Comments on: Column: City Council as a Historic Body

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 18:13:47 +0000

RE #6 – I am really hoping this thread does not degenerate to the level of discourse we see on AnnArbor.com. I’m a little surprised that that comment made it through moderation.

By: Leah Gunn

Leah Gunn — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 11:14:40 +0000

The operative sentence here is “The Historic District Commission cannot force someone to maintain a house”. The houses have deteriorated into dumps. They were dumps 50 years ago when I lived in that neighborhood as a grad student. And, the district that was proposed and studied did not qualify inder the Dept. of Interior rules. When Heritage Row was an option, with Mr. DePerry’s plan, it needed eight votes to pass. Those who voted against it were Carsten Hohnke and Mike Anglin (Ward 5), Sabra Briere (Ward 1) and Steve Kunselman (Ward 3). These are the Council members to blame, if, as it seems, you are looking to blame someone. Now, Mr. Helminski tells us that the Heritage Row plan was never a viable option, so it appears that the developers were playing the smoke and mirrors game with the Planning Commission and the Council. Ms. Lowenstein is right.

By: ALan Goldsmith

ALan Goldsmith — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 20:04:39 +0000

@5. The only way the City of Ann Arbor is going to get the government reflective of what voters want it to target members of Council one at a time, recruit honest and strong candidates with a wide level of support, raise the campaign funds required and then challenge every targeted member of Council and the Mayor point by point on their dishonesty and bad decisions. The fact Ms. Lumm raised FOUR times what the current member of Council has for her campaign is a major story–not surprisingly it was buried on the last page of Sunday’s Ann Arbor Dot Com. If you heard the reporter being interviewed on the radio Saturday (some tiny AM station that fades out at sunset, I forget the call letters…) you’d totally understand.

By: Alan Goldsmith

Alan Goldsmith — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 11:37:39 +0000

@Sulker. Fortunately Ms. Lowenstein failed in her post-Council attempts for higher political office. We can be thankful for that. The only thing Ms. Lowenstein reads these days are the marching points/bullet points emailed to her regularly by the Mayor prior to DDA meetings. There are only two ways to change the direction of Council and DDA membership. Lawsuits and the ballot box.

By: Tom Whitaker

Tom Whitaker — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 03:40:43 +0000

Ms. Lowenstein would do well to re-read the DDA’s 2003 renewal plan:

“Maintaining and strengthening the traditional residential character of the near-downtown neighborhoods is essential for the economic and social sustainability of downtown Ann Arbor….Due to their close proximity to downtown, near-downtown neighborhoods face unique challenges to preserving their traditional residential character.

-Resist development pressures and uses within these near-downtown neighborhoods that are not consistent with their residential nature.”

Signed,
Sulker

By: Alan Goldsmith

Alan Goldsmith — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 18:33:34 +0000

Ms. Lowenstein–it was ‘too late’ because of your friends on Council doing what they do. And then seeming to gloat over the overcome. Congrats on your ‘victory’.

By: suswhit

suswhit — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:28:13 +0000

There is no lopping and remind me again whose fault it is that the houses are “deteriorated?”

By: suswhit

suswhit — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:22:14 +0000

While I can understand your weariness…image living it. Today they are slaughtering the trees. Congratulations to our “winning” council and city staff members.

By: Joan Lowenstein

Joan Lowenstein — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:14:45 +0000

I greatly respect Larry’s expertise and judgment, but I think the solutions he suggests are too late. The time to have designated Germantown (more historically accurate: Boarding House Row) a historic district was before the houses had been lopped off, added on-to, and otherwise deteriorated. The Historic Distric Commission cannot force someone to maintain a house. If there were to be an historic district now, chances are that the houses would simply further deteriorate as is. Is that not a scar?

The Council had another choice even before City Place and Heritage Row, which was a townhouse development that would have taken down the houses but put up a much more attractive development. The neighborhood activists played the all-or-nothing game and got nothing. Well, they can say that their council representatives “listened” to them.