If the removal of an on-street parking space does not provide a community benefit, then a developer is required to pay $45,000 per space, as well as the amount of projected revenue the space would generate over the next 10 years. That was the policy adopted by the Ann Arbor city council at its Jan. 6, 2014 meeting. The council left some flexibility in the fee policy, which allowed for some discretion to apply the fee or not, if a community benefit were provided by the removal of a space. The definition of “community benefit” was left for the DDA to determine. It’s in that context that the DDA board’s April 2 action was taken.

The council’s determination of the fee amount came four years after the DDA had made a recommendation on the fee policy:

Thus it is recommended that when developments lead to the removal of on-street parking meter spaces, a cost of $45,000/parking meter space (with annual CPI increases) be assessed and provided to the DDA to set aside in a special fund that will be used to construct future parking spaces or other means to meet the goals above. [.pdf of meeting minutes with complete text of March 4, 2009 DDA resolution]

To press the council to act on the issue, a clause was incorporated into the 2011 extension of the contract under which the DDA manages the city of Ann Arbor’s parking system:

The City shall work collaboratively with the DDA to develop and present for adoption by City Council a City policy regarding the permanent removal of on-street metered parking spaces. The purpose of this policy will be to identify whether a community benefit to the elimination of one or more metered parking spaces specific area(s) of the City exists, and the basis for such a determination. If no community benefit can be identified, it is understood and agreed by the parties that a replacement cost allocation methodology will need to be adopted concurrent with the approval of the City policy; which shall be used to make improvements to the public parking or transportation system.

Under the terms of the 2011 contract, the DDA pays the city of Ann Arbor 17% of gross parking revenues.

This brief was filed from the DDA offices at 150 S. Fifth Ave., where the DDA board holds its meetings. A more detailed report of the meeting will follow: [link]

Hourly temperature data from WeatherSpark for part of November and December 2013. Chart by The Chronicle. Yellow horizontal line is 25 degrees. The red horizontal line is 10 degrees. The “weather amnesty” threshold – when the Delonis Center shelter opens for daytime hours – is 10 degrees. Advocates for the homeless community spoke at the city council’s Dec. 16 meeting in favor of a 25-degree threshold.

In some of its more significant business of the night, the council voted unanimously to deposit almost $1.4 million into the city of Ann Arbor’s affordable housing trust fund. The council’s final vote was unanimous, although Jane Lumm (Ward 2) offered an amendment to cut that amount in half, which failed on a 2-9 vote. Jack Eaton (Ward 4) joined Lumm in supporting that failed amendment.

The dollar figure of $1,384,300 million reflects the $1.75 million in gross proceeds, less brokerage fees and seller’s costs, from the sale of a downtown city-owned parcel known as the old Y lot. In 2003, the city paid $3.5 million for the property, located on William Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues. The council approved the sale of the property to Dennis Dahlmann for $5.25 million at its Nov. 18, 2013 meeting. The city has made interest-only payments on a $3.5 million loan for the last 10 years.

Public commentary during the meeting was dominated by residents advocating in support of the Y lot resolution – several on behalf of the homeless community. A current point of contention for several of the speakers is the fact that the Delonis Shelter does not operate a warming center during daytime hours. Instead, the center allows the homeless to seek refuge there during the day when the temperature or wind chill drops to 10 F degrees. Addressing that issue is one of several possible ways to spend the money from the affordable housing trust fund. Others include using it to renovate properties managed by the Ann Arbor housing commission.

Two items in which the council also invested considerable time at its Dec. 16 meeting involved traffic safety. The council wound up adopting unanimously a resolution that directs city administrator Steve Powers to present a strategy for funding elements of the city’s non-motorized transportation plan, by specific dates starting next year. The final version adopted by the council reflected a compromise on the exact wording of the resolution – which among other changes eliminated explicit mention of any specific technology. The original resolution had specifically cited rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFBs), as does the non-motorized plan.

Thematically related to the funding plan for non-motorized transportation improvements was a proposal to allocate $125,000 from the current general fund reserve to pay for police overtime for traffic enforcement. The debate on police overtime centered on the question of whether chief of police John Seto had a plan to spend the money, which equates to about 70 additional hours a week for the remaining six months of the fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2014. The resolution eventually won the support of all members of the council except for mayor John Hieftje.

The police overtime item was sponsored by Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), Jack Eaton (Ward 4) and Jane Lumm (Ward 2), who were part of a six-vote majority that had backed a significant revision to the city’s crosswalk law at the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. That change – which eliminated a requirement that motorists stop for pedestrians who were at the curb but not within the crosswalk – was subsequently vetoed by Hieftje. The text of that veto was attached to the council’s Dec. 16 meeting agenda as a communication.

The council’s focus on traffic and pedestrian safety will continue next year, on Jan. 6, when the council is supposed to make appointments to a pedestrian safety task force, which it established at its Nov. 18, 2013 meeting.

Also generally related to the public right-of-way on streets at the council’s Dec. 16 meeting was an item that was postponed from the Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. The council was asked to consider assigning a specific cost to the removal of an on-street parking space caused by a development: $45,000. The original postponement stemmed from a desire to hold a public hearing on the matter before taking action. One person spoke at the public hearing on Dec. 16, and the council deliberated about a half hour before deciding to postpone again.

The council voted unanimously to make a roughly $65,000 allocation from the solid waste fund balance to pay for an initiative that will allow residents to add plate scrapings to their brown compost carts for curbside collection. The additional funds will cover an increased level of service at the compost processing facility – daily versus weekly grinding. The funds will also cover the cost of counter-top containers the city plans to give away to residents to encourage the initial separation of plate scrapings from garbage, and a subsidy for the sale of additional brown compost carts. Some of that allocation is expected to be recovered through reduced landfill tipping fees.

Also on Dec. 16, the council accepted a $50,000 grant from the USDA Forestry Service to be spent on a tree pruning initiative focused on the city’s largest street trees.

The council metered out its time generously on items involving large and small dollar amount alike at its Dec. 16 meeting. So nearly a half hour of deliberations went into a resolution that directed the city administrator to include $10,000 of support for the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair as he develops next year’s (FY 2015) budget. The council voted unanimously to support that resolution.

The council postponed an item that formally terminated a four-year-old memorandum of understanding with the University of Michigan on the demised Fuller Road Station project. It had been added to the agenda the same day as the meeting, and that was the reason it was postponed. However, it was clear from remarks at the meeting that when the council takes up the resolution next year, it will have support.

Y Lot Proceeds

The council considered a resolution that deposits the proceeds of the sale of the city-owned former Y lot into the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

Affordable housing fund activity.

The approved $5.25 million sale price of the former Y lot will result in a gross difference of $1.75 million compared to the $3.5 million price paid by the city in 2003. The original resolution on the council’s agenda designated $1.56 million of that amount – which is all but a $190,000 brokerage fee – for deposit in the city’s affordable housing trust fund. Later, before the meeting started, a revision was made to the resolution, which reduced the amount to $1,384,300 to accommodate the seller’s closing costs at well.

The specific connection between the affordable housing trust fund and the former Y lot is the 100 units of single-resident occupancy housing that previously were a part of the YMCA building that stood on the site.

Various efforts have been made to replace those units over the years. [See, for example, Chronicle coverage: "The 100 Units of Affordable Housing."] Recently, the Ann Arbor housing commission and its properties have started to receive more attention from the council as an integral part of the city’s approach to providing housing to the lowest income residents. The council approved a series of resolutions this summer that will allow the AAHC to convert many of its properties to project-based vouchers.

The history of the city policy on proceeds of land sales goes back at least 20 years.

The most recent history includes the following:

• Oct. 15, 2012: City council approves a policy that ultimately leaves the policy on the use of proceeds of city land to case-by-case decisions, but indicates that for the Y lot, the proceeds will:
  

  … first be utilized to repay the various funds that expended resources on the property, including but not limited to due diligence, closing of the site and relocation and support of its previous tenants, after which any remaining proceeds be allocated and distributed to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund;”

• Nov. 8, 2012: City council transfers $90,000 from proceeds of the land sale to Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority into the affordable housing trust fund.
• March 4, 2013: City council directs the city administrator to select a broker for the Y lot.
• July 3, 2013: City administrator Steve Powers announces that he’s selected Colliers International and local broker Jim Chaconas to handle the marketing of the property.
• Nov. 18, 2013: City council approves the sale of the former Y lot for $5.25 million to Dennis Dahlmann.
• Dec. 4, 2013: Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board waives its claim to reimbursement from the sale of the Y lot.

The Dec. 16 resolution reflected a departure from the most recent policy adopted by the city council – which called for reimbursements for various costs before net proceeds of the Y lot sale would be deposited into the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

But the resolution eliminates any wrangling between the city and the Ann Arbor DDA over how much in reimbursements might be owed for various purposes. The city has calculated, for example, that $365,651 in interest reimbursements could be owed, as well as $488,646 for the relocation of residents of the former Y building. The DDA has calculated $1,493,959 in reimbursements that it thinks it could claim – for interest payments and cost of demolition, among other items. But the DDA board has voted essentially to waive that claim.

It’s not clear if the DDA can waive all of that claim in light of the fact that the DDA used at least some TIF (tax increment finance) funds to pay for items like demolition and some of the interest payments on the loan. [.pdf of DDA records produced in response to Freedom of Information Act request by The Chronicle] If that were analyzed as a distribution of TIF to the city of Ann Arbor, then under state statute, the DDA would need to distribute a proportional amount to the other jurisdictions whose taxes are captured in the DDA district.

Y Lot Proceeds: Public Commentary

During public commentary reserved time at the start of the meeting, several people addressed the council in support of the council’s resolution on the proceeds from the Y lot sale. Several of them mentioned the 10-degree threshold used by the Delonis Center shelter to determine when the homeless can seek refuge during the day.

Ray Gholston expressed his support for the allocation of funds from the proceeds of the Y lot sale to support affordable housing.

Tracy Williams introduced himself as a resident of Ann Arbor. He said that 700 people died from exposure last year, at least one of them here in Ann Arbor – someone who was a friend of his. “Shorty was a little guy but had a big heart,” Williams said. People like “Shorty” need more help, he added. The agencies who work in this area are doing the best they can, he said, but the Delonis Center weather “amnesty” of 10 degrees is too cold.

Mary Browning spoke on behalf of Religious Action for Affordable Housing. She said she was talking about affordable housing at the 30% of AMI (area median income) level, not 80% AMI. Folks who get help from the shelter need a place to go, she said. She strongly urged that the funds from the Y lot sale go toward affordable housing.

Ryan Sample told a story from three months ago, before the warming center opened. He was sleeping at the Baptist Church. He had to give his blanket to someone who needed it. Even at 40 degrees, when your clothes are wet, there can be the potential for hypothermia, he said, which isn’t covered by the “weather amnesty” of 10 degrees at the shelter. He wished he had a job and was able to work, he concluded.

Jim Mogensen spoke in support of the council’s resolution. The whole process has seemed endless, he said. He recounted the history from the mid-1980s, when the YMCA decided to create the 100 units of SRO housing, and tried to do that with conventional bank loans. That’s why the city of Ann Arbor had become involved, he said – to sign for the loans. And that’s why the city of Ann Arbor had a right of first refusal. The Y had not finally repaid what it owed the city until 2009, he pointed out. He wanted the council to think about those historical lessons as they thought about how to use the money that’s in the affordable housing trust fund.

Former city councilmember and former planning commissioner Jean Carlberg said that Mogensen had given a good history. She served on the city council when it faced the challenge of how to preserve the housing on the Y lot. The council felt it was in the public interest to exercise its right of first refusal on the Y lot, when the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority wanted to purchase the property. She urged the council to allocate the proceeds of the sale of the Y lot to the city’s affordable housing trust fund. With the loss of the Y housing, that increased the need for units – as determined in the Blueprint to End Homelessness – from 500 units to 600 units. The city council on which she served, she said, never expected the city to be repaid from the proceeds. It’s a chance to create a “pile of money” to be used for affordable housing.

Suzanne William was there to support her friends and family in the homeless community. She’d heard about and experienced the homeless situation in Washtenaw County for a long time, and said she supported the council’s resolution. She has a job in downtown Ann Arbor, she said, but can’t afford “affordable housing.” She told the council she earns $150 a week. It’s just absurd, she said, that the Delonis Center’s “weather amnesty” has a threshold of 10 degrees. She recalled curling up in a cardboard box even in the summer at 40 degrees and was cold. People are out there trying, she said, and they’re really hard workers. She suggested some counseling for those housed in affordable housing units.

James Hill asked all those who supported the agenda item on the Y lot proceeds to stand. At least 25 people stood up. He said that the council shouldn’t “skim off the top” for financial accounting reasons. He asked the council to inquire why the weather amnesty at the shelter’s warming center has been reduced from 25 degrees to 10 degrees.

Y Lot Proceeds: Weather Amnesty

During council communications, which came after the public commentary, Sabra Briere (Ward 1) talked about the “weather amnesty” that many public speakers mentioned. The Delonis Center had experimented with changing it from 10 degrees and making it 25 degrees last year. So the change to 10 degrees is the reversion to the previous policy, she explained. Briere’s reporting was based on talking to Ellen Schulmeister, head of the Delonis Center. [The Delonis Center operates an overnight warming center from mid-November to mid-March. It has a capacity of 65 beds, with another 25 spots in a rotating shelter. The discussion at the Dec. 16 council meeting focused on the possibility of a daytime warming center.]

Later, during public commentary at the end of the meeting, Seth Best allowed that the homeless community might have a short memory with respect to the weather amnesty policy changes, but he pointed out that when you’re homeless, you’re in survival mode, thinking about what to do tonight.

In a follow-up phone interview, Schulmeister confirmed Briere’s understanding – that the 25-degree weather amnesty for the daytime warming center was tried briefly last year, but that the 10-degree threshold had been a long-standing policy.

Schulmeister told The Chronicle that the experience they’d gained from the brief trial last year of a 25-degree weather amnesty policy was that it basically translated to operating an ongoing daytime warming center. [That conclusion is supported by hourly temperature data. Google Spreadsheet charting out hourly temps for 2013] She has estimated the cost of operating a daytime warming center at the Delonis Center at $160,000-$180,000 from November through March. The bulk of that cost would be for staffing, she said, though some would be needed for items like bathroom supplies, and increased water and electricity usage.

Y Lot Proceeds: Council Deliberations

During council communications near the start of the meeting, Sabra Briere (Ward 1) said she should have alerted the public to a revision to the dollar amount on the Y lot proceeds. The actual amount available is estimated to be $1,384,300, she said. The amount is an estimate, because the sale has not yet taken place, she stressed.

From left: Sumi Kailasapathy (Ward 1), Sabra Briere (Ward 1), and Sally Petersen (Ward 2).

During mayoral communications, mayor John Hieftje invited Jennifer Hall, executive director of the Ann Arbor housing commission, to the podium to address the council. She described the single resident occupancy (SRO) units at the former Y. It had a staffed front door and a desk, and was actually a “hotel,” she said. The front door staffing helped the residents maintain their tenancy, she noted. Hall described working with the nonprofit Avalon Housing, Washtenaw County’s Community Support and Treatment Services (CSTS), and others to convert an AAHC property, Miller Manor, to a front-door staffed facility.

Hall said they’re working on a plan right now to secure the funding. She would be requesting some of the proceeds from the Y lot to make those services at Miller Manor happen. The maintenance area at Miller Manor is being converted to offices to facilitate the front-door staffing arrangement, she told the council.

When the council reached the resolution on its agenda, Briere reviewed how much money is in the affordable housing trust fund. She noted that the council still hasn’t heard from the Shelter Association – which runs the Delonis Center – about what it needs to get through the inclement weather. In the past, the council has used money from the affordable housing trust fund to support the shelter’s warming center, she said. [At its Oct. 17, 2011 meeting, the council authorized $25,000 in stop-gap funding for the shelter's overnight warming center – from the city's general fund reserve.]

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3). In the background is Dave DeVarti, former city councilmember and former Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board member who has been a staunch advocate for affordable housing.

Briere noted that the city has not been effective at putting money back into the affordable housing trust fund. The strategy of having PUDs (planned unit developments) contribute to the trust fund has not been used much recently, she said.

Jane Lumm (Ward 2) asked for city CFO Tom Crawford. She said it’s a significant amount of money, and asked Crawford to walk the council through how much has been committed to affordable housing compared to the other council priorities.

After some back-and-forth between Lumm and Crawford, Briere pointed out that Crawford was talking about new and unique expenditures. Briere then reviewed various expenditures from the affordable housing trust fund.

Mayor John Hieftje said he’d support the resolution. Given the history of the property, it’s a relatively happy end to the story, he said.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) wanted clarification of why eight votes were required. He wanted to know what would happen if this resolution failed. In broad strokes, Crawford explained, most of it would go to the general fund. Kunselman said he’d support the resolution, venturing that most of the money would go to support the Ann Arbor housing commission.

Lumm characterized the amount as a huge transfer from the general fund to the city’s affordable housing trust fund. Crawford replied that it’s important to weigh all the city’s needs. He described how much general fund balance would remain if the resolution passed.

Lumm asked for an amendment to reduce the amount of the transfer by half, to roughly $692,000.

Y Lot Proceeds: Amendment to Reduce by Half

Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5) responded to Lumm’s previous point about how much is spent on the council’s different priorities, by talking about how much the city spends on public safety compared to affordable housing – pointing out that the city spends $39.5 million a year on public safety.

Warpehoski’s remarks:

We say one of our budget priorities is police and fire. That gets $39.5 million dollars in our budget. It’s the biggest chunk of our budget. We say it’s a priority and that’s where we are putting our money – in police and fire. Infrastructure is one of those – roads is $14 million. We say it’s a priority, we are putting most of the money in those areas. But we say affordable housing is a priority – compared to the big ones, it’s minuscule. If this is a priority, let’s fund it. When the Y came down, there were two big losses to the community. One was the hundred units.

But the other loss we heard was the one that Jennifer Hall was telling us about. We lost the site that best served our most needy community members, by providing them a site that had a safe, 24-hour, seven-days-a-week staffed front door – for long-term housing. We don’t have anything else that does that. So for people who are hard to house – fighting addiction, worried about getting abused by people in their lives – they can walk in and they’ve got somebody stopping, watching their back when they get to the door, so they don’t get bullied or re-victimized and hurt. That’s the other thing we lost.

And that is why I was so delighted when I talked to Jennifer all last week, and she said: We have a plan [for converting Miller Manor to a front-door staffed facility] … Compared to what else we’re spending, we’re not putting the same money that we’re putting onto what we’re doing on the other priorities. … It still doesn’t help us move forward in terms of providing beds for those people we heard from who don’t have a warm place to sleep – tonight or when the warming shelter isn’t open. And so I think we need to be looking for other opportunities….

When I voted yes to sell the Y site to Dennis Dahlmann, I wasn’t doing it just to get the debt off the books – that was a good thing. I certainly wasn’t doing it to help him have one more property that wasn’t going to be a hotel to compete with him. I was doing it because I thought it was going to be a path to get money to fund affordable housing. This is our opportunity. We’re not going to get a lot of opportunities like this to put some money aside for affordable housing. We’ve got the needs. The 11 of us will all have a warm place to sleep tonight. We have a responsibility to do what we can to provide that for the rest in our community. Thank you.

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) followed Warpehoski with three words: “What he said.” Briere was nearly as brief in saying she wished she could have said it as well as Warpehoski.

Lumm responded by expressing concern about the pressure that this would put on the general fund, saying she felt torn.

Outcome: The amendment to cut the amount in half failed on a 2-9 vote. Only Jane Lumm (Ward 3) and Jack Eaton (Ward 4) voted for it.

Y Lot Proceeds: More Council Deliberations

Lumm noted that the council reached a different conclusion about what the policy should be last year after a long discussion – that there would be reimbursements. So she was torn, she said.

Eaton said he’d support the resolution, but he expressed concern that the city hasn’t approached the policy questions adequately. He allowed that more should be done for affordable housing, but said the city needs to “aim at the right targets.”

Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5).

Kunselman pointed out that the money is not actually being spent by passing the resolution. Rather, it would go into the city’s affordable housing trust fund. Kunselman noted that previous councils have made decisions about this policy, but this council will make its own decision. The council has heard a lot of voices calling for the council to do something to support affordable housing, he said. The money is not going anywhere until the council spends it, he concluded.

Briere ventured that more than 30% of funding for affordable housing has been cut – by the federal Housing & Urban Development (HUD) and by the state. That came in response to Lumm’s citing the percentage reduction in funding and staffing levels for the Ann Arbor police department.

Briere allowed that Lumm’s point about 10% of proceeds that the council set as a policy last year is accurate for city-owned properties – but she pointed out that the resolution separated out the Y lot from other downtown properties. Briere noted that if the city tried to repay the reimbursements, there wouldn’t be much left. She also pointed out that this is the last year that this trust fund will exist separately as a fund – due to new accounting standards. In the future, it will simply be general fund money that’s allocated to affordable housing. It will no longer be a separate fund, she said.

By way of more specific background, city finance director Karen Lancaster explained in an emailed response to a Chronicle query that the relevant standard is GASB 54. The standard states, among other things, that if transfers from the general fund are the primary revenue source, then that fund must be displayed as part of the general fund.

During council deliberations, Briere noted that currently, the city’s housing and human services advisory board must make a recommendation on how money in the affordable housing trust fund is spent. She was not sure how that will play out in the future.

Hieftje then talked about how federal funding for affordable housing has been drying up. He didn’t think it was appropriate to include the public safety budget in this discussion. He called the recent turnaround at the Ann Arbor housing commission spectacular.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to deposit $1,384,300 million – the entire proceeds, less brokerage fees and seller’s costs – from the sale of the former Y lot into the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

Y Lot Proceeds: More Public Commentary

During public commentary at the end of the meeting, four people addressed the council with remarks related to the vote on the Y lot. Dave DeVarti thanked the council for their unanimous vote. He pointed out the property has never been on the tax rolls, because the Y is a nonprofit. He asked the council to look at the tax receipts from that property and consider using that revenue to fund supportive services.

By way of additional background, during his period of service on the DDA board, DeVarti was a staunch supporter of funding for affordable housing. DeVarti was not reappointed, and in late 2008 Keith Orr was appointed to replace him. After DeVarti left, board members sometimes have quipped that they were “channeling Dave DeVarti” when they spoke in support of affordable housing.

Caleb Poirier.

During public commentary at the DDA board’s Nov. 6, 2013 meeting, DeVarti had addressed the topic of the former Y lot, suggesting that the DDA purchase the lot outright, so that the need to repay the loan would be removed as the impetus for selling the lot. That approach would give the city a lot more flexibility, he had argued.

During the final public commentary at the council’s Dec. 16 meeting, Seth Best wished the council happy holidays. He thanked councilmembers for their vote on the Y lot. He invited councilmembers to participate in national homelessness awareness day, on Dec. 21. He told the council that the homeless community operates in “survival mode.” When the “weather amnesty” temperature changes, they have a short memory, he said, because they are thinking about what they have to do tonight. He talked about the proposal from McKinley for affordable housing on South State Street – which considers “affordable housing” to start at $900 a month.

Caleb Poirier updated the council on a property that the homeless community has acquired. He alerted councilmembers that there will eventually be requests coming to the council in connection with that property.

Non-Motorized Transportation Plan Funding

The council considered a directive to the city administrator to provide a funding plan for elements of the city’s non-motorized transportation plan.

The council approved the updated plan at its Nov. 18, 2013 meeting.

The new document is organized into three sections: (1) planning and policy updates; (2) updates to near-term recommendations; and (3) long-term recommendations.

Additional flashing beacon locations identified in Ann Arbor’s non-motorized transportation plan.

The Dec. 16 resolution – which is co-sponsored by Christopher Taylor (Ward 3), Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5) Margie Teall (Ward 4) and Sabra Briere (Ward 1) – was structured in part based on those main sections.

Among other specific instructions, the resolution directed city administrator Steve Powers to present a strategy for funding the plan’s recommended midblock deployments of rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFB).

Examples of planning and policy issues in the non-motorized transportation plan include design guidelines, recommendations for approaches like bike boulevards and bike share programs, and planning practices that cover education campaigns, maintenance, crosswalks and other non-motorized elements for pedestrians and bicyclists.

