The eight recommendations of PAC’s downtown park subcommittee are wide-ranging, but include a site-specific recommendation to develop a new park/open space area on the top of the Library Lot underground parking structure. Now a surface parking lot, the site is owned by the city and is situated just north of the Ann Arbor District Library’s downtown building. The recommendation calls for only a portion of the site to be used for a new park/open space, and stresses that AADL should be involved in the planning process. [.pdf of full subcommittee report]

The subcommittee’s eight recommendations, as amended during the meeting, are as follows [added text in italics, deletions in strike-through]:

1. The development of any new downtown park or open space should prioritize community preferences. The most commonly expressed community-based priorities include: a central location; sufficient size for passive recreation/community gatherings; shade; and natural features.

2. New downtown parks and open space should adhere to placemaking principles. Necessary criteria for a successful downtown open space include: high traffic/visibility; flexible programmable space; active use on at least three sides; the ability to provide activities desired by the community; and funding for maintenance and security.

3. Any new downtown park should enliven the downtown, complement existing parks and development, and serve the community desire for a central gathering space.

4. Any additional downtown park space should not come at the expense of the quality or maintenance of Ann Arbor’s existing parks. Downtown parks are expected to be more costly to develop and maintain. Further, existing downtown parks are not currently utilized to their potential. Given the limits of current parks funding, the development of new parks should not be approved without an identified funding source for capital development, ongoing maintenance, and programming.

5. Significant capital/structural improvements to Liberty Plaza should only be made in concert with the adjacent property owner. Short-term efforts should continue to focus on smaller-scale incremental changes (removal of shrubbery) and programming opportunities (fee waiver). Future improvements should also work to create a permanent and highly visible connection between the Library Lot and Liberty Plaza.

6. The downtown could benefit from the addition of small “pocket” parks and flexible spaces. The City should work with potential developers of city-owned properties to identify opportunities, create, and maintain privately funded, but publicly accessible open spaces. (e.g., the Y and Kline lots). As a part of this effort, staff should develop recommendations for how development contributions can better serve to provide and improve downtown passive recreational opportunities, including proposals such as flex space (parklets), streetscape improvements, and public art.

7. The public process for downtown parks and open space does not end with these recommendations. Any additional park/open space would require robust public input regarding the design, features, and proposed activities.

8. Based on the aforementioned criteria, the Downtown Parks Subcommittee recommends that a park/open space be developed on the Library Lot that takes advantage of the flexibility offered through temporary closures of Library Lane. The size of this space should exceed the proposed allocated open space in the Connecting William Street study (5,000 square feet). However, the subcommittee is strongly in favor of a mixed-use vision for the Library Lot that utilizes the city’s investment in development-ready foundation and infrastructure. Adjacent Development of the site and adjacent parcels, including the accompanying increases in activity, is essential for the future success of this site additional downtown open space. In order to adequately address issues of safety and security, the Ann Arbor District Library must also be strongly represented in the planning process.

This subcommittee – Ingrid Ault, Julie Grand, Alan Jackson and Karen Levin – has been meeting regularly since early February. Their work relates in part to a request that mayor John Hieftje made last summer. It’s also meant to supplement the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority’s Connecting William Street project. In addition to focus groups and public forums, the subcommittee conducted a survey that yielded more than 1,600 responses. [.pdf of 110-page downtown park survey results] Their recommendations were based in part on that feedback.

The Library Green Conservancy has been advocating for a park atop the Library Lot, but conservancy members envision a much larger footprint than the one proposed by PAC’s subcommittee. During deliberations on Oct. 15, it emerged that the subcommittee hoped for more than the minimum size of 5,000 square feet that was mentioned for a park or open space on that site in the Connecting William Street report.

For additional background, see Chronicle coverage: “Parks Group To Weigh In On Downtown Need,” “Committee Starts Downtown Parks Research,” “Survey Drafted for Downtown Parks,” as well as coverage included in the PAC meeting reports for March 19, 2013 and May 21, 2013.

This brief was filed from the second-floor council chambers at city hall, where PAC holds its meetings. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

Ann Arbor planning commissioners Diane Giannola and Bonnie Bona drafted a resolution with recommendations to the city council regarding development of the former Y lot, which is owned by the city. (Photos by the writer.)

The commission voted unanimously to recommend that the council, if it decides to proceed with a sale, should use a request for qualifications (RFQ) and request for proposals (RFP) process.

The planning commission is also recommending that the council impose a set of conditions for future development. The list includes mixed-use development that encourages foot traffic and active first-floor uses, an entry plaza or open space, and mandatory compliance with the city’s design guidelines.

The site was one of five parcels that was the focus of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority’s Connecting William Street project. Much of the Aug. 20 discussion centered on the use of CWS as a framework for the resolution.

Sabra Briere, who serves as the city council’s representative to the planning commission, suggested removing entirely references to the CWS project. The council never adopted the CWS report or took any action to implement the CWS recommendations, she noted. Briere felt that leaving those references to CWS in the commission’s resolution might make some councilmembers more resistant to it.

Wendy Woods, a former councilmember, countered that “our role is not to give pablum to council.” The commission’s role is to give advice as a body, regardless of how it might be received by the council, Woods said. She also pointed out that it’s not necessarily Briere’s role to advocate for positions taken by the commission. “The planning commission is its own advocate and we stand on our own,” Woods said.

Bonnie Bona and Diane Giannola, who drafted the resolution, pointed to the amount of public input that had been solicited during the CWS process, and felt that it was more powerful for the commission’s recommendations to be supported by that input. Giannola didn’t want to get into the politics of guessing what the council might support, but offered to extract references to CWS from the two resolved clauses. That compromise was acceptable to Briere and the other commissioners. [.pdf of amended Y lot resolution]

During the discussion, Briere also reported that the broker hired by the city to handle a possible sale has been meeting with councilmembers to talk about the Y lot. The broker is likely to suggest putting as few stipulations on the property as possible, she said, because he believes that such stipulations will lower the purchase price. That’s not necessarily what all councilmembers believe, she noted, but it’s what they’re being told.

The commission’s resolution will be forwarded to the city council as an item of communication, and will possibly appear on the agenda as soon as Sept. 3.

In other action, commissioners recommended approval of a two-story addition that more than doubles the size of the Honda vehicle testing facility on Ann Arbor’s south side. The existing 19,357-square-foot building, built in 1975, is located at 3947 Research Park Drive on a 2.72-acre site. During a public hearing on the project, a representative of American Honda Motor Co. reported that the expansion will include a state-of-the-art environmental testing chamber, to help Honda develop vehicles with cleaner fuel emissions. The $4.3 million project is expected to increase the number of employees who work at the site from 6 to 10.

Commissioners also recommended approval of (1) the site plan for a proposed Belle Tire at 590 W. Ellsworth – just east of the intersection with South State Street, and (2) an annexation and zoning request for 2640 Miller Road, on the city’s northwest side.

Recommendation for Y Lot

The idea for developing recommendations for the former YMCA lot’s future was first proposed by commissioner Bonnie Bona, and initially discussed at a July 9, 2013 working session. [See Chronicle coverage: "Planning Group Strategizes on Downtown."] Several commissioners subsequently discussed a draft version of the resolution – developed by Bona and commissioner Diane Giannola – at another working session on Aug. 13. [.pdf of original planning commission resolution, before amendments]

The city acquired the former Y site in 2003. It’s located at 350 S. Fifth, across from the downtown Ann Arbor District Library and south of Blake Transit Center. The city council is now exploring whether to sell that property. Earlier this year, the city selected Colliers International and local broker Jim Chaconas to handle the possible sale, as the city faces a $3.5 million balloon payment this year from the purchase loan it holds on that property.

Now a surface parking lot, the site was zoned D1 as part of the original A2D2 (Ann Arbor Discovering Downtown) zoning process. The site was also one of five parcels that was the focus of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority’s Connecting William Street project.

The original resolution recommended that the sale of the lot should use a request for qualifications (RFQ) and request for proposals (RFP) process. It recommended that the city council require some or all of these conditions:

• A building that generates foot traffic, provides a human scale at the ground floor and creates visual appeal per the Connecting William Street Framework Plan;
• A “mixed use” development per the Connecting William Street Framework Plan;
• Any vehicular access and parking be accessed via the City’s Fifth Avenue underground parking structure;
• An entry plaza or open space appropriately scaled and located to be properly activated by adjacent building uses and to be maintained by the developer;
• The entry plaza or open space to incorporate generous landscaping;
• Mandatory adherence to the Design Guidelines as interpreted by the Design Review Board;
• A third party certification for the building’s energy and environmental performance (e.g. LEED Gold or LEED Platinum).

The goal, according to the resolution, is “to obtain a long-term, ongoing and growing economic benefit for the residents of the city.”

Highlighted in yellow is the location of the former YMCA lot, which the city of Ann Arbor is considering selling. A $3.5 million balloon payment on the property is due at the end of 2013.

Recommendation for Y Lot: Public Commentary

Don Salberg was the only person who spoke on this topic. Prior to the commission’s discussion, he asked if commissioners could provide a clear definition of the recommendations. For example, how would they define “increased foot traffic” and what is specifically meant by “mixed use.” This would help people understand what’s intended for development on the site, he said.

Also, he told commissioners that many people feel the survey taken as part of the Connecting William Street report was not done properly and did not reflect the viewpoints of the majority of residents in Ann Arbor. He felt the city shouldn’t try to sell its property until it’s clear what would be built on it. These properties are revenue-producing, he said. [Four of the five lots in the CWS study are surface parking lots. The fifth site is the parking structure at Fourth & William.] The Y lot brings in $248,000 annually, he said, which he believes would be enough to service a $3.5 million, 25-year loan if the city can get it for around 3%. “I don’t see why there’s such an urgency in trying to sell this property,” he said.

Recommendation for Y Lot: Commission Discussion

Bonnie Bona began the discussion by describing the history of the site, and listing several factors that prompted this resolution. It’s in a D1 zoning district, and the city has asked the planning commission to review D1 zoning. [See Chronicle coverage: "Priorities Emerge in Downtown Zoning Review."] It was one of five city-owned lots that were part of the Connecting William Street project, which had included a lot of public input, Bona noted. That CWS project, conducted by the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority, was done after the site had been zoned D1. The city’s climate action plan was also developed after the Y lot was zoned D1, she said.

There are a few things from these initiatives that she and some other planning commissioners felt should be incorporated into the sale of a city-owned property, Bona said, as additional requirements for such a sale.

Bona then read the “whereas” clause that she felt was the most important one in the resolution:

WHEREAS, the redevelopment of city-owned parcels are the City’s only opportunity to require a development with greater emphasis on long-term, ongoing and growing economic benefit to the community;

That clause captures the biggest point that Bona wanted to make – the sale of a city-owned property could make a larger contribution to the community.

Planning commissioner Bonnie Bona.

Sabra Briere addressed the questions asked by Don Salberg during public commentary, related to the meanings of foot traffic and mixed use. As city staff and planning officials use the term, “mixed use” refers to development that is more than a single use, she said – not just housing or offices, for example, but a combination of uses. It might be retail, office and residential. Mixed use is not a building that simply includes parking for residential, she added – because if that parking for residents of that building, it’s not public parking and not considered a separate use.

Generating foot traffic is a goal that many people in the community have talked about for the Y lot and other sites, Briere continued. They want a reason to go to the building, which tends to mean retail or restaurants, she added, but not a bank or other business that doesn’t generate a lot of foot traffic.

The rationale for encouraging mixed use and foot traffic is that people want a reason to be downtown – things to go to and places to see, Briere said, and that’s a positive for the rest of the community.

As far as why the property is being considered for sale, Briere said that the council has been hearing from at least one councilmember for the past five years that the city should be selling this property rather than paying interest on the loan. [She was referring to councilmember Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3).] Earlier this year, the council agreed to put any net proceeds from the sale into the city’s affordable housing trust fund, she noted. Because of that, there’s a desire to achieve as much revenue as possible from the property.

Paras Parekh asked about one of the “whereas” clauses:

WHEREAS, the Connecting William Street Framework Plan contains recommendations that focus on bringing people and activities to this and other core downtown sites to achieve the common goals expressed by the community: creating the interesting and engaging sidewalk atmosphere currently lacking along William Street and recommends a large plate office or lodging as a primary use, residential as a secondary use and active uses on the first floor; (To achieve this the recommendations seek to encourage uses that generate foot traffic, provide a human scale at the ground floor, create visual appeal, and provide an interesting and pleasant overall experience.);

To Parekh, it read that the commission prefers large plate office or lodging, and that secondarily, residential is acceptable. Is that the intent? Bona replied that that the clause states verbatim what’s in the Connecting William Street plan. In creating the plan, the DDA had worked with a land use economist, Todd Poole, who helped identify what kind of use would be marketable, she said.

Typically, Bona said, the city doesn’t have a lot of say about the kinds of uses that are included on a property. In the downtown, the mix of uses is what’s most important, she said. So the resolution is recommending to council that the city require mixed use on the Y lot, and citing the CWS recommendations as examples of the type of mixed use that might be encouraged.

Later in the discussion, Bona clarified that this “whereas” clause included elements from the CWS report that are important. The Y site is one of the few lots downtown that could handle a large plate office, she said. As an example, a large tenant like Google would prefer not to be on three floors, as they currently are, Bona said. Large tenants that want to locate their operations on a single floor can’t find those conditions downtown, and that’s why the reference to large plate office as a primary use is in the CWS report. Public input indicated that this was an acceptable use, she said. Bona noted that the “resolved” clauses are not as specific as the “whereas” clauses, and simply recommend mixed use.

Parekh suggested combining the two “resolved” clauses, and there was some discussion about that. He said that because he was new member to the commission, he’d defer to other commissioners. Diane Giannola responded by saying that a resolution of this kind is “a rare event” for the planning commission, so there’s no typical way of doing it. She had separated the two “resolved” clauses because she thought they were two separate recommendations: (1) to use a request for qualifications (RFQ) and request for proposals (RFP) process; and (2) to include a set of conditions in the RFQ/RFP. That way, the council could act on either of the recommendations, or both.

Planning commissioner Wendy Woods.

Wendy Woods wondered what an RFQ entailed, and whether the recommendations needed to include both the RFQ and RFP processes. Bona explained that an RFQ is a request to get information from potential developers before they do any work on a proposal. From that, you select a short list of developers and ask them to do a proposal. It’s extremely time-consuming to do a proposal for a project like this, Bona said, and it’s more fair to pre-select developers rather than to make a wide open RFP. She thought that an RFQ was a critical element in soliciting good proposals. She noted that the RFQ/RFP phrasing was consistent with the CWS recommendations.

Woods said she found it confusing, but it wasn’t a deal-breaker for her. She felt the resolution ran the risk of guiding everything toward the CWS plan, and she didn’t think the commission wanted to do that. She noted that the commission had accepted the CWS plan and sent it to the council, but she wasn’t sure what council had done with it. [At its March 5, 2013 meeting, the commission unanimously voted to add the CWS plan to the list of resource documents that support the city’s master plan. The council has taken no action regarding the plan.]

Woods then pointed to the phrase “the Y Lot should be sold …” in both of the “resolved” clauses. Some people in the community might not be sure that the lot should be sold at this point, she said. She suggested replacing it with “the Y Lot, if sold …” Otherwise, it would seem like the planning commission thinks the lot should be sold, Woods contended. “I don’t think that we’ve had that discussion. I think we’re just really trying to respond to what city council is doing.”

Giannola and Bona indicated that the “if sold” change was considered as a friendly amendment.

Briere thanked Bona and Giannola for their work, but said she was still concerned about the reliance on the Connecting William Street framework. The council didn’t accept it or direct the planning commission to implement it, she noted. The original expectation had been that the council would task the planning commission with adding the CWS recommendations into the master plan, but that hadn’t happened. To her, it means that the council “wasn’t as enthusiastic as maybe people would have wanted it to be, about the results of the Connecting William Street framework plan and process.”

She didn’t think it was necessary, from an organizational standpoint, to rely on the CWS framework to support the commission’s resolution. “I think it’s likely to turn some members of council away from reading it and understanding the purpose.” That’s a problem, since that could prevent some councilmembers from paying attention to the underlying message of the resolution.

Sabra Briere, who serves on both the city council and planning commission, talks with Ann Arbor resident Don Salberg before the start of the commission’s Aug. 20 meeting.

Briere reported that the broker hired by the city is suggesting that the council put as few stipulations on the land sale as possible. The broker isn’t suggesting that there’s a lot of revenue to be gained from this land sale, and the more restrictions that are placed on the property’s use and appearance, the more difficult it will be to generate sufficient revenue to cover the debt and add to the affordable housing trust fund, Briere said.

This isn’t necessarily what the council believes, Briere added, but that’s the message that councilmembers are receiving from the broker.

In conversations with some of the other councilmembers about the Y lot, Briere said, they seem to feel strongly that there should be a mixed use development there. Having parking built on the site for residential use should entail connecting to the existing underground parking structure via a connection under Fifth Avenue – that’s both frugal and sensible, she said. Some councilmembers really want open space on the Y lot, while others might have heard the message that requiring open space would mean lower revenue from the sale, she reported

The proposed resolution might not generate support on the city council as it’s currently written, Briere said. She’s the planning commissioner who sits on council and really ought to be advocating for this resolution, Briere added. “Otherwise, if I can’t advocate for it, I think it’s harder for it to pass.” So she was concerned about voting on it as written, saying she’d like to “whittle away” references to Connecting William Street that aren’t as helpful as she’d like them to be. She’d also prefer to keep the resolution shorter – preferably one page. Such revisions “won’t make anyone immediately resistant to it when they read it, but they’ll actually pay attention to the recommendations,” she said.

The recommendations as a whole follow the master plan documents regarding the downtown, Briere said, and don’t need the Connecting William Street plan to back them up. “I would hate to have resistance just because [councilmembers] see words that make them unhappy,” she concluded.

Woods responded, saying she was trying to give her remarks in the most respectful way that she could. The planning commission’s role is to give advice, she said. “Forgive me how I say this, but our role is not to give pablum to council. And sometimes they’re going to hear things that they perhaps don’t agree with, and then it’s up to them to do with it what they will.”

When Woods served on council, she recalled, there was a period when she also served on the planning commission. There were certainly times when she didn’t agree with the outcome of planning commission decisions, but she hadn’t seen her role as an advocate for the planning commission. “The planning commission is its own advocate, and we stand on our own.” She didn’t want Briere to feel that it’s her responsibility to take something from the planning commission and get it passed by council.

Ann Arbor planning commissioner Kirk Westphal.

Bona called attention to the fact that both “resolved” clauses include the words “recommend.” The resolution also states that the role of the planning commission is to advise the council on development issues, she noted. The commission would be ducking its responsibility to avoid something that council might find controversial, she said. “I think we would be actually doing a disservice if we do that.”

As far as Connecting William Street, Bona thought that the controversy surrounding the Library Lane site “shouldn’t take down the whole document.” Relative to the Library Lane site, the Y lot was not controversial, she noted, adding that “someone has to have the backbone to make a decision, at some point.” [Some residents – including members of the Library Green Conservancy – have advocated for turning the Library Lane site into a public plaza or park, rather than developing it.]

Many of the recommendations in the resolution are reinforced by the Connecting William Street report and the public input it entailed, Bona said. The public indicated support for mixed use and open space on the Y site, she noted, which are both recommendations in the resolution. So she thought it was important to reference the CWS report. “I don’t want to shy away from that public input, just because a few of people don’t like a couple aspects of the document.”

Bona also felt that most of the recommendations will ultimately enhance the value of the site. “I don’t care what that broker told you,” she said, referencing Briere’s comments. “I think that [adding conditions] will actually increase the value of that property – they just may not know it.”

Kirk Westphal reviewed some of the history of the Y site, going back to the council’s directive to the DDA that launched the Connecting William Street study. The DDA was tasked with creating a plan for development of the five city-owned sites, he said, and not to create a new open space plan – saying the open space plan had been taken care of by the park advisory commission and parks staff. The city’s parks and recreation open space (PROS) plan had been updated recently, he noted, giving a very low priority for new downtown open spaces. Nor is downtown open space a priority in the master plan documents, he said.

During the Connecting William Street process, Westphal said, a renewed interest in downtown open space emerged. That’s actively being addressed by the park advisory commission, he added, and he hoped that’s why the council put the CWS plan on hold, to wait for that process to finish. Westphal noted that he had served on the advisory committee for Connecting William Street, and it had included the a great number of unique contact points in the community, to get input. It was a robust discussion, he said, and the Y lot had been one of the least controversial sites.

The plan had provided clear overarching recommendations, as well as specific recommendations for each site, Westphal noted. It also provided flexibility for development. It wasn’t intended for the city to issue an RFQ or RFP for someone to develop all five sites at the same time, Westphal stressed. Rather, a phasing approach is recommended, he said.

The community, via input during the Connecting William Street study, had clearly indicated support for better materials and architecture, a plaza or other amenities in exchange for a lower selling price, Westphal said. And there’s a lot of research showing that even if the city gets a lower sale price because of these conditions, a higher quality building will result in higher taxable income over the long term, he said.

Giannola felt that the Connecting William Street plan was the only available public input on the Y lot. It looks like the council wants to sell that site, she added, so if planning commissioners want to make recommendations, that’s the only public input they can point to. The master plan isn’t as specific, and she thinks it’s more powerful to have the public input backing up the commission’s recommendations.

As a compromise, Giannola suggested leaving references to Connecting William Street in the “whereas” clauses, but taking out those references in the “resolved” clauses.

As for how council might react to the resolution, Giannola said she completely agreed with Woods. “I don’t think we should assume or pre-judge what council’s going to do. This is supposed to represent our thinking. So I don’t really want to get into the politics of it all.” Commissioners should just look at this resolution and decide whether they believe what’s stated in it, she said.

Briere said she appreciated the comments of Woods, Bona and Giannola. They were right about the planning commission’s role as making recommendations to council.

