Arbor Update

The paper yesterday said that David’s wife, Sabra Briere, had taken out petitions for the 1st ward.

Yes, Tom is right. Sabra is circulating petitions.

Those who follow Council politics will remember that in last year’s First Ward Democratic primary, John Roberts, who was the incumbent, was beaten solidly by a newcomer, Ron Suarez.

With this history of failure, it is difficult to see how Roberts can do well this year. I can’t remember any instance in which a local incumbent defeated in a primary has come back to win later. Can anyone else?

I think back to when the council became all dems and at the time all I could think about was disaster scenarios (resolutions on the Iraq war every week, making “Inconveneient Truth” mandatory viewing for elementary students, Palestine this, environment that, greenways cris-crossing town, Sierra Club, no development, blah, blah, blah).

If there were even one lonely republican on council there would be nothing but endless 10-1 votes.

But to my astonishment, having all one party actually makes each council member think independantly! What a pleasant surprise. They actually voice their own opinions about subjects and are not just party hacks towing the line. I kind of like it now and don’t want to go back.

Sure, but I want to see Dems run opposed in primaries so the voters actually get a choice, rather than some kind of soviet-style one-party rule.

I agree with imjustsayin. Having all democrats forces voters to actually weigh credentials. I would actually support a non-partisan council like many cities.

I am glad that the council is broadly represented and that there is disagreement. In recent history, there were Dems elected to council who truly had no business overseeing the City because they had no useful skills to offer. They evidently liked being in politics, but they did nothing to help or guide the City. They had fuzzy thinking and seemed confused most of the time on t.v. Longtime Democrats would shake their heads and admit this in private. There are a number to choose from (pick your decade or ward.) (This has also been true of Republicans in the past, but there have been fewer and fewer of them to analyze.)

The “I’m the real Democrat” campaign waged in the 5th ward last year by the challenger was embarrassing, and this tactic from someone who had previously a good reputation as level headed. I don’t know why she did this. Ron Suarez’s campaign was better in that it was positive, he really didn’t discuss his opponent at all; he just said he wanted the job and would bring certain skills to the table.

I hope the caliber of candidates continues to get better. The Council as a whole seems much better than in the past. (They may be criticized on policy stands they take, but they are not the crazies of some past councils.) I hope that Republicans and independents also run—either in the Dem. primary (as Dems) or in the general election. I want the best person in, party label does not necessarily help the evaluation.

The number of people who’ve taken out petitions in the First Ward has increased to three. Meet Richard Wickboldt .

Here is Sabra’s statement of candidacy:

Bob Johnson, a principled voice of reason on Council, has decided not to run for re-election. His voice supporting parks and natural features, and respect for citizens’ needs, will be sorely missed.

I am running to take his place on City Council.

I have lived in Ann Arbor for more than half my life, and here in the First Ward for almost 21 years. I raised my son, went to school, met and married my husband, worked and shopped and rented and bought houses here. Ann Arbor is my home.

Some things make Ann Arbor unique. In our rush toward increased development, we should not lose the character that makes people want to live here instead of anywhere else. Our neighborhoods are interesting and pleasant places, not just bedroom communities. Our downtown is walkable (although we can make it more so). We are surrounded by arts, theater and music. Our citizens frequently volunteer their time to their schools, community organizations, and their city. These things enrich our community. City Council has the responsibility to keep Ann Arbor’s character in mind as it approves changes that affect us and our neighborhoods.

City Council should listen to the citizens and make certain that change benefits all of us. Big buildings in themselves add nothing to our quality of life. In a time of serious distress for our state and city, we should repair our city hall, not replace it. And if I had been on Council recently, I would have done as Bob Johnson did — worked to keep Council’s promise to increase the parks budget.

I believe in Ann Arbor’s future. The First Ward needs a new voice to speak for its neighborhoods, citizens, and small businesses. I bring a fresh perspective to the table.

I have participated in civic and community activities since shortly after I moved here. I have been precinct chair and ward chair (in the First, Fourth, and Fifth Wards), have been secretary and chair of the Ann Arbor City Party, and have worked on more campaigns than I care to count.

I am a volunteer for the Huron River Watershed Council and Ann Arbor Natural Area Preservation. I am one of the gardeners for Avalon Housing. I serve on a city committee to study whether my neighborhood should be a historic district. I have also been president of the Washtenaw Branch of the ACLU and worked in large and small capacities for issues I believe in — such as the Greenway, reproductive rights, and peace.

I have a degree in history from the University of Michigan, and work for a non-profit. My husband is a lawyer, and we live in a small, old house with three cats. Our son is grown.

This is a contested primary. For me to be effective on Council, I need to hear from you. Please call or email me with your concerns about your neighborhood. Please share your ideas for how Ann Arbor can stay the place you want to live.

Sabra Briere
995-3518
sbriere@comcast.net

After that bit if tripe, I take back my previous statement.

I agree that if you believe in big buildings as a fashion statement, Sabra is not the candidate for you.

The number of 1st Ward candidates is up to 4. Jennifer Lawter has pulled petitions. She was at Council tonight and was well-spoken.

Yes, assuming all the candidates file petitions, there will be more candidates in this primary than any other in the First Ward that I can remember. Local politics is coming alive again!

“I agree that if you believe in big buildings as a fashion statement, Sabra is not the candidate for you.”

No, she appears to be exactly the candidate for people think that buildings are primarily a fashion statement.

The rest of us thing they’re meant to be used, and that decisions to build them or not might affect, for example:

- the environment: Pushing development out to the suburbs is wasteful. And it’s meaningless to claim Ann Arbor is “walkable” if none of the trips people need to take are actually walking distance.

- equality and diversity: Restricting the supply of housing and retail space keeps prices higher than necessary. And, no, subsidizing housing for a few dozen people here and there doesn’t make up for that.

The push for development as an anti-sprawl tool seems to have been overtaken by events. The local housing industry is in serious decline, and housing prices are falling because of decreased demand.

I am also interested in the sudden conversion of two big proposed developments downtown (William Street Station and Metro 202) from condos to hotels. Isn’t this a further sign that there is not much of a market for new housing downtown after all?

David, the housing market will not be in decline forever. But unless AA is prepared to allow for more density downtown and nearby, any new housing will be out there in the county where it will create sprawl and traffic.

Just because we prepare from a planning and zoning perspective to force future growth into the city center—where it belongs—doesn’t mean that every building in town will suddenly pop up to 25 stories.

But it is bad for the environment and for the city’s economic health to encase it in amber so it will always be just like it was back then.

The either/or argument appears again! From the other side, even if we allowed 25 stories downtown, we’ll still have sprawl and traffic absent other efforts to dissudade that kind of development in the townships. Taking a position against overdevelopment in the city isn’t an endorsement for sprawl. I think there’s a healthy middle ground for downtown development that’s taller than David’s 4 stories but less than 25.

“ From the other side, even if we allowed 25 stories downtown, we’ll still have sprawl and traffic absent other efforts to dissudade that kind of development in the townships.”

Yes, there’s a “healthy middle ground”. But the problem, as you very well know, is that you can’t build in most of Ann Arbor. You can’t build in the neighborhoods. You can’t build NEAR the neighborhoods. You can’t build on the land that UMich owns. And you can’t build in any of the 17 “Historic” (snicker) districts in Ann Arbor, which is apparently the most historic city in the whole wide world.

All these set asides are perfectly fine, IMHO, if you take the damn limits off, and let developers build in one, dinky downtown area to the market needs (let the market decide? What a concept). I fail to see how this is unreasonable.

In other words, no problem, we’ll leave these areas alone. We’ll leave the parks alone, and the open space, and the farmland, and the leafy neighborhoods (hey, I kinda sound like an urban environmentalist. Shocking!), and focus on infill. So in the interest in the City as a whole, we’ll hear no griping about the few measly blocks that is Downtown Ann Arbor.

Seems like a reasonable middle ground plan to me.

Todd, one difficulty with making downtown AA a “free-fire zone” is that those few measly blocks are the psychological center of the City. People care a lot more about those blocks than they would care about a similar-sized area elsewhere in the City.

When I moved here from another part of the country, I kind of thought that downtown AA looked quaint and dumpy. If that is the psychological center of the city then we need a little renovation therapy.

Ah, good point David, and right on cue.

There you have it: not there, too. What was I thinking?

The only thing missing from Dave’s, “you can’t build anywhere, bub” statement is, “I’m all for density. But just not with this project.”

FYI, another local business casualty because of exploding rents: Back Alley Gourmet. Successful business, gone at the end of the month. Sweet.

We’re much luckier. Our rent has “only” doubled in the last 5 years.

...but hey, I’m sure that it has absolutely nothing to do with supply and demand.

Remember, kids, the laws of supply and demand don’t operate in Ann Arbor. I’ve been told that an entire section of UMich’s Economics Department has been working around the clock to try and understand this Ann Arbor economic singularity. It’s like a Bermuda Triangle that keeps cell calculators from functioning properly. Neat!

