wrap up in the winter of 2012. It’s being done in conjunction with a $23 million addition to Crisler – a two-story, 57,000-square-foot basketball training facility that will include offices for men’s and women’s coaching staffs, locker rooms, two practice courts, film-viewing and hydrotherapy rooms, conditioning space and other amenities.

Outcome: Without discussion, regents unanimously approved the schematic design for the Crisler Arena infrastructure renovations.

After the vote, Mary Sue Coleman said, “There are a lot of people who’ll be glad to see that.”

Dan Jacobs of A3C describes where the new golf indoor practice facility will be located.

Golf Indoor Practice Facility

Dan Jacobs of the Ann Arbor Architects Collaborative (A3C) gave a presentation on the schematic design for the new golf indoor practice facility. Regents had approved the $2.5 million project at their May 20, 2010 meeting.

The 10,000-square-foot building will be located at the end of the UM Golf Course driving range, near the intersection of South Main and Ann Arbor-Saline Road. It will include a putting and chipping area, driving bays for the existing driving range, a team gathering space, coaches offices, locker rooms, a conference room, and storage.

Jacobs told the regents that the driving bays will accommodate both the men’s and women’s golf teams, and will include a set-up to allow players to be videotaped while practicing. The Mission-style design will include a green roof intended to emulate the color of weathered copper, he said – but he assured regents that it wouldn’t look like that green, referring to the color of Michigan State University. The project, funded with athletic department resources, is set to be finished in the summer of 2011.

Outcome: With no discussion, regents unanimously approved the schematic design of the golf indoor practice facility.

Institute for Social Research Expansion

Terry Sargent of the architectural firm Lord, Aeck & Sargent Inc. presented the schematic design for an expansion of the Institute for Social Research building. Regents had already approved the $23 million project at their April 15, 2010 meeting.

An architect's rendering of the expansion on the Institute for Social Research building. The view is from Division Street, looking south.

A four-level addition is planned, adding 44,700 gross square feet to the existing building at 426 Thompson St. Another 7,200 square feet will be renovated. The project will be paid for in part by federal stimulus funds via a grant from the National Institutes of Health. The expansion will allow the institute to house its research programs under one roof.

Sargent explained that the existing building is L-shaped. The expansion will square out the structure, with the new space located on the northwest corner of the site, on the Division Street side.

Slottow noted that because of the NIH funding, they were on a tighter-than-usual timeline, but that they’d been hitting their deadlines so far.

Outcome: With no discussion, regents unanimously approved the schematic design.

North Campus Chiller Plant: Change in Funding Source

At their May 20, 2010 meeting, regents approved an expansion of the North Campus chiller plant. That original approval stated that the project would be paid for by funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – federal stimulus dollars.

On Thursday, regents voted on a revision to the approved funding source. Rather than using stimulus funding, the project would instead use resources from UM’s utilities and general fund budgets.

The original plant was built in 2005 and provides chilled water to several North Campus buildings. The project would expand the system by 8,500 square feet and add two 1,300-ton chillers. It will be designed by the UM Department of Architecture, Engineering and Construction, working with the architectural and engineering firms of C2AE and S3 Architecture, with construction completed by the fall of 2011.

Outcome: With no discussion, regents unanimously approved the change in funding source.

UM to Acquire MITC Assets

Regents voted on a $1.25 million purchase of assets of the Michigan Information Technology Center (MITC), located in the South State Commons on Oakbrook Drive. According to a cover memo provided to the board, the sale is being made through a voluntary turnover foreclosure. Tim Slottow, UM’s CFO, told regents that MITC “is not succeeding in their mission.” The center opened in the spring of 2005, and is described on its website as an “information technology industry accelerator”:

The MITC serves as the state and region’s information technology industry accelerator by providing a central location that facilitates the co-location of leading edge IT organizations with education and industry-supported services. MITC provides a unique location for new IT companies to get their start and for established IT companies to network into Michigan’s and the region’s IT community.

The MITC Conference Center is a groundbreaking facility designed to showcase the advanced-technology industry and serve as an icon for marketing the state and region as a center for information technology. Merit Network and Internet2 both use the facility and support activities and programs that are collegiate in nature, focused on a learning and knowledge transfer environment.

UM is already a tenant in South State Commons, and will be expanding its operations and data center there as part of this acquisition. Regents also approved a total $1.9 million project, which includes the $1.25 million MITC data center purchase plus $650,000 in facility improvements.

The Michigan Information Technology Center (MITC) building.

Separately, regents voted on two items related to the MITC acquisition – votes that were required under the state’s conflict-of-interest statute. In the first item, UM’s information and technology services unit planned to enter into a licensing agreement for providing Internet2 with computing resources at the Michigan Academic Computing Center, which is housed at MITC. The university is taking over operations of the computing center, as part of its acquisition of MITC assets, and will charge Internet2 $58,000 annually for the services.

The conflict-of-interest statute applies to this deal because three people with significant roles at Internet2 – Doug Van Houweling, Barbara Nanzig and Mike LaHaye – are also employed by the university. Van Houweling is a professor at the UM School of Information, and until earlier this month served as president and CEO of Internet2. Nanzig is Internet2′s chief of staff and LaHaye serves as the nonprofit’s director of technical services.

A second conflict-of-interest disclosure is related to the deal because two university employees – James Peggs and Len Middleton – serve on the board of United Bank & Trust-Washtenaw. Peggs is a professor of family medicine and assistant dean for student programs at the UM Medical School; Middleton is an adjunct professor at the Ross School of Business.

The university is buying MITC assets from the bank, through a voluntary turnover foreclosure sale. As part of the deal, UM has agreed to forgo collection of its account receivable from MITC, with a balance of about $740,000.

