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Transition Exits Ann Arbor

October 3, 2011

A little more than two years after Transition (a worldwide movement) introduced itself to Ann Arbor,  the local group has announced (via its email listserv) that it is disbanding.

After much deliberation and collective soul searching, we are writing to let you know that the initiating team of Transition Ann Arbor is officially disbanding.   We believe it is important to announce this widely so that we can release the effort into the hands of others, should there be a future groundswell of committed individuals.  

Some challenges we faced were the usual ones, such as personal time constraints and life circumstances. But there were other challenges that we didn’t anticipate, such as the fact that the Transition model has proven difficult to implement in a city the size of Ann Arbor without staff or a strong ties to an existing 501c3 nonprofit.  

We are excited to see the growth of Transition-related efforts in the Ann Arbor community and region. We continue to believe that there is a role for an umbrella organization that strengthens these efforts and develops cohesive plans, action groups, programs, and messages that help our community prepare for the long emergency–the impacts of peak oil, climate change, and economic instability. Unfortunately, we don’t have the necessary resources (or person-power) to make this happen. We have a wealth of accumulated knowledge and lessons learned from our efforts over the last 2 years, including the beginnings of an energy descent action plan. To improve future organizing, we would be happy to share our insights and resources with anyone interested in picking up similar work.

As might be understood from this statement, Transition was founded to support the worldview of those, such as former Environmental Commission chair and mayoral candidate Steve Bean, that we in Ann Arbor (the country, the world) are facing a future singularity in which conditions of life will change drastically.  (The reference to the “long emergency” is a direct reference to the dystopian classic, The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler.)  Transition Ann Arbor has been especially notable for its “reskilling festivals” in which such skills as sock darning, keeping bees, and other domestic crafts are taught.  According to the announcement, these will continue under the guidance of their organizer, Laura Smith (lolo730@yahoo.com).

A core concept that Transition and similar efforts are based on is “peak oil”, a belief that the world economy and our very way of life will shift dramatically once the cost of energy increases because of dwindling oil supplies.  The data for peak oil are fairly unambiguous and (discounting the possible effect of shale oil) it appear that the point at which oil supplies begin to dwindle is in the next decade (by 2020).   Lester Brown and the Earth Policy Institute have been promulgating news of this and related impending disasters (most having to do with resource depletion of various kinds) for years.  Yet there are doubters and deniers like Michael Lynch (though these arguments are rebuttable).  Problem is, a worldview in which a collapse is imminent definitely undercuts the current growth paradigm and interferes with business as usual.  We’d really rather not be bothered as long as it looks as though things will go along much as they have since most of us can remember.

We all got a bit of a wake-up call with the economic cataclysms of 2008 and 2009. Though Kunstler has not changed his views or his predictions,  what seemed so imminent during the few months following the crash of 2008 now seems to have retreated a bit over the horizon.  It’s a little hard to get excited over darning your own socks when socks made in East Asia are still available at discount stores at pretty decent prices.  Admittedly, lots of people are out of a job, but gas prices seem to have stabilized.  And though food prices have gone up a little, we can still get most of everything we want and the expensive restaurants in downtown Ann Arbor seem to be doing a booming business. This means that choosing “local food” and making your own still appears to be just that—a choice.

Since one of my own interests and concerns is community food security, I was glad to see that Transition Ann Arbor is passing along its modest treasury to Growing Hope.  But otherwise we are left with pale washed-out “sustainability” efforts like the Ecology Center’s 350.0rg  and the UM’s “M Planet Blue“, which basically tinker around the edges with time-honored environmental fixes (all good).  It’ll perhaps be a little while longer before we have a group in Ann Arbor that really sounds a singular alarm.  If that is going to be you, you are invited to contact Jeannine Palms (jeannine@wetmeadow.org), one of the organizers and a longtime community activist.

Categories: Basis, Sustainability, Trends

Comments: 14 Comments

Fuller Road Station and the Mayor’s Letter

July 28, 2011

The story first broke on AnnArbor.com the night before, but by mid-morning on July 28 many Ann Arbor citizens had received a letter from Ann Arbor’s Mayor, John Hieftje.  The letter begins,

As you may have heard, the City of Ann Arbor is considering whether to invest with the University of Michigan and the Federal Government in a multi-modal transportation facility on Fuller Road—the Fuller Road Station (FRS). I write today to give you some important background information.