For example, the update recommends that the city begin developing a planning process for bike boulevards, which are described as “a low-traffic, low-speed road where bicycle interests are prioritized.”

Sections of West Washington (from Revena to First), Elmwood (from Platt to Canterbury) and Broadway (from its southern intersection with Plymouth to where it rejoins Plymouth about a mile to the northeast) are suggested for potential bike boulevards.

Near-term recommendations include lower-cost efforts like re-striping roads to install bike lanes and adding crossing islands.

Longer-term projects that were included in the 2007 plan are re-emphasized: the Allen Creek Greenway, Border-to-Border Trail, Gallup Park & Fuller Road paths, and a Briarwood-Pittsfield pedestrian bridge.

The city’s non-motorized transportation plan is part of the city’s master plan. The planning commission adopted the updated plan at its Sept. 10, 2013 meeting. [.pdf of draft 2013 non-motorized transportation plan update]

Non-Motorized Plan Funding: Council Deliberations

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) led things off by reviewing the content of the resolution. Sumi Kailasapathy (Ward 1) asked for systems planning unit manager Cresson Slotten to field questions. She first got confirmation from Slotten about a correction to the plan – that there are supposed to be only 20 RRFBs in the plan, not 24. She asked how the RRFBs were determined as the technology to be deployed as solutions. Slotten regretted that transportation program manager Eli Cooper was out of town, because Cooper could give a more detailed answer.

But Slotten assured Kailasapathy that a detailed analysis had been done. He allowed that Pat Cawley and Les Sipowski, city traffic engineers, had been involved in the determination of the RRFBs as solutions and their locations.

Sumi Kailasapathy (Ward 1).

Kailasapathy wanted to propose an amendment to make clear that traffic engineers would be involved in the final determination, which she then moved.

Jack Eaton (Ward 4) ventured that the sponsors of the resolution had not contemplated any other engineering solutions other than RRFBs. Sabra Briere (Ward 1) responded to Eaton by asking Slotten a series of questions.

Briere asked if it’s always the case that when a city plan calls for putting some type of infrastructure in a location, that the infrastructure specified in the plan is always installed. Slotten described how there’s a lot more detailed analysis when a project is actually measured out in the field. Briere asked who would do that work. Slotten said that city traffic engineers working with in-house surveyors would probably do that work. In response to another question from Briere, Slotten allowed that sometimes the final project is not the same as what was in the plan.

Mayor John Hieftje then engaged in some back-and-forth with Slotten to establish what the role of traffic engineers is in determining RRFBs as a solution in a particular location. Margie Teall (Ward 4) said she wanted to know that staff has the latitude to determine the exact locations and details. Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) ventured that a plan is a plan, and that plans change. Kunselman got confirmation from Slotten that there could be conditions that warrant looking outside the plan for a solution. Kunselman supported Kailasapathy’s amendment.

Taylor noted the “juicy bit” that the council was talking about removed specific reference to the RRFBs. The idea is not to predetermine what engineering features go into any particular crosswalk, Taylor said – which made sense to him. So Taylor indicated support for at least part of Kailasapathy’s amendment.

Kailasapathy explained that she wanted to avoid creating the impression for staff that there is a “mandate” for RRFBs. Briere said that plans are not solid but rather a little “squishy.”

Briere cited some of the specific words from Kailasapathy’s amendment: “implement recommendations of the city’s traffic engineers.” Briere ventured that “as applied by the city traffic engineers” could work.

City administrator Steve Powers weighed in by suggesting that if the direction from the council is to revisit previous evaluations and recommendations that are contained in the non-motorized transportation plan, then that direction from the council needed to be made clear.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) noted that a lot of improvements had been made in engineering technology. Anglin asked if the locations designated for RRFBs are not eligible for HAWK signals. He contended that RRFBs ask motorists to interpret a yellow light as requirement to stop. He appeared to be advocating for HAWK signals instead of RRFBs. Anglin said he’s heard that HAWK lights are too expensive, but asked what the cost of safety should be.

Hieftje responded to Anglin by venturing that the city traffic engineers are up to date on the latest technology. Sally Petersen (Ward 2) raised the question of how this resolution relates to the establishment of the pedestrian safety task force.

Eaton said his understanding is that there’s no detailed and particularized engineering study that’s been done of the general locations of the RRFBs in the non-motorized plan. He wanted to make sure it’s done right.

Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5) noted that there were three elements to the amendment offered by Kailasapathy: (1) it should be technology neutral; (2) traffic engineers should be involved; and (3) the downtown is highlighted specifically. Warpehoski said he was fine with (1). He thought (2) was redundant but didn’t have a problem with it. He had some ideas about (3).

At that point the council decided to recess to hammer out some language they could all agree on. The language the council considered after emerging from recess was as follows:

RESOLVED, That the City Council directs the City Administrator to report to City Council by January 1, 2014, his plan to enhance and improve traffic enforcement at and around crosswalks;

RESOLVED, That the City Council directs the City Administrator to report to City Council by March 1, 2014, his plan to fund, effect, and otherwise implement the 2013 Update to the Non-Motorized Transportation Plan’s actionable recommendations to improve midblock crosswalks;

RESOLVED, That the City Council directs the City Administrator to report to City Council by April 21, 2014, his plan to fund, effect, and otherwise implement actionable Near-term Recommendations of the 2013 Update to the Non-Motorized Transportation Plan;

RESOLVED, The City Council directs the City Administrator to report to the City Council by March 1, 2014, his plan to direct the City’s traffic engineers to recommend solutions to improve pedestrian safety in downtown;

RESOLVED, That the City Council directs the City Administrator to report to City Council by June 30, 2014, his plan to fund, effect, and otherwise implement actionable Long-term Recommendations of the 2013 Update to the Non-Motorized Transportation Plan; and

RESOLVED, That the City Council desires that the foregoing plans include elements of the 2013 Update to the Non-Motorized Transportation Plan related to pedestrian, driver, and cyclist education; improved signage; improved engineering of pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicle interface zones; and increased enforcement attention to pedestrian safety.

Kunselman said he wanted remove the dates specified in the resolution, saying that he wanted to give the city administrator more flexibility. He pointed out that the city’s transportation program manager, Eli Cooper, would have a lot of responsibility for the implementation of the non-motorized plan. Kunselman took the occasion to reiterate the fact that he dislikes the fact that Cooper serves on the board of the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority.

Kunselman said he’d prefer that all of Cooper’s energy go into his responsibilities as transportation program manager and none of it go into the AAATA. [Kunselman voted against Cooper's appointment two years ago at the council's Dec. 19, 2011 meeting.]

In response to a question from Hieftje, Taylor said that the dates in the resolution were characterized by the city administrator as “feasible.” Lumm indicated support for the amendment, saying she’d support it.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to direct the city administrator to present a funding and implementation plan for the city’s non-motorized transportation plan. The version passed by the council was amended at the table. [.pdf of amended non-motorized implementation resolution]

$125K for Traffic Enforcement

The council considered an allocation of $125,000 from the general fund balance to pay for police overtime required for additional traffic enforcement. The item began conceptually as a $500,000 allocation described by Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), who was persuaded by co-sponsors Jane Lumm (Ward 2) and Jack Eaton (Ward 4) that $125,000 would be a more reasonable amount to spend.

Data from the city’s most recent comprehensive annual financial report (CAFR), compiled with previous CAFRs, shows that traffic citations have continued for the past three years at significantly lower levels than previously:

Ann Arbor traffic violations. (Data from city of Ann Arbor CAFR. Chart by The Chronicle.)

Some insight into the question of how much time AAPD officers have available for proactive policing activities – like traffic enforcement – has been provided to councilmembers in the form of timesheet data that officers have been logging since the beginning of 2013.

In the charts below (by The Chronicle, with data from the city of Ann Arbor), green shading indicates unassigned time and time dedicated to proactive policing activities. Dedicate policing activities include: bicycle patrol, business contact, check person, citizen/motorist assist, code citation, community event, community meeting, downtown foot patrol, extra patrol (general), extra patrol (parks), felony, impound, liquor inspection, misdemeanor, parking citation, property check, recontact, traffic enforcement (general), traffic enforcement (laser), traffic enforcement (radar), traffic problem, and traffic stop.

Ann Arbor police department timesheet analysis. AAPD provided a range of time periods, to cover for the data entry training period, as officers learned the new system and became accustomed to coding their activities in a standard way. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from the city of Ann Arbor.)

In a memo to the city administrator dated Nov. 4, 2013, chief of police John Seto indicated that he’s already begun to assign additional proactive duties to officers, based on the results of the timesheet analysis:

As a result of this data, supervisors and officers have been identifying additional dedicated proactive policing activities to engage in for the remainder of 2013. Staffing modifications will also be taking place for 2014. An additional officer will be assigned to Special Services to address traffic complaints. The distribution of Patrol Officers will also be modified to increase the number of officers assigned to the swing shift, where the volume of calls for service is greater.

$125K for Traffic Enforcement: Council Deliberations

During council communications at the start of the meeting, Mike Anglin (Ward 5) reported on a meeting on traffic safety held at Bach Elementary School the previous week. His remarks were largely positive.

From left: Mike Anglin (Ward 5) and city administrator Steve Powers.

About 100 people attended, he said. This is the kind of approach the city should be taking, he said, noting that the meeting was well attended by staff. Three councilmembers attended, he said, including Jack Eaton (Ward 4) and Sabra Briere (Ward 1)

When the council reached the item on the agenda, Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) led things off by quipping that the discussion should be short, because the resolution was short. He allowed that he’d wanted to put a lot more funding in police chief John Seto’s hands than the $125,000 that’s in the resolution. Revenues have been down from traffic citations, he noted. And there’s a need to curtail motorists from speeding. Things like cars passing stopped school buses have also been raised as concerns, he said.

Lumm thanked Kunselman for leading this effort. She thought everyone could support the idea that increased traffic enforcement is an important part of improving traffic safety.

Mayor John Hieftje said he understood the motivation for the resolution. But it’s unusual to give staff money to spend without asking how staff would specifically solve the problem the council has identified, he said. He also pointed to the timesheet breakdown for police officers showing that officers may have time to implement additional traffic enforcement within the existing staffing levels, without using overtime.

Briere wanted Seto to explain how this money would be spent. Seto said there’s not a specific plan for using this overtime money. There are various general ways: individual officers assigned to specific locations, or officers can be dedicated to a promotion and educational effort. Briere asked Seto if he could provide a specific plan and a budget for implementation by Jan. 22, the council’s second meeting in January. “It depends,” replied Seto.

Briere observed that even if Seto just followed the simple resolution, he’d still have to come up with a plan. She wanted Seto to tell the council how much it might cost to implement increased traffic enforcement. She ventured there might be various levels of implementation – which could cost even more than $125,000. She wanted Seto to develop a specific plan for implementation.

Seto said that if the council directed him to do so, he could come back with a specific traffic enforcement enhancement plan. He said that the $125,000 translates into 1,800 additional hours and indicated a lack of certainty that it could all allocated right now. Briere asked if Seto could come back with the cost for a plan that he would implement.

In a reference to a remark by Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) from a previous council meeting, Kunselman exclaimed: “Talk about micromanaging!” He noted that the $125,000 figure came from the city administrator. Seto didn’t have to spend it all, Kunselman said. He called it a small amount in response to community concerns. He allowed that it would require eight votes to pass [because it was a budget amendment] and he invited those who wanted to vote against it to do so.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) thanked Seto for attending the Bach Elementary School meeting on traffic safety. He ventured that Seto has heard directly about some of these citizen concerns.

Responding to Sally Petersen (Ward 2), Seto said that $125,000 translates to 26 weeks of eight 8-hour shifts.

Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5) indicated he’d support the resolution, citing concerns that were reflected in the recent National Citizens Survey. [For the open-ended response survey item, which asked respondents to identify the city leaders’ top three priorities to maximize the quality of life in Ann Arbor, public safety was one of the top three items, with 19% of the open-ended responses identifying safety, crime and police as a concern. Also cited in 19% of responses were government, taxes and communication. However, the dominant concern in the open-ended responses was mobility issues – as 57% of responses were coded as related to roads, transportation, traffic, traffic enforcement, bikes and pedestrians.]

Warpehoski said that traffic safety is the one area where increased investment in safety services is justified. He said he was frustrated that he wasn’t able to get benchmark data about traffic safety. The question Warpehoski had submitted to staff before the meeting and its response was as follows:

Question: Do we have any data by which to benchmark Ann Arbor’s traffic safety compared to other communities (e.g. within the SEMCOG region, peer cities of similar size, or other appropriate comparisons)? In particular, I would like to see data for accidents per vehicle miles traveled, excluding freeways such as I-94, US-23, and M-14. (Councilmember Warpehoski)

Response: We do not have data on vehicle miles traveled within the City of Ann Arbor.

Taylor said that he didn’t disagree that traffic enforcement is deeply important. But he thought that the resolution the council was considering amounted to pre-funding a plan that’s not yet in front of the council. [He was referring to the council's direction to city administrator Steve Powers, taken earlier in the meeting, to develop an implementation strategy for the non-motorized transportation plan.] Taylor wanted to postpone until the next meeting.

$125K for Traffic Enforcement: Council Deliberations – Postponement

Petersen punched the air, raising her hand to be called on. She argued against Taylor’s contention that this resolution was somehow at odds with the previous resolution on the non-motorized transportation plan. She contended that this police overtime actually strengthens that resolution “I don’t know why we wouldn’t do this now,” she said.

Mayor John Hieftje.

Kailasapathy said that this resolution is basically choosing something that seems reasonable – echoing Warpehoski’s sense that this amount is roughly the equivalent of adding an FTE for traffic enforcement. She said she’d support the resolution.

Responding to a question from Hieftje, Seto said there are currently four traffic enforcement staff, plus one administrative position. On Jan. 1 Seto was already planning to assign an additional person to traffic enforcement. This resolution would essentially bring the total to six.

Eaton said that it’s important to be safe – not just from rapes and murders. He described some neighborhoods where cars speed so fast that they leave the roads and run into people’s houses.

Hieftje said he wanted to hear the plan before the council throws the money at it. He supported the postponement. Lumm said she wouldn’t support the postponement. She talked about the overall staffing levels of the AAPD, noting that the number of sworn officers currently is down to 119. She cited the number of emails that she receives asking for more traffic enforcement.

Kunselman said he wouldn’t support a postponement, contending that Seto has already described a plan. He indicated that success will be measured by the number of traffic citations issued.

Taylor pointed out that the previous resolution on implementation of the non-motorized transportation plan does address enforcement around crosswalks.

Outcome on postponement: The motion for postponement failed with support only from Hieftje, Briere and Taylor.

$125K for Traffic Enforcement: More Council Deliberations

Warpehoski noted that the “results” that Kunselman had highlighted are in terms of revenue and citations, but Warpehoski wanted results measured in a way that’s related to traffic safety. He didn’t think police services should be treated as a cash register.

Hieftje said one reason that traffic citations are down is that penalties – for drunk driving, for example – are harsher and people pay more attention. Hieftje said he didn’t want to just throw money at a problem.

Teall echoed Hieftje’s sentiments. She was concerned about a possible backlash from increased enforcement. Briere affirmed there are as many people who are angry about lack of traffic enforcement as who are angry about too much traffic enforcement. Briere described herself as not very gung ho when it comes to rules, but she believed in traffic enforcement. She’d prefer that Seto tell the council how much money he needed, rather than the council tell the chief.

Briere asked Seto if 70 additional hours a week in traffic enforcement is actually feasible. Seto described how his intent would not be to just implement some speed traps – saying that high crash locations can be targeted using a new city system. Seto said he can start this additional enforcement on Jan. 1. Petersen said she couldn’t think of a better day to start than Jan. 1, because of the NHL’s Winter Classic that’s planned for that day.

From left: Jane Lumm (Ward 2), Christopher Taylor (Ward 3).

Petersen asked for and received confirmation that the figure of $125,000 had been vetted with the city administrator and that Seto had called it feasible. Kunselman followed up on Petersen’s remarks by saying that not only had the number been vetted, but Seto had also described a plan for implementation. He agreed with Warpehoski’s point that revenues are not the only measure of success. He said he wouldn’t mind hearing complaints about too much traffic enforcement.

Taylor allowed that the $125,000 had been “vetted.” He asked Seto if the plan that starts Jan. 1 will cost about $125,000. Seto replied: “It could.” Taylor allowed that the existence of a budget doesn’t necessitate the spending of that budget. Seto agreed that it might not be necessary to spend all of that $125,000.

Taylor concluded by saying “I think this is sloppy,” pointing out that the council is a couple weeks away from having a plan with a dollar figure on it [an allusion to the non-motorized transportation plan implementation strategy the council had voted to direct the city administrator to develop earlier in the meeting]. It’s not a professional way to approach things, Taylor said. But he had a lot of confidence in Seto’s ability to produce a plan the city is proud of – a plan that will be effective and not just burn through the money just because it is there.

Outcome: The council voted over the lone dissent of mayor John Hieftje to approve $125,000 to pay for overtime so that Ann Arbor police officers can provide additional traffic enforcement.

How Much Is a Parking Space Worth?

Postponed from the council’s Dec. 2 meeting was a resolution that would define how much developers would need to pay the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority if a developer’s project requires removal of a metered on-street parking space. The proposed amount is $45,000 per space. The payment would go to the Ann Arbor DDA because the DDA manages the public parking system under a contract with the city.

The rationale for postponing the item – offered by Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) at the council’s Dec. 2 meeting – was that because it amounts to a fee, a public hearing should be held on the matter before the council votes.

In this matter, the council would be acting on a four-year-old recommendation approved by the Ann Arbor DDA in 2009:

Thus it is recommended that when developments lead to the removal of on-street parking meter spaces, a cost of $45,000/parking meter space (with annual CPI increases) be assessed and provided to the DDA to set aside in a special fund that will be used to construct future parking spaces or other means to meet the goals above. [.pdf of meeting minutes with complete text of March 4, 2009 DDA resolution]

The contract under which the DDA manages the public parking system for the city was revised to restructure the financial arrangement (which now pays the city 17% of the gross revenues), but also included a clause meant to prompt the city to act on the on-street space cost recommendation. From the May 2011 parking agreement:

The City shall work collaboratively with the DDA to develop and present for adoption by City Council a City policy regarding the permanent removal of on-street metered parking spaces. The purpose of this policy will be to identify whether a community benefit to the elimination of one or more metered parking spaces specific area(s) of the City exists, and the basis for such a determination. If no community benefit can be identified, it is understood and agreed by the parties that a replacement cost allocation methodology will need to be adopted concurrent with the approval of the City policy; which shall be used to make improvements to the public parking or transportation system.

Subject to administrative approval by the city, it’s the DDA that has sole authority to determine the addition or removal of meters, loading zones, or other curbside parking uses.

The $45,000 figure is based on an average construction cost to build a new parking space in a structure, either above ground or below ground – as estimated in 2009. It’s not clear what the specific impetus is to act on the issue now, other than the fact that action is simply long overdue. In 2011, the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research expansion was expected to result in the net removal of one on-street parking space. [For more background, see: "Column: Ann Arbor's Monroe (Street) Doctrine."]

The resolution was sponsored by Christopher Taylor (Ward 3). Taylor participated in recent meetings of a joint council and DDA board committee that negotiated a resolution to the question about how the DDA’s TIF (tax increment finance) revenue is regulated. In that context, Taylor had argued adamantly that any cap on the DDA’s TIF should be escalated by a construction industry CPI, or roughly 5%. Taylor’s reasoning was that the DDA’s mission is to undertake capital projects and therefore should have revenue that escalates in accordance with increases in the costs to undertake capital projects.

Based on Taylor’s reasoning on the TIF question, and the explicit 2009 recommendation by the DDA to increase the estimated $45,000 figure in that year by an inflationary index, the recommended amount now, four years later, would be closer to $55,000, assuming a 5% figure for construction cost inflation. The city’s contribution in lieu (CIL) parking program allows a developer (as one option) to satisfy an onsite parking space requirement by paying $55,000. (The other option is to enter into a 15-year agreement to purchase monthly parking permits at a 20% premium.)

The actual cost of building an underground space in the recently completed (2012) underground Library Lane parking structure could be calculated by taking the actual costs and dividing by 738 – the number of spaces in the structure. Based on a recent memo from executive director Susan Pollay to city administrator Steve Powers, about 30% or $15 million of the cost of the project was spent on items “unneeded by the parking structure.” That included elements like oversized foundations to support future development, an extra-large transformer, a new alley between Library Lane and S. Fifth Avenue, new water mains, easements for a fire hydrant and pedestrian improvements.

The actual amount spent on the Library Lane structure, according to DDA records produced under a Freedom of Information Act request from The Chronicle, was $54,855,780.07, or about $1.5 million under the project’s $56.4 million budget. Adjusting for those elements not needed for the parking structure yields a per-space cost of about $52,000. [(54,855,780.07*.70)/738] [.pdf of Nov. 22, 2013 memo from Pollay to Powers][.pdf of budget versus actual expenses for the 738 space Library Lane structure]

The last two month’s minutes from the DDA’s committee meetings don’t reflect any discussion of the on-street parking space replacement cost. Nor has the issue been discussed at any recent DDA board meeting.

By way of additional background, the Ann Arbor DDA’s most recent financial records show that last year, on-street parking spaces generated $2,000 in gross revenue per space or $1,347 in net income per space annually. The contract with the city under which the DDA operates the public parking system stipulates that the city receives 17% of the gross parking revenues. So the city’s revenue associated with an on-street parking space corresponds to $340 annually.

How Much Is a Parking Space Worth: Public Hearing

Thomas Partridge introduced himself as a past candidate for public office. To his knowledge, he said, the resolution contained no language specifying how parking spaces should be provided for pickup and dropoff for people with disabilities. He said that the proposal should be referred back to a committee for further review. He said the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority has been functioning as a stealth government, an agent of the city of Ann Arbor.

How Much Is a Parking Space Worth: Council Deliberations

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) introduced the item by saying there had been several amendments to the resolution and he hoped that the amendments had been disseminated. [.pdf of amended version of policy]

Taylor then reviewed the resolution: It would charge developers for removing parking meters. He characterized the process as a “long and slow burn.” He called the charge a replacement fee. He argued for having such a fee by saying that the city’s parking system is a finite resource. There’s a choice to allow removal or not, he said. So the amount required to be paid as a fee, he said, is $45,000, which is approximately the cost of creating a new parking space in a structure. There’s a caveat whereby the cost could be waived if the removal is deemed to be a public benefit, he noted.

Sumi Kailasapathy (Ward 1) asked for staff to approach the podium to answer some questions, and Susan Pollay, executive director of the DDA, came forward. Kailasapathy said she saw a parking space as a capital asset. She asked if the money that is paid as a fee should be segregated into a separate fund, saying it should not be treated as simple revenue. Pollay replied that this has not yet been thought through in detail, but the DDA’s operations committee would be taking that up. Kailasapathy wanted to add an amendment that would require the segregation of funds into something like a sinking fund.

Taylor had no objection to segregating the funds, but was not sure that the city council should be telling the DDA exactly how to do the accounting. City administrator Steve Powers weighed in, saying that the city could work with the DDA to reserve the funds in some manner.

Jane Lumm (Ward 2) offered some generally supportive comments about the concept of charging some kind of fee. Pollay indicated she understood that the council is keen to see the capital funds set aside and separated somehow.

Sally Petersen (Ward 2) asked if the money that’s paid could be used to build any capital project or if it had to be a parking space. She was worried about having enough critical mass of funding to undertake the building of a new parking structure. Pollay said that this money to be paid would not necessarily be the only money used to build a new parking structure. The money from the fee would be added to the pot when it comes time to build a new parking structure, Pollay said.

Petersen wanted to know if the money could be used to add on to an existing structure. Pollay’s response was affirmative, as she pointed out that the Fourth and William structure had been extended upward.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) said that if the money is earmarked for new construction, that makes accounting challenging because it’s not known when construction will happen. Why not just use the money for debt service on parking structures? he asked. Kunselman asked how many spaces have been removed recently. Pollay told Kunselman that about 50 had been removed in the last five years. She allowed that some on-street spaces have also been added through projects like the Fifth and Division street improvement project.