Outcome: Without discussion, regents approved the purchase of assets and two related conflict-of-interest disclosures. Regent Katherine White recused herself from the votes.

UM Film Office: “Let’s Go to the Movies!”

Earlier in the meeting, Lee Doyle gave an update on activities of the UM Film Office, which she leads. It’s one of several duties she holds as chief of staff for the Office of the Vice President for Communications – a role that includes being the university’s chief Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) officer. [Observant Chronicle readers will also recall Doyle's name from recent meeting coverage of the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission – Doyle is likely to join that group.]

Doyle – who kicked off her presentation by saying, “Let’s go to the movies!” – had brought with her a pair of sunglasses which she donned whenever she dropped the name of a movie star who’d filmed on campus, and there were many. (Pierce Brosnan was a particular favorite.)

She noted that tax incentives for filmmakers, passed by the Michigan legislature in 2008, created a new industry for the state. The 42% tax refund given for money spent by the film industry in Michigan, including salaries and fees, meant that more films started shooting here. UM professor Jim Burnstein, who heads UM’s screen writing department, helped develop that legislation and serves on the governor’s film office advisory council.

Lee Doyle, head of the UM Film Office.

The university created its film office to coordinate efforts because they saw several opportunities, Doyle said – for economic development, for providing hands-on student experiences, and for positive exposure for the university. They coordinate with the Ann Arbor Film Office, she said, which operates out of the Ann Arbor Convention & Visitors Bureau. Doyle introduced the head of that office, Kay Seaser, who attended the regents meeting.

Since 2008, UM has received 25 inquiries or scouting visits, and 10 movies have been shot on campus. Some offers were declined by the office, which reviews all scripts and accepts scripts that reflect well on the university and its values, Doyle said. [The Chronicle overheard one regent quip, "No porn!"] Sometimes, they’ll suggest script changes – in one case, a throw-away line was deleted, Doyle said, because it referred to students partying. The review standard is higher when the film is actually set at UM, she added.

The film office has other roles as well, including assistance in scouting locations – location scouts typically visit the site an average of five times, Doyle said. They also help with coordinating logistics for the shoot, often involving the university’s department of public safety, electricians, fire marshal, custodians and facilities managers. The university charges a fee to recoup costs for these efforts. The office also looks for ways that students can get involved in the process, shes said.

Doyle ticked through a list of movies that have been filmed on campus, noting that 75% of films shot in Ann Arbor have some scenes at UM, and 15% of all movies made in Michigan have filmed at UM. Movies include: Myth of the American Sleepover, Conviction (formerly called the Betty Anne Waters Story), Trust, Answer This (formerly titled Trivial Pursuit), and Salvation Boulevard, among others.

Doyle noted that Answer This – the first movie in which UM “plays itself,” she said – features recently retired English professor Ralph Williams as a character based on himself. It will premiere this fall at the Michigan Theater. She described The Myth of the American Sleepover as “extremely low budget” – so much so that she was pulled into it as an extra, to portray an 18-year-old college freshman. (She noted that this bit of movie magic was achieved by pulling her hair into a ponytail and facing away from the camera.) The movie also uses the front of Angell Hall as the entrance to a sports coliseum.

The movie Trust, directed by David Schwimmer, used the former Pfizer campus – now owned by UM and called the North Campus Research Complex, or NCRC – as sets for an airport, a Chicago ad agency, FBI headquarters and a hospital. A film that’s currently shooting – The Double – has used NCRC as a stand-in for FBI headquarters, and during the week of July 19, as CIA headquarters. Richard Gere will be on set for that, she said.

The film industry has had an estimated $6 million economic impact in this area, Doyle said, giving several examples: Hotel room nights increased from 4,500 in 2008 to 20,500 in 2009; one film crew sent its staff to eat at downtown restaurants over four days, generating about $8,000 in revenue; the production of Youth in Revolt spent $2,000 on umbrellas at Downtown Home & Garden. Rob Reiner, who directed Flipped, loved the Fleetwood Diner so much that his wife bought him a painting of it at last year’s art fairs, Doyle said. Restaurants are used for wrap parties, warehouses are rented for storage, vacant offices are used for temporary film staff.

The film industry also has created a range of opportunities for hundreds of students so far, Doyle said. They’ve worked as extras and production assistants, and have been able to take master classes with directors and screenwriters.

Doyle also described two initiatives that the film office has started: 1) the Creative Film Alliance, in partnership with Michigan State and Wayne State universities, which launched a 2010 Summer Film Institute earlier this month; and 2) a partnership with the Traverse City Film Festival, in which student films are entered. Students and faculty will also attend the festival, which begins July 27, to serve on panels, to teach, and to judge festival entries.

The film office promotes the university’s image, Doyle said, showcasing UM as a great destination, and putting it on the radar of influential people. She concluded with a photo published in Sports Illustrated of Hilary Swank at a UM basketball game, with her boyfriend and his son. The boy was wearing a maize Michigan T-shirt.

Clements Library

Regents heard a presentation from Kevin Graffagnino, director of UM’s William L. Clements Library, who brought with him some items for show-and-tell – four rare documents from the library’s collection:

• A document dated April 18, 1775 from General Thomas Gage to Lieut. Col. Francis Smith – an autograph draft of orders to send British troops to Lexington and Concord in search of colonial military supplies. The orders in the document resulted in action that started the American Revolution.
• A two-page letter dated July 21, 1776, from George Washington to Messrs. Yates, Jay and Livingston of the New York legislature. In it, Washington reports on the defenseless nature of the American position at the Highlands, news of British victory at Fort Moultrie, S.C., and other updates.
• A three-page letter dated Aug. 12, 1803, from Thomas Jefferson to John Breckenridge, defending the Louisiana Purchase.
• A letter dated June 10, 1863, from Abraham Lincoln to Gen. Joseph Hooker, urging Hooker to pursue Robert E. Lee’s army rather than concentrating on the capture of Richmond, Virginia.

