Extracted screen shot of Legistar interface that allows search of Legislative items by category.

Legistar is an information-rich archive for upcoming as well as past meetings. I’ll grant you, it is not perfect. Legistar can at times be sluggish to respond or counterintuitive in its user interface. But Legistar will mostly cough up what you’re looking for.

The city of Ann Arbor has been using Legistar as part of its record management for Ann Arbor’s government for six years. By now I’d guess residents have figured out for themselves as much as they need or want to know about Legistar. So my purpose in writing is not to provide a tutorial on its use.

In this column, I’d like to focus on one feature of Legistar: the ability to classify meeting agenda items by category. The city of Ann Arbor’s Legistar system is set up so that an agenda item can be classified as: appointment, introduction, minutes, ordinance, proclamation, public hearing only, report or communication, resolution, resolution/public hearing, work session. Of those categories, I’d like to focus on just one: introduction.

I think that a more robust and meaningful use of “introductions” by the city council could lead to better public notice of upcoming council work, and more efficient use of limited city staff resources.

The change I have in mind wouldn’t be difficult to implement, and wouldn’t require changing the city charter to do it. But I’ll wrap up this column by noting how a change to the council’s approach to “introductions” could help get the ball rolling on a possible effort to review the city charter.

What Is an Introduction?

The “introductions” section on the Ann Arbor city council’s agenda pre-dates the use of Legistar. Over a decade ago, for example, at the Jan. 6, 2003 council meeting, an “introductions” slot appeared on the agenda. It was filled with a presentation on the city’s annual audit.

Even now, presentations like that are fairly typical for the way “introductions” are used by the Ann Arbor city council. Most typically, items classified as an “introduction” are presentations of information, not items on which the council takes any action requiring a vote. Items not classified as an “introduction” sometimes appear in the “introductions” section. For example, those items classified as “proclamations” also get slotted in under “introductions.”

So what exactly gets “introduced” during the Ann Arbor city council’s “introductions” section of the agenda? A fair description would be: (1) people (through proclamations), or (2) information (through presentations).

What about legislation? Does legislation ever get introduced during “introductions”? No.

Introducing Legislation: Through First Reading?

Every schoolchild who has ever had a lesson in “how a bill becomes a law” knows that legislation must first be introduced. So what is the Ann Arbor city council’s standard procedure for introducing a new or amended local law? Answer: It’s placed on a meeting agenda for a first reading.

Sometimes councilmembers will use their communications time at a council meeting as an informal heads-up. They’ll alert their colleagues during communications that sometime soon they intend to bring forward an ordinance or resolution on a particular topic. For example, on Oct. 21, 2013 Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5) announced during council communications that he’d be bringing forward an ordinance that would regulate outdoor smoking. The Chronicle’s report of that meeting last year included Warpehoski’s remarks. The council’s minutes from that meeting also reflect Warpehoski’s remarks on his intent to bring forward the new ordinance.

But the first occasion for a new piece of legislation to become formally visible on the council’s work plan is when it’s placed on the agenda for a first reading. By that time, a councilmember will typically have laid claim to some amount of time from city staff – in the city attorney’s office and in the city department affected by the content the ordinance. It shouldn’t have surprised anyone who was paying close attention to the council’s work to see that Warpehoski placed the outdoor smoking regulation on the council’s agenda for a first reading on Feb. 3, 2014. But it was the first occasion on which the item actually appeared on the council’s agenda.

The council’s current custom on introducing new topics is less than optimal in two respects. First, formal notice could come much earlier. Second, formal notice could come before laying claim to limited staff resources. Is there some better way to do this?

A Better Way to Introduce a Law: By Introducing It

The Ann Arbor city council’s own rules provide some insight here. Compared to current custom, the council’s rules appear to contemplate an additional step in the ordinance enactment process. It’s a step with an outcome that is not necessarily to take a vote on the question of giving initial approval to an ordinance. Specifically, the council’s rules indicate a step where a natural outcome of that step is to “refer” the matter to another authority [emphasis added]:

RULE 13: Ordinances, How Introduced
Proposed ordinances shall be introduced by one or more individual members of council. Ordinances may be referred to any or all of the following: the city Attorney, the city administrator, appropriate agencies, and council committees, for study and recommendation.

I don’t think it’s accidental that the Ann Arbor city council’s list of allowable motions during debate includes a motion to refer:

RULE 11: Motions in Order during Debate
When any question is under debate, no motion shall be received but the following, and they shall have the precedence in the order in which they stand arranged [emphasis added]:

1. To call the previous question/cloture
2. Motions to Adjourn
3. To Lay on Table
4. To Postpone to a Time Certain
5. To Refer
6. To Postpone Indefinitely
7. To Recess a Meeting to a Date Certain

I don’t recall the council ever taking advantage of a motion to refer in the last five years. So I’d like to propose a modification to Rule 13, which I think should include not just ordinances, but also resolutions:

Rule 13-P: Ordinances and Resolutions, Necessity and Method of Introduction
Proposed ordinances and resolutions by councilmembers should first be placed on a meeting agenda as an item of introduction, before being placed on a meeting agenda as an item to be voted on for initial or final approval. Outside of their work on a council committee to which a matter has been referred by the council, councilmembers shall not lay claim to time and effort from a city staff member or a city board or commission related to an ordinance or resolution, unless the council has voted to refer the matter to the staff member, the staff member’s department, or the city board or commission.