Todd, maybe your rent has doubled because your landlord recognizes what a great business you run, how many customers you have, and figures you can pay more.

With regard to density, I’m not for more of it anywhere in AA. I think the town is fine the way it is. I won’t be a hypocrite and say I’m for it, except for a particular project.

I won’t claim to be an expert in retail rental rates. I’m not. But I’ve talked with enough people who do to come to the conclusion, as Juliew did with apartment rentals, that the law of supply and demand often has little to do with the retail rental rates. Is it a factor? Sure. Is the lack of supply the only or the primary reason for rising rates? Probably not.

Heh. I know you’re being facetious, Dave, but thanks anyway.

“I think that the town is fine the way it is”. This is ok, too, Dave. All that I ask from Council and the rest of the Greenway fringe is that they understand or admit (I believe it’s the latter) that this M.O. has serious repercussions on the community.

In other words, so long as they understand that this means that:

1. The cost of living will continue to rise at a sharp rate.

2. Small and local businesses will not be able to operate here….unless, of course, they’re lucky enough to own their building.

3. The median income will go through the roof. I.E. gentrification, just like Boulder.

4. Corporations and large firms will replace the smaller companies. (this applies to your “Leopold’s landlords figures that you can afford to pay more” barb)

5. Traffic will get much, much worse

6. The ratio of jobs to residents will get much, much worse.

7. The infrastructure burden of not having the tax base to sustain all the commuters will cause taxes and fees to go way up.

8. Sprawl will accelerate

9. Parking issues will get much worse (more commuters)

....I could go on, but you get the point. Every single one of these items has already happened, as you very well know.

As long as Council and citizens know and admit that this is where we are heading, hey, that’s cool. It’s the denial that makes me so angry. This is a Republican town, and I just wish that people would stop pretending that the environment and affordability are even minor concerns.

“I won’t claim to be an expert in retail rental rates. I’m not. But I’ve talked with enough people who do to come to the conclusion, as Juliew did with apartment rentals, that the law of supply and demand often has little to do with the retail rental rates. Is it a factor? Sure. Is the lack of supply the only or the primary reason for rising rates? Probably not.”

Well, I’m not an expert either. Not even close. The businessmen and women I talk to are, though.

The reactions to an inability to build to demand are very, very predictable.

1. Rents go up. That’s the primary effect, and the one that Ann Arborites like to argue about. UMich keeps growing no matter what else is happening in the State. The demand is pretty constant, except when things like new large University buildings go in, in which case demand spikes. Those buildings have massive staffs, and ancillary service businesses that go with it. The new Life Science bldg. is an example.

2. Developers turn their capital towards buying existing space, since they can’t use it on new construction as they’d like. Look at McKinley. Snapping up existing buildings left and right. Same with Amvest. Bought our entire block

3. These same bigger players snap up the small time players. There is now less choice in the market, and as a result, the big players can sit on their rent structure, and wait for tenants to come along. Because of their sheer size, there are tax advantages for the bigger players to sit on buildings that aren’t full.

Vacancies go up, and the market appears to be down….this is when the big dogs invest by buying out the small dogs: in a “down” market when the little firms can’t sustain either the lower rents or the vacant units. (Sound familiar? An Ann Arbor news article on homeowners who can’t afford to rent their properties, perhaps?)

This is one of the larger and nastier effects of not having new construction. The big dogs just wait it out….they know that UMich will send them tenants that are willing/able to spend more, and more importantly, they know that new units are unlikely to show up because it is nearly impossible to get even a modest project approved in Ann Arbor. Obviously, given this scenario, a company that holds many, many units would be cutting their own throat if they lowered rents in the 14% or so units that are vacant. So there’s another effect.

I could go on, but you get the picture.

Building to demand slows or eliminates (most likely just slows) the above issues. It also helps to slow sprawl. Does it eliminate it? No, of course not, but it does help slow it, and it does give a city like Ann Arbor the tax and population base to fight sprawl and car use.

Todd, can you go into something a bit deeper? In post (22) you say “This is a Republican town, and I just wish that people would stop pretending that the environment and affordability are even minor concerns.” I’m just wondering what the Republican part is you’re talking about and why you don’t think the environment and affordability are major concerns. It sure seems like people are always fired up about these issues. Do you mean folks just throw those words out but don’t really mean to do the hard work and make the hard choices involved?

Disclaimer – I live in a mostly single family neighborhood fairly far from downtown. I’d rather not have anything built next to me more than 3 stories, 2-6 units if done well. But it seems to me that the thing that will make A2 more affordable and be a better use of land would be higher density and development downtown. How we draw the lines of what constitutes downtown is the crux. (We got a planning department in Ann Arbor for these things right? Professionals who’ve studied this stuff and can make semi-rational decisions away from the public fray? I swear I’ve read master plans for different parts of town when I was a failed historic preservation student.) Just for giggles, say, take Liberty from State to Main. Anything less than 2 or 3 stories around there seems a waste of land. I love me some Le Dog but I sure wouldn’t chain myself to the front of it if they wanted to knock it down for pretty much anything short of a slaughter house.

It’s an oversimplification I know but we live in a two dimensional world – build up or out. Infill doesn’t just mean an empty field next to other stuff in my mind. Not everything on Liberty strikes me as Penn Station – swing the big wreaking ball if it’ll help this town and region.

Not to put words in Todd’s mouth (he’s more than capable of speaking for himself), but I what think frustrates him is what frustrates me: AA-ites talk a good game about “progressive” values like affordability and anti-sprawl, but in practice do everything they can to thwart thses things. In addition to the “don’t build nothin’ nowhere” attitude Todd mentions, the defeat a few years ago of the accessory dwelling unit ordinance, which would have allowed people add small apartments to their homes and rent them out, shows how AA residents really feel about affordability. They are very conservative about these things.

Ah, got ya Tom. Little c (as in chicken-) conservative; crap like “they ruined UM when they let in women at the Michigan Union” and “in my day we all mowed our lawn on Saturday afternoons and children respected their elders” with a 60’s twist. Maybe I’m a hippy Republican (my Oakland county Republican friends sure think so) but affordable housing, the accessory dwelling unit ordinance, and fighting sprawl don’t seem like progressive ideas (unless you mean old school TR type progressivism), they just seem common sense. Again, how we go about resolving these things is open to debate and compromise but what I guess I find so frustrating in this town is people think if you put a sign in your yard for something or shop at Whole Foods you’ve done your part and anyone who doesn’t is a moral and political Neanderthal.

In my house, we call Whole Foods “Whole Paycheck.”

FYI, another local business casualty because of exploding rents: Back Alley Gourmet. Successful business, gone at the end of the month. Sweet.

Just a note on this comment. I have lived two blocks from Back Alley Gourmet for eleven years now. I have been there maybe a total of a dozen times—maybe. I guess some people must have liked it, but I’ve never heard anyone recommend it or even remember it was there. The employees are always standoffish, the food expensive for what it was, and it just wasn’t welcoming. It has been a weird fit there for some time. The owners supposedly had personality problems with others in the South Main Market and during the renovations last year, there were some issues with their space which resulted in the Main Street facing part of the market being mostly empty. So I don’t think it is a great fit anymore and I’m not upset to see them go. On the other hand, South Main Market now has Copernicus East European Market and Anthony’s Pizza, with Happys Pizza across the street, and the Bird of Paradise going in where Neutral Zone was. So that area is actually booming right now. I’m not sure Back Alley Gourmet’s rent increase wasn’t actually designed to make them leave.

As for the other comments, I think the mistake here is to think anything new proposed is good and anything existing is bad. I also laugh at the idea of “building density.” You build housing units, people have to live in them to have density. You have to build the right building in the right place. If you build a building for college students that is too far from campus, you will get a big empty building. Is that the right thing to do? (William Street Station and Metro 202 are most likely going to end up as hotels and Citi Centre Lofts has changed from condos to apartments so people aren’t exactly flocking to the residential downtown now.) No one said the Elks couldn’t build on that lot. What they said was, we don’t want “that building” on this lot. The trouble in Ann Arbor is that the conversation about what is good or bad comes at the very end of the process rather than the beginning so everyone has too much at stake to back down or compromise. If these conversations happened earlier in the process and it wasn’t dragged out so much by Staff, then Planning Commission, then City Council, there would be better outcomes. We need a better process. That process will result in buildings that are better for the city, the neighbors, and the developers.

What is particularly funny to me about all of the “anti-Ann Arborite sentiment” is that I can’t think of a new residential building proposed for downtown that has not been approved. So yes, the process is broken, because it takes too long and results in crappy buildings with no real input from the people most affected, but most buildings ultimately get approved, regardless of how good they are or if they fit the area. Right now, the biggest restriction of buildings downtown has been the economy. Ashley Mews, Loft 322, Cornerhouse Lofts, Tierra, First and William, Metro 202, Ashley Terrace, Kingsley Lane, Liberty Lofts, Zaragon Place, Citi Centre Lofts, William Street Station, The Gallery, have all been approved and those are just downtown. There are many more within the city limits that have been approved. Even Glen-Ann was approved by Council—it was only shot down by the Historic District. Why was the Kline’s lot RFP pulled? Because they only got three, not very great proposals for the First and William site. So show me all the shot-down proposals for construction downtown ‘cause I’m just not seeing them.

