I’ll start with some questions that aren’t intended to be rhetorical–I’m interested in the answers, and I think our city’s decision-makers would do right to be open to them as well.

What do you think is the reason for Berkeley’s robust mix of downtown retail? Is it a matter of money? Does the affordable housing make the difference? Is the downtown the only retail district, or are there malls that the downtown successfully competes with? Is there more and/or cheaper parking, better public transit, better pedestrian infrastructure? What specifically do you think we can learn from their example?

(This goes back to my first sentence in comment #8, which it seems you haven’t clearly addressed re: specific recommendations for changes.)

You shifted the topic to parking structures, and I’ll gladly go there, briefly. I’ve already communicated to the DDA board that I’m concerned that the proposed underground structure would create a surplus of parking downtown for a very high per-space cost. A number of considerations have not been given even minimal analysis, and the majority of the board don’t seem open to exploring them. I think that that’s unfortunate for our community. I hope that city council members will be more so, but I haven’t gotten that impression from a couple of them. As I said earlier, my focus is on community sustainability, and devoting resources to an unsustainable transportation system is a waste of valuable resources that we need for the transition to a sustainable one.

Comparing present day downtown Ann Arbor to whenever-it-was-you-were-growing-up in wherever-it -was-you-grew-up isn’t constructive. In general, I think your efforts would be more effective if you focused on the specifics of how you think the DDA and City Council could more wisely allocate our tax dollars. I don’t think any comparison (or contrast) with other communities (or eras, for that matter) are necessary, and are probably more easily dismissed by people who aren’t open to your perspective when those comparisons get tenuous.

I noticed a couple of cases where you could have supported your position better. For example, you state that “there are” ramifications to taxpayers of spending money. Tell us what they are, referencing present-day Ann Arbor. You also expressed that you don’t think we need more parking structures. Why do you think that? Obviously, your comments were directed to me and not the DDA or council, but I’m attempting to help you (and others, including them) to improve our collective communications about these issues. It’s very important that we do.

As I said, I’m interested in your responses, but I’d understand if this just got to be more than you have time for. (It would also be great of others would chime in.) Thanks again for your willingness to discuss. I’ve been referencing your words a lot and I appreciate that you haven’t gotten defensive. Some people aren’t capable of that.

Thanks for your reply, and your points are well taken. Berkeley’s budget includes grants (state and federal) that Ann Arbor’s budget doesn’t. That was Jen Hall’s main objection when I brought up A2′s abysmal commitment to affordable housing in comparison to Berkeley’s. What she didn’t refute was that in Berkeley there are two downtown development areas and each received $750K this year. Berkeley’s downtown is incredibly vibrant, and has a much more robust mix of retail. Berkeley is just one example.

As for the DDA, it has become a City Council cash cow; it has dedicated $23 million dollars toward the new City Hall. Oh, but the projected revenue is $17 million (The TIF capture has to be included).

For $17 million dollars, Steve, we are getting parking garages, several of which have the minority of spaces made available to the public (the new proposed underground garage is a perfect example with a mere 150 spaces open to the taxpayers who’re footing the construction costs), free bus passes for 5000 or so employees who work downtown, and large tax incentives to developers to “mitigate their risks,” of developing in our city, or so said Sandi Smith at a DDA meeting when awarding a several hundred thousand dollar pile of cash to the out-of-town developer of Liberty Lofts. Other city leaders and DDAs use their money much more carefully and, frankly, with much better business sense and a commitment to civic improvement. It’s just that most people don’t bother to scrutinize at the budgets of other city’s, or other DDAs to see that, yes, it can be done differently.

Does Ann Arbor need more parking structures? I don’t think so. Perhaps we disagree on this. We do agree, of course, that what we have needs to be maintained. My point is that pols in A2 seem content to reinvent the wheel, and end up with a square, sometimes, and spend money like there are, well, no ramifications to the taxpayers. There are. Where I grew up, Steve, the city’s several indoor and outdoor swimming pools and sports facilities were free to residents. Every child got a pool pass on the final day of school. There was (still is) an immense civic center where kids could (can) spend their days skating, playing games and hanging with friends. On street parking is free. There are several cultural centers, and a large art center. There were (are) concrete benefits to living in that community and paying taxes there that revolved primarily around civic improvement.

It’s a little spooky how I practically repeated Jennifer’s comments. But I won’t say that we should agree to disagree, Patricia. I hope you keep asking questions and that this discussion continues. You do have a responsibility to “listen” and acknowledge where you’ve been mistaken, otherwise it’ll be a waste of everyone’s time.

It’s possible that the thread you remember on ArborUpdate is
this one, which includes contributions from Patricia Lesko and Jennifer Hall.

