Local in Ann Arbor

Missy Stults, the Director of the Office of Sustainability and Innovation (OSI)

Ann Arbor certainly does have a deserved reputation as an environmentally conscious community where the “greens” are  highly visible and have some successes to claim (The Emerald City). A major cheerleader for “sustainability” was Matt Naud, who was brought on early in the 2000s to staff the newly instituted Environmental Commission. He was the face of Ann Arbor in many environmentally-oriented efforts and issues, and presented yearly sessions at the Ann Arbor District Library on these subjects. But with the creation of a new Sustainability and Innovation department, Naud was replaced by a new star.

If Ann Arbor is Emerald City, Missy (Melissa) Stults is the Wizard. As described in this Ann Arbor Observer story,

The person leading Ann Arbor’s ambitious drive to attack the climate emergency head-on drops in on meetings of climate activist groups, often with her preschool daughter in tow; makes deeply researched proposals to city council and various commissions; hosts public forums; and even helped install solar panels on a city fire station–all while managing a growing staff tasked with figuring out how Ann Arbor can become carbon-neutral by 2030.

That’s a daunting mission no other city in the world has yet set out to undertake. But no other city has Stults.

“She’s a force of nature,” says her boss, city administrator Howard Lazarus. If so, that’s fortunate–since nudging nature back from the climate precipice is now her job description.

The Onset of A2Zero

Although the newly elected Council of late 2018 rejected the budget amendments for the newly created OSI (Office of Sustainability and Innovation) and its newly appointed Director (The Emerald City), they were presented in November, 2019 with a demand that was harder to refuse. It was a 54-page petition circulated by a group calling themselves The Climate Mobilization–Ann Arbor. The petition called for Council to pass a resolution declaring a climate emergency.

Recall that the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) had just issued an alarming report about the pressing need to reduce global warming. We reviewed it here: Climate Change and Ann Arbor: Investing in the Future. There were community groups all over the Ann Arbor area expressing concern.

Thus prompted by the public demand, Council issued this proclamation in the form of a resolution, (November 4, 2019) requesting the preparation of a plan to address climate change by Earth Day, 2020. The resolution specified “ a plan for how the entire Ann Arbor community can achieve carbon neutrality as soon as possible“. It also qualified that “To be the most valuable, a carbon neutrality plan needs to have actions that can be operationalized, with clear metrics to track success and financial resources identified that can support implementation.”

The Council resolution requested that the staff prepare a plan by Earth Day (April 22) of 2020. Anyone familiar with the construction of complex plans for implementation would expect this to be a very accelerated schedule. Nevertheless, OSI staff presented them with the draft A2Zero plan at the Council meeting of May 20, 2020.

It proposed to reach carbon neutrality (i.e., “net zero”) by 2030. Here were the proposed strategies:

1. Power our electrical grid with 100% renewable energy
2. Switch our appliances and vehicles from gasoline, diesel, propane, coal, and natural gas to electric
3. Significantly improve the energy efficiency in our homes, businesses, schools, places of worship,
recreational sites, and government facilities
4. Reduce the miles we travel in our vehicles by at least 50%
5. Change the way we use, reuse, and dispose of materials
6. Enhance the resilience of our people and our place
7. Other

The skillfully executed logo is both evocative and informative. Note the “Ann Arbor oak” next to a cityscape. The cyclist and her dog appear to represent the beneficiaries of a clean low-energy environment. But what do these three words indicate? “Sustainable” could be presumed to represent all types of environmental benefits, not just reduction of carbon emissions. “Equitable” must indicate that persons of all types of status will be treated equally, but in what sense? And then there is that “transformative”, a vaguely ominous term depending on how it is taken.

The plan caused a certain amount of consternation because Strategy 4 called for rezoning the City in order to create a much denser city, including major changes in regulation of housing. As described in MLive, Council postponed approving the plan twice, citing the concern over the land use changes. Here is the original Strategy 4. It calls for upzoning (for more density) all residential areas in Ann Arbor, up to quadraplexes. The “by right” designation means that the zoning is altered so that permission for this density is aut0matically granted.