Julia Darlow, chair of the UM board of regents, looks at a letter that "started the American Revolution" – one of four historical documents from the Clements Library that its director, Kevin Graffagnino, brought to the July 15 regents meeting.

Though the regents were somewhat distracted by the documents, which were sheathed in plastic, those who were paying attention heard Graffagnino briefly describe the history of Clements, which was dedicated in 1923. At the dedication ceremony, William Clements stood on the steps and told the gathering this, Graffagnino said: “I do not want undergraduates at my library. I don’t want graduates at my library. I don’t want faculty at my library.” This left a rather small universe of users, Graffagnino noted, and he assured regents that the library had considerably expanded its outreach since then.

Since Graffagnino arrived as director in 2008, that outreach has increased even more. For one thing, he joked, they put a sign in front of the building.

UM leads the nation in many things, he concluded, but for early American history, Clements leads the world – it’s something they should be proud of.

Responding to a query from regent Libby Maynard after his presentation, Graffagnino noted that next year marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. Given the breadth and depth of documents in the Clements’ collection from that era – including thousands of letters written by soldiers on both sides of the conflict – the library is expecting to see even more activity over the next few years, he said.

Regent Julia Darlow asked Graffagnino to elaborate on some of the library’s outreach efforts. In addition to obvious things like putting out a sign, he said they were reaching out to other UM libraries to find ways to work together. They can’t prosper in isolation, he said.

Committee on the Economic Status of Faculty

Fred Askari, a UM professor and chair of the Committee on the Economic Status of the Faculty, gave regents a summary of the CESF report at Thursday’s meeting. [Representatives from the Dearborn and Flint campuses presented their reports separately.]

Askari noted that by 2013, half of UM faculty will be eligible for retirement. A trend away from tenured and tenure-track faculty has potential to damage the reputation of the institution, and he called for the university to maintain and rebuild its ranks of tenured faculty. It’s a competitive environment – he cited examples of UM faculty being offered lucrative packages from other universities, and said it was all the more reason to provide enhanced compensation and benefits.

The CESF report lists a range of recommendations:

• Provide transparent salary information, and study low outliers to evaluate reasons for low compensation. Salary needs to be enhanced to avoid a pay cut from benefit cost shifts, as well as to become more competitive with peer institutions.
• Give the Senate Assembly a voice in choosing a truly representative group of institutions against which UM is benchmarked in future studies of salaries and benefits. Benchmark to academic institutions only – there is no need to include Henry Ford Health System in the benefit benchmark, for example. Benefits should be grandfathered for those already hired to the greatest extent possible.
• Support plans to keep the university autonomous, rather than have legislators in Lansing set faculty salary and benefits.
• Enhance university contribution to disability benefits. Make life insurance and disability policies portable when people leave the university.
• Preserve retirement benefits at current levels, with a written commitment from the university that retirees will retain their current benefits. Preserve the retirement benefit match at current levels. If this is not possible in the future, then these benefits should be grandfathered for those currently hired.
• Adopt the Benefits Committee recommendation of Michigan Education Trust matching for tuition of faculty dependents. For faculty and staff dependents, provide reduced tuition and fees for spring and summer terms, where classroom seats sit vacant awash in fixed costs. Alternatively, offer more merit scholarships for faculty tuition relief.
• Engage the athletic department in constructive discussions about how they may better serve the university by assisting with planning of recreational sport facilities, bike and fitness trails that connect all of campus. Implement plans to engender a culture of fitness for the faculty and students.
• Renovate and expand the Main Hospital to eliminate double rooms, except in cases of national disaster.
• Enhance the economic status of the faculty by investing a portion of the endowment in a Michigan Venture Capital Fund, and increase the input of faculty and staff with expertise, which may facilitate success.

Regents had no comments or questions for Askari after his presentation.

Public Commentary: Zero Waste

Ryan Smith, a board member of the UM Student Sustainability Initiative, was the only speaker during public commentary. He gave regents an update on SSI activities, focusing on their “zero waste” efforts.

Ryan Smith, an undergraduate engineering student, spoke to regents during public commentary about a "zero waste" project spearheaded by the Student Sustainability Initiative. Smith serves on the SSI board.

They have a vision of zero waste sporting events, Smith said – defined as doing everything they can to avoid sending materials to the landfill or to be incinerated. Last fall, they organized the first-ever zero waste tailgate, he reported. [See Chronicle coverage: "Michigan Tailgate Tries for Zero Waste"] Their next effort will be more ambitious: A zero waste men’s basketball game on Dec. 10 against Harvard.

Smith urged regents to institutionalize zero waste, as the next step in making the university a leader in sustainability. The sports program is a good place to start, because it’s highly visible, he said. The approach would be a smart business decision, too. The path is clear, Smith concluded, and he hoped to see UM become the first zero waste campus.

Regents responded to Smith’s remarks with applause.

Present: Mary Sue Coleman (ex officio), Julia Darlow, Denise Ilitch, Olivia Maynard, Andrea Fischer Newman, Andy Richner, Martin Taylor (via conference call), Kathy White (via conference call).

Absent: Larry Deitch

Next board meeting: Thursday, Sept. 16, 2010 at 3 p.m. at the Fleming Administration Building, 503 Thompson St., Ann Arbor. [confirm date]

Bonnie Bona, chair of Ann Arbor's city planning commission, listens to a presentation about Zaragon Place 2. A rendering of the proposed project is on the screen in the background, viewed from the William Street perspective. (Photos by the writer.)