Using Introductions to Introduce: Supporting Arguments

An approach to introducing legislation that makes literal use of an “introduction” is not novel for a city government. New York City’s approach to the process is visible in the NYC city council Legistar system.

Screenshot of New York City Legistar system search results for items classified as “introduction.”

That’s right, NYC uses Legistar software. And a search for “introduction” items in the NYC Legistar system does not give a results list that is dominated by informational presentations, as does a similar search in Ann Arbor’s Legistar system. Instead, NYC’s Legistar system turns up a screenful of titles that begin with “A Local Law to …”

And if you click through to read the history of some of those items, what you’ll find is a NYC city council action to “refer” those items to some kind of committee. For example, a NYC local law in relation to creating a task force on the sport of cricket was referred to the committee on parks and recreation.

But pointing to NYC’s example is, I think, a pretty weak argument in favor of Ann Arbor’s adoption of an introduce-then-refer approach to governance. In fact, it could be cited as an argument against Ann Arbor’s adoption of this kind of procedure: In a smaller community like Ann Arbor, governance should be simpler than in the largest city in the country.

But the idea that things should be simple, I think, weighs in favor of the introduce-then-refer approach. If every ordinance and resolution requiring staff time is first formally introduced then referred, it becomes simple to keep track of the to-do list. It’s a to-do list that the Ann Arbor city council is creating for city staff and other boards and commissions. That to-do list takes the form of a search on “introduction” items in Legistar. So, about that NYC local law in relation to creating a task force on the sport of cricket: I will not be following up on the legislation that might result from the council’s referral to the NYC committee on parks and recreation. But because it went through a process of introduction, I could easily track it on Legistar if I wanted to.

The introduce-then-refer approach can also keep things simple by providing an early opportunity for the council, as a group, to nip an initiative in the bud, without voting against it per se. If Warpehoski had literally introduced the outdoor smoking item in October last year, the council might not have chosen to refer it to the city attorney’s office or the park advisory commission. If it had not been referred, then it would have died relatively early – before any significant staff time had been consumed by the effort.

And I think that conservation of staff time and resources should be a significant consideration for the council as it thinks about how to set the city’s work plan. That’s especially important as the city’s total staff has decreased over the years. It strikes me as completely reasonable that any initiative that requires staff time should have the support of a majority of council for the expenditure of that staff time.

This introduction-then-referral approach in the proposed Rule 13-P would also ensure more transparency for the council’s work. Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) surprised nearly everyone on Aug. 9, 2012 when he put an item on the agenda that called for placing a public art millage on the ballot. He’d been working behind the scenes with the city attorney’s office on the matter. If Rule 13-P had been in place, he would have been forced to be more transparent in his approach.

That’s because Taylor would have needed to get the backing of a majority of councilmembers to refer the matter to the city attorney’s office, before he could have tapped city attorney resources to help him work on the issue. I imagine the council would have backed Taylor’s initiative at that earlier stage. And the outcome on the council’s action would have probably been the same: The millage would have been placed on the ballot.

The difference? The process from start to finish would have been more transparent, and the possibility of a ballot question would have been day-lighted to the public much earlier. That difference might have led to a different outcome on voting day. [The millage failed.]

Introducing: Charter Commission?

One issue that has generated some interest across the community over the last few years – though not enough to result in any council action – is the possibility of switching Ann Arbor to non-partisan elections for mayor and city council. That change would require a charter amendment, which could be placed on the ballot for voters to decide.

What I think is actually needed, instead of a one-off amendment, is a comprehensive review of Ann Arbor’s city charter. The mechanism for conducting that review involves establishing and electing a city charter commission. Getting the wording right for a city council resolution – and the development of background educational materials so that councilmembers could weigh the wisdom of establishing a charter commission – would require a significant time investment from the city attorney’s office.

To get things rolling toward establishing a charter commission – in a completely transparent way – wouldn’t require adoption of Rule 13-P. Existing mechanisms could be used that allow for, but do not require, introduction then referral.

Action could take place as early as the March 3, 2014 meeting, if anyone on the council wanted to move this forward. A councilmember could introduce a resolution – literally as an “introduction” item on the agenda – to establish a city charter commission. That resolution could be very much a draft – a councilmember’s own best shot at the required wording. One starting point might be to track down similar resolutions that other municipalities, including Ypsilanti, have used for this purpose. And a councilmember could use one of the possible motions during debate to refer that resolution to the city attorney’s office.

If a majority of the council agreed, we might expect to see an actual resolution for a charter commission placed on the council’s agenda sometime this year. That’s no guarantee that the council would approve the resolution, but at least it would put the issue on the table for discussion.

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Before the start of the July 13 DDA partnerships committee meeting. Back row: Kit McCullough, Peter Allen. Front row: Vivienne Armentrout (partially obscured), Mary Hathaway. (Photo by the writer)

Based on the committee’s May and June meetings, many in the audience expected the committee to come up with some kind of recommendation for a public engagement process that would ultimately lead to alternate uses of some downtown city-owned parcels. The parcels currently serve as part of the public parking system. The context of the DDA’s planning for the public engagement effort is a city council resolution, approved on April 4, 2011, that outlined a detailed plan for the DDA to lead the process.

The so-called parcel-by-parcel plan emerged in late 2010 as part of “mutually beneficial” committee meetings that handled negotiations lasting over a year between the city of Ann Arbor and the DDA on a new parking contract. Under the new contract, which the two bodies finally ratified in May 2011, the DDA will continue to operate the city’s public parking system for the next 11 years.