Mayor John Hieftje asked the council to think about whether the issue could be worked out that evening or if it should be put off. Taylor then read aloud wording of a proposed amendment about “financial controls” to segregate the funds so that they can be reinvested in construction of new parking spaces. Kailasapathy wanted the language to be flexible enough to construct new spaces or also replace existing spaces.

The wording of the amendment, which had been forwarded to the press during the meeting by city clerk Jackie Beaudry on request of the council, was: “Therefore, the City of Ann Arbor and the DDA will establish financial controls to segregate cash flows from the removal of on-street parking in order to reinvest these funds in the creation of parking spaces.”

Hieftje asked again if it might be a good idea to put off the question. Taylor was content to see it postponed, as was Kailasapathy.

Lumm then raised an issue she described as a “nit.” There are references in the resolution to development projects taking spaces out of the system, she noted. Lumm asked if the DDA operations committee would consider describing it differently, when that committee reviewed the policy. Many of the spaces that have been “gobbled up” recently have not been by developers but rather by UM or the city itself, Lumm said.

Petersen then said she had an amendment she wanted to add into the mix. Hieftje told her to send it to the DDA operations committee for their discussion.

Outcome: The council voted to postpone until the first meeting in January a vote on a policy that sets the price for removal of an on-street parking space at $45,000.

Solid Waste: Plate Scrapings

The council considered allocating $64,550 from the solid waste fund to support a food-scrap composting initiative. That request came in the context of the council’s recent adoption of an update to the city’s solid waste plan. When the city council adopted the solid waste plan update on Oct. 7, 2013, a modification was made during deliberations.

An inventory of a sample of contents of Ann Arbor garbage trucks showed that about half of the weight is due to food waste. (Chart from the city’s solid waste plan update.)

The amendment undertaken by the council at that meeting eliminated mention of a possible transition to bi-weekly trash pickup or pay-as-you-throw initiatives.

However, one of the recommendations that is thought possibly to lead to a reduction in curbside garbage pickup – which would have been the basis for any decision to reduce the frequency of trash pickup – was left in the plan.

That recommendation is to allow plate scrapings to be placed in residents’ brown composting carts that the city uses to collect yard waste for processing at the city’s composting facility. That facility is operated by a third-party – WeCare Organics. The goal is to reduce the proportion of the city’s landfilled solid waste stream that’s made up of food waste. A recent inventory of the contents of some city trash trucks showed that about half of the weight is made up of food waste.

[Waste Less: City of Ann Arbor Solid Waste Resource Plan.] [Appendices to Waste Less] [Previous Chronicle coverage: Waste as Resource: Ann Arbor's Five Year Plan.]

The $64,550 allocation breaks down this way:

• $14,950 for an increased level of service from WeCare Organics at the compost processing facility (daily versus weekly grinding). The city is estimating no increased net cost for this increased service based on a reduction in landfill tipping fees. The city pays $25.90 per ton for transfer and disposal of landfilled waste. That’s $7.90 more than the city pays WeCare organics ($18 per ton) for processing compostable material. City staff is estimating that the program will divert 2,100 tons from the $25.90 category – for a savings of 2,100*$7.90=$16,590.
• $24,600 for the cost of 6,000 Sure-Close counter-top containers the city plans to give away to residents to encourage the initial separation of plate scrapings from garbage.
• $25,000 for a subsidy to sell an estimated 1,000 additional brown compost carts to residents at a cost of $25 per cart instead of $50 per cart. About 12,000 carts are already in use.

A Doppstadt slow speed grinder/shredder used by WeCare Organics. (Image provided by WeCare)

Solid Waste: Plate Scrapings – Public Commentary

Barbara Lucas spoke in support of the expanded food waste composting. Her family had participated in a pilot program. Where she currently lives, there are various wildlife that makes composting food scraps challenging. She said that during the pilot program, there wasn’t a problem with odor. When there’s other yard waste in the composting cart, that helps, she said.

Solid Waste: Plate Scrapings – Council Deliberations

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) introduced the resolution. Jack Eaton (Ward 4) confirmed that this resolution would not change the seasonal compost collection schedule. Solid waste manager Tom McMurtrie was invited by mayor John Hieftje to demonstrate the counter-top containers, which would be offered free to residents.

City solid waste manager Tom McMurtrie demonstrates a counter-top food-scrap storage container that the city will be giving away to residents to encourage them to place their food waste in brown compost carts instead of the regular trash.

Eaton asked how many households use a garbage disposal and would not use this service. Jane Lumm (Ward 2) said she thought that the estimates of how many tons would be added to the compost and diverted from garbage are optimistic. She called the giveaways “gimmicky.” But she said it’s not a huge investment to give it a try.

Sumi Kailasapathy (Ward 1) questioned the viability of the city’s estimates. If the 2,100 ton estimate is not accurate, then the city would pay for the additional service of grinding the compost plus the giveaways, she ventured. McMurtrie allowed that Kailasapathy was right about that.

Kailasapathy wanted to know if a pilot could be conducted, just for Monday route collection, for example. McMurtrie said in such a pilot. it would be logistically difficult to maintain the separation of the material at the composting site.

McMurtrie explained that WeCare set the price for the additional grinding at below its cost, because WeCare wants to see the program succeed. For a pilot, WeCare would need to bring in the equipment for the same frequency – but for a limited pilot, it would be over a much smaller tonnage base.

Briere argued for the resolution. She wondered how residents might deal with raccoons. McMurtrie suggested modifying the compost cart by adding a bungee cord – but cautioned that residents need to remember to take the bungee off when they set out the cart. Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) re-confirmed Eaton’s point from early in the deliberations – that compost will still not be collected in the winter months.

Kunselman ventured that a considerable educational effort will be required. He asked about the mention of the MDEQ requirements in the staff memo. McMurtrie explained that the city’s proposal is consistent with MDEQ guidelines. The daily processing is what WeCare views as appropriate procedures for dealing with this type of material, he said.

Kunselman asked about the end product: Will adding food waste have an impact on the quality of the end product? No, said McMurtrie.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to appropriate $64,550 to fund the food-scrap composting initiative.

Tree Pruning

The council considered a resolution accepting a $50,000 grant from the USDA Forestry Service – to put toward a tree pruning initiative. The pruning program would target those trees in the public right-of-way that are most in need of pruning (Priority 1). The initiative is also focused on the larger of the city’s street trees – those bigger than 20 inches in diameter. Those are the trees that have the greatest impact on the mitigation of stormwater.

Here’s where the trees targeted by the program are located:

Street trees in Ann Arbor greater than 20 inches in diameter. (Map by the city of Ann Arbor.)

From the city’s online tree inventory, The Chronicle queried those trees greater than 20 inches in diameter and designated as Priority 1 for pruning. A total of 684 trees fit those criteria. Here’s how they broke down by height, diameter and species.

Priority 1 trees by diameter. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from city of Ann Arbor.)

Priority 1 trees by height. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from the city of Ann Arbor.)

Priority 1 trees by species. Maples are the dominant species among those that will be targeted by this pruning program. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from the city of Ann Arbor.)

Outcome: The council voted unanimously without discussion to approve the receipt of the $50,000 USDA Forestry Service grant for tree pruning.

Killing Fuller Road Station MOU

An item added to the Dec. 16 meeting agenda on the day of the meeting would officially terminate a four-year-old memorandum of understanding between the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan on Fuller Road Station.

Fuller Road Station was a planned joint city/UM parking structure, bus depot and possible train station located at the city’s Fuller Park near the UM medical campus. The council had approved the MOU on the Fuller Road Station project at its Nov. 5, 2009 meeting on a unanimous vote. [.pdf of Nov. 5, 2009 MOU text as approved by the city council] However, a withdrawal of UM from the project, which took place under terms of the MOU, was announced Feb. 10, 2012. So it’s been clear for nearly two years that the MOU was a dead letter.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) sponsored the Dec. 16 resolution. The idea to terminate the MOU has its origins in election campaign rhetoric. He had stated at a June 8, 2013 Democratic primary candidate forum that he intended to bring forth such a resolution to “kill” the Fuller Road Station project. From The Chronicle’s report of that forum:

Kunselman also stated that he would be proposing that the city council rescind its memorandum of understanding with the University of Michigan to build a parking structure as part of the Fuller Road Station project. Although UM has withdrawn from participation in that project under the MOU, Kunselman said he wanted to “kill it.” That way, he said, the conversation could turn away from using the designated parkland at the Fuller Road Station site as a new train station, and could instead be focused on the site across the tracks from the existing Amtrak station.

The city continues to pursue the possibility of a newly built or reconstructed train station, but not necessarily with the University of Michigan’s participation, and without a pre-determined preferred alternative for the site of a new station. At its Oct. 21, 2013 meeting, the council approved a contract with URS Corp. Inc. to carry out an environmental review of the Ann Arbor Station project – which should yield the determination of a locally-preferred alternative for a site.

Killing Fuller Road Station MOU: Council Deliberations

Kunselman lead off by saying he would like to postpone the resolution. He indicated that he thought he’d managed to add the item to the agenda on the Friday before the Monday meeting, but it turned out he had not done so. In light of the council’s discussion at their Dec. 9 budget planning session – when councilmembers had said they’d strive to avoid adding resolutions at the last minute – Kunselman said he wanted it postponed.

Mayor John Hieftje and Sabra Briere (Ward 1) both indicated they’d vote for the resolution – but also said they didn’t think the resolution was necessary. They indicated they were willing to vote for the resolution without postponing. Kunselman nevertheless wanted to postpone it, because it was added late to the agenda.

Outcome: The council voted to postpone the Fuller Road Station resolution until its next meeting.

Community Events Funding: Street Art Fair

At its Dec. 16 meeting, the council considered a resolution directing city administrator Steve Powers to include in the fiscal year 2015 budget an additional $10,000 in community events funding to support the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair. The city’s FY 2015 begins on July 1, 2014.

A memo supporting the resolution noted that the AASAF has run an annual deficit for several years. An email sent to Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) and Jane Lumm (Ward 2) by Maureen Riley, executive director of the AASAF, specified those annual deficits as follows:

• 2013 – anticipated to be approximately ($8,000)
• 2012 – ($6,316)
• 2011 – ($5,769)
• 2010 – ($6,040)
• 2009 – ($33,693)

Lumm and Taylor sponsored the resolution. Lumm is a former AASAF board member.

The rationale for providing support for the AASAF but not the other three art fairs is based on the additional costs the AASAF has to pay to the University of Michigan, as well as the provision by AASAF of community benefits that reduce its opportunity to gain revenue – including the Demo Zone, Art Activity Zones, Street Painting Exhibition, and the Fountain Stage. The background memo also indicated that the other three art fairs have offered written support for the $10,000 to the AASAF.

The dollar amount roughly corresponds to the allocated cost to the AASAF from the total that is charged by the city for various services to the four art fairs collectively.

At the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting, Taylor had announced his intent to bring forward the resolution asking that an additional $10,000 be included in the city’s FY 2015 budget.

Ann Arbor Street Art Fair: Council Deliberations

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) led off by reviewing the background of the resolution. He explained why the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair is different from the other art fairs in its revenue challenges.

Margie Teall (Ward 4).

Margie Teall (Ward 4) responded to Taylor by relating her experience in allocating the community events funding serving on the council’s community events fund committee. She was concerned about doing something for one organization, but possibly not others.

Jane Lumm (Ward 2) described her volunteer work with the AASAF and her service on the board. There’s only so much you can raise in booth fees, she said. She then ticked through the specific challenges the AASAF faces. Lumm called the AASAF one of Ann Arbor’s “icons.” She said that $10,000 is a small amount for the city, but is crucial for the AASAF.

Mayor John Hieftje described the AASAF as a special situation, so he’d support the resolution. Hieftje noted that it’s a small item. He then referred to the council budget planning session from Dec. 9, and highlighted the council’s expressed desire at that session to keep its meetings moving along. He hoped this item could be dispatched without a lot more discussion.

Jack Eaton (Ward 4) asked if the proposal is for the support of the AASAF to be recurring. Taylor replied by saying he’d expect it to be reconsidered in each subsequent year.

The executive director of the AASAF, Maureen “Mo” Riley, was asked to come to the podium. She responded to a question by saying that the rent paid to the University of Michigan is about $5,000.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) noted that this approach doesn’t guarantee that AASAF would get the money as a result of the community events funding disbursements. He pointed out that the funds could have been appropriated from this year’s FY 2014 budget and the council would then be done with the issue.

Teall responded to Kunselman’s point by saying that typically when community events are funded, the council would ask what exactly the money would go toward. Taylor responded by ticking through some of the background in the memo. Teall said she can’t not support it, calling the AASAF her favorite art fair.

But Teall said she questioned this resolution partly because the AASAF is required to pay rent to the UM, and she wished UM would “pony up,” too. Sally Petersen (Ward 2) indicated that she considered the art fairs a kind of public art. By way of background, Petersen had submitted a question to staff in advance of the meeting exploring the possibility that public art funds could be tapped. From the staff responses to councilmember questions:

Question: What is the current balance of the City’s various funds dedicated to public art. Can these funds be tapped to support this effort? (Councilmember Petersen)

Response: $1,392,395.72. No. All of these funds are restricted for purposes related to their origin. Most of the funds were derived from the utility funds and streets. [.pdf of staff answers to pre-meeting (Dec. 16, 2013) councilmember questions]

Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5) pointed out that the community events fund does fund FestiFools, Dancing in the Streets, and other nonprofit events – for the fees that they incur from the city. So he tied the resolution back to that aspect – the fees that AASAF must pay to the city of Ann Arbor for various services.

Lumm spoke again in support of the resolution. Teall said she thought that this should go through the regular community events fund allocation process – through the council’s committee. She was very hesitant. She wanted to see an application from AASAF for the funding.

Responding to Teall, Hieftje said that he thought this was a completely different category from other events. It’s more like the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, he said.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to direct the city administrator to include $10,000 of funding for the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair when he prepares next year’s (FY 2015) budget.

Communications and Comment

Every city council agenda contains multiple slots for city councilmembers and the city administrator to give updates or make announcements about important issues that are coming before the city council. And every meeting typically includes public commentary on subjects not necessarily on the agenda.

Comm/Comm: Snow Plowing

City administrator Steve Powers invited public services area administrator Craig Hupy to report on the snow plowing activity after the Friday and Saturday snowfall. Hupy summarized the snow accumulation citywide at 5.5-7.5 inches. He said there was some drifting due to wind. The city’s goal is to have all roads plowed within 24 hours. For this storm, it took 26 hours to plow the travel lanes and 30 hours for the cul de sacs, Hupy said.

Comm/Comm: Self-Discipline, Dissemination of Information

The council discussed a couple of issues involving how councilmembers behave during meetings. The first issue involved dissemination of information during meetings and the second involved councilmembers exceeding the time limits on their speaking turns.

During council communications time toward the end of the meeting, Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5) said that he had a previous practice of announcing that he was breaking the rules when he disseminates information during the meetings. [Those occasions involve the text of amendments made to resolutions during the meeting, which councilmembers send via email.] He’d missed an instance of that, so he wanted to rectify that by announcing it retroactively. He said that as a member of the rules committee, he will work on an “above-board” ways of disseminating information.

Related to the topic of disseminating information, the staff’s answers to the council’s “caucus questions” – submitted in advance of the meeting – were attached to the city’s online Legistar agenda management system under the city administrator’s communications. [.pdf of staff answers to pre-meeting (Dec. 16, 2013) councilmember questions]

Also during council communications time toward the end of the meeting, mayor John Hieftje took the pulse of the council for their view on managing councilmember speaking time. Under the council’s rules, for each question before the council, councilmembers get two turns – five minutes for the first turn and three minutes for the second turn.

Hieftje raised the possibility of having the city clerk time councilmember speaking turns. [This possibility had been broached at a rules committee meeting last summer on June 13, 2013. The consensus at that meeting had been that it would put the clerk in an awkward spot, and would require her to exercise judgment on whether to start the timer if a councilmember was simply asking questions of staff, or whether the councilmember then also used the time to argue for a position.]

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) ventured that councilmembers should set their own timers. Hieftje said he thought a solution where councilmembers self-policed their speaking time would be best, because it would be a burden on the clerk to ask her to do that. Kunselman quipped that he’d bring forward a budget resolution for kitchen timers.

Comm/Comm: Local Officers Compensation Commission

During council communications at the start of the meeting, Jack Eaton (Ward 4) reported that he was disappointed that the agenda didn’t include any appointments for the local officers compensation commission.

From the LOCC meeting of Dec. 16, which failed to achieve a quorum: Roger Hewitt and Eunice Burns.

The commission has only two members, but it needs four commission members to achieve a quorum, he noted.

He pointed out that the city attorney and several councilmembers had received an email from Dave Askins [this reporter and Chronicle editor] in May of this year noting the vacancies on the commission.

A few minutes later during mayoral communications, mayor John Hieftje reported that the LOCC had met but had not achieved a quorum.

Hieftje said that he saw no harm in not having a quorum this year. [For more background, see "Ann Arbor Mayor, Council Pay: No Action" and " Column: What Do We Pay Ann Arbor's Mayor?"]

Comm/Comm: Rabhi Says Thanks

During public commentary time at the end of the meeting, Washtenaw County board chair Yousef Rabhi addressed the council, saying he was attending the meeting as a citizen. But as one elected official to others, he thanked them for serving with honor, dignity and respect. The thoughtful discussion that evening was telling of their willingness to come to the table to work in good faith, he said. As the year wraps up, he wanted to extend a thank you.

Comm/Comm: Blighted Properties

During public commentary time at the end of the meeting, Ed Vielmetti told the council about eight properties that were coming before the building board of appeals at its meeting later in the week, on Dec. 19. He said it’s unfortunate that many properties are now in need of demolition.

Comm/Comm: Winter Classic

During public commentary time at the end of the meeting, Kai Petainen reminded the council that the NHL’s Winter Classic is coming up. He drew a laugh – because Petainen hails from Canada and has previously plugged the event to the council. He told councilmembers that they’ll need some additional police, but stated “I’m sure the Canadians will be nice.” He told John Hieftje, in a light-hearted way, that it would not be a good idea to meet with the mayor of Toronto if he requests a meeting. Hieftje responded by saying: “He may have smoked crack cocaine, but I believe him when he said he did it during one of his drunken stupors.”

Comm/Comm: Thomas Partridge

Thomas Partridge introduced himself as a recent candidate for various public offices. He said he plans to campaign for office in the future as well – to make sure there’s a candidate committed to protecting the rights of the most vulnerable. He referred to the recent murder of a 71-year-old Ann Arbor resident, saying that residents deserve the respect of the council. Residents deserve discrimination-free planning, he said. If every item on the agenda were passed, there still won’t be any progress in protecting the most vulnerable residents, he said.

Present: Sabra Briere, Sumi Kailasapathy, Jane Lumm, Sally Petersen, Stephen Kunselman, Christopher Taylor, Jack Eaton, Margie Teall, Mike Anglin, Chuck Warpehoski, John Hieftje.

Next council meeting: Monday, Jan. 6, 2014 at 7 p.m. in the second-floor council chambers at city hall, 301 E. Huron. [Check Chronicle event listings to confirm date.]

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The Ann Arbor city council’s last regular meeting of the year, set for tonight, features an agenda with about a dozen substantive voting items.

The sign on the door to the Ann Arbor city council chamber, installed in the summer of 2013, includes Braille.

Added to the agenda on the Friday before tonight’s meeting is an item that relates to proceeds from the city’s sale of property known as the former Y lot. The sale of the property to Dennis Dahlmann for $5.25 million will result in a gross difference of $1.75 million compared to the $3.5 million price paid by the city in 2003.

The item added to the Dec. 16 agenda would designate $1.56 million of that amount – which is all but a $190,000 brokerage fee – for deposit in the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

That would reflect a departure from the policy set in a 2012 council resolution, which called first for reimbursement of costs out of the proceeds, including interest paid over the last 10 years, before depositing those net proceeds into the affordable housing trust fund.

Although the city administrator is not required to present next year’s FY 2015 budget to the council until April 2014, at least three items on the council’s Dec. 16 agenda could have an impact on preparation of that budget. Some of those items relate to mobility and traffic issues.

First, the council will consider directing city administrator Steve Powers to include in the FY 2015 budget an additional $10,000 in community events funding to support the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair.

Second, the council will consider directing Powers to present a plan for funding elements of the city’s non-motorized transportation plan by specific dates: by Feb. 1, 2014, the plan’s recommended midblock deployments of rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFB); by April 21 the near-term recommendations of the plan; and by June 30 the long-term elements of the plan.

Thematically related to the funding plan for non-motorized improvements is a third budget item: a proposal to allocate $125,000 from the current general fund reserve to pay for police overtime for traffic enforcement.

That item is sponsored by Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), Jack Eaton (Ward 4) and Jane Lumm (Ward 2), who were part of a six-vote majority that had backed a significant revision to the city’s crosswalk law at the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. That change – which eliminated a requirement that motorists stop for pedestrians who were at the curb but not within the crosswalk – was subsequently vetoed by mayor John Hieftje. And the text of that veto is attached to the council’s meeting agenda as a communication.

Also generally related to the public right-of-way on streets is a Dec. 16 item that was postponed from the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. The item assigns a specific cost to the removal of an on-street parking space caused by a development: $45,000. The postponement stemmed from a desire to hold a public hearing on the matter before taking action.

Several of the other Dec. 16 items relate generally to the theme of the environment. In the area of solid waste management, the council will consider a roughly $65,000 allocation from the solid waste fund balance. That allocation will pay for an initiative that will allow residents to add plate scrapings to their brown compost carts for curbside collection. The additional funds will cover an increased level of service at the compost processing facility (daily versus weekly grinding). The funds will also cover the cost of counter-top containers the city plans to give away to residents to encourage the initial separation of plate scrapings from garbage, and a subsidy for the sale of additional brown compost carts. Some of that allocation is expected to be recovered through reduced landfill tipping fees.

Other solid waste items on the Dec. 16 agenda include one to allocate about $63,000 to rebuild a baler at the city’s materials recovery facility. And the council will consider an amendment to the contract with Waste Management, which provides commercial waste collection services – to factor in special event service pricing on Sundays for up to five collection containers that are otherwise serviced daily. The council will also consider authorizing the purchase of about 150 300-gallon carts per year ($42,000) for the next four years – which will be used as part of the city’s commercial and multi-family recycling program.

Also part of the environmental theme on the Dec. 16 agenda is an item that accepts a $50,000 grant from the USDA Forestry Service to be spent on a tree pruning initiative focused on the city’s largest street trees.

Additional items include two standard rezoning approvals in connection with annexations from townships into the city. The recommending body for zoning approvals is the city planning commission. Also on the Dec. 16 agenda is an item that asks the council to approve changes to the planning commission bylaws. Those bylaws changes relate to the required notice for special accommodations like a sign-language interpreter – changing the notification requirement from 24 hours to two business days.

This article includes a more detailed look of many of these agenda items. More details on other meeting agenda items are available on the city’s online Legistar system. Readers can also follow the live meeting proceedings Monday evening on Channel 16, streamed online by Community Television Network.

The Chronicle will be filing live updates from city council chambers during the Dec. 16 meeting, published in this article below the preview material. Click here to skip the preview section and go directly to the live updates. The meeting is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. Updates might begin somewhat sooner.

Y Lot Proceeds

The history of the city’s policy on the proceeds of city-owned land and the connection to the city’s affordable housing trust fund goes back at least 20 years.

Affordable housing fund activity.

Some highlights are laid out in a timeline below.

The specific connection between the affordable housing trust fund and the former Y lot is the 100 units of single-resident occupancy housing that previously were a part of the YMCA building that stood on the site.

Various efforts have been made to replace those units over the years. [See, for example: "The 100 Units of Affordable Housing."] Recently, the Ann Arbor housing commission and its properties have started to receive more attention from the council as an integral part of the city’s approach to providing housing to the lowest income residents. The council approved a series of resolutions this last summer that will allow the AAHC to convert many of its properties to project-based vouchers.

