Arbor Update

Ann Arbor Area Community News

Ann Arbor Council to consider loosening Greenbelt program

Posted by Murph on 13. October 2005

The City Council will hold a public hearing and second reading on Monday, 17 October, to ease the restrictions placed on land in the Greenbelt program. The change would remove the exclusion of factory feeding operations (officially: Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs), and is motivated by the conditions of Federal and State agricultural land preservation grants: $1,448,042 in grant money is at stake.

The national Sierra Club takes a dim view of CAFOs, and the Ann Arbor News quotes Doug Cowherd in opposition to this proposal:

Doug Cowherd, co-chairman of the Sierra Club-Huron Valley Group, said CAFOs aren’t in the Washtenaw County area now because land is cheaper in other parts of the state, such as Hillsdale and Lenawee counties. By removing development rights from the land, the greenbelt program will create cheap property that can only be used for agricultural purposes.

Cowherd said removing the CAFO restriction puts the city at risk down the road of having factory farms.

“There is a real risk that CAFOs will move here eventually,’’ Cowherd said. “No greenbelt deals should be made that allow CAFOs to operate on these properties in the future. CAFOs are a public health and environmental disaster.’’

The News cites a spokesman for the Michigan Farm Bureau as calling the environmental argument overblown and pointing to regulations on animal waste management; the memo provided as background to the ordinance change also discusses waste regulation.

No CAFOs, a citizens’ group out of Hudson, MI, shows exactly how well these regulations work, recording 129 violations by 10 local CAFOs in the past five years into the River Raisin watershed, which would seem like undesirable behavior to allow in land acquired as part of a program intended to “preserve and protect the City’s sourcewaters as an integral part of maintaining a quality water supply and the public health and safety of the Ann Arbor community.”

Comment [35]

"Detroit key to regional investment"

Posted by Murph on 13. October 2005

Michigan Business Review cites the organizers of next week’s UMich/Urban Land Institute Real Estate Forum as considering reinvestment in Detroit crucial to Michigan’s economic health.

That means that getting capital into neighborhoods yielding new commercial and residential development is key not only for revitalization of the core city, but also for the image of all of southeast Michigan.

“It does no one any good to say ‘I was in Detroit and the city was a pit, but once you got into the suburbs, it was OK,” said Larry Hadley, CEO of Larry Hadley & Associates of Novi.
. . .
Hadley and other organizers chose to focus on the city and its redevelopment opportunities for the hundreds of people in the real estate and development community who will participate in the two-day event.

“We’re all stakeholders,” Hadley said. Investors, developers and business leaders in southeast Michigan are attuned to the differences among the various communities that make up metro Detroit.

The conference’s Wednesday events feature a four-hour bus tour of Detroit; Thursday’s events include roundtables on topics like green building, brownfield redevelopment, and historic preservation.

Comment [3]

New West Side launches lease renewal watch

Posted by Murph on 12. October 2005

While landlords claim that they don’t put any pressure on tenants to renew leases early in the school year, several management companies have begun asking for renewal commitments.

New West Side has taken up the role of renewal clearinghouse, and is asking renters to send in the details of their renewal requests: when the current lease expires, when the landlord has requested renewal by, and what rent the landlord has offered/accepted for next year (up, down, or same as current). This last is seen as especially important, as previous discussion about the state of the rental market on this site indicates tenants might be able to negotiate lower rents, but landlords probably won’t offer reductions unless asked.

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MI Democrats seeking single-house, proportional legislature?

Posted by Murph on 11. October 2005

Blogland rumor has it the Michigan Democratic Party is seeking a 2006 ballot initiative for overhauling the state legislature. The reform would involve,

  • Eliminating the State Senate, for a one-house legislature
  • Adding a proportional representation segment to the legislature – after electing most Representatives by district, “correct” the legislative balance to the statewide vote breakdown by adding reps
  • Create an independant commission to handle redistricting

I can’t find any “official” sources on any of this – so far, it seems to be the bloggers at Michigan Politics and Michigan Liberal link-circling each other. Let’s see if any of our local politicos step up with better explanations…

Comment [25]

Michigan municipal networks legislation would block speedy deployment of WiFi

Posted by MarkDilley on 11. October 2005

via Vacuum comes this news:

In effect, the locals must allow two private providers the opportunity to take up to one year each to provide service before the local government can begin.