The news report has attracted a number of comments.  They help to make one point clear: Fuller Road Station is not just one issue.  It is a complex of issues, with separate histories, policy implications, visions of the future, suppositions, and mass of facts and details behind each one.

It is also emerging as a strong political theme in Ann Arbor.  Thus its future, and the justification for our city embarking on this adventure, have become enmeshed with the politics of the August primary, in which three candidates (two incumbents) question the venture and three support it.  The Mayor has favored the candidates who support the FRS and the timing of his letter just before the primary election (next Tuesday, folks) seems curious.

Our mayor very rarely writes us directly, and his letter deserves careful study and scrutiny.  But first, let’s consider the different issues.  (Listed in no particular order.)

1. Ann Arbor’s finances.  What is the likely effect of embarking on the long-term project of a “multimodal” station?  Will it prove to be neutral, more or less, a plus because of economic activity and other indirect effects, or a fiscal morass?

2. Parking and traffic issues.  Much of the immediate project is for a parking structure that will largely serve the UM Health Care complex.  Is this a good thing, from the viewpoint of transportation planning, and also for the city?

3. Ann Arbor parks and ordinances regarding use of parkland.  A ballot issue forbade the sale of parkland without a public vote, but this project skirts that by a long-term lease.  Should this be permitted, and further, is this a dangerous precedent for disposing of parkland by other means than a direct sale?

4. The future of commuter rail from Ann Arbor (the station would become part of the AATA’s Transit Master Plan that presumes commuter rail will connect Ann Arbor both to Howell and to Detroit).   To the extent that this idea justifies construction of the Fuller Road Station, is it likely to happen?

5. On a related note, what about “high-speed rail”  in Michigan?  Is that going to happen and to what extent does construction of the Fuller Road Station depend on Ann Arbor being part of such a system?

6. And while we are on that question, what is the position of Amtrak in all this? The current service to Chicago is popular and there is an existing station.

7. What are our hopes and dreams of a future transportation system?  As we have already noted,  trains have a powerful emotional pull.  (See Train of Dreams and Train of Dreams II.)  Our mental picture of what the future should hold for transportation that frees us from the automobile is a powerful driver in these decisions.

8. Our relationship with the University of Michigan.  We are very nearly a company town.  To what extent does “it’s good for the UM” also translate to “it’s good for Ann Arbor”?  Are there times when our interests diverge?

9. What is the appropriate public process for this decision and has it been followed?  (See What, Exactly, is a Robust Public Process. It isn’t about the FRS but addresses some of the points.)

The Mayor’s letter touches on many of these themes.  In the next post we will go through his letter point by point and attempt some analysis.

UPDATE: The post was edited to add the last point after publication.

 

Categories: Business, civic finance, politics, Sustainability, Transportation

Comments: 2 Comments

The Library Lot, the DDA, and the Ann Arbor RFP Process II

July 13, 2011

The history of plans to develop Ann Arbor’s Library Lot goes back literally decades (see the 1991 Luckenbach study).  But most recently, as documented in our long blog series listed on the Library Lot Conference Center page, the effort to develop the lot hinged around RFP 743.  The first post of this series described the making of the RFP (released on August 14, 2009).  At the end, it all came apart, as mostly described in the last post of the blog series on the conference center.  On April 4, 2011, the Ann Arbor City Council passed a resolution that terminated the RFP and the sole remaining proposal from Valiant Partners was conclusively rejected.

But at the same meeting, Council established a new process for the downtown surface lots.  In a not-so-tacit recognition that the city-directed RFP process had undergone a fairly spectacular failure, the Council asked the DDA to take it on.  But the area assigned to the DDA was not the entire city, but rather the city-owned lots in the area south of Liberty.

City-owned parcels assigned to DDA for RFP process - click for larger image

The DDA’s Partnership Committee cheerfully took this on (even before the final resolution was passed) and began scheduling regular discussions at their monthly meetings, featuring different city officials and others, reviewing different aspects of planning.  (See our post, Ann Arbor’s Suburban Brain Problem, and the Ann Arbor Chronicle’s excellent summary of the June 2011 meeting.)