The approved $5.25 million sale price of the former Y lot will result in a gross difference of $1.75 million compared to the $3.5 million price paid by the city in 2003. At the council’s Dec. 16, 2013 meeting, consideration will be given to a resolution that would designate $1.56 million of that amount – which is all but a $190,000 brokerage fee – for deposit in the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

This would reflect a departure from the most recent policy adopted by the city council, but would eliminate any wrangling between the city and the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority over how much in reimbursements might be owed for various purposes. The city has calculated, for example, that $365,651 in interest reimbursements could be owed, as well as $488,646 for the relocation of residents of the former Y building. The DDA has calculated $1,493,959 in reimbursements that it thinks it could claim – for interest payments and cost of demolition, among other items. But the DDA board has voted essentially to waive that claim.

It’s not clear if the DDA can waive all of that claim in light of the fact that the DDA used at least some TIF funds to pay for items like demolition and some of the interest payments on the loan. [.pdf of DDA records produced in response to Freedom of Information Act request by The Chronicle] If that were analyzed as a distribution of TIF to the city of Ann Arbor, then under state statute DDA would need to distribute a proportional amount to the other jurisdictions whose taxes are captured in the DDA district.

In timeline overview form:

• April 15, 1996: City council establishes a policy that put half of the proceeds from city-owned land sales into the affordable housing trust fund. The minutes of the meeting show that Jane Lumm (Ward 2) voted against an amendment, made at the council table, to divide the proceeds of land sales (less costs) between “infrastructure needs and the housing trust fund regardless of budget year.” But the minutes show that the vote on the amended resolution was declared unanimous on a voice vote (not a roll call). In 1996, part of the impetus for consideration of a land sale policy was driven by city-owned property at Packard and Main, which eventually became a part of the Ashley Mews development.
• Nov. 5, 1998: City council votes to increase the portion of proceeds of city-owned land sales that would be earmarked for the affordable housing trust fund – from half to all. Lumm joined her Ward 2 colleague David Kwan in voting against this policy shift.
• Dec. 8, 2003: City council approves purchase of Y property – on William Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues – for $3.5 million, financing the purchase with a five-year loan. The Ann Arbor DDA had agreed to pay some of the interest on that loan through an action taken not by its full board, but rather by its executive committee, on Dec. 5, 2003.
• Oct. 20, 2005: Pipe bursts in YMCA building, displacing residents. The building is ultimately determined to be not worth the cost of renovation.
• June 4, 2007: City council votes to rescind the policy that put the proceeds from the sale of city-owned land into the affordable housing trust fund. The policy shift in 2007 took place as part of a relatively small land transaction: The city was selling a piece of land on East Eisenhower for $23,750. The proceeds were earmarked for the construction fund of the new municipal center, built at the corner of Fifth and Huron. But in order to put the money from the sale into that construction fund, the council needed to change the existing policy on land sales. So one of the “resolved” clauses in the resolution was the following:
  

  RESOLVED, That City Council revoke Resolution R-481-11-98 which provided that the proceeds from the sale of excess City property be deposited into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund;

  In the course of deliberations, the council agreed to amend the resolution so that the $23,750 in proceeds from this particular land sale would still be deposited in the affordable housing trust fund – but left the basic policy change intact. The council had an eye toward changing the policy anyway – so that the roughly $3 million in proceeds of the sale of the First & Washington parcel (to Village Green for construction of the City Apartments project) could be put toward the new police/courts building.

• Dec. 1, 2008: City council authorizes five-year extension of the renewal on terms from the Bank of Ann Arbor to finance the Y lot loan. During deliberations, some of the focus is on the need to divest the city of the property. Sandi Smith (Ward 1), at her second meeting after winning election to the council a month earlier, put the interest payments in the context of the cost of supporting a homeless person:
  

  In deliberations, councilmember Sandi Smith said that she would support the continued financing of the property, because they had no other choice, but that she urged her colleagues to begin thinking of master planning the area so that the city could divest itself of the property as soon as possible. [The master planning of the area was eventually realized in the form of the Connecting William Street project.] Smith noted that given the $5,000 cost of supporting a homeless person, the interest-only payments could be used to support 27 people. The math goes like this: ($3,500,000)*(.0389)/5,000.

• Sept. 19, 2011: City council approves the sale of a strip of the former Y lot for $90,000 to facilitate construction of new Blake Transit Center by the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority. The total parcel area of the strip was 792 square feet.
• April 26, 2012: Board of the AAATA approves the purchase of a strip of the former Y lot for $90,000 to facilitate construction of new Blake Transit Center.
• Sept. 5, 2012: DDA board passes a resolution urging the city council to dedicate proceeds of the sale of city land to support affordable housing.
• Sept. 5, 2012: Washtenaw County board of commissioners passes a resolution urging the city council to dedicate proceeds of the sale of city land to support affordable housing. [At the time, county commissioner Leah Gunn served on the DDA board, along with former county administrator Bob Guenzel, who continues to serve on the board.]
• Sept. 17, 2012: City council considers but postpones action on a policy for proceeds of the sale of city-owned land.
• Oct. 15, 2012: City council approves a policy that ultimately leaves the policy on the use of proceeds of city land to case-by-case decisions, but indicates that for the Y lot, the proceeds will:
  

  … first be utilized to repay the various funds that expended resources on the property, including but not limited to due diligence, closing of the site and relocation and support of its previous tenants, after which any remaining proceeds be allocated and distributed to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund;”

• Nov. 8, 2012: City council transfers $90,000 from proceeds of the land sale to AAATA into the affordable housing trust fund.
• March 4, 2013: City council directs the city administrator to select a broker for the Y lot.
• July 3, 2013: City administrator Steve Powers announces that he’s selected Colliers International and local broker Jim Chaconas to handle the marketing of the property.
• Nov. 18, 2013: City council approves the sale of the former Y lot for $5.25 million to Dennis Dahlmann.
• Dec. 4, 2013: DDA board waives its claim to reimbursement from the sale of the Y lot.

Community Events Funding

At its Dec. 16 meeting, the council will consider directing city administrator Steve Powers to include in the fiscal year 2015 budget an additional $10,000 in community events funding to support the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair. The city’s FY 2015 begins on July 1, 2014.

The memo supporting the resolution notes that the AASAF has run an annual deficit for several years. An email sent to Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) and Jane Lumm (Ward 2) by Maureen Riley, executive director of the AASAF, specified those annual deficits as follows:

• 2013 – anticipated to be approximately ($8,000)
• 2012 – ($6,316)
• 2011 – ($5,769)
• 2010 – ($6,040)
• 2009 – ($33,693)

Lumm and Taylor are sponsoring the resolution. Lumm is a former AASAF board member.

The rationale for providing support for the AASAF but not the other three art fairs is based on the additional costs the AASAF has to pay to the University of Michigan, as well as the provision by AASAF of community benefits that reduce its opportunity to gain revenue – including the Demo Zone, Art Activity Zones, Street Painting Exhibition, and the Fountain Stage. The background memo also indicates that the other three art fairs have indicated written support for the $10,000 to the AASAF.

The dollar amount roughly corresponds to the allocated cost to the AASAF from the total that is charged by the city for various services to the four art fairs collectively.

At the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting, Taylor had announced his intent to bring forward the resolution asking that an additional $10,000 be included in the city’s FY 2015 budget.

Traffic Enforcement

On the Dec. 16 agenda is an item that would allocate $125,000 from the general fund balance to pay for police overtime required for additional traffic enforcement. The item began conceptually as a $500,000 allocation described by Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), who was persuaded by co-sponsors Jane Lumm (Ward 2) and Jack Eaton (Ward 4) that $125,000 would be a more reasonable amount to spend.

Data from the city’s most recent comprehensive annual financial report (CAFR), compiled with previous CAFRs, shows that traffic citations have continued for the past three years at significantly lower levels than previously:

Ann Arbor traffic violations. (Data from city of Ann Arbor CAFR. Chart by The Chronicle.)

Some insight into the question of how much time AAPD officers have available for proactive policing activities – like traffic enforcement – has been provided to councilmembers in the form of timesheet data that officers have been logging since the beginning of 2013.

In the charts below (by The Chronicle, with data from the city of Ann Arbor), green shading indicates unassigned time and time dedicated to proactive policing activities. Dedicate policing activities include: bicycle patrol, business contact, check person, citizen/motorist assist, code citation, community event, community meeting, downtown foot patrol, extra patrol (general), extra patrol (parks), felony, impound, liquor inspection, misdemeanor, parking citation, property check, recontact, traffic enforcement (general), traffic enforcement (laser), traffic enforcement (radar), traffic problem, and traffic stop.

Ann Arbor police department timesheet analysis. AAPD provided a range of time periods, to cover for the data entry training period, as officers learned the new system and became accustomed to coding their activities in a standard way. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from the city of Ann Arbor.)

In a memo to the city administrator dated Nov. 4, 2013, chief of police John Seto indicated that he’s already begun to assign additional proactive duties to officers, based on the results of the timesheet analysis:

As a result of this data, supervisors and officers have been identifying additional dedicated proactive policing activities to engage in for the remainder of 2013. Staffing modifications will also be taking place for 2014. An additional officer will be assigned to Special Services to address traffic complaints. The distribution of Patrol Officers will also be modified to increase the number of officers assigned to the swing shift, where the volume of calls for service is greater.

Council deliberations on the $125,000 overtime allocation could feature a discussion of the ability of the AAPD to conduct additional traffic enforcement activities, without drawing on overtime.

Non-Motorized Plan Funding

On the Dec. 16 agenda is a directive to the city administrator to provide a funding plan for elements of the city’s non-motorized transportation plan.

Map identifying geographic areas for improvements for pedestrians and bicyclists, as noted in the 2013 non-motorized transportation plan update.

The council approved the updated plan at its Nov. 18, 2013 meeting.

The new document is organized into three sections: (1) planning and policy updates; (2) updates to near-term recommendations; and (3) long-term recommendations.

And the Dec. 16 resolution – which is co-sponsored by Christopher Taylor (Ward 3), Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5) Margie Teall (Ward 4) and Sabra Briere (Ward 1) – is structured in part based on those main sections.

The resolution directs city administrator Steve Powers to present a plan for funding elements of the city’s non-motorized plan by specific dates: by Feb. 1, 2014, the plan’s recommended midblock deployments of rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFB); by April 21 the near-term recommendations of the plan; and by June 30 the long-term elements of the plan.

Examples of planning and policy issues include design guidelines, recommendations for approaches like bike boulevards and bike share programs, and planning practices that cover education campaigns, maintenance, crosswalks and other non-motorized elements for pedestrians and bicyclists.

For example, the update recommends that the city begin developing a planning process for bike boulevards, which are described as “a low-traffic, low-speed road where bicycle interests are prioritized.”

Additional flashing beacon locations identified in Ann Arbor’s non-motorized transportation plan.

Sections of West Washington (from Revena to First), Elmwood (from Platt to Canterbury) and Broadway (from its southern intersection with Plymouth to where it rejoins Plymouth about a mile to the northeast) are suggested for potential bike boulevards.

Near-term recommendations include lower-cost efforts like re-striping roads to install bike lanes and adding crossing islands.

Longer-term projects that were included in the 2007 plan are re-emphasized: the Allen Creek Greenway, Border-to-Border Trail, Gallup Park & Fuller Road paths, and a Briarwood-Pittsfield pedestrian bridge.

The city’s non-motorized transportation plan is part of the city’s master plan. The planning commission adopted the updated plan at its Sept. 10, 2013 meeting. [.pdf of draft 2013 non-motorized transportation plan update]

With respect to the adoption of the master plan, the council and the planning commission are on equal footing. That is, they must adopt the same plan. So in this case, the commission is not merely the recommending body.

How Much Is a Parking Space Worth?

Postponed from the council’s Dec. 2 meeting is a resolution that would define how much developers would need to pay the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority if a developer’s project requires removal of a metered on-street parking space. The proposed amount is $45,000 per space. The payment would go to the Ann Arbor DDA because the DDA manages the public parking system under a contract with the city.

The rationale for postponing the item – offered by Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) at the council’s Dec. 2 meeting – was that because it amounts to a fee, a public hearing should be held on the matter before the council votes.

In this matter, the council would be acting on a four-year-old recommendation approved by the Ann Arbor DDA in 2009:

Thus it is recommended that when developments lead to the removal of on-street parking meter spaces, a cost of $45,000/parking meter space (with annual CPI increases) be assessed and provided to the DDA to set aside in a special fund that will be used to construct future parking spaces or other means to meet the goals above. [.pdf of meeting minutes with complete text of March 4, 2009 DDA resolution]

The contract under which the DDA manages the public parking system for the city was revised to restructure the financial arrangement (which now pays the city 17% of the gross revenues), but also included a clause meant to prompt the city to act on the on-street space cost recommendation. From the May 2011 parking agreement:

The City shall work collaboratively with the DDA to develop and present for adoption by City Council a City policy regarding the permanent removal of on-street metered parking spaces. The purpose of this policy will be to identify whether a community benefit to the elimination of one or more metered parking spaces specific area(s) of the City exists, and the basis for such a determination. If no community benefit can be identified, it is understood and agreed by the parties that a replacement cost allocation methodology will need to be adopted concurrent with the approval of the City policy; which shall be used to make improvements to the public parking or transportation system.

Subject to administrative approval by the city, it’s the DDA that has sole authority to determine the addition or removal of meters, loading zones, or other curbside parking uses.

The $45,000 figure is based on an average construction cost to build a new parking space in a structure, either above ground or below ground – as estimated in 2009. It’s not clear what the specific impetus is to act on the issue now, other than the fact that action is simply long overdue. In 2011, the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research expansion was expected to result in the net removal of one on-street parking space. [For more background, see: "Column: Ann Arbor's Monroe (Street) Doctrine."]

The resolution is sponsored by Christopher Taylor (Ward 3). Taylor participated in recent meetings of a joint council and DDA board committee that negotiated a resolution to the question about how the DDA’s TIF (tax increment finance) revenue is regulated. In that context, Taylor had argued adamantly that any cap on the DDA’s TIF should be escalated by a construction industry CPI, or roughly 5%. Taylor’s reasoning was that the DDA’s mission is to undertake capital projects and therefore should have revenue that escalates in accordance with increases in the costs to undertake capital projects.

Based on Taylor’s reasoning on the TIF question, and the explicit 2009 recommendation by the DDA to increase the estimated $45,000 figure in that year by an inflationary index, the recommended amount now, four years later, would be closer to $55,000, assuming a 5% figure for construction cost inflation.

The actual cost of building an underground space in the recently completed (2012) underground Library Lane parking structure could provide a more current estimate, but the DDA has not made public a breakdown of how that project’s actual costs lined up with its project budget. The DDA has exercised its statutory right to extend the deadline in response to a request from The Chronicle for that information under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act

The last two month’s minutes from the DDA’s committee meetings don’t reflect any discussion of the on-street parking space replacement cost. Nor has the issue been discussed at any recent DDA board meeting.

By way of additional background, the Ann Arbor DDA’s most recent financial records show that last year, on-street parking spaces generated $2,000 in gross revenue per space or $1,347 in net income per space annually. The contract with the city under which the DDA operates the public parking system stipulates that the city receives 17% of the gross parking revenues. So the city’s revenue associated with an on-street parking space corresponds to $340 annually.

Solid Waste: Plate Scrapings

The Dec. 16 city council agenda item – to allocate $64,550 from the solid waste fund to support a food-scrap composting initiative – comes in the context of the council’s recent adoption of an update to the city’s solid waste plan. When the city council adopted the solid waste plan update on Oct. 7, 2013, a modification was made during deliberations.

An inventory of a sample of contents of Ann Arbor garbage trucks showed that about half of the weight is due to food waste. (Chart from the city’s solid waste plan update.)

The amendment undertaken by the council at that meeting eliminated mention of a possible transition to bi-weekly trash pickup or pay-as-you-throw initiatives.

However, one of the recommendations that is thought possibly to lead to a reduction in curbside garbage pickup – which would have been the basis for any decision to reduce the frequency of trash pickup – was left in the plan.

That recommendation is to allow plate scrapings to be placed in residents’ brown composting carts that the city uses to collect yard waste for processing at the city’s composting facility. That facility is operated by a third-party – WeCare Organics. The goal is to reduce the proportion of the city’s landfilled solid waste stream that’s made up of food waste. A recent inventory of the contents of some city trash trucks showed that about half of the weight is made up of food waste.

[Waste Less: City of Ann Arbor Solid Waste Resource Plan.] [Appendices to Waste Less] [Previous Chronicle coverage: Waste as Resource: Ann Arbor's Five Year Plan.]

The $64,550 allocation from the solid waste fund balance on the Dec. 16 agenda would pay for the initiative that will allow residents to add plate scrapings to their brown compost carts for curbside collection. The additional funds break down this way:

• $14,950 for an increased level of service from WeCare Organics at the compost processing facility (daily versus weekly grinding). The city is estimating no increased net cost for this increased service based on a reduction in landfill tipping fees. The city pays $25.90 per ton for transfer and disposal of landfilled waste. That’s $7.90 more than the city pays WeCare organics ($18 per ton) for processing compostable material. City staff is estimating that the program will divert 2,100 tons from the $25.90 category – for a savings of 2,100*$7.90=$16,590.
• $24,600 for the cost of 6,000 Sure-Close counter-top containers the city plans to give away to residents to encourage the initial separation of plate scrapings from garbage.
• $25,000 for a subsidy to sell an estimated 1,000 additional brown compost carts to residents at a cost of $25 per cart instead of $50 per cart. About 12,000 carts are already in use.

A Doppstadt slow speed grinder/shredder used by WeCare Organics. (Image provided by WeCare)

Tree Pruning

The council will be considering the receipt of a $50,000 grant from the USDA Forestry Service – to put toward a tree pruning initiative. The pruning program would target those trees in the public right-of-way that are most in need of pruning (Priority 1). The initiative is also focused on the larger of the city’s street trees – those bigger than 20 inches in diameter. Those are the trees that have the greatest impact on the mitigation of stormwater.

Here’s where the trees targeted by the program are located:

Street trees in Ann Arbor greater than 20 inches in diameter. (Map by the city of Ann Arbor.)

From the city’s online tree inventory, The Chronicle queried those trees greater than 20 inches in diameter and designated as Priority 1 for pruning. A total of 684 trees fit those criteria. Here’s how they broke down by height, diameter and species.

Priority 1 trees by diameter. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from city of Ann Arbor.)

Priority 1 trees by height. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from the city of Ann Arbor.)

Priority 1 trees by species. Maples are the dominant species among those that will be targeted by this pruning program. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from the city of Ann Arbor.)

4:31 p.m. Agenda addition: Fuller Road Station MOU termination. An agenda item added this morning, Dec. 16, would officially terminate a four-year-old memorandum of understanding between the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan on Fuller Road Station.

Fuller Road Station was a planned joint city/UM parking structure, bus depot and possible train station located at the city’s Fuller Park near the UM medical campus. The council had approved the MOU on the Fuller Road Station project at its Nov. 5, 2009 meeting on a unanimous vote. [.pdf of Nov. 5, 2009 MOU text as approved by the city council] However, a withdrawal of UM from the project, which took place under terms of the MOU, was announced Feb. 10, 2012. So it’s been clear for nearly two years that the MOU was a dead letter.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) sponsored the Dec. 16, 2013 resolution. The idea to terminate the MOU has its origins in election campaign rhetoric. He had stated at a June 8, 2013 Democratic primary candidate forum that he intended to bring forth such a resolution to “kill” the Fuller Road Station project. From The Chronicle’s report of that forum:

Kunselman also stated that he would be proposing that the city council rescind its memorandum of understanding with the University of Michigan to build a parking structure as part of the Fuller Road Station project. Although UM has withdrawn from participation in that project under the MOU, Kunselman said he wanted to “kill it.” That way, he said, the conversation could turn away from using the designated parkland at the Fuller Road Station site as a new train station, and could instead be focused on the site across the tracks from the existing Amtrak station.

The city continues to pursue the possibility of a newly built or reconstructed train station, but not necessarily with the University of Michigan’s participation, and without a pre-determined preferred alternative for the site of a new station. At its Oct. 21, 2013 meeting, the council approved a contract with URS Corp. Inc. to carry out an environmental review of the Ann Arbor Station project – which should yield the determination of a locally-preferred alternative for a site.

4:47 p.m. Council questions. Councilmembers have now received written responses to several questions about agenda items, which they submitted to staff prior to the meeting. [.pdf of staff answers to pre-meeting (Dec. 16, 2013) councilmember questions]

5:01 p.m. Revision to Y lot resolution: The council will be considering a revised version of the resolution previously made public. The revision adjusts the amount of the proceeds from the Y lot sale downward to reimburse not just the broker’s commission, but also the seller’s closing costs. The revised amount to be deposited into the city’s affordable housing trust fund is $1,384,300. [For more background, see Y Lot Proceeds above.]

6:19 p.m. Pre-meeting activity. The scheduled meeting start is 7 p.m. Most evenings the actual starting time is between 7:10 p.m. and 7:15 p.m. Council chambers are empty. The sound of custodial staff vacuuming the second floor clerk’s office lobby area is audible. City clerk’s staffer Anissa Bowden arrives and distributes the council nameplates to their respective places at the table.

Police chief John Seto comes through the chambers and asks Bowden if he can get a copy of the council’s agenda. Yes, she says, they’re coming “hot off the presses” in the clerk’s office. So Seto continues through the council workroom to the clerk’s office. CTN technician is now testing mics.

6:39 p.m. Public art administrator Aaron Seagraves has arrived. He’s setting up a laptop with a presentation on the Detroit DIA Inside|Out program, which is receiving a proclamation tonight. Seagraves ventures that it will be public art commissioner John Kotarski who gives the presentation.

6:41 p.m. Audience members are starting to arrive. About 10 people here so far, most in support of the resolution designating proceeds of the Y lot sale for the city’s affordable housing trust fund. Point of conversation: “the working homeless.”

6:46 p.m. No councilmembers have arrived yet. Check that. Jane Lumm (Ward 2) is the first councilmember arrive.

6:49 p.m. City administrator Steve Powers has now arrived. His neckwear features snowmen and Christmas trees.

6:53 p.m. People are starting to arrive at a brisk clip. Former city councilmember Jean Carlberg, who’s signed up to speak during public commentary reserved time, is among those to arrive.

6:57 p.m. Kotarski has now arrived. His choice of neckwear: bowtie.

7:03 p.m. Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) is the only councilmember not yet spotted in chambers.

7:09 p.m. Call to order. And we’re off.

7:10 p.m. Moment of silence, pledge of allegiance, roll call of the council. All councilmembers are present and correct.

7:11 p.m. Approval of agenda. The agenda is approved.

7:15 p.m. Communications from the city administrator. City administrator Steve Powers announces the regular holiday trash collection. He invites public services area administrator Craig Hupy to report on the snow plowing activity after the Friday and Saturday snowfall. Hupy summarizes the snow accumulation citywide at 5.5-7.5 inches. He says there was some drifting due to wind. The city’s goal is to have all roads plowed within 24 hours. For this storm, it took 26 hours to plow the travel lanes and 30 hours for the cul de sacs, Hupy says.

7:15 p.m. INT-1 Proclamation for Detroit Institute of Art’s Inside|Out Program. The mayoral proclamation honors the Ann Arbor Hands On Museum, the Ann Arbor Art Center, and the Ann Arbor public art commission for their collaboration on implementing the Detroit Institute of Arts Inside|Out program in Ann Arbor this past summer. The program features installations of framed reproductions from the DIA’s collection in public places. Volunteer docents led 20 tours that included a total of 150 people, according to the text of the resolution. Chronicle coverage of the public art commission’s meetings on the topic includes the Jan. 23, 2013 meeting. At least one of the tours was noted in a Stopped.Watched. item: “Fourth & Catherine.”

7:16 p.m. Public art commissioner John Kotarski is now at the podium giving a presentation on the Inside|Out program.

7:21 p.m. Representatives of the Ann Arbor Hands On Museum and the Ann Arbor Art Center are now approaching the podium, and mayor John Hieftje is now reading forth the proclamation.