The project – to be located at the southeast corner of William and Thompson, next to Cottage Inn restaurant – drew support from two representatives of neighboring businesses, who said they were eager for new residents to arrive as potential customers. The site has been vacant and considered blighted for more than a decade.

Unlike recent proposals for two other residential developments – Heritage Row and The Moravian – Zaragon Place 2 does not require special zoning and has not faced opposition from neighborhood groups.

Some of the discussion by commissioners centered on the 40 parking spaces to be provided within the structure, as well as 40 spaces for bikes in a secured storage room. The ground level will include retail space fronting William. Also as part of the project, the city’s parks unit is asking the developer for $48,000 to help pay for new parks in the area, or to enhance existing parks.

In other business, the commission approved a special exemption use for Big Shot Fireworks to set up a tent in front of the Quarter Bistro, in the Westgate Shopping Center. Commissioners were schooled in fireworks-related legislation – anything that spins, explodes or leaves the ground can’t be sold in Michigan to the general public.

And a rezoning of a previously unzoned parcel on Jackson Avenue – site of the former Barnard Plating factory, next to Hillside Terrace Retirement Center – passed without discussion.

Finally, the commission discussed and passed a resolution that more formally outlines their plan to work with the city’s environmental and energy commissions toward the goal of building a sustainable Ann Arbor. It’s the outgrowth of a joint meeting the three commissions held in April, and was characterized by planning commission chair Bonnie Bona as the beginning of a community conversation about sustainability.

Zaragon Place 2:

Rick Perlman, the Chicago-based developer of Zaragon Place – a 10-story apartment building on East University – is proposing a second structure on the west side of campus, dubbed Zaragon Place 2. The new 96,685-square-foot residential building would be 14 stories tall, located on the southwest corner of Thompson and William – now an empty lot next to Cottage Inn restaurant.

The building meets the site’s D1 zoning, and is therefore a “by-right” project – no rezoning is required. It is the first project to move forward under the city’s new A2D2 zoning regulations, and would include 99 units, 40 parking spaces on levels two and three, 40 spots for bike storage in a secured room on the third level, and ground floor retail space facing William Street. The apartment entrance, along with an entrance to the parking levels, would be on the Thompson Street side. Each of the floors from levels four through 14 would include nine apartments: one 4-bedroom unit, six 2-bedroom units, and two 1-bedroom units.

According to the staff report, the city’s parks and recreation unit is asking developers to contribute $48,000 toward acquiring or enhancing parkland near the development.

In describing the project to commissioners, Alexis DiLeo of the city’s planning staff mentioned some outstanding issues: A traffic impact statement that’s under review; the possible need to relocate the building’s fire hydrant; and additional modeling being done to look at the project’s impact on the sanitary sewer system.

During their deliberations, commissioners praised the project, with only relatively minor criticisms and suggestions. Several commented on the lack of opposition to the development – in contrast to two other recent controversial projects that have come before the commission and the city council: Heritage Row and The Moravian. General support for Zaragon Place 2 was also evident at a public meeting in April held by the project team and attended by several residents who have strongly opposed Heritage Row and The Moravian – in contrast, they said they supported Zaragon Place 2, citing the appropriateness of its location. [See Chronicle coverage: "Zaragon, Heritage Row and The Moravian"]

Tom Heywood, executive director of the State Street Area Association, speaks in favor of Zaragon Place 2.

Zaragon Place 2: Public Commentary

Five people spoke during the public hearing on Zaragon Place 2 – all of them in favor of the project.

Tom Heywood, executive director of the State Street Area Association, said that when he came to town 15 years ago, there were three blighted properties in that area: An abandoned Olga’s restaurant at the southeast corner of State and Washington, a former McDonald’s building on Maynard, and an empty bank at the southeast corner of Thompson and William. The first two properties have since been developed – Zaragon Place 2 would complete the redevelopment of those three sites. In March, the association’s board unanimously voted to support the project, he reported. While he couldn’t speak for all his members, Heywood said that the vast majority of them are overjoyed, to say the least. The association is looking forward to having them as members.

Scott Bonney of Neumann/Smith Architecture, the Southfield firm that’s designing this project, reviewed several of the building’s design features. He described it as a sister building to Zaragon Place on East University, and noted that they planned to use essentially the same materials as they did for Zaragon Place. He pointed out some design differences between ZP2 and the original Zaragon – all the bedrooms in the new building would have at least one window, for example, and they’ll use clear glass for the street level retail space. The structure will be fully compliant with the city’s new D1-D2 zoning, he said, as well as with the draft design guidelines that the city is developing.

Roger Hewitt said he’s been operating businesses in the State Street area for 25 years or so. [He owns the Red Hawk restaurant on State Street, as well as a café and market called revive + replenish in the ground floor of Zaragon Place, on East University. He is also a board member of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority.] Hewitt said he strongly supports this project. There used to be a wonderful mix of retail in that area, but strip malls have pulled away business and it’s been clear that they need denser housing to have a vibrant urban area. He said he’s been pushing for that over the past several years, as a member of the A2D2 steering committee. He could not be happier that a quality building like this is being proposed. It will be a boon to the area, he said, and everyone is looking forward to having the new residents as customers.

Reporting from the Downtown Area Citizens Advisory Council, Ray Detter said the group had seen a presentation of the project at their May meeting, and strongly supported it. By complying with D1 zoning, the building meets the community’s expectations for downtown density, he said. It requires no zoning variances, and meets the design guidelines that are being drafted. They recognize that these units don’t qualify as affordable housing, but the city will just have to satisfy its commitment to affordable housing on other sites, he said. For all of these reasons, the DACAC supports the project.