The city council’s approval of the parcel-by-parcel plan in April and DDA partnerships committee meetings in May and June – the three months prior to Wednesday’s meeting – had provided some momentum towards translating the city council resolution into an actual timeline with action steps.

In fact, two attendees of Wednesday’s meeting had pitched their professional services to the DDA to lead that public engagement process, with events tied to tentative calendar dates. Doug Kelbaugh, former dean of the University of Michigan’s college of architecture and urban planning, and Kit McCullough, a lecturer at the college, had provided a detailed timeline of meetings they could host during the fall, with delivery of a concept plan in January 2012, which could then be used to craft requests for proposals from developers.

If the process would not be led by Kelbaugh and McCullough, the committee was expected by many in attendance at its Wednesday meeting to chart some other path forward. But that’s not where the conversation led. DDA board member John Mouat described it as a “far-reaching, vague conversation,” which he had expected it would be. At one point, committee members even expressed uncertainty about whether the DDA or the city council would lead the process.

Typically, DDA executive director Susan Pollay gleans specific direction from the vaguest of conversations by her board’s committees. But when asked by Mouat at the conclusion of the meeting if she had clear direction, Pollay allowed only that she felt like she had more direction than before the meeting.

Based on the conversation at the meeting, part of that direction is that some kind of timeline for the process – which committee members thought would take at least a year – should, if possible, be included in an October 2011 city council working session.

In a follow-up phone interview, Pollay told The Chronicle that having the October 2011 working session as a target for a proposed plan would allow the committee and the full board to use their meetings over the next two months to work on the content of that presentation to the council. Checking in with the council on the public process before settling on it, she said, was important to the board.

The Audience

The sense of expectation of a concrete result from the committee meeting could be measured in part by the audience. Size alone would not be a fair measure, because several students from a University of Michigan class (taught by Kit McCullough) swelled the number of people in the room to around 35. But several prominent members of the community also attended.

The list of recognizable names in attendance included:

• Jesse Bernstein, chair of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board. The AATA’s Blake Transit Center, slated for a rebuild, sits on the block bounded to the west and east by Fourth and Fifth avenues, and to the north and south by Liberty and William streets. The transit center sits immediately adjacent to key parcels the DDA is supposed to consider for future alternate use: the Library Lot and the former YMCA Lot.
• Josie Parker, executive director of the Ann Arbor District Library, and Nancy Kaplan, a member of the AADL board. The downtown branch of the district library sits just to the south of the Library Lot – so-called only because of the geographic proximity and the number of library patrons who formerly used that surface parking lot for their library visits. The city of Ann Arbor owns the property – the DDA is building an underground parking structure there. At the city council’s July 5 meeting, Parker gave councilmembers an update on the library, and highlighted the impact of the library on Ann Arbor’s downtown.
• Wendy Rampson, head of planning for the city of Ann Arbor. At a January 2011 DDA board partnerships committee meeting, Rampson had led board members in a conversation about the midtown character district – part of the A2D2 zoning regulations – as a way to make more concrete for board members what the parcel-by-parcel process might be like.
• Doug Kelbaugh and Kit McCullough. Kelbaugh is former dean of the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and McCullough is a lecturer at the college. The two had pitched their services to lead the parcel-by-parcel process at the May 2011 partnerships committee meeting and had been asked to bring back something more concrete for the June 2011 committee meeting, which they did.
• Peter Allen, a local developer who attended the partnerships committee meetings in May and June. Allen is an adjunct lecturer at the University of Michigan, and has asked students in his classes in the past to pursue class projects on the redevelopment of the area around the Library Lot.
• Ethel Potts, former planning commissioner for the city of Ann Arbor.
• Alan Haber, Odile Hugenot Haber and Stephan Trendov. The Habers have worked to promote the idea of a community commons use for the Library Lot, making it one of six proposals in response to a request for proposals that the city of Ann Arbor put out for developing the top of the underground parking garage on Fifth Avenue, which is currently under construction. The commons was not selected as one of the two finalist proposals, and the entire RFP process was terminated earlier this year with no selection of a proposal. Trendov is an architect and urban designer who developed some sketches for the community commons idea, which were presented to the DDA board at its November 2010 meeting.
• Vivienne Armentrout, former Washtenaw County commissioner and former candidate for city council and library board. Armentrout’s account of the partnerships meeting is posted on her blog, Local in Ann Arbor.
• Mary Hathaway, often identified as a local activist for peace and social justice.

Committee members in attendance included Bob Guenzel, former Washtenaw County administrator and the newest appointment to the DDA board. Guenzel was elected as board vice chair at the board’s annual meeting earlier in the month. Also there for part of the meeting was Tony Derezinski, a city councilmember representative to the DDA’s partnerships committee. He was not able to attend the whole meeting on Wednesday, because he was participating in interviews of the final two candidates for Ann Arbor’s city administrator job.

Also attending the meeting were outgoing DDA board chair Joan Lowenstein, operations committee chair John Splitt, and chair of the now-defunct transportation committee of the DDA board, John Mouat.

It fell to Mouat to run the meeting, because the two co-chairs of the DDA partnerships committee could not attend: Russ Collins and Sandi Smith. Mouat is an architect with the firm Mitchell and Mouat Architects.

Ancient History: November 2010 – April 2011

Where did the idea come from that the DDA should lead the exploration of alternative uses for city-owned downtown properties?