Todd, your scenarios all rely on the unstated premise that Ann Arbor is a boom town with huge unmet demand for various stuff.

The brutal reality is that this premise was never so, except in the mind of people paid to create pro-build fantasies (like Calthorpe).

For the past 30 years, the population has been almost steady. I don’t see slavering hordes of people camping out in parks, waiting for housing or commercial space to open up. And with the loss of Pfizer, you won’t see a boom here any time soon. Think ten years at the earliest.

“AA-ites talk a good game about “progressive” values like affordability and anti-sprawl, but in practice do everything they can to thwart thses things”

As I mentioned before, this is demonstrably wrong. How many other communities make any effort to provide affordable housing? Troy? West Bloomfield? How many communities are making an effort to build transit both within their community and regionally? Trains to Rochester Hills? Farmington Hills? Any communities out there working to preserve agricultural property? To claim that Ann Arbor is doing nothing about affordability or sprawl is rhetoric, not fact. That doesn’t mean that the city couldn’t be doing more. It can. But let’s start from reality, not by throwing bombs.

“I can’t think of a new residential building proposed for downtown that has not been approved.”

Once the project is to the point of getting to city council, presumably there’s enough invested in it that they’ll modify it if at all possible to get it through. The argument as I understand it is not that nothing gets approved, but that the expense and uncertainty required to meet the requirements that come up mandates much higher-end projects than we’d otherwise see. Sounds plausible to me.

But, hey, maybe it’s wrong. I could be convinced, but arguments that depend on metrics like whether there exist “slavering hordes of people camping out in parks, waiting for housing or commercial space” aren’t helping me much.

Well, quite a few to respond to. I’ll start with JohnQ.

The affordable housing funds that you speak of comes from sticking it to new arrivals, John. New development pays into the fund, and those costs are passed along to the new tenants. The rest of Ann Arbor doesn’t have to put in cent one. It’s like financial hazing. It’s pretty easy to be a good Samaritan when you’re using someone else’s checkbook. Ask a council member what happened when they tried to spread that cost to all taxpayers in Ann Arbor. I was surprised by the answer. I’m certain you would be, too. (this answers Thomas’ question about my Republican assertion…as in “Hey this makes me look like I’m paying for affordable housing, and yet I don’t have to put in any money?! Sign me up!” This can be extended to the Greenway, another Republican-like perq in that it just so happens to run right by the homes of its biggest advocates.)

Dave, Dave, Dave. I love this circular logic. The man who is trying with all his heart and soul to ban new development swears up and down that there’s no demand. Huh? So if there’s no demand, why do you need to keep developers from building?

More to the point, yep, you are right, the Ann Arbor population has stayed the same over that 5 year span the Census reported. Riddle me this: how many people has the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor campus added in students, staff, and faculty in that same amount of time?

A little over 2,000. So without looking at any other increases in jobs because of UMich growth (like a couple new Zingerman’s hires to take care of increased catering orders). What you are trying to tell the peanut gallery is that not one single solitary new person wanted to live in Ann Arbor near the campus, and that explains why the population is the same. (yeah some people left Ann Arbor in that time period, too, but get serious).....and all this data is BEFORE Pfizer took a powder. But all of this is Sound and Fury, Dave. If you think that there’s no demand…open up the market, and you shouldn’t have to worry about anything happening.

Julie, we’ve discussed this before, but I think that I can answer your question in another way. Remember Wendy Rampson’s angry question to the Mayor? How tall? The Mayor said we’ll find out soon? Ok. When this question is answered for the DDA area, and developers know 100% for sure that they aren’t going to make it through the process quickly and efficiently, with transparency all the way…..within 12 months of the announcement there will be more permits pulled for the downtown area than at any time in the history of the City. I’d wager $500 on that. The trick is, there has to be 100% certainty that citizens have no chance of killing a project at the end like the Elks project…..

Bruce is right, a project that has had made it through the whole process, but then has stories lopped off by Council is a denial in my book. I’ve said this before. Much of the old guard has been patiently waiting for Council to bring clarity to the zoning and approval process. They’ve seen their peers get their financial asses handed to them on live TV (“we’re on tv?!?!) for years. Just because a project makes it through, doesn’t mean that a developer didn’t lose his shirt in the process (and, of course, pass most of the hurt along to their new tenants).

Make the process transparent as you’ve been advocating, Julie, (it’s so nice to have you aboard) and you’ll be surprised at how much demand the developers in this town think the market has built up. The risk of the unknown is keeping them from risking their capital.

I really think that you’re going to be surprised by what happens when these roadblocks are pulled, Julie. You’ll find out real quick that it isn’t the economy that’s the big deterrent to new construction.

Just one man’s opinion

One other point….the average size of a household in AA has dropped from 2.32 to 2.22 people between 1990 and 2000. That means more housing units needed to house the same number of people.

The fact that the population has not boomed doesn’t mean there’s no demand for housing, particularly housing for small households, or singles.

Whatever Troy or West Bloomfield are or are not doing with regard to affordability are irrelevant to Ann Arbor’s claims to value it and its practice of thwarting it. As Todd pointed out, Ann Arbor’s method of promoting affordability consists of coercing developers to set aside some token units for people of moderate incomes or paying into some fund (what’s being done with that money, anyway?). Balance this against the defeat of ADUs, the scattering of the residents of the old Y to places outside of Ann Arbor with some vague plan to eventually bring them back, the strong resistance to the Carrot Way project (conveniently located on the edge of town), the inability of Habitat for Humanity to build in AA, and what I see is mere lip service to affordability.

As for preservation of farmland, voters in Ann Arbor Twp passed a special tax to set up a fund to purchase PDRs for the preservation of agriculture land. AA Twp, along with the city of Ann Arbor’s greenbelt program and the US Dept. of Agriculture, recently made its first purchase with this fund. One or two other townships (I can’t remember which ones) have set up similar funds. But it is not clear to me that preservation of agricultural land will do much to deter sprawl.

todd wrote: “When this question is answered for the DDA area, and developers know 100% for sure that they aren’t going to make it through the process quickly and efficiently, with transparency all the way…..within 12 months of the announcement there will be more permits pulled for the downtown area than at any time in the history of the City. I’d wager $500 on that.”

I’m all for more wagering on AU … and didn’t someone a while back say there might be contests and prizes we could look forward to? ... because the dot com domain name of AU is zoned as consistent with that use of electronic real estate (it’s not arborupdate.org) But I don’t understand the premise of the wager. Did you mean to write “ARE going to make it through the process”?

Also the phrase “any time in the history of the City” will require some clarification. Do you mean any calendar year, or any twelve-month window … and can that window be in an interior bedroom?

Finally, the amount of the proposed wager is, I feel, out of scale with the economic means of most of the readership of AU. It’s out of scale with my economic means certainly. Like I said above, though, I’m not against wagering on AU, I’m just against this particular wager.

So, todd, please revise and clarify the terms of your wager and resubmit your proposal.

Ha. If only I would read Arbor Update , I would learn that Webster and Scio twps both have land preservation millages.

HD,

Yep. That’s supposed to read “ARE going to…..”. Sigh. Spectacular syntax on my part, as per usual.

To answer your question, the “window” in question is not an interior bedroom window. It is one of those shuttered storm windows. You know: for storms.

Hope that helps.

The wager. Hmmm. Well, I could make it a single cone at the Dairy for the victor. A double if the wager ends in the wintertime. But I should say, if you’re confident in the outcome of a bet, the amount shouldn’t matter, no?

I’d rather wager that Julie’s going to run next time around. What gives, Julie???? No hat in the ring this year? I’ll buy the hat, you know.

You’re on your own for buying the ring. Sorry.

Tom,

The Greenbelt millage has paid for PDR on AG lands besides the Ann Arbor Township farm that you mentioned. These include farmland in Superior, Salem and Webster townships. As you linked to above, another 500+ acres will be protected with the assistance of the latest round of federal grants. By working with the participating townships, the city will be able to expand the number of properties that can be protected by pooling dollars. As you know, those millage both inside and outside the city were voter approved and represent a significant investment in the preservation of AG land.

juliew wrote. “The trouble in Ann Arbor is that the conversation about what is good or bad comes at the very end of the process rather than the beginning so everyone has too much at stake to back down or compromise. If these conversations happened earlier in the process and it wasn’t dragged out so much by Staff, then Planning Commission, then City Council, there would be better outcomes. We need a better process. That process will result in buildings that are better for the city, the neighbors, and the developers.”

