The step taken by the council was to create a project budget for the proceeds of bonds sold by the city on Jan. 22, 2013 – $8,666,075 total, of which $4,079,743 were taxable and $4,586,332 were non-taxable. The council created the project budget at its Feb. 19, 2013 meeting. The authorization to issue the bonds had come at the council’s Oct. 4, 2010 meeting.

The DDA is committed to covering payments on the roughly $9 million of bonds to support construction of the bottom two floors of the building – which will hold about 240 parking spaces. Of those, 95 will be available for public use. The remainder of the spaces will be used by residents of the 146-unit project, when construction is completed. Before then, the deck will be handed over to the city and the DDA after a certificate of occupancy for the parking deck is received.

As of early February, the construction was on a pace that would result in a certificate of occupancy for the parking deck by March 15. The construction of the entire building is expected to be complete by the end of the summer. [.jpg of view from First and Washington looking east]

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

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) was first to arrive at the council’s meeting and was rewarded by a dozen or so requests from high school students who needed a signature to attest to their attendance for a class assignment. It was Rapundalo’s last meeting, having lost the Ward 2 election on Tuesday, Nov. 8, to Jane Lumm. (Photos by the writer.)

The council had made several revisions to the law in 2010, including a requirement that motorists accommodate not only pedestrians who are “within” a crosswalk, but also those who are “approaching” a crosswalk. Thursday’s initial revision amended out the “approaching” language in favor of the following wording: “… the driver of a vehicle shall stop before entering a crosswalk and yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian stopped at the curb or ramp leading to a crosswalk and to every pedestrian within a crosswalk.”

The second and final vote on the pedestrian ordinance change is expected to come after a council working session in December, and after a public hearing at the council meeting when the final vote is taken. Based on deliberations on the change at Thursday’s meeting, the outcome of that vote is not a foregone conclusion, and further revisions might be possible.

The council also took action at the Nov. 10 meeting that will allow two downtown residential projects to start construction. The council approved the site plan for The Varsity Ann Arbor, a “planned project” consisting of a 13-story apartment building with 181 units at 425 E. Washington, between 411 Lofts and the First Baptist Church.

And the final deal was approved with Village Green to purchase the city-owned parcel at First and Washington. On that site Village Green will build a 244-space parking deck as the first two stories of a 9-story building with 156 dwelling units – City Apartments.

The council gave final approval to a change in its taxicab ordinance, spelling out conditions under which licenses can be revoked or suspended.

The council also gave final approval to two ordinances that make retiree health care and pension benefits for two of the city’s larger unions parallel to benefits for non-union employees. The approvals gave Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) an opportunity to comment on the labor issues that had been a centerpiece of his re-election campaign, which concluded unsuccessfully on Tuesday.

It was due to the election held on Tuesday that the council’s meeting was shifted from its regular Monday meeting slot to Thursday. The shift is stipulated in the city charter. All council incumbents won their races except for Rapundalo, a Democrat defeated by Jane Lumm, who was running as an independent. Rapundalo began his final meeting by signing multiple attendance sheets for high school students who were attending the meeting on a class assignment, and ended it by hearing praise from his colleagues around the table.

Pedestrian Safety Ordinance

Before the council for consideration was initial approval to a tweak to its pedestrian safety ordinance. The language given initial approval by the council now reads in relevant part: ” … the driver of a vehicle shall stop before entering a crosswalk and yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian stopped at the curb or ramp leading to a crosswalk and to every pedestrian within a crosswalk, …”

Some amendments to the law made by the council over a year ago – on July 19, 2010 – included an expansion of the conditions under which motorists must take action to accommodate pedestrians. Specifically, the 2010 amendments required accommodation of pedestrians not just “within a crosswalk” but also “approaching or within a crosswalk.”

A draft of the current revision that was circulated prior to Thursday’s meeting would have simply struck the phrase about “approaching” a crosswalk – which resulted in a mischaracterization in other media reports of a possible council action to “repeal” the ordinance.

Besides the “approaching” phrase, the 2010 amendments also contained two other key elements. The 2010 amendments included a requirement that motorists “stop” and not merely “slow as to yield.” And the 2010 amendments also eliminated reference to which half of the roadway is relevant to the responsibility placed on motorists for accommodating pedestrians. With regard to that amendment, the intent of the council was to place responsibility on motorists when pedestrians approach crosswalks on either side of the roadway.

Revisions contemplated by the council this time around do not change the intent of the ordinance on either the “stopping” or the “roadway side” elements. However, language has been inserted to make explicit that motorists have a responsibility “without regard to which portion of the roadway the pedestrian is using.”

Pedestrian Ordinance: Public Commentary

Matthew Grocoff led off public commentary from the contingent of advocates for pedestrians who attended the meeting. He said it’s been an interesting week for pedestrians. The issue is not really about pedestrians, bikes, and cars, but rather about the value of people, he said. He appreciated the shifting of the burden from the pedestrian. He said he is looking forward to strengthening the language that’s in the ordinance now.

Joel Batterman introduced himself as a 2006 graduate of Huron High School, vice chair of the Washtenaw Bicycling and Walking Coalition (WBWC), and an urban planning student at the University of Michigan. Changing the ordinance [from the 2010 amended version] would make the community less safe, he said. The ordinance is working, he contended. A few months of education and enforcement has increased the number of people stopping.

Joel Batterman.

Batterman said that media reports have attributed collisions on Plymouth Road to the 2010 amendments to the ordinance. But he said that Plymouth Road has always been a problem, and he reminded the council that in 2003 two students died trying to cross Plymouth Road. [From a Nov. 15, 2003 Ann Arbor News report: "Teh Nannie Roshema Rolsan, 21, and Norhananim Zainol, 20, both engineering students at the University of Michigan, were killed Sunday night after they left the Islamic Center of Ann Arbor, 2301 Plymouth Road, and tried to cross the five-lane road."]

Batterman noted that many students trying to cross Plymouth are international students who find it difficult to make their voices heard. He called on the council not to backpedal on their commitment.

Responding to the criticism that Ann Arbor’s pedestrian safety ordinance is at odds with prevailing traffic culture, Batterman said that’s exactly the point. Metro Detroit has the highest pedestrian fatality rate in the country and is three times that of New York City. He called for change at the state level as well.

Thomas Collet told councilmembers that they could likely tell from his accent that he grew up in Europe. He reported that he commutes on Plymouth Road, and it’s atrocious how fast people drive – motorists are looking to get on US-23 and turn on their cell phones. He said Ann Arbor is a community that is accommodating to pedestrians and bicyclists. Regarding possible traffic accidents, he said the actual problem is people driving too fast and following too close.

Isaac Gilman introduced himself as an urban planning student at UM and a resident of Courtyard Apartments, near Plymouth and Broadway, for over a year. It’s difficult to cross Plymouth at non-signalized crosswalks, he said. Two specific locations he noted are at the Islamic Center and at Traver Village, where Kroger is located.

Cars travel 40-45 mph when the posted limit is 35, Gilman said. It takes three to five minutes to make it across. The pedestrian island helps, but he said he doesn’t feel safe there. The pedestrian ordinance is a great plan – human life should be the most important focus. He encouraged the city to adopt crosswalk design guidelines, to identify improvements, and to implement them. He said it was important to educate pedestrians, motorists and bicyclists. He encouraged the council to keep the ordinance. People shouldn’t fear crossing the street, he said.

Erica Briggs introduced herself as a board member of the WBWC. She supported the revisions, she said. She agreed that the “approaching” phrase is vague. The WBWC had received a grant from the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority and the Washtenaw County public health department to do outreach and education, and she wanted to give a status update. She’d done observations in the spring and fall of this year of actual driver behavior at different intersections, which she then shared with the council.

[The study did not use pedestrians observed in the wild. Briggs acted as a pedestrian, and an observer monitored motorist behavior. For the study, at each location observations were recorded over a period of about an hour and a half, with roughly 50-80 attempted crossings. Stop rates were calculated based on the number of cars that should have stopped, by ordinance, compared with the total number of vehicles traveling through the location.] Stop rates were measured in the spring of 2011 and again in the fall. Fall figures are given in parens.

Plymouth Road
Stop Rate: 1.5% (9.5%)

Liberty Street
Stop rate: 8% (24%)

Main Street
Stop rate: 5.3% (14%)

Stadium Blvd
Stop rate: 1.2% (12%)

-

Briggs noted that there had been improvement in the stop rates as measured by the WBWC, but it’s nowhere where it needs to be.

Kathy Griswold told council she’s been speaking about pedestrian safety long before it was popular. Transportation engineering is life and death, not trial and error, she said. She didn’t support the pedestrian ordinance revision, saying that it’s not the optimal approach, because it introduces unnecessary conflict and risk. She said the discussion needed to be framed more broadly. She noted that people want to model the pedestrian safety ordinance on the city of Boulder’s law, but she noted that Boulder has other laws supporting that one, like a law on sight distance. She compared Ann Arbor’s approach to someone taking a laxative to get in shape.

Griswold asked why Ann Arbor needs a local ordinance that is inconsistent with the Uniform Traffic Code (UTC). She wondered why local politicians are editing traffic engineering laws, wordsmithing language at the council table. The city of Ann Arbor is reluctant to maintain sight distances, she contended, and it doesn’t keep rights-of-way free of overgrowth. There’s not adequate lighting at crosswalks, she continued, and utility boxes are placed in the line of sight. From a historical perspective, she said, there’s been a trend of politicizing traffic engineering. You can’t just pick and choose high visibility projects, she cautioned.

Larry Deck introduced himself as a board member of the WBWC. He said it looks like the council has made good progress. He cautioned that a cultural change takes time. The focus should first be on education instead of the punitive part. He said that the group is working on crosswalk design guidelines. As an example of items to be addressed are consistent signage across the city, advance yield signs, High-intensity Activated crossWalK beacons (HAWK), and Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons (RRFB). He said the community shares a common interest in making crosswalks safer.

Pedestrian Ordinance: Council Deliberations

Sabra Briere (Ward 1), a co-sponsor of the amendment, noted there had been a grammatical error in the updated online version on Legistar. So she asked her colleagues to consider the updated version she’d passed around printed on sheets of paper. [Compared to the version approved by the council in July 2011 2010 additional language is in italics and deleted language is struck through.]

[Proposed Amendment Nov. 10, 2011] 10:148. Pedestrians crossing streets.
(a) When traffic-control signals are not in place or are not in operation, the driver of a vehicle shall stop before entering a crosswalk and yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian approaching or stopped at the curb or ramp leading to a crosswalk and to every pedestrian within a crosswalk, without regard to which portion of the roadway the pedestrian is using. 
(b) A pedestrian shall not suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into a path of a vehicle that is so close that it is impossible unsafe for the driver to yield.
(c) Every pedestrian crossing a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles upon the roadway.

Briere said she’d heard a lot of concern about the ordinance in the last 13-14 months since the it was revised. There’d been a flurry of publicity when it was approved in 2010. Many people had written about their concern, but had also expressed their gratefulness. For occasional pedestrians, crossing at anywhere but a signal is difficult, she said. The council had approved the language with “approaching” as a way to evaluate the intent of pedestrians. Since then, the council had heard a lot of discussion about understanding what that means.

At the Oct. 24 council meeting, those concerns had been discussed by the council, Briere said. She’d volunteered to work on this issue, but said the current amendment didn’t reflect her work alone – it’s the work of other councilmembers and community members, and she thanked them for their input.

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3), who also co-sponsored the amendment, said he’d heard a great deal from his constituents about the ordinance. Two main points of that communication were that: (1) there is great value in a pedestrian-friendly culture, and (2) the “approaching” standard is problematic due to perceived and real ambiguity.

The current revision advances public safety, he said, and provides clarity without forcing pedestrians into the crosswalk before they get the right-of-way. He said he continues to learn about the issue through communication with advocacy groups and he thanked them collectively for it.

Margie Teall (Ward 4) said she is very appreciative of work that Briere and Taylor had put into the ordinance.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5), who had sponsored the original 2010 amendment to the ordinance, said he was glad that the sponsors had stepped back from the previous draft that would have simply struck the phrase with “approaching.”

Hohnke said it’s important to keep in mind what’s important: the safety of pedestrians. It’s important that the city is not asking people to risk life and limb to claim the right-of-way. He said he wasn’t sure the newly revised language is a huge improvement. He was inclined to support the revision in paragraph (a), but wanted to note that the original language was the result of a multi-stakeholder process, that included physical audits, videos, data, and a publicly-held forum with traffic engineers and experts from Lansing.

Through that process, Hohnke contended, people had wrestled with the issues that people are now identifying. He cautioned against taking a reactionary step backwards. He agreed with the concern that Griswold had raised during public commentary about councilmembers trying to wordsmith traffic safety laws. To a lay person, the revised language might seem to accomplish the goal. But Hohnke said the “so-called ambiguity” is something the city needs to educate people about. That kind of ambiguity already exists in the traffic code in other places, he said, giving tailgating as an example. He was willing to support the paragraph (a) revisions if it would make people feel more comfortable, saying at least it’s not the step backward.

But as for the revisions in paragraph (b), Hohnke said the language strays from UTC guidelines and is inconsistent. He contended that the addition of the word “unsafe” adds ambiguity that sponsors were trying to avoid.

Later during deliberations, Taylor offered, in response to Hohnke’s concern about paragraph (b), that he would be willing to consider a reversion to the original language in that paragraph as friendly. And that amendment was accepted without requiring a vote.

Mayor John Hieftje said he appreciated the work done by Briere and Taylor. Noting he was a sponsor of the 2010 amendment, the “approaching” standard was a term that worked well in other places and that traffic professionals had worked with him and Hohnke to develop the language. Hieftje said there’d be a working session on the topic in December and that a second and final vote on the ordinance change would be taken at a meeting following the working session. Hieftje said progress is being made in recognizing pedestrians who are within and approaching crosswalks.

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) said he was appreciative of the councilmembers who had made the effort to bring the revision forward. He was glad the council was not considering simply striking the “approaching” language, because he would not have supported that. Pedestrians need strong language to support them, to support a level of walkability in the city. Saying it’s a step in the right direction, he cautioned that there are still inconsistencies with the UTC. Rapundalo said he thinks other things to contemplate are: technological options; definitions of everything a “crosswalk” includes; and signage.

Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) said he also wants the effect of the ordinance on liability studied, in particular with respect to the “last clear chance” doctrine. Does this change that liability? [The "last clear chance" doctrine is that, independent of the negligence on the part of one of the parties, if the other party had the last opportunity to avoid an accident, the negligent party could still avoid liability for that accident.]

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) said it’s great the council is talking about this, because it’s consistent with the council’s practice of revisiting ordinances a year after the ordinance is amended, which is now. Kunselman asked chief of police Barnett Jones to come to the podium.

A back-and-forth between Jones and Kunselman drew out the fact that under state law, Ann Arbor police officers can ticket motorists for failing to accommodate pedestrians who are in a crosswalk and that it results in two points on the motorist’s license.

To illustrate the kind of friction that exists between motorists and pedestrians on the ordinance, Jones related receiving a call about a situation at Huron and State streets. The motorist was eastbound on Huron Street approaching State Street. A pedestrian pointed at the crosswalk and stepped in. The motorist pointed to the green light and drove around the pedestrian.

Jones said he believed some relief is needed for mid-block major road crossings, and the city is starting to get better compliance. Jones then implicitly disputed a report in AnnArbor.com that attributed the cause of some rear-end accidents to the pedestrian ordinance. Jones said that when the third, fourth or fifth cars behind a stopped car have a rear-end accident, it’s not the fault of the pedestrian ordinance. Instead, Jones said, that kind of accident is caused by a driver who failed to keep their vehicle under control.

Briere told Jones that when she’d looked at the reports that were supposed to be the basis of the claims published in AnnArbor.com that the pedestrian ordinance had caused accidents, she’d found that a lot of the reports didn’t deal with areas that would be affected by this ordinance. The accidents had happened at signalized intersections (which are not included in the scope of the pedestrian safety ordinance) or else involved bicyclists on sidewalks, she said. She said that looking at the actual reports was surprising to her, because having read the coverage in AnnArbor.com she’d expected to find an uptick in rear-end accidents at those crosswalks without a signal.

Jones said that on Plymouth Road, the accidents he’d looked at had involved a distracted driver who did not stop behind a car that was already stopped. Briere requested a comparison of rear-end collisions today versus 2009, so that there can be an effective comparison.

A question from Hohnke to the chief about what it means exactly for a pedestrian to be “stopped at the curb” resulted in a couple of suggestions from Jones. First, he said there were some bus stops that might need to be moved from their locations immediately proximate to crosswalks. Second, he suggested the possibility of extending the crosswalk striping from the road onto the sidewalk pad to clearly delineate an area.

Hohnke reacted to the extended striping by saying that was new information to him. Hohnke said that’s a pretty significant change and wondered if the ordinance language actually entailed such a delineation and a requirement that engineering of the crosswalks be undertaken.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) took over the duties of chairing the Nov. 10 council meeting midway through it, when mayor John Hieftje could no longer continue, due to hoarseness. The duty fell to Higgins as mayor pro tem. Hieftje remained at the meeting. 

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) was chairing the meeting (as mayor pro tem) by that point due to illness-induced hoarseness on Hieftje’s part. She said the council had heard that the city needs engineered crosswalks and it’s important to look at different needs for Seventh and Liberty streets as compared to Huron Street and Plymouth Road. She ventured that the city’s traffic engineers would be able to weigh in on the issue at the December work session and the council would have that information before taking a final vote.