Ann Arbor planning commissioners Wendy Woods, Jeremy Peters and Paras Parekh.

Briere has heard concerns about the fact that the council felt like “less than the final authority” on the external design of 413 E. Huron, a recent controversial development at the corner of Division and Huron. But that was private property, she noted. The Y lot is public property. She said it could be very valuable to the community to have a serious impact on the external design on a very prominent building on the Y site, located on one of the few vacant corners that’s fronting three streets.

Briere supported the suggestion of removing references to Connecting William Street from the “resolved” clauses.

Jeremy Peters agreed that the resolved clauses need to state strongly that the commission wants to see some or all of the listed conditions in a project for that site. “I think we’d all agree that the plain by-right zoning is just not what we – nor the rest of the community – would want to see on that lot, if council decides to move ahead and sell it.”

The remainder of the discussion resulted in some additional friendly amendments to the original resolution. Highlights from amendments to the resolved clauses included eliminating references to Connecting William Street; adding the phrase “if sold”; and connecting parking on the Y lot with the existing stub in the Fifth Avenue underground parking structure. [.pdf of final Y lot resolution]

Outcome: Commissioners voted unanimously voted to approve the Y lot resolution, as amended. It will be forwarded to the city council as an item of communication. That communication item might appear on the council’s agenda as early as Sept. 3.

After the vote, Bonnie Bona asked city planner Matt Kowalski to explain what happens next in this process. Kowalski said that a copy of the resolution will likely be placed on the council’s Sept. 3 agenda.

Sabra Briere clarified that it won’t be an action item for council, and wouldn’t entail a public hearing. It would be placed on the agenda as an item of communication. When the council is ready to take its next step regarding the Y lot, then it would be appropriate for the resolution to become part of that action. She recommended that a copy of the resolution be sent to the city administrator, Steve Powers, with a request that he forward the resolution to the broker.

Kirk Westphal expressed some concern that the resolution, as an item of communication, won’t spur discussion or attention. Wendy Woods noted that there are other ways for citizens, including planning commissioners, to bring items to the council’s attention. People can individually contact councilmembers, for example, or speak during public commentary.

Recommendation for Y Lot: Final Public Commentary

At the end of the meeting, Don Salberg spoke again about the Y lot resolution. He calculated that the parking lot at Fifth and William is about 70% occupied, on average. He understood that the intent of Connecting William Street was to eliminate the surface parking lots. He knows many people who disagree with that, however, and he himself uses those lots and finds them convenient. Being forced into parking structures would be inconvenient, he said.

Salberg noted that there was sufficient parking in the Fifth Avenue underground parking structure, and concluded that people parking on the surface lot at Fifth and William could use the underground structure. Why don’t they? he asked. Someone should stand at the gate and ask people why they’re choosing to park on the surface lot rather than the Library Lane structure. The Y site isn’t being wasted, he said. It generates parking revenue that could cover the cost of the loan, Salberg contended, so the city could wait until there’s actually a need for building.

No one can name a company that would occupy an office built on the Y lot, he said. Salberg cited the example of Costco, which built its store at Ellsworth near South State specifically for its own use. That’s different than a development that’s speculative. Buildings like Ashley Terrace have failed, he contended, because they were speculative and can’t find tenants.

Honda Test Facility Expansion

An addition that more than doubles the size of the Honda testing facility on Ann Arbor’s south side was on the planning commission’s Aug. 20 agenda.

Aerial view of Honda test site, north of Ellsworth on Research Park Drive.

The existing 19,357-square-foot building, built in 1975 and used for vehicle testing, is located at 3947 Research Park Drive on a 2.72-acre site, adjacent to railroad tracks to the east. The proposal calls for building a two-story, 24,116-square-foot addition. Part of that square footage includes a partial basement level.

The project would also entail removing a fence from a parking area in the back that has 26 parking spaces. The fence would be replaced with 10-foot-high privacy panels. Four bike hoops would be installed in front of the building, with additional bike spaces inside. There is no stormwater treatment on site, so the project includes building a below-grade infiltration system with a connection to the city storm sewer. One footing drain disconnect will be required, as part of the city’s footing drain disconnect program. That part of the project will be handled by CDM Smith, according to a staff memo.

Two of the site’s seven landmark trees would be removed, and mitigated by planting six new trees. In addition, 32 shrubs will be planted in front of the new addition. A 5-foot public sidewalk will also be built along Research Park Drive.

The site is zoned RE (research district) and no rezoning is requested. The expansion will increase the number of American Honda Motor Co. employees who work at the site from 6 to 10, according to the planning staff.

The project is being managed by Poggemeyer Design Group in Bowling Green, Ohio. The estimated construction cost is $4.3 million. A variance related to the size of the existing curb cut will be needed from the city’s zoning board of appeals, which will consider the item at its Aug. 28 meeting. The driveway width now is about 19 feet, smaller than the city’s required 24 feet for a two-way drive. After consulting with the city’s engineering and traffic staff, the planning staff supports this variance because the traffic at the site is relatively low.

The site is located in Ward 4.

Honda Test Facility Expansion: Public Hearing

Only one person spoke during a public hearing on the project. Tommy Chang, representative of American Honda Motor Co., told commissioners that he was there with three members of the expansion project team who were on hand to answer questions. They are very excited that the company has decided to invest in the Ann Arbor lab. The facility opened in 1975 to conduct tail-pipe emission testing and fuel economy testing, in compliance with regulations of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He reported that the expansion will include a state-of-the-art environmental testing chamber, to help Honda develop vehicles with cleaner fuel emissions.

Chang thanked city planner Matt Kowalski for his help, and said the intent of the project is also to bring more jobs to Ann Arbor from Japan. Personally, he said, Ann Arbor is the right place for this investment. [Chang also attended the city council meeting the day before and was introduced before the meeting to city administrator Steve Powers by Sally Petersen (Ward 2).]

Honda Test Facility Expansion: Commission Discussion

Wendy Woods asked about the sidewalk, wondering if it would be connected to existing sidewalks – or would it be the first in that area? City planner Matt Kowalski replied that it would connect to a sidewalk on the south, but there’s no existing sidewalk on property to the north. When site plans are submitted, the planning staff is asking that sidewalks be included.

Planning commissioner Bonnie Bona talks with city planner Matt Kowalski prior to the Aug. 20, 2013 planning commission meeting.

Woods wondered if most of the businesses in that area are related to the auto industry. There are several auto research operations in the Research Park area, Kowalski replied, including a Mercedes facility adjacent to Honda. Woods joked that the firms are in competition for consumer dollars, so maybe they could impress the city by putting in sidewalks.

Jeremy Peters asked if Honda had included natural screening as an option, instead of fencing or panels around the back parking lot.

A member of the Honda design team said the purpose of the panels isn’t simply to protect vehicles from “prying eyes,” but is also intended for security purposes. That’s why a natural area wouldn’t work, he said, adding that there have been problems in the past with people breaking into cars.

Paras Parekh asked for more details about the curb cut variance. Kowalski indicated that Honda is willing to widen the driveway, but it would add to the site’s impervious surface and eliminate two mature trees. Given the volume of traffic at the site, the city staff didn’t believe it was necessary to widen the driveway. The current curb cut was installed when the original building was constructed in the 1970s, and the need for a variance is triggered because it’s part of the current site plan.

Bonnie Bona noted that the expansion doubles the floor space, and increases the floor-area ratio (FAR) from 16% to 37%. She pointed out that prior to the city’s revisions in area, height and placement regulations a few years ago, this would not have been possible. She noted that especially in research parks, “we were getting a lot of lawn area.” The need for buffering is not as important between research facilities, Bona said, and that’s why the ordinance was changed. She wanted to highlight that because it’s one of the few projects that has taken advantage of the ordinance change since it was passed. “It’s a step in the right direction,” she said.

Bona also observed that a chart included in the staff report for this project indicates there is no height requirement. She noted that if the building were adjacent to a residential neighborhood, there would be a height requirement. Bona said she wanted to clarify that, in light of recent controversy over downtown development, related to height. She added that the limit on floor-area ratio would prevent any structure from being very tall.

Outcome: The site plan for the Honda expansion was unanimously approved, contingent on securing a curb cut variance from the zoning board of appeals. The project will be forwarded to city council for consideration.

Belle Tire on Ellsworth

The site plan for a proposed Belle Tire at 590 W. Ellsworth – just east of the intersection with South State Street – was on the Aug. 20 agenda.

Aerial view of the proposed Belle Tire site.

The 1-acre site – currently vacant – is on the north side of Ellsworth, adjacent to and east of a new Tim Hortons. A restaurant building formerly located on the property was demolished.

The proposal calls for putting up a one-story, 9,735-square-foot auto service facility with a minimum of 49 parking spaces, included 10 spaces located in service bays. An existing curb cut into the site from Ellsworth would be closed, and the business would share an entrance with the Tim Hortons site. The project includes a new sidewalk along Ellsworth, completing a gap between the adjacent parcels. There will be a landscape buffer between the parking and sidewalk.

Approval would be contingent on securing a shared parking easement with the adjoining property to the west, and for a sanitary sewer easement to the east, that would be dedicated to the city for the sewer main.

The site, located in Ward 4, is zoned C3 (fringe commercial) and no rezoning is requested. According to a staff memo, the estimated cost of construction is $1.1 million. The project is being handled by Christopher Enright Architects of Birmingham, Mich.

No one spoke at a public hearing on the project.

Belle Tire on Ellsworth: Commission Discussion

Sabra Briere recalled that a previous project in that area, which the planning commission reviewed earlier this year, was not able to secure access to Ellsworth. [Called the State Street Center, that project is located on a thin strip of land off of South State, just north of Ellsworth and adjacent to the new Tim Hortons. At their April 2, 2013 meeting, commissioners recommended approval of the site plan and for rezoning the parcel to C3 (fringe commercial). A Jimmy John’s will face South State. A separate one-story retail building will be located behind the restaurant. At the time, the owners of the two properties could not agree on terms for creating a driveway connection between the sites.]

Christopher Enright, the architect for the Belle Tire project on West Ellsworth.

Briere noted that planning commissioners had been concerned about that lack of connection from South State to Ellsworth, and she wondered if there had been any change.

Katy Ryan, an intern with the planning staff who gave the staff report on this project, replied that the two parties have now agreed to create a connection for vehicles.

Bonnie Bona asked whether the owners have shared any details about that connection, including whether there will be a pedestrian component to it. “I’m just having a hard time seeing where they’ll put it,” she said. Ryan replied that the only thing city staff has been told is that there are ongoing discussions.

Christopher Enright, a Birmingham, Mich. architect who’s overseeing the project, was the only representative on hand at the meeting. He reported that there have been discussions with the owner of the property to the north of the Belle Tire site regarding several issues. The main one has been about the utility connection, he said. However, the owners also understand there are benefits to having a vehicle connection, but “it hasn’t been clearly formulated yet.” It would potentially eliminate a couple of parking spaces on the Belle Tire site, and that’s the issue they’re sorting through now, he said, because it would affect the minimum number of spaces required by the city.

Bona said she favored the connection over parking, but noted that “I don’t have that power” to waive the requirements. She hoped the sites could offer a pedestrian connection, at a minimum.

Saying that she’s normally in favor of fewer curb cuts, Wendy Woods asked for more explanation about how the new single curb cut on Ellsworth will affect traffic flow. Ryan replied that the city’s traffic engineer, Pat Cawley, has signed off on the plan.

City planner Matt Kowalski added that when a land division had previously been approved for that parcel, it had included an understanding that only one curb cut would be used when the parcels were developed. So the single new curb cut was “sized appropriately,” he said, and placed in the center of the parcels to allow for two-way traffic from both sites. There will eventually be a drive so that traffic can also exit onto South State, he noted.

Outcome: Commissioners unanimously voted to recommend approval of the Belle Tire site plan. The recommendation will be forwarded to the city council for consideration.

Land Annex on Miller Road

Ann Arbor planning commissioners were asked to recommend approval of an annexation and zoning request for 2640 Miller Road, on the city’s northwest side.

Aerial view of Rayer property.

Owned by Robert Rayer, the 0.39-acre is located in Scio Township, on the north side of Miller west of North Maple. The requested zoning is R1B (single-family dwelling district). Properties on the east and west sides of this lot – including a site with a daycare center – are already zoned R1B.

A single-family home is on the property. According to a staff memo, the annexation was prompted because the site’s existing septic system has failed and the owners need to connect to city services. The 2013 improvement charges are $19,062, but the charges would be set whenever the city water and sewer mains are connected and the services become active.

If the annexation is approved, the site would be located in Ward 5.

No one spoke during a public hearing on this item.

Land Annex on Miller Road: Commission Discussion

Discussion was brief. Sabra Briere asked about a development that the commission had previously approved in this area – she didn’t remember the exact location of that.

City planner Matt Kowalski described the most recent project in that area as a residential development near the northwest corner of Miller and Maple, with two apartment buildings and a cluster of single-family homes that backed up to Calvin Street. [That development, Maple Cove, was recommended for approval by the planning commission on June 5, 2012. It was subsequently approved by the city council on July 16, 2012.]

Outcome: Commissioners unanimously recommended approval of annexation and zoning for 2640 Miller Road. The request will be forwarded to the city council for consideration.

Communications & Commentary

During the meeting there were several opportunities for communications from staff and commissioners, as well as two general public commentary times. Here are some highlights.

Communications & Commentary: Non-Motorized Transportation Plan

Kathy Griswold spoke to commissioners about the city’s non-motorized transportation plan. She noted that the commission’s master plan revisions committee had recently been briefed on the plan’s update. She asked that planning commissioners not accept the update, which is in the form of an appendix to the original plan. She’d like to see the plan posted online, with all of the updates rolled into it – not listed separately.

Griswold also recommended that the city review the process of how non-motorized transportation information is collected, and how it rises to the level of the planning commission and the city council for funding purposes. “People say that information is power, but so is a lack of information,” she said. There’s a huge backlog of infrastructure that’s needed, Griswold added. One example is improvements to sidewalks and crosswalks in the public school “walk zones.” This information isn’t recorded anywhere, she said, so when proposals come before the council – such as the recent bike share program – councilmembers can’t make intelligent decisions because they don’t have all the information they need.

The process for collecting this kind of information is a closed process, Griswold contended. There’s an alternative transportation committee, but she characterized it as an invitation-only group, with meetings held in the offices of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority. She’d like to see some kind of open committee, with representation from the Ann Arbor Public Schools, “so that these needs can percolate up.”

Griswold reported that Craig Hupy, the city’s public services area administrator, is collecting information about sidewalk gaps, but that seems to be in isolation of the work being done by Eli Cooper, the city’s transportation program manager, she said. She’d like to have all this information in one place online.

A public hearing on the non-motorized transportation plan update is set for the planning commission’s next meeting on Sept. 10.

Communications & Commentary: North Main Huron River Corridor Task Force

Bonnie Bona, who has served as the planning commission’s representative on the North Main Huron River corridor task force, reported that the group held its last meeting earlier this month. Final touches are being put on the report, which will be delivered to the city council in September. She said the task force looks forward to having the council approve the report, and give direction about how to move forward with the recommendations.

Present: Bonnie Bona, Sabra Briere, Diane Giannola, Jeremy Peters, Kirk Westphal, Wendy Woods, Paras Parekh. Also: City planner Matt Kowalski.

Absent: Eleanore Adenekan, Ken Clein.

Next regular meeting: Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2013 at 7 p.m. in the second-floor council chambers at city hall, 301 E. Huron St., Ann Arbor. [Check Chronicle event listings to confirm date]

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The city council is exploring whether to sell that property, located across from the downtown Ann Arbor District Library and south of Blake Transit Center. Earlier this year, the city selected Colliers International and local broker Jim Chaconas to handle the possible sale, as the city faces a $3.5 million balloon payment this year from the purchase loan it holds on that property.

Now a surface parking lot, the site was zoned D1 as part of the original A2D2 (Ann Arbor Discovering Downtown) zoning process. The site was also one of five parcels that was the focus of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority’s Connecting William Street project.

The planning commission resolution passed on Aug. 20 recommends that the lot, if sold, would use a request for qualifications (RFQ) and request for proposals (RFP) process, and that the city council would require some or all of these conditions:

• A building that generates foot traffic, provides a human scale at the ground floor and creates visual appeal;
• A “mixed use” development;
• Any vehicular access and parking be accessed via the City’s Fifth Avenue underground parking structure;
• An entry plaza or open space appropriately scaled and located to be properly activated by adjacent building uses and to be maintained by the developer;
• The entry plaza or open space to incorporate generous landscaping;
• Mandatory adherence to the Design Guidelines as interpreted by the Design Review Board;
• A third party certification for the building’s energy and environmental performance (e.g. LEED Gold or LEED Platinum).

The goal, according to the resolution, is “to obtain a long-term, ongoing and growing economic benefit for the residents of the city.”

Highlighted in yellow is the location of the former YMCA lot, which the city of Ann Arbor is considering selling. A $3.5 million balloon payment on the property is due at the end of 2013.

The idea for developing this resolution was first proposed by commissioner Bonnie Bona, and initially discussed at a July 9, 2013 working session. [See Chronicle coverage: "Planning Group Strategizes on Downtown."] Several commissioners subsequently discussed a draft version of the resolution – developed by Bona and commissioner Diane Giannola – at another working session on Aug. 13.

The Aug. 20 discussion lasted nearly 90 minutes, and included several amendments from the floor – all of them considered friendly, so that no separate votes were required.

Much of the discussion centered on the use of Connecting William Street as a framework for the resolution. Sabra Briere, who serves as the city council’s representative to the planning commission, suggested removing entirely references to the CWS project. The council never adopted the CWS report or took any action to implement the CWS recommendations, she noted. Briere felt that leaving those references to CWS in the commission’s resolution might make some councilmembers more resistant to it.

Wendy Woods, a former councilmember, countered that “our role is not to give pablum to council.” The commission’s role is to give advice as a body, regardless of how it might be received by the council. She also pointed out that it’s not necessarily Briere’s role to advocate for positions taken by the commission. “The planning commission is its own advocate and we stand on our own,” Woods said.

Both Bona and Giannola pointed to the amount of public input that had been solicited during the CWS process, and felt that it was more powerful for the commission’s recommendations to be supported by that input. Giannola didn’t want to get into the politics of guessing what the council might support, but offered to extract references to CWS from the two resolved clauses. That compromise was acceptable to Briere and the other commissioners.

During the discussion, Briere also reported that the broker has been meeting with councilmembers to talk about the Y lot. The broker is likely to suggest putting as few stipulations on the property as possible, she said, because he believes that such stipulations will lower the purchase price. That’s not necessarily what the council believes, she noted, but it’s what they’re being told.

The resolution, as amended, will be forwarded to the city council as an item of communication. That communication item might appear on the council’s agenda as early as Sept. 3.

This brief was filed from the second-floor council chambers at city hall, 301 E. Huron. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

Looking east at the former YMCA lot, which has been owned by the city since 2003 and is used as a surface parking lot. The street in the foreground is Fourth Avenue. William Street is on the right. The reddish brown building at the opposite end of the lot – across Fifth Avenue – is the Ann Arbor District Library. To the left is the construction site for the new Blake Transit Center.

Planning manager Wendy Rampson updated commissioners on the city council-mandated review of downtown zoning. Ann Arbor-based ENP & Associates – consultants Erin Perdu and Megan Masson-Minock – are being hired to handle the process under a $24,500 contract with the city.

The primary concern for the council, as reflected in its April 1, 2013 resolution, is the downtown D1 zoning – which provides for the highest density allowed in city, with the tallest possible buildings. The concern was heightened by the controversial 413 E. Huron development, which the council approved on May 13, 2013. That site, located on a major transit corridor, but also next to a residential neighborhood, is zoned D1.

Rampson described the upcoming work as “fast and furious,” with a deadline of Oct. 1 to deliver recommendations to the council. The consultant will work initially with the commission’s ordinance revisions committee, which next meets on Tuesday, July 16 at 5:30 p.m. in the first floor south conference room at city hall, 301 E. Huron.

Zoning was also a point of discussion regarding the former Y site at 350 S. Fifth, across from the downtown Ann Arbor District Library and south of Blake Transit Center. The city council is exploring whether to sell that city-owned property, which was zoned D1 as part of the original A2D2 process. Colliers International and local broker Jim Chaconas have been selected to handle the possible sale, as the city faces a $3.5 million balloon payment this year from the purchase loan it holds on that property.

Bonnie Bona floated the idea of developing recommendations to the council regarding what planning commissioners think the city should require in a sale of that site. “I think we have a responsibility as planning commissioners to give them planning advice,” Bona said. Other commissioners agreed, and the item will likely be on the agenda for the group’s Aug. 13 working session for a fuller discussion.

The 2.5-hour July 9 session also included a presentation by two Ann Arbor public art commissioners – John Kotarski and Bob Miller – about the finalists for artwork at the East Stadium bridges. And commissioners were updated by Rampson about the status of various projects and developments. This report focuses only on the Y lot and A2D2 discussions.

Former Y Lot: Background

The city’s involvement in the former YMCA site dates back to 2003, when the city bought the property at Fifth & William in order to preserve the 100 units of single-residency occupancy (SRO) affordable housing that the building offered. The city council at the time made the move because the YMCA, which relocated to a new building at 400 W. Washington, had no plans to incorporate residential units at its new site. The Ann Arbor Transportation Authority, which had contemplated redeveloping the old Y property as a transit center and office headquarters, also wasn’t interested in providing housing.

The city used a loan to purchase the property from the YMCA for $3.5 million. Then in 2008, the council voted to extend its five-year loan with the Bank of Ann Arbor for another five years, through the end of 2013. The interest rate is 3.89%. The interest-only payments work out to roughly $140,000 a year. By the end of 2013 – when the $3.5 million balloon payment is due – the total interest paid will be around $1.4 million.