We have a DDA as a community choice–city council renewed our DDA recently with what I observed as minimal grumbling from some citizens. (Did I miss some organized opposition?) We don’t necessarily need a DDA, but we’ve chosen it as a tool to keep our downtown districts viable. Alternative approaches are possible, but they’d need to be laid out in some detail and would need to demonstrate a clear advantage over our current system. In the meantime, one obvious alternative is to try to get our DDA to function as efficiently as possible, to make better decisions, and to consider broader community goals as much as possible. That’s the approach that I’ve been taking. My primary effort is to encourage our DDA to incorporate community sustainability more explicitly into their mission, goals, and decisions.

With regard to Berkeley, I vaguely remember seeing a comment in the last year or so that explained some of the differences in their system. (Might’ve been on ArborUpdate, but a search there turned up nothing relevant). In any case, if there are components of their approach that could work well here, I’m sure our DDA board would welcome input.

Your comments illustrate some differences between Berkeley’s and Ann Arbor’s investments in affordable housing, but I don’t see that they demonstrate that their approach is more direct than ours (with regard to community benefits), only that they’re different.

If you look at our DDA’s budget ( http://www.a2dda.org/downloads/Budget_09-approved.pdf ), you’ll see that in addition to the $13 million in projected revenues (I wonder how conservative that estimate is–I wouldn’t be surprised if they fall short, given the economy) there are over $14 million in projected expenses for parking. (There seems to be an addition error in the total expenses line for that column, which shows about $15.5 million as the value.) No doubt different priorities could shift some of those numbers around. However, the budget needs to be considered as a whole–referencing isolated numbers has little value.

Just between you, me and everyone who reads my response, it’s just not clear to me why we need a DDA in Ann Arbor. A little comparison shopping while I was running for Council (just to satisfy my own curiosity) was pretty eye-opening. In Berkeley, CA, if you have a look at the city’s budget, you’ll see out of the $309 million in revenue, the city is giving over $750K each to two downtown development areas. The city has just about as many residents as A2 (100K) and just about as many households (44K). The tax rate is HALF of what ours is, and they spend twice what we do on parks, and have a general fund tat is 35 percent larger than ours, just to name a couple of differences. The downtown is vibrant in Berkeley, and the goal there is to produce tax revenue that finances CIVIC goals, and to support artistic and cultural activities for the people of the city.

The goals of A2′s DDA are significantly different. Our DDA relies on the Reaganesque “trickle down” economic effect and citizen benefit, whereas in other cities the benefits are much more direct. Property taxes paid by businesses in Berkeley fund $1.5 million for affordable housing. In the 2009 Ann Arbor budget, Mayor and Council funded affordable housing to the tune of $170K, and the DDA will pull in $13 million in parking fees, and spent $8 million (plus $500K per year) to build a new City Hall. Metered parking fees are being doubled to build more underground parking for a conference center the Mayor wants to see built, I believe.

The Michigan Inn wants $607,588. The site is contaminated with 1-4 dioxane but the basis of the request is that the site is functionally obsolete.

Maple Shoppes on the corner of Dexter and Maple, which will be a new retail mall, is asking for $1.2 million.

These are tough financial times. It is time for the City Administration to have their foot on the brakes and not the accelerator. I spoke at Caucus on Sunday night and recommended keeping the General Fund Reserve target at 12-15% instead of the 8 to 12% like it currently is.

Again, new downtown residents will use neither more, nor less, services than other city residents – they simply will contribute nothing to their funding. The DDA captures all the increased tax revenue from the building of their apartments. Ms. Gunn is right to point out that years from now, inflation on the initial increase in property value from re-development will provide some relief to the rest of the city – but she neglects to point out that this will be years from now, and only some relief. The cost of services does not stand still, either. The purchasing power of the tax revenue captured by the DDA slowly erodes over time, but never, ever reverts to the city.

No resident – or Stadium Boulevard business – gets to say that the increased tax on an addition to his home or business must be used on his street, or on the park near his home. In any case, much of what government does is “general service” stuff that is not geography-specific: planning department, building department, fleet maintenance, accounting and finance, city administrator, law, fire, police, EMT, etc.

There is no reason that all taxes from the downtown redevelopment should be exempted from the same budget process to which taxes on homes and businesses outside the DDA zone are subjected. If more parking really is the city priority (but I thought we wanted to encourage non-motorized transit, buses, and ‘light rail”?), then it can be built out our normal budgeting process.

In the meantime, the rest of us carry all the costs of government to new downtown residents. Remember, downtown development does NOT fund Greenbelt land acquisition – you do.

Does anyone know what Mr. Carsten Hohnke thinks about any of this? I haven’t heard, and he does not address it on his web site.

I don’t think it would be accurate to say that changing the DDA’s revenue mechanisms would necessarily benefit Ann Arbor taxpayers. What are you suggesting here specifically, Patricia, lower parking rates or higher TIF assessments or something else?

I’m hoping that Leah will “Be Generous” and clarify whether the contribution to the police/courts building would come from the parking system fund, as well as give a general overview of that and other DDA funds.