As the Chronicle details, the June meeting appeared to set the Partnership Committee up for a vigorous, proactive approach to a broad downtown planning exercise.  Doug Kelbaugh (a UM professor familiar to many long-timers as instrumental in putting together the Calthorpe process) and his colleague Kit McCullough submitted a brief proposal involving some brief but substantial public participation.  Peter Allen did one of his typically scintillating presentations (Allen sometimes seems to be several places at once when speaking to his elaborate schemes), based in part on his talks with many community leaders.  He emphasized the many community connections that he would draw upon and stated that he would like to see a 20-story building, to be the definitive Ann Arbor skyline object, on the Library Lot.  It seemed that Allen and Kelbaugh were competing to some extent for the job of the “consultant”.  Meanwhile, at the June meeting there was also some substantive discussion by Albert Berriz and others at the table (described by the Chronicle).  Susan Pollay stated that the July committee meeting would be an intense retreat-style meeting at which the group would make real decisions about setting the course for the process.

Today’s Partnership Committee played to a full house.  Not only were there many citizens in the audience, but McCullough’s UM class, Josie Parker of the AADL, Peter Allen, Kelbaugh and McCullough, and someone making a video tape.

The result was anticlimax.  The expectant audience waited for several minutes before a diminished committee took their seats.  The meeting was chaired by John Mouat  in the absence of both the co-chairs (Russ Collins and Sandi Smith).  No experts were called to speak and Allen, Kelbaugh and McCullough were never mentioned.   Committee members spoke in generalities and the entire meeting seemed conducted under water, so slow and vague each step was.  Mouat spoke admiringly of a couple of other recent plans (the Urban Forest plan and the AATA’s Transit Master Plan) as examples – and meditated aloud on how a community can reach consensus. He expressed a dislike of the very word “development” and said that he didn’t want the development community to be too closely linked to the process.

Some reference was made to RFP 743 (the sad example that put the current process in place).  Susan Pollay astonishingly characterized it as “an abbreviated council RFP process that never got very far”.  She also made a point that the city needs to indicate to developers what incentives will be available.  The Valiant Partners, she said, came in with lots of ideas of what the city could do for them “only to have the community recoil”.  Ably put, that.  Joan Lowenstein also brought out a very cogent point, which is that the city has tried to achieve every possible goal in past RFPs and that this is not realistic.

But in general, there was no instrumental discussion at all.  The group seemed literally to be trying to last out the clock.  They did succeed in instructing staff (Pollay and Amber Miller) to put together a timeline for a process of about a year.  The subject will also be added on to a working session that the DDA has already scheduled with Council for October (principally about parking).

What happened?  Clearly something has interrupted the headlong progress toward a comprehensive downtown planning process.  Audience members gathered in small groups afterwards to ask each other the meaning of it all.  We didn’t have answers.

UPDATE:  See the Chronicle’s more complete coverage of this meeting.

Categories: civic finance, Downtown, Sustainability

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AATA Yesterday and Tomorrow

June 17, 2011

Last night (June 16, 2011), the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board took the first step toward implementing its Transit Master Plan (TMP) for a countywide or regional transportation authority.  Links to pdf files of Volumes 1 and 2 of the TMP are available in the short notice on the Ann Arbor Chronicle. Volume 1 is a very large file; it is titled “A Transit Vision for Washtenaw County” but contains many full-page and full-color photographs from unnamed cities that are not located in Washtenaw County.  Volume 2, “Transit Master Plan Implementation Strategy”,  is thin on actual procedural steps and strong on sweeping statements about land use planning.

If fully implemented, the TMP will result in a new (yet unnamed) county-wide or regional transportation authority and the current AATA board will be translated magically intact into a new board, currently known only as the Act 196 board.  As we detailed in a previous post, AATA’s Uncertain Future, the objective is to incorporate under a different state law, Act 196.  Currently, AATA is incorporated under Act 55, which is for a local municipal authority.  They are able to offer service outside the city limits (and do) under Purchase Of Service Agreements (POSAs), by contract.  As an Act 196 authority, they can also offer service outside the county lines – as in commuter rail.

So what will happen to the old AATA?  Will it simply be left behind as a lifeless husk once the brilliant butterfly has emerged?  And most importantly, what will happen to the perpetual millage that Ann Arbor citizens currently pay?