7:22 p.m. Public commentary. This portion of the meeting offers 10 three-minute slots that can be reserved in advance. Preference is given to speakers who want to address the council on an agenda item. [Public commentary general time, with no sign-up required in advance, is offered at the end of the meeting.]

Eight speakers and two alternates are signed up to speak on the issue of the allocation of funds from the proceeds of the sale of the old Y lot: Ray Gholston, Tracy Williams, Mary Browning, Ryan Sample, Jim Mogensen, Jean Carlberg, Suzzanne William, James Hill, Tate Williams and Deborah Clark. Barbara Lucas is signed up to speak about the food waste composting item. Thomas Partridge is signed up to talk about general issues like ending discrimination and to call for the resignation of Gov. Rick Snyder and mayor John Hieftje, as well as the proceeds of the Y lot sale.

7:27 p.m. Ray Gholston expresses his support for the allocation of funds from the proceeds of the Y lot sale to support affordable housing.

7:29 p.m. Tracy Williams introduces himself as a resident of Ann Arbor. He says that 700 people died from exposure, at least one of them here in Ann Arbor, who was a friend of his. “Shorty was a little guy but had a big heart,” Williams says. People like “Shorty” need more help, he adds. The agencies who work in this area are doing the best they can, he says. The Delonis Center weather “amnesty” of 10 degrees is too cold, he says.

7:31 p.m. Mary Browning is speaking on behalf of Religious Action for Affordable Housing. She says she’s talking about affordable housing at the 30% of AMI (area median income) level, not 80% AMI. Folks who get help from the shelter need a place to go, she says. She strongly urges that the funds from the Y lot sale go towards affordable housing.

7:34 p.m. Ryan Sample tells a story from three months ago, before the warming center opened. He was sleeping at the Baptist Church. He had to give his blanket to someone who needed it. Even at 40 degrees when your clothes are wet, there can be the potential for hypothermia, he says, which isn’t covered by the “weather amnesty” of 10 degrees at the shelter. He wishes he had a job and was able to work, he concludes.

7:37 p.m. Jim Mogensen speaks in support of the council’s resolution. The whole process has seemed endless, he says. He’s recounting the history from the mid-1980s, when the YMCA decided to create the 100 units of SRO housing and tried to do that with conventional bank loans. That’s why the city of Ann Arbor had become involved, he says – to sign for the loans. And that’s why the city of Ann Arbor had a right of first refusal. The Y had not finally repaid what it owed the city until 2009, he pointed out. He wanted the council to think about those historical lessons as they thought about how to use the money that’s in the affordable housing trust fund.

7:40 p.m. Thomas Partridge introduces himself as a recent candidate for various public offices. He says he plans to campaign for office in the future as well – to make sure there’s a candidate committed to protecting the rights of the most vulnerable. He refers to the recent murder of a 71-year-old Ann Arbor resident, saying that the residents deserve the respect of the council. Residents deserve discrimination-free planning, he says. If every item on the agenda is passed, there still won’t be any progress in protecting the most vulnerable residents, he says.

7:43 p.m. Barbara Lucas speaks in support of the expanded food waste composting. Her family had participated in a pilot program. Where she currently lives, there are various wildlife that makes composting food scraps challenging. She says that during the pilot program, there wasn’t a problem with odor. When there’s other yard waste in the composting cart, that helps, she says.

7:47 p.m. Jean Carlberg says that Mogensen had given a good history. She served on the city council when it faced the challenge of how to preserve the housing on the Y lot. The council felt it was in the public interest to exercise its right of first refusal on the Y lot, when the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority wanted to purchase the property. She’s urging the council to allocate the proceeds of the sale of the Y lot to the city’s affordable housing trust fund. With the loss of the Y housing, that increased the need for units – as determined in the Blueprint to End Homelessness – from 500 units to 600 units. As a city council, she says, they never expected the city to be repaid from the proceeds. It’s a chance to create a “pile of money” to be used for affordable housing.

7:50 p.m. Suzzanne William is here to support her friends and family in the homeless community. She’s heard and experienced and known about the homeless situation in Washtenaw County for a long time. She’s supporting the council’s resolution, she says. She has a job in downtown Ann Arbor, she says, but can’t afford “affordable housing.” She says she earns $150 a week. It’s just absurd, she says, that the “weather amnesty” is for 10 degrees. She recalls curling up in a cardboard box even in summer at 40 degrees. People are out there trying, she says, and they’re really hard workers. She suggests some counseling for those housed in affordable housing units.

7:53 p.m. James Hill asks all those who support the agenda item on the Y lot proceeds to stand up. At least 25 people are standing. He says that the council shouldn’t “skim off the top” for financial accounting reasons. He asks the council to inquire with the shelter why the weather amnesty at the warming shelter has been reduced from 25 degrees to 10 degrees.

7:53 p.m. Communications from council. This is the first of three slots on the agenda for council communications. It’s a time when councilmembers can report out from boards, commissions and task forces on which they serve. They can also alert their colleagues to proposals they might be bringing forward in the near future.

7:55 p.m. Sabra Briere is talking about the “weather amnesty” that many public speakers mentioned. The Delonis Center had experimented with changing it from 10 degrees and making it 25 degrees. So the change to 10 degrees is the reversion to the previous policy. Briere’s reporting is based on talking to Ellen Schulmeister, head of the Delonis Center.

7:57 p.m. Mike Anglin is reporting out on a meeting at Bach School last week on traffic safety. His remarks are largely positive. About 100 people attended, he says. This is the kind of approach the city should be taking, he says, noting that the meeting was well attended by staff. Three councilmembers attended, he says.

7:59 p.m. Jack Eaton says he’s disappointed that the agenda doesn’t include any appointments for the local officers compensation commission. The commission has only two members, but it needs four commission members to achieve a quorum, he says.

8:00 p.m. Briere says she should have also alerted the public to the revision to the dollar amount on the Y lot proceeds. The actual amount available is estimated to be $1,384,300, she says. The amount is an estimate, because the sale has not yet taken place.

8:00 p.m. Communications from the mayor. Mayoral communications are typically just the nominations and confirmations of appointments to various city boards and commissions.

8:00 p.m. MC-1 Confirmation of Edith Bletcher to the Elizabeth Dean fund committee. This nomination was made at the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. Nomination at one meeting followed by confirmation at the next is the standard process for appointments to city boards and commissions. For some historical background on the Elizabeth Dean Fund, see “Dean Tree Fund Committee Changed.”

8:01 p.m. Outcome: The council has confirmed the appointment of Edith Bletcher to the Elizabeth Dean fund committee.

8:01 p.m. MC-2 Nominations. Tonight Kristin Tomey is being nominated to fill a vacancy left by Wiltrud Simbuerger on the Ann Arbor public art commission (AAPAC) and Benjamin Bushkuhl is being nominated for reappointment to the city’s historic district commission (HDC).

8:02 p.m. Hieftje says that the LOCC had met but not achieved a quorum. Hieftje says that he saw no harm in not having a quorum this year.

8:08 p.m. Hieftje has now invited executive director of the Ann Arbor Housing Commission to the podium to address the council. She’s describing the SRO units at the Y. It had a staffed front door and a desk and was actually a “hotel,” she says. The front door staffing helped the residents maintain their tenancy, she says. She’s describing working with the nonprofit Avalon Housing, Washtenaw County’s Community Support and Treatment Services (CSTS), and others to convert Miller Manor to a front-door staffed facility. Hall says they’re working on a plan right now to secure the funding. She’ll be requesting some of the proceeds from the Y lot to make those services at Miller Manor happen. The maintenance area at Miller Manor is being converted to offices to facilitate the front-door staffing arrangement, she says.

8:08 p.m. Public Hearings. All the public hearings are grouped together during this section of the meeting. Action on the related items comes later in the meeting. Three public hearings appear on tonight’s agenda. The first two are standard rezoning requests – from township zoning to city residential zoning. This type of rezoning is a routine part of annexation of property into the city.

The third public hearing is on the cost to be charged to a developer ($45,000) for causing an on-street metered public parking space to be removed. The item was postponed from the council’s Dec. 2 meeting to allow for a public hearing to be held.

8:11 p.m. PH-1 Higgins zoning. Thomas Partridge is addressing the council, saying that he hope the next mayor will not begin every public hearing with a series of warnings. Hieftje responds by saying Partridge has to speak on the topic of the hearing. Partridge says he is doing that. He characterizes the zoning change as involving “redlining.”

8:12 p.m. No one else speaks on PH-1.

8:12 p.m. PH-2 Weller zoning. No one speaks on this public hearing.

8:15 p.m. PH-3 Policy on removal of on-street metered public parking spaces. Thomas Partridge introduces himself as a candidate for public office. To his knowledge, he says, the resolution contains no language specifying how parking spaces should be provided for pickup and dropoff for people with disabilities. He says that the proposal should be referred back to a committee for further review. He says the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority has been functioning as a stealth government, an agent of the city of Ann Arbor.

8:15 p.m. Minutes. Approval of the previous meeting’s minutes.

8:15 p.m. Outcome: The council has approved the previous meeting’s minutes.

8:15 p.m. Consent agenda. This is a group of items that are deemed to be routine and are voted on “all in one go.” Contracts for less than $100,000 can be placed on the consent agenda. This meeting’s consent agenda includes an amendment to the contract with Waste Management, which provides commercial waste collection services – to factor in special event service pricing on Sundays for up to five collection containers that are otherwise serviced daily. Also a part of the consent agenda is the authorization of the purchase of about 150 300-gallon carts per year ($42,000) for the next four years – which will be used as part of the city’s commercial and multi-family recycling program.

8:16 p.m. Councilmembers can opt to select out any items for separate consideration. No one does this.

8:16 p.m. The council has approved the consent agenda.

8:16 p.m. B-1 Higgins zoning. This is a standard rezoning request of 0.51 acre from TWP (township district) to R1A (single family dwelling district), for the Higgins property, 2121 Victoria Circle, as a result of annexation into the city.

8:17 p.m. John Hieftje notes that this property is someone’s house. Sabra Briere describes the property as off Newport Road. Recently the city extended sewer and water service. It makes it possible for these properties to be annexed, she says. They’re not affected by the Pall-Gelman 1,4 dioxane plume.

8:17 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to approve the Higgins rezoning.

8:17 p.m. B-2 Weller zoning. This is a standard rezoning request 0.51 acre from TWP (township district) to R1A (single family dwelling district) for the Weller property at 2119 Victoria Circle, as a result of annexation into the city.

8:17 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to approve the Weller rezoning.

8:17 p.m. DC-1 City policy on removal of on-street metered public parking spaces. This resolution would establish the cost for removing a metered on-street parking space at $45,000. [For more background, see How Much Is a Parking Space Worth? above.]

8:20 p.m. Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) says that there are several amendments to the resolution and he hopes that the amendments have been disseminated. Here’s the amended version: [.pdf of amended version of policy]

8:22 p.m. Taylor is now reviewing the resolution – it would charge developers for removing parking meters. He characterizes the process as a “long and slow burn.” It’s a replacement fee, he says. The parking system is a finite resource. There’s a choice to allow removal or not, he says. So the amount required to be paid as a fee, he says, is $45,000. That’s approximately the cost of creating a new parking space in a structure. There’s a caveat whereby the cost could be waived if the removal is deemed to be a public benefit.

8:23 p.m. Sumi Kailasapathy (Ward 1) asks for staff. Executive director of the DDA Susan Pollay comes to the podium. Kailasapathy says she sees a parking space as a capital asset. She asks if this money that is paid should be segregated into a separate fund.

8:25 p.m. Kailasapathy says it should not be treated as simple revenue. Pollay says that this has not yet been thought through in detail, but the DDA’s operations committee would be taking that up. Kailasapathy wants to add an amendment that would require the segregation of funds into something like a sinking fund.

8:26 p.m. Taylor has no objection to segregating the funds, but is not sure that the city council should be telling the DDA exactly how to do the accounting.

8:27 p.m. City administrator Steve Powers says that the city could work with the DDA to reserve the funds in some manner.

8:29 p.m. Jane Lumm (Ward 2) offers some generally supportive comments. Pollay says she understands that the council is keen to see the capital funds set aside and separated somehow.

8:30 p.m. Sally Petersen (Ward 2) asks if the money that’s paid could be used to build any capital project or if it had to be a parking space. She’s worried about having enough critical mass of funding to undertake the building of a new parking structure.

8:31 p.m. Pollay says that this money to be paid would not necessarily be the only money used to build a new parking structure. The money would be added to the pot when it comes time to build a new parking structure, Pollay says.

8:32 p.m. Petersen wants to know if the money could be used to add on to an existing structure. Pollay points out that the Fourth and William structure had been extended upward.

8:33 p.m. Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) said that if the money is earmarked for new construction, that makes accounting challenging because we don’t know when construction will happen. Why not just use the money for debt service on parking structures? he asks.

8:34 p.m. Kunselman asks how many spaces have been removed recently. Pollay says about 50 in the last five years. She allows that some on-street spaces have also been added through projects like the Fifth and Division street improvement project.

8:35 p.m. Hieftje asks if this can be worked out tonight or if it should be put off.

8:36 p.m. Taylor reads aloud a proposed amendment about “financial controls” to segregate the funds so that they can be reinvested in construction of new parking spaces.

8:37 p.m. Kailasapathy wants the language to be flexible enough to construct new spaces or also replace existing spaces.

8:38 p.m. Hieftje asks again if it might be a good idea to put it off. Taylor is content to see it postponed, as is Kailasapathy.

8:40 p.m. Lumm offers what she calls a “nit.” There are references to development projects taking spaces out of the system. She asks if the DDA operations committee would consider describing it differently. Many of the spaces that have been “gobbled up” recently have not been by developers but rather by UM or the city itself.

8:42 p.m. Here’s the text of the amendment as forwarded by city clerk Jackie Beaudry: “Therefore, the City of Ann Arbor and the DDA will establish financial controls to segregate cash flows from the removal of on-street parking in order to reinvest these funds in the creation of parking spaces.”

8:43 p.m. Petersen has an amendment she wants to add into the mix. Hieftje says that she should send it to the DDA operations committee for their discussion.

8:44 p.m. Hieftje has been trying to move the council toward postponing this, which seems where it’s headed.

8:45 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to postpone until the first meeting in January a vote on a policy that sets the price for removal of an on-street parking space at $45,000.

8:45 p.m. DC-2 Non-motorized transportation strategy. This resolution would instruct the city administrator to develop a non-motorized transportation plan implementation strategy. Specifically, the resolution directs Steve Powers to present a plan for funding elements of the city’s non-motorized transportation plan by specific dates: by Feb. 1, 2014, the plan’s recommended midblock deployments of rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFB); by April 21 the near-term recommendations of the plan; and by June 30 the long-term elements of the plan. [For more background, see Non-Motorized Plan Funding above.]

8:46 p.m. Taylor is reviewing the content of the resolution.

8:51 p.m. Kailasapathy asks for Cresson Slotten to field questions. She says there’s just supposed to be 20 RRFBs in the plan, not 24, which Slotten confirms. She asks how the RRFBs were determined as solutions. Slotten regrets that  transportation program manager Eli Cooper is out of town, because he could give a more detailed answer, but he assures Kailasapathy that a detailed analysis had been done. He allows that Pat Cawley and Les Sipowski, city traffic engineers, had been involved in the determination of the RRFBs as solutions and their locations.

8:53 p.m. Kailasapathy wants to propose an amendment to make clear that traffic engineers would be involved in the final determination. It’s not clear what the exact language of the amendment is, but it’s now before the council for its consideration.

8:54 p.m. Eaton ventures that the sponsors of the resolution have not contemplated any other engineering solutions other than RRFBs. Briere is responding to Eaton by asking Slotten a series of questions.

8:57 p.m. Briere asks if it’s always the case that when the plan says to put some type of infrastructure in a location, that the infrastructure specified in the plan is always installed. Slotten describes how there’s a lot more detailed analysis when a project is actually measured out in the field. Briere asks who would do that work. Slotten says that city traffic engineers working with in-house surveyors would probably do that work.

8:58 p.m. Slotten allows, in response to a question from Briere, that sometimes the final project is not the same as what was in the plan.

9:00 p.m. Hieftje is establishing with Slotten what the role of traffic engineers is in determining RRFBs as a solution in a particular location.

9:01 p.m. Teall says she wants to know that staff has the latitude to determine the exact locations and details. Kunselman ventures that a plan is a plan and that plans change. Kunselman gets confirmation from Slotten that there could be conditions that warrant looking outside the plan.

9:03 p.m. Kunselman supports the amendment. Taylor says the “juicy bit” that the council is talking about removes specific reference to the RRFBs. The idea is not to predetermine what engineering features go into any particular crosswalk, Taylor says, which makes sense to him.

9:05 p.m. Kailasapathy wants to avoid creating the impression for staff that there is a “mandate” for RRFBs. Briere says that plans are not solid but rather a little squishy. Briere cites some of the specific words from Kailasapathy’s amendment: “implement recommendations of the city’s traffic engineers.”

9:08 p.m. Briere ventures that “as applied by the city traffic engineers” could work. City administrator Steve Powers suggests that if the direction is to revisit previous evaluations and recommendations that are contained in the non-motorized transportation plan, then that direction from the council needs to be made clear.

9:09 p.m. Anglin is talking about the improvements in engineering technology. Anglin asks if the locations designated for RRFBs are not eligible for HAWK signals. He thinks that RRFBs ask motorists to interpret yellow as stop. He seems to be advocating for HAWK signals instead of RRFBs.

9:10 p.m. Anglin said he’s heard that HAWK lights are too expensive, but asks what the cost of safety should be.

9:12 p.m. Hieftje responds to Anglin by venturing that the city traffic engineers are up to date on the latest technology. Petersen raises the question of how this resolution relates to the establishment of the pedestrian safety task force.

9:17 p.m. Eaton says his understanding is that there’s no detailed and particularized engineering study that’s been done of the general locations of the RRFBs in the non-motorized plan. He wants to make sure it’s done right.

9:17 p.m. Warpehoski says that there’s three elements to the amendment: (1) it should be technology neutral; (2) traffic engineers should be involved; and (3) the downtown is highlighted specifically. Warpehoski says he’s fine with (1). He thinks (2) is redundant but doesn’t have a problem with it. He has some ideas about (3).

9:17 p.m. The council decides to recess to work out the language of the amendment.

9:17 p.m. Recess. We are in recess.

9:26 p.m. We’re back.

9:30 p.m. The amendment on the floor is now being distributed by Taylor to the other councilmembers and the clerk.

9:32 p.m. Kunselman wants to remove the dates specified in the resolution. He takes the occasion to reiterate the fact that he dislikes the fact that the city’s transportation program manager, Eli Cooper, serves on the board of the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority. Taylor says, in response to a question from Hieftje, that the dates were characterized by the city administrator as “feasible.”

9:32 p.m. Lumm says she’ll support it.

9:33 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to direct the city administrator to present a funding and implementation plan for the city’s non-motorized transportation plan. The version passed by the council was amended at the table.

9:33 p.m. DC-3 Street Art Fair community events resolution. This resolution would instruct the city administrator to incorporate $10,000 of funding in the FY 2015 community events funding budget to support the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair. [For more background, see Community Events Funding above.]

9:34 p.m. Taylor is reviewing the background of the resolution. He’s explaining why the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair is different from the other art fairs in its revenue challenges.

9:38 p.m. The resolution on the non-motorized transportation plan was passed in this form, based on what the city clerk has forwarded: [.pdf of non-motorized implementation resolution ]

9:40 p.m. Teall relates her experience in allocating the community events funding. She’s concerned about doing something for one organization, but possibly not others.

9:41 p.m. Lumm describes her volunteer work with the AASAF and her service on the board. There’s only so much you can raise in booth fees, she says. She’s ticking through the specific challenges the AASAF faces.

9:43 p.m. Lumm calls the AASAF one of Ann Arbor’s “icons.” She says that $10,000 is a small amount for the city but is crucial for the AASAF.

9:45 p.m. Hieftje says it’s a special situation, so he’ll support this resolution. Hieftje notes that it’s a small item. He references the budget planning session from Dec. 9, and highlights the council’s expressed desire to keep its meetings moving along. He hopes this item can be dispatched without a lot more discussion.

9:46 p.m. Eaton asks if the proposal is for this support to be recurring. Taylor says he’d expect it to be reconsidered in each subsequent year.

9:47 p.m. The executive director of the AASAF, Maureen “Mo” Riley, says that the rent paid to UM is about $5,000.

9:48 p.m. Kunselman notes that this approach doesn’t guarantee that AASAF would get the money as a result of the community events funding disbursements. He points out that the funds could have been appropriated from FY 2014 and they’d have been done with it.

9:50 p.m. Teall says that typically when community events are funded, the council would ask what exactly the money would go toward. Taylor responds by ticking through some of the background in the memo. Teall says she can’t not support it. She calls the AASAF her favorite art fair.

9:51 p.m. Teall says that she questions this partly because the AASAF is required to pay rent to the UM, and she wishes UM would “pony up” too. Petersen says she considers this a kind of public art.

9:53 p.m. Warpehoski points out that the community events fund does fund FestiFools, Dancing in the Streets, and other nonprofit events – for the fees that they incur from the city. So he ties the resolution back to that aspect – the fees that AASAF must pay to the city of Ann Arbor for various services.

9:55 p.m. Lumm is speaking again in support of the resolution.

9:55 p.m. Teall says she thinks that this should go through the regular community events fund allocation process – through the council’s committee. She’s very hesitant. She wants to see an application from AASAF for the funding.

9:57 p.m. Responding to Teall, Hieftje says that he thinks this is a completely different category from other events. It’s more like the Summer Festival, he says.

9:57 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to direct the city administrator to include $10,000 of funding for the Ann Arbor Street Art fair when he prepares next year’s (FY 2015) budget.

9:57 p.m. DC-4 Resolution to allocate $125,000 to fund police overtime for traffic enforcement. This resolution comes after a long debate about a change to the city’s crosswalk ordinance that resulted in a 6-4 vote at the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting – to eliminate a requirement that motorists stop for pedestrians who are at the curb next to a marked crosswalk, not just within a crosswalk. But mayor John Hieftje exercised his power of veto on that change. So the law will remain intact.

That debate featured support from all sides for the idea that enforcement was an important component of making the city safer for pedestrians and motorists. This item also comes forward in the context of increased concern about motorists speeding on city streets. As a change to the budget, this will require an 8-vote majority. [For more background, see Traffic Enforcement above.]

9:57 p.m. Kunselman quips that the discussion should be short, because the resolution is short.

9:58 p.m. He allows that he’d wanted to put a lot more funding in police chief John Seto’s hands. Revenues have been down from traffic citations, he notes. And there’s a need to curtail motorists speeding. Things like cars passing stopped school buses have also been raised as concerns, he says.

10:00 p.m. Lumm thanks Kunselman for leading this effort. She says that she thinks everyone can support the idea that increased traffic enforcement is an important part of improving traffic safety.

10:02 p.m. Hieftje says he understands the motivation for the resolution. It’s unusual to give staff money to spend without asking how staff would specifically solve the problem the council has identified. He also points to the timesheet breakdown for police officers that showed that officers may have time to implement additional traffic enforcement within the existing staffing levels, without using overtime.

10:04 p.m. Briere wants Seto to explain how this money would be spent. Seto says there’s not a specific plan for using this overtime money. There are various general ways: individual officers assigned to specific locations, or officers can be dedicated to a promotion and educational effort. Briere asks Seto if he could provide a specific plan and a budget for implementation by Jan. 22, the council’s second meeting in January. “It depends,” says Seto.

10:06 p.m. Briere says that even if Seto just followed the simple resolution, he’d still have to come up with a plan. She wants Seto to tell the council how much it might cost to implement increased traffic enforcement. She ventures there might be various levels of implementation – which could cost even more than $125,000. She wants Seto to develop a specific plan for implementation.

10:07 p.m. Seto says that if the council directs him to do so, he can come back with a specific traffic enforcement enhancement plan. He says that the $125,000 translates into 1,800 additional hours and he seems unsure that could be re-allocated right now. Briere asks if Seto can come back with the cost for a plan that he would implement.