Scott Betzoldt of Midwestern Consulting, the project’s civil engineer, described several elements of the site plan. An easement on the south and east sides will provide access for the neighboring Cottage Inn restaurant. The project meets all D1 zoning requirements. It will include streetscape improvements per Downtown Development Authority standards, he said, including light fixtures in excess of what’s required. If the retail space becomes a café, they anticipate sidewalk dining, he said. They are installing a stormwater management system that’s already been approved by the county’s water resources commissioner, and it should help address issues in the Allen Creek watershed. There’s no open space, he said, but the developer is including a fitness center in lieu of that. Betzoldt said the issues that staff has raised are very small problems, and they don’t anticipate any difficulty in addressing them.

Zaragon Place 2: Commissioner Deliberations

Tony Derezinski began by calling Zaragon Place 2 an impressive project. It’s the first one done under the new zoning ordinance, he noted, and tests how a by-right project meets those new requirements. Based on staff reports, it’s clear that’s been done, he said. There’s also a model of success, he said – Zaragon Place 1 – both in the building’s design and the fact that there’s a high occupancy rate. He joked that in the drawings for Zaragon Place 2, it shows people crossing the street to the church, so it will be good for that “business” as well. He said he was particularly happy to see the report about a public meeting held by the developer – it showed that there was strong support by people who attended, including some who have opposed other developments in the past.

Jean Carlberg asked about noise complaints that the city had received from residents of other buildings, such as the Lofts on State Street. How were those issues being addressed in this new project? Bonney said there had been complaints at Zaragon Place, too. He described a variety of retrofits that they’d done on Zaragon Place, including door sweeps and the addition of insulation between the walls. For Zaragon Place 2, they’ll be doing those things and more, he said. They’ll use more solid materials between the units – solid concrete, rather than concrete block, for example – and they’ll install baffles in the air ducts to buffer noise.

Carlberg said she was glad to hear this, and asked that they outline these measures before the plan goes to city council. It would be good to have this information on hand so that city staff can use it the next time a similar project comes along.

She then asked about the problem of melting ice dripping from the roof on Zaragon Place. Bonney said they are modifying the design of the cornice for the new building so that water would be diverted into a gutter system. The cornice is made of fiberglass, which is slicker than stone and makes it easier for ice to form.

Carlberg asked why Zaragon Place has been successful in getting full tenancy, and what makes them think that Zaragon Place 2 will be successful. She also asked where the students’ cars end up – or don’t the student tenants have cars? she asked.

Bonney said Zaragon Place offers an alternative to other housing – dorms, or older apartments. Zaragon uses higher-quality materials, fully furnished units with Italian cabinetry, granite countertops and other amenities. Students are tired of older apartments, he said – they want to feel that this is their first home away from home, that it’s a special place. Plus, the location is superb, he said.

Regarding cars, he said the building’s parking meets D1 requirements. There are a lot of public parking structures nearby, but most of the tenants don’t own cars – that’s the beauty of living in a walkable town, he said. Students and young professionals want that type of location. Carlberg asked how many tenants in Zaragon Place use public parking structures.

The building manager for Zaragon Place, Liza Lax, came to the podium to answer the question. The 40 parking spaces in the building are all filled, she reported, and there were about 10 more people who wanted spots. They were referred to Republic Parking, which manages the city’s municipal lots. Lax said she also pointed people to the university’s off-campus housing website, which provides information on parking spots for sale in the area. It hasn’t been a big issue, she said.

Carlberg noted that the site plan shows trees on the north side of the building. When the DDA puts in trees, it doesn’t put them on the north sides of streets, she said, because there’s not enough sunlight. She wondered if they’d discussed whether trees can actually grow there. Betzoldt said the trees selected for that location are hornbeams, and don’t require a lot of light.

Eric Mahler asked for further explanation about the stormwater system planned for the site. Betzoldt said since the building footprint covered almost the entire site, they were mainly detaining roof drainage, which would be routed down through the building into underground storage tanks. From there it would discharge into a public storm sewer – meeting all county water resources guidelines.

Mahler then asked about the parking ramp – how wide is it, and what’s the grade? Betzoldt said the ramp had a 9% grade, similar to Zaragon Place, and the lane is about 16 feet wide.

Mahler said his concern is that the floor-to-area ratio (FAR) – at 681.5% – is very high, but his concerns are far outweighed by the parking arrangement, which is highly desirable, and the density it adds, which the city is always clamoring for. He said it doesn’t go unnoticed that there’s no significant opposition to the project, which is “no mean feat.” He liked the fact that they wrote LEED certification, to some extent, into the development agreement, which he finds commendable.

Wendy Woods wondered how they’ll address concerns raised by the fire department about the names of the two buildings, which could be easily confused. She said she’s done ride-alongs with the fire department, and you wouldn’t want there to be confusion when they make a run. Betzoldt agreed that it could be confusing, though the names are different, he noted – the new building is Zaragon Place 2. They’re relying on a brand and banking on the success of Zaragon Place, he said. He noted that when he looks in the phone book, he can find a dozen McDonald’s, eight to 10 Cottage Inns, four Krogers – in all of those cases, people have to be clear about the location when they call for help.

Woods said that because it’s a high-rise, there will be more people possibly at risk, which increases the need for clarity. She noted that within the past year, there was a fire that resulted in someone’s death – in part, because there was confusion about the address. It wouldn’t stop her from supporting the project, but she wanted to raise those concerns. “It works until it doesn’t work,” she said. Betzoldt said they might want to do some education with the building manager and residents, to ensure that people are specific about the address.