Briere wanted to remind people that ordinances don’t control everything. She referred to the three Es: education, enforcement and engineering. Putting up signs has alerted motorists that crosswalks are there. Getting a standard warning sign across the city will be valuable to residents, as well as to people who are driving through the city. It’s the lack of clarity that has compounded the problems, she said. The city also needs to look at the engineering of crosswalks.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) noted that the city needs to think about how to fund engineering improvements to crosswalks. He noted the reduction in bus service provided by the Ann Arbor Public Schools system meant that more people were walking.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to give initial approval to the revision to the pedestrian safety ordinance. A working session and a final vote are anticipated for December 2011.

Pedestrian Ordinance: Remembering Kris Talley

When the council revised the city’s pedestrian safety ordinance on July 19, 2010, the public hearing included remarks from Kris Talley on behalf of the Washtenaw Bicycling and Walking Coalition, a group she chaired for a time. From The Chronicle’s July 19, 2010 meeting report:

Speaking during the public hearing on behalf of the Washtenaw Bicycling and Walking Coalition, board member Kris Talley indicated the group had been working on the issue for more than a year. She pointed the council to a video that they’d created to illustrate what motorist behavior is like towards pedestrians who are trying to enter crosswalks.

What had been particularly striking, Talley said, was a forum attended by city transportation staff, a city attorney, a police officer and advocates for non-motorized transportation where there’d been a lack of consensus about what was required by the city’s current pedestrian ordinance – for pedestrians and motorists alike. The proposed revision, she said, is language that makes crosswalks meaningful.

Advocacy for pedestrians in the current round of legislative review will be missing Talley’s voice. Last week, on Nov. 4, she died of ovarian cancer. In a message to the WBWC newsgroup, her husband Phil Farber described Talley as “a tireless advocate for pedestrians and non-motorized transportation, especially bicycling.”

In this Chronicle file photo from July 19, 2010, Kris Talley addressed the city council that night in support of the amendment to the city’s pedestrian safety ordinance. Tally died of ovarian cancer on Nov. 4, 2011.

Farber continued, “I want to ask everyone reading these words to consider what they can do in large or small ways to improve conditions for those of us who walk and bicycle for our transportation needs.”

In a May 2007 interview, Talley related a vignette that illustrates the large and small deeds she contributed to the walking and bicycling community. After being run off the road by a gravel truck while riding her bicycle on Scio Church Road, she followed the truck to the gravel pit and tracked down the driver, who was called “Catfish.”

Said Talley: “I went into the dispatch office and that’s how I found out his name. She called down and said, Catfish, there’s someone up here who wants to talk to you or something. Yeah, he wasn’t too receptive to my message of sharing the road.”

Talley continued to deliver that message as recently as early October of this year. She sent an email to several parties, including The Chronicle, asking for help in an attempt to convince Zipcar (a car-share company) to stop using a particular advertisement: “Aaaargh, I can’t take it that Zipcar still has this ad in its rotation, almost a month after Bike Portland first pointed it out: [link] … I was hoping if the AA entities that deal directly with Zipcar and at least one AA customer (I think you are, HD?) could protest it would have more impact than the average cyclist.”

When Talley asked people to do something, it was hard for them to find a way to say no. [.pdf of email written to Zipcar at Talley's request]

The Varsity Ann Arbor

On the council’s agenda was a resolution for approval of a residential project on East Washington Street: The Varsity Ann Arbor. The Varsity is a “planned project” consisting of a 13-story apartment building with 181 units at 425 E. Washington, between 411 Lofts and the First Baptist Church.

The city planning commission recommended approval of The Varsity at its Oct. 4, 2011 meeting.

Intended for students, it’s the first project to go through the city’s new design review process. The Varsity was first considered at the planning commission’s Sept. 20 meeting, but postponed before eventually winning recommendation.

A “planned project” allows modifications of the area, height, and placement requirements related to permanent open space preservation, if the project would result in “the preservation of natural features, additional open space, greater building or parking setback, energy conserving design, preservation of historic or architectural features, expansion of the supply of affordable housing for lower income households or a beneficial arrangement of buildings.” However, all other zoning code requirements must still be met – including the permitted uses, maximum density, and maximum floor area.

The Varsity was submitted as a planned project in order to make the plaza area off Washington Street larger than what would have been required by the zoning code.

The Varsity: Public Hearing

Thomas Partridge stated that he felt the requirements for the property should include access on a non-discriminatory basis to transportation.

Chris Crockett noted that the proposed building is bounded on two sides by structures in the Old Fourth Ward historic district. She had met with developers and architects for a number of months, she said, and allowed that The Varsity is an appropriate development for the site – it is tall and could be taller. However, she still had real concerns about some issues to which she’d not received a good response from the architects and the developer. One concern is the Huron Street facade, she said. It’s a major thoroughfare and buildings on the street should be architecturally significant. But The Varsity’s facade on Huron Street is anything but that, she contended. It offers a flat face with an entrance for pedestrians and a garage door.

Alluding to the design changes that had been made since the initial review by the city’s design review board, Crockett called it a “glorified garage door.” The developer had been asked to change it, but it hasn’t been changed, she said. The door is also dangerous, because traffic on Huron Street could get backed up. She expressed skepticism that it would be effective, for the developer simply to tell residents they can’t turn left out of the garage. She maintained it would be a hazard for drivers on Huron Street. She noted that The Varsity was the first building to go through the city’s new design review process and the garage door entrance had been brought to the attention of the development team as unacceptable, she said.

Ethel Potts called The Varsity the first test of the city’s new planning process. Next spring there’ll be a review of how well it’s working, she said. She criticized the fact that height and mass was not considered by the design review board, and that resulted in a project that is not compatible with its context – next door to a small, elegant historic church.

Potts said the reason the design review board didn’t consider height and mass was because those elements were made a part of the zoning code, which was a mistake, she said. A flaw of the project is a lack of green space – it has open space, but that’s not green space. “So much for downtown livability,” she said. She concluded that she doesn’t think the ordinances are working.

Steve Kaplan introduced himself as the owner of the apartment building at 418 Washington. He said he was excited to see the project get built on the street. He told the council he’d attended the design review board and had been impressed with the energy the development team had put into the changes they’ve made.

Kaplan said he appreciated that a developer must balance concerns that are financial with those that are aesthetic. But he suggested that some improvements could be made that do not impact affordability of the construction. On the east wall, the current plan calls for just one color of brick. But with such a large face, he suggested it might make sense to alternate colors to break it up.

Kaplan also said the parking offered inside the building at grade level squanders an important opportunity to contribute to the community. That block of Washington Street has been historically a “sleepy block,” he allowed, but it seems to be changing towards something more exciting. The space allocated to parking could be commercial or retail, so allocating it permanently to parking seems wasteful, he said.

Brad Moore introduced himself as working on the project as an associate architect. He noted that other members of the team were also there. The approval was being sought under the city’s “planned project” provision, he said, a designation that has a controversial history. For this project, Moore explained, the “planned project” designation allows the developer to provide a larger public plaza on Washington Street – at the request of the First Baptist Church. The “planned project” designation is not being used to gain increased mass, density or height, he said. The project team has worked very hard with the neighbors, the design review board and the city planning commission.

The project has evolved, Moore said, and they had done the best job possible. One challenge noted by Moore is that the width of the lot on the Huron side of the site is quite limited. The garage door mimics a “curtain wall,” he said. There is room for the staging of cars, he said. A car can be completely outside the garage, before it gets to the Huron Street edge.

Bob Keane, a principal with WDG Architects in Washington D.C., told the council that the project team had been working together with a local group [Brad Moore]. He described how they’d had a nice process with the design review board, the neighborhood and the church. The team took the commentary seriously, which they’d received as feedback. He called the evolution of the Huron Street facade a great improvement. The way the building steps back responds to the two houses appropriately, he said.

Although Keane had heard people describe the Huron Street facade as “flat,” he said he felt it had a rich texture. He allowed that the long facade facing east really was a bit plain originally, and vertical elements had been added, as well as a metal element at the top to define the building top. He also noted that the team had looked at ways to enhance the mid-block pedestrian connector – the mews, which runs between Huron and Washington.

John Floyd introduced himself as treasurer of the First Baptist Church, located next to the proposed project. He allowed it “could be a lot worse” but told the council that the reason it’s going to be built is: “You guys passed the zoning!” He allowed that the developers are probably nice people, who are nice to kids, and nice to have a pint with.

Tom Heywood (left) and John Floyd (right) chatted during a recess in the meeting. 

At that point Floyd paused and said he wanted to wait until all the councilmembers were ready to listen, saying that Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) and Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) seemed to have other things to do besides pay attention to him. [Hohnke has also in the past made a point of not looking at Floyd when Floyd has spoken during public commentary.]

Floyd ventured that Hohnke was writing an email, at which point Hohnke was piqued into responding verbally to Floyd during Floyd’s commentary. [Councilmembers have rarely if ever responded to speakers during public commentary over the more than three years of Chronicle coverage. They will on occasion offer a response later in the meeting.] Hohnke told Floyd he was taking notes on what Floyd was saying.

When Floyd continued, he called the construction of The Varsity in that spot civic vandalism and church desecration. He said Huron Street used to be the most elegant street in town, and The Varsity starts its diminishment, he said. To take a building that scale and put it through the whole block [from Washington to Huron] is wrong, he contended. It was an “act of irresponsibility” by the council to approve the zoning, he said. It was wrong, Floyd said, and will be wrong for the next 100 years, and is the responsibility of this city council.

At the time allowed for public commentary at the conclusion of the meeting, Floyd also addressed the council, again on the topic of The Varsity. He told them he had a passion about The Varsity and Huron Street. He responded to remarks made by mayor John Hieftje during the council deliberations on The Varsity – Hieftje had called the process of rezoning inclusive and open.

Floyd recalled that part of the public process had involved the Calthorpe study, which had introduced the idea of “transition zoning.” Out of that public process, he said, Huron Street originally had been designated as D2, the transition zoning. The eventual change later in the process from D2 to D1 – zoning that allows for denser development – did not have the appearance of an open process, Floyd said. Instead, it had the appearance of a middle-of-the-night process. That part seemed like it threw out a large part of the public process and ignored it, he said.

Tom Heywood introduced himself as executive director of the State Street Area Association. When the owners of the project had approached him eight months ago, he asked them to work with neighbors. He turned to Floyd and asked if he’d met with the developer – no, answered Floyd. Heywood went on to say that the co-pastor of Floyd’s church, Stacey Simpson Duke, couldn’t be at the meeting that night – her twin boys had a “family thing” – but Duke supported the project. [However, during the rezoning process to which Floyd had referred during his commentary, Duke had weighed in against the D1 zoning that the council ultimately approved for that area.]

Heywood noted that the developer could have proceeded with a “by right” project, but chose not to. The plaza proposed on the Washington Street side was added so that the building would flow with the rest of the street. The State Street Area Association board had unanimously approved a resolution supporting the project. He said he understood that there are people who don’t like the massing of the building, but he believes it reflects the future of downtown.

Ray Detter spoke on behalf of the Downtown Citizens Advisory Council. He said the group has urged the developer to improve the project, and that many changes have been made that have improved the project. For example, a small green roof was recently added. The group supported the increased setback on Washington Street and the resulting plaza. The group would have liked the developer to eliminate the Washington Street parking entrance.

The mews on the east side is of special interest, said Detter, because it’s a public benefit. He contended that expansion of the surface to the church property would require only administrative review of the city’s historic district commission. He hoped the mews will result in a crosswalk and a connection to the alley between Washington and Liberty, which he said is now a “stinking, dirty, nasty alley.” Detter wants to see that alley turn into a well-designed pedestrian walkway.

The Varsity: Council Deliberations

Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) led off deliberations, saying the project was unanimously recommended for approval by the city planning commission. [Derezinski serves as the council's representative to the planning commission.] He noted that the new design review board process is new. Some people who were most enthusiastic about the project were neighbors, he said. The sticking point was the Huron Street entrance. The only way to solve it completely would have been to eliminate it, he said, which the developer didn’t do. He alluded to the idea that the perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of the good, and said that there’d been a lot of public input.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3 ) said he was glad the issue of the two entrances had been raised – he had a problem with the Washington Street entrance, because it’s pedestrian unfriendly. He said the city’s experience with garage doors between Division and Fifth along Liberty was not good – it’s unsightly along that corridor, he said, and makes it difficult for pedestrians. Why does the building need two entrances? Kunselman asked.

Brad Moore clarified that the project is not changing anything that doesn’t already exist – both entrances already exist. The Washington entrance is back far enough for a motorist to pull out of the garage and still be cognizant of pedestrians. The lot has a panhandle shape, with the narrow end on the north (Huron Street). In trying to find a way to use one entrance and build a ramp inside the building, they discovered that it just didn’t work, Moore explained. As a result, from the Huron Street side, you descend to one level of parking.

In response to questions from Kunselman about required parking and the ability to convert space to retail use, Moore explained that there’s a congregational space, a lounge, on the ground floor, so that if retail demand exists, it could be converted to retail. That would still leave a lounge on the top floor.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) asked for the plans to be shown that illustrated the contrast between the original plans and the changes that had been made in response to suggestions from the design review board and others. The contrasts were then discussed by councilmembers and the design team.

Mayor John Hieftje said he was normally not a fan of “planned projects,” so he appreciated the work the developer was willing to do with the neighboring First Baptist Church. He said he grew up attending that church. Hieftje then referred to Floyd’s comments about the zoning, but refrained from mentioning Floyd’s name. Hieftje said that thousands of hours had been put into it and it was one of the most participatory things he’d seen in government. He said not everybody would be happy with everything about it, but it’s something they could live with.

Village Green, First and Washington

The council was asked to consider final authorization of a land deal to sell the city-owned First and Washington lot to Village Green. Village Green will build a 244-space parking deck as the first two stories of a 9-story building with 156 dwelling units – City Apartments.

Village Green: Background

The purchase price of the land is $3,200,000, the bulk of which ($2,500,000 plus $500,000 previously borrowed from the risk fund to cover construction costs) is earmarked for the city’s new municipal building fund. This has been a part of the city’s financing plan for that building. Construction of the municipal building is now essentially completed.

The city has previously received $103,000 in earnest money from Village Green. The city is covering $5,000 in closing costs – that puts net proceeds of the transaction at $3,092,000. The remaining $92,000 (after appropriating the $3 million total for the municipal center) and the earnest money will be appropriated to the general fund, designated as “non-departmental” (as non-recurring revenue), where it will add to the general fund reserve.

The Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority has pledged around $9 million of support for bonds to pay for the parking deck component of City Apartments – the city will own that part of the project. Payment is not owed to Village Green for the parking deck construction until a certificate of occupancy is issued for the parking deck, which is expected to open for business in about a year (late 2012), before the residential portion of the project is complete.

The deal had a five-year trajectory after the city council first approved the recommendation of the First and Washington RFP Review Committee, and the city started negotiations with Village Green for the sale and redevelopment of the site. The goals of the deal were: to increase downtown residential density; replace public parking spaces; maximize the sale price; and maximize future tax revenue, captured by the Ann Arbor DDA Authority TIF (tax increment finance) district.

The vote by the council required an 8-vote majority on the 11-member body, because the city charter stipulates that “The City shall not purchase, sell, or lease any real estate or any interest therein except by resolution concurred in by at least eight members of the Council.”

Also before the council on Thursday night was the affordable housing component of the project. Under those terms, 16 of the units must be permanently affordable to households earning no more than 80% of the area median income (AMI).

The Ann Arbor DDA has also agreed to support the project with $400,000 from its housing fund, if four of the 80% AMI rental units are made affordable at the 60% AMI level. The affordable units will be of the same appearance and finish as other units and would be distributed throughout the project. Village Green does not have the option of making a payment in lieu of providing the affordable units as part of the project.

Village Green: Council Deliberations

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) asked city of Ann Arbor chief financial officer Tom Crawford about how the proceeds of the sale would be appropriated. She contended one step has been missed – it should first go into the general fund before being appropriated to the municipal building fund.

By way of background, Briere was making the point that in 2008, the council had included a condition on a further extension of Village Green’s purchase option that proceeds of the sale be deposited into the general fund, not the municipal building fund. From The Chronicle’s meeting report ["Council Revisits the Mid-2000s"]:

As a historical point related to the planned use of the sale proceeds for the new municipal center construction, the council defeated a resolution on March 17, 2008 to extend the Village Green purchase option agreement for First and Washington. At the council’s following meeting, on April 7, 2008, the measure was brought back for reconsideration, and the council voted unanimously to extend the agreement. The key difference was the addition of a “resolved clause,” which stated: “Resolved, that the proceeds from this sale shall be designated to the general fund, Fund 010.”

Responding to Briere’s question, Crawford said that all along the financing plan for the municipal center has included proceeds of the First and Washington sale. As a reason for not first running the money through the general fund, he said, when citizens sees spikes in the fund balance level, it causes confusion. Briere noted that one of the reasons the project moved forward was the 2008 agreement that proceeds of the sale would go into the general fund.

Crawford told Briere that he wasn’t following her reasoning. From the beginning, he said, the proceeds of the sale were planned to pay for the municipal center. Briere allowed that Crawford was right, but noted that the first time the council had a chance to vote on the project, it was rejected on the theory that one project shouldn’t depend on another. The result was that the council approved it later, on the condition that the proceeds go to the general fund.

Crawford told Briere he didn’t recall that. If it were the council’s desire, he said, he didn’t have a problem doing it that way, but he said it was a matter of expediency to put funds where they’re eventually headed.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) retrieved her laptop from the podium after showing the city’s CFO, Tom Crawford, a 2008 resolution the council had passed, requiring the proceeds of the Village Green land deal to be deposited into the general fund.

