Arbor Update

Ann Arbor Area Community News

County rolls out Affordable Housing Needs Assessment

9. October 2007 • Murph
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The Ann Arbor/Washtenaw County Office of Community Development has completed the two-year process of completing a comprehensive (and, at 220 pages, they’re not kidding) County-wide Affordable Housing Needs Assessment (15-page Executive Summary in Word format). As the invitation to their public presentation series suggests, the project is ambitious:

The goal is to provide a tool for decision makers to:

  1. Facilitate community discussions on long-term planning objectives
  2. Implement regional planning
  3. Allocate resources
  4. Leverage funds
  5. Encourage public-private partnerships
  6. Develop and preserve affordable housing
  7. Revitalize neighborhoods
  8. Support economic development

The Assessment, which provides recommendations for all portions of the County, will be presented at a number of upcoming meetings, all of which are open to the public, and many of which include public comment time:

  • Monday, October 15, 2007, 6-8pm, Library Learning Resource Center, 4135 Washtenaw Avenue, Ann Arbor (Open Public Meeting with public comment time)
  • Tuesday, October 16, 2007, 5-6pm, Ypsilanti Township Hall, 7200 S. Huron River Dr, Ypsilanti (Joint meeting between Ypsilanti City & Ypsilanti Township officials)
  • Thursday, October 18, 2007, 6:30 pm Washtenaw County Administration Bldg, 220 N. Main, (Washtenaw Board of Commissioners working session)
  • Monday, October 22, 2007, 6-8pm, Scio Township Hall, 827 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, (Washtenaw County Planning Board meeting)
  • Monday, October 29, 2007, 7-9pm, Catholic Social Services Bldg, 4925 Packard, Ann Arbor (Open Public Meeting sponsored by Religious Action for Affordable Housing, with public comment time)

The report is accompanied by an online mapping system intended to “enable users to analyze potential sites using financial, demographic, natural feature, and regulatory data and maps.” That system does not appear to be entirely operational as of this writing.



  1. Murph, when I tried to follow the link to the 15-page executive summary, I got this error message:

    Arbor Update: 404 Not Found

    The requested page was not found.


       —David Cahill    Oct. 10 '07 - 12:50AM    #

  2. Thanks, David. Should be fixed.


       —Bruce Fields    Oct. 10 '07 - 01:07AM    #

  3. The executive summary has a nice overview of the median income (AMI) profile for the area and does actually make some policy recommendations. One I thought interesting was “neighborhood revitalization”. I quote:

    “Neighborhood revitalization… relies on neighborhood participation to address the infrastructure, parks, schools, crime, and commercial activity in the neighborhood. These efforts should not repeat the mistake of other municipalities around the country which bulldozed entire neighborhoods to create new higher income neighborhoods in their place. There may need to be some tear downs, but the goal should be preservation and growth through a mixed-income neighborhood that is attractive, safe and close to job opportunities.”

    Seems to me the city has been approving a lot of tear-downs lately. I hope the mixed-income recommendation receives some attention.


       —Vivienne Armentrout    Oct. 18 '07 - 09:56PM    #