10:09 p.m. Kunselman says, “Talk about micromanaging!” He notes that the $125,000 figure came from the city administrator. Seto doesn’t have to spend it all, Kunselman says. He calls it a small amount in response to community concerns. He allows that it will require 8 votes and invites those who want to vote against it to do so.

10:11 p.m. Anglin thanks Seto for attending the Bach School meeting on traffic safety and ventures that Seto has heard directly some of these citizen concerns. Responding to Petersen, Seto says that $125,000 translates to 26-weeks of eight eight-hour shifts.

10:13 p.m. Warpehoski says he’ll support the resolution, citing concerns that were reflected in the recent National Citizens Survey. He says that traffic safety is the one area where increased investment in safety services is justified. He says that he’s frustrated that he wasn’t able to get benchmark data about traffic safety.

10:16 p.m. Taylor says that he doesn’t disagree that traffic enforcement is deeply important. But he thinks that this resolution amounts to pre-funding a plan that’s not yet in front of the council. He wants to postpone this until the next meeting.

Petersen punches the air, raising her hand to be called on. She’s arguing against Taylor’s contention that this resolution is somehow at odds with the previous resolution on the non-motorized plan. She contends that this police OT actually strengthens it. “I don’t know why we wouldn’t do this now,” she says.

10:17 p.m. Kailasapathy says that this is basically like choosing something that seems reasonable – echoing Warpehoski’s sense that this is roughly the equivalent of adding an FTE for traffic enforcement. She’ll support this.

10:18 p.m. Responding to a question from Hieftje, Seto says there are four traffic enforcement staff, with one administrative. On Jan. 1 Seto was already planning to assign an additional person to traffic enforcement. This resolution would essentially bring the total to six.

10:20 p.m. Eaton says that it’s important to be safe – not just from rapes and murders. He describes some neighborhoods where cars speed so fast that they leave the roads and run into people’s houses.

10:20 p.m. Hieftje says he wants to hear the plan before the council throws the money at it. He supports the postponement. Lumm says she won’t support the postponement.

10:22 p.m. Lumm is talking about the overall staffing levels of the AAPD, noting that the number of sworn officers currently is down to 119. She cites the number of emails that she receives asking for more traffic enforcement.

10:24 p.m. Kunselman says he won’t support a postponement, noting that Seto has already described a plan. He indicates that success will be measured by the number of traffic citations issued.

10:25 p.m. Taylor points out that the previous resolution on implementation of the non-motorized transportation does address enforcement around crosswalks.

10:26 p.m. Outcome on postponement: The postponement fails with support only from Hieftje, Briere and Taylor.

10:27 p.m. Warpehoski notes that the “results” that Kunselman has lifted up are in terms of revenue and citations, and he wants results that are related to traffic safety. He doesn’t think police services should be treated as a cash register.

10:28 p.m. Hieftje says one reason that traffic citations are down is that penalties – for drunk driving, for example – are harsher and people pay more attention. Hieftje just doesn’t want to throw money at a problem.

10:31 p.m. Teall echoes Hieftje’s sentiments. She is concerned about a possible backlash from increased enforcement. Briere says there are as many people who are angry about lack of traffic enforcement as who are angry about too much traffic enforcement. She’s not very gung ho when it comes to rules, but she believes in traffic enforcement. She’d prefer that Seto tell the council how much money he needed, rather than the council tell the chief.

10:33 p.m. Briere asks Seto if 70 additional hours a week in traffic enforcement is actually feasible.

10:34 p.m. Seto describes how his intent would not be to just implement some speed traps – saying that high crash locations can be targeted using a new city system.

10:35 p.m. Seto says he can start this additional enforcement on Jan. 1. Petersen can’t think of a better day to start than Jan. 1, because of the NHL’s Winter Classic.

10:35 p.m. Petersen asks for confirmation that the $125,000 number has been vetted with the city administrator and that Seto has called it feasible.

10:37 p.m. Kunselman follows up on Petersen’s remarks by saying not only has the number been vetted, Seto has also described a plan for implementation. He agrees that revenues are not the only measure of success. He wouldn’t mind hearing complaints about too much traffic enforcement.

10:38 p.m. Taylor allows that the $125,000 has been “vetted.” He asks Seto if the plan that starts Jan. 1 will cost about $125,000. Seto says: “It could.”

10:40 p.m. Taylor allows that the existence of a budget doesn’t necessitate the spending of that budget. Seto agrees that it might not be necessary to spend all of that $125,000.

10:41 p.m. Taylor says “I think this is sloppy,” pointing out that the council is a couple weeks away from having a plan with a dollar figure on it. It’s not a professional way to approach things, he says. But he has a lot of confidence in Seto’s ability to produce a plan the city is proud of – a plan that will be effective and not just burn through the money just because it is there.

10:42 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted over the lone dissent of mayor John Hieftje to approve $125,000 to pay for overtime so that Ann Arbor police officers can provide additional traffic enforcement.

10:42 p.m. DC-5 Y Lot proceeds resolution. The sale of the property to Dennis Dahlmann for $5.25 million will result in a gross difference of $1.75 million compared to the $3.5 million price paid by the city in 2003. This item, added to the Dec. 16 agenda last Friday, originally designated $1.56 million of that amount – which was all but a $190,000 brokerage fee – for deposit in the city’s affordable housing trust fund. The council will be considering a revised version of the resolution that also subtracts the seller’s closing costs from the amount to be deposited into the city’s affordable housing trust fund. That results in a total amount to be deposited into the trust fund of $1,384,300. [.pdf of revised resolution] [For more background, see Y Lot Proceeds above.]

10:44 p.m. Briere is reviewing how much money is in the affordable housing trust fund. She notes that the council still hasn’t heard from the Shelter Association – which runs the Delonis Center – about what it needs to get through the inclement weather. In the past, the council has used money from the affordable housing trust fund to support the shelter’s warming center.

10:46 p.m. Briere notes that the city has not been effective at putting money back into the affordable housing trust fund. The strategy of having PUDs (planned unit developments) contribute to the trust fund has not been used much recently.

10:48 p.m. Lumm asks for city CFO Tom Crawford. She says it’s a significant amount of money. She asks Crawford to walk the council through how much has been committed to affordable housing compared to the other council priorities.

10:51 p.m. Briere points out that Crawford was talking about new and unique expenditures.

10:57 p.m. Briere is reviewing various expenditures from the fund.

10:58 p.m. Hieftje says he’ll support the resolution and says that given the history of the property, it’s a relatively happy end to the story.

11:00 p.m. Kunselman wants clarification of why 8 votes are required. He wants to know what would happen if this resolution failed. In broad strokes, most of it would go to the general fund. Kunselman says he’ll support the resolution, venturing that most of the money would go to support the Ann Arbor Housing Commission.

11:04 p.m. Lumm says it’s a huge transfer from the general fund to the city’s affordable housing trust fund. Crawford replies that it’s important to weigh all the city’s needs. He’s describing how much general fund balance would remain if the resolution passed. Lumm asks for an amendment to reduce the amount of the transfer by half, to roughly $692,000.

11:06 p.m. Warpehoski is comparing how much the city spends on public safety compared to affordable housing, pointing out that the city spends $49 million $39.5 million a year on public safety. The amount that the city spends on affordable housing is miniscule in comparison, he says. He’s pleased with the news shared by Jennifer Hall, executive director of the housing commission, about the plan to convert Miller Manor to a front-desk staffed facility.

11:08 p.m. Warpehoski says he did not vote to sell the property to Dahlman in order to get the debt off the books, or to give Dahlmann a way to avoid competition for his hotels.

11:08 p.m. Taylor follows Warpehoski with: “What he said.” Briere says she wishes she could have said it as well as Warpehoski.

11:10 p.m. Lumm responds by talking about the pressure that this puts on the general fund.

11:10 p.m. Outcome: The amendment to cut the amount in half fails on a 2-9 vote. Only Lumm and Eaton vote for it.

11:11 p.m. Lumm notes that the council reached a different conclusion last year after a long discussion – that there would be reimbursements. So she’s torn, she says.

11:15 p.m. Eaton says he’ll support the resolution, but he’s concerned that the city hasn’t approached the policy questions adequately. He allows more needs to be done for affordable housing, but says the city needs to “aim at the right targets.” Kunselman points out that the money is not actually being spent with this resolution. Rather, it will go into the city’s affordable housing trust fund. Kunselman notes that previous councils have made decisions about this policy, but this council will make its own decision. The council has heard a lot of voices calling for the council to do something to support affordable housing. The money is not going anywhere until we spend it, he concludes.

11:16 p.m. Briere ventures that more than 30% of funding for affordable housing has been cut – by HUD and by the state. This is a response to Lumm’s citation of the percentage reduction in funding and staffing levels for the Ann Arbor police department.

11:19 p.m. Briere allows that Lumm’s point about 10% of proceeds that the council set as a policy last year is accurate for city-owned properties – but she notes that the resolution separated out the Y lot from other downtown properties. Briere notes that if the city tried to repay the reimbursements, there wouldn’t be much left. She also points out that this is the last year that this fund will exist separately as a fund – due to new accounting standards. In the future, it will simply be general fund money that’s allocated to affordable housing. It will no longer be a separate fund, she says.

11:20 p.m. Briere notes that currently HHSAB (the city’s housing and human services advisory board) must make a recommendation on how money in the affordable housing trust fund is spent. She’s not sure how that will play out in the future.

11:21 p.m. Hieftje is talking about how federal funding for affordable housing has been drying up. He doesn’t think that it’s appropriate to include the public safety budget in this discussion. He calls the recent turnaround at the Ann Arbor Housing Commission spectacular.

11:23 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted unanimously to deposit $1,384,300 million (the entire proceeds, less brokerage fees and seller’s costs) from the sale of the former Y lot into the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

11:25 p.m. Fuller Road Station MOU termination. Kunselman says he would like to postpone it. Hieftje and Briere say they’ll vote for it and don’t want to postpone it. Kunselman still wants to postpone, because it was added late to the agenda.

11:26 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to postpone the Fuller Road Station resolution until its next meeting.

11:26 p.m. DS-1 Planning commission bylaws. The bylaws change relates to the required notice for special accommodations like a sign-language interpreter – changing the requirement from 24 hours to two business days. The planning commission is currently weighing another change to its bylaws, that’s not a part of this change. [See Chronicle coverage of the planning commission's Nov. 6, 2013 meeting.] That additional change would define speaking turns during public hearings. This change was postponed from an earlier council meeting, with an eye towards having the council approve both bylaws changes at the same time. But the planning commission has not yet taken action on that second change.

11:27 p.m. Briere notes there’s also another bylaws revision possibly pending and indicates a desire to postpone.

11:28 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted to postpone the revision to the planning commission’s bylaws until the second council meeting in February.

11:28 p.m. DS-2 Food waste composting. The resolution would appropriate $64,550 from the solid waste fund balance to fund the city’s intiative to allow residents to add food scraps for regular collection in their curbside compost carts. Here’s how the allocation breaks down:

• $14,950 for an increased level of service from WeCare Organics at the compost processing facility (daily versus weekly grinding). The city is estimating no increased net cost for this increased service based on a reduction in landfill tipping fees. The city pays $25.90 per ton for transfer and disposal of landfilled waste. That’s $7.90 more than the city pays WeCare organics ($18 per ton) for processing compostable material. City staff is estimating that the program will divert 2,100 tons from the $25.90 category – for a savings of 2,100*$7.90=$16,590.
• $24,600 for the cost of 6,000 Sure-Close counter-top containers the city plans to give away to residents to encourage the initial separation of plate scrapings from garbage.
• $25,000 for a subsidy to sell an estimated 1,000 additional brown compost carts to residents at a cost of $25 per cart instead of $50 per cart. About 12,000 carts are already in use.

It will require an 8-vote majority. [For more background, see Solid Waste: Plate Scrapings above.]

11:30 p.m. Briere introduces the resolution.

11:30 p.m. Eaton confirms that this resolution would not change the seasonal compost collection schedule.

11:30 p.m. Solid waste manager Tom McMurtrie is demonstrating the counter-top containers, which would be offered free to residents.

11:32 p.m. Eaton asks how many households use a garbage disposal and would not use this service. Lumm says she thinks that the estimates of how many tons would be added to the compost and diverted from garbage are optimistic. She calls the giveaways “gimmicky.” But she says it’s not a huge investment to give it a try.

11:34 p.m. Kailsaspathy questions the viability of the city’s estimates. If the 2,100 ton estimate is not accurate, then we’ll pay for the additional service of grinding the compost plus for the giveaways. McMurtrie allows that Kailasapathy is right about that.

11:35 p.m. Kailaspathy wants to know if a pilot could be conducted, just for Monday route collection, for example. McMurtie says it would be logistically difficult to maintain the separation of the material at the composting site.

11:36 p.m. McMurtrie says that WeCare set the price at below its cost, because they want to see the program succeed. For a pilot, WeCare would need to bring in the equipment for the same frequency – but for a limited pilot, it would be over a much smaller tonnage base.

11:39 p.m. Briere is arguing for the resolution. She wonders how residents might deal with raccoons. McMurtrie suggests modifying the compost cart by adding a bungee cord – but cautions that residents need to remember to take the bungee off when they set out the cart. Kunselman re-confirms that compost will still not be collected in the winter months.

11:41 p.m. Kunselman ventures that a considerable educational effort will be required. He asks about the mention of the MDEQ requirements. McMurtrie says the city’s proposal is consistent with MDEQ guidelines. The daily processing is what WeCare views as appropriate procedures for dealing with this type of material. Kunselman asks about the end product: Will adding food waste have an impact on the quality of the end product? No, says McMurtrie.

11:41 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted unanimously to appropriate $64,550 to fund the food scrap composting initiative.

11:41 p.m. DS-3 Accept and appropriate USDA Forest Service grant ($50,000). This resolution would authorize receipt of a $50,000 grant from the USDA Forestry Service – to put toward a tree pruning initiative. The pruning program would target those trees in the public right-of-way that are most in need of pruning (Priority 1). The initiative is also focused on the larger of the city’s street streets – those bigger than 20 inches in diameter. Those are the trees that have the greatest impact on the mitigation of stormwater. [For more background, see Tree Pruning above.]

11:42 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted unanimously without discussion to approve the receipt of the $50,000 USDA Forestry Service grant for tree pruning.

11:42 p.m. DS-4 MRF baler rebuild. This resolution would reimburse Resource Recovery Systems for the cost of repairing a baler at the city’s material recovery facility, which has already been done. The cost is $62,613.

11:42 p.m. Outcome: The council has voted unanimously without discussion to authorize $62,613 for the baler repair.

11:44 p.m. Communications from council. Warpehoski says that he had a previous practice of announcing that he was breaking the rules when he disseminates information from the meetings. He’d missed an instance of that, so he wanted to rectify that by announcing it retroactively. He says that as a member of the rules committee, he will work on “above-board” ways of disseminating information.

11:46 p.m. Hieftje is taking the pulse of the council on the issue of having the clerk time councilmember speaking turns. Kunselman ventures that councilmembers should set their own timers. Hieftje says he thinks that would be best, because it would be a burden on the clerk. Kunselman quips that he’ll bring forward a budget resolution for kitchen timers.

11:47 p.m. Clerk’s report. The clerk’s report has been received.

11:47 p.m. Public comment. There’s no requirement to sign up in advance for this slot for public commentary.

11:50 p.m. Washtenaw County board chair Yousef Rabhi is addressing the council. He’s attending the meeting as a citizen. As one elected official to another, he’s thanking them for serving with honor, dignity and respect. The thoughtful discussion today is telling of their willingness to come to the table to work in good faith, he says. As the year wraps up, he’s extending a thank you.

Dave DeVarti thanks the council for their unanimous vote on the Y lot. He points out the property has never been on the tax rolls. He asks the council to look at the tax receipts from that property and consider using that revenue to fund supportive services.

11:52 p.m. Ed Vielmetti is addressing the council on the eight properties that are coming before the building board of appeals at its meeting on Thursday of this week. He says it’s unfortunate that there are that many properties that are now in need of demolition.

11:55 p.m. Seth Best is now wishing the council happy holidays. He thanks the council for their vote on the Y lot. He invites councilmembers to homelessness awareness day, on Dec. 21. He tells the council that the homeless community operates in “survival mode.” When the “weather amnesty” temperature changes, they have a short memory, he says, because they are thinking about what they have to do tonight. He talks about the proposal from McKinley for affordable housing on South State Street – which considers “affordable housing” to start at $900 a month.

12:00 a.m. Kai Petainen reminds the council that Winter Classic is coming up and draws a laugh. He tells the council that they’ll need some additional police, though he says “I’m sure the Canadians will be nice.” He tells Hieftje, in a light-hearted way, that it’s not a good idea to meet with the mayor of Toronto. Hieftje responds by saying: “He may have smoked crack cocaine, but I believe him when he says he did it during one of his drunken stupors.”

Caleb Poirier follows Petainen by updating the council on a property that the homeless community has acquired. He says that there will eventually be requests coming to the council.

12:01 a.m. Closed session. The council has voted to go into closed session to discuss land acquisition and written attorney-client privileged communication. Briere dissents on the vote, which has no effect.

12:36 a.m. The council has returned to open session.

12:36 a.m. Adjournment. We are now adjourned. That’s all from the hard benches.

A sign on the door to the Ann Arbor city council chambers gives instructions for post-meeting clean-up.

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Screenshot of Legistar – the city of Ann Arbor’s online agenda management system. Image links to the Dec. 16 meeting agenda.

Added to the agenda on Friday before the Monday meeting is an item that relates to proceeds from the city’s sale of property known as the former Y lot. The sale of the property to Dennis Dahlmann for $5.25 million will result in a gross difference of $1.75 million compared to the $3.5 million price paid by the city in 2003.

The item added to the Dec. 16 agenda would designate $1.56 million of that amount – which is all but a $190,000 brokerage fee – for deposit in the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

That would reflect a departure from the policy set in a 2012 council resolution, which called first for reimbursement of costs out of the proceeds, including interest paid over the last 10 years, before depositing those net proceeds into the affordable housing trust fund.

Although the city administrator is not required to present next year’s FY 2015 budget to the council until April 2014, at least three items on the council’s Dec. 16 agenda could have an impact on preparation of that budget. Some of those items relate to mobility and traffic issues.

First, the council will consider directing city administrator Steve Powers to include in the FY 2015 budget an additional $10,000 in community events funding to support the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair.

Second, the council will consider directing Powers to present a plan for funding elements of the city’s non-motorized transportation plan by specific dates: by Feb. 1, 2014, the plan’s recommended midblock deployments of rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFB); by April 21 the near-term recommendations of the plan; and by June 30 the long-term elements of the plan.

Thematically related to the funding plan for non-motorized improvements is a third budget item: a proposal to allocate $125,000 from the current general fund reserve to pay for police overtime for traffic enforcement.

That item is sponsored by Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), Jack Eaton (Ward 4) and Jane Lumm (Ward 2), who were part of a six-vote majority that had backed a significant revision to the city’s crosswalk law at the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. That change – which eliminated a requirement that motorists stop for pedestrians who were at the curb but not within the crosswalk – was subsequently vetoed by mayor John Hieftje. And the text of that veto is attached to the council’s meeting agenda as a communication.

Also generally related to the public right-of-way on streets is a Dec. 16 item that was postponed from the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting. The item assigns a specific cost to the removal of an on-street parking space caused by a development: $45,000. The postponement stemmed from a desire to hold a public hearing on the matter before taking action.

Several of the other Dec. 16 items relate generally to the theme of the environment. In the area of solid waste management, the council will consider a roughly $65,000 allocation from the solid waste fund balance. That allocation will pay for an initiative that will allow residents to add plate scrapings to their brown compost carts for curbside collection. The additional funds will cover an increased level of service at the compost processing facility (daily versus weekly grinding). The funds will also cover the cost of counter-top containers the city plans to give away to residents to encourage the initial separation of plate scrapings from garbage, and a subsidy for the sale of additional brown compost carts. Some of that allocation is expected to be recovered through reduced landfill tipping fees.

Other solid waste items on the Dec. 16 agenda include one to allocate about $63,000 to rebuild a baler at the city’s materials recovery facility. And the council will consider an amendment to the contract with Waste Management, which provides commercial waste collection services – to factor in special event service pricing on Sundays for up to five collection containers that are otherwise serviced daily. The council will also consider authorizing the purchase of about 150 300-gallon carts per year ($42,000) for the next four years – which will be used as part of the city’s commercial and multi-family recycling program.

Also part of the environmental theme on the Dec. 16 agenda is an item that accepts a $50,000 grant from the USDA Forestry Service to be spent on a tree pruning initiative focused on the city’s largest street trees.

Additional items include two standard rezoning approvals in connection with annexations from townships into the city. The recommending body for zoning approvals is the city planning commission. Also on the Dec. 16 agenda is an item that asks the council to approve changes to the planning commission bylaws. Those bylaws changes relate to the required notice for special accommodations like a sign-language interpreter – changing the requirement from 24 hours to two business days.

This article includes a more detailed preview of many of these agenda items. More details on other agenda items are available on the city’s online Legistar system. The meeting proceedings can be followed Monday evening live on Channel 16, streamed online by Community Television Network.

Y Lot Proceeds

The history of the city’s policy on the proceeds of city-owned land and the connection to the city’s affordable housing trust fund goes back at least 20 years.

Affordable housing fund activity.

Some highlights are laid out in a timeline below.

The specific connection between the affordable housing trust fund and the former Y lot is the 100 units of single-resident occupancy housing that previously were a part of the YMCA building that stood on the site.

Various efforts have been made to replace those units over the years. [See, for example: "The 100 Units of Affordable Housing."] Recently, the Ann Arbor housing commission and its properties have started to receive more attention from the council as an integral part of the city’s approach to providing housing to the lowest income residents. The council approved a series of resolutions this last summer that will allow the AAHC to convert many of its properties to project-based vouchers.

The approved $5.25 million sale price of the former Y lot will result in a gross difference of $1.75 million compared to the $3.5 million price paid by the city in 2003. At the council’s Dec. 16, 2013 meeting, consideration will be given to a resolution that would designate $1.56 million of that amount – which is all but a $190,000 brokerage fee – for deposit in the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

This would reflect a departure from the most recent policy adopted by the city council, but would eliminate any wrangling between the city and the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority over how much in reimbursements might be owed for various purposes. The DDA has calculated $1,493,959 in reimbursements that it thinks it could claim – for interest payments and cost of demolition, among other items. But the DDA board has voted essentially to waive that claim. And the city has calculated, for example, that $365,651 in interest reimbursements could be owed, as well as $488,646 for the relocation of residents of the former Y building.

In timeline overview form:

• April 15, 1996: City council establishes a policy that put half of the proceeds from city-owned land sales into the affordable housing trust fund. The minutes of the meeting show that Jane Lumm (Ward 2) voted against an amendment, made at the council table, to divide the proceeds of land sales (less costs) between “infrastructure needs and the housing trust fund regardless of budget year.” But the minutes show that the vote on the amended resolution was declared unanimous on a voice vote (not a roll call). In 1996, part of the impetus for consideration of a land sale policy was driven by city-owned property at Packard and Main, which eventually became a part of the Ashley Mews development.
• Nov. 5, 1998: City council votes to increase the portion of proceeds of city-owned land sales that would be earmarked for the affordable housing trust fund – from half to all. Lumm joined her Ward 2 colleague David Kwan in voting against this policy shift.
• Dec. 8, 2003: City council approves purchase of Y property – on William Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues – for $3.5 million, financing the purchase with a five-year loan. The Ann Arbor DDA had agreed to pay some of the interest on that loan through an action taken not by its full board, but rather by its executive committee, on Dec. 5, 2003.
• Oct. 20, 2005: Pipe bursts in YMCA building, displacing residents. The building is ultimately determined to be not worth the cost of renovation.
• June 4, 2007: City council votes to rescind the policy that put the proceeds from the sale of city-owned land into the affordable housing trust fund. The policy shift in 2007 took place as part of a relatively small land transaction: The city was selling a piece of land on East Eisenhower for $23,750. The proceeds were earmarked for the construction fund of the new municipal center, built at the corner of Fifth and Huron. But in order to put the money from the sale into that construction fund, the council needed to change the existing policy on land sales. So one of the “resolved” clauses in the resolution was the following:
  

  RESOLVED, That City Council revoke Resolution R-481-11-98 which provided that the proceeds from the sale of excess City property be deposited into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund;

  In the course of deliberations, the council agreed to amend the resolution so that the $23,750 in proceeds from this particular land sale would still be deposited in the affordable housing trust fund – but left the basic policy change intact. The council had an eye toward changing the policy anyway – so that the roughly $3 million in proceeds of the sale of the First & Washington parcel (to Village Green for construction of the City Apartments project) could be put toward the new police/courts building.