Briere gave the matter a rest, but continued later after she’d looked up the council resolution on her laptop computer and walked to the podium to show Crawford the resolution. Returning to her seat at the table, she asked Crawford if he saw what she meant. He confirmed he did, and offered his apology – he had not recalled the 2008 decision when he drafted the resolution for that night’s agenda. He said he wouldn’t recommend running the money through the general fund, but said he had no issue with first putting the money into the general fund and then moving it to the building fund.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) ventured that the 2008 vote had meant the council had decided not to put the proceeds towards the municipal center. Crawford stated that he did not believe the 2008 resolution said the city shouldn’t use the money for the municipal center.

The council as a whole did not seem to be in a mood to insist on conformance with its own 2008 resolution, or to undertake a revision to that night’s resolution to explicitly rescind that part of the 2008 vote.

Responding to a question from Anglin, Crawford said construction would start very soon. The actual closing would need to happen before Dec. 3, because that’s how long the purchase option is good for.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) said he wanted to hear very clearly that there’s no risk to the general fund if the project were to fall thorough. After several turns back and forth between Kunselman and assistant city attorney Kevin McDonald, a couple of points were established. First, no money was owed by the city to Village Green until the parking deck is completed and the certificate of occupancy has been issued. Second, the closing on the land deal with the city and the financing of the project would happen simultaneously.

The question of making payments in lieu of providing affordable housing units as part of a proposed project has been discussed recently by the council at its Oct. 24, 2011 meeting, in the context of a revised proposal for the Heritage Row project. At that meeting, Jennifer L. Hall – housing manager for the Washtenaw County/city of Ann Arbor office of community development – had told the council that the city’s current thinking was that payments in lieu might be a more effective policy than requiring affordable units to be provided on site. [The fact that this transition in policy direction has taken place over the lifetime of the Village Green deal speaks to the length of time that the First and Washington project has been in the works.]

Kunselman got confirmation from McDonald that Village Green can’t make a payment in lieu of providing the affordable units as part of the project.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve all the elements of the Village Green deal.

Taxicab Law

The council considered final approval to a set of changes to its taxicab ordinance. The changes make explicit how long a taxicab company license is valid (10 years) and spell out some additional conditions on revocation or suspension of the company license.

The revisions also add reasons that can be used for suspending an individual taxicab driver’s license, which include a city administrator’s view that a driver “has acted in an unprofessional, harassing or threatening manner to passengers, or others.”

At the council’s Oct. 17, 2011 meeting, when the revision had received its initial approval, Tom Crawford – the city’s chief financial officer – had briefed the council on the changes. Crawford serves as a non-voting member of the city’s taxicab board, which had recommended those changes. Crawford characterized the changes as falling in three areas. In the first area, related to licensing, Crawford said that in the past the city had seasonal operators who would want to come in and work the football season and then disappear. The ordinance is being changed so that if a company ceases operation for 45 days, the city can revoke the license. Crawford explained that a healthy taxicab industry needs stability and this is a mechanism to help guard against companies frequently coming in and out of the market.

Another area of change has to do with solicitations and how the companies represent themselves. Several companies advertise themselves as taxis, but they’re in fact limousines. Crawford characterized it as a safety issue for someone who believes a vehicle is a taxi, but it’s in fact a limo. [A taxi is per code "... accepting passengers for hire within the boundaries of the city as directed by the passenger." A limousine is pre-booked.] If a company holds itself out as a taxicab company, it has to be licensed as a taxicab company, Crawford said. [The city's taxicab code already prohibits advertising in the reverse direction – it prohibits taxicabs from holding themselves out as limousines.]

During the public hearing on Thursday, only one person spoke. Thomas Partridge began by saying he was opposed to the mayor using admonitions at the start of public hearings to speak only to the topic of a public hearing, saying it suppressed public comment. The ordinance, Partridge said, was misnamed. The name should refer to business subjects related to taxicab drivers and vehicles, he said. He told the council it should go back for discussion and further work.

Partridge called for a progressively-based fee, based on the assets of the applicant. The proceeds of the fees should be used to provide better accessible taxicab transportation for seniors and disabled people. He called for a committee to encourage courteous behavior and non-discrimination by taxicab drivers and to prevent unethical and illegal setting of fares. He raised the specter of illegal setting of fares possibly involving computer hacking.

During the scant council deliberations, Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) urged his colleagues to go ahead and approve it. As the council’s representative to the taxicab board, he vouched that the ordinance revision has been vetted by drivers and companies and members of the community.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve the taxicab ordinance revision.

Labor Retirement Benefits

Before the council for consideration was final approval to revisions of ordinances that govern the retirement and health care plans for two of the city’s unions: the Ann Arbor Police Officers Association (AAPOA) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

The revisions to the ordinances resulted from a collective bargaining agreement with AFSCME and a binding arbitration under Act 312 with AAPOA. The changes are similar to ordinance changes already enacted for non-union city workers.

The pension contribution for AAPOA and AFSCME workers will rise from 5% on a post-tax basis to 6% on a pre-tax basis. The vesting period for new hires will increase from 5 years to 10 years. Also for new hires, the final average compensation (FAC) calculation will be increased to a five-year period. The previous FAC was based on a three-year period.

On the health care side, the AFSCME and AAPOA employees will have the same access-only retiree health plan as non-union employees have.

Initial approval of the ordinance change came at the council’s Oct. 17, 2011 meeting.

Thomas Partridge spoke during the public hearings on both ordinance changes. He said his state senate campaign had included a platform that increased services to the public and avoided discrimination towards public employee unions. He viewed the ordinance change, albeit after negotiations, as bullying tactics. He said the city of Ann Arbor should turn its back on former city administrator Roger Fraser and his recruitment by Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration. [Fraser took a job earlier this year as deputy treasurer for the state of Michigan.]

The council should, Partridge said, reject the anti-democratic attitudes of bills put through the Republican administration, and not follow along. On their face, the bills are discriminatory towards the unions. He asked the council to table the ordinances and give them further consideration.

Speaking to the health care ordinance, Partridge contended that it impedes the ability of employees to access full and affordable health care.

Comment from the council on the two ordinances came only from Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2), who noted the council had already seen the changes when the bargaining agreements were ratified. The greater contributions by employees, the longer vesting periods and the increase in the period for final average compensation is the kind of approach that the city needs in the future, he said. He said he was glad to see both groups agree to that. Rapundalo noted that the changes put new union member hires on the same basis as non-union employees. It is a long-term strategy of having parity and equity, he said.

Outcome: The council unanimously approved the changes to the ordinances on pension and the retiree health care benefits for the AFSCME and AAPOA unions.

Recycling Contract

The council was asked to ratify a revision to the city’s contract with RecycleRewards (parent company of RecycleBank), starting Dec. 1, 2011. Under terms of the new contract, Ann Arbor’s base payment to RecycleRewards will be reduced from $0.52 to $0.35 per household per month. Annually, that translates to a reduction from $149,244 to $100,455.

Under the contract revision, RecycleRewards will receive a $50 per ton incentive for any increase above 11,332 tons – that’s the amount collected in the first year of the RecycleRewards program (Sept. 1, 2010 to Aug. 31, 2011). However, even with possible incentives, the city’s payment is limited to a maximum of $150,000 in any fiscal year.

At its Sept. 19 meeting, the council had made the decision to direct city staff to renegotiate the new contract, after weighing the possibility of terminating it.

During the brief council deliberations, Sabra Briere (Ward 1) reminded everyone that the contract revision came in response to the council re-examining the contract. She noted that the city is not committing to continuing the contract next year, if the council decides not to appropriate funds for RecycleBank.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to amend the contract with RecycleRewards.

Greenbelt Addition

On the agenda was a resolution to approve use of the city’s open space and parkland preservation (greenbelt) millage funds to preserve two parcels outside the city through the purchase of conservation easements.

The city of Ann Arbor is partnering with Ann Arbor Township and Washtenaw County Parks and Recreation by contributing $49,500 towards the $99,000 cost of a conservation easement on a 23-acre property owned by Joe Bloch in Ann Arbor Township. Part of the land is currently used for farming.

For a second parcel, the council was asked to authorize $15,000 to partner with the Legacy Land Conservancy to preserve a 30-acre property owned by Charles Botero in Northfield Township. Botero is donating the conservation easement to the Legacy Land Conservancy – the $15,000 will cover the closing, due diligence, and stewardship costs for the property.

The greenbelt advisory commission recommended both fund expenditures at its Sept. 14, 2011 meeting.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve the expenditures of greenbelt funds.

The council postponed a vote on the appointment of Shannon Brines to the greenbelt advisory commission until Nov. 21. The resolution on the agenda would have made the effective date Nov. 21, and the council wanted to time their vote to the effective date. The next meeting of the greenbelt advisory commission is Dec. 14.

Leaf Truck Lease

As part of its consent agenda, the council was asked to approve a $93,720 emergency purchase order for the lease of trucks to help with the fall leaf pickup. The contract is for six trucks for two months from Premier Truck Sales & Rental Inc.

A leaf truck rented from Premier Truck Sales & Rental in action on the Old West Side in Ann Arbor.

The emergency nature of the purchase order resulted from the fact that a different company, Big Truck Rental LLC, was unable to provide the eight trucks the city had originally agreed to lease. The council had approved a $138,000 purchase order for Big Truck Rental at its Sept. 19 meeting.

The city no longer picks up leaves by asking people to rake them into the street, and instead requires residents to use containers – carts or bags. The rented trucks supplement the city’s regular trucks, and reduce the number of times that trucks would need to be emptied as they cover their routes.

When the city budgeted for 2011, it expected to save $104,000 by moving to containerized leaf collection. In fact, it realized a $200,000 savings (based on unaudited figures). For the 2012 fiscal year, the city is estimating $150,000 in savings.

Outcome: As part of its consent agenda, the city council approved the emergency purchase order for the lease of trucks .

Rapundalo’s Last Meeting

Nov. 10, 2011 marked Stephen Rapundalo’s (Ward 2) final council meeting of his council term.

Rapundalo: Background

Rapundalo lost Tuesday’s general election to Jane Lumm. She will take office on Monday, Nov. 14, based on the Ann Arbor city charter provision on terms of city council office:

Terms of Office
SECTION 12.4. (a)
The term of office of each member of the Council, including the Mayor, except as by this section provided, shall be two years. Such term shall commence on the Monday next following the regular City election at which such officers are elected. …

Lumm will be ceremonially sworn in at the council’s Nov. 21 meeting.

During his last communications to the council, Rapundalo reminded them that there is a vacancy on the local development finance authority (LDFA) board that they would need to fill.

Rapundalo serves as the city council representative to the LDFA. However, at its Sept. 19, 2011 meeting, the council approved a change to the agreement between Ann Arbor and the city of Ypsilanti, so that the city councilmember representative to the LDFA board would cease to be a member of the board immediately when membership on the council ceased.

One scenario would be for the council to appoint Rapundalo to the open seat, because he’s now available to serve as a non-council member of the LDFA board. The council will also need to appoint one of its own members to serve as council representative. Appointments of councilmembers to other boards and commissions, as well as to subcommittees of the council, are typically decided at the second meeting in November or the first meeting in December.

Rapundalo: Council Words of Farewell

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) led off the words of farewell to Rapundalo, saying that on Rapundalo’s last evening he wanted to tell him how much he’d appreciated working with him. Hohnke appreciated Rapundalo’s thoughtful and fact-based approach to issues in front of the council. Rapundalo would be missed. Hohnke thanked Rapundalo for his hard work over the years. He’d taken on duties that someone needed to take on – duties that would not generate additional friends, but that need to be done.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) and Sabra Briere (Ward 1) before the meeting, discussing changes to the pedestrian safety ordinance. Hohnke is signing Rapundalo’s farewell card. 

Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) noted that he and Rapundalo were wardmates. They both represented Ward 2 together for three years. One of the things that is under-appreciated about service on the council is the amount of time it takes, Derezinski said. Tough decisions are made, the effects of which will not be noticed until a long time from now. Derezinski said he and Rapundalo were not always in agreement, but most of the time they were.

Margie Teall (Ward 4) said she would miss Rapundalo and thanked him for his service. She told him he had never veered away from saying what needs to be said and told him he had a lot of courage and great insight. She said he was very thoughtful and is the kind of amazing thinker who is needed on council.

Mayor John Hieftje said he very much appreciated having Rapundalo on the council, and that Rapundalo’s scientific way of thinking was beneficial to the council.

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) echoed his colleagues’ sentiments, saying it’s been a pleasure to serve with Rapundalo. Taylor said he still recollected being fresh on the council and had enjoyed learning from Rapundalo. Taylor then attempted a joke based on the fact that Rapundalo and Hohnke, who sit on opposite sides of the table, hold PhDs. Taylor ventured that Rapundalo’s side of the table now had a deficit in doctorates, but that perhaps his and Derezinski’s JD degrees might balance that out.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) said that often he and Rapundalo had been on different sides of issues. But he and Rapundalo had served on the liquor committee together, and Rapundalo had done an outstanding job. Rapundalo had done the rudimentary things necessary to get the liquor committee board in shape to be able to deal with the issues that arise with bars, Anglin said.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) said he’d enjoyed his time working with Rapundalo – noting playfully that they shared the same name. He noted that he and Rapundalo had at times been on the same side of issues and also on opposite sides. He told Rapundalo he appreciated Rapundalo’s support on the Argo Dam issue [both men supported keeping it in place], but not so much on the issue of the airport runway extension [unlike Rapundalo, Kunselman was adamant about not extending the runway].

Right to left: Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3), Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) and Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2). Kunselman is telling Rapundalo that he figures Rapundalo will find it difficult to stay away from involvement in city issues.

Kunselman said he greatly admired Rapundalo’s service to the city. He then told Rapundalo that “I have been where you’re going” – an allusion to the fact that three years ago, in 2008, Kunselman had lost his seat on the council, but returned the following year to defeat Leigh Greden, winning back a seat. Kunselman said Rapundalo would have a hard time leaving, and he suspected Rapundalo would be back in some form or another. Kunselman then alluded to the fact that Rapundalo enjoys dual Canadian-U.S. citizenship, and told him to “go have some fun, eh.”

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) told Rapundalo he’d always been gracious, kind and thoughtful. She told him she’d miss sitting “not quite next” to him. [Derezinski sits between Briere and Rapundalo at the council table.]

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) told Rapundalo she would miss looking at him across the table. She said that the first she’d met him, he was an involved citizen, and the issue they were looking at was sewer backups. She noted his service on the park advisory commission before being elected to the council. Noting he’d been involved in many aspects of public service before sitting at the table, she hoped he would consider some of those things again.

During the meeting, two speakers during public commentary mentioned Rapundalo’s service. John Floyd, former candidate for Ward 5 city council, thanked Rapundalo for doing what Rapundalo thought was right, even though mostly Floyd disagreed with him. And Tom Heywood, executive director of the State Street Area Association, told Rapundalo he appreciated working with Rapundalo, and also looked forward to working with Lumm.

Rapundalo: Response

Rapundalo responded to the remarks of his colleagues by saying he appreciated their kind and generous words. It was a privilege and honor to be a public servant. He said he’d had “a lot of darn fun” serving with all of them. He’d tried to serve with dignity and with thoughtfulness and integrity – that’s the only way he knew to approach it. He said he called things as he sees it.

He hoped he’d been able to make some contributions, and he’d worked on some issues he’d enjoyed – from labor issues to human services. He ventured that in serving, one hopes to make a difference in people’s daily lives. To that end, his focus had been on finding solutions. He contended he’d never been motivated to serve on the council because of ego or a power trip. He was just doing what was right, he said. He appreciated the help, advice and criticism he’d received from his colleagues on the council.

Rapundalo singled out former city administrator Roger Fraser for special thanks, saying he’d enjoyed Fraser’s leadership. One of Rapundalo’s disappointments was not being able to work with new administrator Steve Powers. Rapundalo said he also wanted to thank the city staff, because they often get forgotten. The staff works hard in every corner of the organization and they don’t get enough respect, he said. Responding to Kunselman’s suggestion that he’d be back, Rapundalo said he didn’t know about running again, but he would find a way to contribute to the community.

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: Pancreatic Cancer Awareness

Mayor John Hieftje issued a proclamation making November Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month. On hand to accept the proclamation was Mary Wenners, who told the council about her friend Jim Hetzel, who died of the disease last year at the age of 62. His death didn’t make headline news, she said. She called the council’s attention to the purple ribbons and bracelets associated with pancreatic awareness as well as the slogan: Know it, fight it, end it.

Comm/Comm: R4C Review

Tony Derezinski (Ward 2)) reported that the R4C zoning review committee had held its 11th and final meeting. A report will be forthcoming to the planning commission, he said. It had taken two years and there’d been a lot of public input, he said.

Comm/Comm: Unwanted Newspapers

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) said that many constituents had communicated their displeasure about undesired delivery of newspapers and other commercial handbills to their residences. He said he was working with Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) on an ordinance change that would address that issue.

Comm/Comm: 618 S. Main

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) alerted the public to a meeting the following day at the location of the former Fox Tent and Awning building for a citizen participation meeting regarding a proposed residential development. The site is zoned D2, he said, and is on the edge of the Old West Side historic district.

Comm/Comm: Medical Marijuana

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) reported that the medical marijuana license board, on which she serves, has now met three times, and she expected it would meet again on Nov. 30. The board is supposed to deliver a report to the council in January 2012, she said, and is working towards that deadline. At this point, she said, no applications for medical marijuana licenses have been evaluated.