Julie, I agree with your conclusion but might state things a little differently. I would add that a lot of people involved in the process think that we do talk about projects early; as a matter of fact we do, just with the wrong people. There is clearly a disconnect between staff, Planning Commission and Council, evidenced by the fact that projects have received support from the staff, and unanimous approval from the PC, and were still turned down by Council. You know that these developers were working with staff the whole time and were still ‘gonged’.

We do need a better process and the first step is to get on the same page. The politicians should make known to the staff and the PC the kinds of projects they can and cannot support so that they (the PC and staff) can be more helpful when they do talk to prospective developers. I would ask that candidates for council commit to some kind a development plan for the city as I do not agree with Mr. Cahill that the city can or should remain static.

Mr. Cahill wrote, “For the past 30 years, the population has been almost steady.” And todd wrote, “…you are right, the Ann Arbor population has stayed the same over that 5 year span the Census reported.”

Now maybe todd meant 30 years but whatever… what I didn’t read, and maybe I missed it, is what happened and is continuing to happen in the surrounding townships during that time. People say things like, “With regard to density, I’m not for more of it anywhere [emphasis added] in AA.” But do they mean the City of Ann Arbor, the Ann Arbor region, the county, what? If Mr. Cahill only means the City of Ann Arbor, does he not care about the sprawl that has been occurring within the surrounding townships for the last 30 years? Sorry for the crude link but look at what has been occurring outside of the City limits.

http://www.ewashtenaw.org/government/content/pl_demographics.pdf

Notice that Pittsfield, Scio and Ypsilanti Townships have all grown a lot. So todd, as you know, there is demand, it has just gone elsewhere when it should in fact have come, at least in part, to the city.

abc,

We do need a better process … The politicians should make known to the staff and the PC the kinds of projects they can and cannot support so that they (the PC and staff) can be more helpful when they do talk to prospective developers.

The problem is, what does staff say to developers? “Here’s what the zoning ordinance and master plan say, so that’s what we, as staff, can support. Here are the standards that Planning Commission decisions are based on, so you can probably expect that they’ll have issues with this and that, based on this standard here. And, when you get to Council, well, they’ve said they don’t like your project even if you follow all of these standards. So good luck with that.”

The politicians don’t need to “make known to staff and PC” what kinds of projects they like – they need to set the master plans and zoning ordinance to create the kinds of projects they like. (And, once they’ve done that, why do they need to actually see the projects? The very presence of Council in the process shows that the rules are broken.)

As for council candidates committing to some sort of plan – the City already has Master Plans (and Master Natural Feature Plans, and Master Transportation Plans, and so forth). Council candidates should not be directly linked to development plans – we’re going to end up with everything proposed in 2008 being 4 stories tall, and then an election, and then everything proposed in 2009 being 12 stories tall, and then an election, and everything proposed in 2010 being 6 stories tall…

The purpose of /planning/ is to prevent the shape of the city from being dictated by the whim of Council, which is in turn dictated by whomever is angry enough to get out the vote. (Do you want your city’s form to be a result of fear and anger? Ehhh, not me.) We have Planning Commissions appointed to multi-year terms so that they can smooth over the sharp changes in elected officials’ moods, and we have Master Plans that look out 10-20 years to smooth things even further.

As Juliew mentions, there’s been a lot of development approved in the last 3-4 years in downtown Ann Arbor! This is exactly what I don’t want – years of pent-up demand suddenly finding a favorable political climate, which triggers a burst of development, some of which may not be purely rational, as David C. fears, which leads to anti-development, build-nothing backlash, and another sudden change of Council to lock down on development again. (Council membership doesn’t actually have to change for Council’s mood to shift dramatically – even the credible threat of electoral backlash is often enough to do the trick.)

If A2 had a good development process, we wouldn’t have seen so much construction downtown in the past few years – because we would have seen a few more buildings go up in the ’90s, and a few developers might have waited a few more years, rather than suddenly everybody rushing to get in the development door for the moment that it was swung open.

Elected officials are fickle – there are much better ways to have community participation in the planning process than taking everything to Council.

Murph, I agree with you completely. My comments about the development plans are because council is involved in the process and has not been communicating with the standard tools, Zoning and Master Plan language etc. I fully support getting Council out of the way but, do you see that happening overnight? I am having a hard time seeing politicians giving up control, even when it is the absolute right thing to do.

Todd, let me remind you, to paraphrase the late unlamented Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld, “As you know, you have to go to war with the David Cahill you have, not the David Cahill you want.”

I am not working to stop all development. Did I show up at the Avery House hearing, rending my garments? N-o-o. It has been several years since I spoke to Council about development. Plus, as every schoolchild knows, I am a member of the Library Board, and we have built two big new libraries to replace embarrassingly inadequate facilities, with a third on the way.

So you may call me “Dave the Developer.” 8-)

Please focus on reality, rather than your own paranoia.

With regard to the planning process, people are right about last-minute turn-downs. They are bad for the developers, and they are bad for neighborhoods, which have to rely on the “politics of mass mobilization.”

A year or so ago, here on Arbor Update, Jennifer Hall was pushing a procedure which is used elsewhere, and which requires that neighborhoods be brought into the process formally at the earliest stage. Then Jennifer was elevated to the DDA, so I guess her idea died. I would actively support such an idea.

Cahill built two suburban-style libraries out in stripmallville while threatening to shutter the downtown branch. That’s pretty consistent with the consensus assessment that he’s ruining downtown while promoting sprawl.

David, I think the neighborhoods should be part of creating the zoning policies that affect things broadly. But I don’t think neighborhoods should have the power to shoot down individual developments that already fit into a zoning/master plan.

And, with community spirit in mind, just because I want things to stay the same forever doesn’t mean that it is good for my fellow citizens who have an equal stake in the overall health of the community. The good of the one, versus the good of the many.

It’s bad for the community to have sprawling housing projects springing up around the city like so many patches of daisies. It creates traffic and sprawl. It sends retail out to strip malls and jobs into roadside office parks.

There is demand to live here. But AA won’t accommodate new citizens with denser housing. It’s our loss.

Let’s not confuse projects that meet the zoning and master plan and get denied by Council and those that are seeking approval despite the fact that they don’t meet the zoning and/or master plan but the developer thinks he/she can make the case to Council while they should be the exception. The Elks Lodge development fit that category. The project didn’t meet the zoning requirements. So Council had every right to deny the project. How many projects have come forward that did meet all of the rules and were still denied by Council? I’m guessing very few because someone who fit into that category would have a strong case for going to court. The city isn’t required to approve those projects going through the PUD process.

I stated before that I think projects that are going through the PUD process should get Council sign-off on the concept before ever proceeding through the development process. The Council and developer should sign off on an agreement that outlines the parameters of the development with the understanding that if those parameters are met at the end of the process, the project gets approved. Those projects properly involve the Council as they require value judgments about when/where/why exceptions should be made to the zoning ordinance. I don’t think those decisions should be left in the hands of an unelected commission, no matter how experienced or bright the members may be.

One last thing, you said “The purpose of /planning/ is to prevent the shape of the city from being dictated by the whim of Council, which is in turn dictated by whomever is angry enough to get out the vote.” I have to disagree with that. The purpose of planning is to ensure that the development that takes place in a community reflects the views and values of the community while according property owners and developers their rights to lawfully develop their properties. When the “planning” whether it be the plans or staff or process no longer reflect the views and values of the community, it’s the plans or staff or process that needs to change. If you disagree, then educate the community why your view is better than theirs.

I see PSD is having difficulties with reality again. Check out the location of the Malletts Creek and Pittsfield branches; hardly stripmallville. In fact, the building that Malletts creek replaced was in a strip mall. Plus, the now-building Northeast Branch is cleverly being built into a hill at Traverwood and Huron Parkway.

The designs of all these buildings are extremely advanced and environmentally friendly. Who could ask for more?

Murph: “As Juliew mentions, there’s been a lot of development approved in the last 3-4 years in downtown Ann Arbor! This is exactly what I don’t want – years of pent-up demand suddenly finding a favorable political climate, which triggers a burst of development, some of which may not be purely rational, as David C. fears, which leads to anti-development, build-nothing backlash, and another sudden change of Council to lock down on development again.”

Ding-Ding-Ding!!! Murph gets it. This is not a good situation. Developers saw a window when Calthorpe started, and Council began to state in public that development has been stifled for a number of years, and that zoning needed some serious overhaul. They took advantage of the opening, and a mess of plans were submitted. Some were severely modified before approval, some are still screwing around with the process…..but many did, indeed, pass.

The problem with this is that it is 2007, and our cutting edge city is still not working from a usable Master Plan. There’s an adage in Urban Planning, and Murph, you’ve probably heard this. “There are beautiful Master Plans gathering dust all around the country”. The complete Master Plan needs input from citizens, and needs to include modern zoning rules, transportation plans and the like, and then the Planning and Building Department need to be left to execute and interpret the plan. No more citizen interference on individual projects. No more votes on projects by Council. Hell, the length of Council meetings will be cut by 3/4.