Mayor Christopher Taylor was defiant, as voiced in this interview with the Michigan Daily:

Ann Arbor 2030 will be materially different than Ann Arbor 2020,… It’ll be a denser community, a more electrified community, a community that emphasizes renewable energy.

All lines of work, all manners of doing things, are open to interrogation,” Taylor said. “The old way of running an economy, the old way of doing business, the old way of operating civil society is subject to change, subject to reexamination, subject to improvement. As we figure out where we go next, reconstituting as a functioning society with the goal of carbon neutrality will be a part of our recovery.

After some hasty negotiation between some Council members and Ms. Stults, the Council passed a slightly revised plan on June 1, 2020. The amendment consisted of removing a couple of the key sentences calling for rezoning. Thus, the A2Zero Plan was instituted and began to win its budget battles.

The Growth Agenda and Merchandising Ann Arbor

We will be discussing the success of the carbon neutrality program in a future post. But it is clear that the objectives that justified the high cost in effort and monetary investment are the familiar growth and economic development motivations described in our post on Placemaking. In other words, it is the development and density agenda. We have commented on that several times (Density and Sustainability in Ann Arbor), but it is still a current story. The Comprehensive Plan revision is underway and the new (as of 2022) Council has been very busily upzoning many areas of the City. Ann Arbor has been on a vigorous development surge.

Our Wizard has certainly received accolades for her support in this objective. A major thrust of the current program is the electrification of new developments, housing, even automobiles. There is direct subsidy of solar projects and an ongoing discussion of how to revise the local electrical supply system.

All of this translates to the business-friendly concept of Build Back Better. As she states in this discussion for the Michigan League of Conservation Voters,

“The Build Back Better Agenda will provide new jobs in sustainable industries that can meet the demand that is necessary to prevent this climate crisis and we need that. We need more people doing this work. We need all hands on deck,” says Missy.

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to make the investments that put American employees to work in good paying jobs that protect our health, safety and welfare and ensure that we have a livable planet for today and for future generations. The Build Back Better Agenda will put us as the vanguard on the bleeding front of solving the climate crisis and will lead to all kinds of economic opportunities that we can’t even imagine. Why in the world would we not make an investment in the American people?”

But perhaps more directly related to Placemaking is the broader objective of Brand Ann Arbor, which is, of course, Green. The City (Office of Sustainability and Innovation) has launched the “A2 Green Business Challenge” in coordination with Ann Arbor SPARK , which is the economic development agency supported in part by Ann Arbor general fund dollars. SPARK’s mission is to attract new businesses to the Ann Arbor area.

Here is how the Green Business Challenge works, according to an enthusiastic participant (OrbAid):  “As a recognition program, the A2 GBC invites all businesses throughout the city to apply and participate. Businesses receive certification levels (bronze, silver, gold and platinum) based on the number of points they accumulate across seven areas of sustainability: energy, water, circular economy, mobility, resilience, education, and supply chain. For businesses that haven’t started yet but want to get going, there are also recognition opportunities down the pike for improvement.”

Missy shares an example of an ice cream shop. If you’re sitting at your favorite ice cream shop and see a sign in the window about the A²ZERO commitment, you can learn more about the program and what specific initiatives the business is taking. Maybe you didn’t know they had solar panels on the roof, or that they source their dairy from local farmers.

Missy says the program helps position Ann Arbor as a desirable place to live, especially for young people who are focused on climate action.

“It is a reminder that this is what we do here in Ann Arbor,” says Missy. “More and more people want to be a part of something bigger and leave a bigger legacy.”

“When we continue to do these things, it’s not just a buzzword,” Missy says. “It’s a way of life. And it ensures we have a high quality of life here in Ann Arbor. That means we will recruit new sustainably-minded businesses and recruit people from around the world who want to live in a community that’s taking sustainability seriously.”

OrbAid produces sustainability project management software. “Because of our mission at OrbAid, our team feels a deep sense of responsibility and pride in supporting our neighbors in helping them make more green being green.”

Green, indeed. Just be sure to wear your green spectacles.

This entry was posted on June 25, 2024 at 7:29 pm and is filed under Business, civic finance, politics, Sustainability. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.