• Dec. 1, 2008: City council authorizes five-year extension of the renewal on terms from the Bank of Ann Arbor to finance the Y lot loan. During deliberations, some of the focus is on the need to divest the city of the property. Sandi Smith (Ward 1), at her second meeting after winning election to the council a month earlier, put the interest payments in the context of the cost of supporting a homeless person:
  

  In deliberations, councilmember Sandi Smith said that she would support the continued financing of the property, because they had no other choice, but that she urged her colleagues to begin thinking of master planning the area so that the city could divest itself of the property as soon as possible. [The master planning of the area was eventually realized in the form of the Connecting William Street project.] Smith noted that given the $5,000 cost of supporting a homeless person, the interest-only payments could be used to support 27 people. The math goes like this: ($3,500,000)*(.0389)/5,000.

• Sept. 19, 2011: City council approves the sale of a strip of the former Y lot for $90,000 to facilitate construction of new Blake Transit Center by the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority. The total parcel area of the strip was 792 square feet.
• April 26, 2012: Board of the AAATA approves the purchase of a strip of the former Y lot for $90,000 to facilitate construction of new Blake Transit Center.
• Sept. 5, 2012: DDA board passes a resolution urging the city council to dedicate proceeds of the sale of city land to support affordable housing.
• Sept. 5, 2012: Washtenaw County board of commissioners passes a resolution urging the city council to dedicate proceeds of the sale of city land to support affordable housing. [At the time, county commissioner Leah Gunn served on the DDA board, along with former county administrator Bob Guenzel, who continues to serve on the board.]
• Sept. 17, 2012: City council considers but postpones action on a policy for proceeds of the sale of city-owned land.
• Oct. 15, 2012: City council approves a policy that ultimately leaves the policy on the use of proceeds of city land to case-by-case decisions, but indicates that for the Y lot, the proceeds will:
  

  … first be utilized to repay the various funds that expended resources on the property, including but not limited to due diligence, closing of the site and relocation and support of its previous tenants, after which any remaining proceeds be allocated and distributed to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund;”

• Nov. 8, 2012: City council transfers $90,000 from proceeds of the land sale to AAATA into the affordable housing trust fund.
• March 4, 2013: City council directs the city administrator to select a broker for the Y lot.
• July 3, 2013: City administrator Steve Powers announces that he’s selected Colliers International and local broker Jim Chaconas to handle the marketing of the property.
• Nov. 18, 2013: City council approves the sale of the former Y lot for $5.25 million to Dennis Dahlmann.
• Dec. 4, 2013: DDA board waives its claim to reimbursement from the sale of the Y lot.

Community Events Funding

At its Dec. 16 meeting, the council will consider directing city administrator Steve Powers to include in the fiscal year 2015 budget an additional $10,000 in community events funding to support the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair. The city’s FY 2015 begins on July 1, 2014.

The memo supporting the resolution notes that the AASAF has run an annual deficit for several years. An email sent to Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) and Jane Lumm (Ward 2) by Maureen Riley, executive director of the AASAF, specified those annual deficits as follows:

• 2013 – anticipated to be approximately ($8,000)
• 2012 – ($6,316)
• 2011 – ($5,769)
• 2010 – ($6,040)
• 2009 – ($33,693)

Lumm and Taylor are sponsoring the resolution. Lumm is a former AASAF board member.

The rationale for providing support for the AASAF but not the other three art fairs is based on the additional costs the AASAF has to pay to the University of Michigan, as well as the provision by AASAF of community benefits that reduce its opportunity to gain revenue – including the Demo Zone, Art Activity Zones, Street Painting Exhibition, and the Fountain Stage. The background memo also indicates that the other three art fairs have indicated written support for the $10,000 to the AASAF.

The dollar amount roughly corresponds to the allocated cost to the AASAF from the total that is charged by the city for various services to the four art fairs collectively.

At the council’s Dec. 2, 2013 meeting, Taylor had announced his intent to bring forward the resolution asking that an additional $10,000 be included in the city’s FY 2015 budget.

Traffic Enforcement

On the Dec. 16 agenda is an item that would allocate $125,000 from the general fund balance to pay for police overtime required for additional traffic enforcement. The item began conceptually as a $500,000 allocation described by Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), who was persuaded by co-sponsors Jane Lumm (Ward 2) and Jack Eaton (Ward 4) that $125,000 would be a more reasonable amount to spend.

Data from the city’s most recent comprehensive annual financial report (CAFR), compiled with previous CAFRs, shows that traffic citations have continued for the past three years at significantly lower levels than previously:

Ann Arbor traffic violations. (Data from city of Ann Arbor CAFR. Chart by The Chronicle.)

Some insight into the question of how much time AAPD officers have available for proactive policing activities – like traffic enforcement – has been provided to councilmembers in the form of timesheet data that officers have been logging since the beginning of 2013.

In the charts below (by The Chronicle, with data from the city of Ann Arbor), green shading indicates unassigned time and time dedicated to proactive policing activities. Dedicate policing activities include: bicycle patrol, business contact, check person, citizen/motorist assist, code citation, community event, community meeting, downtown foot patrol, extra patrol (general), extra patrol (parks), felony, impound, liquor inspection, misdemeanor, parking citation, property check, recontact, traffic enforcement (general), traffic enforcement (laser), traffic enforcement (radar), traffic problem, and traffic stop.

Ann Arbor police department timesheet analysis. AAPD provided a range of time periods, to cover for the data entry training period, as officers learned the new system and became accustomed to coding their activities in a standard way. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from the city of Ann Arbor.)

In a memo to the city administrator dated Nov. 4, 2013, chief of police John Seto indicated that he’s already begun to assign additional proactive duties to officers, based on the results of the timesheet analysis:

As a result of this data, supervisors and officers have been identifying additional dedicated proactive policing activities to engage in for the remainder of 2013. Staffing modifications will also be taking place for 2014. An additional officer will be assigned to Special Services to address traffic complaints. The distribution of Patrol Officers will also be modified to increase the number of officers assigned to the swing shift, where the volume of calls for service is greater.

Council deliberations on the $125,000 overtime allocation could feature a discussion of the ability of the AAPD to conduct additional traffic enforcement activities, without drawing on overtime.

Non-Motorized Plan Funding

On the Dec. 16 agenda is a directive to the city administrator to provide a funding plan for elements of the city’s non-motorized transportation plan.

Map identifying geographic areas for improvements for pedestrians and bicyclists, as noted in the 2013 non-motorized transportation plan update.

The council approved the updated plan at its Nov. 18, 2013 meeting.

The new document is organized into three sections: (1) planning and policy updates; (2) updates to near-term recommendations; and (3) long-term recommendations.

And the Dec. 16 resolution – which is co-sponsored by Christopher Taylor (Ward 3), Chuck Warpehoski (Ward 5) Margie Teall (Ward 4) and Sabra Briere (Ward 1) – is structured in part based on those main sections.

The resolution directs city administrator Steve Powers to present a plan for funding elements of the city’s non-motorized plan by specific dates: by Feb. 1, 2014, the plan’s recommended midblock deployments of rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFB); by April 21 the near-term recommendations of the plan; and by June 30 the long-term elements of the plan.

Examples of planning and policy issues include design guidelines, recommendations for approaches like bike boulevards and bike share programs, and planning practices that cover education campaigns, maintenance, crosswalks and other non-motorized elements for pedestrians and bicyclists.

For example, the update recommends that the city begin developing a planning process for bike boulevards, which are described as “a low-traffic, low-speed road where bicycle interests are prioritized.”

Additional flashing beacon locations identified in Ann Arbor’s non-motorized transportation plan.

Sections of West Washington (from Revena to First), Elmwood (from Platt to Canterbury) and Broadway (from its southern intersection with Plymouth to where it rejoins Plymouth about a mile to the northeast) are suggested for potential bike boulevards.

Near-term recommendations include lower-cost efforts like re-striping roads to install bike lanes and adding crossing islands.

Longer-term projects that were included in the 2007 plan are re-emphasized: the Allen Creek Greenway, Border-to-Border Trail, Gallup Park & Fuller Road paths, and a Briarwood-Pittsfield pedestrian bridge.

The city’s non-motorized transportation plan is part of the city’s master plan. The planning commission adopted the updated plan at its Sept. 10, 2013 meeting. [.pdf of draft 2013 non-motorized transportation plan update]

With respect to the adoption of the master plan, the council and the planning commission are on equal footing. That is, they must adopt the same plan. So in this case, the commission is not merely the recommending body.

How Much Is a Parking Space Worth?

Postponed from the council’s Dec. 2 meeting is a resolution that would define how much developers would need to pay the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority if a developer’s project requires removal of a metered on-street parking space. The proposed amount is $45,000 per space. The payment would go to the Ann Arbor DDA because the DDA manages the public parking system under a contract with the city.

The rationale for postponing the item – offered by Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) at the council’s Dec. 2 meeting – was that because it amounts to a fee, a public hearing should be held on the matter before the council votes.

In this matter, the council would be acting on a four-year-old recommendation approved by the Ann Arbor DDA in 2009:

Thus it is recommended that when developments lead to the removal of on-street parking meter spaces, a cost of $45,000/parking meter space (with annual CPI increases) be assessed and provided to the DDA to set aside in a special fund that will be used to construct future parking spaces or other means to meet the goals above. [.pdf of meeting minutes with complete text of March 4, 2009 DDA resolution]

The contract under which the DDA manages the public parking system for the city was revised to restructure the financial arrangement (which now pays the city 17% of the gross revenues), but also included a clause meant to prompt the city to act on the on-street space cost recommendation. From the May 2011 parking agreement:

The City shall work collaboratively with the DDA to develop and present for adoption by City Council a City policy regarding the permanent removal of on-street metered parking spaces. The purpose of this policy will be to identify whether a community benefit to the elimination of one or more metered parking spaces specific area(s) of the City exists, and the basis for such a determination. If no community benefit can be identified, it is understood and agreed by the parties that a replacement cost allocation methodology will need to be adopted concurrent with the approval of the City policy; which shall be used to make improvements to the public parking or transportation system.

Subject to administrative approval by the city, it’s the DDA that has sole authority to determine the addition or removal of meters, loading zones, or other curbside parking uses.

The $45,000 figure is based on an average construction cost to build a new parking space in a structure, either above ground or below ground – as estimated in 2009. It’s not clear what the specific impetus is to act on the issue now, other than the fact that action is simply long overdue. In 2011, the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research expansion was expected to result in the net removal of one on-street parking space. [For more background, see: "Column: Ann Arbor's Monroe (Street) Doctrine."]

The resolution is sponsored by Christopher Taylor (Ward 3). Taylor participated in recent meetings of a joint council and DDA board committee that negotiated a resolution to the question about how the DDA’s TIF (tax increment finance) revenue is regulated. In that context, Taylor had argued adamantly that any cap on the DDA’s TIF should be escalated by a construction industry CPI, or roughly 5%. Taylor’s reasoning was that the DDA’s mission is to undertake capital projects and therefore should have revenue that escalates in accordance with increases in the costs to undertake capital projects.

Based on Taylor’s reasoning on the TIF question, and the explicit 2009 recommendation by the DDA to increase the estimated $45,000 figure in that year by an inflationary index, the recommended amount now, four years later, would have be closer to $55,000, assuming a 5% figure for construction cost inflation.

The actual cost of building an underground space in the recently completed (2012) underground Library Lane parking structure could provide a more current estimate, but the DDA has not made public a breakdown of how that project’s actual costs lined up with its project budget. The DDA has exercised its statutory right to extend the deadline in response to a request from The Chronicle for that information under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act

The last two month’s minutes from the DDA’s committee meetings don’t reflect any discussion of the on-street parking space replacement cost. Nor has the issue been discussed at any recent DDA board meeting.

By way of additional background, the Ann Arbor DDA’s most recent financial records show that last year, on-street parking spaces generated $2,000 in gross revenue per space or $1,347 in net income per space annually. The contract with the city under which the DDA operates the public parking system stipulates that the city receives 17% of the gross parking revenues. So the city’s revenue associated with an on-street parking space corresponds to $340 annually.

Solid Waste: Plate Scrapings

The Dec. 16 city council agenda item – to allocate $64,550 from the solid waste fund to support a food-scrap composting initiative – comes in the context of the council’s recent adoption of an update to the city’s solid waste plan. When the city council adopted the solid waste plan update on Oct. 7, 2013, a modification was made during deliberations.

An inventory of a sample of contents of Ann Arbor garbage trucks showed that about half of the weight is due to food waste. (Chart from the city’s solid waste plan update.)

The amendment undertaken by the council at that meeting eliminated mention of a possible transition to bi-weekly trash pickup or pay-as-you-throw initiatives.

However, one of the recommendations that is thought possibly to lead to a reduction in curbside garbage pickup – which would have been the basis for any decision to reduce the frequency of trash pickup – was left in the plan.

That recommendation is to allow plate scrapings to be placed in residents’ brown composting carts that the city uses to collect yard waste for processing at the city’s composting facility. That facility is operated by a third-party – WeCare Organics. The goal is to reduce the proportion of the city’s landfilled solid waste stream that’s made up of food waste. A recent inventory of the contents of some city trash trucks showed that about half of the weight is made up of food waste.

[Waste Less: City of Ann Arbor Solid Waste Resource Plan.] [Appendices to Waste Less] [Previous Chronicle coverage: Waste as Resource: Ann Arbor's Five Year Plan.]

The $64,550 allocation from the solid waste fund balance on the Dec. 16 agenda would pay for the initiative that will allow residents to add plate scrapings to their brown compost carts for curbside collection. The additional funds break down this way:

• $14,950 for an increased level of service from WeCare Organics at the compost processing facility (daily versus weekly grinding). The city is estimating no increased net cost for this increased service based on a reduction in landfill tipping fees. The city pays $25.90 per ton for transfer and disposal of landfilled waste. That’s $7.90 more than the city pays WeCare organics ($18 per ton) for processing compostable material. City staff is estimating that the program will divert 2,100 tons from the $25.90 category – for a savings of 2,100*$7.90=$16,590.
• $24,600 for the cost of 6,000 Sure-Close counter-top containers the city plans to give away to residents to encourage the initial separation of plate scrapings from garbage.
• $25,000 for a subsidy to sell an estimated 1,000 additional brown compost carts to residents at a cost of $25 per cart instead of $50 per cart. About 12,000 carts are already in use.

A Doppstadt slow speed grinder/shredder used by WeCare Organics. (Image provided by WeCare)

Tree Pruning

The council will be considering the receipt of a $50,000 grant from the USDA Forestry Service – to put toward a tree pruning initiative. The pruning program would target those trees in the public right-of-way that are most in need of pruning (Priority 1). The initiative is also focused on the larger of the city’s street streets – those bigger than 20 inches in diameter. Those are the trees that have the greatest impact on the mitigation of stormwater.

Here’s where the trees targeted by the program are located:

Street trees in Ann Arbor greater than 20 inches in diameter. (Map by the city of Ann Arbor.)

From the city’s online tree inventory, The Chronicle queried those trees greater than 20 inches in diameter and designated as Priority 1 for pruning. A total of 684 trees fit those criteria. Here’s how they broke down by height, diameter and species.

Priority 1 trees by diameter. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from city of Ann Arbor.)

Priority 1 trees by height. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from the city of Ann Arbor.)

Priority 1 trees by species. Maples are the dominant species among those that will be targeted by this pruning program. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from the city of Ann Arbor.)

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Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board members Roger Hewitt (left) and Keith Orr. They're examining a Girl Scout badge created for assisting in the Downtown Blooms event. The car on the wall in the background is a mockup of the planned wayfinding system for the levels of the new underground parking structure, anticipated to open by mid-July. (Photos by the writer.)

One of those structures farther west of the campus is the new underground parking garage on South Fifth Avenue, which is nearing completion. The garage, which the DDA is currently calling the “Library Lane” parking structure, is now expected to open by the time the art fairs begin, which this year fall on July 18–21. South Fifth Avenue between Liberty and William is expected to re-open by Memorial Day.

A characterization of that timing as “on schedule” was disputed during public commentary by Ali Ramlawi, owner of the Jerusalem Garden restaurant. Jerusalem Garden is adjacent to the construction site. Ramlawi noted that the structure was originally due to be completed by August 2011.

The future use of the top of the underground garage was the subject of public commentary from advocates who’d like to see it used as a green plaza. That suggestion was met with remarks from mayor John Hieftje, who sits on the DDA board, with a description of his expectation that three major parcels would soon be incorporated into the city’s park system – 721 N. Main, 415 W. Washington, and the MichCon property (located between the Amtrak rail station and the Huron River near the Broadway bridges). Hieftje’s point was that the additional financial burden for the maintenance of those parcels as parks might impact the city’s ability to add a downtown green plaza to the park system.

Requests for better information about the parking system and suggestions for disseminating information about the availability of open parking spaces were topics of additional public commentary.

Although it was not an action item, the board discussed a draft policy on supporting “brownfield” projects – a policy prompted by discussions at the board’s partnerships committee over the last few months. [.pdf of draft DDA brownfield policy]

The committee has been discussing a proposal by Dan Ketelaar for support of a proposed development at 618 S. Main, which received a positive recommendation from the Ann Arbor planning commission on Jan. 19, 2012. If the project moves forward, the 7-story building would include 190 units for 231 bedrooms, plus two levels of parking for 121 vehicles. Ketelaar has estimated that the tax on the increment between the current valuation of the property and the final built project would yield around $250,000 a year in TIF (tax increment finance) revenue to the DDA. If adopted as it’s currently worded in the draft, the formula in the policy would translate into up to $625,000 of support for 618 S. Main.

The board also received updates on the third-quarter financial statements for the DDA, as well as an update on the Connection William Street planning project. 

The DDA manages the city’s public parking system under a contract with the city of Ann Arbor that ensures the city receives 17% of the gross parking revenues, which amounts to around $3 million annually.

So parking is typically a topic at DDA board meetings that receives a great deal of time and attention. The May 2, 2012 meeting was no different. The construction of the new parking garage on South Fifth Avenue was highlighted at the meeting in three ways: (1) public comment on future planning for the top of the underground parking garage from advocates of a public park to be constructed there; (2) a resolution to help foster usage of the new garage through differential pricing; and (3) and the regular update on construction progress.

Parking Structure Park

A request for proposals (RFP) process that could have led to the selection of a development project on the top of the underground parking structure was terminated by the Ann Arbor city council on April 4, 2011. The structure includes reinforced footings designed to support future development on the site.

Parking Structure Park: Public Comment – Library Green

Will Hathaway told the board that he was speaking on behalf of group of Ann Arborites advocating for a downtown public park – a Library Green on the Library Lot. He allowed that there are other competing views for the future of the Library Lot. He also allowed that there are also concerns about the possible impact of public open space in the downtown.

He reviewed the site plan for the top of the parking structure, given the absence of any future development on the top of the lot. The design includes 40 parking spaces, he said.

The red rectangle outlines the area where Hathaway and the Library Green advocates would like to see a public park/plaza constructed, instead of using all the available area for surface parking. (Image links to higher resolution .pdf file)

Hathaway then reviewed the configuration of the spaces that are currently planned for the top of the structure. He suggested that a public plaza be created now and proposed a configuration that would leave 18 parking spaces, but would allow for a plaza too.

He invited the DDA board to think about an interactive water feature or an ice rink or a piece of public art like The Cube as elements of the plaza. He reported that he’d been on a tour of the underground garage, which is nearing completion, and he allowed that in some ways it’s architecturally beautiful.

But it needs a better “crown,” Hathaway said, than a surface parking lot.

Eric Lipson introduced himself as a resident of Ann Arbor and former city planning commissioner. He told the board he was also wearing the hat of a Library Green advocate. He explained that as general manager of the Inter-Cooperative Council, he was also representing a stakeholder in the Connecting William Street project. The ICC houses 600 members, and its headquarters is located on East William Street, within the area of study for that project.

Lipson reminded the DDA board of the Calthorpe process that the community had engaged in around 2005. He described it as an extensive process that had included a series of design charettes. One of the ideas that had emerged was the need for a public plaza, or a “town square.” The Calthorpe report mentions a town square over a dozen times, Lipson said, and depicts such a square on the Library Lot.

Lipson called it a perfect time to revisit the question of what to put on top of the underground structure. He told the board it was doing an excellent job on the Connecting William Street project. The DDA’s planning and research specialist, Amber Miller, and executive director Susan Pollay were doing a good job, he said. The speaker series that Concentrate is sponsoring as a part of that is very useful, he said.

Right now the plan for the top of the Library Lot is for it to be a surface parking lot [until some other possible future use is identified]. But surface parking lots are anathema to active downtowns, he said. He encouraged the DDA board to put something on the site that is not a surface parking lot. He acknowledged the concern about crime and panhandlers, but characterized that as a broader issue. The community shouldn’t sacrifice the idea of a plaza because of the issue of the homeless. He said that as he moved through downtown Ann Arbor walking along the sidewalks, he was approached more and more by panhandlers – but no one is suggesting we abolish sidewalks.

Ray Detter, during his report from the downtown citizens advisory council (CAC), said that Lipson and Hathaway had spoken to the advisory council at its meeting the night before. Detter said the CAC agreed with them that a plaza space should be part of the plan. But he said that a plaza space has always been part of the plan. The CAC agreed there should be a clear-cut process for using Library Lane when it was finished. [Library Lane is the mid-block cut-through from Division Street to Fifth Avenue just north of the current location of the downtown district library.] Detter said the CAC had affirmed a long-held commitment to tax-producing private development on top of the parking garage. The CAC has always believed that whatever goes on the top of the parking garage should benefit the library, Detter concluded.

Parking Structure Park: Board Response – Three Other Parks

Responding to the remarks of Library Green advocates about the perceived problem of panhandling as an argument against additional open space in the downtown, mayor John Hieftje noted that panhandling had been the focus of a task force that had done some work on the issue. He mentioned that people would start seeing posters appear that give suggestions for ways to help without giving money to a panhandler.

[By way of background, the city of Ann Arbor previously staffed a downtown beat patrol, which many officers chose to cover by bicycle. With the reduction of the police officer force, that specific patrol assignment has been reduced to the point of elimination. Many people have contended that there's an increased panhandling and other nuisance-type crimes in downtown Ann Arbor and that it can be attributed to the elimination of the downtown beat patrol.]

So in connection with panhandling, Hieftje then took the occasion to point out that later in May, the city council would be likely to approve a budget that does not cut 9 police officers as had been planned last year, but would add one, for a net gain of 10. He also pointed out that some additional personnel would be added as part of a recruitment program.

[In May 2011, the city council approved a budget that eliminated six police officer positions, with a plan to eliminate nine additional positions this year. So compared to 2010 budgeted levels for sworn officers, preserving the nine positions and adding one leaves Ann Arbor police officer staffing at five fewer for next year. That doesn't include the proposed recruitment program, which calls for potential new hires to the department to work under the direction of sworn officers.]

Image from the city/county flood map website showing the 721 N. Main parcel. The blue area is floodway. The green area is floodplain. Two of the three buildings on the parcel are in the floodway. They could be demolished with a FEMA grant described by mayor John Hieftje. Acceptance of the grant from FEMA would require a deed restriction against development in the floodway. (Image links to floodway mapping tool.)

Continuing his remarks on panhandlers, Hieftje noted that most of them are not homeless.

Hieftje then pitched a framework for discussing the future of the top of the underground parking garage – which Library Green advocates are suggesting should become a public park. Hieftje contended that it should be considered in the context of other significant anticipated additions to the city park system.