Woods also asked about the bicycle room. Bonney clarified that there would be a secured storage room for 40 bicycles on the third floor parking level. Originally they had tried to find a location on the ground floor, he said, but it’s a tight site. At Zaragon Place, they’ve found that students will either park on the street or they’ll use the elevators to take bikes to their apartments. [The bike storage room there is in an underground parking level.] Bonney said they believe at the new building, students will use the oversized elevators to go to the third floor storage area.

Woods clarified that the parking levels are open to the air. The bicycle room, however, is enclosed, with glass windows.

Evan Pratt said he liked the high amount of glass on the building’s facade, and its contemporary look. He wondered if any of the windows opened. All living rooms and bedrooms have windows that open, Bonney said.

Pratt then pointed out that the retail space on the street level is recessed – what’s the reason for that? He noted that there’s a lot at 1 Huron Street lot that is recessed, and doesn’t seem to work well, from the pedestrian’s perspective. Bonney said the city’s draft design guidelines state that if a sidewalk is 12 feet wide, they can widen 80% of the building’s facade by 4 feet. They wanted the option for outdoor dining, he said, and a bit of a protected area at the entrance. At the corner, it’s pulled back a little more, Bonney said, to 8 feet – that’s so the design can meet the guidelines for creating architectural interest by modulating the facades.

Kirk Westphal picked up on Pratt’s comments, saying he appreciated that the draft design guidelines were taken into account. He noted the cornice on the building’s west side, and wondered why they didn’t put a continuing cornice along the north, east and south facades. Bonney said the cornice wraps slightly around the north and south sides, but that the intent was to visually orient the building to the west side, facing Thompson Street. He said that since it’s a corner lot, the design also serves to distinguish the Maynard side from the Thompson side.

Westphal said it certainly is different, but that in his experience working on the design guidelines, there still should be a defining element that goes all the way around the top of the building. He said he appreciated the transparency on the major first-floor facades. However, he noted in the area that might be used for outdoor dining, people would be staring at a solid wall. He asked if the wall needs to be solid. Yes, Bonney said – structurally, it needs to be load-bearing.

Finally, Westphal commented that the aesthetic of the recessed area “doesn’t remind me of the strongest retail or restaurant areas in our town.” Bonney said it’s possible that the area might be enhanced with a canopy, depending on the tenant. He clarified that no one has committed to leasing the space yet. Westphal expressed his personal hope that it wouldn’t become a bank. He described it as a great project and a real enhancement to the neighborhood.

Erica Briggs echoed other commissioners’ comments about it being a wonderful project. She asked whether they would have put in 40 parking spaces if they hadn’t been required to do so, or if they would have preferred to use that space for additional residences. Bonney said they think it’s the right amount, especially with nearby parking in the underground structure being built next to the library.

Briggs also asked about bike parking – is the same amount provided in the original Zaragon Place? Bonney said it’s the same amount, but perhaps because the Zaragon Place bike storage is in the lower level parking, people are more reluctant to use it. People like to take their expensive bikes to their residences. Briggs said she suspected the convenience or security isn’t there – even secured bike rooms might have problems with theft, and she encouraged them to think of ways to make it as secure as possible.

She said it looked like they were doing just the minimum amount of bike parking, and with about 200 residents, more than 40 bike spaces would be a benefit. Bonney noted that there are also 10 spaces in front of the building – Briggs clarified that she was referring to secured spaces. Was there room for more in the storage room? Bonney said the room is spacious and the spaces aren’t crammed, so in theory there would be room for more wall storage. There are also little nooks and crannies elsewhere in the garage, where spaces could be added.

Briggs said she didn’t know how much the spaces were used, so it was hard to know what the demand would be like. Bonney then noted that in the north campus apartment complex that they designed, called The Courtyards – there are 900 units and spaces for 40 bikes. Only two bikes are stored there, he said – “way less than we thought it would be.”

“All right,” Briggs quipped, “I’ll stop talking.”

Diane Giannola spoke next, saying she thought it was a wonderful project, and agreeing with other commissioners’ comments. She asked for a view and description of the building’s east side, which Bonney provided.

Bonnie Bona wrapped up the discussion. She mentioned the issue that Woods had raised about clarifying the address, and said that as a planning issue, she wanted to encourage them to use an address that matched the entrance to the apartments. She pointed to the Lofts on State Street as an example of something that didn’t work – the door on the building’s State Street side has a sign saying that residents should use the Washington Street entrance, which she described as “the dumbest, ugliest door.”

She said she noticed that the alley behind the building toward Cottage Inn is an easement. Giving alley access to the backs of other buildings would be good – she thanked them for making that an easement. She said she appreciated her fellow commissioners’ concerns about the sidewalk width, but noted that in that neighborhood, sidewalks tend to be a bit too-narrow – she’s more okay with it at that location than she would be in other parts of the city.

Regarding design issues, Bona said that the intent of the design guidelines – to have a “top” design element around most of the building – hasn’t been met in Zaragon Place 2. It looks like half of the building doesn’t have a top, she said. When she looks at the drawings, it reminds her of Ashley Terrace, which has a heavy bottom and looks like they didn’t finish building it. It won’t make any difference in the planning commission’s vote, she said, but she encouraged them to address that design issue before bringing the project to city council.

Derezinski then asked when the project would come before city council. DiLeo said it depends on how quickly the developers can address the few outstanding issues that staff had identified. It would be Aug. 5 at the earliest, she said, but possibly not until September.

Derezinski then asked what the timetable would be for construction. Bonney said they’d start as soon as possible, applying for a building permit not long after getting final approval. They’d hope to start in the fall, and it’s about an 18-24-month construction period, he said.

Outcome: Commissioners unanimously approved the site plan for Zaragon Place 2. The city council will consider the proposal at an upcoming meeting, likely in August.