If I had to choose between unlimited building heights in the DDA area with no planning, and a David Cahill mandated 4 story max and a well-thought out Master Plan that we actually use.....I’d choose the Cahill Master Plan every time. However, I see no indication that this will ever happen in Ann Arbor. A Master Plan would avoid sadly comedic episodes like where Council realized that “hey, parking has a value here in Ann Arbor, and, frankly, we don’t even know how much parking we have, and it’s 2006”.

A Master Plan would have already forecast when we needed new parking structures, when we could afford things like park and rides, and how we could encourage projects, and locations for projects, that would encourage less car use. A Master Plan would have planned for Google, and other companies of their size. I mean, is it REALLY that inconceivable that another large company would choose to put a hub in Ann Arbor? I don’t think so. What are we going to do when that happens? The current answer right now seems to be “panic”.

Murph “If A2 had a good development process, we wouldn’t have seen so much construction downtown in the past few years – because we would have seen a few more buildings go up in the ’90s, and a few developers might have waited a few more years, rather than suddenly everybody rushing to get in the development door for the moment that it was swung open.”

That’s 100% correct again, Murph. A good Master Plan and transparent process would make the applications of new projects come in at a much slower and more predictable rate. To respond to Dave’s question, I don’t think that there’s this huge, huge demand to live in Ann Arbor. What I think is that there has been a steady demand for housing and commercial space in downtown Ann Arbor, but the new supply has been stifled and has not kept pace with this demand. And this steady demand comes mainly from the University of Michigan’s housing and commercial needs. The pent up demand has created a difficult business environment in Ann Arbor. Fees are up, rents are up, the tax burden is greater, and feet on the street are down because those who live outside of Ann Arbor and commute in for work/school have little reason to stay after 5pm.

Unfortunately, the difficult building environment has made land really expensive, which in turn has made it difficult for developers to put together shorter projects because the height of the building has to pay off the really expensive footprint that the building sits on.

It’s an ugly, ugly cycle.

The window that I mentioned above made some of the developers hurry projects through more because of the thought of, “If I don’t send this through now, I’ll never get it through”. This is a distortion of the market. Construction should happen because of demand, not because of political shortcomings regarding development. This can lead to bad projects and empty new buildings.

Dave, the new libraries are way cool. You should be proud of the hand you had in making them happen. I think that most here, however, would like to see that a centralized downtown location exists for years to come….

Thanks, todd!

The Library Board retained a nationally-known consultant to evaluate options for the Downtown Library. The report is due at our July meeting.

The purpose of planning is to ensure that the development that takes place in a community reflects the views and values of the community while according property owners and developers their rights to lawfully develop their properties. When the “planning” whether it be the plans or staff or process no longer reflect the views and values of the community, it’s the plans or staff or process that needs to change.

John Q, you don’t disagree with me at all! Look just a little higher in my comment from what you’re “disagreeing” with: [elected officials] need to set the master plans and zoning ordinance to create the kinds of projects they like.

Does that sound like I’m saying, “Hey, Council, just butt out,”? I hope not! When the plans disagree with with the values of the community and their vision of what they’d like their community to look like in a decade, then changing the plans is exactly the right thing to do.

And, yes, certainly, there’s an aspect of educating the community during that process – my favorite part of the Calthorpe process was bringing nationally known experts on traffic congestion, retail community health, and so on to town to speak. Any planning process that ends with everybody holding the same assumptions they had when they started didn’t work – community members should be learning from each other and from trained planners as they work to shape their plans.

I’m not saying “participation is bad”. Far from it. (I’m pro-participation enough that I almost got an MSW in community organizing, actually, but figured that one masters with a couple extra classes would be plenty of tuition, thanks.) A plan that does not have genuine community involvement that is both broad (includes a wide diversity of positions) and deep (the involvement actually shapes the plan in a real way) is hardly a legitimate plan. A2’s development process doesn’t pain me because it has “too much participation”, but because it doesn’t have enough quality participation.

That’s what I liked least about the Calthorpe plan – watching organized groups of greenway advocates, literally wearing their assumptions on their sleeves, coordinating their sign-in so that they could ensure one of them was assigned to each table in order to exploit the consensus process and ensure that nothing could be done without a greenway being laid down first. That kind of tactic prevents genuine community participation.

I’m currently re-reading Stoecker’s Defending Community: The Struggle for Alternative Redevelopment in Cedar-Riverside and would recommend it to you. It’s a case study of a neighborhood fighting back against “urban renewal”, gaining control of HUD redevelopment funds, and planning and executing their own redevelopment process. The (20-year) process it details is a good foil to the idea that Ann Arbor’s process is “participation”.

Murph, I don’t think criticizing Greenway advocates should be your strong suit. After all, a whole pile of urban planning students, with a vested interest in local jobs, also was organized and came to the Calthorpe meetings.

My concern with Calthorpe is that the fix was in: You hire a firm with a reputation for mixed-used plans, use wild-eyed population projections, ignore much of what was said at the meetings, and voila! A plan calling for a bunch of new development.

AA has routinely ignored its existing master plan (which contains a variety of subplans) in order to foment development. I think a more effective way of creating broad and deep participation would be to bring affected neighborhoods in early on big projects.

“AA has routinely ignored its existing master plan (which contains a variety of subplans) in order to foment development.”

Really? Give examples of that. Considering how noisy some people are to density in the outlying areas, I’ve been surprised at how aggressively the city pushes that in their master plans. The city doesn’t need to ignore the master plans to “foment development”, the outline for it is right there in the plans.

Broadway Village and the Gallery are the two examples which come immediately to mind.

Oop! Sorry for the double comment. Some kind of data error.

I forgot to mention one more thing about the current planning process (including all the ordinances governing it). If a developer uses a Planned Project or a Planned Unit Development approach, then important parts of the zoning rules, especially including height, don’t apply.

So right now, the height rules have an important postscript: “ha ha, these can be ignored by a clever developer.”

Yes, the process is “broken”. One possible fix is the abolition of developers’ tricks that render height rules meaningless.

Thought you all might enjoy this. Recognize anyone? Or project?

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/shitty_neighborhood_rallies?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

Yet nobody in the City of Ann Arbor can tell the University of Michigan what they can build or knock down, they just do what they want – the citizens be damned! What “process” do you suggest for UofM??

From outside A2:

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/business/20070624_Suburban_sprawl_reaching_new_heights.html

Catching up to all this: As noted, the Greenbelt commission has made several purchases with many more in the offing. In fact, last year was the best ever for land preservation in Washtenaw Cty.

City council does approve affordable housing besides Carrot Way whenever they can but you have to pay attention to the meetings… the paper does not report it. At the last meeting they approved 30 or 40 units(?) for families at 60 and 50% of median income and there have been others since the Stone School town homes were built a couple of years ago along the same lines. In Michigan, cities cannot mandate AF housing.

All of the residents from the old Y will be relocated in A2 unless they want to live somewhere else, by the end of July. Something like 90% have already moved. (Again, you need to watch the meetings, the paper does not carry information unless there is some kind of disagreement or fight.)

Sorry to disagree with many but the decision on Avery House was the correct one IMO. For a few years now, the mayor and council have been saying “let’s have more development downtown” to spur business and preserve it as a business district. Avery house was a long way from downtown or even the “fringe.” It was way to big for the site.

Raciest? Ridiculous, at least 4 of the speakers against the project were African American’s who lived very nearby. As someone said, if this had been the “White” Elks, the proposal would have been thrown out long before.

It seems strange to me when some here advocate for decisions that do not take the neighborhood’s feelings into account. I agree with the mayor’s long time respect for the right of neighborhoods to self determination unless there is some overriding community good to be had. These are the people who have been paying the taxes and upholding the city for years.

Is the system broke? Like the paper, people tend to only talk about the few developments that don’t make it. It appears to me that 95% are approved if they make it to the planning commission and even then, look at Zaragon, it was turned down at PC and approved for legal reasons at council but still, approved.

LauraB, you bring up an interesting point that I can beat Juliew to. As I remember, 828 Greene was a similar case – the PC voted it down, but Council passed it on the “we can’t legally reject it” plea.

If the PC were the final word, Zaragon and 828 Greene would have been toast. This is why I think the system is broken – not because it comes to some conclusion I don’t like, but because it’s about as predictable as a magic 8 ball.

Murph, I don’t think criticizing Greenway advocates should be your strong suit. After all, a whole pile of urban planning students, with a vested interest in local jobs, also was organized and came to the Calthorpe meetings.

That’s funny, David. And I mean “funny ha ha”. I seem to remember “organizing” most of those students, of which there were maybe 6 or 8, because I’d heard the workshops were in need of table facilitators. You know, those folks who were at each table to neutrally explain the process rather than advocate for anything? (Some of whom reported being shouted down by Greenway advocates who told them they had no right to participate in a community process, by merit of being students, let alone help facilitate it.)

