Stories indexed with the term ‘planning approval process’

The cardboard box sat on the counter of the Ann Arbor planning department’s sixth floor city hall offices, stuffed with copies of the Fuller Road Station site plan, which was submitted to the city Monday morning.

The submission of the site plan – 44 oversized pages of details about the project’s engineering, architecture and landscaping – marks the start of the formal approval process with the city, after months of debate and discussion. The $46 million project is proposed for city-owned property south of Fuller Road and north of the University of Michigan medical campus. The site plan is for the first phase of the project – a five-level parking structure and bus depot. Officials envision that a later phase will include a station for commuter and high-speed rail, though funding for that is still uncertain.

Jeff Kahan, the city planner who’ll be shepherding the project through the approval process, told The Chronicle that it will be on the planning commission’s agenda no earlier than Sept. 21. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor City Council meeting (July 6, 2010) Part 2: The two main events of the council’s Tuesday meeting were consideration of a historic district on Fourth and Fifth avenues and a resolution opposing Arizona’s recently passed law requiring local law enforcement officers to follow up on possibly undocumented immigrants.

Public commentary and deliberations on those two issues sent the council’s meeting well past midnight. [Chronicle coverage of those issues is included in Part 1 of this meeting report: "Unscripted: Historic District, Immigration"]

The council transacted a lot of other business as well. Councilmembers approved a change to the zoning code that modifies the list of allowable uses for public land so that the planned Fuller Road Station can be accommodated. Also passed was a change to the site plan approval process, which relaxes the requirement that up-to-date site plans be accessible to the public on a 24/7 basis.

Parks were front and center, and not just because of the public hearing and council action on allowable uses of public land. At the start of the meeting, a proclamation was made for Huron River Day, which takes place at Gallup Park on Sunday, July 11. And the council continued its pattern at the first meeting of the month of recognizing volunteers who help maintain the city’s parks through the Adopt-a-Park program.

In other action, the council approved the $2.5 million purchase of development rights for the 286-acre Braun farm in Ann Arbor Township, as recommended by the city’s greenbelt advisory commission, and established a residential parking permit program for the South University area. [Full Story]