Highlighted in yellow is the location of the former YMCA lot, which the city of Ann Arbor is considering selling. A $3.5 million balloon payment on the property is due at the end of 2013.

In December 2004, the city council voted to authorize issuing a request for proposals (RFP) for development of the site, and the following year selected the developer HDC to pursue a project there. The original purchase option agreement with HDC for the land was approved by the council on Sept. 6, 2005. Affordable housing units were part of HDC’s subsequent William Street Station proposal.

That same year, mechanical systems in the old YMCA building failed to such an extent that residents needed to be moved out of the building. City staff led by Jayne Miller, who was community services area administrator at the time, worked over the following few years to find alternate accommodations for the residents. The city maintained a stated commitment to eventually replacing the 100 units, but not necessarily at the site of the old YMCA.

After encountering various difficulties and attempting to modify its project, HDC and the city signed a new purchase option agreement on Oct. 12, 2007 that included specific milestones. One of those milestones included obtaining a demolition permit from the city by Oct. 15, 2007. However, when HDC filed its application with the city for the permit, HDC contends it was informed by city staff that only the owner of a property could be granted a demolition permit – so HDC could not obtain the permit because it was not yet the owner. The city still owned the property. HDC complained that the condition was one that was impossible to meet.

Soon after, a resolution was considered by the city council on Nov. 5, 2007 to extend the purchase option agreement, but it failed on a 5-6 vote. On the side of extending were councilmembers Joan Lowenstein, Leigh Greden, Margie Teall, and Wendy Woods. Against extending the agreement were John Hieftje, Bob Johnson, Ron Suarez, Stephen Rapundalo, Stephen Kunselman, and Christopher Easthope. The failure to extend was the basis of one of the counts alleged in a lawsuit that HDC filed in 2009 – that the city failed to act in good faith and deal fairly with the firm. Ultimately the court ruled against HDC. In broad strokes, the ruling indicated that HDC, as a sophisticated developer, should have known better than to sign an agreement with an impossible condition, and that the city had not breached its contract.

The vacant building on the site was condemned and ultimately demolished. The cost of demolishing it and abating asbestos was around $1.5 million. The Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority covered the demolition costs and has covered half of the interest payments on the purchase loan. So the total amount of Ann Arbor governmental investment in the property is at least $6.4 million – not including attorney fees.

Since the building was demolished, the site has been used for surface parking and is managed as part of the downtown parking system by the DDA, under contract with the city. Revenue from the surface parking lot on the site – which charges a $1.40 hourly rate – amounts to $105-$140 per space per month for roughly 140 spaces. Through the end of 2012, the lot generated a rough average of around $20,000 per month. But usage has decreased since the opening of the new 711-space Library Lane underground garage, located across the street. And the number of spaces available for parking on the lot has decreased from 140 to 76 spaces – as some of the area has been used for construction staging for the new Blake Transit Center under construction by the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority.

That parking revenue from the former Y site is collected by the Ann Arbor DDA. A contract under which the DDA manages the city’s public parking system gives the city 17% of the gross parking system revenues. Also under terms of the contract, the DDA has the option to object to eliminating a facility from the parking system – such as the Y lot – but it must file its objection within 30 days of being notified by the city.

For some, like city councilmember Stephen Kunselman, the evaluation of the financial equation for the parcel needs to include the whole parking system. And that includes the fact that the DDA uses some TIF revenues – taxes captured from the taxing authorities in its district – to make payments on bonds that were issued for improvements and new construction of other parking facilities.

The Y site – located directly across the street from the downtown Ann Arbor District Library – is also one of five parcels that was the focus of the DDA’s Connecting William Street project. That project was undertaken by the DDA based on a directive from the city council given at its April 4, 2011 meeting. The intent was to make recommendations for possible future development, in a cohesive way, on those five sites: (1) the Kline lot (on the east side of Ashley, north of William), (2) the lot next to Palio restaurant (northeast corner of Main & William), (3) the ground floor of the Fourth & William parking structure, (4) the former YMCA lot (on William between Fourth and Fifth), and (5) the top of the Library Lane underground parking garage on South Fifth, north of the downtown library.

In January 2013, the DDA gave a presentation to the council on its Connecting William Street recommendations. The council never took action on that proposal. However, at its March 5, 2013 meeting, the Ann Arbor planning commission voted to adopt the report as a resource document supporting the city’s master plan. Kirk Westphal, the commission’s chair, also served on an advisory board for the Connecting William Street effort.

Former Y Lot: Recommendations to Council?

At the planning commission’s July 9, 2013 working session, Bonnie Bona reported that she’d met with a few members of the Ann Arbor energy commission and city councilmember Sabra Briere, who also serves on the planning commission. They had discussed the city’s sustainability framework and climate action plan, and how they could keep those efforts moving. Some of their discussion touched on the former Y lot and its possible sale.

Planning commissioners Kirk Westphal and Bonnie Bona at the July 9 working session.

At its March 4, 2013 meeting, the city council voted to direct the city administrator to prepare an RFP (request for proposals) for brokerage services to sell the former Y lot. Soon after, the energy commission started talking about what should be incorporated into the sale, as it relates to the climate action plan. Historically, Bona said, the city has used a planned unit development (PUD) for developing city-owned property, so that there’s an element of public benefit built into the project. Energy commissioners wanted to send recommendations to the city council regarding what they felt the city should require in a sale of that property, related to energy efficiency, renewable energy or other issues.

The energy commission asked that the planning commission also consider making recommendations to the council. At the July 9 working session, Bona said she wanted to discuss the possibility of taking some sort of action, either in the form of a memo or resolution to the council. She felt it should be in the broader context of other projects, like the commission’s review of A2D2 zoning. “To just zone [the Y lot] D1, which is what the master plan says, seems a little weak,” she said, “considering what we know now versus when that zoning was created.”

Bona noted that the former Y lot was one of the properties that was the focus of the Connecting William Street project. [.pdf of CWS recommendations for the Y lot]

She also observed that in the past, the city has typically required a higher level of accommodation for land it owns, as a community asset – beyond just zoning and selling it. The last city property that was sold downtown was the former parking structure at First & Washington, where City Apartments is under construction. It was a PUD, with public parking on the lower levels as a public benefit. Bona noted that she was on the selection committee for that project, to review responses to the city’s request for proposals. A PUD was required, but there were no other specific requirements in the RFP, she said.

Bona thought that planning commissioners could “get into the weeds” if they tried to make really specific recommendations, like pursuing LEED Gold certification or requiring a certain amount of green space. Her suggestion was to raise more general issues related to the kinds of things that the city should be looking at – like land uses, sustainability, height and other considerations. She wanted to get feedback from other commissioners about whether this was something they wanted to pursue. “I think we have a responsibility as planning commissioners to give them planning advice,” Bona said.

Paras Parekh wondered how such recommendations would be conveyed to potential developers. The RFP would list a set of goals, Ken Clein explained, and potential proposals would be evaluated in that context. Bona suggested getting a copy of the original RFP for the First & Washington site, to give commissioners an idea of what’s been done in the past.

At this point, Bona noted, the city council hasn’t laid out a process for how a buyer would be selected, beyond selecting a broker. In general, the city struggles with the development process for the sites it owns, she added. She’s heard from some former planning commissioners who believe the commission should make recommendations about how the process should be handled. But Bona said she’s not convinced that’s the commission’s role.

Clein wondered if the council might hand off the process to the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority, which managed the Connecting William Street project. Wendy Woods expressed no enthusiasm for that option, saying “hopefully they don’t do that.”

Woods noted that she’d seen coverage regarding the selection of a broker for the site. [Chronicle coverage: "Colliers, Chaconas to Broker City's Y Lot"] Planning manager Wendy Rampson said that the brokerage approach taken by the council seems to indicate that councilmembers simply want to sell the property. The approach that Bona is suggesting is more in line with previous efforts by the city, like the City Apartments at First & Washington, Rampson said. An RFP was also issued in the past for the 415 W. Washington site, Rampson noted, though “it never went anywhere.”

Development on top of the Library Lane underground parking structure is another example of an RFP process that did not move forward, Rampson said. [For a sampling of Chronicle coverage on that RFP process, see: "Hotel/Conference Center Ideas Go Forward" (January 2010); "Column: Library Lot – Bottom to Top" (March 2011); and "Council on Valiant Library Lot Idea: Hail No" (April 2011).

Kirk Westphal, the commission's chair, gave some background on the DDA's Connecting William Street project. Two years ago, the council was reflecting on its difficulty in producing "productive proposals" for 415 W. Washington and the Library Lane sites, he said. So the council directed the DDA board to look at the potential of five city-owned sites in the downtown area, and how those sites might be developed.

Westphal noted that he served on the subcommittee that was responsible for community engagement, and said "it was the most community contact that had ever taken place in any planning project in Ann Arbor history." The project got "a little distracted" because it didn't tackle the issue of open space, he added – that's now being handled by the city's park advisory commission. "In the process of confusion about that, a lot of the recommendations have not been looked at very closely," he said. Bona added that she felt the Connecting William Street recommendations reflected valuable public input.

Planning commissioners Jeremy Peters and Diane Giannola.

Diane Giannola clarified with Rampson that if the city sells the land without an RFP, it would be sold for the price alone, without restrictions. Rampson noted that the property is currently zoned D1 [the highest allowable density]. She explained that when the A2D2 zoning process took place, all parking structures and publicly owned land – with the exception of county property – were zoned to be consistent with the city’s master plan. It’s possible to rezone the property, she added, but at this point the Y lot is D1.

Clein ventured that real estate brokers will advise the city to keep it zoned D1, because that will bring the best price – and in turn the highest fees for the brokers.

Commissioners talked about how the council will need to decide whether to seek the highest price or try to shape the kind of development it wants on that site, and whether to go for short-term or long-term value. “And then there’s politics,” Clein quipped.

Woods pointed to another factor – that a portion of the proceeds from this sale will be put into the city’s affordable housing trust fund, based on direction from the council.

Rampson described the Y lot as “a multi-layered site.” It includes a previous commitment to replace 100 units of affordable housing that had been at the site when it was owned by the YMCA. The council had determined that one way to address that commitment was to put net proceeds from the sale into the affordable housing trust fund, she explained.

Bona returned to the issue of planning commission recommendations. “From my perspective, it should not just be sold,” she said. “There’s an opportunity to provide a public benefit that other property isn’t required to provide.”

Jeremy Peters agreed, saying he felt it was the commission’s duty to provide advice in some way. That might be suggesting a process, or elements of an RFP, or how the site should fit into the overall downtown and entire city.

Clein also supported making recommendations, but cautioned against telling the council what to do. “In my experience, that tends not necessarily to bring the desired results.” He thought that making general suggestions – like providing open space – was a better approach, rather than recommending a specific amount of open space in a specific location.

Woods observed that some people feel certain parameters in previous RFPs issued by the city have caused projects to fail, because those parameters couldn’t be met. Rampson indicated that she’d heard this complaint regarding 415 W. Washington, although she noted that the economic downturn was another factor at that time. But there weren’t any real parameters for the Library Lot RFP, Rampson said. That resulted in a wide array of responses, from senior housing to conference centers, she said.

Clein framed the question this way: Should the city have a say in what gets built on the Y lot, or is the community benefit simply the cash that the city gets from selling the property? “It is much more challenging and much more involved to try to seek development proposals, evaluate those proposals and select one. The city is on the hook much more so financially in doing that, rather than just selling it off,” he said. But Clein felt it was worthwhile to discuss what kind of stake the city might have or influence it should exert on that site.

Peters noted that even if the city council decides just to sell the property, at least there will have been a discussion about potential uses that a developer could take into consideration. Clein suggested that one possibility is to simply make it mandatory for a developer of a city-owned property to follow the suggestions of the design review board. At this point, going through the design review process is mandatory, but compliance with the board’s suggestions is voluntary. Generally, he noted, the board’s comments have been very pragmatic.

Bona suggested focusing on a few important elements, which if implemented could set the stage for better development on other sites. Following the design guidelines might be one example, she said.

Giannola proposed making recommendations that outline what the city doesn’t want. “Sometimes you don’t know what you want until you see it,” she said, but you know what you don’t want.

Westphal noted that often developers face financial pressures and timelines to get a return on their investment. One possibility is for the city to accept a little less money up front, he said, in exchange for insisting on higher quality materials and architecture. That approach recognizes that over the long-term, a higher quality building will bring higher taxable value to the city.

While that approach makes sense, Clein observed, the difficulty is how to make it happen. Proposals are typically “a financial pro forma and a pretty picture,” he said. The trick is knowing what you’ll actually get in the end, and making sure that elements of the project aren’t eliminated along the way through “value engineering.” Rampson noted that “this is happening at City Apartments as we speak. That’s just the nature of things.”

Planning commissioner Wendy Woods.

Woods, who works at the University of Michigan, observed that “as much as people harp about the university, it does put up some pretty buildings.” Clein indicated that UM is willing to spend a lot of money – roughly three times the cost per square foot of a typical development.

“What I’m saying is that it can be done,” Woods replied, “and it can be done here. So let’s look at some mandatory things, and let’s do it!”

The commissioners who were present reached a consensus to move forward on making recommendations. Bona and Giannola agreed to prepare a draft of possible issues to include, which the commission will then discuss at a future working session. Recommendations would be brought to a regular planning commission meeting for a formal vote.

Clein wanted to make sure that someone had “taken the temperature” of the commission’s city councilmember, Sabra Briere, who did not attend the July 9 working session. Bona indicated that Briere had encouraged this approach.

Westphal suggested that Amber Miller of the DDA could be invited to a future working session to review the Connecting William Street recommendations for this parcel.

Rampson indicated that the topic could be placed on the agenda for the commission’s Aug. 13 working session. She offered to provide copies of the RFPs for the William Street Station and First & Washington sites before then. Bona also recommended that commissioners review the city’s master plan as it relates to the site, as well as the Connecting William Street report.

A2D2 Review Process

Also at the July 9 working session, commissioners were updated on the review process for the city’s A2D2 (Ann Arbor Discovering Downtown) zoning. The commission had been scheduled to conduct an earlier review of the overall A2D2 zoning, which had been adopted in 2009. However, until recently – because of the economic downturn – few projects have been built.

At its March 18, 2013 meeting, the city council voted to give the planning commission specific direction regarding the zoning review. And at its next meeting, on April 1, 2013, the council passed this resolution with more details:

RESOLVED, That City Council requests the City Planning Commission to specifically address these issues:
(i) whether D1 zoning is appropriately located on the north side of Huron Street between Division and S. State and the south side of William Street between S. Main and Fourth Avenue;
(ii) whether the D1 residential FAR [floor area ratio] premiums effectively encourage a diverse downtown population; and
(iii) consider a parcel on the south side of Ann St. adjacent to north of city hall that is currently zoned D1 to be rezoned to the appropriate zoning for this neighborhood; and

RESOLVED, That City Council requests that Planning Commission complete its review and report to the City Council by October 1, 2013.

The primary focus on the downtown D1-D2 zoning – the highest density allowed in the city, with the tallest possible building height – was made in light of the controversial 413 E. Huron development, which the council approved on May 13, 2013. That site, located on a major corridor but next to a residential neighborhood, is zoned D1.

At the July 9 working session, planning manager Wendy Rampson reported that the commission’s executive committee and councilmember Sabra Briere, who serves as the city council’s representative on the planning commission, had interviewed two potential consultants to handle the review. The executive committee includes chair Kirk Westphal, vice chair Wendy Woods, and secretary Ken Clein. Bonnie Bona also participated in the interviews.

Rampson said the committee decided to hire a consultant in order to have fresh eyes on the zoning, given that staff and several planning commissioners had been so immersed in developing the A2D2 zoning. Another factor was the speed at which this council-directed review must take place, she said.

Two consultants had responded to the city’s request for proposals, which had been sent out to only southeast Michigan firms: Carlisle/Wortman Associates, and ENP & Associates. Both consultants are based in Ann Arbor. The executive committee had selected ENP & Associates – run by Erin Perdu – for the work. Megan Masson-Minock will also be working on the project for ENP. [Responding to a follow-up query from The Chronicle, Rampson reported that the contract amount is $24,500.]

Ann Arbor planning manager Wendy Rampson.

The consultant’s work will include interviews, focus groups and stakeholder meetings to solicit concerns about the A2D2 zoning. At the end of that process, in consultation with the commission’s ordinance revisions committee (ORC), there will be a list of prioritized items to work on, Rampson said. Those priorities will include items that the city council has identified, she said, “but there’s a whole host of other issues that people have raised” like affordable housing and LEED certification.

The next stage would be to develop recommendations regarding how to address those priorities. Rampson called it a very ambitious schedule. The ORC members – Bonnie Bona, Kirk Westphal, Wendy Woods and Diane Giannola – will meet next week to kick off that process.

Bona noted that it might require going back to the council to ask for more time, but that ENP is confident that the project can be completed by the Oct. 1 deadline.

Rampson reported that ENP & Associates is handling the Shape Ypsilanti project, which is an update of the city of Ypsilanti’s master plan. The consultants put a lot of focus on social media, she said, but also use a lot of face-to-face interactions to get feedback. They also use tools like SketchUp to help people envision things like height and massing.

Rampson clarified that the review will address the council’s directive, but will also be broader to encompass other aspects of A2D2. She noted that there’s a concurrent effort to review the downtown design guidelines, which is being led by councilmember Marcia Higgins. But issues like transportation or historic preservation aren’t part of this review, she said. The review will encompass zoning and design, as it interacts with zoning.

Developing priorities will be the first phase, Rampson noted. From that list, certain items will be worked on further to deliver recommendations to council. However, given the capacity of staff and the planning commission, other priorities will be worked on over a longer period of time, she said.

Paras Parekh asked if there had been public input on the original A2D2 process. Yes, Rampson said – a lot. Bona noted that the original input was based on how things were expected to develop. However, now there have been several completed projects, so people have a better idea of what the zoning actually allows.

Eight projects have been built downtown, including a couple of smaller ones, Rampson added. Commissioners also discussed the process that had gone into developing the A2D2 zoning, including decisions that Bona described as somewhat arbitrary. “In the end, some of it was that council just made a decision,” she said. Now, the city can go back and “adjust the things that turned out wrong,” Bona said.

Bona noted that prior to A2D2, most downtown projects were PUDs (planned unit developments). “That was an indication that our zoning was not working,” Rampson said. Because such projects are considered customized zoning – working around the existing zoning on a site – “PUDs are actually a pretty good indication that there’s something wrong with your zoning,” Rampson added. “I hate to say it, but that’s kind of how it works.”

Kirk Westphal noted that there had been a lot of back-and-forth between the planning commission and the city council regarding A2D2. “Some things changed along the way,” he said, “and now we see the outcome.”

It’s really the developer who shapes a project, Rampson said. The zoning just provides an envelope in which to operate.

Bona referred to the process involving Calthorpe Associates, California-based consultants who were hired by the city to help develop a downtown plan prior to A2D2. That process solicited solid public input, she said, with community-wide design charettes and other opportunities for feedback. Rampson described that process as developing a big-picture vision for downtown, which was followed by the A2D2 zoning that was meant to implement that vision. The A2D2 process had an advisory committee that met for about eight months, she said, then it was taken on by the planning commission. There was also a steering committee that included representatives from the DDA board, the city council and the chair of the planning commission.

Rampson noted that she personally attended 33 meetings throughout that process. “I don’t have Susan Pollay’s record, but … it was a pretty large undertaking.” Pollay is executive director of the Ann Arbor DDA. Rampson indicated that despite significant changes in zoning, there have been relatively few problems with the zoning revisions. Bona noted that some projects – like Zaragon West – resulted in very little public interest, which indicated that the projects were acceptable and that the zoning worked.

One indication that the zoning works, Rampson said, is that at least one former PUD – Kingsley Lane, at Kingsley and Ashley – is likely to return with a project designed for the site’s current zoning, which is D2. Responding to queries from commissioners, Rampson said the Kingsley Lane developers, including local developer Peter Allen, almost lost the property to the bank. But they’ve secured the property now and are expected to submit a site plan for that project soon.

Rampson wrapped up the discussion by describing the upcoming work as “fast and furious,” beginning with the ordinance revisions committee. The ORC meets on Tuesday, July 16 at 5:30 p.m. in the first floor south conference room at city hall, 301 E. Huron.

For additional background on the original A2D2 zoning process, see Chronicle coverage: “Downtown Planning Process Forges Ahead” (November 2009); “Another Draft of Downtown Design Guides” (October 2009); and “Downtown Design Guides: Must vs. Should” (September 2009).

Present: Bonnie Bona, Ken Clein, Diane Giannola, Paras Parekh, Jeremy Peters, Kirk Westphal, Wendy Woods. Also: Planning manager Wendy Rampson.

Absent: Sabra Briere, Eleanore Adenekan.

Next regular meeting: Tuesday, July 16, 2013 at 7 p.m. in the second-floor council chambers at city hall, 301 E. Huron St., Ann Arbor. [Check Chronicle event listings to confirm date]

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Highlighted in yellow is the location of the former YMCA lot, which the city of Ann Arbor is considering selling. A $3.5 million balloon payment on the property is due at the end of 2013.

At its March 4, 2013 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council had voted to direct the city administrator to prepare an RFP (request for proposals) for brokerage services to sell the lot. The only councilmember to dissent on that vote had been Christopher Taylor (Ward 3).

The city had used a loan to purchase the property from the YMCA for $3.5 million in 2003. The council voted in 2008 to extend a five-year loan with the Bank of Ann Arbor for another five years, through the end of 2013. The interest rate is 3.89%. The interest-only payments work out to roughly $140,000 a year. By the end of 2013, the total interest paid will be around $1.4 million.

A building on the site was condemned, and the cost of demolishing it and abating asbestos was around $1.5 million. The Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority covered the demolition costs and has covered half of the interest payments. So the total amount of Ann Arbor governmental investment in the property is at least $6.4 million.