The bit about a vested interest in local jobs is entertaining too. Even setting aside the fact that the wild majority of UM urban planning students don’t even bother to look for jobs in Michigan, Ann Arbor’s been shrinking its staff over the last several years, even as we’ve seen this spurt of downtown construction – I don’t think Calthorpe’s creating any City of Ann Arbor jobs for freshfaced young planning grads. (And, if you meant “jobs with developers”, well, nothing like A2’s byzantine process to guarantee job security for a planner who can navigate it!)

Can anyone tell me which councilmember is up for re-election in the 5th ward – isn’t it Woods? I’ve seen signs for another candidate, Mike Angli (?) but don’t know anything about him. (strangely, the AA City website doesn’t seem to list when terms are up. I can’t find it anywhere.)

As an aside, the idea of UM planning grads finding work in Michigan, let alone within AA, is simply laughable. Most everyone I knew in school has left the state, especially to the coasts and southwest.

“Can anyone tell me which councilmember is up for re-election in the 5th ward – isn’t it Woods?”

Yes.

5th Ward candidates for the Dems primary, from today’s A2 News:

——-
Michael Anglin
Age: 62.
Community involvement: Has spoken on many topics over the past few years at City Council meetings.
What he says: Anglin, who operates a bed and breakfast out of his Ann Arbor home, said he was prompted to run because he doesn’t believe the city considers citizen input in its final decisions. He said he wants “the citizens to sit at the table as partners, not as observers.” He also wants a more comprehensive city environmental management plan.

Wendy Woods (incumbent)
Age: 58.
Community involvement: Appointed to the City Council in January 2001. Serves on the Planning Commission and the Environmental Commission.
What she says: Woods said she has council experience and good leadership, which is important as the city faces financial obstacles. “We need people who have looked at these issues and have looked at a myriad of issues,” she said.
——-

Murph, there were many more than 6 to 8 urban planning students at the Calthorpe workshops. I heard that professors organized them to come.

Later, at the Council hearings, Dale Winling testified that a bunch of students were there and hoped to find work on AA projects.

I’m not saying this was evil. Everyone has a right to advocate for his/her interests, whatever they may be. That’s politics!

Does anyone know if Anglin was involved in last year’s primary campaign for either candidate or does he have more of an independent background? I’ve not really heard of him. Does he have a website?

Mike Anglin’s website is http://voteformike.org.

“Does anyone know if Anglin was involved in last year’s primary campaign for either candidate or does he have more of an independent background?”

He is a close neighbor of Sonja Schmerl and was involved in her campaign (he might have managed it).

Anglin is also backed by the same “full scale” greenway group as Schmerl. Let’s hope he runs a cleaner campaign.

“As I remember, 828 Greene was a similar case – the PC voted it down, but Council passed it on the “we can’t legally reject it” plea.

If the PC were the final word, Zaragon and 828 Greene would have been toast.”

If that’s the case, then the final word would be in Circuit Court. Since the Council does have the final word, I would guess that the City’s legal staff doesn’t have the same concerns about a PC rejection that they would if the next step after voting “no” would lead to litigation.

David Cahill — you are a liar. Period.

I saw him speak reasonably on cable I think, so I’m sorry to hear Anglins was involved in last years election campaign like that. It will be difficult to attempt that with Woods who seems to do well in 5th Ward and seems well spoken.

Dale, it appears you have a sad case of young-adult memory loss.

Today’s AA News reports that the Census Bureau says Ann Arbor City shrank in population from 114,024 in 2000 to 113,206 in 2006. Quod erat demonstrandum.

In other primary news, the First Ward Dems had a meeting yesterday evening to meet the candidates. Sabra Briere and Richard Wickboldt were there; John “The Potted Plant” Roberts was not. Plus, Roberts is not coming to the July 14 candidates forum.

The entire phrase is:

“This shifting population pattern occurred in all of the state’s major cities. Villages or smaller cities on the outskirts of Ann Arbor, Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo and Lansing all grew, while the central cities shrunk between 2000 and 2006.

Nowhere is that pattern clearer than in the Ann Arbor area. Communities such as Chelsea, Dexter and Saline all saw population increases over that six-year period, while the city of Ann Arbor shrank slightly from 114,024 in 2000 to 113,206 to 2006.”

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

For Dave (who’s apparently fond of Latin)

Population drop in Ann Arbor:

Cui prodest scelus is fecit

I believe that all of these numbers are estimates so while Ann Arbor may have seen its population drop, it’s also possible that the population has been unchanged or even increased. We won’t really know until the “real” census is done in 2010.

John Q.

Maybe so but… whether the city has grown or not does not seem to be the issue. The issue seems to be that some are arguing that there is demand to live and work here (here being the Ann Arbor region) and others are saying that there is no demand. It is clear from the census data, going back years that the surrounding areas have grown substantially despite static city growth; we need not wait until 2010 to acknowledge that. Whether this growth trend in the townships will continue at past rates can be argued. But the past growth in the surrounding areas is well known proving that there has been, and may still be, demand here. The supply however, based on the city’s lack of growth, has only been addressed by the townships.

At the core is the city’s political desire (or lack of it) to embrace its role as the center of this urban area and in that role how will they handle themselves with respect to development.

We continue to go around on this because a particular contributor likes to simply say that Ann Arbor shrank, or has not grown, without clarification as to what exactly constitutes ‘Ann Arbor’. (The recent post does say Ann Arbor City but post #29 for example is silent on that critical distinction). This then becomes the justification for the logical fallacy that we need not be concerned about development or density, because all is fine within our myopic world.

Abc, you’ve got it backwards. Growth in the townships, but not in the City itself, shows that there is demand in the townships, but not in the City itself. The townships and the City are separate markets.

Mr. Cahill that is BS, they are not separate markets. The lines and the colored areas are only on maps; I have never noticed them as I drive around.

If you detached Pittsfield or Scio etc. from the city and the university and shipped them 100 miles north they would be very different places, if they could exist at all. Located, for example, in the many industrial parks that surround Ann Arbor, which are not within the city limits, are a number of engineering and research firms that do a ton of work, for and within, the city and / or with the university. Also, located just outside the city’s limits are most of the car dealers (yes there are still a few within the city). The City of Ann Arbor also has no Meier’s, Target, Home Depot, Lowes or Wal-Mart. And we only need to think back a few months when Google announced that they were looking to establish an office in ‘Ann Arbor’ they were immediately courted by the Townships to locate there.

Many city residents buy their cars on Jackson Road (Scio Twp.) and shop on Ann Arbor Saline Road (Scio Twp.) or Carpenter Road (Pittsfield Twp) and work in Avis Farms (Pittsfield Twp). It is naïve to say these are separate markets.

Mr. Cahill, are you saying that you spend no money outside of city limits? Even if you could answer yes that is not true for me, even though I try, and I am sure for most that live here.

Plainly the City and the townships are not separate markets for consumer or business transactions. They are, however, separate markets for those looking for real estate, either housing or commercial.

If you can get by with limited square footage, you can locate in the City. If you need lots of square footage, then the townships are for you.

I think what you really mean is that if you can afford a high premium per square foot for a central Ann Arbor location, then downtown Ann Arbor and its surrounding areas are for you. There are both small and large residences and commercial spaces within and adjacent to Ann Arbor. I don’t think the people in Ann Arbor Hills go around thinking, “Gee, I’m really glad I only needed a two bedroom apartment, so I moved to Ann Arbor,” and similarly, the residents in Carrot Way aren’t exactly deciding how to furnish their 3000 sq foot colonials. I’m in the middle position. Should I move from my current residence at the edge of the city, which costs about $150/sq foot, to a more central location where the costs are about $300/sq foot?

The Dave Cahill who’s ordinarily merely a mendacious putz has morphed once again into Napoleon the Pig

Must be campaign season.

Oink, Dave, oink.

Caesir si viverit, ad remum dareris.

“Caesar”, and “viveret”. Your Latin spellcheck is off.

This is the Internet. Spell checkers are not allowed.

Yes it is campaign season and I guess that is my queue to complete the metamorphous into a candidate:) Hello! I just finished reading this string starting with the city council race and finally here discussing real estate prices. I am running for Ward 1 council and in the past year my house has lost maybe 25% of market value. Now if life was that easy.

Life is not that simple nor is the real estate market. The variables affecting a market are so diverse and broad reaching, that a city government could just end up chasing its tail and squandering resources trying to mold it. City Council should set the vision, environment and guidelines for development. This is accomplished with a clear master plan that the citizens approve. Adequately funded city government services organizations; providing professional world-class performance expected of government in infrastructure, transportation, protection and safety, environmental protection, and community services without bias. Then adhered to with the City Council keeping everybody honest. This is what our fellow citizens want. They also want highly skilled and qualified Council members who have the compassion and understanding that they are the special interest group representative, known as the voter.

The strength of Ann Arbor is the many distinct and unique neighborhoods full of diverse people along with the resources of our professional government city services; bound together in common ground to meet all challenges and keep the mantle of this being a desirable place to live. We need to champion, foster and protect this diverse uniqueness of people and neighborhoods with special attention to the forces of physical development and even more the human development of our young generations who will be maintaining the mantle in the future. The catalyst will be a highly focused, diverse, compassionate and competent city council.