Comm/Comm: Partridge

Thomas Partridge spoke at both times slots on the agenda available for public commentary. He said he had been “working unceasingly” on ending discrimination and called for access to affordable housing, transportation, education and health care. He called the city’s greenbelt program a carry-over from the Eisenhower administration that used the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture to take land out of useful agricultural production. He complained of discrimination he’d encountered at the polling place at Dicken Elementary School.

Comm/Comm: Energy Farms

Kermit Schlansker described the use of biomass in energy production. Energy production will always accompany food production, he said: with corn there will always be the cob. He called on people to plant trees from seeds. Specifically he called for the planting of nut-bearing trees in parks. Even school children can do it, he said. At age 86 he allowed he has difficulty walking. But he still scattered 100 walnuts this year, so that they can grow into trees.

Comm/Comm: Israel

Henry Herskovitz reminded the council he’d spoken during public commentary the previous month and had showed them a world map. He then pointed the council to work done by Alison Weir, who’d founded an organizations called If Americans Knew, which he called an informative and unbiased source of information on Israel’s founding. He then went through some of Weir’s arguments that some of the votes for Israel at the United Nations came as the result of political pressure applied by the U.S.

Present: Stephen Rapundalo, Mike Anglin, Margie Teall, Sabra Briere, Tony Derezinski, Stephen Kunselman, Marcia Higgins, John Hieftje, Christopher Taylor, Carsten Hohnke

Absent: Sandi Smith

Next council meeting: Monday, Nov. 21, 2011 at 7 p.m. in the second-floor council chambers at city hall, located at 301 E. Huron. [confirm date]

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The purchase price of the land is $3,200,000, the bulk of which ($2,500,000 plus $500,000 previously borrowed from the risk fund to cover construction costs) is earmarked for the city’s new municipal building fund. The city has previously received $103,000 in earnest money. The city is covering $5,000 in closing costs – that puts net proceeds of the transaction at $3,092,000. The remaining $92,000 (after appropriating the $3 million total for the municipal center) and the earnest money will be appropriated to the general fund, designated as “non-departmental” (as non-recurring revenue), where it will add to the general fund reserve.

The Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority has pledged around $9 million of support for bonds to pay for the parking deck component of City Apartments – the city will own that part of the project. Payment is not owed to Village Green for the parking deck construction until a certificate of occupancy is issued for the parking deck, which is expected to open for business in about a year (late 2012), before the residential portion of the project is complete.

The deal had a five-year trajectory after the city council first approved the recommendation of the First and Washington RFP Review Committee, and the city started negotiations with Village Green for the sale and redevelopment of the site. The goals of the deal were: to increase downtown residential density; replace public parking spaces; maximize the sale price; and maximize future tax revenue, captured by the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority TIF (tax increment finance) district.

The vote by the council required an 8-vote majority on the 11-member body, because the city charter stipulates that “The City shall not purchase, sell, or lease any real estate or any interest therein except by resolution concurred in by at least eight members of the Council.”

Also at the meeting, the council approved the affordable housing component of the project. Under those terms, 16 of the units must be permanently affordable to households earning no more than 80% of the area median income (AMI).

The Ann Arbor DDA has also agreed to support the project with $400,000 from its housing fund, if four of the 80% AMI rental units are made affordable at the 60% AMI level. The affordable units will be of the same appearance and finish as other units and would be distributed throughout the project.

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

The changes include increasing the height of the structure from 94 to 104 feet, adding an entrance on First Street, modifying the window type and size on the residential portion of the building, and adding ventilation screens on the east side (alley) of the building.

The City Apartments project was given PUD zoning and site plan approval by the council on Nov. 6, 2008. The nine-story building will include 156 dwelling units and 244 parking spaces on the first two floors. The site is currently a city-owned property functioning as a surface parking lot with 64 spaces, after the parking structure there had to be demolished due to its poor structural condition. The new parking deck, which will offer spaces to the general public as well as to residents, is being financed by the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority.

The sale of the property, for a little over $3 million, is part of the city of Ann Arbor’s financing plan for construction of the new municipal center, which houses the police department and the 15th District Court. The council has extended the purchase option on the First and Washington property several times, most recently on Aug. 4, 2011.

At one of the DDA board’s late August committee meetings, news of a pending deal and imminent construction was relayed to committee members. The council is expected to authorize the closing on the deal at its Nov. 10, 2011 meeting. Signs at the First and Washington parking lot warn patrons of the lot’s imminent closure.

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

The loan is needed because the sale of the city-owned First and Washington property to Village Green for its City Apartments development has not yet been finalized. The new municipal center’s financing plan included $3 million in proceeds from that sale. The loan from the city’s pooled investment funds will allow the construction bills to be paid.

The city’s pooled investment fund includes all eligible cash across all city funds – interest earned on the pooled funds is apportioned back to each fund based on the relative amount of cash from that fund in the pool.

The building fund will incur a cost of 1.93% annual interest on the money lent from the investment pool. According to the staff memo accompanying the resolution, on a short-term basis, the interfund lending approach is more desirable than borrowing money from a lending institution, because of lower transaction costs, lower interest rates and no prepayment penalties. The short-term financing strategy of lending the building fund $3 million from the pooled investment fund will not have an impact on the city’s general fund, if the land sale is finalized. However, the short-term financing strategy does not eliminate the risk to the general fund, if the land sale does not go through.

The city bonded for about $47 million for the municipal building project. The yearly bond payments of $1.85 million can be broken down roughly as follows: $508,000 in TIF capture pledged by the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority; $490,000 in revenue from antenna rights; $455,000 in elimination of leases for space; $175,000 in elimination of utilities for leased space; $225,000 pledged by the 15th District Court facility fund.

The council had been advised by interim city administrator and chief financial officer Tom Crawford at its Aug. 4, 2011 meeting to expect some kind of short-term financing proposal on its Aug. 15 agenda. And more than a year earlier, at a city council work session in April 2010, the council discussed the city’s contingency plan of taking out short-term financing in the event the land sale did not materialize.

With respect to the land sale, at its Aug. 4 meeting, the council extended the purchase option agreement with the developer Village Green for the city-owned First and Washington site, where the developer plans to build Ann Arbor City Apartments. It’s a 9-story, 99-foot-tall building with 156 dwelling units, which includes a 244-space parking deck on its first two stories.

The land deal was originally set at $3.3 million, but was reduced by the council at its June 6, 2011 meeting to $3.2 million. The reduction in price approved at the council’s June 6 meeting was based on a “bathtub design” for the foundation that is intended to prevent water from ever entering the parking structure, eliminating the need for pumping water out into the city’s stormwater system. However, the Aug. 4 purchase option extension came at a cost of $50,000 to Village Green.

The parking deck portion of Village Green’s City Apartments project is being developed in cooperation with the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority, which has pledged to make payments on around $9 million worth of bonds, after the structure is completed and has been issued a permit for occupancy.

According to the staff memo accompanying the Aug. 4 resolution, Village Green still hopes to break ground on the project in the 2011 construction season.

As a historical point related to the planned use of the sale proceeds for the new municipal center construction, the council defeated a resolution on March 17, 2008 to extend the Village Green purchase option agreement for First and Washington. At the council’s following meeting, on April 7, 2008, the measure was brought back for reconsideration, and the council voted unanimously to extend the agreement. The key difference was the addition of a “resolved clause,” which stated: “Resolved, that the proceeds from this sale shall be designated to the general fund, Fund 010.”

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

The delay in the land deal – which was originally $3.3 million and reduced by the council at its June 6 meeting to $3.2 million – means that the city’s contingency plan (for the failure of anticipated revenue from the sale to materialize in a timely way) will need to be exercised.

Of the purchase price, $3 million was part of the city of Ann Arbor’s financing plan for the new municipal center, which is currently in the final stages of construction. According to the staff memo accompanying the Aug. 4 purchase option extension, the city council will likely be asked at its Aug. 15 meeting to approve a short-term loan to cover the municipal building construction costs that would have otherwise been covered by the purchase of the land. At a city council work session in April 2010, the contingency plan of taking out a short-term loan – costing $150,000 – had caught the eye of Sandi Smith (Ward 1), who questioned the item in the budget planning for that year.

The additional extension approved Aug. 4 is through Nov. 3, 2011, and comes at a cost of a $50,000 non-refundable payment by Village Green to the city. The extension approved by the council also allows an additional 30-day extension – to Dec. 3, 2011 – to be made by the city administrator in exchange for an additional $50,000 non-refundable payment.

At the council’s July 18 meeting, interim city administrator Tom Crawford had given the city council a heads up that an additional extension to the purchase option agreement would likely be necessary.

The timeline revised by the council at its Aug. 4 meeting was put in place on Aug. 5, 2010 – when the city council approved an extension that called for Village Green to purchase the land by June 1, 2011. However, that deadline was subject to an extension of 90 days by the city administrator – an option which Crawford then exercised.

The parking deck portion of the project is being developed in cooperation with the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority, which has pledged to make payments on around $9 million worth of bonds, after the structure is completed and has been issued a permit for occupancy.

According to the staff memo accompanying the Aug. 4 resolution, Village Green still hopes to break ground on the project this construction season.

In a separate item, the council authorized an increase in the contract to $60,000 (previously authorized up to $25,000) with James C. Adams of Ufer & Spaniola, P.C. for legal consulting in connection with the City Apartments/First and Washington parking structure project. The city is to be reimbursed by Village Green for the cost of this legal work.

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

Mayor John Hieftje (standing) and interim city administrator Tom Crawford before the start of the city council's June 6 meeting.

For road users who head to the polls on Nov. 8, possibly the most important issue on the agenda was a brief presentation from the city’s project management manager, Homayoon Pirooz, on the city’s street repair tax, which would reach the end of its current five-year life this year, if not renewed by voters. The city council will convene a working session on June 13 to look at the issue in more detail.

Also related to infrastructure was the council’s initial action on setting rates for utilities (water, sewer, stormwater), voting unanimously to send the rate increases on to a second and final vote with a public hearing. The rate increases range from 3-4% more than customers are currently paying. All new and amended city ordinances require two votes by the council at separate meetings.

The council also approved an $800,000 agreement with the Michigan Dept. of Transportation for the initial, right-of-way portion of the East Stadium bridges replacement project. Construction on that public project is due to start later this fall.

For another public project, the council voted to add a previously budgeted $1.09 million to the construction manager contract for the new municipal center at Fifth and Huron.

In an action designed eventually to reduce employee benefits costs, the council passed a resolution – brought forward by its budget committee – that directs the city administrator to craft an ordinance revision that would alter the way non-union employee benefits are structured. What’s planned is a change from three to five years for the final average compensation (FAC) calculation, and a change from five to 10 years for vesting. In addition, retirees would receive an access-only health care benefit.

The city’s newest non-union employee is Chuck Hubbard, whose appointment as the new fire chief was approved by the city council on Monday night. Hubbard was previously assistant chief, which, unlike the chief’s job, is a union position. Hubbard has 25 years of fire protection experience, all of it in Ann Arbor.

Expected to begin construction this year – in late summer – is a private development on the First and Washington lot currently owned by the city. On that lot, Village Green is planning to build a 9-story, 99-foot-tall building featuring 156 dwelling units and a 244-space parking deck on the first two stories. After much discussion, the council approved a $100,000 reduction in the purchase price – from $3.3 million to $3.2 million – that Village Green will pay for the First and Washington parcel. The price break came in the context of water management and a decision to use a full “bathtub”-type design for the foundation. The unanimous vote came after two councilmembers had already left the meeting (which pushed nearly to midnight), but it seemed at one point to hang in the balance, with two of the remaining nine councilmembers expressing reservations. Because the resolution involved land purchase, it needed eight votes to pass.

Village Green’s project, a planned unit development (PUD) approved over two years ago, was not required to undergo the mandatory process of design review that is now part of the city’s code. The council gave final approval to that design review process on Monday night. The new ordinance sets up a seven-member design review board (DRB) to provide developers with feedback on their projects’ conformance to the design guidelines. While the DRB process is required, conformance with the recommendations of that body is voluntary.

Also receiving approval at first reading was a revision to the landscaping ordinance. Fuller Road Station also drew comment from the public and the council.

Final action on medical marijuana zoning and licensing is not expected until the council’s June 20 meeting. Council deliberations on medical marijuana will be covered in Part 2 of The Chronicle’s meeting report.

Ann Arbor Street Millage Renewal Planned

The council received a brief presentation setting out a timeline for renewing the city’s street repair millage, which is currently authorized through 2011 at a level of 2 mills, but is levied at 1.9944 due to the Headlee cap. One mill equals $1 for every $1,000 of a property’s state equalized value, or SEV. Renewal of the millage would need voter approval on Nov. 8, 2011.

As part of the council’s budget retreat discussion in January 2011, councilmembers briefly discussed the idea of folding the city’s sidewalk replacement program – for which property owners now pay directly – into the activities funded by the street repair millage.

And at a budget work session in late February, public services area administrator Sue McCormick outlined how funds received through the METRO Act, which are currently used for administration of the sidewalk replacement program, could be used to close out the 5-year cycle for the current program. Then in future years, the METRO funds could be used for other work in the right-of-way. METRO funds are paid to the city under state statute for use of the right-of-way by telecommunications companies.

The street reconstruction millage is listed as CITY STREETS on tax bills.

The short briefing that the council received on Monday was given by Homayoon Pirooz, who heads up the city’s project management department. He described how the millage actually has 27 years of history, dating back to 1984, when it was first approved. Over the years, the funds collected under the local street millage have generated an additional $67 million in matching grants.

The street repair millage has criteria attached to the use of funds, Pirooz explained: The street repair millage is for resurfacing and reconstruction of streets – it’s not for filling potholes. [The city has two other funds it uses for that kind of maintenance work, including snow removal – the Major Street and Local Street funds, which receive money from the state of Michigan through vehicle weight and gas taxes.]

One of the new ideas for the street repair millage when it’s put before the voters again, Pirooz said, is to include sidewalk repairs as part of the criteria. If the public is in favor of that, he said, the city would like to apply the same approach as it does to roads. Namely, the millage would not be used for winter maintenance, but rather for replacing existing sidewalks.

Pirooz sketched a timeline for the public discussion on the street repair millage – including the possibility of increasing it to 2.125 mills to accommodate the sidewalk replacement program. That timeline would include two public meetings in June, a city council work session on June 13, and an online survey. At the council’s July 18 meeting, they’d hear a report on the public engagement, and the city council would give direction on how to proceed. At the council’s Aug. 4 meeting, it could then approve the ballot language, which needs to be submitted to the city clerk’s office by Aug. 16.

Mayor John Hieftje noted that there’s now an opportunity to release money in the street repair fund that the city thought it might have to use to replace the East Stadium bridges. With receipt of a $13.9 million TIGER II federal grant, the city can spend more of the balance in the street repair fund on road repair.

Utility Rate Increases Get Initial OK

On the council’s agenda was a resolution to approve changes in rates for drinking water, sanitary sewer and stormwater facilities. In terms of revenue generated to the city, the rate increases are expected to generate 3.36% more for drinking water ($664,993), 4% more for the sanitary sewer ($829,481), and 3.35% more for stormwater ($176,915).

Because the rates are part of a city ordinance, the changes must receive a second approval from the city council, after a public hearing.

According to the city, the rate increases are needed to maintain debt service coverage and to maintain funding for required capital improvements.

The city’s drinking water charges are based on a “unit” of 100 cubic feet – 748 gallons. Charges for residential customers are divided into tiers, based on usage. For example, the first seven units of water for residential customers are charged $1.23 per unit. The new residential rate for the first seven units would be $1.27.

The city’s stormwater rates are based on the amount of impervious area on a parcel, and are billed quarterly. For example, the lowest tier – for impervious area less than 2,187 square feet – is currently charged $12.84 per quarter. Under the new rate structure, that would increase to $13.24. [.pdf of complete utility rate changes as proposed]

At the council’s Monday meeting, mayor John Hieftje asked public services area administrator Sue McCormick to comment on a study last year showing that Ann Arbor had some of the lowest rates in the state. Ann Arbor’s average increase of 3.2% compares favorably with the regional average of 9% increase this year, McCormick reported.

Councilmember Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) questioned McCormick’s numbers, saying it looked like McCormick was relying on comparative data taken exclusively from communities served by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD). He asked that, when the council votes on the rate increases at its next meeting, councilmembers be provided with additional comparative data.

McCormick said she’d bring comparative data on other communities to the next meeting, before the final vote. Sabra Briere (Ward 1) asked that McCormick bring the actual rates together with percentage increases.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to give initial approval to the utilities rate increases.

East Stadium Bridges

In front of the council for its consideration was authorization of an $800,000 agreement with the Michigan Dept. of Transportation (MDOT) for the right-of-way acquisition phase of the East Stadium bridge reconstruction project. Previously, at its April 4 meeting, the council had accepted easements from the University of Michigan for the right-of-way phase.

To be reimbursed for those easements – from federal TIGER funds that the city has been awarded for the project – the council needed to authorize the agreement with MDOT. MDOT acts as the conduit through which the city receives federal funds.

In August, the city council will be presented with a similar city-state agreement – for the construction phase of the project.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve the agreement with MDOT.

Retiree Benefits Change

On Monday, the council considered a resolution directing its city administrator and city attorney to begin work on an amendment to the city’s retirement benefits package for new non-union employee hires.

Under the amendment, for new hires after July 1, 2011, the final average contribution (FAC) for the pension system would be based on the last five years of service, instead of the last three. Further, employees would be vested after 10 years instead of five, and all new non-union hires would be provided with an access-only style health care plan, with the opportunity to buy into whatever plan active employees enjoy.