Two “mutual beneficial” committees (one from the city council, and one from the DDA board) began meeting in June 2010 to negotiate a new contract under which the DDA would continue to manage the city’s public parking system. They did so based on a term sheet that had been put forth in April 2010. One of the four items on the term sheet included the following [emphasis added]:

Development of City-owned Property Within the DDA District

The working group envisions that the DDA would serve as a visioning, initiation and implementation engine for development of City-owned property within the DDA district. The nature and extent of this role will be discussed, considered and, if approved, implemented in parallel to any omnibus [parking] agreement, but would not be part of that agreement.

The DDA board met in a retreat later that spring, when board members embraced that idea as a priority for the DDA. [Chronicle coverage: "Ann Arbor DDA: Let's Do Development"] That dimension of the mutually beneficial committee negotiations eventually led to the formulation of a “parcel-by-parcel” plan, which was ratified by the DDA board at its January 2011 meeting. The possibility of formulating the resolution as a contractual relationship was briefly floated but quickly abandoned.

Light pink areas are all city-owned land. The red outline area is the DDA tax district. The green rectangle is the smaller area of focus proposed by Sandi Smith – bounded by Ashley, Division, Liberty and William streets. (Image links to higher resolution image. Map data is available on the city's website at a2gov.org/data)

The city council, for its part, had an opportunity to see a draft of the parcel-by-parcel plan 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. Taylor served on the city council’s mutually beneficial committee.

But the council required more time to achieve consensus on the plan – some councilmembers were not enthusiastic about assigning responsibility to the DDA for the task. Of particular concern was a clause in the plan that required reimbursement of DDA costs under certain conditions. Also a concern was the inclusion of the entire DDA district as the scope of the assignment. After twice postponing a vote on the plan, the council approved the plan at its April 4, 2010 meeting.

In its city council-approved form, the plan was reduced in scope to a rectangle bounded by Ashley, Division, Liberty and William streets. The city council version also included enhanced reference to a “robust” public process.

At Wednesday’s partnerships committee meeting, John Mouat reviewed some of the background of the city council-approved plan. He also summarized the four phases of the plan, which the DDA had been authorized to implement under the city council’s resolution:

• Phase I – DDA assembles information and brings in development expertise: Assess potential downtown development sites.
• Phase II – Visioning Downtown Development: Build upon the final A2D2 guidelines and strategies to develop a parcel-by-parcel plan. Each individual parcel is not expected to reflect every community goal, but in the aggregate the parcel-by-parcel plan will project a downtown consistent with the community’s downtown vision.
• Phase III – Taking these ideas and shaping a strategic plan for city council approval: Finalize a parcel-by-parcel plan to articulate parcel-specific desired land uses and design components.
• Phase IV – Implement the parcel-by-parcel plan. Pursue Parcel 1.

In Phases II and III, the detailed plan makes explicit reference to the “robust” public input that the DDA is to seek.

Recent History: Kelbaugh-McCullough Public Engagement Proposal

Doug Kelbaugh is former dean of the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and Kit McCullough is a lecturer at the school. At the May 2011 partnerships committee meeting, the two had pitched their services to the DDA to lead a public engagement process as part of the parcel-by-parcel plan. Committee members had asked them bring back something more concrete for the June 2011 committee meeting, which they did.

The Kelbaugh-McCullough proposal was sketched out to the committee as follows:

1. July-September 2011: Preliminary analysis, data gathering. This would prepare Kelbaugh and McCullough for the first public meeting.
2. October-November 2011: Public meetings. The public meeting in October might be conducted in two separate but identical sessions to allow for a broader range of people to attend. They’d start with a presentation on the opportunities, constraints and possibilities, using examples from other communities. The conversation would be both broad, touching on the community’s aspirations for the downtown and a longer-term visions, as well as getting input that’s specific to the parcels. Kelbaugh and McCullough proposed focusing on the Library Lot (the top of the South Fifth Avenue underground parking structure), the old YMCA Lot (at William and Fifth), and the Palio Lot (at William and Main). They’d leave the Kline’s Lot (along Ashley, north of William) aside initially. For the November meeting, Kelbaugh and McCullough would return with two or three concepts to get response from the public.
3. January 2012: Final concept plan. Feedback from the public would be consolidated into a final concept plan that describes massing, ground floor uses, public/civic uses, public space and pre-schematic site design. This concept plan could be used to craft future requests for proposals (RFPs) for the sites. The plan would then be presented to the DDA and the city council.

Recent History: Peter Allen’s Role

Local developer Peter Allen also attended the May and June partnerships committee meetings. He gave a presentation at the June meeting. In his remarks, some recurrent themes emerged. Those themes included: the significance of the role the Ann Arbor District Library’s downtown location, at the northeast corner of Fifth and William; the importance of rationing newly constructed space to the needs of the marketplace; and the importance of transportation connections.

Allen had begun canvassing property owners in the area the DDA will focus on, in part to test out some of the concepts he’s envisioned for the sites. Some of his own ideas have been shot down, he’d reported to the committee – like the idea of picking up and moving historic houses to different locations. At the May 2011 committee meeting, board member Bob Guenzel asked in what capacity Allen was conducting his conversations with downtown property owners. Allen told him he was doing that independently. From Chronicle coverage of that meeting:

Guenzel wanted to know in what capacity Allen was currently talking with business owners: “Are you doing that independently?” Allen told him he was doing it as a real estate broker, trying to help property owners analyze the situation – he’s doing it “on my own nickel.” The property owners would be potential clients, he said.

