Comments on: Municipal Math: How Tall Is the Schoolhouse?

By: Steve Bean

Steve Bean — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:12:52 +0000

Thanks, Dave. So they got $100 off (educational discount?) the base 15″ model and paid ~$600 each for the extra screen space and a slightly faster processor relative to the 13″ model with the same amount of memory and disk space. Apple did throw in an 11″ MacBook Air and a 21.5″ iMac to sweeten the deal.

I suspect that the technology bond professional team are projecting personal desires somewhat.

By: Dave Askins

Dave Askins — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:37:39 +0000

Here's a link to Apple's quote to AAPS: [link]

By: Steve Bean

Steve Bean — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:11:39 +0000

“The Ann Arbor Public School technology bond professional team has asked that the board of trustees appropriate $54,540 to purchase 30 Macbook Pro laptop computers, in order to train and test on Apple’s new Mountain Lion operating system.”

Since there’s no way to comment on today’s Civic News Ticker item on this, I’m doing it here. (It’s math related, after all, and almost municipal in nature. Feel free to move it, Dave.)

I wonder about the $1,818 average cost ($54,540/30, there’s the math) of those laptops. I’m a software developer and considering a new 13″ Macbook Pro that’s available for $1499. Do they need 15″ screens, really? Or is the extra $200+ for something else? The model I’m looking at isn’t even at the low end, which is $1199. I didn’t look at the Macbook Air models, but the low end for those is $999 for an 11″.

By: Tom Whitaker

Tom Whitaker — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:56:24 +0000

@7: Thank you for the photo, and thank you for “getting it.” Indeed, this was a three-story building with a relatively flat gable roof. The height of this roof, based on the approved drawings and the City’s own height definition, was over 35 feet (the zoning limit is 30 feet in this district). As shown in the photo, a faux roof was then tacked on to the sides and peak to make the third floor of the building look like big dormers. Slots in the middle complete the illusion. City staff was completely taken in by this architectural charade and measured the building height to the middle of the tacked-on faux roof, giving a height of 30 feet. Of course, they only had drawings to go by at the time. We tried to explain what was happening–even to the point of building scale models–but only received blank stares in return.

Then, last year, the developer apparently decided he needed more ceiling height in the basement units, so he raised the level of the first floor. This change in the drawings was missed by staff, building permits were issued, and here we are with a building that is now actually over 36 feet tall, with grading that does not match the plan approved by City Council back in 2009, and a lawsuit against the City and the developer. (I’m not a party to the lawsuit, in case anyone was wondering.) The new grading should have affected the calculation of building height, but sadly, staff does not perform an averaging of the finished grade as required, but instead uses a few points at the building perimeter.

City Place is a “how-to” manual for developers interested in maximizing every conceivable dimension of their buildings above and beyond any reasonable interpretation of city code for R4C districts. Incredibly, more than three years later, there have been exactly ZERO reforms in city code or its interpretation by staff that might prevent this same thing from happening again. This in spite of the fact that multiple city council members and planning commissioners lamented loudly that these reforms were way overdue when they approved City Place.

By: Dave Askins

Dave Askins — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 20:25:29 +0000

Re: [8] Here's the drawing corresponding to the building: [.pdf of extract from City Place site plan].

By: Eric Boyd

Eric Boyd — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 20:15:01 +0000

So, I’m further confused. Looking at the picture in @7, there are two stories in the first 2 floors, and essentially two stories in the center of the “dormer”. How is the former 17 ft. high and the latter 25ft. high? Aren’t they roughly the same height?

By: Jim Rees

Jim Rees — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 18:32:02 +0000

You don't often make mistakes, but I caught you this time. You say, "The apartment building actually includes a large dormer." That's not correct. The building has no dormer and no eaves, as is clear from this photo: [photo] What look like dormer and eaves are tacked-on decoration.

By: Eric Boyd

Eric Boyd — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 15:23:32 +0000

@5 I did reread to make sure I hadn’t missed something, butI still missed the caption. My apologies.

By: Dave Askins

Dave Askins — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 13:53:57 +0000

Re: “I suspect that Puzzle 1 (and Puzzle 2) are mislabeled or misdrawn.”

From the caption to Figure 1: “Note that the drawing is intentionally not to scale.”

Re: “It would also be extremely unusual for the height (top to bottom) of the gable to be more than the single-story building before it.” Yet these are the dimensions of the City Place buildings. So I think those who opposed construction of the project would tend to agree with the assessment of “extremely unusual.”

By: Steve Bean

Steve Bean — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 13:48:27 +0000

Dave, I’m disappointed that you–a linguist, yet–conflated tallness and height. Tallness is a relative term, as in “too tall”, “not tall enough”, or “as tall as a tree”.

So, then, how tall is the schoolhouse? I’ll leave that for the CP neighbors to answer.