Hieftje indicated that the city council’s May 7 meeting would include a presentation about a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant for demolition of buildings on the city-owned 721 N. Main property.

By way of additional background, Jerry Hancock, the city’s floodplain manager, provided some explanation about the grant, which has been awarded but still awaits some steps on the city’s part. One of those steps is updating the city’s All-Hazard Plan, which had expired, delaying the award of the grant by FEMA.

From The Chronicle’s March 5, 2012 city council meeting report:

Hancock responded by saying there’s only one other site on which the city has moved forward with FEMA applications: 721 N. Main St., a city-owned property.

The city had received approval of a grant to remove two storage structures in the floodway on the 721 N. Main site, but that grant has been delayed because the city’s All-Hazard Plan has expired. The city’s emergency manager, along with the city attorney’s office, is updating that, Hancock explained. Once that All-Hazard Plan is complete, the city will be able to move ahead with that grant. However, no other sites besides the two storage structures at 721 N. Main have been identified for FEMA applications, Hancock said.

At the DDA board meeting on May 2, Hieftje also said there was a real push being made to get the area across Main Street from the 721 N. Main property cleaned up – it’s the site of Avalon Housing‘s Near North affordable housing project, which currently has several vacant houses on it. Hieftje indicated that the city would be pursuing a state Natural Resources Trust Fund grant to make the 721 N. Main site the first of the greenway parks. It would have a linkage across Main Street under the railroad tracks to the countywide Border-to-Border Trail, he said. City staff would be investing time in planning for that, he said. Washtenaw County [parks and recreation], Hieftje reported, had agreed tentatively to participate in the project by making a match for the Natural Resources Trust Fund grant.

[Hieftje appears to have somewhat overstated the currently expected level of participation by the county's park and recreation program. In a phone interview, Bob Tetens – director of Washtenaw County parks and recreation – told The Chronicle that there was not anything yet on the table in front of the parks and recreation commission. He indicated that there'd been conversations with the city about the project, and that the idea of connecting the 721 N. Main property would be a good fit with the Connecting Communities grant program – a $600,000 annual program over five years, for a total of $3 million. Tetens also said that a project that's already partly funded through another source (like the state's Natural Resources Trust Fund) would enhance a project's application. However, there are more applications for various projects every year than Washtenaw County parks and recreation can fund through the Connecting Communities program, Tetens said.]

Hieftje characterized the land at 721 N. Main as something that the city needs to do something with – because the city doesn’t want to contribute to blight. [The property was previously the city's fleet maintenance yard, but was closed when the Wheeler Service Center opened in 2007.] He also reported that he’d been working with community members on the city-owned 415 W. Washington property. He said that not much progress has been made because of the condition of the old building. By council resolution, he said, that parcel will be a greenway park. [The council resolutions to which Hieftje is referring don't appear to commit the entire parcel to becoming a greenway park.]

Environmental cleanup work is being done on the MichCon property, located between the Amtrak rail station and the Huron River, near the Broadway bridges. Hieftje stated he hoped that would also become a park – across from the new whitewater features to be constructed in connection with the Argo Dam bypass, now called the Argo Cascades.

So as people start to think about adding parks, he said, people need to think about how to maintain them. According to the park advisory commission, Hieftje said, the city is at the limit of being able to maintain parks. Because the city already owns the 721 N. Main site, and because the MichCon property is one the city has wanted for 40 years to be cleaned up and added to the park system, those would be “first in line,” he stated. The capacity to care for another park will stretched, Hieftje said. He recommended to people who are working on the Library Green to take that into account: How will we maintain the park? Also, Hieftje invited Library Green advocates to think about how that fit into the competing interests of three large new parks that will need planning, development and maintenance.

Hieftje also said that he’d be recommending to the park advisory commission that they take up the issue of how to re-design Liberty Plaza [at Division and Liberty streets] so that it becomes a more active center and not something that people avoid. It’s fortunate that First Martin cares for the park, Hieftje said. [First Martin is an Ann Arbor firm that owns the building adjacent to Liberty Plaza.]

Picking up on Hieftje’s comments, Sandi Smith noted that the Connecting William Street committee members would have the future of the top of the underground parking garage on their radar as well, and noted that Liberty Plaza is within the boundary of the study area. Trying to maintain and activate two parks within the same block seems to be a difficult chore, she said.

Responding to Hieftje’s comments during the second opportunity for public comment at the end of the meeting, Jerusalem Garden owner Ali Ramlawi suggested that one idea of funding the maintenance for a public park plaza on top of the parking garage would be to take a fraction of a percent of the parking revenues collected from the structure.

Parking Demand Management

Parking demand management is basically a strategy of differential pricing – higher for higher demand areas and lower for lower demand areas – to try to optimize the available parking spaces in the system. At an April 9, 2012 city council work session, Ward 1 city councilmember Sabra Briere had asked DDA board member Roger Hewitt when residents could expect to see demand-management strategies implemented. At that work session, Hewitt had been presenting the DDA annual budget to the council.

Parking Demand Management: Resolution on Permits

At their May 2 meeting, the DDA board considered a resolution authorizing its operations committee (aka bricks & money and transportation committee) to use demand-management strategies to price monthly parking permits in Ann Arbor’s public parking system. The goal of adjusting monthly parking permit rates is to expand campus-area parking to structures other than those immediately adjacent to the University of Michigan campus. In broad strokes, “demand-management strategies” means pricing the most desirable parking options higher than those that are less desirable.

The move comes as the opening of the new underground parking structure on South Fifth Avenue, offering around 700 total spaces, is set to open by the start of the Ann Arbor art fairs, which this year run from July 18-21. Monthly permits for some of the spaces will be offered at the new structure, which will add to the five public parking structures where permits are available: Ann & Ashley, Forest Avenue, Fourth & William, Liberty Square (Tally Hall), and Maynard.

Under a demand-management strategy, prices of monthly permits at the underground parking structure are likely to be lower than at other structures.

The Ps denote parking structures offering monthly permit parking. (Image links to Google map.)

Hewitt noted that the DDA has been focusing on the completion of the new underground parking garage and has not had time to pay as much attention to parking demand-management initiatives.

As the DDA gets closer to opening the new underground garage, Hewitt said, the idea is to look at carrots and sticks for evening out the usage in the system. Rather than forcing people to move their permits from structures in high demand to those that are in lower demand, the idea is to offer incentives. There’s a number of ideas to relieve the pressure on the structures closest to campus – Forest, Maynard and Liberty Square. The idea is to move those folks into the new underground structure or the Fourth & William structure, he said.

The resolution authorized the operations committee to use parking demand management to alter rates to even out the demand in the system, he said.

Newcombe Clark questioned why there was an explicit mention of “two blocks west” in one of the “whereas” clauses. Hewitt assured him that the intent was to explore parking demand management for monthly permits throughout the system, without any particular boundary.

Outcome: The DDA board unanimously approved the resolution authorizing the operations committee to use parking demand management strategies to alter monthly parking permit rates.

Parking Demand Management: DDA-City Contract

The  Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority manages Ann Arbor’s public parking system under contract with the city. The DDA has the unilateral ability to set parking rates. To implement an increase, the DDA is required under the contract to complete a series of steps designed to ensure adequate notice and public input before implementation of a rate increase. From the contract [emphasis]:

Notwithstanding the foregoing, DDA shall not implement any increase in the Municipal Parking System’s hours of meter operation or parking rates intended to persist for more than three (3) months without first: (i) announcing, and providing written communication regarding, the details of such increase at a meeting of the DDA Board; (ii) providing all members of the public an opportunity to speak in a manner similar to a public hearing before the DDA Board at its next regularly scheduled meeting on the subject of the proposed increase (“Public Hearing”); and (iii) postponing any vote on the proposed increase until at least the regularly scheduled meeting of the DDA Board after the Public Hearing

The changes to the monthly permit system, which Hewitt characterized as “incentives,” do not appear to involve rate increases, but perhaps only decreases. So the various steps outlined in that contract clause would not apply.

Parking Demand Management: Public Comment

Edward Vielmetti addressed the board during the second opportunity for public commentary, and focused on the topic of demand management pricing. He ventured that sometimes people don’t have much of a choice as to where they can park and they pay whatever price they have to pay – because they don’t know much about what their alternatives are.

In addition to improved communication about availability of spaces, Vielmetti asked for better communication about information on the parking system performance – as opposed to simple pronouncements about the parking system being at full capacity.

Vielmetti also addressed the board at the start of the meeting on the topic of relatively low-tech ways to get parking space availability information to people who need it – people who are looking for a place to park.

He shared an experience he had visiting Toledo to watch the Toledo Mud Hens play. It’s usually easy to find a place to park, he said, and if the lots near the stadium are full, there are usually other lots that are easy enough to find. But on the occasion of the visit he described to the DDA board, the Detroit Tigers were playing, and all the lots were filled up. So he had to navigate using his wits and found the farmer’s market, which offered free parking.

Part of the challenge of parking in an unfamiliar place, he said, is not knowing the lay of the land. You have to figure out if the place you want to park is legal, and you might not know if the structure you know exists is already full. He said that what was fascinating about Toledo was not any kind of fancy smart phone application that anyone had running, but rather a sign at the border that advised people to tune their radios to AM 1640. That’s a station that tells you how much traffic was on the roads to get to the stadium, or to get to downtown Toledo from the Michigan border.

The radio station, Vielmetti said, would give estimated travel times to different places, on a constant loop. Every few minutes the information would be updated. It’s a low-power AM station that you can only hear in Toledo, he said. He suggested that setting up such a station would be within the means of any municipality or a public body like the DDA, and the radio station could tell people a little bit about what they need to do in the downtown. The DDA already has realtime parking information available, so potentially that information could be broadcast every three minutes and listeners could hear something like “All the lots have spaces available,” or if the Fourth and Washington structure is full, then it could advise people to use the underground garage.

Vielmetti said he wanted to revisit the realtime parking information issue that he’d raised with the DDA back in 2009. This time around, he said, he didn’t want to look at “fancy things” that only people with fancy phones could use, but something that people could tune into from their car radio.

Parking Demand Management: Parking Report

A report of the monthly parking figures are a standard part of every DDA board meeting. Generally, the message conveyed by Roger Hewitt is that revenues are up in excess of the rate increase, which he interprets as an indicator that demand for parking is increasing.

For the past few months, The Chronicle has charted out revenues and hourly patrons in the system as reflected in the DDA’s monthly reports over the last couple of years. Hourly patrons don’t include people who park at on-street meters, but rather those who pay hourly at a parking structure – as opposed to parking there using a monthly permit.

Ann Arbor public parking system revenue through March 31, 2012. (Image links to higher resolution file.)

Ann Arbor public parking system hourly patrons (in structures) through March 31, 2012. (Image links to higher resolution file.)

Parking Garage Construction

At its monthly meetings, the DDA board typically receives a report on the progress toward completion of the new underground parking garage on South Fifth Avenue. It will offer around 700 spaces underground. The surface lot that existed there previously offered 192 spaces.

Parking Garage Construction – Public Comment

Ali Ramlawi introduced himself as the owner of the Jerusalem Garden and a resident of Ward 5 – but he allowed that board members already knew who he was. [Ramlawi has addressed the board previously to raise essentially the same issues he did at the May 2 meeting.]

He described the construction of the underground parking structure as stretching now into its fourth calendar year, but was not yet complete. [The ceremonial groundbreaking took place in October 2009.] He reviewed some of the issues he’s raised before – loss of income, disruption in deliveries, forced evacuation [due to the emergence of a sinkhole]. He questioned how the construction contract was awarded to the Christman Company and contended that the choice of subcontractors by Christman had raised some eyebrows. He contended that the original contract with Christman had no penalties for being late and no reward for finishing on time. No one is held accountable, he complained. With the powers and budget the DDA board members have, they need to do a better job of awarding contacts, he said. If this were the private sector, he contended, someone would have been fired. Where are the penalties for the lateness? he asked.

He told the board that when they have the ceremonial opening celebration he would not be around for it because he didn’t want to “puke over [himself].”

Parking Garage Construction – Board Report

John Splitt gave the update on the construction of the underground garage. Work continues on the mechanicals. The most exciting part of things, he said, is that the backfilling on the plaza level is going along nicely and the waterproofing is almost complete. Backfilling on the “bridge” section, which will allow the re-opening of South Fifth Avenue, is almost complete, he said. Curbs are beginning to be formed on South Fifth Avenue. It’s on schedule to reopen by the end of May, and it’s anticipated that the underground garage will be open by the time that the art fairs start, he said. The fairs run from July 18-21 this year.

During the second opportunity for public commentary near the end of the meeting, Ali Ramlawi objected to Splitt’s use of the phrase “on schedule to open,” saying that the project is a year behind schedule. He contended that saying it was on schedule undermined the DDA’s credibility.

Following up on Splitt’s construction summary, Newcombe Clark asked that the depiction of the Lincoln Continental on the meeting room’s wall be explained, so that people did not think the DDA was getting into the sponsorship business. Splitt explained that it’s part of the underground garage wayfinding system – which will use both colors and four different automobiles to identify floors. The car is a mockup of a wayfinding sign.

“Brownfield” Policy Draft

The DDA board considered a draft policy on supporting “brownfield” projects – a policy prompted by discussions at the board’s partnerships committee over the last few months. [.pdf of draft DDA brownfield policy] The board was not expected to act on the policy, and did not vote.

“Brownfield” Policy Draft: Background

The DDA’s partnerships committee has been discussing a proposal by Dan Ketelaar for support of a proposed development at 618 S. Main, which received a positive recommendation from the Ann Arbor planning commission on Jan. 19, 2012. The 7-story building would include 190 units for 231 bedrooms, plus two levels of parking for 121 vehicles. Ketelaar has estimated that the tax on the increment between the current valuation of the property and the final built project would yield around $250,000 a year in TIF (tax increment finance) revenue to the DDA.

Ketelaar is asking that the DDA pledge 80% of its TIF capture money for six years – about $1.3 million – to support certain aspects of the project in connection with the state’s Community Revitalization Program. The CRP is the successor to the brownfield and historic preservation tax credit programs. In order to approve the tax credit, the state would like to see a commensurate commitment from local units – and Ketelaar is proposing that it take the form of the DDA’s support.

At the April 11, 2012 DDA partnerships committee meeting, one of the points that resonated strongest with some board members in favor of supporting the 618 S. Main project was the ability of the contribution to leverage state money that would otherwise not be invested in Ann Arbor. The amount of money from the state that could be leveraged is in the range of $3 million.

Under Ketelaar’s proposal, taxes on the property would still need to be paid. In other words, the DDA would not simply waive its tax capture on the property. The 618 S. Main project would be reimbursed for a portion of those taxes it would normally owe. In the draft policy, that’s reflected in the following passage: “The DDA will not forgo its TIF capture from a project; the DDA may elect to provide a grant to a project utilizing its funds, or it may elect to provide all or some of its support using such in-kind elements as access to parking for contractors or construction staging.”

The maximum amount of a possible grant described in the draft policy is “calculated by estimating 25% of the total TIF captured by a project over ten years.” In the case of the 618 S. Main project, that amounts to .25*(10*$250,000) = $625,000. That’s about half what the 618 S. Main project is requesting.

The DDA board has heard about the proposal on several occasions – first at the full board meeting on Feb. 1, 2012, and at four subsequent DDA partnerships committee meetings. DDA board members are cautious about the precedent that such a pledge might set, and the appropriateness of the DDA’s role at this early stage in the project. (Ketelaar has not yet acquired the land.) At the March 28 partnerships committee meeting, DDA board member Newcombe Clark expressed concern that, depending on the precise role defined for the DDA’s participation, the DDA could effectively be artificially inflating land values.

“Brownfield” Policy Draft: Board Discussion

Sandi Smith introduced the draft policy. Looking at the 618 S. Main project caused the partnerships committee to take a really hard look at the reasons why the DDA would participate in the project at all, some or a lot, she said. The committee felt that it was struggling with the idea of creating a precedent. So the committee wanted to make a strong policy statement that the DDA would be able to honor for the 618 S. Main project, as well as for projects that came after it.

She walked the board through some of the highlights of the draft policy. She said she was looking for board-wide feedback for further work by the partnerships committee.

Roger Hewitt said that a lot of his concerns were addressed by the draft policy – about the subjectivity of picking projects. He liked the idea of getting rid of as much subjectivity as possible. The idea of a state match was good, he said, as well as the idea that the only costs to be reimbursed would be public infrastructure, not parts of the development itself. He also wanted to make sure that the DDA would not be paying out more than the DDA would receive in TIF capture.

Smith assured Hewitt that nothing would be paid until the taxes have been paid. The DDA would never be in a position of being ahead of the taxes it had received. Hewitt said his concern was that the amount of the grant could become a larger percentage of the TIF, if the value of the project actually went down. He wanted some way to protect against that. Keith Orr suggested some kind of clause that states that while the grant amount would be based on the estimated value of the TIF capture, the payout would be capped by the actual value.

Russ Collins noted that the scenario that Hewitt was describing involved possibly paying out more than anticipated, but not more than the DDA was capturing. John Splitt noted that there could be flexibility to pay out sooner than the actual TIF capture was received, so that’s where the issue could arise – if it were paid out on a schedule sooner than the 10 years.

Splitt wondered if 25% was enough to make a difference in the project. Bob Guenzel clarified that “enough” meant whether it was enough to actually provide the matching leverage for state funds. Smith responded by saying that for past projects, the Liberty Lofts project [a residential development at Liberty and First] had been the most significant one – and that had amounted to 17% of the TIF over 10 years. Taking all that into account, she wondered if 25% was too high or too low.

Keith Orr agreed with the idea of making it as objective as possible and focusing on public infrastructure.

Newcombe Clark said he was happy that the DDA has continued to be creative even when the organization doesn’t have a lot of money. He appreciated the patience of Ketelaar, watching the “sausage making.” Clark said he’d enjoyed the process. Maybe the DDA didn’t make everyone happy or didn’t get it right the first time, he said – that’s always possible. He knew it was not perfect, but he felt that as a group the DDA board could pick it back up and shine it up some more. He said he’d had the fear that for a few years there’d be nothing the DDA would be able to do [because of diminished financial capacity] and he’d been proven wrong.

Collins quipped that he found Clark’s positive and optimistic attitude completely inappropriate, which drew laughs around the table. On a more serious note, Collins said that the DDA had structured itself as an organization that tends to assets. That causes a certain amount of fiscal conservatism. The draft brownfield policy, therefore, is very conservative, he said. But by being conservative, the DDA could miss the chance to be a stimulus to other private investment, which is the core of the DDA’s mission, he said. That’s the constant tension a DDA has, he ventured.

Clark suggested that based on past experience, once the DDA creates policies, it lays down the rules of engagement, and then people will line up with proposals. Collins continued with his friendly ribbing of Clark, saying that Clark’s unmitigated optimism was completely out of character.

During his report from the downtown citizens advisory council (CAC), Ray Detter congratulated the DDA on the formulation of the draft policy. He said the CAC supports the project and is confident the DDA is developing a consistent policy that will be fair to everyone.

Outcome: The draft policy was not before the board for a vote. It will be subjected to further discussion by the partnerships committee.

Third Quarter Financials

Roger Hewitt reviewed the financial statements for third quarter, through March 31, 2012. The DDA’s accounting system includes four funds: the TIF (tax increment finance) fund, which gets its revenue from tax capture; the parking fund, which receives revenue from the public parking system; the parking maintenance fund, which gets revenue through transfers from the parking fund; and the housing fund, which gets revenue through transfers from the TIF fund. [.pdf of DDA  financial picture through March 31, 2012]

The tax increment finance (TIF) income is anticipated to be $200,000 below budgeted – $3.7 million instead of $3.9 million, Hewitt reported. The drop, he said, is primarily due to changes in personal property, not changes to real property. Personal property depreciates quickly, he said. Operating expenses will be about $250,000 below budget, primarily from less use of consultants and lower administrative expenses. Only about $45,000 in capital expenses are shown so far, he said, but he anticipated that number would be right around $1 million at the end of the fiscal year.

That figure will come from the Fifth and Division streetscape improvements project and a portion of the “Library Lane” parking structure. Overall, he said, the DDA had budgeted for around a $1.5 million use of fund balance. Now, said Hewitt, it looks like it would be around $1.44 million of fund reserves that would need to be used. Hewitt pointed out that the use of fund balance was planned, and the natural consequence of accruing capital funds to pay for major construction projects and then using the money.

Revenue for the public parking system is anticipated to be around $17 million, or about $800,000 more than anticipated. The rate increases had been budgeted into the anticipated revenue, he said, so he attributed the additional revenue to increased demand. He stated that the DDA continues to see strong growth in demand for parking. It’s fortunate that the “Library Lane” parking structure is coming on line when it is, because the system is at capacity, he said, at least in the campus area and at the Ann Ashley parking structure.

Direct operating expenses are expected to be $800,000 less than expected. That has to do with the fact that Republic Parking – the DDA’s contractor for day-to-day parking operations – is doing a good job at belt-tightening and is efficient in its operations, Hewitt said. He commended Art Lowe, Republic Parking manager, and his staff for keeping costs in line. Overall, it looks like the parking fund will be around $1 million to the positive.

Parking maintenance has received around $2 million, he said, which is right where the DDA anticipated being. The DDA has not spent money on maintenance that it would have ordinarily done, but the DDA is so far ahead on preventive maintenance that it was able to scale back without any concern about the structural integrity or long-term durability of the structures, he said. So parking structure maintenance has been conservative. There’s been about $1.6 million less spent on maintenance than what had been budgeted. That money will be there for future years as needed, Hewitt said.

The only income into the housing fund was due to interest. About $500,000 had been budgeted for Avalon Housing’s Near North project, but that project has not gone forward. The $500,000 is not due to be paid until Avalon has a certificate of occupancy, and that shows as under budget on the expense side for the housing fund.

Summarizing the financial picture in terms of fund balances, Hewitt gave the following round figures: TIF fund – $6.5 million; housing fund – $1 million; parking fund – $2 million; and parking maintenance – $1.8 million. Total fund balance is $11,444,000, he said. That will certainly be drawn lower as the Fifth and Division streetscape and the “Library Lane” parking structure projects are paid off, he said, but the DDA still has adequate cash.

Communications, Committee Reports

The board’s meeting included a usual range of miscellaneous reports from its standing committees and the downtown citizens advisory council, as well as public commentary. To the extent that significant issues are not already included in the other parts of the meeting report, we include them here.

Comm/Comm: Connecting William Street

Joan Lowenstein gave an update on the Connecting William Street project – an effort the DDA is making under the direction of the city council to find alternate uses for city-owned parcels currently used for surface parking. Lowenstein said that the DDA’s leadership and outreach committee is continuing and increasing efforts to bring different “scenarios” to the public. The scenarios won’t be exact building drawings, but there would be more detail in them, she said. In mid- to late June there’d be something concrete to bring to the public.

Focus group meetings will continue in an effort to shape scenarios. A meeting with members of the city’s park advisory commission had taken place. On May 16, the committee would hear the market analysis findings that will shape the scenarios, based on survey feedback and the market analysis. Throughout the month of June, the committee was moving ahead to have something to show people and get feedback.

The next event in the Concentrate speaker series, focusing on land-use economics, will take place on May 17 at 5 p.m. at Conor O’Neill’s, Lowenstein said.

Comm/Comm: Commuter Challenge

Nancy Shore, director of the getDowntown program, gave the board a brief update on the Commuter Challenge, which getDowntown sponsors annually during the month of May.

Comm/Comm: Girl Scouts

Girl Scout badge design for "Spring Blooms" park cleanup day. The DDA is camouflaged into the design.

Board members were given a Girl Scout badge that’s been created in connection with the parks cleanup day, Spring Blooms. Girl Scouts can earn the badge by participating in the event, DDA executive director Susan Pollay said.

Pollay noted that the DDA name was hidden within the badge design.

This year, the event falls on Saturday, May 19. The assembly point is Liberty Plaza at Division and Liberty. Said Pollay: “We will go forth and clean up the downtown!”

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

Absent: John Mouat, Leah Gunn.

Next board meeting: Noon on Wednesday, June 6, 2012, at the DDA offices, 150 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 301. [confirm date]

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