Guenzel wanted to know if Allen would share information. Yes, answered Allen, just as he had a decade earlier, when Washtenaw County had been looking for a site to place a consolidated homeless shelter. He said he’d helped point the county towards the property on East Huron Street, which was owned at the time by National City Bank. [.pdf of Jan. 19, 2000 Washtenaw County board of commissioners resolution]

Allen attended Wednesday’s partnerships committee meeting with presentation boards ready, but ultimately committee members did not invite him to share the information.

Outcome: Pausing, Re-setting with October Goal

The committee did not push their work forward, and instead engaged in more of a retreat-style discussion of the issue. That was consistent with DDA executive director Susan Pollay’s remarks at the June committee meeting, when she suggested that committee members be prepared to engage in an extended conversation in that spirit.

When John Mouat began his remarks by talking about the need to “take a step back,” it served to signal that the day’s discussion was not intended to take the clear step forward that many in the audience were expecting. Another early indication to that effect came from Pollay. In reviewing the history of the parcel-by-parcel plan and how it had been ratified on the DDA’s side, Pollay noted that it had come out of the mutually beneficial committee’s work, and had come before the full board. However, she described how the “partnerships committee looked at it – kind of.” So the ensuing conversation was more about committee members thoughts regarding some of the meaning of the plan’s basics, more so than trying to come to conclusions about basic questions like: What people will do this work?

For example, the committee did not make any explicit decision to recommend that the full board accept the pitch by Kelbaugh and McCullough for their services. That essentially means that the DDA has, from a practical point of view, rejected it. Due to teaching schedules, the two had told the DDA that fall 2011 would be a feasible time frame, but after that it would be difficult. To prepare, the two would need to start in July or August.

And the cancellation of the August regular monthly meeting of the full DDA board means that no authorization of the funding for the services of Kelbaugh and McCullough would could be put in place before September. With no committee recommendation, it’s unlikely that the board would convene a special meeting in August for that purpose. Although committee members expressed a desire to convene a committee meeting in August, it was not clear if an amenable time can be found.

The prospect of Peter Allen’s explicit participation was also downplayed at Wednesday’s meeting. Mouat said he was apprehensive of the developer community being identified as leading the process. If he had his “druthers,” said Mouat, he’d love to see community leaders be an active part of the process. As examples, he cited Mark Hodesh, owner of Downtown Home & Garden, as well as ZingTrain, which is part of the Zingerman’s family of business. But as for who facilitates the process – DDA board members, staff, or a hired consultant – that would be a challenge to identify, he concluded.

One evident outcome of the committee meeting was that DDA staff would strive to frame out a timeline for the execution of the city council’s resolution. That timeline frame would be ready for inclusion on a city council work session agenda for October. The work session is already called for as part of the recently ratified contract between the city of Ann Arbor and the DDA, under which the DDA manages the public parking system.

Committee members were also in agreement that the process outlined in the council’s resolution would take at least a year. They also agreed that it should include a strong educational component, along the lines of the AATA’s public engagement process that began last year to develop a transit master plan for Washtenaw County.

On a lighter-hearted note, the committee agreed that the process needed some kind of name. The “parcel-by-parcel” nomenclature is somewhat misleading, because the planning is meant to focus on multiple parcels, but the actual issuance of RFPs is expected to take place one parcel at a time.

In a follow-up phone interview, Pollay told The Chronicle that the desire to check in with the city council – and get councilmember buy-in, before deciding on a public engagement process – was part of the reason the committee was not inclined to make a recommendation on Wednesday. But she felt that much of the work associated with Phase I in the plan can continue – assembling information and data about the parcels. And over the next two months, the timeframe proposal that’s pitched to the city council in October would be worked out by the committee and the full board – at their meetings between now and that time.

The spirit of caution about getting it right was evident in Pollay’s concluding remarks at Wednesday’s committee meeting. She called the opportunity for the DDA to execute the parcel-by-parcel plan a great opportunity, and said it was “important not to screw it up.”

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Light pink areas are all city-owned land. The red outlined area is the DDA tax district. The green rectangle is the smaller area of focus for which the DDA has been given responsibility to lead a process to explore alternative uses of city-owned surface parking lots. The green rectangle is bounded by Ashley, Division, Liberty and William streets. (Links to higher resolution image. Map data is available on the city's website at a2gov.org/data)

The parcels are currently used as surface parking lots – except for the Library Lot, which is the construction site for an underground parking garage that, when completed, will offer around 640 parking spaces. It was previously a 192-space surface parking lot.

The committee meeting included a presentation on the city’s sewer system from Cresson Slotten, a manager with the city of Ann Arbor’s systems planning unit.  The agenda also included a conversation with Doug Kelbaugh, former dean of the University of Michigan’s college of architecture and urban planning, and Kit McCullough, who teaches at the school. The two are interested in helping facilitate the public process stipulated in the city council parcel-by-parcel resolution. Also interested in sharing information he’s gathering from downtown property owners is Peter Allen, a local developer who attended the partnerships meeting.

One major theme that emerged during the committee’s discussion is the idea that a public space can be successful if it is programmed, used and supported by the community, even if its design is lacking.

The parcel-by-parcel resolution was passed at the same meeting that the council voted to terminate the review process for proposals the city had solicited for use of the top of the underground parking structure.