Revenue from the surface parking lot on the site – which charges a $1.40 hourly rate – amounts to $105-$140 per space per month for roughly 140 spaces. Through the end of 2012, the lot  generated a rough average of around $20,000 per month. But usage has decreased since the opening of the new 711-space Library Lane underground garage, located across the street. And the number of spaces available for parking on the lot has decreased from 140 to 76 spaces – as some of the area has been used for construction staging for the new Blake Transit Center under construction by the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority.

That parking revenue from the former Y site is collected by the Ann Arbor DDA, which operates the city’s public parking system under contract with the city. Under terms of that contract, the city receives 17% of the gross parking system revenues. Also under terms of the contract, the DDA has the option to object to eliminating a facility from the parking system, within 30 days of notification by the city.

The Y site is one of five parcels that was the focus of the DDA’s Connecting William Street project. The Connecting William Street project was undertaken by the DDA based on a directive from the city council, on a unanimous vote, given at its April 4, 2011 meeting. And at a Jan. 7, 2013 working session, the DDA gave a presentation to the council on its recommendations for future use of five city-owned parcels in the downtown area – the former Y lot, the Kline’s lot, the Palio lot, the Fourth and William parking structure, and the top of the Library Lane underground parking garage.

The council never took action on the Connecting William Street recommendations. However, at its March 5, 2013 meeting, the Ann Arbor planning commission voted to adopt the report as a resource document supporting the city’s master plan.

Alan Haber takes notes on a draft survey about downtown parks. He was attending the May 28 meeting of a subcommittee of the Ann Arbor park advisory commission, which is putting together a survey that will be released in June. The subcommittee will be making recommendations regarding downtown parks and open space. (Photos by the writer.)

In a variety of ways, the survey attempts to gauge interest in downtown parks and open space, and to identify the types of activities and features that people might want, such as playgrounds or performance space. The survey also includes questions about assessing the existing downtown parks, including the farmers market, Liberty Plaza at Liberty & Division, and Sculpture Plaza at Fourth & Catherine.

This subcommittee of the Ann Arbor park advisory commission has been meeting regularly since early February. Their work relates in part to a request that mayor John Hieftje made last summer. It’s also meant to supplement the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority’s Connecting William Street project. For additional background, see Chronicle coverage: “Parks Group To Weigh In On Downtown Need,” and “Committee Starts Downtown Parks Research,” as well as coverage included in the PAC meeting reports for March 19, 2013 and May 21, 2013.

Several leaders of the Library Green Conservancy attended the May 28 meeting, and gave input on the survey throughout the discussion. The conservancy previously has criticized a survey conducted by the DDA as part of Connecting William Street, saying that the DDA survey did not give respondents the option of supporting downtown parks and open space.

Based on feedback at the May 28 meeting, parks staff will revise the survey for final review at the subcommittee’s June 11 meeting. The intent is to launch the survey soon after that meeting. The goal is to incorporate survey results as recommendations are developed for downtown parks/open spaces, which will likely be delivered to the city council in August.

Downtown Parks Survey

During the May 28 meeting, the subcommittee worked on an 18-question draft survey that had been developed by the city’s parks & recreation staff. [.pdf of draft survey, prior to revisions made on May 28]

In addition to general questions about the respondent’s relationship to downtown Ann Arbor and demographic information, the survey attempts – in a variety of ways – to gauge interest in parks and open space. It also tries to identify the types of activities that people want in a downtown park or open space. The survey also includes questions about assessing the existing downtown parks, including the farmers market, Liberty Plaza at Liberty & Division, and Sculpture Plaza at Fourth & Catherine. Most of the questions have options for open-ended responses.

A sampling of the draft survey questions:

• How important are downtown parks/open spaces to you?
• Do you think Ann Arbor needs more downtown parks/open spaces?
• If more downtown parks/open spaces were added, do you think downtown would be better served by a large or small park/open space?
• What activities are most important to you in a downtown park/open space?
• What features are most important to you in a downtown park/open space?
• Should the city of Ann Arbor consider alternative funding sources for the maintenance and programming of downtown parks/open spaces?
• Should Ann Arbor focus more attention and resources on the existing downtown parks, including Liberty Plaza, Sculpture Plaza, and the farmers market – instead of creating new downtown parks/open spaces?
• Looking at the downtown’s existing parks, what do you like/dislike?
• Ann Arbor has many downtown street festivals and outdoor programming. Do you think these activities serve as temporary parks/open spaces?

The draft survey also asked about ideas for temporary parks/open spaces. The idea of “pop-up parks” has been mentioned at previous subcommittee meetings, as something that’s worked well in other cities. The nonprofit Project for Public Spaces has worked on this concept under the framework of “lighter, faster, cheaper” – developing engaging, temporary public places.

The draft survey also includes a map of the five city-owned properties that were examined as part of the Connecting William Street study, and asks respondents to rank the properties in terms of desirability for a downtown park or open space. Those sites are: (1) the Kline lot (on the east side of Ashley, north of William), (2) the lot next to Palio restaurant (northeast corner of Main & William), (3) the ground floor of the Fourth & William parking structure, (4) the former YMCA lot (on William between Fourth and Fifth), and (5) the top of the Library Lane underground parking garage on South Fifth, north of the downtown library.

The five city-owned sites that were the focus of the Connecting William Street project are indicated in blue.

Colin Smith, the city’s parks & recreation manager, told the subcommittee that the survey had been drafted with the mission of the subcommittee in mind. That mission is:

To determine whether and what additional parks are wanted and/or needed in downtown Ann Arbor, focusing on city-owned parcels in the DDA district while maintaining awareness of additional nearby properties, for example: Liberty Plaza, 721 N. Main and 415 W. Washington. The “deliverable” will be a set of recommendations for the City Council.

David Rohr, the city’s park planning assistant, said the staff tried not to ask leading questions, and to make the survey overall as fair and balanced as possible.

The subcommittee reviewed the draft survey item-by-item. Themes of the discussion included ensuring that the survey questions were clear, eliminating terms that might be considered jargon and giving examples, where appropriate.

From left: Ann Arbor park advisory commissioner Alan Jackson and David Rohr, a park planning assistant.

Smith cited a rule of thumb he uses: Could his mother understand it? If not, he suggested revising the terms. “Passive recreation” and “programmed activities” are phrases that have meaning for parks and recreation professionals, for example, but aren’t necessarily clear for the general public. Providing examples of these terms would be helpful, he said. Programmed activities might include concerts, plays or other performances. Passive recreation could be picnics, reading or visiting with friends. Active recreation in a downtown park or open space might include Frisbee, basketball, chess or pétanque.

Mary Hathaway, with the Library Green Conservancy, joked that she was like Smith’s mother. She suggested asking whether people would be interested in having a wifi hot spot – wireless Internet access – at a downtown park or plaza.

Alan Haber, also with the conservancy, hoped to get more feedback about activities and features that families might want, like a playground. Hathaway suggested that a fountain or interactive water feature should be included as an example – it could be a place for children to play.

One question asks people to identify desired features in a downtown park or open space. The question provides a list of possibilities, like seating, art installations, landscaping, “a place that feels safe,” and “a place that sells food and beverages.” Hathaway suggested adding the option of a shade feature – not necessarily trees, she said, but perhaps awnings or arbors.

The subcommittee also discussed whether the phrase “alternative funding sources” was clear. The term was meant to indicate sources that are not based on taxpayer dollars, such as grants or other kinds of private funding. Alan Jackson, a park advisory commissioner, suggested first asking a question about whether people would support extra staffing or security at a downtown park or open space, and following that up with the question about funding sources.

Downtown Parks Survey: Next Steps

The subcommittee talked about how best to distribute the survey. Colin Smith, the city’s parks and recreation manager, said the goal is to reach the widest group possible, including people who live and work downtown, residents who come downtown for specific purposes – like going out to eat, to special events, or to the library – and general parks users.

Park planner Amy Kuras noted that the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority had developed an extensive email distribution list as part of its Connecting William Street project. She suggested building on that list.

Members of the downtown parks subcommittee at their May 28 meeting. From the foreground: Julie Grand, Karen Levin and Alan Jackson. At the far end is former park advisory commission Gwen Nystuen, one of several members of the Library Green Conservancy who attended the meeting. A tornado warning forced the group to relocate the second half of its meeting to the basement of city hall.

Alan Jackson wondered about sending out surveys via regular mail, noting that it would be more costly but might reach people who can’t access an online survey. Kuras advised mailing out surveys only when requested. That was the approach she took when soliciting input for the parks, recreation & open space (PROS) update. She suggested putting up posters at public locations like the library branches and parks facilities, with contact information. Julie Grand proposed providing paper copies of the survey at those locations and other spots, including the Ann Arbor senior center and the Ann Arbor community center.

Alan Haber suggested putting the survey in locations to reach a broader age demographic, like the Neutral Zone – a downtown teen center – or local schools.

The parks staff will rework the draft survey based on comments at the May 28 subcommittee meeting, as well as any additional suggestions emailed to the staff. Smith cautioned commissioners not to deliberate about the survey via email, but simply to send their ideas for additional changes.

At its next meeting on June 11, the subcommittee will review the revised draft, with the intent of releasing the survey that same week. On June 11, the subcommittee will also set dates for public forums that it intends to hold, likely starting in July.

The subcommittee plans to bring a set of recommendations forward to the full park advisory commission, which will then forward those recommendations to the city council. The goal is to deliver the recommendations to the council sometime in August.

Public Commentary

Though members of the public who attended the May 28 meeting participated throughout the session, there were also two formal opportunities for public commentary.

Mary Hathaway thanked commissioners for “making us feel welcome.”

Alan Haber gave an update on the effort to put a temporary ice-skating rink on top of the Library Lane underground parking structure. He indicated that it was on hold, awaiting the recommendations on downtown parks, as well as on the Ann Arbor DDA’s decision about funding the project. He hoped the project would be considered, possibly for the fall.

Overall, he said he was encouraged that the subcommittee was looking at options that could be more than just a traditional park. But the concept that wasn’t captured in this survey, he said, was the idea of developing a central gathering place downtown. The options in the survey are delineated, he contended, and don’t represent an integrated vision for a civic center.

Haber also suggested that when survey results are compiled, it would be good to have the results analyzed by someone who’s an expert in data analysis – for example, someone from the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. Amy Kuras replied that one of the park commissioners has already offered to contact someone at UM for this kind of analysis.

Gwen Nystuen echoed Haber’s comments, noting that the draft survey includes options for the kind of parks that already exist, but it doesn’t address the basic question of whether people want a central park. Some people want that as a focal point, she said, but the survey doesn’t quite capture it.

In response to Nystuen’s comments, park commissioner Karen Levin suggested adding the central park option to the survey, as a choice in the question about types of downtown parks that people are interested in seeing.

PAC members present: Alan Jackson, Karen Levin, Julie Grand.

Also attending: Also Colin Smith, city parks and recreation manager, park planner Amy Kuras, and David Rohr, park planning assistant. Members of the public included Gwen Nystuen, Mary Hathaway, Will Hathaway, Alan Haber and Eppie Potts.

Next downtown park subcommittee meeting: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 from 5-6:30 p.m. at city hall’s first floor south conference room. More information about that group is on the subcommittee’s website.

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Jack Eaton talks with Sabra Briere before the start of the Ann Arbor planning commission’s March 5, 2013 meeting. Briere serves on the commission as the representative from city council. Eaton spoke during a public hearing on the Connecting William Street plan.

The Connecting William Street project was undertaken by the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority at the behest of the city council. It focuses on recommendations for coordinated development of five city-own sites in the William Street area, on the south side of downtown. By becoming a resource document, the CWS plan carries less weight than it would if it were part of the city’s master plan.

Amber Miller of the DDA gave a presentation during the March 5 commission meeting, similar to those previously given to the council and the DDA board.

Much of the discussion among commissioners focused on the issue of open space. Miller noted that recommendations on that issue have been deferred to a committee of the city’s park advisory commission. That downtown parks committee is in the early stages of its work – it was scheduled to meet earlier in the day on March 5, but that meeting was canceled.

Commentary during a public hearing on the CWS plan also focused on open space, with several members of the Library Green Conservancy advocating for a centrally located park atop the Library Lane underground parking structure. They criticized the DDA’s process for developing the plan, and felt the planning commission had not adequately publicized the fact that a public hearing on Connecting William Street would be held that evening.

Additional public commentary came after the commission’s vote. Woods said her decision to ask for reconsideration of the item was prompted by concerns raised during this final public commentary. She felt it wouldn’t hurt to wait two weeks until the commission’s next meeting, so that more people could have the chance to weigh in, if they wanted.

Sabra Briere, who had expressed strong reservations before casting her original yes vote, said she supported Woods in her effort to reconsider the item, suggesting that postponement would be appropriate. She expressed concern that the commission was deciding to use the CWS plan as a future planning document – which would be referenced when the planning staff and commission make their recommendations to the city council on site plans and other planning and development actions. Given that importance, Briere – who also serves on city council – wanted to be absolutely certain before accepting it.

Other commissioners disagreed. Kirk Westphal, the planning commission’s chair, also served on a DDA leadership outreach committee (LOC) that helped craft the Connecting William Street plan. He said he felt extremely comfortable with the public process that had led to these recommendations. Eric Mahler also argued against reopening the item for another vote, saying the commission needed to bring closure to this long process. He was satisfied that sufficient public notice had been provided.

It’s unclear whether the city council will take any action on the Connecting William Street plan. As to what happens next, Susan Pollay, the DDA’s executive director, told planning commissioners that the DDA will be following the council’s guidance. Councilmembers have already taken a first step related to one of the five parcels – the former YMCA lot. At their meeting on March 4, 2013, councilmembers voted to direct the city administrator to prepare an RFP (request for proposals) for brokerage services to sell the lot. A $3.5 million balloon payment on the property is due at the end of 2013.

Connecting William Street

Since the summer of 2011, the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority has been working on the Connecting William Street project, which was undertaken following a directive from the city council at its April 4, 2011 meeting.

Streetscape view looking down William Street toward the east from Ashley Street – a schematic rendering of the Connecting William Street recommendations.

The work focuses on future use of five city-owned parcels in the downtown area: (1) the Kline parking lot (on the east side of Ashley, north of William), (2) the parking lot next to Palio restaurant (northeast corner of Main & William), (3) the ground floor of the Fourth & William parking structure, (4) the former YMCA lot (on William between Fourth and Fifth), which is now a surface parking lot, and (5) the top of the Library Lane underground parking garage on South Fifth, north of the downtown library.

The DDA board adopted the recommendations at its Jan. 9, 2013 board meeting. The city council was briefed on the recommendations at a Jan. 7, 2013 working session, but has not taken any other action on the plan.

Amber Miller of the DDA gave a presentation during the March 5 planning commission meeting, similar to those given to the council and the DDA board. She described the public input process that the DDA had undertaken, and highlighted recommendations in the CWS report. Broadly, those recommendations are organized into eight categories: (1) adjacencies – improving the pedestrian experience and spaces between buildings; (2) streetscape and transportation; (3) parking; (4) density & massing; (5) land uses; (6) architecture; (7) street “edge” – building design that showcases active ground floor uses; and (8) sustainability.

The CWS report also includes recommendations for each of the five sites, with specific references to how those recommendations fit within the eight broader categories of the plan. [.pdf of Connecting William Street recommendations]

Miller noted that recommendations on the issue of open space have been deferred to a committee of the city’s park advisory commission. That downtown parks committee is in the early stages of its work. The committee was scheduled to meet earlier in the day on March 5, but that meeting was canceled. [For background, see Chronicle coverage: "Committee Begins Research on Downtown Parks."]

DDA executive director Susan Pollay arrived after Miller’s presentation, but was on hand to answer questions.

Connecting William Street: March 5 Meeting Logistics

The city council’s directive in April of 2011 had called for the DDA to engage in a public process with experts, stakeholders and residents, and then to develop a plan for those five parcels. The council’s resolution described a step in the process when the city council and the planning commission would adopt the recommendations on the five parcels into the city’s downtown plan. The downtown plan is one component of the city’s master plan. Other components include: the land use element, the transportation plan, the non-motorized transportation plan, parks and recreation open space (PROS) plan, and the natural features master plan.

Based on the phasing described in the council’s April 2011 resolution, any request for proposals (RFP) to be made for the five parcels would come after the planning commission and the city council formally adopt recommendations on the five parcels into the downtown plan.

The original agenda item for the planning commission’s March 5, 2013 meeting – posted on the city’s online Legistar system – referenced the downtown plan: “The Planning Commission will consider whether to consider the Connecting William Street Plan as an amendment to the Downtown Plan.” Prior to the meeting, no resolution or staff memo for this item had been posted.

But the resolution handed out at the meeting did not mention the downtown plan. That resolution, recommended by staff and ultimately approved by commissioners, stated:

RESOLVED, That the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission hereby approves the “City of Ann Arbor Resource Information In Support Of The City Master Plan Resolution,” dated March 5, 2013.

An attachment to the resolution included an updated resource list, with the Connecting William Street plan as one of 13 resources. The other 12 resource documents – listed on the city’s website for its master planning documents – include the downtown design guidelines, the Washtenaw Avenue corridor redevelopment strategy, and a flood mitigation plan, among others.

During the March 6 meeting, concerns were raised about the timing of adding this CWS resolution to the planning commission’s agenda. It had not been mentioned at the commission’s previous meeting, on Feb. 21. Typically, each meeting includes a notice of public hearings that will take place at the subsequent meeting. And at a meeting of the planning commission’s ordinance revisions committee on Feb. 22, there was even some discussion about the possibility of canceling the March 6 meeting, for lack of any agenda items. That Feb. 22 ORC meeting had been attended by several commissioners, including chair Kirk Westphal.

But the March 6 meeting ultimately proceeded as scheduled, with consideration of the CWS plan as the only action item on the agenda when it was posted on Legistar on March 1.

The commission’s bylaws address the issue of how and when the agendas are made available. In part, the bylaws state:

Article X Agenda and Order of Business
Section 1. Agendas for all Commission meetings shall be developed by the Planning and Development Services Unit Manager and the Commission Chair. Agendas for all regular meetings of the Commission, along with reports related to matters listed on the agenda for Commission action, shall be available to concerned parties or other interested citizens the Friday preceding each regular meeting. Whenever possible, the Planning and Development Services Unit Manager shall advise persons known to be involved in a particular matter of any changes in procedure or scheduling which become necessary after preparation of the agenda. [.pdf of planning commission bylaws]

Connecting William Street: Public Hearing

The need for more open space and a centrally located downtown park was highlighted by the five people who spoke during the planning commission’s March 5 public hearing on Connecting William Street. Most of the speakers were affiliated with the Library Green Conservancy, which is advocating for a park on top of the Library Lane parking structure – one of the five sites in the Connecting William Street plan.

Ethel Potts told commissioners that the public hearing had not been well-publicized – and she presumed they would hold another one. She found the process to be very frustrating. The survey that had been conducted by the DDA was “amateurish,” she said, and didn’t even try to ask the public what they wanted to talk about. There were lots of group meetings, but “they were sort of a set-up,” Potts said. Participants were given something to respond to, she added, but the meetings weren’t designed to allow people to simply say what they wanted to say. So for her, the public outreach “was quite unsatisfactory.” If the planning commission wants to really know what the public thinks, commissioners might have to supplement the DDA’s process with public hearings and other outreach efforts. She also argued that many of the underlying documents used by the DDA to develop this plan were dated, and shouldn’t be used until they were updated.

Planning manager Wendy Rampson signed agendas for Skyline High School students as proof that they attended the March 5 planning commission meeting for a class assignment.

Jack Eaton encouraged the commission not to accept the report as a resource document. It’s the result of a fundamentally flawed process, he said. The DDA has been obstinate in its refusal to include parkland and open space uses as considered appropriate for these five parcels, even though broad public support has been expressed for such uses, he said. This set of recommendations views density as good, regardless of other factors, “and that’s just not the case.” He recommended that commissioners read the book “Made for Walking: Density & Neighborhood Form” by Julie Campoli. It states that a vibrant, walkable town requires more than just density, he said. You need a diversity of uses – open space, public uses, the ability to have privacy. “There’s more to this than just filling empty lots with tall, densely populated buildings.” Eaton said the city council had a cool reaction to the CWS presentation – and he thought that was likely the reason that it’s now being recommended only as a resource document, rather than an addition to the master plan. There isn’t significant enough support on the council or in the public to incorporate these recommendations into the master plan, he said. Eaton urged commissioners not to accept it – even as a resource document – where it would just “sit there like a time bomb.”

Eaton also contended that William Street is not the core downtown, but rather the edge of downtown. The CWS recommendations suggest putting up buildings that go right to the sidewalk, he said. That doesn’t make the area more walkable – it makes it less pedestrian friendly. The CWS plan is fundamentally flawed in its process, he concluded, and is too narrow in its recommendations. He urged commissioners not to act until they received recommendations from the city’s park advisory commission and environmental commission. After that, the planning commission should proceed from those broader views.

Will Hathaway said he’s a lifelong resident of Ann Arbor, and a member of the Library Green Conservancy. They’ve been following the process closely and trying their best to encourage people to participate, he said, but it had been frustrating and difficult to believe they were being taken seriously. In fact, it seemed like the process was preordained to end up were it did, Hathaway contended.

It was unfortunate that there was confusion about that night’s public hearing, Hathaway said, because the commission could have heard from a lot more people who had similar experiences with this process. Alluding to a reference by Amber Miller that the CWS plan reflected what the DDA heard from the public, Hathaway contended that “it’s only what the DDA allowed itself to hear.” A lot of input had been intentionally screened out, he said. The only reason there’s now a focus on open space is because “we wouldn’t go away. We had to really make ourselves a nuisance instead of just participating.” That’s because there wasn’t a good-faith effort to welcome public input and have a real dialogue, he said.