Big Shot Fireworks

Earlier in the meeting, commissioners considered a special exemption use request for Big Shot Fireworks to set up a tent in front of the Quarter Bistro, in the Westgate Shopping Center. This is the second recent special exemption use request at the shopping center – at its May 18, 2010 meeting, the planning commission approved a request for the Westside Farmers Market, which operates on Thursday afternoons next to Zingerman’s Roadhouse.

The owner of Big Shot Fireworks wants to set up a 30-foot by 50-foot tent in the parking lot, facing South Maple Road, to sell Class C fireworks and other items. The business would be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, with longer hours – until midnight – during the week before July 4.

The permit would be valid for one calendar year. Chris Cheng of the city’s planning staff said that the business has operated there since 2006, and the city has received no complaints about it. No one spoke during the public hearing for the request.

Fireworks: Commissioner Deliberations

Jean Carlberg asked how signs would be handled. Rudy Rodriguez, Jr. of Big Shot Fireworks said there would be temporary banners along the bottom of the tent and near the curb area. Carlberg said she didn’t like fireworks, but had learned that these are legal. She found it reassuring to know that there hadn’t been complaints in previous years.

Bonnie Bona asked for clarification of the differences between Class A, B and C fireworks. Rodriguez explained that in Michigan, you need permits to use Class A and B fireworks – anything that spins, explodes or leaves the ground can’t be sold in the state to the general public. There’s the possibility that state law governing fireworks will be changed, he said – if it does, then they would no longer be able to sell in a tent, and would need to find a permanent, indoor facility. He later noted that the tent they use is made of fire retardant material, and that they have a million-dollar insurance policy for the location.

Wendy Woods asked if they would sell apparel as well – Rodriguez said they would. He added that they would likely return to the location for special events – if a sports team wins a championship, for example – to sell specialty items. Each time they put up the tent anew, they are required to have new inspections by the fire marshal, he noted.

Woods asked if there are age restrictions regarding their customers for fireworks. Rodriguez said that it was funny – you have to be 18 years old to sell fireworks, but there are no age requirements to buy them.

Outcome: Commissioners unanimously approved the special exemption use request, which will now be forwarded to the city council.

Rezoning Jackson Road Property

A 1.2-acre parcel at 1943 Jackson Avenue, west of Hillside Terrace Retirement Center, is unzoned. The city’s planning staff recommended that it be rezoned to R4C (multi-family dwelling), compatible with the surrounding residential area and recommended in the city’s West Area plan. The site – the former location for the Barnard Plating factory – includes a single-family home and a brick building. According to the staff report, the property owner has indicated that the proposed rezoning is acceptable.

No one spoke at the public hearing, and there was no discussion among commissioners about the item.

Outcome: Commissioners unanimously approved a recommendation that 1943 Jackson Road be rezoned from an unzoned property to R4C (multi-family dwelling). The rezoning request will be forwarded to the city council for approval at an upcoming meeting.

Resolution on Sustainability

Following the vote on Zaragon Place 2, the commission considered a resolution that was an outgrowth of efforts by leaders of three city commissions: planning, environmental and energy. The three commissions held a joint working session on sustainability in April, discussing ways that the groups can work together. [See Chronicle coverage: "Building a Sustainable Ann Arbor"]

Bonnie Bona, who chairs the planning commission, drafted a resolution that commissioners initially discussed at their June 8 working session. The intent is to outline how the three commissions will coordinate toward the goal of incorporating sustainability into their work, and possibly broadening that scope to include other city commissions and the University of Michigan. [.pdf of sustainability resolution]

There are five resolved clauses:

Resolved, the City Planning Commission will seek input from the Environmental Commission and Energy Commission regarding policy recommendations for Master Plan updates, planning studies and zoning ordinance revisions, at the discretion of the Planning Commission chair, which promote a broader view of sustainability.

Resolved, the City Planning Commission will request participation by a representative from the Environmental Commission and the Energy Commission in the Citizen Outreach Committee’s efforts to broaden the community-wide discussion of planning.

Resolved, the City Planning Commission Chair will be available to meet periodically, as deemed necessary, with the Chair of the Environmental Commission and the Chair of the Energy Commission to discuss progress on joint commission coordination toward a sustainable Ann Arbor and to consider this coordination with other City commissions, the University of Michigan’s sustainability representatives and other regional representatives.

Resolved, the City Planning Commission representative on the Environmental Commission will keep each commission updated on policy recommendations being considered by the other commission.

Resolved, the City Planning Commission requests a supporting resolution for joint coordination toward a sustainable Ann Arbor by the Environmental Commission and Energy Commission.

Tony Derezinski began by saying he still had the same concerns he had originally voiced at the June 8 working session – namely, that the resolution added steps to the commission’s process that, if not met, could leave the city vulnerable. He specifically objected to the first resolved clause, and said he thought they had agreed not to include the reference to zoning ordinance revisions.

He said it’s not that he’s against the concept of sustainability – though he thought there had been discussion that it should be defined. But given the language of the resolution, it wasn’t one he could support.

Jean Carlberg said it didn’t seem to her that the resolution made it a mandatory process – it doesn’t set timeframes or require a response. She didn’t see it as creating new strictures, so she wasn’t troubled by it.

Eric Mahler agreed with Derezinski that adding any process that isn’t mandated by law, especially related to a legally binding thing like an ordinance, is a little troubling. But the phrase “at the discretion of the chair” adds some leeway, he said. The commission could just seek input from other commissions – they didn’t have to wait for it. He was okay with the language, saying that there was enough “clever drafting” to make him comfortable with it.

Kirk Westphal congratulated Bona on her work, and said it was a big step that a lot of folks had been meaning to take, but no one else had. He said he shared some of the concerns of the attorneys on the commission – Derezinski and Mahler – and asked whether the resolution could be brought to bear in any legal process.