The termination of that RFP review process came just before the council was supposed to consider formally signing a letter of intent to hammer out a development agreement for the finalist project – a hotel/conference center proposed by Valiant Partners. [Chronicle coverage: "Ann Arbor Council Focuses on Downtown"]

Sanitary, Stormwater Sewer System

Cresson Slotten, an engineer who is a manager in the city’s systems planning unit, gave the DDA partnerships committee an overview of Ann Arbor’s downtown infrastructure, focusing on the sanitary and stormwater sewer systems. The sanitary system is designed to handle everything that goes down toilets, sinks, and showers, and that is treated at the wastewater treatment plant on Dixboro Road near Geddes Dam, before being piped into the Huron River. The stormwater system handles rain – the curb drains in streets, for example, lead to that system.

Slotten’s presentation came in the wake of a recent communication delivered by interim city administrator Tom Crawford at the city council’s May 2, 2011 meeting, which advised the council that the city’s sanitary sewer system had been threatened by recent rainfall. The system had been filled to the point of overflowing during recent heavy rains, he said, telling the council that local soils are saturated to the point that they cannot absorb additional rainfall. That means that all additional rain becomes runoff.

If the city maintains two separate systems – one for wastewater and one for rain – why does rainfall affect the wastewater system? As Slotten laid out to the partnerships committee, the sanitary sewer also receives flow from rainfall – because the footing drains of some buildings, including many residential properties, are connected directly to the sanitary sewer. Footing drains run around the perimeter of a building’s foundation, collecting water and leading it away from the foundation. Before 1981, it was common practice in southeast Michigan to connect footing drains to the sanitary sewer system.

It’s undesirable to have rainwater flowing through the sanitary sewer system, because it winds up at the wastewater treatment plant, where it gets treated. That’s an expense to the city – even though rainwater obviously does not need treatment before flowing into the river. The additional burden on the sanitary sewer can also cause sewage backups in basement drains.

By way of background, residents on Iroquois Place, near the intersection of Packard and Stadium, experienced dramatic sewage backups in their basements in June 2010 during a heavy rain. The city prioritized its footing drain disconnect program for the neighborhood, but city has denied damage claims, which for one homeowner amounted to $15,000. [Previous Chronicle coverage on the footing drain disconnect program from two years ago: "Drain Disconnect Time for Homeowners"]

Money for the Iroquois Place disconnections came in part from the University of Michigan, and was related to the renovations at the football stadium, which added load to the city’s sanitary sewer system. Due to the added burden, UM paid the city for 140 disconnections at a cost of $10,040 per project.

In fact, all new developments in the city are subject to a standard specification requiring that the additional burden to the sanitary sewer system be offset with footing drain disconnects. The offset specification was authorized by the city council in 2003, in response to an administrative consent order from the Michigan Dept. of Environmental Quality. [.pdf of city's standard specifications on added sanitary sewer burden] [.pdf of 2003 city council resolution authorizing standard specifications]

In his presentation, Slotten explained to the DDA partnerships committee how the standard specifications include a 20% system recovery factor: For 1.0 gallons of increased burden on the sanitary sewage system, 1.2 gallons of flow needs to be reduced elsewhere.

Slotten also outlined for the committee how new investment in additional capacity for either the stormwater system or the drinking water system is limited by the requirement that only the existing infrastructure that has reached the end of its useful life can be replaced at a cost to ratepayers – consumers who pay for drinking water and sanitary sewer service. That is, ratepayers don’t subsidize development or invest speculatively on system expansions. [This legal principle factored into the 1998 Bolt v. Lansing court decision, which involved a stormwater system expansion in Lansing.]

Slotten described it as a challenge for the future to contend with how developers are charged for localized expansions in the sewer system that are required to support a development. One scenario is that an initial development uses all of the available capacity, which means that the next development needs to mitigate the additional need. A third development might then be able to use that additional capacity paid for by the second development – which he said does not seem equitable. [.pdf of Slotten's infrastructure slide presentation]

Public Process: City Council Resolution

Slotten’s presentation on the downtown infrastructure was invited in the context of the DDA’s city-council assigned responsibility to lead a process to explore alternative uses for some of the city-owned surface parking lots in downtown Ann Arbor. The amended resolution narrowed in scope the original resolution, which called on the DDA to look at the entire DDA tax district. [.pdf of city council resolution as amended on April 4, 2011] [.pdf of city-owned parcels to be considered by the DDA]

Slotten’s presentation is part of the Phase I activity described in the resolution:

Public Services: Obtain detailed public infrastructure information for Parcels, including data on adjacent storm, water, and sanitary main capacity, hydrant coverage and other capacity-related information.

Somewhat more controversial than the public infrastructure component of the DDA’s process was the part of the resolution that addressed the kinds of input the DDA would seek from the community.

The council required several months to pass the resolution. Councilmembers had considered but postponed the resolution at its March 7, 2011 meeting, and before that at its Jan. 18, 2011 meeting. At the March 7 meeting, Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) had complained that no revisions had been made to the resolution to accommodate objections made at the Jan. 18 meeting. [.pdf of the unamended resolution with the parcel-by-parcel plan] At that meeting, objections to the proposal included “resolved” clauses in the resolution that would (1) require placement of items on the city council’s agenda; and (2) under some circumstances require the city to reimburse the DDA for its expenses.

At its Jan. 5 board meeting, the Ann Arbor DDA board had approved a resolution urging passage of the council resolution, which had been circulated as early as the city council’s Dec. 20, 2010 meeting. At that time, 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 the Dec. 20 meeting.