I am asking my Ward 1 members to allow me the privilege of serving them with their vote to the city council. Over the course of the next few weeks as the campaign progresses my qualifications and platform will be known by all of Ward 1.

I’ll remind candidates for office that the U of Michigan campus acceptable use policies for electronic mail specifically forbid using campus email addresses to conduct a political campaign.

From http://www.itd.umich.edu/itcsdocs/r1103/

Respect the Intended Usage of Resources

ED Thanks for the reminder and clarification on UM policies. So here is the email address for anybody wishing to contact me concerning my campaign.

The point really is that yes, Ann Arbor is a metropolitan area that has been growing. Unfortunately, under Michigan land use law, there is no way to have a metropolitan government. Instead, the individual townships structure things to the narrow interests of their individual citizens and local interests. We in Ann Arbor cannot hope to alter the direction of the region by our own actions and especially by our spending of our own resources.

“The point really is that yes, Ann Arbor is a metropolitan area that has been growing.”

That is a good point and one that I missed in focusing on the narrow point of the census numbers.

“Unfortunately, under Michigan land use law, there is no way to have a metropolitan government.”

That’s not true. Michigan doesn’t have the best tools for regional planning and services but there are tools that are useable. I would say that the political will is the bigger problem than a lack of tools.

“Instead, the individual townships structure things to the narrow interests of their individual citizens and local interests.”

Generally in Michigan that is true. Even in Washtenaw County that is true more often than not. But I would say that the townships surrounding Ann Arbor have come a long way in the last 15 years. The political leaders in the townships and the residents to some degree have come to understand that everyone is in the same boat and local governments are going to have to work together if they want to move the Ann Arbor area forward. There’s a lot more that could be accomplished but Ann Arbor area governments are a lot further along in this process than many other Michigan regions.

“We in Ann Arbor cannot hope to alter the direction of the region by our own actions and especially by our spending of our own resources.”

Wrong. The fact is that Ann Arbor already has controlled the direction of the region through its actions. The fact that Ann Arbor Township still has viable farms is due entirely to the fact that the City refused to extend water and sewer service to most of the Township. The same is true on the west side of Scio Township. Ann Arbor’s decision to limit utility extensions, which at the time was about capturing growth through annexation, is now a strong growth management tool for the city and townships served by the city and has had a huge impact on how the area has developed.

Compare the pattern of growth in Ann Arbor and Scio Townships to Pittsfield, which extended water and sewer from the Ypsi Utility Authority when the City was trading water and sewer for annexation into the city. Pittsfield has almost unmitigated suburban sprawl surrounding much of the perimeter of the city, all made possible by the extension of water and sewer service.

The greenbelt program should be seen as phase 2 of this growth management plan. Now that certain areas will not be serviced by city water and sewer, the greenbelt program helps lock those areas in as agricultural areas versus them being converted to very low-density suburban sprawl of 1 – 5 acre lots.

Another area where the city resources are being leveraged to direct regional growth is in transit. This includes AATA service and the discussions about regional rail service. All of these programs are largely funded through taxes or funds that are generated by city taxpayers and all of them allow the city to extend its influence and direct and manage growth beyond its borders.

Here are the comments Sabra Briere made at this morning’s Democratic Party candidate forum at the Union:

Good morning. I hope I speak for all of us today as I thank the Democratic Party for hosting this forum and John Hilton for being our moderator.
My name is Sabra Briere. For those of you who don’t know me, I came to Ann Arbor in 1973 – but not as a student. I moved here with my son, living first in University Townhouses, later in downtown Ann Arbor and on the Old West Side, before moving in 1986 to my home on Broadway. During those years, I finished my college education at The University of Michigan, earning a Bachelor’s degree in History.
My son got me involved with my neighbors – and my neighborhood, no matter where I lived. From volunteering at his pre-school to being PTO president to becoming Chair of the City Democratic Party and President of the local ACLU to City Council – it seems like a natural progression to me.
I’m running for City Council because, as much as I love living in Ann Arbor, I also am concerned that we risk losing sight of what we love about living here. We love Main Street and State Street – their Victorian store fronts and 21st century uses. But we miss the amenities that would make living downtown more attractive, like real groceries, hardware stores and pharmacies. We love old, funky neighborhoods with front porches and sidewalks. But City Council is crowding them, extending ‘downtown’ into what were once only single family neighborhoods. Council sees opportunities for density and mixed use development on open and ‘underutilized’ land.
I’m liberal. For years that’s meant that I was comfortable here, not getting too fussy as we changed or really too nostalgic for the past. But I think the City is going in the wrong direction. Council is talking about trading density for sprawl, but is losing sight of the value we place on quality of life. Council talking about Ann Arbor being a city – but what we love about Ann Arbor is the ‘towniness’ of it. And what makes a town – of any size and any density, vertical or horizontal, is its neighborhoods.
I’ve spent a lot of the last month and a half going door to door and I’ve spent a lot of the last 30 years talking to my neighbors. I’ve learned from them more about the issues that concern them than I ever have from the papers or watching City Council meetings. This year, I’ve heard them talk to me about density and development. They are concerned with downtown development, certainly. But they are also concerned with all the development going on all around Ann Arbor. They’re concerned about traffic and transportation. They care about fiscal responsibility. The City is creating a new, built environment that many feel no one has really thought out.
Buildings should relate to the neighborhoods where they are built. A new condo complex can bring 600 cars into a neighborhood. When you route those cars through neighborhood streets, previously quiet cul de sacs no longer are safe places for children to play. A street that’s been busy can suddenly feel ‘arterial’ as Pontiac Trail does. The city thinks about these issues only when neighborhoods become upset.
Downtown density doesn’t affect many of my constituents, but it’s on their minds a lot. Most of the people I’ve talked with want me to tell City Council that they don’t like all the big buildings going up, and that they want less density, less feeling of being crowded out of downtown. “There’s already no where to park.” I heard. “Who’s going to live in these buildings? There’s no where to shop for necessities and everyone will need a car.” At the same time, I heard a lot of support for the Greenway. The idea of downtown parkland to offset some of the density just made sense. If you want people to live downtown, you have to make downtown attractive.
When I talk to people, someone will always bring up fiscal responsibility. They are concerned that we haven’t planned well, and now are facing unanticipated problems. Some of these problems are out of our control, but when we give large bonuses to our top administrator, and then lay off our service staff, it looks bad. When we tell our voters that a new millage will guarantee ample funding for parks and then cut parks maintenance to the bone, it looks bad. When the city cannot maintain our water supply system, but somehow has enough money to build a new city hall, it makes people wonder at our priorities. I’d certainly fix my plumbing before adding on to my own house.
When new projects come up in the city, we read about them in the paper. Should we close Huron River Drive? Should Avery House be built? Should a round a bout be placed at Nixon and Huron Parkway? Should police patrol the parks? We read about it the paper – or maybe we read a blog. Paper or blog, neither is a good way to inform or involve a neighborhood when changes are proposed. And all neighborhoods are concerned about changes that affect them.
Businesses and developers come often enough to city hall that they can form relationships with the staff. You don’t. Most of us never pull a permit, never call a department, never even contact a Council member. So when a neighborhood hears something that mobilizes it enough to go to a meeting or to Planning Commission or to City Council, that neighborhood is upset. The city should clear the way to bring neighborhoods into the discussion early. This hasn’t happened, and I want to make certain it does. My years of neighborhood involvement and commitment to bringing neighborhoods into the process, coupled with my understanding of Council and ability to work with other Council members, will get that done.
We’ve had enough of the city passively waiting for you to inform yourself about city issues. It’s the City Council’s responsibility to represent you. That means that sometimes the city should really reach out to YOU.
I hope I’ll have your support on August 7th.

Well, Ms. Briere, you’ve managed to articulate the exact opposite of what I’d like to see in Ann Arbor.

Good luck to you anyway! I’m sure you’ll get quite a few votes with this platform.

So, speaking of city council candidates, can anybody explain to me how Mike Anglin figures that “our water, sewer, and stormwater fees are going up to support the increased service to downtown high-rise buildings”?

A high-rise discharges about as much stormwater as a surface parking lot. From all I hear, the stormwater increases have nothing to do with downtown density and everything to do with water quality and replacing aging infrastructure. How does he figure the rates are connected to high-rises?

Chuck- Anglin figures that the rates are connected to high-rises because Anglin doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Your analysis is correct. Anglin’s is incorrect. I wish I’d been at the Dem debate on Saturday to hear him speak; I hear his platform was scary… but apparently not as scary as Sabra’s.

Anglin and others miss the point that every new development is required to capture all of its storm water on site. The developers hate this about A2 because it is expensive to put tanks under your building.

The truth is that new developments greatly IMPROVE storm water control.

If the water mains and sewers that lead up to a project need replacement, the developer pays. Remember when Jeffrey Spoons development on Maynard spent a mega bucks on replacing the water and sewer lines for most of the whole street?