If the commission makes the CWS plan a resource document and relies on it for planning purposes, then they will be enshrining a misleading process, Hathaway said. It’s not fair to say the plan is based on legitimate public input, he said, and the underlying documents examined by the DDA were “cherry-picked.” Hathaway also felt there was a missed opportunity with the land use economist hired by the DDA on this project – an expert who helped create the High Line park in New York City [Todd Poole of 4ward Planning]. “But they didn’t even ask him for any input about how a public park in Ann Arbor’s downtown could generate benefits.” The DDA hadn’t been open to new ideas, he concluded, and this hadn’t been an honest public process.

Stephan Trendov told commissioners that he’d gotten really involved in the Library Green effort, and had analyzed different options for that property. The Library Green group has come up with different ideas for that site, such as putting buildings there that are 3-4 stories high. The DDA is now saying that there can be a small area for grass.

Trendov said some people don’t want fountains on the site. But why do people go to Rome? It’s to see fountains, he said. The DDA asked for people to get involved, but when people said the main thing they wanted was green space, the DDA “hid it underneath the table.” Trendov contended that the mayor has said people come to him and rant, but don’t offer solutions. But the Library Green group has given three or four solutions about how this space could bring the community together, Trendov said. It would soften the downtown. “We’ve given ideas,” he concluded. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

The final speaker was Alan Haber, who said it seemed that commissioners were just looking to respond to the DDA’s work product, rather than actually discuss what should be happening downtown. He hoped that they didn’t take it on as a resource document. It’s flawed in two ways, he said. The DDA took as its mandate to put a building on every property, “but that wasn’t in the mandate.” The mandate was to look in an integrated way at how these properties can be developed to benefit the downtown, he said. That doesn’t necessarily mean a profit-making building on every property. It could be a civic building.

Haber remembered the days when Ann Arbor had a center – a courthouse and a green, a sense of having a center. That has been dissolved, he said. In its place is a vision of buildings everywhere. But there’s another vision, Haber said – a place that can be a center, that’s built by the community and is a living, vibrant focal point. And “the only place to make it is on that Library [Lane] lot.” If the commission wants a center, Haber said, then they shouldn’t accept the DDA’s report. That’s what the people want.

Connecting William Street: Commission Discussion

Planning commissioners had an extensive discussion about the CWS plan, covering public process, open space, density, zoning, and a range of other topics. This report organizes their remarks thematically.

Connecting William Street: Commission Discussion – Public Input

Sabra Briere began by apologizing to the public. Several people had emailed her, she said, asking if there would be a public hearing. She had relied on an email she’d received from planning staff the previous week that had described the agenda item as a “discussion,” and that’s what she communicated to others. “I did not realize it was a public hearing until tonight.” She had imagined that if the commission planned to hold a public hearing on this topic, it would be broadly noticed. Briere felt that more people would have attended, if she had responded in a different way.

Amber Miller of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority.

Tony Derezinski asked for more information about how the commission’s meeting had been publicized. Planning manager Wendy Rampson said the meeting was advertised in the Washtenaw Legal News, and the meeting notice had been emailed on Friday, March 1 to anyone signed up for the city’s GovDelivery system. The agenda posted on Legistar stated that the CWS item included a public hearing, but Rampson said she wasn’t sure how many people looked at the agenda in that level of detail.

Derezinski said he had had no doubt that the commission would be considering this matter at the meeting. He noted that the people who spoke during the public hearing are ones who have consistently been very “energetic” in stating their beliefs, and he’s seen them at several meetings.

He asked Amber Miller how many public hearings were held on the CWS project, saying he had attended two. Miller replied that after the initial CWS plan was drafted, there were about 30 public meetings and three public webinars. Briere noted that the term “public hearing” has a specific meaning. There have been a lot of public meetings, Briere said, but that’s different than a public hearing.

Bonnie Bona asked about the written comments that were made by the public, as part of the CWS survey. Would those be included in the report? Miller replied that the comments from the survey are on the DDA website for the CWS project.

Kirk Westphal, who served on the CWS leadership outreach committee, praised the DDA, saying he didn’t think there’s been a planning process that has reached as many individuals as this one did. “It’s been an extremely well-commented-on plan,” he said. It’s unfortunate that so much of the discussion has focused on just one site [Library Lane] and the issue of open space on that site. He said he’s comfortable that the park advisory commission is taking up the topic of open space.

Connecting William Street: Commission Discussion – Library Lane

Bonnie Bona quoted from an email that the commission had received from Kitty Kahn. The email referenced the Calthorpe report on downtown development strategies, which the city had commissioned in 2005. From the email:

The Calthorpe Plan also came to the conclusion that there should be green space downtown. In fact, the Calthorpe Plan said the perfect place for such green space would be a green roof on the Library Lane parking structure. The DDA ignores the findings of the Calthorpe Plan and ignores the wishes of the citizens of Ann Arbor. [.pdf of full email from Kitty Kahn]

Bona asked planning manager Wendy Rampson if she recalled what the Calthorpe report actually said. Rampson could not remember, but indicated that she would look it up. [When the report was completed in 2006, the site was still a surface parking lot and was not yet named Library Lane. The report does include this recommendation for the site: "Redevelop the library parking lot. This lot might be appropriate for a design competition and should include a central 'town square,' underground parking, and residential uses."]

Connecting William Street: Commission Discussion – Parks & Open Space

Tony Derezinski noted that the CWS report provides criteria for open space on these parcels. The report also makes a reference to Liberty Plaza, and he said it seemed like the criteria for open space is a response to problems at Liberty Plaza, located at Liberty & Division. He asked Amber Miller to talk about that.

Miller described some issues that have been raised about Liberty Plaza – that it’s not very welcoming and there aren’t ways to “activate” the site, she said. Primarily, there are no building fronts that face the site. Instead, the plaza faces the sides of two adjacent buildings – Kempf House Museum to the south, and the building that houses Ann Arbor SPARK offices to the west.

Ann Arbor planning commissioner Tony Derezinski.

Miller also said the size of an urban plaza is important. Ideally, a plaza would be about the size of Sculpture Plaza (at Catherine & Fourth) or the Library Lane plaza that’s recommended by the CWS report. The smaller size forces people to be closer together, she said, which adds energy and interaction to the space.

Derezinski pointed out that the CWS recommendations call for this kind of space to be maintained primarily by private entities. That’s right, Miller said. She noted that when there are privately sponsored events at Liberty Plaza – like the summer concert series Sonic Lunch, sponsored by the Bank of Ann Arbor – it’s very active. But the city doesn’t have the budget to program it every day, she said. That’s why the CWS recommendations call for private entities to step up, and at least partner with the city.

Derezinski asked if the DDA looked at other cities for examples of successful urban plazas. Miller cited San Francisco as having several examples of publicly accessible space that’s privately owned.

Noting that he’d been a part of the DDA’s leadership outreach committee for CWS, Kirk Westphal said he knew there was a high priority placed on using existing city plans as the basis for drafting the recommendations. For the concepts of shaping buildings and open space, what did the DDA use as resource documents?

Miller replied that for massing and how a building interacts with the sidewalk, the DDA primarily referenced existing zoning and the downtown design guidelines, because those documents were most recently approved. Regarding open space and plazas, the CWS plan drew from existing zoning regulations as well as the parks and recreation open space (PROS) plan.

Westphal said that in reading the PROS plan, it was hard to find a lot of information specifically about downtown open space – saying it seemed like a fairly low priority. Miller pointed out that this is why the park advisory commission is taking another look at that issue, via its downtown park subcommittee. The subcommittee will be looking at Liberty Plaza, as well as prioritizing existing park commitments and connections, she said.

Westphal wondered if that process is in conflict with adopting the CWS plan. No, Miller said – it closely aligns with the CWS recommendations. Westphal ventured that the recommendations of that subcommittee, if incorporated into the PROS plan, would take precedence over CWS because the PROS plan is part of the city’s master plan.

Ken Clein said it’s worth having more discussion about open space, and he looked forward to the park advisory commission’s report. He’s not a proponent of a central park like the one advocated by some people, because of the size. But he thinks there’s room for more open space downtown. Areas that are privately owned and maintained have worked well in other cities, he said. It’s challenging for local governments to do that, he added, because tax revenues can be unstable. Having open space amenities doesn’t just mean having a huge park, he said. Small inlet parks along the street can be wonderful places to escape, and the downtown needs a diversity of places like this.

Eric Mahler expressed several concerns regarding open space, saying the city has looked at this issue “time and again.” He’d heard these issues repeatedly when the city issued a request for proposals for developing the top of the Library Lane parking garage several years ago. [Mahler was on the advisory committee that evaluated the RFPs, but the city council eventually rejected that committee's recommendation and no project was selected.] He said there haven’t been meaningful solutions from the public about the concerns he has. For example, if open space is privatized – as the CWS plan recommends – there will be challenges in keeping it active. There will also be issues of security, he said.

Excerpt from a drawing in the Connecting William Street report, showing possible buildings on city-owned land. William Street is indicated in green. The dark purple spaces indicate the proposed location of open space. The building in the foreground is on the former Y lot. The taller building toward the top of this image is on the Library Lane site.

Mahler also noted that he’s had private conversations with other planning commissioners, who have stressed that any open space must be meticulously planned. But that won’t happen under private ownership, he said.

Mahler added that if the city starts offering premiums for open space in the CWS area – but not elsewhere in the city – then there will be a disincentive for developers to build profit-making buildings on the CWS sites. Developers will look elsewhere to build, he said.

Wendy Woods referenced an image in the CWS report, which showed a building on the former Y lot with just a small section designated for open space. Given the input that the DDA has heard from many citizens, Woods said, why isn’t that open space larger? To have a drawing with only a small amount of open space “just irritates people,” she said.

Susan Pollay responded, saying that the drawings are meant to suggest possibilities. In the case of the Y lot, the image shows an alternative to a solid rectangular building, she said. Pollay noted that students of UM professor Doug Kelbaugh had come up with other potential designs, including some with two buildings and lots of open space on that parcel. The drawings aren’t meant to be prescriptive, Pollay said, but rather are meant to show what’s possible when conforming with the city’s design guidelines.

Bonnie Bona pointed out that the city has recently adopted a sustainability framework that includes fiscal responsibility. She noted there was a recent media report about the University of Michigan buying property and taking it off the tax rolls. Bona said she’s more concerned about the city buying property for parkland and taking it off the tax rolls that way.

In addition, there are a huge number of properties in the floodway that can’t be developed, Bona said, which means the property taxes won’t be as great. The good news, she added, is that some of those properties are in the Allen Creek greenway, which fits with the city’s plan to create the greenway. As a member of the North Main Huron River task force, Bona said there’s a lot of parkland in that area, and more might be added there.

But the city needs to look at parkland in a broader context, Bona said, not just one site. “We can’t have parkland everywhere.” Bona said she’s excited that the park advisory commission is looking at the issue of downtown parks – the PROS plan has recommended that such an analysis be done for many years. She hoped they’d look at it in the context of the whole city.

Responding to Bona’s remarks, Woods noted that as a community, people in Ann Arbor talk about bringing more density downtown, while at the same time taking pride in green space and access to recreation. “Those two things are unfortunately going to be in conflict at times,” Woods said. The CWS plan calls for bringing more people downtown, so it’s incumbent on the city to provide more green space and open space for those people, Woods said. Some people think Ann Arbor has enough parks, she added, but those parks aren’t necessarily located in the downtown area.

While the city might want to develop land that will build its tax base, Woods said, it’s important for people living in these downtown areas to have access to green space, too.

Connecting William Street: Commission Discussion – Zoning & Density

Bonnie Bona referenced a recent project at 624 Church by the Pizza House owners to build a 14-story apartment building. In a previous renovation of Pizza House, she noted, they had “oversized” the foundations to allow this kind of taller building eventually to be constructed. She said she’s a strong supporter of buildings that can last for 100-plus years – so new structures must be flexible. She’d like buildings with an initial 400% FAR (floor-area ratio) to have the potential to build up to 700% FAR in the future.

By way of background, FAR – a measure of density – is the ratio of the square footage of a building divided by the size of the lot. A one-story structure built lot-line-to-lot-line with no setbacks corresponds to a FAR of 100%. A similar structure built two-stories tall would result in a FAR of 200%.

Amber Miller replied that all five sites in the CWS plan are within the D1 zoning district, and the CWS recommendations aren’t meant to override that. Rather, the recommendations reflect the community feedback, she said. Bona pointed out that it might be appropriate to achieve D1 density in phases. [D1 allows for the highest level of density in the city.]

Ann Arbor planning commissioner Bonnie Bona.

Bona also stressed that she’d like all the buildings designed to be flexible, so that they could possibly be converted to different uses in the future. She pointed to the difficulties that Sloan Plaza has had in converting some of its office space to residential use. Sloan Plaza is an office and condo building at 505 E. Huron.

Sabra Briere pointed to the recommendation that there would be buildings on each of the five sites – and for some people, that sounds like it will happen immediately, she said. That’s not necessarily what some people want to do, she said, and the concept implies rapid change, in some people’s minds.

Miller said the concept of building on each parcel came from the goal of wanting to increase downtown activity – more space for people to live, work and do activities. Asked by Briere what the timeline might be for this development, Miller said the timeline would be driven by the city council and by the sale of those sites.

Briere noted  that city councilmembers had voted at their March 4, 2013 meeting to direct the city administrator to prepare an RFP (request for proposals) for brokerage services to sell the former YMCA lot. No one was referencing the CWS plan during the council discussion, she said, as they spoke about how the site should be promoted to potential buyers. It concerns her that all of this work took place on the plan, but it’s not seen by councilmembers as a reference point. Briere noted that the main part of the plan that councilmembers pulled out is the recommendation that potential developers would need to go to the design review board twice.

Briere’s final concern was that density isn’t a goal – it’s a means to an end. The end is to keep downtown vibrant. The council might decide to sell these sites rather than have the city try to plan the sites. That’s especially true for the former Y lot, she said. The council could easily decide just to sell it rather than work with prospective developers. And if it’s land on the open market, then it’s governed by the master plan.

Ken Clein said it’s good that the city is planning for the future, to see where problems and opportunities exist. In his experience, communities that plan for the future are more successful. But the reality is that if properties are just going to be sold, then its D1 zoning that really will control development. Responding to a query from Clein, Miller said that drawings of what could be built on these parcels – based on D1 zoning – are available on the DDA’s website. The drawings included in the CWS recommendations reflect community input, she said, but that doesn’t override the zoning.

Clein noted that if the city put out development proposals, they could put stipulations on what could go on these lots. But if the city simply sells the property, “then all bets are off.” He indicated that the “stir” about the 413 E. Huron project – a proposed 14-story apartment building at Huron and Division – is caused in part because people didn’t understand what could be built on that site under D1 zoning.

Clein also had concerns about the D1 zoning of the lot next to Palio restaurant, at the northeast corner of Main & William. Allowing a building of 5-8 stories would be a harsh contrast to the existing height on that street, he said.

Westphal wondered what the process would be to encourage development in the way that the CWS plan recommends. Miller replied that the land use economist hired by the DDA – Todd Poole of 4ward Planning – had looked at the recommendations and concluded that they were viable. But if the community wants something that’s not supportable by the market, then the city might need to be flexible in price, she said. The amount that a developer might pay for land to build a student high-rise apartment building wouldn’t likely be the same as for a mixed-use building with a cultural venue.

Another factor is that the DDA has created a tax increment finance (TIF) grant policy to incentivize uses that the public values, Miller said – in situations where those uses aren’t supported by the market.

Ann Arbor planning commissioner Ken Clein is an architect with Quinn Evans Architects.

Westphal noted that buildings with better architectural features or materials might better serve the community’s long-term interest, and provide greater value for the tax base, compared to lesser-quality construction that might serve a developer’s shorter-term financial interests. Miller agreed, saying the community values a longer-term return.

Bona returned to the issue of density, noted that if the city council decides to sell the Y lot and it’s zoned D1, the building could be taller than what’s depicted in the CWS plan’s images, with more open space on the lot. She asked planning manager Wendy Rampson if that’s a correct interpretation. Rampson replied that the Y lot is in the midtown character area, which sets a maximum height of 180 feet.

Bona said she wanted to warn the council about the potential for a taller building, compared to what’s suggested in the CWS plan. She also noted that if the Y lot is zoned D1, then the developer could potentially use a “super premium” – by providing affordable housing – to achieve 900% FAR, which would result in an even larger building.

Bona recommended that the council wait until the D1 zoning is reviewed before selling the lot and zoning it. [Her comment was an allusion to a proposal that the council has now postponed twice. The proposed resolution would set a six-month moratorium on the consideration of new site plans for downtown Ann Arbor. It also gives specific direction to the planning commission during the moratorium to review the D1 zoning code and to make recommendations to the city council on possible revisions to the code. The proposal is expected to be considered again at the council's March 18 meeting.]

Connecting William Street: Discussion – Pedestrian Connections

Ken Clein asked about the term “connecting,” and wondered what that implied. Amber Miller explained that the primary idea is to improve the connection between Main Street and State Street. If the city is trying to make those connections – creating pedestrian activity through some sort of development – Clein said he wasn’t sure if there was adequate space along William for streetscape developments that people will feel comfortable walking and lingering in. The sidewalks are quite narrow, and he wondered how that would impact recommendations for buildings to be constructed there.

Clein recalled that several years ago for the city’s Huron, Fifth & Division study, there was a lot of discussion about the need to encourage buildings to be set back from the property line – especially along Huron, with a high traffic volume. The idea was to create enough sidewalk space so that pedestrians would feel comfortable there.

Miller replied that a lot of the sidewalk expansion is recommended in the city’s non-motorized plan, and includes narrowing the street to accommodate broader sidewalks.

Diane Giannola asked about the image that shows a possible mid-block cut-through. Is that conceived as being on public or private land? Would it be a long park or just a walkway?

Miller replied that the image is simply meant to reflect the need for some kind of connection. The idea has been around for a long time, she noted, with the challenge of connecting Main Street to State Street. She said the CWS plan doesn’t address specifics of how this cut-through would be accomplished.

From the Connecting William Street plan: The yellow areas indicate possible locations for a mid-block cut-through from Ashley to Division.

Susan Pollay, the DDA’s executive director, elaborated on this issue. Some pieces are already in place, she said. Library Lane, running between Fifth and Division, is publicly owned. Also, the AATA is hopes to acquire a strip of land on the Federal Building site, to the north of Blake Transit Center. If that happens, the AATA could create a walkway between Fourth and Fifth, she said.

The other parts of the cut-through are “very conceptual,” Pollay said. For years, people have talked about using the gate by the Chinese restaurant and chocolate shop on Main Street to connect to the city-owned Kline lot on Ashley. But that Main Street frontage is private property.

Pollay noted that the Fourth & William parking structure has an exit into an alley, which could form part of a connection. So the answer to Giannola’s question is complicated, Pollay concluded, and would involve some public property, and some private. “It would take all of us working together to make it happen.”

Bona also addressed the mid-block issue, saying that the concept was mentioned in the most recent PROS plan as a downtown priority. It’s also important to think about connections between existing parks, she said.

Connecting William Street: Commission Discussion – Transportation

Bonnie Bona noted that at one point, there had been discussion of a possible bike boulevard along William Street. It was intriguing to her, because that street doesn’t have the kind of automobile traffic that Liberty or Washington have. However, she didn’t see that concept in the final CWS plan.

Amber Miller replied that the reason the report doesn’t include a bike boulevard is that more exploration is needed to see if it’s possible. Feedback from the city’s transportation staff is that William might not be wide enough and there are too many turning lanes to accommodate a bike boulevard.

Connecting William Street: Commission Discussion – Affordable Housing

Eric Mahler thought the CWS recommendations related to affordable housing were vague, especially E-6. It states:

City Planning Commission is encouraged to examine an amendment to the zoning premium available for providing affordable housing on site (See Zoning Code: Title V, Article IV, 5:65 Floor Area Premium Options, (b) in Appendix, page 11)

• To provide greater flexibility in on-site uses and affordable housing resources, strongly consider providing the premium for developments that choose to make an in-lieu payment for affordable housing; This provides resources to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and can be spent on additional units, services, and maintenance as needed.
• To ensure consistency, clearly define how the in-lieu payment will be calculated.

He said he’s in favor of premiums that result in payments to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, but it wasn’t clear to him what the goals were, other than generating money for that fund. Is the city really trying to incentivize people to build affordable housing downtown? That issue has been discussed a lot, and there are reasons why it doesn’t happen. Those goals need to be more explicit, he said.

Connecting William Street: Commission Discussion – Resource Doc or Master Plan?

Bonnie Bona addressed the issue of adding CWS as a resource document. One thing to keep in mind is that these sites are public property. For her, the master plan is helpful in dealing with zoning for private property. For city-owned land, the council can do anything it wants, she said – and it doesn’t have to follow zoning or the master plan. So she didn’t see the value in adding CWS to the master plan.

Planning manager Wendy Rampson noted that the planning commission deals primarily with private property, but the master plan includes recommendations related to a broader range of issues, including public assets like parks, the transportation system and other elements. A resource document doesn’t have the same weight as a master plan, which would guide rezoning or land acquisition. In contrast, resource documents are used as references to “fill out the question marks” when issues arise, Rampson said – but those documents don’t dictate direction.

Bona felt there are pieces of CWS that might help improve the master plan. Specifically, she cited the section on affordable housing and how to incentivize it. She also pointed to the concept of a cultural venue. “If we don’t incentivize something like that, I expect it’s not going to happen because it’s not what private developers do.”

Wendy Woods said the commission wasn’t really approving the CWS plan – but rather receiving it. “Approving” had a different meaning for her. If the commission approves the CWS plan as a resource document, she said, that takes on a different weight for the commission’s deliberations. When she served on the city council, Woods said, she and other councilmembers would often refer to documents “as if they were written in stone.” In the future, people won’t understand that this document was meant to be just a guideline. A future planning commission could look at the CWS plan and say, “On this block, this is what we as a city said we should be doing.”