Receiving a good deal of discussion by the city council was wording in the resolution that, in its final form, reads as follows in relevant part:

Phase II …

• Solicit robust public input and conduct public meetings to determine residents’ Parcel-level downtown vision
• Solicit UM, EMU, and other higher education faculty to authorize class participation in the visioning process
• Meeting(s) with UM Planning staff to maximize coordination
• Meetings with business and community leaders to obtain their analysis of downtown’s strengths and weaknesses, its opportunities and inherent obstacles …

Phase III …

• Solicit robust public input and confirm the extent of community consensus for the Parcel-by-Parcel Plan through public meetings and surveys
• Hold meetings with business and community stakeholders to determine professional assessment of the Parcel-by-Parcel Plan …

Conversation with Kelbaugh, McCullough, Allen

Doug Kelbaugh is former dean of the University of Michigan college of architecture and urban planning. Kit McCullough is a lecturer at the college. Peter Allen is a local developer. All three attended the DDA partnerships committee meeting.

Conversation: Introductions

Kelbaugh told the committee members that two years ago he’d stepped down from the deanship of the the UM college of architecture – he’d moved to Ann Arbor 12 years ago to take that job. He said he thought it’s great that the city controls four key sites in the downtown area that the DDA is being asked to look at. He noted that he’d used the sites as student projects. Kelbaugh told the committee he lives downtown “right around the corner.” [He lives in the Armory building at the corner of Ann Street and Fifth Avenue. It was converted to residential living space by local developer and former DDA board member Ed Shaffran.]

Kelbaugh noted that he has a history of involvement in downtown Ann Arbor planning issues, having participated on a task force a few years ago. He said he enjoys living downtown. [.pdf of 2004 Downtown Residential Task Force report]

He mentioned that his colleague, McCullough, does not have a driver’s license, is thus sensitive to walkability issues. He stressed the need to have a 5-25 year vision for the downtown, so that the whole can become greater than the sum of its parts. Public expectations shouldn’t be unreasonable, he said – those expectations should be aspirational, yet feasible.

Conversation: Constraining the Issues, Public Engagement

Board member Russ Collins mentioned to Kelbaugh that the partnerships committee had invited David di Rita of the Roxbury Group to its last meeting and he’d suggested that in terms of requests for proposals from developers, a somewhat more specific RFP would create a better outcome.

Rather than saying, “Here’s a plot of land, we’re accepting proposals,” Collins reported that di Rita’s advice had been to be more specific. [Di Rita had consulted for the city on the Library Lot RFP, a process which the city council terminated this spring. Chronicle coverage that includes parts of the April DDA partnerships committee meeting: "Balancing Ann Arbor, Detroit and a Vision"]

Kelbaugh responded to Collins by saying that good designers welcome constraints – they don’t necessary want a blank slate.

McCullough suggested that the public process could be used to get community consensus that can inform what the RFP says. Bob Guenzel – former Washtenaw County administrator and the newest appointee to the DDA board – wondered how much should be presented in advance of the public process. He ventured that you don’t just go out there and say, “What do you want the downtown to look like?”

Kelbaugh noted that Peter Allen, who was in the committee meeting audience, had volunteered to do a study, canvassing all the surrounding property and business owners around the sites. Kelbaugh felt that Allen’s work would be useful preparation. [The Chronicle encountered Allen downtown recently as Allen was beginning that canvassing work.]

So for the public engagement process, Kelbaugh told the committee that he and McCullough were thinking of two or three town hall meetings. McCullough said first meeting would be educational and would “set the table” for the public. For the second meeting, they would come back with two or three concepts. Kelbaugh said there will never be unanimous agreement, but there might be some overlapping agreement. He suggested that there are two ways to handle the public meetings: (1) hire a professional facilitator without subject matter knowledge; or (2) hire someone with subject matter knowledge – the Kelbaugh-McCullough alternative.

Kelbaugh made a case for a subject-matter expert by saying that it should not just be a list-making exercise. It wouldn’t just be a feel-good taking down of every idea that everyone has, he said. They could provide some real-time feedback. The session would have some “viscosity,” he said.

Responding to Collins’ concerns about the kind of reactions from the public that might be encountered, Kelbaugh said a certain amount of “ventilation” is good. You have to let people vent, he said, but you have to separate the wheat from the chaff.

DDA board member Sandi Smith noted that as much as the DDA is limited in focus to just the four parcels in the rectangle, she wondered how planning for the limited area could take into account how it should fit into a broader context – it’s not located in a vacuum. “How do you work that into public process?” she wondered.

McCullough suggested that an initial meeting can address what people’s aspirations are for the downtown. Kelbaugh observed that if there is any light rail planned for downtown, a choice for running it down Liberty Street would make a big difference, compared to bringing it down William Street.

Smith cautioned against inviting people to attach everything they want to a single parcel – that sets the whole thing up for failure, she said.

Conversation: Subject Matter of Downtown Ann Arbor

Part of the subject matter knowledge, Kelbaugh said, involves understanding what some of the physical constraints are. There are, for example, physical constraints on the Library Lot, which are further complicated by the nearby Ann Arbor Transportation Authority’s Blake Transit Center. Smith noted that the “air rights” to a newly constructed Blake Transit Center would need to be factored into the thinking.

Kelbaugh said that he and McCullough actually think Kline’s Lot is “a different animal” from the rest of the parcels. McCullough thought that Ashley Street – which bounds the Kline’s Lot on the west – might need its own vision. Kelbaugh allowed that it’s true that the Kline’s Lot also fronts on William, like Palio’s Lot and the old Y Lot, but it seems like it might still need to be treated separately.