Christoper Taylor (Ward 3) introduced the resolution to his council colleagues, saying it came through the council’s budget committee that met earlier that day. It has resulted from the hard work of Marcia Higgins (Ward 4), he said. After reviewing the content of the resolution, he stated that the city’s potential financial exposure due to retireee health care is significant, and the resolution was a beginning of the reform.

Taylor asked interim city administrator Tom Crawford if an estimate had been calculated for the savings that would be realized. Crawford told him that no estimate had been generated yet – staff would need to do additional research. Crawford said it’d be 5-7 years before the city sees savings. The nature of the change is long-term, he said, so it’s unlikly to save money in short term.

Taylor asked Crawford to explain what an “access-only” benefit plan is.

[As the phrase suggests, what the retiree gets is access to health care coverage (and only that). Here, "access" means the ability to purchase health coverage as part of the same group to which active city employees belong. The access to insurance as a part of that group allows retirees to purchase health care more economically than they could as individuals.] In his remarks Crawford emphasized that retirees would be able to use money the city sets aside, as well as their own money, to purchase that health care.

Mayor John Hieftje appeared interested in heading off criticism that this kind of reform should have been done years ago, by noting that the city has not hired that many people in the last few years. Given that so few people have been hired, he concluded, the council was acting in a timely fashion.

Stephen Kunselman noted that the city would be hiring at least one person soon – a city administrator. Kunselman wondered whether the benefits policy is intended to be in place before the administrator is hired. Crawford noted that the ordinance would require two readings before the council.

Kunselman wondered about the change in the vesting period from 5 to 10 years. He asked what the vesting period was back in the Neal Berlin days – 10 years seems extreme. [Neal Berlin is a former city administrator, who preceded Roger Fraser.] What about seven years? Kunselman said he wouldn’t necessarily expect a new city administrator to last 10 years. He wouldn’t want to hinder the city’s ability to make a hire.

Crawford told Kunselman that the last major change was when Neal Berlin was city administrator – the vesting period was changed from 10 to 5 years. So the resolution would direct the preparation of an ordinance to restore what was in place previously. City staff could take direction from the council’s labor committee on preparation of the ordinance, Crawford said.

Hieftje said there was a myth that Neal Berlin had received an extraordinarily generous severance deal. In fact, Hieftje said, Berlin had paid $140,000 in order to receive a $26,000-per-year pension. That meant he had to wait six years before getting a return on that, Hieftje said.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to direct staff to begin drafting an ordinance to change the benefits program for non-union employees. The resolution also indicated a goal to include union employees in a similar benefits program.

Ann Arbor Fire Chief

In front of the council for its consideration was authorization to appoint a new fire chief: Chuck Hubbard. Hubbard is an internal hire, who previously served as an assistant chief. His 25 years of experience in fire protection, coming up through the ranks, has all been in Ann Arbor.

Barnett Jones, head of public safety and chief of police, introduced Hubbard to the council with his recommendation. Jones has been serving as interim fire chief since the resignation of Dominick Lanza from that position earlier this year, after a bit less than a year on the job. Lanza had been an external hire.

Hubbard made some brief remarks by way of introducing himself.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve the appointment.

Police Promotional Assessments

Items included on the consent agenda, which are normally moved together and voted on as a group, can be pulled out for separate consideration by any councilmember. It’s not uncommon for at least one item to be pulled out for that kind of separate consideration. On Monday, Sandi Smith (Ward 1) asked that an item be pulled out that approved a $35,830 contract with Industrial Organizational Solutions Inc. to conduct promotional assessment of Ann Arbor police department officers for ranks of sergeant and lieutenant.

Chief of police Barnett Jones explained that the item is related to layoffs and retirements – it helps create a clear path for promotions. It’s been a long time since sergeants and lieutents have taken exams, he said. While the department is faced with layoffs now, it will also be experiencing some retirements in the future – around 16-17 by 2013, he said. Some of those who are retiring will be sergeants and lieutenants. The department will need supervisors at those ranks to replace the retirees. He could not simply promote people as he passed people walking down the hall, Jones said. This will be one of the most imporatnt promotional teams in the history of the city. The assessment will contain a written part and and oral interview.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve the contract for promotional assessment of police officers.

Landscaping Ordinance Gets Initial OK

On Monday the council was asked to consider initial approval to a revision of the city’s landscaping ordinance. The revision is intended to: (1) improve the appearance of vehicular use areas; (2) revise buffer requirements between conflicting land uses; (3) reduce negative impacts of stormwater runoff; (4) improve pedestrian movement within a development site; and (5) preserve existing significant vegetation.

Those benefits are meant to be achieved through several text amendments to the ordinance, which include: adding definitions for “bioretention” and “native or prairie plantings”; allowing the width of landscape buffers to vary; modifying requirements for interior landscape islands; prohibiting use of invasive species for required landscaping; and increasing fines for violation.

The city’s planning commision had given the ordinance change a unanimous recommendation at its March 1, 2011 meeting.

All city ordinances require a first and a second reading in front of the city council, after a public hearing, before final enactment. The landscape ordinance will need a second vote before its approval is final.

Outcome: The council voted without discussion to give the landscape ordinance change an initial approval.

Downtown Design Guidelines

In front of the council for its consideration was final approval to an amendment of its land use control ordinance that will establish design guidelines for new projects in downtown Ann Arbor, and set up a seven-member design review board (DRB) to provide developers with feedback on their projects’ conformance to the design guidelines. It’s the final piece of the A2D2 rezoning initiative.

Review by the DRB will come before a developer’s meeting with nearby residents for each project – which is already required as part of the citizen participation ordinance. While the DRB process is required, conformance with the recommendations of that body is voluntary.

The city council had previously approved the design guideline review program at its Feb. 7, 2011 meeting. The city planning commission unanimously recommended the change to the city’s ordinance at its April 5, 2011 meeting. [Previous Chronicle coverage, which includes a detailed timeline of the design guidelines work, dating back to a work group formed in 2006: "Ann Arbor Hotel First to Get Design Review?"]

Downtown Design Guidelines: Public Hearing

Thomas Partridge told the council they should use the word “democratic” with a big and a small “D” when considering these items. Too often, he said, an anti-democratic viewpoint is taken. He called on the council to advance the cause of using undeveloped land for mixed-use, including affordable housing. He noted there’d been no new housing cooperatives in the last 30-40 years.

Ray Detter thanked the council for their previous support of the A2D2 rezoning process and urged their support of the design guidelines. He told them he was speaking both as chair of the downtown citizens advisory council and as a member of the design guideline review committee. He reviewed some of the more recent history of the review committee. A group of citizens had formed in late 2009. In February 2010 the council had supported the formation of a design guidelines task force. Then in January 2011, members of task force had presented the outcome of their 34 weekly meetings at a city council working session.

James D’Amour told the council it was exciting to be present when the design guidelines are finally going to be approved. He’d served on the planning commission five years ago when talk about this started, he said. He urged councilmembers to support the proposal.

Downtown Design Guidelines: Council Deliberations

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) said she thought Detter had summed it up well, and urged her council colleagues to pass it. Mayor  John Hieftje thanked the people who did the work, including Higgins, for seeing it through.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve the new downtown design guidelines. The council also received nominations from the mayor for the membership of the design review board, which the council can confirm at its next meeting, on June 20: Tamara Burns, Paul Fontaine, Chester B. Hill, Mary Jukari, Bill Kinley, Richard Mitchell, Geoffrey M. Perkins.

First & Washington Purchase Price

Councilmembers were asked at Monday’s meeting to approve a revision to the purchase option agreement with Village Green on the city-owned First and Washington site, where the developer plans to build a 9-story, 99-foot-tall building with 156 dwelling units. That revision reduces the price from $3.3 million to $3.2 million.

The break on the price is related to the “bathtub” design for the foundation of a 244-space parking deck, which makes up the first two stories of the development. The site of the development is near Allen Creek, and some kind of design strategy is required in order to deal with the possibility of water entering the parking structure. Rather than use a hybrid design that would entail pumping water out of the structure and into the city’s stormwater system on an ongoing basis, Village Green wants to use a complete bathtub-type design that will cost around $250,000. The city’s price break is a portion of that cost.

The parking deck is being developed in cooperation with the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority, which has pledged to make payments on around $9 million worth of bonds, after the structure is completed and has been issued a permit for occupancy.

The timeline put in place on Aug. 5, 2010 – when the city council most recently approved an extension of Village Green’s option to purchase the First and Washington city-owned parcel – called for Village Green to purchase the land by June 1, 2011. However, that deadline was subject to an extension of 90 days by the city administrator – an option which interim administrator Tom Crawford exercised. That sets a new deadline of Aug. 30, 2011 for purchase of the parcel. Proceeds from the sale of the land are part of the city’s financing plan for the new municipal center at Fifth and Huron, which is currently in the final stages of construction.

First & Washington Purchase Price: Council Deliberations

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) led off council deliberations by saying that it appeared the council was being asked to reduce the purchase price by $100,000 due to construction issues related to high water. Alluding to the arrangement the DDA has to support the project, he asked why the DDA would not increase that support, instead of having the city reduce the purchase price.

Kunselman then said he wanted to take the opportunity to talk about the DDA. That organization’s 2009-2010 annual report included some telling numbers, he said. The report indicates over $18 million in annual revenue against expenditures of $22 million. Of those expenditures, $5 million is for debt service. The outstanding bond debt is $140 million – of that, $81 million is principle and $59 million interest. The report shows zero dollars in bond reserve. Kunselman noted that the number of jobs created is recorded as “n/a.”

Kunselman asked why the city is “bailing the DDA out for $100,000.” The issue that’s been identified (the bathtub design) is not a property issue, he continued, but rather a construction issue. Kunselman said he was having a difficult time voting for the resolution, but he did not want to see the resolution fail. But he noted that the resolution required eight votes for approval and two councilmembers had left the table.

[Margie Teall (Ward 4) and Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) had left. It was after 11 p.m. Higgins' hoarse voice during the meeting indicated she was under the weather. Votes on real estate transactions are required by the city charter to be ratified by an eight-vote city council majority.]

Interim city administrator Tom Crawford told Kunselman that the logic used in not involving the DDA on the price agreement was that it’s a city-owned asset. He noted that it’s possible to design the foundation without the full bathtub deign. But Crawford noted that the city and Village Green have worked with the DDA to use lessons learned from the current construction on the South Fifth Avenue underground parking structure. It’s the city’s decision to mitigate the risk with respect to flooding, and it’s a city decision to move forward with the bathtub design. The full bathtub design guarantees as close as you can that in the future, no pumping of water into the city’s stormwater system would be required, he said.

The agreement to reduce the price could have been set up to include the DDA, Crawford said, but the city did not structure it that way. That approach would have made it a tri-party agreement. The approach the city took – to amend the agreement between the city and Village Green – seemed the most approprate way, Crawford concluded.

Kunselman then asked Crawford to explain how the $100,000 would be made up – proceeds from the parcel were supposed to go into the building fund for the new municipal center. Crawford clarified that the original purchase price was $3.3 million and the amount designated for the building fund was $3.0 million. There’d always been a $300,000 excess, he said, so the price break of $100,000 would not compromise the funding of the municipal center.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) expressed some frustration at the length of time the Village Green project had been in the works, saying it had been going on about five years now. Didn’t we already know, he asked, that the location had water issues? Anglin wanted to know if the developer was willing to move forward. Crawford indicated that Village Green was in fact moving forward, actively spending money on design. Anglin questioned why the city was putting itself at risk with respect to the Pall Gelman dioxane plume – the plume was mentioned in a staff memo about the Village Green project.

Crawford explained that the plume is actually a far distance away, and the reason it’s discussed in the memo is that the city is looking at the very long term. By having a full-bathtub foundation design, there’ll be no requirement to do any pumping of water, so the risk is mitigated of pumping water that’s polluted with dioxane – that would require onsite treatment before pumping. The bathtub design is an attempt to protect the city from every possible eventuality, Crawford said.

Anglin questioned whether adequate hydrological studies had been done. Crawford addressed Anglin’s remark a bit later, noting that the city had relied on Carl Walker, the DDA’s engineering consultant on parking structures, for geotechnical analysis. There’d been a host of consultants, he said, and a substantial amount of work done. That work was what had triggered the need for a 90-day extension.

Sandi Smith (Ward 1) drew out the fact that the bathtub design will cost $250,000, with Village Green picking up $150,000 of the cost and the city effectively picking up $100,000. She noted that a year ago, when the purchase option extension granted, nothing was getting built in the Midwest at all. The First and Washington project is a chance to get “another private crane in the air.” The council needs to support this, she concluded.

Mayor John Hieftje stated that using a pumping strategy would be much more of a problem. The full bathtub design offers the greatest amount of security.

Kunselman said he was still not convinced that selling the land should somehow result in an agreement about construction design. He came back to the point about DDA involvement. He felt the price reduction should be expressed in a three-way agreement.

Crawford responded to Kunselman by saying the city attorney’s office advised that this was a good way to proceed. Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) weighed in by saying that Ann Arbor would own the parking deck for the next 75 years [the expected life of the deck]. The city has a chance now to guarantee that they don’t have a problem, at a cost of $100,000, he said. Taylor supported that.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) confirmed with Crawford that the developer currently has no obligation to pursue a full bathtub design. With Anglin and Kunselman having expressed their dissatisfaction, Hieftje recognized that if they both voted no, that would leave the agreement one vote short of the eight-vote majority it needed. Hieftje stated he would feel okay postponing it. Hieftje then filled some time with some general remarks about the structure, and Anglin followed up with an indication that what he wanted was to make sure the homework was done on it. Hieftje then called for the vote, which wound up being unanimous.

Outcome: The council voted 9-0 to approve the amendment to the purchase price from $3.3 million to $3.2 million.

Municipal Center

At Monday’s meeting, the council considered a $1,091,211 revision to the contract with Clark Construction Co., which is doing the construction on the new municipal center at Fifth and Huron, which houses the 15th District Court and the police department. Of that total, $693,327 is for security elements and $397,884 is for audio/visual.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) said the revision brings the building’s total cost to $39 million. Interim city administrator Tom Crawford explained that the increase was for upgrades to the security of the building. He noted that the amount is not an increase to the budget of the entire project, but rather a recognition that implementation of the security measures is best done by the onsite construction manager.

Anglin wanted to know why the money is coming out of the city’s general fund. Crawford explained that the court is a general fund entity. Anglin asked why the funding for security was not part of the bonding process, saying he would rather have security outside the building [i.e, police officers on patrol] than inside the building. Crawford indicated that the expenditure is a one-time cost. The idea of how security in the building would be delivered was a conversation that had unfolded over time, Crawford said, and this was determined to be the most cost-effective. The fact remains that it’s coming from the general fund, Anglin grumbled.

Sue McCormick, the city’s public services area administrator, told the council that they’d previously decided they wanted to make these decisions about security later and had decided not to make decisions about installation of furniture and fixtures until later. It had been an early and deliberate discussion of the city council, she said.

Outcome: The council voted to approve the contract amendment, with dissent from Anglin.

Wireless for City Hall

Also pulled out of the consent agenda by Sandi Smith (Ward 1) was an item that authorized a $64,571 contract with Sentinel Technologies to equip the public areas and conference rooms of the city hall, the new municipal center and the Wheeler Service Center with wireless internet access – both secure and for public use.

Smith was curious about why the city used the middle bidder, instead of the lowest. She wanted to know why the city was using a non-Michigan bidder, who was not the lowest bid. Dan Rainey, head of IT for the city, explained that the low bid did not include the cost of recurring maintenance.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve the contract with Sentinel Technologies.

Fuller Road Station

The proposed Fuller Road Station – a large parking structure, bus depot and possible train station that the city plans to build in partnership with the University of Michigan, near UM’s medical campus – drew considerable public and council commentary, although the council did not have any business to vote on that specifically referenced the project.

James D’Amour expressed various concerns. He responded to a contention of the mayor’s to the effect that Fuller Road Station would result in the city getting some open space back. What are we getting? he asked. D’Amour contended that current facilities for trains are adequate. If it’s so important, D’Amour said, we should come clean with the fact that it will be located on public parkland.

D’Amour also noted the public art commission’s annual plan, attached to the council’s agenda as a communication item, included proposed art for Fuller Road Station. He asked that the language be removed. He added that the city did not need murals on Huron Parkway, as described in the public art plan.

Barbara Bach told the council that the Fuller Road Station project is getting in the way of a discussion of rail transportation and about public park preservation. She then read aloud the sentiments of Tom Whitaker, who left a comment on an Ann Arbor Chronicle article about a recent meeting of the city’s park advisory commission.

As proposed, Bach said, Fuller Road Station is a huge warehouse for cars on parkland. She said that the city should work on getting cars out of the river valley and begin to talk about rail service.

Nancy Shiffler introduced herself as the current chair of the Huron Valley group of the Sierra Club. She said that the parcel where the Fuller Road Station is planned is used as parkland, appears on maps as parkland, and is included in the parks and recreation open space (PROS) plan as parkland. The city’s designation of the parcel as public land is used in the applications to the federal government for grant funding, but there’s no mention of its park designation.

The U.S. Dept. of Transportation requires a more extenstive environmental study for parkland, she said. The redefinition of allowable uses for public land, approved by the council, allows public land to be used as a transportation center. As councilmembers, they should think about the use of parkland, as they anticipate putting the parks maintenance and capital improvements millage before the voters in 2012, Shiffler concluded.