Rampson explained that the main resolution is actually “approving” a second resolution. The main resolution states [emphasis added]:

RESOLVED, That the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission hereby approves the “City of Ann Arbor Resource Information In Support Of The City Master Plan Resolution,” dated March 5, 2013.

That second resolution, referenced by the main resolution, states:

RESOLVED, The planning documents listed below shall be used by the Planning Commission and Planning staff as resource information in support of the City Master Plan: … [.pdf of full resolution and staff report]

Woods said that cleared things up for her.

Kirk Westphal noted that he had been part of the commission’s ordinance revisions committee, which had been tasked with trimming the city’s downtown plan – part of the master plan. It’s a good choice to keep that downtown plan lean and approachable, he said, so the CWS plan would be better as a valuable resource document.

Bona noted that while she would love to have her comments incorporated into the CWS plan, the commission typically accepts resource documents as they are written, and doesn’t attempt to revise them. She supported adding the CWS plan as a resource document that night, saying that there had been a robust process.

Connecting William Street: Commission Discussion – Next Steps

Sabra Briere noted that the city council resolution directing the DDA to develop these recommendations had laid out a very detailed process, in four phases. She directed her question to Susan Pollay: If the planning commission accepts this report as a resource document, would that complete the third phase? If so, would the DDA then want to move to the fourth phase of implementation?

Planning commissioners Diane Giannola and Kirk Westphal.

Pollay replied that the DDA takes its direction from the council. The previous night, for example, the council voted to develop an RFP for hiring a broker to possibly sell the former Y lot. The DDA could help by offering grants that would help the council achieve its goals. So the DDA will follow the council’s lead, she said.

Briere, who also represents Ward 1 on the city council, wondered when the DDA would be coming to the council to discuss potential implications of selling the Y lot. Pollay indicated that the DDA would do whatever is useful to the council. The DDA staff could meet with the broker to help that person understand what’s available to market the land. Developers will be asking if parking is available, for example, or whether there will be any infrastructure improvements happening in that area. The DDA could help the council in any way it wants, she said. “I see us as being on call – in the batter’s box, as it were,” Pollay said. The DDA’s partnerships committee – which includes representatives from the council and planning commission – is a good place for those discussions to occur, she said.

Westphal asked Rampson what happens procedurally if the commission approved the CWS plan as a resource document. Would that action be transmitted to the council? Rampson indicated that unless the commission directed staff to transit it to city council, the document would simply be added to the planning commission’s list of resource documents, and posted online.

Briere asked how the commission and staff actually use these resource documents. Rampson replied that the staff uses the documents in preparing staff reports for projects that are submitted to the city. They might also use it in discussions with developers prior to the submission of proposals – to give developers a sense of community sentiments.

Connecting William Street: Commission Discussion – Postponement?

Ken Clein suggested that in light of the confusion associated with the public hearing, he might propose postponement. Eric Mahler said it would only be worth postponing if the commission intended to modify the document. Wendy Rampson, the city’s planning manager, clarified that the commissioner had several options. They could approved the recommendation to accept the CWS plan as a resource document, or they could send suggestions for revision to the council. Or they could just leave it as is and not accept it.

Tony Derezinski pointed out that this CWS report comports with the city council’s directive of providing recommendations. It’s very thorough, he said, and there had been a lot of public input. No one gets everything they want, but that’s part of the democratic process. He felt that if the commission were considering whether to add the report to the master plan, then the process might be different. But it’s proposed as a reference document, and he suggested the commission vote on that proposal, rather than postpone.

Several others indicated a preference to vote that night, so toward the end of the discussion Clein said he didn’t have a problem voting, either. No motion to postpone was made.

Connecting William Street: Commission Discussion – Vote

After the discussion concluded, a vote was called on the resolution accepting the CWS plan as a resource document. All commissioners except Briere voted in favor of the resolution. Briere hesitated. She explained that she was concerned that if the park advisory commission recommends one or more of the sites to be used as open space, then that’s a conflict with the CWS plan, which shows a building on each site. She said she’d vote in support of the resolution, but was hesitant about the outcome of this process.

Outcome: The resolution to accept the CWS plan as a resource document passed unanimously on an 8-0 vote. Eleanore Adenekan was absent.

Connecting William Street: More Public Commentary

In public commentary after the commission’s vote to accept the plan as a resource document, four people spoke to criticize commissioners and the DDA for how this process has been handled.

Alan Haber told commissioners he hoped they would pull out for the city council one part of the CWS plan – the part that called for a park on the unbuildable section of the Library Lane site. That would make it possible to move forward on plans for that one space – saying there’s agreement on that. “The other stuff, no agreement at all.” He’s concerned that the CWS plan is taken as a representation of public input. The commission should also accept a citizens report done by the Library Green Conservancy and others, he said, about what should go on the Library Lane lot. That should be a reference document, too.

Haber alluded to some commissioners who had described the public input as robust. “A lot of the robustity was citizens banging on the door and saying ‘Listen to us!’” The Library Lane spot is the center of a circle, he said. While there are other parks, a town center is needed. Haber said the conservancy is looking at other sites, too. There should be some green and public space on all of these five parcels, he said. He argued that the commission should look at other views of the sites, and not just take the CWS plan as the only reference document for that area.

Stephan Trendov said he’s lived in Ann Arbor for 20 years, and he designs cities all over the world. Pointing to the unbuildable part of Library Lane, he noted that a lot of things have been carved out of it – elevator shafts, exits from the parking structure, a road. Only about 35% of the surface is left, he said. The people overwhelmingly want green space, he said, but the trees were taken out. He criticized Bonnie Bona for flip-flopping. “Some of you people vote politically – I don’t understand you!” he said. He called out Wendy Woods and Sabra Briere for voting in favor of accepting the CWS plan, even though they spoke against it. Trendov said he’d continue to fight for green spaces.

Mary Hathaway referenced Kirk Westphal’s comment that the CWS project had the most thorough study that he could recall. “You apparently weren’t here for the Calthorpe study,” she said. That process was much more thorough and many more people had participated. The commission shouldn’t have voted that night, Hathaway said, because they didn’t have all the information they needed. “I’m so sorry you did this. I think it’s very regrettable.”

The final speaker was Ethel Potts, who said it’s not just regrettable, “it’s potentially dangerous.” Now, the CWS document has official standing as a resource. There are many other plans out there, she said, yet the commission is willing to settle for this one. Potts contended that the council was presented with the CWS report without a public hearing. Now the commission had voted without an officially notified public hearing, she said. The survey that the DDA conducted was bad, she continued. It’s true there were a lot of public meetings, but it was done with a “divide-and-conquer” strategy that only provided ideas for people to react to – contending that nothing was offered as an alternative. “You don’t know what the public wanted, because none if it is in this plan,” Potts said. “You are taking a plan from the DDA. You are not taking a plan from the public.”

Connecting William Street: Motion to Reconsider

After the public commentary, Wendy Woods said she wanted to bring back the item for reconsideration. She said her decision to ask for reconsideration of the item was prompted by concerns raised during this final public commentary. Under the planning commission’s bylaws, anyone on the prevailing side of a vote can make a motion to reconsider. Woods’ comment drew applause from the half dozen or so people affiliated with the Library Green Conservancy.

Planning commissioner Wendy Woods.

Sabra Briere seconded the motion. It was troubling to her because many people had left the previous planning commission meeting believing that there would be no public hearing on March 5. [Typically, public hearings are announced at the meeting two weeks prior to when the hearings are held.] Many people rely on having more notice, and she’d be much happier postponing the item. Her remarks also drew applause, which she attempted to quell.

Briere also cited concerns that the commission would be accepting this as a reference document for future planning, when the city council had been at best lukewarm to it. So she wasn’t sure she could go to the council and ask them to use it as a reference.

Diane Giannola said she looked at it in a different way. It was a council-sanctioned project that the DDA performed. It was a compilation of public input, and the commission isn’t supposed to amend it – they’re supposed to accept it. It bothered her that some people have come to this meeting and are saying their input is more important than the input reflected in the CWS report. She opposed reconsidering the vote.

Woods said the commission can never hurt itself by allowing anyone to have the opportunity to comment. She didn’t propose holding open the issue forever, because that would paralyze them. But there’s enough “cloudiness” around this issue that a two-week postponement, until the commission’s next meeting, would be valuable. She didn’t seen any harm in it. Maybe the commission’s final vote wouldn’t change, she said, but there’s enough of a question about the public process that it’s worth postponing.

Eric Mahler argued that the council isn’t being asked to use the CWS plan as a reference document – it’s being added as a resource for the planning commission and staff. He opposed postponement. He was satisfied that sufficient public notice had been provided, and said they needed closure on this project.

Briere responded, saying it’s true that the council won’t directly be using the document. But if the planning commission and staff use the CWS plan in making its recommendations to the council, then it does concern the council. That gives her pause. The DDA did what it was asked to do, she said, but the commission and council have the option of not using it.

Bonnie Bona said the main concern is whether the CWS plan includes enough open space. She noted that the plan gives the responsibility for making those kinds of recommendations back to the park advisory commission, “and that’s where it belongs.” The CWS report doesn’t contain anything that overrides the city’s master plan, which includes the parks and recreation open space (PROS) plan. There’s no reason to reopen the discussion, she said, because nothing will change in two weeks. “We know what the concern and controversy is – it’s open space.” And that’s addressed by asking the park advisory commission for its input, Bona concluded.

Ken Clein agreed with Bona. While he’d like to see more open space referenced in the CWS plan, his preference is probably for less than what others would like. But the commission can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, Clein said, and this is a good reference document. Even if the report were perfect, he added, at the end of the day it’s the city council’s call. They could sell off all the properties without any regard to the CWS plan, if that’s what they wanted to do. He did not support reopening the item for reconsideration.

Kirk Westphal said normally if there’s any doubt about public input, he’d be inclined to support postponement. But given the scope and number of people involved in developing the CWS plan, he was comfortable accepting it.

Woods said she’d respect whatever her colleagues decided, but she was not convinced she’d heard everything there is to be heard about this issue. This is a massive document, she said, and there could be someone else out there who didn’t know about the public hearing and who might want to say something. “It’s two weeks,” she said. “It’s not a lifetime.” The outcome might be the same, but she’d heard enough to give her pause, and didn’t see the need to hurry. That’s why she wanted to postpone.

Outcome: The motion to reopen this agenda item for reconsideration failed 2-6, with support only from Woods and Briere. Eleanore Adenekan was absent.

Present: Bonnie Bona, Sabra Briere, Ken Clein, Tony Derezinski, Diane Giannola, Eric Mahler, Kirk Westphal, Wendy Woods.

Absent: Eleanore Adenekan.

Next regular meeting: Tuesday, March 19, 2013 at 7 p.m. in the second-floor council chambers at city hall, 301 E. Huron St., Ann Arbor. [Check Chronicle event listings to confirm date]

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Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board member Keith Orr delivered extended remarks in response to a proposal currently being weighed by the Ann Arbor city council that would amend the city’s ordinance governing the DDA. (Photos by the writer.)

The grant award had come at the request of AAHC executive director Jennifer L. Hall, who’s proposing a major change to the way the 360 units of public housing are administered. The approach involves privatization and project-based vouchers.

The DDA’s support for public housing also surfaced at the meeting as a talking point for board members in the context of a proposal being considered by the Ann Arbor city council – which would amend the city ordinance regulating how the DDA’s tax increment finance (TIF) capture works. The amendments would clarify existing language in the city ordinance in a way that would favor the other taxing authorities, whose taxes are captured as a part of the DDA’s TIF. The council postponed action on that proposal at its March 4, 2013 meeting. In that context, at the DDA’s March 6 meeting, board member Sandi Smith raised the specter that the DDA would in the future not be able to support affordable housing in the same way it has done in the past.

In addition to clarifying the question of how TIF is calculated, the amendments would prevent elected officials from serving on the board and would impose term limits for board service. Board members took turns at the start of the meeting arguing that the DDA had been a good steward of public dollars and that the amendments to the ordinance are not warranted. Board members indicated that they didn’t think their service as volunteer members of a board was being afforded adequate respect by the city council.

The board comments followed a turn at public commentary at the start of the meeting from Brendan Cavendar of Colliers International, a commercial real estate services firm. His commentary departed from the typical pattern of someone signing up to address the board for up to four minutes. Instead, Cavendar had been invited to appear, and responded to prompts from board members to deliver a range of positive responses, including: future tenancy of the former Borders location; rising rents in the downtown area; and affirmation of the importance of the downtown public parking system.

The city’s public parking system is managed by the Ann Arbor DDA under a contract with the city of Ann Arbor. The monthly parking usage report is featured at every board meeting. But the March 6 meeting featured the parking system in an additional way. The board decided to award the full $50,000 of a discretionary management incentive to the DDA’s subcontractor – Republic Parking – for operation of the public parking system. It’s an annual decision, but it’s the first time in the last five years that the full amount has been awarded. The decision was based on good performance on metrics tracked by the DDA, according to the board.

In a third voting item, the board authorized $610,662 in support of getDowntown’s go!pass program, which provides a subsidy to cover the cost of rides taken on Ann Arbor Transportation Authority buses by employees of participating downtown businesses. To participate, a business must purchase a go!pass for all employees, at an annual cost of $10 per employee. Roughly 6,500 downtown employees are provided with go!passes through the program.

Baker Commons Grant

The DDA board was asked to consider a $300,000 grant to the Ann Arbor Housing Commission for repairs and renovation of the Baker Commons building, located in downtown Ann Arbor at Packard and Main.

The $300,000 will be used for a range of capital improvements to the 64-unit building: driveway and sidewalk replacement and repair; installation of energy-efficient lighting; insulation and air sealing; window replacement; adding a second entrance; door replacement; upgrade of fixtures appliances, flooring and cabinetry; replacement of heating and cooling units; generator replacement, elevator replacement, upgrade of common area furniture, and installation of additional security cameras.

This grant for $300,000 to Baker Commons comes in addition to a recent $260,000 grant from the DDA – authorized by the board at its Oct. 3, 2012 meeting – primarily for the replacement of the Baker Commons roof.

Jennifer Hall, executive director of the housing commission, was unable to attend the board’s March 6 meeting due to illness, according to DDA board chair Leah Gunn. Hall estimates that Baker Commons needs about $3 million in capital investments. She made the request of the DDA in conjunction with a request to the city of Ann Arbor – for $500,000. The DDA’s contribution taps its housing fund, which gets its revenue from the DDA’s tax increment finance capture (TIF) fund.

The city of Ann Arbor is being asked to tap the fund balance in the city’s affordable housing trust fund for half the $500,000. That use of the city’s affordable housing trust fund has been recommended by the city’s housing and human service advisory board (HHSAB). The other half is hoped to come from federal community development block grant (CDBG) funding, allocated through the Washtenaw Urban County.

The redevelopment of Baker Commons comes in the context of a broader effort Hall is undertaking to redevelop all of the Ann Arbor Housing Commission’s 360 units, distributed across the city. Baker Commons is the only AAHC housing complex in the downtown area. The overall redevelopment effort being pursued by Hall would privatize Ann Arbor’s public housing, converting the properties to project-based vouchers, which would make them eligible for low-income housing tax credit financing. For detailed coverage of this effort, see: “Round 3 FY 2014: Housing Commission.”

Baker Commons Grant: Board Deliberations

Board member John Mouat alerted his colleagues to the fact that his firm, Mitchell and Mouat Architects, is working with the housing commission on the rehabilitation of its properties, so he’d need to abstain from the vote.

Board chair Leah Gunn observed that the grant directly affects city-owned infrastructure. [The housing commission properties are owned by the city of Ann Arbor, unlike the property of most housing commissions. It's a factor affecting the AAHC's ability to convert its public housing units to project-based vouchers – because the city council will need to approve a deed transfer.] Mayor John Hieftje took the opportunity of the vote to note that the city of Ann Arbor contributes money to support human services. He continued by saying he didn’t think there was any organization that contributes as much to affordable housing as the DDA does. [Julie Steiner, executive director of the Ann Arbor Housing Alliance, has circulated a letter outlining the DDA's history of support for affordable housing (.pdf of March 7, 2013 letter)] Hieftje also noted that the AAHC has turned things around recently. [The organization has emerged from "troubled status."]

Keith Orr noted that the DDA grant would help the AAHC comply with requirements of the federal project-based voucher program, to which Hall wants to transition. [Orr was alluding to the fact that the transition to project-based vouchers requires that all the AAHC be brought up to minimum standards – which can be accomplished partly through an infusion of low-income tax credit financing, or by any other means. Hall has indicated that she'll be pursuing several options, including grants. The request to the DDA was one example of that.]

Outcome: The board voted unanimously to approve the $300,000 grant for renovation of Baker Commons.

DDA Ordinance Changes

The DDA’s support of affordable housing factored into DDA board remarks on proposed ordinance changes affecting the DDA. The remarks came before the vote on the Baker Commons grant.

At its March 4, 2013 meeting, two days before the DDA board meeting, the Ann Arbor city council considered several revisions to a city ordinance governing the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority (DDA). The city ordinance on the DDA is in Chapter 7. DDA board members did not embrace the proposed changes at their March 6 meeting. This report first presents some background, followed by DDA board member comments.

DDA Ordinance Changes: Background

Among the revisions to Chapter 7 that are being considered by the council are: a new prohibition against elected officials serving on the DDA board; term limits on DDA board members; a new requirement that the DDA submit its annual report to the city in early January; and a requirement that all taxes captured by the DDA be spent on projects that directly benefit property in the DDA tax increment finance (TIF) district.

But most significant of the revisions would be those that clarify how the DDA’s TIF capture is calculated. The “increment” in a tax increment finance district refers to the difference between the initial value of a property and the value of a property after development. The Ann Arbor DDA captures the taxes – just on that initial increment – of some other taxing authorities in the district. Those are the city of Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, Washtenaw Community College and the Ann Arbor District Library. For FY 2013, the DDA will capture roughly $3.9 million in taxes.

The proposed ordinance revision would clarify existing ordinance language, which includes a paragraph that appears to limit the amount of TIF that can be captured. The limit is defined relative to the projections for the valuation of the increment in the TIF plan, which is a foundational document for the DDA.

If the actual rate of growth outpaces that anticipated in the TIF plan, then at least half the excess amount is supposed to be redistributed to the other taxing authorities in the DDA district.

City of Ann Arbor financial staff chart showing Ann Arbor DDA TIF revenue under various methods of calculation.

What the proposed ordinance revisions clarify is which estimates in the TIF plan are the standard of comparison – the “realistic” projections, not the “optimistic” or “pessimistic” estimates. However, the ordinance revisions as currently formulated do not clarify whether a “cumulative” method of performing the calculations should be used or if a year-to-year method should be used. It’s anticipated that an amendment to the ordinance revisions will be made that clarifies in favor of the “cumulative” method, which would have a negative financial impact on the DDA.

Use of the cumulative method has an impact on whether the redistribution of excess TIF is made on a one-time or recurring basis. Under the cumulative method, other taxing authorities in the Ann Arbor DDA TIF district would see a total on the order of $1 million in additional tax revenue, compared to the way the DDA currently calculates the TIF capture. The city of Ann Arbor’s annual share would be more than half of that amount, around $600,000.

Method: Year-to-Year                   
Refunds                                                         
       City       County      WCC       AADL      Total Ref    DDA TIF
FY14   $429,409   $149,392    $94,257   $40,163   $713,221     $3,964,457
FY15    $11,958     $4,160     $2,625    $1,118    $19,862     $4,774,758

===============================

Method: Cumulative                     
Refunds                                                      
       City       County     WCC        AADL      Total Ref    DDA TIF
FY14   $613,919   $213,583   $134,757   $57,421   $1,019,680   $3,657,998
FY15   $635,108   $211,673   $139,195   $58,539   $1,044,515   $3,773,043

-

The clarification of the ordinance crucially strikes two paragraphs related to bond and debt payments. One of the two paragraphs was key to the DDA’s current legal position – which is that no redistribution of TIF is required under the ordinance, given the DDA’s financial position. The DDA interprets the stricken paragraphs to mean that no redistribution to other taxing authorities needs to be made, until the total amount of the DDA’s debt payments falls below the amount of its TIF capture. In the FY 2014 budget, adopted by the DDA board at its Feb. 6, 2013 meeting, about $6.5 million is slated for bond payments and interest.

That clearly exceeds the amount of anticipated TIF capture in the FY 2014 budget – about $3.9 million. The DDA is able to make those debt payments because about half of that $6.5 million is covered by revenues from the public parking system. The DDA administers the public parking system under contract with the city of Ann Arbor.

This issue first arose back in the spring of 2011. The context was the year-long hard negotiations between the DDA and the city over terms of a new contract under which the DDA would manage the city’s parking system. The Chapter 7 issue emerged just as the DDA board was set to vote on the parking system contract at its May 2, 2011 meeting.

When the issue was identified by the city’s financial staff, the DDA board postponed voting on the new contract. The period of the postponement was used to analyze whether the DDA’s Chapter 7 obligations could be met – at the same time the DDA was ratifying a new parking system contract, which required the DDA to pay the city of Ann Arbor 17.5% of gross parking revenues.

Initially, the DDA agreed that money was owed to other taxing authorities, not just for that year, but for previous years as well. And the DDA paid a combined roughly $473,000 to the Ann Arbor District Library, Washtenaw Community College and Washtenaw County in 2011. The city of Ann Arbor chose to waive its $712,000 share of the calculated excess.

Subsequently, the DDA reversed its legal position, and contended that no money should have been returned at all. That decision came at a July 27, 2011 DDA board meeting.

The following spring, during the May 21, 2012 budget deliberations, city councilmember Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) proposed an amendment to the city’s FY 2013 budget that stipulated specific interpretations of Chapter 7, with a recurring positive impact to the city of Ann Arbor’s general fund of about $200,000 a year. Kunselman wanted to use that general fund money to pay for additional firefighters. That year, the budget amendment got support from just two other councilmembers: Jane Lumm (Ward 2) and Mike Anglin (Ward 5).