As Todd as noted before, the hook-up fees in A2 are very high. All of this means the development has to pay its own way.

By the way, I’m in the first ward, I’m pretty much a one-issue voter, and this:

Sabra says: “But we miss the amenities that would make living downtown more attractive, like real groceries, hardware stores and pharmacies.”

is my issue. If she could actually present a credible case that electing her to city council would fix this problem, she’d have my vote.

The irony here is that the only way to get another grocery store downtown will be to have more people living there and Briere is against all building or would set the bar so high there would be no development.

There are only a few thousand people living in the DDA area now. Until that number goes up no one is going to build a substantial grocery store. Just about every one of the new buildings downtown has retail on the first floor. There are several places a grocery could go in now but no takers… and there won’t be until there are more people.

If you look at larger cities that do have downtown grocery stores, the people are all within walking distance.

Obviously the city cannot command someone to build a grocery store downtown.

“The irony here is that the only way to get another grocery store downtown will be to have more people living there”

True enough but I wonder how big a population increase you would need to see anything more than a boutique market. The irony of that would be that if downtown grew enough to justify a store, no grocery store could afford the rents to make a go of it.

I agree with you John Q., I don’t think there will ever be a Kroger downwtown but maybe an Arbor Farms or expanded Co-OP. Whole Foods has “pocket” size stores all over downtown Chicago. People I know who live downtown make a weekly trip to Kroger and then buy the rest of what they need at the co-op or Kerrytown so it is not so bay now.

i buy most of my groceries at sparrow meats. and i use the prescription shop for my pharmacy.

what’s the big deal?

(ok, so no hardware store, but i’m told i can get most of what i need from fingerle’s.)

Peter, you ruin a perfectly good argument by actually living downtown (instead of theorizing about people who might want to but don’t).

I’ll chime in with Peter too…and I live within walking distance of downtown. That was our primary specification in buying a house, to be able to walk in town. The Co-Op, Kerrytown, and Farmers Market (seasonal) are our primary points of purchasing groceries and the bonus is that a good deal of their produce/meats are local and organic. White Market, Village Corner, Jefferson Market, South Main Market, and a sundry of party stores negate the need for a bland mega-store like Krogers in downtown proper, imo. And fwiw, recall that there was another co-op store on Packard. The co-op simply could not sustain it anymore. It’s just the way things are today. I still lament the lack/demise of walk-up neighborhood bakeries.

“Development crazy goosestepping”????

Well, that’s a new one, isn’t it?

I’m Sabra’s treasurer, and I just filed her campaign finance reports.

The main one is her pre-primary report, which shows contributions of $3985 from 59 individuals and one PAC (the Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 190 PAC Fund).

The other one is a so-called “late contribution report”, which is required when a candidate receives a contribution of $200 or more after the July 22 closing of books on the pre-primary report. Sabra got a contribution of $200 on July 24 from Amy Seetoo, a former Second Ward Democratic Council candidate.

The Clerk’s Office says that all the candidates’ reports should be up on its web site by Saturday.

Another scoop for Arbor Update. 8-)

Robert: You are correct about Anglin, he does need work. He somehow seems to believe that infill development contributes to storm water problems when in fact every re-development downtown greatly improves storm water control because all new developments have to contain all of their storm water on site. Unless a downtown parcel has been redeveloped in the last 6 years then there is little to no storm water control.

The city did not change the way storm water is charged to collect more money to spend it elsewhere (Although other cities in Mi. are doing some desperate things to stay solvent.) No, they are under order of the EPA to control phosphorus in the Huron and controlling storm water is one of the best ways to to do it. Any funds that go into the fresh water or storm water or waste water funds can ONLY be spent in those areas, (state statute.) The CC also put up some big fences around utilities and solid waste back in 02. (Some with smaller homes and smaller impervious footprints will see lower bills at least this year.)

One would hope that Mr. Anglin does not claim to be pro-environment given that he seems to oppose all development. If he does, then how can he defend his opposition to the development required to foster density?

Goose stepping? I guess I don’t know where you and Anglin are coming from on this. Seems to me there is a ton of discussion and disagreement at council over developments. Look at all the debate over Metro 202 last fall, it was defeated once then barely scraped by. The one on Main at the old Greek Church was controversial as well with a split on council. A few weeks ago there was Avery house, it failed with all of CC voting against it after planning had approved it. Oh yea, there was Zaragon, the CC only voted for it because they were legally bound to after the planning commission turned it down.

There is nothing lock step about the development debate on CC. Truth is, candidates like Anglin would like to stop ALL new development but they won’t quite come out and say it.

A friend of mine asked Mike directly about his mis-statements about stormwater fees on his website. What he told her is that his intention is not to draw a direct connection between new stormwater rates and downtown development.

Yet as of today his website still reads, “our water, sewer, and stormwater fees are going up to support the increased service to downtown high-rise buildings.” Sure sounds like a direct connection to me.

I understand Robert S’s concerns about lack of response from Woods. If Anglin is keeping erroneous information on his website after being asked about it, I don’t have reason to believe that I can expect much better from him.

Re: Mike Anglin (5th Ward)
Having seen Mr. Anglin at several of the Allen Creek public meetings this spring, and later having had a conversation with him, I think he is a very sincere guy—but one who seems have trouble modifying his opinions in light of new evidence.

For example, following hours of clear and well-documented explanations of the watershed’s issues, Anglin (and too many other audience members, sadly) continued asking questions that simultaneously pushed their personal agendas and demonstrated incomplete understanding of the issues.

I would say, though, that this is my only experience from which to judge the man, and it’s a small sample. I did appreciate his candid and personal interest in serving our community.

Campaign finance statements are beginning to be posted on the County Clerk’s website. Go to:
http://www.ewashtenaw.org/government/clerk_register/elections/cf_info.html
Take the link “Search County Campaign Finance Database”.
Fill in (only) the last box, “Candidate Last Name”, with the name of the candidate whose reports you want to see, and hit “Search”.
Then, click on the full name of the candidate. That will take you to a “View Document Page”, which lets you select the particular report you want.

Sabra’s report is available.

John Roberts’ report is also available. It says Roberts has raised $1350, as follows:

$500 each from Dennis and Matt Tice of Pizza House.
$150 from Mike Martin of First Martin Corp.
$100 from Roger Hewitt, who is on the Downtown Development Authority.
$100 from Ed Shaffran, the local developer.

That’s all.

No report is up yet from Richard Wickboldt.

Just a reminder that anyone with access to GIS at either EMU or U-M can pull together some maps as AU did last year to make this information visually accessible.

It would be great if someone did this again, Dale! Last year’s maps were quite revealing.

David Boyle interviews Sabra Briere. Read the interview at
http://www.arblogger.com/.

Progressives of Washtenaw (POW!), a local political action committee, is in the process of issuing endorsements for the August 7 primaries. POW!‘s website is: http://progressivesofwashtenaw.org. (Note: No www.)

Here are POW!‘s endorsements of Sabra Briere and Mike Anglin.

POW ENDORSES SABRA BRIERE

July, 2007

By Dana Barton

We are fortunate to have an excellent candidate to replace retiring Councilmember Bob Johnson. Sabra Briere will build upon Johnson’s record of progressive representation and achievement.

Briere has been involved in countless civic and community activities in Ann Arbor for over 30 years, serving on school and city committees and non-profit boards. As a single parent, she worked to support her family while attending the University of Michigan where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1986. She is now employed by a local non-profit healthcare organization.

Sabra Briere has been actively involved in the Ann Arbor Democratic Party, previously serving as secretary and chair. She has been president of the Washtenaw Branch of the ACLU, worked for reproductive rights, peace, and the local Greenway campaign. Currently, she is an active volunteer for the Huron River Watershed Council, Avalon Housing, and Ann Arbor’s Natural Area Preservation.

As the next First Ward representative, Briere is committed to preserving Ann Arbor’s distinctive character. She will advocate for responsible growth that will not overwhelm the city’s human scale.

“In these difficult economic times,” Brier says, “the city must focus on spending priorities. For instance, repairing City Hall is more cost effective than replacing it.” She believes City Council should honor the commitments it makes to its citizens. “Since voters approved a special millage to support our parks, City Council should honor that commitment.”

Briere sees the need for improvement in the city planning process. She suggests that bringing neighborhoods and developers together before paper and pen meet would head off problems like the recent Avery House development debacle. “City Council should listen to neighborhood concerns early in the planning process and respect their voices.”

Of the three candidates running in the First Ward primary race, Sabra Briere has, by far, the longest record of active involvement in Ann Arbor community concerns. We believe she is clearly the most qualified candidate and a voice we need on City Council.

POW! endorses Sabra Briere in the First Ward Democratic primary on August 7.

(Dana Barton is a political activist, therapist and realtor in Ann Arbor)

POW ENDORSES MIKE ANGLIN

July, 2007

BY CHARLES LEWIS,

Mike Anglin is a person full of energy, compassion, and conviction. He has pledged himself to preserve and enh