George Gaston told the council he was there to speak in defense of Fuller Park. It’s been a city park for more than 50 years, he said. The 1993 accord struck with the university for use of the parcel as a parking lot was a temporary agreement – it was never intended to be a permanent lot, he said.

In a draft of environmental assessment for selection of the site, he said, 15 sites had been considered. Of those, three were eliminated because they’re city parks. The University of Michigan’s Mitchell Field was considered, but rejected because it’s a recreational area. Gaston said he could see why the university wants a project with free land and a prime location. But if the university is truly interested, he said, then let the university become a stakeholder. Mitchell Field would offer better access to Fuller Road. He contended that there are too many connections between town and gown for it to be an untainted vote. He contended that everything had been decided a year and a half ago. It’s taken too much effort to put together a ribbon of parks along the Huron River to lose that now, he said.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) called on his council colleagues to watch a recording of the May 17 park advisory commission meeting. Eli Cooper, transportation program manager for the city, had given a presentation on Fuller Road Station, Anglin said. Members of PAC were restrained but confused, Anglin said. [Anglin serves as one of two ex-officio representatives from the city council to PAC.] They thought they were going to have a train station, Anglin said. But now it’s looking like a parking structure more than anything else.

When the council voted to change the allowable uses for public land to include transportation facilities, that moved parks to another category, Anglin said. He said he did not think it sounds like the city’s share of the funding would be coming forward [roughly $10 million]. He stated that the city doesn’t need a large train station for a town this size – it just has one track.

At a time when the city is laying off police officers, $10 million for this project in unconscionable, he said. Anglin said he’s personally not excited by parking structures. The project has momentum behind it, but no funding, he said. There are no guarantees of a train coming to Ann Arbor, but there is a guarantee of a large structure. It’s such a pretty area, Anglin said, they should consider whether they should do that.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) anticipated mayor John Hieftje’s reaction to Anglin’s comments [Hieftje has pushed hard for the project] by telling the mayor that she knew he had a lot of thoughts about Fuller Road Station. But she thought the council should have a working session, so that councilmembers can become more knowledgable about the issue.

Hieftje indicated that he would look into adding something to the calendar. He then went on to describe how he and Briere had attended a press conference in Detroit recently when $196 million in federal rail funding had been awarded to projects in southeast Michigan. U.S. senators Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin were there, he said. Levin had called out Fuller Road Station as a good idea. Gov. Rick Snyder had also talked positively about rail transportation, he said.

Responding to Anglin’s contention that there is only one track, Hieftje noted that two tracks will be installed at Fuller Road Station. The design of the station has changed, he said, and will now put the train station inside the other building. But as far as the basic site selection, no other location is as ideal as the Fuller Road site – it has 24,000 people a day going to the university’s hospital. He then thanked Anglin for his previous vote in support of Fuller Road Station.

Communications and Comment

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

Comm/Comm: Volunteer of the Month

Karen Moore was recognized as volunteer of the month for her work in connection with downtown parks, in particular for Ann Arbor Downtown Blooms Day.

Comm/Comm: Affordable Housing

Forest Hills Housing Co-op received a mayoral proclamation for its role in providing affordable housing for the last 40 years.

Comm/Comm: Environmental Commission Nomination

Most nominations for the city’s various boards and commissions are made by the mayor. One of the exceptions is the environmental commission (EC), for which the council makes the nomination.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) announced that a nomination for a three-year EC term was being placed before the council that evening and that it would be before the council as a resolution at the following meeting. Margie Teall (Ward 4), who sits with Hohnke as the city council’s representatives to the EC, prompted Hohnke to name the nomination, which he did: Jamie Woolard.

Comm/Comm: Municipal Center

Margie Teal (Ward 4) reported that the building committee reviewed construction of the new building at Fifth and Huron, and the renovation of the existing city hall building. They concluded that the project is on time and under budget.

Comm/Comm: Argo Bypass Channel

Interim city administrator Tom Crawford gave an update on progress for the construction of the Argo bypass channel. An application for a permit has been submitted to the state. The city is waiting for that permit to be issued before earthwork can begin. There’s no way to know when the permit will be issued, he said, but city staff is estimating six weeks. The contractor will go ahead and begin to mobilize in preparation to start the earthwork.

Comm/Comm: Rain

Crawford reported that cleanup continues in the area of Plymouth Road, where the railroad embankment collapsed after heavy rains at the end of May. The city received 87 reports of sewer backups in basements in areas where the system was stressed. Some residents were given vouchers for cleanup, he said. The affected areas were the neighborhood Packard & Stadium, and Hill & Division. The city is considering creating two new areas for the city’s footing drain disconnect program – adding to the five existing areas – and accelerating the program.

Comm/Comm: Historic District Awards

At the start of the meeting, the city’s historic district commission presented its annual awards to property owners. A complete listing of the awards is available in the city’s press release.

Comm/Comm: Ward 5 City Council Race

Henry Herskovitz introduced himself as a Ward 5 resident, saying that it’s a matter of public record that Neal Elyakin is running for city council in that ward. Herskovitz told the council it’s his understanding that if elected, councilmembers must promise to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Elyakin, he said, had chosen to fly a national flag in front of his home that is not the U.S. flag, but rather one from a country that 44 years ago on Wednesday (June 8) had killed 34 Americans. [Hersovitz was referring to an attack on the USS Liberty in 1967.] Herskovitz said that he supported Elyakin’s right to fly the Israeli flag, and his right to run for a seat on the city council, but wondered to which country Elyakin owed his allegiance. Elyakin should state his loyalty and allegiances clearly, Herskovitz said.

Comm/Comm: JFK, Dems, Mackinac

Thomas Partridge reminded the council that it was the 50th anniversary of numerous historic events in the first year of John F. Kennedy’s administration, like the test ban treaty and the beginning of work on the civil rights act. He said he wanted to remind everyone of the progress made beginning in 1961, and the need to keep up the struggle. He opposed the attitude of those who left southeast Michigan and traveled to the recent Mackinac Policy Conference – that was nothing but a right-wing Republican convention, he said. He called on voters to recall Gov. Rick Snyder.

Present: Stephen Rapundalo, Mike Anglin, Margie Teall, Sabra Briere, Sandi Smith, Tony Derezinski, Stephen Kunselman, Marcia Higgins, John Hieftje, Christopher Taylor, Carsten Hohnke.

Next council meeting: June 20, 2011 at 7 p.m. in the second-floor council chambers at 301 E. Huron. [confirm date]

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The break on the price is related to the “bathtub” design for the foundation of a 244-space parking deck, which makes up the first two stories of the development. The site of the development is near Allen Creek, and some kind of design strategy is required in order to deal with the possibility of water entering the parking structure. Rather than use a hybrid design that would entail pumping water out of the structure and into the city’s stormwater system on an ongoing basis, Village Green wants to use a complete bathtub-type design that will cost around $250,000. The city’s price break is thus a portion of that cost.

The parking deck is being developed in cooperation with the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority, which has pledged to make payments on around $9 million worth of bonds, after the structure is completed and has been issued a permit for occupancy.

The timeline put in place on Aug. 5, 2010 – when the city council most recently approved an extension of Village Green’s option to purchase the First and Washington city-owned parcel – called for Village Green to purchase the land by June 1, 2011. However, that deadline was subject to an extension of 90 days by the city administrator – an option which the interim administrator then exercised. That sets a new deadline of Aug. 30, 2011 for purchase of the parcel. The proceeds from the sale of the land were a part of the city’s financing plan for the new municipal center at Fifth and Huron, which is currently in the final stages of construction.

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

The postponement of an initial vote to the council’s next meeting, on Feb. 21 22, means that a final vote on licensing could not come sooner than the council’s March 7 meeting. An initial vote on zoning regulations for medical marijuana businesses was already taken by the council at its Oct. 18, 2010 meeting. On Monday, the final vote on those zoning regulations was also postponed to March 7. The council’s pattern over the last two months has been to postpone the final vote on zoning regulations for medical marijuana businesses so that it will coincide with the final vote on licensing.

Betsy and Alex de Parry listen as councilmembers deliberate the question of whether to grant a fee waiver if de Parry resubmits his Heritage Row project to the city.  (Photos by the writer.)

The council also took action on several development-related issues. Without discussion, councilmembers approved an amendment to a contract with Village Green to develop a 244-space parking deck as the first two stories of a 9-story building, City Apartments – a 156-unit residential planned unit development (PUD) at First and Washington. The contract approval is part of a series of milestones that is planned to culminate in Village Green’s purchase of the city-owned land parcel for $3 million by June 1, 2011, and with construction starting later in the summer.

The council also approved an application fee reduction, from nearly $5,000 to $2,000, for the developer of Heritage Row, a residential project proposed for Fifth Avenue just south of William Street – if  the project is resubmitted within 90 days. The resolution began as a fee waiver, but was amended to be a reduction. On resubmission, the project will go through the complete review process, starting with a citizen participation meeting.

The council also took action to implement the city’s new design guidelines for new downtown buildings. It sets a purely voluntary review and compliance process in place for now, with the expectation that the mandatory review process with voluntary compliance will be implemented later.

The council unanimously approved the city’s new capital improvements plan (CIP) after a close 6-5 vote that removed an item calling for an extension to the Ann Arbor municipal airport runway. And one item appearing in the CIP was moved ahead to possible fruition: A possible roundabout for the Maiden Lane and Fuller Road intersection will be studied and engineered under a $460,139 contract with DLZ Michigan Inc.

At Monday’s meeting, the council also authorized applications for federal matching funds to acquire development rights for two greenbelt properties.

And labor issues found their way into the deliberations in two ways. First, Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2), chair of the council’s labor committee, gave a breakdown of the large disparity between health care costs paid by the city’s fire and police union members as contrasted with the city’s non-union staff, as well as with University of Michigan employees. Second, as part of its consent agenda, the council approved a $54,000 contract with a consultant to study fire protection service requirements in Ann Arbor. The city administrator cited such a study at a recent council budget retreat as useful if the city decides to contemplate a shift to a combined paid-on-call and full-time staff fire department.

Medical Marijuana Licenses

Considered again by the council was a proposed set of licensing requirements for medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivation facilities in the city.

By way of background, at its Oct. 18, 2010 meeting, the council gave its initial approval to a set of zoning regulations for medical marijuana businesses, but it has not yet given its final approval to those regulations. The council’s strategy is to bring both licensing and zoning forward at the same time for a final vote. All new city ordinances require two votes by the council, the second of which is accompanied by a public hearing.

The context for developing zoning regulations was set at the council’s Aug. 5, 2010 meeting, when councilmembers voted to impose a moratorium on the use of property in the city for medical marijuana dispensaries or cultivation facilities. They also directed the planning commission to come up with zoning regulations. Subsequently, the city attorney’s office began working on a licensing system, which the council first considered at its Dec. 6, 2010 meeting.

At its Jan. 3, 2011 meeting, the council heavily amended the licensing proposal. Among the key amendments made at that meeting was one that stripped “home occupation” businesses out of the proposal. At the Jan. 3 meeting, the council also increased a cap on the total number of licenses available to 20 for dispensaries and 10 for cultivation facilities. Another major amendment made on Jan. 3 was the creation of a board to govern the issuance of licenses. However, the council delayed voting on the first reading of the proposal. [.pdf of licensing ordinance language at the start of the Feb. 7, 2011 meeting]

At its Jan. 18 meeting, the council was poised to undertake further amendments to the licensing proposal, including many that concerned limiting the amount of information that is required to be divulged by those associated with license applications. However, the council did not amend the proposal further at that meeting.

The moratorium on additional facilities in the city to be used as medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivation facilities was extended by the council at its Jan. 18 meeting to go through March 31, 2011.

Medical Marijuana: Public Commentary

At its meetings over the last few months, the council has heard extensive public commentary on medical marijuana, but that commentary does not constitute a formal public hearing, which will be held at the same meeting when the council votes on final approval of the licensing, provided it eventually gives initial approval to the licensing system. At Monday’s meeting, several speakers addressed the issue during time set aside for public commentary.

T.J. Rice introduced himself as the owner of the first dispensary in Ann Arbor – he’d established it at Fourth and Washington on Feb. 2, 2010, he said. He reminded the council that people’s lives and our future is at stake. He told the council he hoped by the end of the evening that the provisions for list-keeping would be written out of the proposed licensing system. He reminded the council of Ann Arbor’s rich history of tolerance for cannabis, pointing to the large plurality of local support for the 2008 state referendum, as well as the 2004 Ann Arbor city charter amendment. He asked the council not to forget the city charter amendment in the process. He allowed that his past felony conviction for cannabis is real, but that his concern is for patients and he hoped the council would make wise decisions.

Dennis Hayes began by saying that the council’s work on the issue is yet unfinished. He stated that in the legislative intent section of the ordinance, the 2004 charter amendment should be mentioned. It should also include a statement about state and constitutional mandates as they apply to patients and caregivers. He asked the council to think about what they could do besides maintaining lists of information so that the lists themselves would not become evidence of violating federal law. He asked the council to consider the geographic transportability of licenses. He said that labeling also needs to be addressed. He suggested that the proposed licensing board doesn’t currently have a slot for a patient as a member, and that it should have one.

Like many of the speakers, Tony Keene had previously addressed the council on the topic of medical marijuana. At the council’s Jan. 3, 2011 meeting, he’d been critical of dispensaries as a business model to provide access to medical marijuana for patients. From The Chronicle’s report of that meeting:

[Keene] had distributed a yellow two-side sheet to the audience that described an alternative strategy to the city’s proposed licensing scheme. During his public commentary turn, Keene highlighted some of main points of the alternative. Key among them is the idea that “dispensaries” are in concept not lawful under the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, but that business models developed along the lines of “compassion clubs” and “co-ops” are. So the proposal would be to close down all dispensaries and start from scratch – with compassion clubs and co-ops and individual caregivers making up “caregiver centers.”

Keene attended the council’s Feb. 6 caucus, on the Sunday night before its regular meeting, and reiterated to the one councilmember who attended, Sabra Briere (Ward 1), his view that dispensaries are not a good solution, and that dispensaries are the only voices being heard. At the caucus, he told Briere that the council had no understanding of the topic and that they had no idea what they were doing. As an example, he pointed out that the current licensing had no explicit definition for a “cultivation facility.” [Briere brought forward an amendment on Monday that provided a definition of such facilities.]

On Monday night, Keene complimented the council for keeping the spirit of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act in mind, noting that nothing would require his business, which involves caregiver support services, to have a license.

Keene’s commentary was distilled into a simple message: Say yes to medical marijuana, say no to dispensaries. It’s time to shut down the dispensaries, he said. There are adequate mechanisms of caregiver support that patients who cannot grow for themselves can find a way to get their medicine, he said. A dispensary is a million-dollar-a-year business, he said. If a medical marijuana business owner is not willing to purchase marijuana from an exchange and to be completely open and transparent, Keene said, then that person has no business being in the medical marijuana business.

Rhory Gould reminded the council that their challenge is to find a balance between the concerns that some people might have and the interests of patients. Offering patients more choices, he said, would result in competition, thus lower prices and better service. He reminded the council that Ann Arbor is surrounded by more conservative communities. He suggested that parking affects ease of access to dispensaries, and in light of that called for a geographic distribution of licenses: 10-15 licenses for downtown and 15 for the rest of the city, and 5-8 licenses for growing facilities. He noted that the original moratorium was only for 120 days and had then been extended well beyond that time. He wanted to get employees hired, space rented and start paying taxes, he said.

Chuck Ream told the council that they’d come a long way and that he wanted to focus on three remaining areas. First, the section expressing the legislative intent of the licensing ordinance, said Ream, is negative and pejorative and should be changed to reflect the city’s charter amendment. Second, he said there is no need to have more than one person’s name posted on the wall – warning that 15 people have been killed and others robbed. There is no need to post people’s names so that every junkie and robber can have access to that information. Third, he said there’s no need to require a listing of all suppliers. That kind of listing would drive the “little guy” out of business, he said.

Medical Marijuana: Council Deliberations

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) led off deliberations by noting that some of the proposed changes that had been analyzed by the city attorney’s office had been forwarded to councilmembers only around 6 p.m. [The council had a budget work session that began at 6 p.m.]

Medical Marijuana: Council Deliberations – Amendment 1 (Define Cultivation Facility)

Briere then waded into proposed changes, starting with definitions. The amendment offered and eventually approved defined cultivation facilities this way:

Medical marijuana cultivation facility means a structure or each space in a structure that is separately owned or leased by a person other than the owner of the structure, in which marijuana plants are being cultivated other than as a medical marijuana home occupation.

Queried by Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) about the motivation for the change, Briere observed that the definition of “cultivation facility” in the original draft was essentially a tautology: “Cultivation facility means a medical marijuana cultivation facility.” She added that the desire was to distinguish cultivation facilities from home occupation-type businesses. [At the Jan. 3 meeting, the council had stripped out home occupation businesses from the licensing requirements.]

Higgins said the definition seemed to indicate a large structure, leased to different people – could there be several cultivation facilities in one structure? City attorney Stephen Postema did not answer Higgins’ specific question, but essentially reiterated the content of the definition. Higgins indicated that she found the definition more confusing now than before. Postema said some definition of cultivation facility was needed.

Sandi Smith (Ward 1) clarified with Postema that the consequence of the proposed definition was that each individual cultivation facility in a larger structure would need to have a license.

Amendment outcome: With dissent from Rapundalo and Higgins, the definition of “cultivation facility” was approved.