Kunselman also is putting forward the currently proposed changes to the ordinance. For a Chronicle op-ed on this topic, see: “Column: Let’s Get DDA TIF Capture Right.”

DDA Ordinance Changes: Board Reaction

Members of the board took turns near the beginning of the meeting, after public commentary and reports from other boards and commissions, and responded to the proposed changes. In largest part, they reacted to the changes as a political attack.

Keith Orr led off the comments by indicating he’d paraphrase a city councilmember [Stephen Kunselman], saying he wasn’t going to “vilify the city council.” Instead, Orr said, he wanted to express his concern about the “shot across the bow” that he’d witnessed at the March 4 city council meeting. That shot might be politically motivated, he ventured, in the same sense of the “ideologue-driven politics” that has ground the federal government to a stop. Or the council’s consideration might be related to a lack of understanding of the nature of the DDA.

Orr allowed that the relationship between the city council and the DDA board is occasionally strained, but he attributed this to the different nature of the entities and the culture of the organizations. On the whole, the relationship between the DDA board and the city council has been mutually beneficial, he said. [The choice of the phrase "mutually beneficial" was almost certainly not accidental, as it was the label given to the committees appointed by the respective bodies in 2010-2011 to negotiate the new contract under which the DDA manages the public parking system.] More importantly, the relationship was beneficial to the downtown and to the residents of Ann Arbor, Orr said.

From left: DDA board members Joan Lowenstein, mayor John Hieftje, and Nader Nassif.

“First I want to say how proud I am to be a part of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority, serving as a volunteer on this board,” Orr stated. He noted that he’s been a downtown businessman for over 20 years and a resident of the city since 1976. [Orr is co-owner of the \aut\ BAR and Common Language Bookstore.] His pride is based on the fact that the DDA is doing something that very few other government entities are doing – focusing on infrastructure. We hear about crumbling infrastructure across the nation, Orr noted, but very few entities are doing anything about it. The reason for that, he contended, is that an elected body is mainly concerned with reelection. If the elected body owns an asset, then the elected body will take everything possible out of the asset and spend as little money as possible on the upkeep of that asset.

That’s the reason the DDA is the de facto parking authority, he contended. The city council had historically abdicated its responsibility to maintain the parking system that they owned and operated many years ago. The city still owns the parking system, he allowed, but now it is maintained and operated in a manner that would be the envy of most cities. He then quoted “his friend Howard Dean.” [Orr worked on Dean's Democratic presidential campaign and met him more than once.] Orr, quoting Dean: “The problem with our government is that we keep trying to come up with two-year solutions to problems which have five- and ten-year solutions. In the case of prisons they are 20-year solutions. In the case of the environment they are hundred-year solutions.”

The DDA’s spending of public money has benefited the city, Orr said. He noted that the DDA pays around $500,000 of the city’s bond on the new Justice Center building. And he contended that the DDA would do so for the rest of his lifetime. [The DDA authorized an $8 million grant in May 2008, to be paid in installments of roughly $500,000 per year – or 16 years of payments. Orr is possibly underestimating his longevity.] And that was to benefit the city of Ann Arbor, he said.

The city council needed to replace courtrooms and police headquarters, and the DDA helped the city do that, Orr said. Ann Arbor sidewalk curbs were not ADA-compliant, he continued, and compliance with that federal law costs millions of dollars. When the DDA undertook those curb ramp improvements in the downtown area, it saved the city’s general fund from having to pay for it, he contended. The DDA’s actions had improved the parking infrastructure, public and alternative transportation infrastructure, energy efficiency of downtown buildings, residential infrastructure – and so much more, Orr stated.

Orr then responded to criticism of the DDA’s handling of the Connecting William Street planning project – which entailed looking at the future use of five city-owned parcels in the downtown area. Orr noted that the city council had asked the Ann Arbor DDA to examine and propose a plan for the development of several parcels of land on or near William Street – called the Connecting William Street planning project. The DDA’s job was not to create its own ideas, he said, but rather to consult experts and engage the public. The DDA had proceeded in a variety ways – including symposiums on urban planning and development, and a “vigorous” series of community meetings. “If you accuse the resulting ideas of being stale, you are accusing the citizens of Ann Arbor of having stale ideas, not the DDA,” he said. The DDA had truly engaged the public by going out to the public, he said, not expecting them to come to the DDA.

Orr said he was proud to serve on a body that was collaborating with itself and with the residents and businesses in Ann Arbor. He felt that many members of the city council appreciate the odd but viable relationship between the DDA and the city council, concluding with: “I hope that calmer heads prevail.”

Bob Guenzel followed Orr by saying that he did not think he could be as eloquent as Orr, and characterized himself as a fairly new member of the DDA board. [Guenzel was appointed on Aug. 16, 2010.] Guenzel wanted to say how impressed he was by the success of the DDA. He didn’t take any credit for that, as a relatively new member, because what he’d observed is a very strong commitment to fiscal stability. “It’s now proposed that we change the rules about that, about how we can capture the TIF and the like,” Guenzel said, indicating he’d heard no reason for doing that. The DDA has a 10-year fiscal plan, he said, and he contended that the DDA manages the dollars very well. Guenzel maintained that he can see evidence of the good management through the success and the commitment to the downtown, the commitment to housing, the commitment to infrastructure, and through a very viable parking system – which helps support the city and is also very customer friendly.

Guenzel characterized the DDA’s relationship with the city as a “real partnership.” The DDA has had a very successful run, he continued, and he didn’t see a reason to change how the TIF capture is calculated. “Frankly, we are on the hook for some bond payments. Whether they are ours or the city’s, we’ve committed to those. And in my mind that should always be paid first.” He stated that he disagreed with the need for the changes, saying that he didn’t understand the reason.

Guenzel continued by saying that he was especially concerned about the proposed changes to the board composition. The idea that the DDA board could not have elected officials from other jurisdictions, he felt, would unfairly limit participation in board service. To have term limits, he felt, is a mistake. What the DDA gets in its board is a nice mix of new people – and also people who have a longer-term commitment, who were there at the beginning of some of the DDA’s projects. Whenever you put limits on who can serve and how long they can serve, that’s a mistake, Guenzel said. He felt that it’s up to the governing body to determine how long any of the DDA board members should serve – whether it’s one term or two or three, or even more. If you look around the room, he continued, some of the biggest contributions have come from board members who have served for several years.

The DDA can continue to improve how it does its work, Guenzel allowed, but he didn’t agree with changing the rules – to his mind, without any reason stated. Guenzel hoped the city council would reject the proposed changes. He encouraged the city council instead to come to the DDA board and identify problems they saw. He allowed that the board had received the courtesy of the city communicating the proposed changes. Guenzel concluded by coming back to how impressed he had been by the effort of the volunteer DDA board. He said he felt that Ann Arbor has the best downtown in Michigan – and he felt that the DDA deserves a lot of credit for that.

Board member Russ Collins, executive director of the Michigan Theater, picked up on the theme of volunteerism that both Orr and Guenzel had mentioned. He then went on to characterize the volunteer board’s work as not very exciting. When you’re dealing with prudent financial management, he said, and when you’re dealing with infrastructure issues, it seems to be “necessarily boring.” Construction is always difficult, Collins said. But to oversee a project like the DDA had with the new Library Lane underground parking structure – and to have that very good result, all things considered – is quite amazing, he concluded. Collins attributed the good results the DDA has achieved to solid management, the annual operating of the system, and the quality of the maintenance. A core piece of what any city board needs to do is prudent management of resources, he said, and the volunteers on the DDA board had taken that idea very seriously.

Collins then shifted gears a bit: “Is everything perfect? I don’t think so. I get mad at parking meters. I get mad at ice and snow being where you might not want it to be. I get frustrated with some of the aspirational nature of what we might like to do with the DDA, but we can’t do.” But measured by whether good use of taxpayer dollars is made by volunteers who are committed to the city of Ann Arbor, who work and live in the downtown, and who care – that’s what you have on the DDA board, Collins concluded. To have the DDA become “a political punching bag” for the sake of political aspirations, Collins said, didn’t seem to be a good use of the volunteers who serve on the DDA board. The members of the DDA board serve because of their bottom-line concern for a place that they love and a place they want to commit time, Collins said.

DDA board member Sandi Smith.

Sandi Smith, a former city councilmember, began her remarks by saying said she had a couple of concerns. Over the last decade, the DDA has been able to invest about $3 million in affordable housing in and near the downtown. That’s something the DDA had pulled back on a little bit when it embarked on construction of the underground parking structure. [Smith was alluding to the fact that the DDA historically transferred money from the TIF fund to its housing fund.] Smith indicated that the transfer into the housing fund is something that’s very easily eliminated from the budget – but this year, the transfer is back in the DDA’s budget [in the amount of $100,000]. Smith raised the specter that the fund transfer from TIF to housing could again be eliminated “if there’s a significant hit,” to the DDA’s TIF revenue.

Downtown Ann Arbor has a lack of diversity in housing options, Smith said. More opportunities are needed for people who work downtown – for example, at Barracuda Networks – and who want to live downtown, she said. It’s important to her that there is a broad range of opportunity for people to live downtown.

Smith also expressed concerned by contending that the “attack” is not grounded in a way that reflects an understanding of how tax increment finance actual works. The investments the DDA makes in infrastructure “brings the whole downtown up,” she said. It brings more money to the general funds of the taxing authorities. So the increase in the value of downtown properties helps everybody, she said. [Smith was in part alluding to the following feature of the Ann Arbor DDA's TIF capture: Capture is made only on the initial increment – not on the market appreciation of a property subsequent to an improvement, and not on the appreciation on an unimproved property. Not all DDA TIF districts in the state of Michigan work that way.] The proposed changes would undermine a system that seems to be working pretty well right now, she said. She called the changes “cutting the neck off the golden goose.”

Nader Nassif echoed what Guenzel had said. In his short time serving on the board, Nassif said he’d seen there is a real commitment by the board to do what is right. [Nassif was appointed on Sept. 6, 2011.] And there’s a real commitment to keep going forward with what is best for the city. He pointed out that he’s not an Ann Arbor native – noting that he was not born here, but had moved here. He’s lived here now for four or five years and he made himself move downtown. He said he would not live anywhere else in the state of Michigan. He allowed that the board received its share of criticism, but the board took that criticism and continued to move forward. He noted also that it was a volunteer position, and he also didn’t see a need for a change.

From left: DDA executive director Susan Pollay and board chair Leah Gunn before the March 6 meeting started.

Leah Gunn, who serves as chair of the board, wrapped up the board’s reaction to the proposed changes, saying that she agreed with her colleagues – that “we really ought not to mess with” something that works really well. She said that the DDA had been very good stewards of the city’s infrastructure. When she first joined the board – saying she was the one who had been here the longest and there’s been criticism about that – the city’s parking structures were in a state of poor repair. [Gunn was first appointed on Aug. 19, 1991.] When the DDA took over management of the parking system, the DDA had proceeded with a plan of repair and replacement of the city-owned parking structures – paid for by the parking system because the DDA was managing it in a far more efficient manner, she said. The DDA had torn down and built two new parking structures and done major repair on all the others, she said. The parking system is now customer friendly, she added, and safe. Because the city’s parking structures were in such poor condition, all of the money that had been spent during the first phase, she said, had not caused any new parking spaces to be added to the system. But finally, with the construction of the Library Lane underground garage, 711 spaces had been added. Her feeling is that the DDA has been careful and prudent, and that the DDA has been beneficial to the city.

DDA Ordinance Changes: Public Comment

Odile Hugonot Haber addressed the board at the conclusion of the meeting during public commentary, rebuking the board members for their remarks about the DDA’s successes. She criticized them for celebrating and making superfluous comments, rather than looking seriously at the reasons people criticize them. She told them she was grateful for the DDA’s support of affordable housing. But she disagreed with their vision for the city, which she characterized as growing buildings instead of beauty.

Colliers International Update

Brendan Cavendar from Colliers International appeared before the board during the time allotted for public commentary at the start of the meeting. He indicated that he’d been asked to appear at the board meeting in order to answer any questions board members might have about what’s going on with real estate in downtown Ann Arbor right now. He offered to comment from his perspective, as someone who’s involved in a lot of leases and sales.

Mayor John Hieftje, who also sits on the DDA board, asked Cavendar to describe what’s going on at the former Borders location on East Liberty and Maynard. Cavendar noted that Colliers had announced one of the tenants, which represents about 30-40% of the overall building: PRIME Research. The company is relocating from Ashley Street, he said. PRIME Research is hiring “a ton of people,” Cavendar reported, so they’re transitioning from about 5,000 square feet to 70,000 square feet. What’s significant about that move, he continued, is that it mimics some of the other changes in that area – comparing it to other tech company moves.

Last year, Barracuda Networks had moved into the same area, he noted. And Menlo Innovations had also moved into the area. The area of Liberty, Maynard and Washington has really become a “tech hub,” Cavendar said. He noted that tech companies are very high-density tenants – not four employees per 1,000 square feet, but rather six or seven employees per 1,000 square feet. Their employees are also very well-paid, he continued. They all go out to eat, they all drink, they all shop – and the restaurants are filling up, he said. So there’s been a real transition and movement toward downtown Ann Arbor by tech companies, he concluded.

Hieftje interjected that this was something the city had started several years ago when Google had chosen to establish a location in Ann Arbor. Hieftje indicated he felt that the “tech campus” had worked out pretty well. “Absolutely,” Cavendar agreed. Cavendar felt that in the next 2-3 years, the block of Liberty, Maynard and Washington would have around 1,400 young tech employees. As Cavendar was set to name the factor that really helped get those companies to move down there, and the only reason Barracuda Networks was able to move to downtown Ann Arbor, Russ Collins playfully interjected: “The Michigan Theater!” [Collins is executive director of the theater, located on East Liberty.]

Collins’ remark drew laughs, but Cavendar reported that the key ingredient was, in fact, parking. He said that Barracuda been a day away from signing a lease at a different location in south Ann Arbor. It’s great to think that everybody can ride a bike or take the bus, he allowed, but not everyone can. Hieftje ventured that the new Library Lane underground structure was the key. “Absolutely,” Cavendar agreed. Parking was also an incentive for PRIME Research to move to the downtown area, Cavendar said. PRIME Research will eventually have 150-250 employees, he said, and Barracuda Networks is looking to grow to about 450 people or more. That helps the whole area, he said.

Leah Gunn asked Cavendar to comment on limitations. Is there an amount of square footage that doesn’t exist, but that is a need? Cavendar said Colliers is looking at that question. Right now, they estimate that in the downtown area – the DDA district and nearby – there’s about 150,000 square feet of office space. There are only a few large floor plates greater than 10,000 square feet. But right now, he said, not that many companies are looking for those large floor plates. That’s what Colliers has been seeing, in any case, Cavendar reported.

In the last three years, Colliers has seen the leasing rates start to drift upward – to $24, $25, and $26 per square foot. Gunn ventured that’s more than the rates were fairly recently. And Cavendar allowed that the rates had been down to around $18, $19, and $20 a square foot. Eventually the leasing rates could get to the point where it might be feasible to build new construction of office space. But he felt that leasing rates would need to get to $29 or $30 a square foot before new construction would be justified. Roger Hewitt asked roughly what percent of available space is vacant. Cavendar estimated it at around 9%.

Cavendar then returned to the topic of the former Borders location. On the first floor, he reported, there are more offers than there is space available. He characterized it as a jigsaw puzzle – trying to find the best mix of local and national, retail and restaurants. Restaurants, he said, are doing better than they ever have. Some downtown restaurants are reporting that they’re doing between $3.5 million and $6 million in sales. Even with the high rents, that works, Cavendar said. The restaurants are doing well, and they’re making money, and that means that they’re signing longer leases, he continued. They’re not signing three-, four-, or five-year leases, but rather 10- or 15-year leases. He felt that would reduce the turnover of tenants and would be fueled by the office tenancy.

Hieftje asked when Cavendar thought the old Borders location would be occupied, venturing that it could be next summer. Cavendar felt that depending on how long the build-out took, by the end of this year all the new tenants would be open for business.

John Mouat asked Cavendar to estimate how much of the growth in tech companies was local, compared to being driven by other factors. Cavendar attributed much of the growth to the availability of recent graduates of the University of Michigan. Employers don’t have to fight for employees like they would on the West Coast, he said, and Ann Arbor has a great community. Companies want to be close to the university because they use students as interns, and the day those interns graduate, they are hired full-time, Cavendar reported. Mouat clarified that he actually wanted to know how much the population of people downtown is growing due to people who are already in the area, compared to people coming from outside. Cavendar felt that it’s a mix, but the majority of new employees are from Ann Arbor. It’s the students who are currently in school or workers who are employed by other companies in the area who are taking the downtown jobs.

Hieftje asked Cavendar to address the topic of the possibility of a grocery store downtown. Cavendar said he’d talked to one larger unnamed company that gave as a rule of thumb that a downtown grocery would need about 10,000 full-time residents downtown. And currently Ann Arbor has around 4,000-5,000 downtown residents – about half of what’s required even to consider locating downtown. Also, parking would need to be provided onsite, Cavendar stressed. Parking in a public parking structure and paying for that in addition to groceries would just not be an option, Cavendar said – stressing that this wasn’t his personal opinion, but rather feedback straight from the unnamed company.

Hieftje asked Cavendar to characterize generally how the downtown is doing. Cavendar responded with “improving strongly.” He noted that there’s been big transition in the Liberty/State area, but there is virtually no office space left in that area, he said.

Summing up, Cavendar felt that they’d continue to see vacant spaces fill up and see their rates improve. The rates had already improved over the last 2-3 years, he said, and retail is as healthy as ever. He noted that Colliers tracks other cities in Michigan, and there is no other city that’s doing as well as Ann Arbor. He joked that he was not just saying that because he was born here and was educated here. The rental rates in Ann Arbor are some of the strongest in the entire state of Michigan, he said. We should be grateful for that, he concluded.

Republic Parking Management Incentive

The history of the parking system factored into board remarks on proposed ordinance changes, and was mentioned by Brendan Cavendar of Colliers International, as a reason that Barracuda Networks was able to locate downtown. The parking system’s monthly usage report is also a regular feature the board’s monthly meetings.

But at the March 6, 2013 meeting, the board had an voting item on its agenda directly affecting the parking system. The board was asked to award the full $50,000 amount of a discretionary management incentive to Republic Parking – the DDA’s contractor for day-to-day operations. Republic Parking’s contract with the Ann Arbor DDA covers actual costs, but also includes a $200,000 management fee. Of the $200,000 management fee, $50,000 is awarded to Republic on a discretionary basis.

For the first time in the last five years, the DDA board was considering a recommendation to award the full $50,000 of the incentive. Last year, at its Feb. 1, 2012 meeting, the board determined to award $45,000 of the discretionary amount. That matched the same figure awarded in 2011, 2010 and 2009.

The direct costs for Republic Parking budgeted for FY 2013 – the current fiscal year ending June 30 – are $6,298,423 out of about $18.1 million in budgeted gross revenue for the parking system.

Part of the difference this year leading to the recommendation to award the full $50,000 was improvement in bi-monthly customer surveys over the year – as 72% of customers rated the parking system as at least 4 on a 5-point scale. That compared with 63% of parking patrons who rated the parking system at least a 4 last year.

The DDA’s independent inspector for the parking system completed 48 written reports in the course of the year that evaluated cleanliness of structures and lots. Those ratings averaged 91.71% – an increase over last year’s score of 90.48%. Also counting in Republic’s favor was the fact that the Dec. 31, 2012 accounts receivable balance for parking permit accounts was $7,898.26, which is 1.5% of the amount that is billed on an average monthly basis. The DDA’s target for that figure is 5%.

Dead tickets averaged 1.01% for the year, a decrease from last year’s 2.54%. That came in under the DDA’s target of 1.75%.

At the DDA’s operations committee meeting on March 1, 2013, Republic’s operations manager Art Low asked that other management staff be called out for praise by name – including Stephen Smith, Michael Bandy, Edward Wheeler and Judy Comstock.

A staff memo accompanying the resolution to award the $50,000 incentive cited other factors, besides improvement in the metrics used to evaluate the amount of the management incentive. The memo highlighted Republic’s performance in connection with the opening of the new 711-space Library Lane underground parking garage and the installation of automated payment equipment.

The Ann Arbor DDA manages the city’s public parking system under contract with the city of Ann Arbor. The contract calls for 17% of gross parking revenues to be paid to the city of Ann Arbor.

Republic Parking Management Incentive: Board Deliberations

Roger Hewitt reviewed the terms of the DDA’s contract with Republic Parking and how the management fee is structured – with a $50,000 component that’s discretionary.

He said that for the first time since he’s served on the board, the full amount of the incentive was being recommended by the staff and the operations committee. That recommendation had Hewitt’s enthusiastic support. He characterized the metrics used to evaluate Republic as including objective as well subjective criteria. Hewitt reviewed the criteria in the staff memo. In describing Republic’s efforts in opening the new parking structure and installing automated ticketing equipment in other structures, he said that Republic had taken on more responsibilities in the last year than in any year he’s been on the board. He wholeheartedly endorsed the recommendation of the full amount of the discretionary part of the management fee.

Russ Collins quipped that because Hewitt is generally a curmudgeon, Collins saw Hewitt’s remarks as a huge compliment.

Board chair Leah Gunn related that in her personal experience parking in the system, Republic Parking employees are “right there on the ball.” She gave great praise to Republic Parking and their employees on the front lines.

Outcome: The board voted unanimously to approve the award of the $50,000 discretionary component of Republic Parking’s management fee.

Monthly Parking Report

Roger Hewitt delivered the monthly parking usage report, covering the month of January. He noted that the reports start to include some narrative providing a little rationale for the month-to-month fluctuations to help understand what’s different.