All this while talks are happening regarding Google and San Francisco

Stop the Raid on Student Aid

Posted by MarkDilley on 10. October 2005

received this email from Mat, tx

... help defeat H.R. 609 in the US House of Representatives This bill, if passed, would cut $9 Billion from the student loan program. It is projected that this would increase the cost of taking out student loans by about $6,000 over the four years.

You can help by, on Tuesday, October 11, calling 202-224-3121 and give your zip code to connect to your Representative. Then tell the congressional aid who answers that you oppose H.R. 609.

For more information, please see StudentAidAction.org

Comment [1]

Cooling housing market: population growth estimates in doubt?

Posted by Murph on 10. October 2005

David Cahill suggests that Sunday’s News article on the leveling off of the local housing market provides cause to doubt the assumptions of County-wide growth and in-migration used in the City’s Calthorpe process (and, frequently, around here). He writes:

Much of the impetus behind the Calthorpe Downtown Development Strategies Project comes from projections from the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG) showing a likely large increase in the population of Washtenaw County and the City of Ann Arbor over the next decades.

An article in the Sunday, October 9 issue of the Ann Arbor News, entitled “So many houses, so few buyers”, may provide a reality check on these projections.

An oversupply in housing that has been troubling other southeast Michigan communities has hit Washteaw County in full force. The result has been stagnant home values for the past two years.
. . .
Experts say the poor Michigan economy, coupled with a flood of new houses, has created the strong buyer’s market.
. . .
There has been a construction boom in the area in the past decade, but that has not been followed by a commensurate population boom. The result has been an excess supply of homes.
. . .
Lorne Zaleskin, CEO of Bruce Building Co., an Oakland County builder who has done work in Washtenaw County, says he thinks the Ann Arbor area is overbuilt and will experience a major correction.
. . .
Indeed, permits for new construction in the county are down 36.5 percent through August compared to 2004.

Bearing these statements in mind, how are we to determine the validity of the SEMCOG projections? Can we look at the validity of past SEMCOG projections for Washtenaw County and Ann Arbor? When did SEMCOG start making its projections? How close were they to the ultimate reality?

What are the objective criteria for an area being “overbuilt” in housing? Does Washtenaw/Ann Arbor meet those criteria? Should the Calthorpe study include a “really low growth” scenario in addition to those drawn from the SEMCOG projections?

Comment [51]

Daily Building Gets Millions From Alum

Posted by Ari Paul on 9. October 2005

Stan Lipsey, a former Michigan Daily photographer and Pulitzer Prize winning writer, will donate $3 million for renovations of 420 Maynard (Student Publications Building), Daily editor-in-chief Jason Pesick told his staff in an email Thursday.

The Daily also ran a story on the gift.

Comment [15]

Union Card Check in Michigan and Ohio

Posted by MarkDilley on 9. October 2005

This is a joy to Andrea Fischer Newman , for sure.

The chairman of the National Labor Relations Board says his prime objective is reviewing Ohio and Michigan cases on card-check, labor’s top strategy in recent years for adding members.

. . .

That the Republican-controlled NLRB has even agreed to evaluate card-check sent shivers through organized labor, which says that the tactic is long enshrined in the 1935 National Labor Relations Act.

With card-check, employers agree to recognize unions when a majority of employees sign cards saying they want a union. Card-check is often used with “neutrality agreements,” in which employers agree to stay neutral in an organizing drive.

. . .

Other important issues that will lead the NLRB’s calendar, Battista said:

Whether companies can restrict employees from going to a union Web site while at work.

via Hypothetically Speaking

Breaking: Largest Asian Earthquake in Last 100 Years

Posted by Ari Paul on 8. October 2005

If Katrina, the Asian tsunami and a possible flu pandemic wasn’t enough, South and Central experienced the largest earthquake in a century’s history today.

Comment [1]

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