Medical Marijuana: Council Deliberations – Amendment 2 (Define Authorized Person)

Next up was the definition of an “authorized person.” The eventual language accepted by the council was this:

(e) Authorized person means:
(i) an owner of a dispensary or cultivation facility;
(ii) the directors, officers, members, partners, and individuals of a dispensary or cultivation facility that is a corporation, limited liability company, partnership, or sole proprietorship;
(iii) any person who is in charge of and on the premises of the dispensary during business hours.

Briere explained that the definition of an authorized person is important in the context of the licensing requirement that city staff be able to enter the premises for inspection, if allowed by an “authorized person.” Briere drew an analogy to the idea that a plumber working at a resident’s home would not be authorized to allow someone else to enter.

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) wondered why “an employee” was not on the list of possible persons who would meet the definitional criteria.

Briere explained that depending on the business model, some employees might be more in charge or less in charge of the facility. A cleaning person would not be in charge, for example.

Amendment outcome: The new definition of “authorized person” was unanimously approved.

Medical Marijuana: Council Deliberations – Amendment 3 (Combined Facilities)

Briere carried the next amendment forward, indicating some weariness. The next amendment clarified whether a combined operation that includes both a cultivation facility and a dispensary would require two licenses – one for the cultivation facility and one for the dispensary. The eventually approved language reads:

(4) The first year’s licenses shall be capped at a number 10% higher than the licenses applied for in the first 60 days, but not more than 20 dispensaries and 10 cultivation facility licenses. Any license terminated during the license year returns to the City for possible reissuance. A business that is a combined dispensary and cultivation facility shall require two separate licenses.

Briere reported that the metaphor she’d discussed with city attorney Stephen Postema that morning was that of a brewpub, which manufactures and distributes alcohol on the same premises. Having both kinds of operation puts you in a different position, Briere said. Sandi Smith (Ward 1) asked that the word “possible” be inserted before “reissuance” to make clear that the city was not obligated to reissue a returned license.

Amendment outcome: The council unanimously approved the amendment making it clear that a combined facility would need two licenses.

Medical Marijuana: Council Deliberations – Amendment 4 (Proof  of Insurance)

Saying that she would love it if someone else would take up the issue of bringing amendments forward, Briere trudged ahead. Next up was a general provision that required proof of insurance for licensees. The exact types were left blank in the amendment, with the idea that the blanks would be filled in before the second vote on the ordinance. Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) expressed some reluctance in leaving the items blank, but said that if city attorney Stephen Postema could provide the information to fill in the blanks by the second vote, he was okay with it.

(4) Before the City officially issues a license, the applicant shall provide the City with proof of insurance in the following types and amounts:
(a)
(b)
(etc.)

Amendment outcome: The council unanimously voted to insert a requirement of proof of insurance.

Medical Marijuana: Council Deliberations – Amendment 5 (Strike Physician Names)

Next up was an amendment to strike the names of physicians who would be rendering services on the premises from the information required on an application form.

(f) Name and address of all physicians who will render services on the premises of the cultivation facility or dispensary.

Briere said there were undoubtedly reasons for wanting to know this information. But she pointed out that if the goal was to find out which physicians were referring patients to a dispensary, then this requirement would not meet that goal, because a physician need not be on the premises to make the referral. She also pointed out that the physicians doing the referrals could change from time to time.

Smith supported striking the requirement, saying that it would not inform a licensing board decision about whether to grant a license.

City administrator Roger Fraser and Marcia Higgins share a humorful aside during the Feb. 7 meeting.

Higgins asked why a physician would render services at a dispensary. Why would they do that? she asked. If this is an additional place the physician would be practicing, then she’d want to know that, she said.

Assistant city attorney Kristen Larcom explained that there is locally at least one dispensary with a physician on the premises to review and make referrals for state of Michigan medical marijuana registry cards. Why can’t a physician do that at their office? wondered Higgins. Higgins stated she’d not be supporting the amendment.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) raised the practical issue of whether the changing of a physician on the premises could cause the license to be invalid. Postema indicated that the information should be updated with the city if it changed. He also said there’s no requirement that a physician be on the premises and that the majority of dispensaries don’t have one.

Margie Teall (Ward 4) and Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) both said they’d support the amendment.

Amendment outcome: With dissent from Rapundalo and Higgins, the requirement was eliminated that physicians’ names be included in a license application.

Medical Marijuana: Council Deliberations – Amendment 6 (Strike Services)

Next up was an amendment that altered the requirement that the license application include a description of products and services to be offered by the licensee. In its final form, the language was simply stricken:

(j) A description of the products and services to be provided.

Briere said that there simply needed to be language indicating whether an applicant is applying for a dispensary license or a cultivation facility license. Smith suggested striking the item in its entirety. She said a licensing board decision would not be informed by knowing what strain of marijuana or delivery methods were being offered.

A back and forth that included Rapundalo and Derezinski – who serve on the council’s liquor license review committee – drew out the fact that liquor licenses are specific to the kind of alcohol served and the specific types of entertainment offered on the premises. So they were keen to see the language stay in the ordinance.

Mayor John Hieftje questioned whether the analogy to liquor licenses was the best one to use – he thought a pharmacy would be a better point of comparison.

Amendment outcome: The council voted to strike the language about products and services, with dissent from Higgins, Derezinski, Rapundalo, and Taylor.

Medical Marijuana: Council Deliberations – Amendment 7 (Security Measures)

The council next considered an amendment to modify the requirement on video security measures. [Language to be stricken is displayed in strike-through; added language in italics.]

(i) security cameras to monitor all areas of the licensed premises where persons may gain or attempt to gain access to marijuana or cash. Recordings from security cameras shall be maintained for a minimum of seventy-two hours in a secure off-site location. The Administrator may adopt regulations implementing this requirement, including but not limited to regulations on the design, location, maintenance, and access to the cameras and recordings. Those regulations shall take effect 30 days after being filed with the City Clerk unless modified or disapproved by the City Council.

Smith stated that she was uncomfortable with the city administrator having that role. Kristen Larcom indicated there are a number of ordinances where the city administrator promulgates such regulations. Higgins ask if Larcom had had a conversation with city administrator Roger Fraser about it – no, she hadn’t. Taylor noted that the language doesn’t give an instruction to the administrator, but rather gives the administrator an authority.

Kunselman expressed reluctance to adopt measures modeled after Colorado’s laws – which had been mentioned in connection to the video requirement – because for Colorado, the video recordings are all about tracking revenue. [At the Sunday night caucus, Tony Keene had said that in Colorado, the video feeds go straight to the treasury department.]

Amendment outcome: The council approved the video surveillance language, with dissent from Kunselman, Higgins, Smith and Mike Anglin (Ward 5).

Medical Marijuana: Council Deliberations – Amendment 8 (Package Labeling Warning)

Next up was insertion of additional language [indicated in italics] on the package labels for medical marijuana.

THIS PRODUCT IS MANUFACTURED WITHOUT ANY REGULATORY OVERSIGHT FOR HEALTH, SAFETY OR EFFICACY. THERE MAY BE HEALTH RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH THE INGESTION OR USE OF THIS PRODUCT. USING THIS PRODUCT MAY CAUSE DROWSINESS. DO NOT DRIVE OR OPERATE HEAVY MACHINERY WHILE USING THIS PRODUCT. KEEP THIS PRODUCT OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN. THIS PRODUCT MAY NOT BE USED IN ANY WAY THAT DOES NOT COMPLY WITH THE MICHIGAN MEDICAL MARIJUANA ACT OR BY ANY PERSON WHO DOES NOT POSSESS A VALID MEDICAL MARIJUANA PATIENT REGISTRATION CARD.

Smith said that she hoped that they might eventually also contemplate some language indicating educational resources.

Amendment outcome: The council unanimously approved the additional language.

Medical Marijuana: Council Deliberations – Amendments 9, 10 (Rephrase to Positive)

Two amendments were made that essentially replaced “no person shall fail to” with language that asserted what is required. In their approved form, the amended portions of the ordinance read:

An authorized person shall consent to the entry into a cultivation facility or dispensary by the Building Official and zoning inspectors for the purpose of inspection to determine compliance with this chapter pursuant to a notice posted in a conspicuous place on the premises two (2) or more days before the date of the inspection or sent by first class mail to the address of the premises four (4) or more calendar days before the date of the inspection.

…

All security measures required in this chapter shall be maintained in good working order. The premises shall be monitored and secured twenty-four hours per day.

Amendment outcome: The council unanimously approved the rephrasing of the language.

Medical Marijuana: Council Deliberations – Amendment 11 (Changes to Facility)

Next up was an amendment to make clear how changes to the operation of a business and possible changes to the physical structure would be handled in the licensing. These acts would be prohibited [deleted text is shown as strike-through, with added text in italics]:

(d) Make any changes or allow any changes to be made in the operation of the cultivation facility or dispensary as represented in the license application without, applying for and being issued a new license first notifying the City by amending its application.

(e) Make any changes or allow any changes to be made to the structure in which the business is operating without applying for and being issued appropriate permits and obtaining final inspection approval.

Amendment outcome: The council unanimously approved the amendment.

Medical Marijuana: Council Deliberations – Amendment 12 (Posting Names)

An amendment that reduced the number of names required to be posted on the premises of a business, together with the license, was approved [deleted text is shown as strike-through, with added text in italics]:

A cultivation facility or dispensary license issued by the City under this chapter, including the name and contact information for the owner(s) and business manager(s),  for an authorized person and business manager(s), if any, shall be conspicuously posted in the cultivation facility or dispensary where it is easily open to public view.

Higgins asked why you wouldn’t want to display the names on the license itself. Taylor drew a distinction between posting ames versus the city having the names in the city’s hands. Higgins summarized her objection by saying that this is a big business, and it seems shady not to list the owners.

Amendment outcome: The council voted to modify the number of names required to be posted, with dissent from Higgins and Rapundalo.

Medical Marijuana: Council Deliberations – Unresolved Issues

In the course of handling the multiple amendments, one was withdrawn – it would would have provided a specific way to trace the origin of the medical marijuana by requiring the state registry ID number of a caregiver.

Another issue was not formally introduced as an amendment – the provisions in the licensing that address prior convictions of felonies.

As it became apparent that the council’s inclination was to again postpone the measure, Hieftje reiterated some of the frustration that he’d expressed midway through the handling of the amendments, saying that he would like to see a marked-up copy of the licensing proposal that reflected all the amendments the council had made. He wanted to be able to consider the material in a form that was more appropriate than what they’d had to contend with that evening.

In response, Postema told the mayor that he could have such a copy to the council by next week. Hieftje seemed to indicate that next week [it was Monday evening] would not be an acceptable delay, saying that it would be very helpful if the council had the material available several days in advance of their next meeting.

Outcome: The council unanimously voted to postpone its initial vote on the licensing scheme until Feb. 22, 2010, but passed several amendments before postponement. [.pdf of licensing proposal as amended on Feb. 7, 2011] The vote that was postponed is the first of two votes the council must take on any new ordinance it enacts. The second vote on licensing would come no sooner than March 7, 2011. A second vote on the zoning regulations for medical marijuana businesses, which won council’s initial approval at its Oct. 18, 2010 meeting, also was scheduled for March 7, 2011.

Heritage Row Application Fee

Before the council was a proposal to waive the application fee if the developer of the Heritage Row project, Alex de Parry, resubmits the planned unit development (PUD) within 90 days.

To qualify for the fee waiver, the project would also need to include the same revisions that previously had been reviewed by city staff – after the project had been rejected, and then rejected again upon reconsideration by the city council in the summer of 2010. The resolution notes that to date, de Parry has paid the city over $30,000 in review fees, a number that was revised upward during council deliberations to more than $42,000.

The residential project, located on the east side of South Fifth Avenue, would renovate seven houses and construct three new 3.5-story apartment buildings behind those houses, with an underground parking garage. The council initially rejected Heritage Row on June 21, 2010, with a 7-4 vote in favor. It required an 8-vote majority for approval, due to a petition filed by adjoining property owners. The city council then reconsidered the project at its July 6, 2010 meeting, and it failed again, on a 7-3 vote. Then at the council’s Dec. 6, 2010 meeting, some councilmembers seemed poised to suspend council rules to allow another reconsideration, but the vote to suspend council rules failed.

The last proposal reviewed by the city includes the following revisions: (1) the top floor of the new south building would be removed from the design; (2) the density would be reduced from 79 units to 76 units and the number of bedrooms would be reduced from 154 to 147; (3) the project would include five affordable units at the 50% AMI (average median income) level, in addition to six affordable units at the 80% AMI level; and (4) the three new buildings would be LEED certified.

Complicating the decision-making on Heritage Row is a different, matter-of-right project called City Place, for which de Parry already has site plan approval. That approval was given at the council’s Sept. 21, 2009 meeting.

Heritage Row Fee: Public Comment

Dissenting views held by the public were expressed in letters to the city from nearby property owners Tom Whitaker and Beverly Strassmann, whose communications were attached to the council’s online packet of materials.

Among other points, Whitaker’s letter raised the question of whether the project would be considered a new project or would be considered to be the same project as before:

But will the City really treat this as a new project? Will Heritage Row Revisited actually receive the same rigorous and comprehensive review that any other new PUD petition would receive? The resolution explicitly says NO, it will not. This time, Heritage Row is to only receive the most minimal of reviews by staff in order to justify the waiving of all fees and to speed it through the process (which will invariably lead to the same conclusion as the last three times). So which is it – the same or new?

Strassmann’s message to the council – as well as Whitaker’s – included a specific issue that emerged during council deliberations: Would de Parry actually build the City Place matter-of-right project? For Strassmann, it’s clear:

The de Parry’s have no intention of building their R4C project. The R4C project would be very foolish to build and it is unlikely to get bank approval. They know that. Nor is it likely that the de Parry’s are about to cash in and move out of state given that they have another local project.

Heritage Row Fee: Council Deliberations

The resolution was introduced by Tony Derezinski (Ward 2), who had co-sponsored it along with Sandi Smith (Ward 1). He recalled that when the council had last had the project on its agenda, on Dec. 6, 2010, the parliamentary requirements would have entailed what some people considered to be extraordinary rule suspensions. The resolution before the council takes care of that, Derezinski said.

Derezinski went on to say that the resolution to waive the application fee had come at the request of the developer, Alex de Parry. Though the information accompanying the resolution indicated that de Parry had paid more than $30,000 in application fees in connection with projects at the site, Derezinski said the exact number was $42,020. The rationale for the fee waiver, he said, was that the city’s planning staff would have relatively little work to do in reviewing the plans, which they’ve seen before.

From left: councilmembers Sabra Briere (Ward 1), Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5), and Sandi Smith (Ward 1) at the budget work session before the Feb. 7 city council meeting. At right is Kevin McDonald of the city attorney’s office.

Derezinski said that he and Smith as well as other councilmembers had worked with the developer to make changes to the project to make it better.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) said she thought it was great to see that the project would be coming back, but noted that waiving fees was not standard practice. She suggested instead a reduced fee that would be commensurate with the 15-20 hours of staff time that would be required for the review. The actual fee worked out to $4,900, and Higgins suggested something like half that – $2,000 was the figure she settled on. Derezinski said he didn’t like the idea, but as a practical matter he would not oppose it as a friendly amendment.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) said he had concerns about making such an exception, but said he was prepared to support some version of the resolution. He described how a previous version of the project had been unanimously rejected by the city council. He said that progress had been made in improving the project and he felt the council had some responsibility to be proactive.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) said he did not like the idea of waiving fees. He wondered if the council would be waiving fees for the developer of the Georgetown Mall property. He did not agree with the conclusion that the alterations to the project represented a substantial change. He also wondered what level of LEED certification would be achieved.

Kunselman went on to discuss taxes owed on the individual properties that constitute the site of the project, which came to more than $19,000. He concluded that the developer was a “tax scofflaw.” He also noted that not all the sidewalks had been repaired in front of the properties – the city’s ordinances require that property owners maintain their own sidewalks. He said he did not think City Place would get built, because all the properties would have to be paid off – he seemed to indicate a general skepticism that the developer had the financial wherewithal to build the project.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) said there’d been a good dialogue on the project. He noted that the city’s R4C/R2A zoning study was not yet finished. There were ways the council could have dealt with preventing City Place from being built, he said, which included a proposed moratorium on projects in R4C areas and establishing a historic district. [A prior proposal from Anglin for a moratorium got little traction on the council. And the council had previously rejected a historic district study committee's recommendation to establish a district in the area.]

Mayor John Hieftje said he would normally not support a fee waiver. The mayor picked up on a comment that Derezinski had made to the effect that in Derezinski’s short time on the city council, he’d never seen anything like the history of the Heritage Row project: Hieftje said in his long time on the council [more than 11 years], he’d also seen nothing like it. He called it a special situation. If it weren’t for City Place, he said, he wouldn’t contemplate supporting the resolution. But he did believe that City Place would be built, if Heritage Row weren’t approved. In an apparent allusion to Whitaker’s letter, Hieftje said that people had suggested other ways to block City Place, but he did not think there were any that were legally acceptable.

Hohnke acknowledged the unusual nature of the situation. He said that the long, hard, tough negotiations had served the community well – City Place had not yet been built.

Outcome: The council approved the application fee reduction for Heritage Row by a 9-2 vote, with dissent from Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) and Mike Anglin (Ward 5).

Design Guidelines

Before the council for approval was a program of design guidelines for downtown buildings as the final piece of its A2D2 rezoning project. The program was long in the works but the item was a late addition to the Feb. 7 agenda, getting added the same day as the council meeting. [Previous Chronicle coverage, which includes a detailed timeline of the design guidelines work, dating back to a work group formed in 2006: "Ann Arbor Hotel First to Get Design Review"]

Local architect Norm Tyler consults with Marcia Higgins (Ward 4).