Wendy Rampson, head of the planning staff, started off by saying that she was not providing legal advice. She said the resolution simply directed staff to seek input from the two other commissions. If it becomes a concern, she added, then future commissions can simply vote it out. She said she didn’t know if someone could fault them for not following the process, from a legal standpoint.

Westphal said he was comfortable with it as is.

Wendy Woods asked whether the citizen outreach committee had met yet, and whether they saw a role for the other two commissions in their work. Erica Briggs, who’s on that committee, replied that it’s great to have the energy and environmental commissions as part of the community-wide discussion of planning, and since the resolution doesn’t tie it directly to sustainability, they would just be part of the broader discussion. Perhaps even more commissions can be involved, she said, talking about how to do outreach well and how to reach a broader segment of the community.

Woods pointed out that the resolution is related to sustainability. She asked for examples of previous decisions that the planning commission made that would have benefited from input from the other commissions.

Evan Pratt cited the flood plain ordinance, which they ran past the environmental commission. Jerry Hancock, the city’s stormwater and floodplain programs coordinator, took the flood plain ordinance to that commission, to get their feedback.

Rampson said when they were working on the A2D2 zoning, looking at “green” premiums, the planning staff was trying to get a sense of the best metrics to use – LEED certification or some other method. They approached both the environmental and energy commissions for input on that, she said. This resolution would just formalize that approach.

Westphal, who also serves on the environmental commission, brought up another example. That group had recently been briefed on the city’s area, height & placement project, and they raised concerns over how building height might affect shading over houses that have solar panels on their roofs.

Briggs said she didn’t have concerns with the wording, and she appreciated the intent of the resolution, to reach out to the other commissions and think more broadly about these issues. They’re just at the beginning of this discussion about sustainability, she said, and it was important to formalize it.

Bona spoke next, saying she had some things to add “without being defensive.” She said she’s been reading books by professionals who are having trouble defining sustainability, so if the commissioners tried to do that first, she felt they’d get nowhere. She hoped they’d be having the conversation more and more about what sustainability means for this city.

She reminded commissioners of the generic example she’d mentioned at the working session, when they face a planned unit development (PUD) or planned project that wants to build higher than zoning allows. For a variety of reasons, she said, she tends to be pro-density in developed areas, “but I never know when to stop.” When someone comes to them with a 10-story building, her first response is, “Why only 10 stories?” Is that just the political spot – the height that would allow it to get through the city council without neighborhood opposition?

The chair of the energy commission, Wayne Appleyard, had shared with Bona an article that stated a sustainable building in the Midwest would be five stories – that’s because you could generate the renewable energy from the roof and the ground that would be sufficient for the building. A bigger building would require outside renewable energy sources, she said.

“I don’t know if five stories is it,” she said, “but I’d like to have a more intelligent conversation than just watching the political winds.”

Bona also said that she thinks the conversations with the public will be much more fulfilling when it’s not just planning – it’s about planning based on smart energy and smart environmental thinking.

Outcome: The resolution passed, with dissent from Derezinski.

Public Commentary

Jim Mogensen spoke during the two times available for general public commentary, at the beginning and end of the meeting. His theme was transportation.

On June 15, 2006, he said, the mayor sent out a press release announcing the new transportation approach – mobility in the 21st century. So what was mobility in the 20th century? In 1953 when the Michigan constitution had just been passed, it included Act 55 – that was the act under which the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority was created. In 1968, Ann Arbor was having trouble paying a private bus company, Mogensen said, so they decided to create a transportation authority.

In 1969, a local state senator helped change state law to allow a local municipality to operate its transportation authority 10 miles outside the city, he said – the reason was so that Ypsilanti could be included in the AATA service area. Then in 1973 a millage was passed, and in 1974 the area was enlarged. People were already thinking about regional coverage then – several communities, including Ypsilanti and several surrounding townships, had purchase of service agreements to get service from AATA.

Things have pretty much stayed the same since then, he said, but now we’re starting to see cracks. Most people who use the system are lower-income people – that’s the reality of it, he said.

During his second turn, Mogensen recapped his initial comments, saying he was there – first, because he’s always there – but also because it was the fourth anniversary of the mayor unveiling his Model for Mobility. When the model for mobility had been developed in the 20th century, he said, there were transportation planners involved in that process – some of the details of that are not well known. AATA was not initially thought to be a regional system, but it became one a few years later – a fixed route bus service in the urban area. And mostly low-income people are using the bus.

The barriers to middle class people using the bus are time, money and convenience. Most people say it takes too long to use the bus, he said, and they don’t have time. Fares for the middle class are subsidized through various programs – he calls it “association” versus “application.” If you’re associated with the downtown through an employer, your fare is subsidized through the getDowntown program. If you’re associated with the university, it’s free – federal funding subsidizes the MRide program. If you’re a low-income person, you can apply for assistance, but only to get your fare cut in half. So there are these discontinuities in the system, Mogensen said.

The newest mobility system is essentially for middle class people who live in sprawl. But you can’t pay for both these approaches, he said. So what’s happening is that the city is converting the old system, which is for people in the urban area, to incentivize people who live in sprawl. What concerns him is that people in the urban areas will have to buy cars if they’re not affiliated with the university.

Present: Bonnie Bona, Erica Briggs, Jean Carlberg, Tony Derezinski, Diane Giannola, Eric Mahler, Evan Pratt, Kirk Westphal, Wendy Woods.

Next meeting: The planning commission next meets on Thursday, July 8 at 6 p.m. in fourth floor boardroom of the Ann Arbor District Library, 343 S. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]