University of Michigan classes didn’t start until Jan. 9 this year, compared to last year’s Jan. 4 start.  That effectively reduced the number of business days this year by three, a negative influence, according to commentary in the report. New Year’s Day fell on Tuesday this year instead of Sunday last year. That also had a negative impact.

Hewitt indicated that the report was intended to include not just additional narrative information, but also additional numerical data. [In this context, a preliminary report based on percentage of hours sold had been generated as far back as the summer of 2011.]

Hewitt characterized the report as indicating that there’s still clearly solid demand for parking in the system.

Chart by chart, here’s how the system looked [Chronicle charts based on DDA data]:

Ann Arbor Public Parking System: Hourly Patrons. The number of hourly patrons has not shown as much growth as revenue.

Ann Arbor Public Parking System Revenue. Revenue continues to increase, due at least in part to an increase in total inventory of spaces as well as increases in rates.

Ann Arbor Public Parking System: Revenue per Space – Focus on Structures.

Ann Arbor Public Parking System Revenue Per Space – Focus on Surface Lots.

Ann Arbor Public Parking System Revenue per Space: Total System.

go!pass Funding for Downtown Employees

The board considered a resolution to approve a $610,662 grant to support the getDowntown program and the go!pass, which it provides to employees of participating downtown companies.

go!pass Funding for Downtown Employees: Background

Holders of a go!pass do not themselves pay a fare to board the bus. Rides are subsidized by the DDA and to a much lesser extent by employers.

The total grant to the getDowntown program breaks out as follows:

YEAR                    2014
getDowntown          $40,488    
go!pass             $479,000   
NightRide 
go!pass discount     $18,233     
Route 4 
East of US-23        $56,363   
Route 5 
East of US-23        $16,578   
============================
Total               $610,662

-

Compared to a request made at the previous month’s board meeting, on Feb. 6, 2013, a revised request made at the operations committee meeting on March 1, 2013 increased the line item for the getDowntown program by $5,000 – for marketing, outreach and operations. That increase was from $35,488 to $40,488. At that operations committee meeting, members resisted the $18,000 that had been requested to support the AATA’s Express Ride service from Chelsea and Canton, and did not include it in the recommendation to the board.

The go!pass program requires a participating downtown employer to purchase a go!pass for all employees in the company – at a cost of $10 a year per employee. That translated to a peak of 7,226 go!passes in circulation for FY 2011. That number dropped to 6,591 in FY 2012 – or $65,910 to offset the cost of rides taken with the go!pass. The current requested funding was based on projections of the estimated number of rides taken. Last year around 601,000 rides were taken using the go!pass by around 4,130 employees. The combination of go!pass funding is meant to work out to $0.90 per ride.

Administratively, the getDowntown program is part of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority.

Through the AATA’s fiscal year 2012, which concluded at the end of September 2012, here’s how go!pass ridership has trended:

go!pass total rides by year. The number of rides taken with go!passes has roughly doubled since 2004. This past year reflected a dip, which appears to be related to a reduced number of cards in circulation: 6,591 compared to 7,226. (Data from AATA; chart by The Chronicle.)

go!pass rides by month, year over year. The red trend line is the most recent year, 2012. The previous year is shown in black. (Data from AATA; chart by The Chronicle.)

While the total number of rides dipped slightly, the number of rides per card continued its upward trend. Since 2004, the number of rides per card has increased from about 60 to about 90. (Data from getDowntown program; chart by The Chronicle.)

Full adult fare for AATA regular bus service is $1.50. According to the most recent AATA treasurer’s report, current operating costs for the AATA regular bus service work out to about $3.18 per rider. On average, a rider pays 22.1% of that cost and the local transit tax covers 34.6%. The remainder is covered with state and federal operating assistance.

go!pass Funding for Downtown Employees: Board Deliberations

John Mouat introduced the resolution. He noted that getDowntown executive director Nancy Shore was in the audience and was available to answer questions. Mouat reviewed how the proposal had been discussed at the last couple of operations committee meetings. The AATA’s CEO, Michael Ford, had attended the operations committee meeting and the previous board meeting to discuss the proposal.

Mouat walked through the breakout of the funding request, including the portions for NightRide and Routes #4/#5.  The operations committee supported enhancing the connection to Ypsilanti, Mouat said, but had “qualms” about a request to support express commuter service from Canton and Chelsea to Ann Arbor. The committee’s discussion at its March 1 meeting had included discomfort with the fact that the funding would benefit only 15 riders. Mouat also cited some caution as the DDA’s financial picture possibly changes – an allusion to consideration that the city council is giving to clarifying TIF capture calculations. The subsidy of the express commuter service from Canton and Chelsea was a category where the committee felt the DDA could withhold the requested $18,000.

DDA board member John Mouat.

Russ Collins noted that there are some people whose business is located outside downtown, but perhaps still near downtown, who conduct business downtown – like journalists or lawyers. He wondered about the possibility of making such businesses also eligible for the go!pass program. Shore explained that the getDowntown program has a policy under which workers who are temporarily contracting for a company that’s located downtown can purchase go!passes. She also pointed to institutions like the Workantile, whose members are eligible for go!passes. The key is that there must be some entity downtown that anchors the go!passes.

Collins wondered if exceptions were ever made. Shore responded by saying that the go!pass program is as much the DDA’s program as it is the AATA’s, and that the possibility of exceptions could be considered. Sandi Smith mentioned that one of the proposed changes to the DDA ordinance involved the use of funds outside the DDA’s TIF district. Nader Nassif gave his perspective as an attorney, who didn’t imagine there were a lot of attorneys with offices just outside downtown who’d likely be interested in being eligible.

Mayor John Hieftje said he was always very happy to support the go!pass funding, saying it was one of the best things being done by any organization. It helps those who can’t afford transportation, and reduces congestion and pollution. Board members also offered praise for Shore’s performance.

Outcome: The board unanimously approved the $610,662 funding request for go!passes.

At the conclusion of the meeting, during the time available for public commentary, Shore was effusive in her appreciation for the allocation of the grant. Brendan Cavendar of Colliers International also took a brief turn at the public commentary podium at the end of the meeting to add to his remarks made at the start of the meeting. He cited the go!pass as crucial to the decision of PRIME Research to locate downtown.

Communications, Committee Reports

The board’s meeting included the usual range of reports from its standing committees and the downtown citizens advisory council, as well as public commentary.

Comm/Comm: Connector Study

Roger Hewitt gave the board an update on the connector study.

By way of background, the corridor being studied runs from US-23 and Plymouth southward along Plymouth to State Street and farther south to I-94. The Ann Arbor city council approved its share of the local funding match for the $1.5 million study at its Oct. 15, 2012 meeting, which followed a commitment of DDA support. The current study is an alternatives analysis phase, which will result in identifying a preferred mode (e.g., bus rapid transit, light rail, etc.) and the location of stations and stops. A feasibility study for the corridor costing $640,000 has already been completed. That initial study concluded that some type of improved high-capacity transit system would be feasible – which could take the form of bus rapid transit, light rail transit, or elevated automated guideway transit.

Here’s the breakdown of the $300,000 in local funding sources for the $1.5 million study: $150,000 from the University of Michigan; $90,000 from the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority; $30,000 from the Ann Arbor DDA; and $30,000 from the city of Ann Arbor. The $300,000 satisfies a 20% matching requirement for a $1.2 million federal grant the AATA has received to complete the $1.5 million project.

At the DDA board’s March 6 meeting, Hewitt indicated that possible routes for the connector are now being considered. He characterized it as a high-capacity transit line that would run in a rough boomerang from northeast Ann Arbor through UM’s north campus medical center, and central campus, the continue downtown and south to the Briarwood Mall area. Hewitt noted that the alternatives analysis phase is necessary to qualify for federal matching funds for eventual construction of such a project.

Coming up with potential alternative routes is a challenging task, Hewitt said, because there are no obvious ways to get through some of the tighter areas of the city. But as soon as some possible alternatives are actually put together, he continued, the study group will conduct some public outreach to get feedback that would lead to the end result of the study: the locally-preferred alternative. Those outreach efforts would probably be taking place at the end of April or the beginning of May, he said.

The initial study data collected by URS Corporation – the consultant hired to do the alternatives analysis study – showed, as expected, that the medical center and the central campus area had a high “density of trips.” But Main Street in downtown area has as great a density of trips as the campus area, Hewitt reported. It’s encouraging to see that the activity level is not centered only at the University Michigan, he said.

One of the questions that had been raised, Hewitt allowed, is whether Ann Arbor is large enough for this kind of high-capacity corridor. The consultant was asked to look at comparable cities that have high-capacity transit in some form. The list of cities included: Cleveland, Eugene, Little Rock, New Orleans, Norfolk, Portland, Salt Lake City, Tacoma and Jacksonville. Lansing, Grand Rapids and Fort Collins were also included – because they have systems in the planning stages right now.

With the possible exception of Lansing, he said, all of the cities are population-wise larger, or even quite a bit larger than Ann Arbor. But if you look a little deeper, he said, at the population per square mile – the population density – Ann Arbor ranks fourth on the list. And if you look at employment density – how many people are employed per square mile – Ann Arbor is first on the list. There are 3,800 people per square mile employed in the city of Ann Arbor, Hewitt reported. The next-closest city on the list is Cleveland at about 3,300. Then it drops down to about 2,500 and lower.

So although Ann Arbor is small geographically, it’s pretty dense in population, and very dense in jobs. That’s the answer to why you need a transportation connector like this, Hewitt concluded. He ventured that moving people around and finding places for people to park is going to become increasingly difficult.

Comm/Comm: Connecting William Street

In reporting out from the downtown citizens advisory council (CAC), Ray Detter said the CAC continues to support the DDA’s leadership of the careful planning of the downtown – in the form of the Connecting William Street (CWS) planning project. That’s a planning effort the DDA undertook as the result of an April 2011 city council directive to consider alternative uses for five city-owned parcels in the downtown William Street corridor.

The CWS project was also mentioned at the board meeting during Joan Lowenstein’s report from the board’s partnerships committee. She described how the city’s planning commission, on its own initiative, had accepted the CWS project as a supporting resource document to the city’s master plan. [That action came the previous evening, on March 5, 2013.]

Sandi Smith asked how the CWS plan might factor in a city council action taken the day before the planning commission’s meeting, on March 4, 2013. At that meeting, the council had voted to direct the city administrator to issue an RFP (request for proposals) for brokerage services to sell the former Y lot at Fifth and William. The lot is currently used as a surface parking lot in the city’s public parking system, and is one of the five lots in the CWS plan.

Mayor John Hieftje, who had co-sponsored the council’s resolution with Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), told Smith there’d been some discussion about the resolution, stressing that no final decision had been made. Hieftje allowed that the CWS recommendation from the DDA had been to consider packaging the old Y lot together with the top of the Library Lane underground parking garage. But he felt that the Y lot was a special case, because of the interest-only payments the city was making on a 10-year-old $3.5 million loan. Responding to a query from Smith, Hieftje indicated it would still be possible to incorporate public opinion into the future of the old Y lot.

In his remarks reporting from the CAC, Detter provided implicit commentary on the council’s Y lot resolution by saying the CAC didn’t think that downtown city-owned property should be for sale to the highest bidder.

The fact that the city is, for now at least, not packaging the Y lot with the top of the Library Lane underground parking garage means there’s possibly even more additional time to explore temporary interim uses for the top of Library Lane. During public commentary at the conclusion of the meeting, Alan Haber spoke in support of an artificial ice-skating rink at that location. He indicated that his group would be making a presentation on that topic at the next meeting of the DDA’s partnerships committee, on March 13 at 9 a.m.

Comm/Comm: Beat Cops

Roger Hewitt briefly addressed the possibility that the DDA might fund community policing in the form of contracting with the Ann Arbor police department for downtown police beat patrols. The board has money for the patrols in the FY 2014 budget, which it adopted at its Feb. 6, 2013 meeting. A lot more information is needed before pursuing that possibility, Hewitt indicated. And if the financial picture changes – an allusion to the possibility that the city council clarifies the DDA’s TIF capture in a way that negatively impacts the DDA – the downtown police patrols won’t go anywhere.

Comm/Comm: Aging Population

Joan Lowenstein reported from a day-long seminar that the AARP had sponsored on the University of Michigan campus – about aging communities and how municipalities can respond to aging communities. She noted that councilmember Sabra Briere, who represents Ward 1, was also in attendance at the seminar. [Briere also attended the March 6 DDA board meeting.] Ann Arbor leans more heavily than the national average toward the baby boomer age, Lowenstein noted, and leans less heavily toward those who are under 40 years old. It might be surprising – but it’s because Ann Arbor is not retaining young people, she said. At the seminar there were lots of national experts on urban planning, and walkability and services for older people. They said that if you focus on walkability, transit, and livability improvements, then that benefits the aging population and helps to retain the younger population. Lowenstein concluded that the DDA had been focusing on the right kind of infrastructure improvements.

Comm/Comm: Public Art

The city of Ann Arbor’s public art administrator, Aaron Seagraves, briefed the board on the Detroit Institute of Arts’ Inside|Out project, which involves installing framed reproductions from the DIA’s collection at outdoor locations on building facades or in parks. Two private Ann Arbor businesses – Zingerman’s Deli and the downtown Borders store – were part of the program in 2010, and since then the DIA has been talking periodically with AAPAC and city staff about expanded participation.

The works will be hung from late March through June at several downtown locations: the Justice Center (Fifth & Huron); downtown fire station (Fifth & Ann); Lena restaurant (Main & Liberty); Kerrytown Market & Shops (Fourth & Kingsley); Sculpture Plaza (Fourth & Catherine); Zingerman’s Deli (Detroit & Kingsley); and the Liberty Street alley near Main Street.

Comm/Comm: AirRide

During public commentary time, three Skyline High School students – who are part of the school’s communications, media, and public policy magnet program – addressed the board on the topic of the AATA’s AirRide service. By contracting with Michigan Flyer, the AATA provides hourly service between downtown Ann Arbor and Detroit Metro airport. The students’ remarks came in support of the service – and they ticked through the various environmental benefits, economic advantages, as well as the amenities offered on the buses, like free wifi. [The DDA's role in the AirRide is that it provides subsidized parking in the Fourth and William parking structure for those who use the AirRide service.]

Present: Nader Nassif, Bob Guenzel, Roger Hewitt, John Hieftje, John Splitt, Sandi Smith, Leah Gunn, Russ Collins, Keith Orr, Joan Lowenstein, John Mouat.

Absent: Newcombe Clark.

Next board meeting: Noon on Wednesday, April 3, 2013, at the DDA offices, 150 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 301. [Check Chronicle listings to confirm date]

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However, there was some concern about whether the agenda item had been adequately publicized. Those concerns were voiced by several people during public commentary before and after the vote, which led Wendy Woods to attempt to reopen the item for reconsideration at the end of the meeting. The vote to reopen the item failed 6-2, with support only from Woods and Sabra Briere. So the original unanimous vote stands.

Streetscape view looking down William Street toward the east from Ashley Street – a schematic rendering of the Connecting William Street recommendations.

Since summer 2011, the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority has been working on the Connecting William Street project, which was undertaken following a directive from the city council at its April 4, 2011 meeting. The work focuses on future use of five city-owned parcels in the downtown area: (1) the Kline lot (on the east side of Ashley, north of William), (2) the lot next to Palio restaurant (northeast corner of Main & William), (3) the ground floor of the Fourth & William parking structure, (4) the former YMCA lot (on William between Fourth and Fifth), and (5) the top of the Library Lane underground parking garage on South Fifth, north of the downtown library.

The DDA board adopted the recommendations at its Jan. 9, 2013 board meeting. The city council was briefed on the recommendations at a Jan. 7, 2013 working session, but has not yet acted on them.

The city council’s directive had called for the DDA to engage in a public process with experts, stakeholders and residents, and then to develop a plan for those parcels. The council’s resolution described a step in the process when the city council and the planning commission would adopt the recommendations on the five parcels into the city’s downtown plan. The downtown plan is one component of the city’s master plan. Other components include: the land use element, the transportation plan, the non-motorized transportation plan, parks and recreation open space (PROS) plan, and the natural features master plan.

Based on the phasing described in the council’s April 2011 resolution, any request for proposals (RFP) to be made for the five parcels would come after the planning commission and the city council formally adopt recommendations on the five parcels into the downtown plan.

The agenda item for the planning commission’s March 5, 2013 meeting – posted on the city’s online Legistar system – also referenced the downtown plan: “The Planning Commission will consider whether to consider the Connecting William Street Plan as an amendment to the Downtown Plan.” But prior to the meeting, no resolution or staff memo for this item had been posted.

The resolution handed out at the meeting did not mention the downtown plan. The resolution, recommended by staff and ultimately approved by commissioners, stated:

RESOLVED, That the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission hereby approves the “City of Ann Arbor Resource Information In Support Of The City Master Plan Resolution,” dated March 5, 2013.

An attachment to the resolution provided an updated resource list, with the Connecting William Street plan as one of 13 resources. The items are also listed online, on the city’s website for its master planning documents. Other resource documents include the downtown design guidelines, the Washtenaw Avenue corridor redevelopment strategy, and a flood mitigation plan, among others.

Amber Miller of the DDA gave a presentation during the March 5 commission meeting, similar to those given to the council and the DDA board. DDA executive director Susan Pollay also was on hand to answer questions. Much of the discussion among commissioners focused on the issue of open space. Miller noted that recommendations on that issue have been deferred to a committee of the city’s park advisory commission. That downtown parks committee is in the early stages of its work – it was scheduled to meet earlier in the day on March 5, but that meeting was canceled. [For background, see Chronicle coverage: "Committee Begins Research on Downtown Parks."]

The need for more open space and a centrally located downtown park was also highlighted by the five people who spoke during the planning commission’s March 5 public hearing on Connecting William Street. Most of the speakers are affiliated with the Library Green Conservancy, which is advocating for a park on top of the Library Lane parking structure – one of the five site in the Connecting William Street plan.

In public commentary after the commission’s vote to accept the plan as a resource document, four people spoke to criticize commissioners and the DDA for how this process has been handled. Woods said her decision to ask for reconsideration of the item was prompted by concerns raised during this final public commentary. She felt that it wouldn’t hurt to wait two weeks until the commission’s next meeting, so that more people could have the chance to weigh in, if they wanted.

Briere had expressed strong reservations before casting her original yes vote. She supported Woods in her effort to reconsider the item, suggesting that postponement would be appropriate. She expressed concern that the commission was deciding to use the CWS plan as a future planning document – which would be referenced when the planning staff and commission make their recommendations to the city council on site plans and other planning and development actions. Given that importance, Briere wanted to be absolutely certain before accepting it.

Other commissioners disagreed. Kirk Westphal – the planning commission’s chair who also served on a leadership committee that helped craft the Connecting William Street plan – said he felt extremely comfortable with the public process that had led to these recommendations. Eric Mahler also argued against reopening the item for another vote, saying the commission needed to bring closure to this long process. He was satisfied that sufficient public notice had been provided.

It’s unclear how the council will proceed with the Connecting William Street plan. Pollay told planning commissioners that the DDA will be following the council’s guidance as it moves forward. Councilmembers have already taken a first action step related to one of those parcels – the former YMCA lot. At this week’s city council meeting on March 4, 2013, the council voted to direct the city administrator to prepare an RFP (request for proposals) for brokerage services to sell the lot. A $3.5 million balloon payment on the property is due at the end of 2013.

This brief was filed shortly after adjournment of the planning commission meeting. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

Highlighted in yellow is the location of the former YMCA lot, which the city of Ann Arbor is considering selling. A $3.5 million balloon payment on the property is due at the end of 2013.

A similar proposal to start the process for selling the lot was considered at the council’s Aug. 20, 2012 meeting, but received the support of only three representatives on the 11-member council: Mike Anglin (Ward 5), Jane Lumm (Ward 2) and Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3). Some councilmembers were generally in favor of selling the lot, but called the effort premature, given a planning effort that was then underway. This time around the resolution was co-sponsored by mayor John Hieftje and the vote was nearly unanimous. The lone vote of dissent came from Christopher Taylor (Ward 3).

What’s changed since August 2012 also relates to a project the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority has been working on for almost two years, the Connecting William Street project, a planning effort that includes the former Y lot. The Connecting William Street project was undertaken by the DDA based on a directive from the city council, on a unanimous vote, given at its April 4, 2011 meeting. And at a Jan. 7, 2013 working session, the DDA gave a presentation to the council on its recommendations for future use of five city-owned parcels in the downtown area – the former Y lot, the Kline’s lot, the Palio lot, the Fourth and William parking structure, and the top of the Library Lane underground parking garage.

The city had used a loan to purchase the property from the YMCA for $3.5 million in 2003. The council voted in 2008 to extend a five-year loan with the Bank of Ann Arbor for another five years, through the end of 2013. The interest rate is 3.89%. The interest-only payments work out to roughly $140,000 a year. By the end of 2013, the total interest paid will be around $1.4 million.

A building on the site was condemned, and the cost of demolishing it and abating asbestos was around $1.5 million. The Ann Arbor DDA covered the demolition costs and has covered half of the interest payments. So the total amount of Ann Arbor governmental investment in the property is at least $6.4 million.

Revenue from the surface parking lot on the site – which charges a $1.40 hourly rate – amounts to $105-$140 per space per month for roughly 140 spaces. Over the last year, the lot has generated a rough average of around $20,000 per month. But usage has decreased since the opening of the new 711-space Library Lane underground garage, located across the street.

That parking revenue from the former Y site is collected by the Ann Arbor DDA, which operates the city’s public parking system under contract with the city. Under terms of that contract, the city receives 17.5% of the gross parking system revenues. Also under terms of the contract, the DDA has the option to object to eliminating a facility from the parking system, within 30 days of notification by the city.

This brief was filed from the city council’s chambers on the second floor of city hall, located at 301 E. Huron. A more detailed report will follow: [link]