The resolution did not incorporate a mandatory process of design review into the city’s ordinances, but instead creates a framework for eventual incorporation of such a mandatory process. Part of the temporary arrangement will be a design review committee consisting of: Chet Hill (landscape architect); Mary Jukari (landscape architect); Richard Mitchell (architect); Tamara Burns (architect); Paul Fontaine (planner); William Kinley (developer); and Geoff Perkins (contractor).

Compliance with the recommendations of a permanent design review board to be established by ordinance would be voluntary. For now, developers would be asked to participate voluntarily with the process, with recommendations coming from the design review committee that was appointed as part of the council’s resolution.

Design Guidelines: Public Commentary

Peter Nagourney addressed the council by recapitulating the long history of the effort to formulate design guidelines. He recounted how the design guidelines had been presented to the city council at their work session on Jan. 10, 2011. He said he was impressed with the work of the task force.

Design Guidelines: Council Deliberations

During the first slot for communications time, Sabra Briere (Ward 1) was critical of the belated way the item had been brought to the agenda. [Items are ideally to be ready for the agenda's first publication on the Wednesday before the council's Monday meetings, but according to their own council rules, councilmembers are supposed to use best efforts to make sure that items are placed on the agenda before the Friday prior to a Monday meeting.] Briere said that placement of an item on the agenda as late as Monday should be reserved only for emergencies. Something as important as the design guidelines, said Briere, should not be added to the agenda that late.

At the start of the meeting, a mayoral proclamation was presented to Peter Pollack’s widow, Eleanor Pollack, for his wide-ranging contributions to civic life in Ann Arbor, which included work on the design guidelines task force that produced the final program of guidelines. Upon presentation of the proclamation, the council rose from their seats and were joined by the audience in their applause honoring Pollack’s memory.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4), who led the design guidelines task force, said the task force wanted to dedicate their report to Pollack’s memory. Higgins had announced Pollack’s imminent passing at the council’s Dec. 20, 2010 meeting.

When the council came to the agenda item, Higgins led things off by describing the task force’s work as diligent and noted the public input over the last five years. After the Jan. 10 work session, Higgins said the task force had met again to discuss how the mandatory review process and voluntary compliance would be implemented.

She said the completely voluntary process that the resolution put into place sees the design review taking place before the citizen participation meeting, which is required by city ordinance for all new project submissions.

Outcome: The council unanimously approved adoption of the design guidelines program.

Fuller-Maiden Lane Intersection

Before the council was the authorization of a $460,139 contract with DLZ Michigan Inc. to review previous studies of the Fuller Road/Maiden Lane/East Medical Center Drive intersection and propose a design for reconfiguring the intersection. Previous studies point to a roundabout as a good solution to the traffic congestion at the intersection. The poor level of service (LOS) in that area has prompted the city to propose various solutions to the intersection redesign, dating back at least to 2005. Depending on the time of day, the intersection currently rates D and E on the letter-grade scale used to evaluate traffic flow.

In the city’s capital improvements plan (CIP), the intersection improvement is categorized with bridge projects – it’s immediately adjacent to the Maiden Lane bridge over the Huron River.

In 2009, the city studied the intersection in the context of increased traffic load due to possible construction of the Fuller Road Station – an intermodal transit center and parking deck proposed for the area between Fuller Road and East Medical Center Drive. The city’s online meeting packet included drawings of the current configuration of the intersection, as well as the possible roundabout configuration.

The engineering and design of the roundabout project will be funded out of the FY 2011 capital budget for the city’s street reconstruction millage. Construction is expected to be funded out of a combination of: (1) millage revenues in future years; (2) possible funds from a federal Congestion Mitigation Air Quality (CMAQ) grant; and (3) a contribution from the University of Michigan.

In a telephone interview Monday morning before the evening council meeting, Homayoon Pirooz, in the city’s project management unit, told The Chronicle that construction on any project would not begin before the summer of 2012, with 2013 a more likely timeframe. Pirooz ballparked the construction cost of a project like this – once all the traffic lanes leading to the intersection are modified, and the pedestrian amenities are installed – as possibly more than $2.5 million.

Outcome: The council unanimously approved the contract for design and engineering of the Fuller-Maiden Lane intersection.

Capital Improvements Plan (CIP)

At its Feb. 7 meeting, the council voted on approval of the city’s capital improvements plan (CIP). The plan covers the fiscal years 2012-2017, and includes a list of major capital projects – for projects that have identified funding sources, as well as those that do not. The city code requires that the CIP be developed and updated each year, looking ahead at a six-year period, to help with financial planning. It’s intended to reflect the city’s priorities and needs, and serves as a guide to discern what projects are on the horizon.

Included in this year’s proposed CIP was a plan for a runway extension at the city’s municipal airport, an item that the council had voted to remove last year before last year’s CIP was finally adopted.

The city’s planning commission recommended adoption of the CIP at its Jan. 4, 2011 meeting, when commissioners discussed in detail how the plan was developed and how public input was sought. [Previous Chronicle coverage of the possible airport runway extension: "Ann Arbor Airport Study Gets Public Hearing"]

CIP: Public Hearing

Libby Hunter rendered her public commentary in the form of a song, as has become her standard practice. She used the melody from the University of Michigan fight song “Hail to the Victors” and sang lyrics critical of the Fuller Road Station project, which is included in the CIP: “Hail to Hieftje’s transit center …”

Joel Batterman introduced himself as a 2006 graduate of Huron High School and currently a master’s student in the University of Michigan urban planning program. He discussed the Fuller Road Station, an item in the CIP. He said there needs to be a prioritization. The city of Ann Arbor, he said, has a desire for a train station. And the University of Michigan, he continued, has a desire for greater parking capacity. Batterman urged consideration of UM’s own phase 2 draft reports for its Integrated Assessment of Campus Sustainability. Batterman suggested that a better strategy than increased parking capacity was to make better use of existing parking resources. He described thousands of empty spaces on outlying lots, which could be used more effectively through judicious setting of parking fee levels. [Batterman addressed the UM regents at their January meeting on the same topic: .pdf file of Batterman's remarks to regents].

Andrew McGill, prior to the start of the Feb. 7 city council meeting. It was a long wait for McGill to hear the vote on the city’s capital improvements plan. He left knowing that the council had removed the airport runway extension project from the plan – he’d advocated for its removal.

Andrew McGill spoke on behalf of The Committee for the Preservation of Community Quality, noting the 2012 line item in the CIP for the municipal airport runway extension. He said that labeling the extension as a “runway safety extension” is disingenuous. He reminded the council that they’d removed the item from the plan last year by a majority vote. He reminded them that they had only approved an environmental assessment of the airport, not a plan to extend the runway. The environmental assessment, he said, was still being evaluated by the Federal Aviation Administration. McGill concluded by asking the council to affirm the decision made the previous year and to delete the item again.

Providing a counterpoint to McGill’s remarks was Chris Gordon, who introduced himself as president of the Ann Arbor General Aviation Association. Gordon, who lives in Dexter, emphasized the idea that the Ann Arbor municipal airport is not just a city asset – it’s a regional, state, and national asset. He noted that in terms of number of operations, Ann Arbor’s airport is ranked eighth out of the state’s 238 public use airports. He stressed that there are aviation funds that can only be used on aviation assets – it’s not as if money not spent on airport projects could be spent on other, non-aviation projects elsewhere in the city. He urged the council’s support of all the airport projects in the CIP.

Thomas Partridge called for development of a unified plan to invest in people and services.

CIP: Council Deliberations

This year, Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) raised the same objection about the runway that he had voiced the previous year, and the council again removed the item by a narrow 6-5 vote.

Amendment outcome: Voting for keeping the runway extension in the CIP were: Teall, Higgins, Smith, Derezinski and Rapundalo. Voting against the runway extension were Kunselman, Hohnke, Anglin, Hieftje, Briere and Taylor.

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) questioned what the principles were for developing the CIP and expressed some frustration that there are projects included in the plan that the council has not yet voted on, but they’re included in the plan as if the city is moving forward with them. Anglin also wondered to what extent input from the public had been included in the plan.

Cresson Slotten, senior project manager with the city, described for Anglin how the plan had been developed, including the survey of the public that had been conducted. Slotten’s remarks mirrored his presentation to the planning commission about the plan at their meeting a few weeks ago.

City administrator Roger Fraser noted that the planning commission is required to propose the CIP, but that not every item in the plan needs to have funding identified. Development of the plan, he said, complies with state law, and technically, the city council should simply be voting to receive the plan – implying that it was not really expected that the council would alter the plan.

Outcome: The council unanimously approved the CIP after the narrow 6-5 vote that eliminated the airport runway extension.

Greenbelt Matching Funds

The council was asked to approve applications to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program (FRLPP) for matching grant funds. The funds would be used for the purchase of development rights on two additions to the city’s greenbelt program: 110 acres on the Lindemann-Weidmayer farm in Lodi Township, and 92 acres on the Grosshans farm in Superior Township.

The city’s cost would be paid out of the greenbelt millage funds. The federal match would be up to 50% of the appraised fair market value of the development rights, up to a maximum of $5,000 per acre. The greenbelt advisory commission recommended at its Dec. 8, 2010 meeting that the city make the applications to the FRLPP.

Outcome: Without comment, the council unanimously approved the two recommendations to submit applications for the federal matching grants, to be used for greenbelt properties.

Village Green Contract Amendment

Before the council was approval of an amendment to a contract with Village Green to develop a 244-space parking deck as the first two stories of a 9-story, 99-foot-tall building, City Apartments – a 156-unit residential planned unit development (PUD) at First and Washington. Among other items, the amendment clarifies the ability of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority and the city to provide oversight to the construction process.

Once the parking deck portion of the building is completed and issued a certificate of occupancy, the city of Ann Arbor has agreed to issue $9 million worth of bonds to purchase the deck, and the Ann Arbor DDA has agreed to make the payments on those bonds. The DDA board approved its part of the contract amendment at its Feb. 2, 2011 meeting.

The contract amendment comes in the context of a series of milestones that were put in place last year, when the council extended Village Green’s option to purchase the parcel at First and Washington, where City Apartments would be built, for $3 million. That most recent extension came at the council’s Aug. 5, 2010 meeting, and provides a purchase option through June 1, 2011. The $3 million from the transaction would be put towards the construction fund for the city’s new municipal center, which is now largely complete and partly open for business.

If the $3 million transaction does not go through, the city has said it would borrow money to cover the construction shortfall, a step that would require city council approval. Based on The Chronicle’s conversation at the council’s meeting with a Village Green representative, the company expects the deal to go though and is planning for construction to start in the summer of 2011.

At a Wednesday morning meeting of the DDA partnerships committee, Wendy Rampson – head of planning for the city – told The Chronicle that Village Green had not yet made a formal request to lift the entire building by a few feet, in order to avoid having to dewater the site during construction. Depending on the number of feet, she said, such a request could be handled as an administrative change or else as a request that the city council would need to approve.

Outcome: Without comment, the council unanimously approved the Village Green contract amendment.

Fire Services Analysis

As part of its consent agenda, the council considered a resolution that authorized the city administrator to negotiate a contract to get an analysis of and recommendations for Ann Arbor’s fire protection needs. The contract, for not more than $54,000, will be signed with International City/County Management Association (ICMA) Center for Public Safety Management.

The move comes in the context of two recent budget retreats conducted by the council, where the council discussed the possibility of transforming Ann Arbor’s fire department to a staffing arrangement that would combine full-time career firefighters with paid on-call firefighters.

The city’s current contract with the firefighters union IAFF Local 693 expired on June 30, 2010. Councilmember Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2), chair of the council’s labor committee, reported at the council’s Jan. 18, 2011 meeting that the city had been negotiating with its firefighters since February 2010, and has used the services of a state mediator on three occasions. Concessions sought by the city from all its unions include a wage freeze and higher employee contributions to the health care and pension plans.

Outcome: The council does not deliberate on consent agenda items. The fire protection services was approved unanimously along with other consent agenda items.

Communications and Comment

There are multiple slots on every agenda 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: Labor Negotiations

Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) – consistent with the indication he’d made at the council’s previous meeting that he would give updates on the topic of the city’s negotiations with its labor unions – gave some background meant to correct misperceptions that had been indicated in comments written on the AnnArbor.com website. He clarified that city councilmembers do not participate in negotiations with the city’s unions. Those conversations are handled by the city administrator and other city staff, he said. What the council does is set general parameters for the conversations. [One of the legitimate reasons for the council to go into a closed session under the Open Meetings Act is to discuss labor negotiations and to develop a strategy for those negotiations.]

A second point Rapundalo made was that the firefighters were not the only workers to have made concessions in the past. [At the council's previous meeting, Rapundalo had cited non-union workers as well as the Teamsters police deputy chiefs unit, the Teamsters civilian supervisors and Teamsters police professionals as workers who'd made concessions.] Rapundalo also noted that the firefighters’ concessions had enjoyed a duration of only six months.

As a third point, Rapundalo rejected the idea that the city’s instigation of Act 312 arbitration was somehow an indicator that the city did not want to negotiate with its unions. He said the city is compelled to resort to that strategy, because there is little if any incentive for unions to negotiate – their existing contracts remain in effect even if they expire.

Rapundalo then went on to lay out the disparity between what non-union staff pay in the way of health care and what members of the police patrol union, the firefighters, and the AFSCME workers pay. Non-union city workers pay 20% for co-insurance, plus a $300-$1,000 deductible per year. In contrast, union workers pay a $225-250 deductible per year and that’s it. He then went on to compare University of Michigan health benefits with union benefits. UM, Rapundalo noted, is generally considered to offer fairly generous benefits. For an individual in UM’s system, the cost per year in premiums is $1,416, compared to the $225-250 deductible per year that city union members might pay. For family insurance, the comparison was: UM – $6,480; city of Ann Arbor unions – $500.

The city has dealt with rising health costs year after year, and it continues to negotiate to reduce the disparity in health care costs between its employee groups, Rapundalo concluded.

Comm/Comm: Snow Removal Cost

City administrator Roger Fraser noted that the cost of the previous week’s snow removal had been around $250,000.

Comm/Comm: City-DDA Parking Contract

The Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority has a contract with the city under which it manages the city’s public parking system. Two committees – one drawn from the DDA board and one drawn from the city – are responsible for negotiating a new contract.

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) at the council’s budget work session before their Feb. 7 meeting.

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) reported that the Ann Arbor DDA’s committee is currently working on contract details. Joint meetings of the two committees, said Taylor, would reconvene shortly. [Under terms of a 2005 amendment to that contract, it appears the DDA would have the option unilaterally to extend the existing contract for at least three years past the 2015 term of that contract. However, the idea of the DDA exercising that option has not been a part of the public discussions of the contract.]

Comm/Comm: Downtown Street Outreach Task Force

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) reported that the downtown street outreach task force, which she is chairing, had completed its fact-finding work and is currently writing up its report. The report would be presented to the council, she said, at the second council meeting in March, if not sooner. [The council had appointed the task force at its Sept. 20, 2010 meeting. Previous Chronicle coverage: "Ann Arbor Task Force Consults Panhandlers"]

Comm/Comm: Environmental Commission Vacancy

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) told his colleagues that for the current vacancy on the city’s environmental commission left by Steve Bean – who chose not to continue his service on the EC – he was nominating Susan Hutton, development director at Leslie Science and Nature Center. He also announced that there would be another vacancy soon on the EC and that the council was actively soliciting applicants. [Anya Dale's term on the EC ends on Feb. 20, 2011.]

Comm/Comm: Advocating for Least Fortunate

During public commentary reserved time at the start of the meeting, as well as the general time at the meeting’s conclusion, Thomas Partridge told the council that he was advocating for the least fortunate among us. He called for ending discriminatory housing and transportation policies. He criticized the city snow plows that piled the snow up into “glaciers,” making it difficult to traverse them. He called for a “kinder, more reasonable mindset.” He called for leadership that is forward-looking and fair.

Comm/Comm: Parks Volunteer Recognition

A mayoral proclamation at the start of the meeting recognized Delta Rho Chapter of the Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity as volunteers for the city’s parks program. The fraternity focuses its volunteer efforts on Liberty Plaza downtown and includes food distribution to the homeless population who frequent the park.

Present: Stephen Rapundalo, Mike Anglin, Margie Teall, Sabra Briere, Sandi Smith, Tony Derezinski, Stephen Kunselman, Marcia Higgins, John Hieftje, Christopher Taylor, Carsten Hohnke.

Next council meeting: Feb. 22, 2011 at 7 p.m. in the Washtenaw County administration building, 220 N. Main St. [confirm date]

Once the parking deck portion of the building is completed and issued a certificate of occupancy, the city of Ann Arbor has agreed to issue $9 million worth of bonds to purchase the deck, and the Ann Arbor DDA has agreed to make the payments on those bonds. The DDA board approved its part of the contract amendment at its Feb. 2, 2011 meeting.

The contract amendment comes in the context of a series of milestones that were put in place last year, when the council extended Village Green’s option to purchase the parcel at First and Washington, where City Apartments would be built. That most recent extension came at the the council’s Aug. 5, 2010 meeting, and provides a purchase option through June 1, 2011. The $3 million from the transaction would be put towards the construction fund for the city’s new municipal center, which is now largely complete and partly open for business. If the $3 million transaction does not go through, the city has said it would borrow money to cover the construction shortfall, a step that would require city council approval.

This brief was filed from the boardroom in the Washtenaw County administration building, where the council is meeting due to renovations in the city hall building. A more detailed report will follow: [link]