Kelbaugh said he was glad Library Lane is a done deal. Blocks that are that large tend to “clog up,” Kelbaugh said. [Library Lane is the east-west connection between Division and Fifth that's being created as part of the underground parking garage project.]

The community’s appetite for parkland would never be satisfied, Kelbaugh said. He observed that Ann Arbor doesn’t have a piazza that works, yet. He characterized Main Street as a real jewel, but said it has no place to gather – it’s just linear. Kelbaugh said the Library Lot is not really big enough to be a piazza, but it’s a possibility. As for an “outdoor living room”-type space, he said the Palio Lot doesn’t really work, because that kind of space needs to be mid-block.

Conversation: Programming, Design

Collins responded to Kelbaugh’s concerns about the Palio Lot by saying that it’s not just a matter of the space – it’s what goes on there. Collins related his experience as executive director of the Michigan Theater by noting that the community had rallied to save the theater, but a lot of people think that once the space is there, you don’t need to do anything else.

Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board member Russ Collins before the May 11 partnerships committee meeting started. The board positions are volunteer. Collins earns his livelihood as executive director of the Michigan Theater. (Photos by writer)

The Ark, a nonprofit acoustic music club on Main Street, exists because of programing, not because there’s a natural market for folk music, Collins said. It’s well-programmed and the community supports it, he said – that’s why it exists. DDA board member Keith Orr noted that The Ark is not the easiest thing to spot or see, yet people throng to it. Collins reiterated that The Ark exists because the community supports it beyond ticket prices. He urged his colleagues on the committee to think about separating design from purpose. The community can create a space that’s valuable, even if it’s terrible space. He mentioned the Kerrytown Concert House and the Ann Arbor District Library as other entities that exist because the community supports them and because of their excellent management and programming.

Collins said the same could be done for Liberty Plaza – which is widely thought to be a poorly designed space on the corner of Liberty and Division. If there was $250,000 a year to put programs on in that park, it’d be a different story, he said – ice sculptures or an active stage on a regular basis, and the like. Josie Parker – director of the Ann Arbor District Library, who typically attends DDA partnerships committee meetings – noted that during the summer months, the Bank of Ann Arbor sponsors the Sonic Lunch concert series at Liberty Plaza, and that costs the bank money.

For programming, McCullough suggested that Campus Martius in Detroit as a good model. It’s programmed and supported as a space – the idea of an urban living room needs to be supported like that.

Conversation: Peter Allen’s Role

Amber Miller, a planning and research specialist with the DDA, asked how Kelbaugh and McCullough planned to bring into the process business owners and other stakeholders, in addition to public. Kelbaugh answered by saying Peter Allen’s role would be valuable. Kelbaugh also observed that McCullough would not be teaching during the fall term and would be available to do some of that work. He stressed the need to get people to participate who don’t normally come out to meetings – they need to get younger voices. Collins suggested that perhaps it’s the DDA’s job to figure out how to do that.

Asked to elaborate more on his role in the process, Peter Allen said what he’s trying to do in the next three months is talk to around 25 property owners about their business needs – he’s just getting started. He reported that he’d already talked to Herb David, who owns Herb David Guitar Studios. David has very strong feelings, Allen reported.

Allen said that the guitar studio, on the southeast corner of Liberty and Fifth, gives the area a lot of character – and David wants it to grow. He’d also talked to Ali Ramlawi, owner of the Jerusalem Garden restaurant (around the corner from Herb David), who sees good days coming. So far, Allen had only talked to about 10% of the people he plans to meet.

Peter Allen, standing, points out to DDA partnerships committee members the area he's focusing on in conversations with property owners.

One important property owner in the area is Bill Martin, who owns the building just west of Liberty Plaza. Allen said he wanted to talk to Martin about bulldozing the building – Allen stressed that he didn’t know if Martin would be open to that idea, and felt that fair market rate would need to be offered. Allen had two words for the credit union building on the block’s south side, east of the library: bulldozer bait.

The Kempf House, though, Allen characterized as an anchor. Allen felt like some of the other historic houses on the block could be picked up and moved around on the same block. Allen said he wanted to find out: What do property owners on the block think is good for their business?

Guenzel wanted to know in what capacity Allen was currently talking with business owners: “Are you doing that independently?” Allen told him he was doing it as a real estate broker, trying to help property owners analyze the situation – he’s doing it “on my own nickel.” The property owners would be potential clients, he said.

Guenzel wanted to know if Allen would share information. Yes, answered Allen, just as he had a decade earlier, when Washtenaw County had been looking for a site to place a consolidated homeless shelter. He said he’d helped point the county towards the property on East Huron Street, which was owned at the time by National City Bank. [.pdf of Jan. 19, 2000 Washtenaw County board of commissioners resolution]

Conversation: Next Steps

Kelbaugh said he would like to hit the ground running in the fall by preparing this summer, but noted that he and McCullough can’t do it for free. He’s found that work you do for free is not taken seriously.

Kelbaugh emphasized that the work he and McCullough were proposing to do would be parallel but independent and separate from Allen’s work.

Guenzel asked about a timeline. Kelbaugh suggested the start of school in the fall as a potential start of the public process. The summer would be a good window for gathering data.

Next steps: McCullough and Kelbaugh will come back to the DDA’s June partnerships committee meeting with a specific proposal. A calendar of all DDA meetings is available on the DDA website.