It is worthwhile to recall how AATA began and what its legal basis is, in considering that question.  As we spell out in detail on our Transportation Page,  AATA was incorporated in 1968.  It purchased buses with the help of Federal money, helped out by a donation from the city Sewer Fund.  (Don’t ask me to explain that.)  Then, a citizen initiative, led by (of course!) the League of Women Voters, successfully ran a ballot initiative in 1973 that placed a 2.5 mill tax on Ann Arbor property in perpetuity to support the public transportation system.

But, as usually happens when money is involved, trouble was on the horizon.  According to the history recounted in a citizen’s lawsuit against the City of Ann Arbor, the acting city administrator sent AATA a bill requesting repayment of the city’s subsidy in past years. Further, he informed the authority that it would be levied a “municipal service charge” amounting to nearly 10% of the revenue from the millage. (Ah, how little things have changed.)

The enraged citizens who had supported the millage brought suit against the City in January 1974 and won.  The righteousness of their cause fairly drips from the brief.  Here is how the lead plaintiff described herself:

Sally Vinter, 603 Sunset Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan, is and has for several years…been a resident and a taxpayer of local property taxes and of state income, sales, and motor vehicle taxes.  She has been the chairman of a committee designated “Citizens for a Better Transportation System”, which successfully promoted the 1973 referendum to provide a annual 2 1/2 mill tax levy for mass transportation, as set forth hereinbelow.

In a series of partial judgments (January 10, 1975  ; January 29, 1975; July 24, 1975), Judge Patrick J. Conlin found for the plaintiffs. In a final partial judgment, he indicated that the parties had come to a settlement (we aren’t told the terms) and that no further action on the suit would be taken.

The AATA has been an independent authority ever since then, and the City Council and Mayor have been very little involved, except to appoint board members (who were often long-serving).  But in recent years, Mayor John Hieftje has taken a strong interest in transportation.  He laid this out in a remarkable document, the Mayor’s Model for Mobility, in 2006. As we described in an earlier article, it included a strong focus on two commuter trains, one to Howell and one to Detroit.

Hieftje has molded the AATA board to match his vision.  In a conversation some years ago, he specifically stated to me that he had appointed David Nacht (a Scio Township resident) to the AATA Board in order to promote regional transportation.  Under Nacht’s leadership as the then chair, the board took a straw vote in May 2008 to become a regional authority.  The TMP, if achieved, would complete that ambition, and fulfill many aspects of Hieftje’s vision of a complex transit system, with two commuter trains, in-city routes utilizing light rail or bus rapid transit, and major new infrastructure, including a new train station.

But there are many unanswered questions about the fate of the AATA as a city bus service, and about how that hard-won perpetual millage will be used.  They’ll be in future posts.

Categories: Sustainability, Transportation

Comments: 2 Comments

Ann Arbor’s Suburban Brain Problem

March 11, 2011

Suburbs are not getting really great press these days. They are properly a region outside an urban center and best known for the residential colonies formed outside major cities post-World War II (here is a Wikipedia summary).  The images of cookie-cutter neighborhoods, often with transportation malfunctions, come into play.  A little elitism and even racism is associated with the idea. (In Michigan, we especially think of “white flight” from Detroit and the resulting suburbs ring.  In Ann Arbor, a couple of UM professors have been critical of suburbs, including Matthew Lassiter and Jonathan Levine.)  Now, does Ann Arbor qualify as a suburb?  I say no.  Ann Arbor is simply a small city, 45 minutes or more from a large city.

Regardless, Russ Collins, the executive director of the Michigan Theater, has been chafing against the “suburban” mentality of Ann Arborites for years. (I’m pretty sure that I read this from him in a 20-year-old article, but see also DDA minutes and my report from 2005.)  He has often used the word as a pejorative, especially when he is talking about what downtown should be.  Just as mankind supposedly continues to operate with a “savanna brain” based in our origins on the plains of Africa, we neighborhood types in Ann Arbor evidently suffer from suburban brain, which leads us into imprudent and inappropriate yearning for green grass.

This was the main theme of the DDA Partnerships Committee on March 9 as they discussed parks in the downtown with City of Ann Arbor park planner Amy Kuras.  Kuras was there to help the committee in their project to plan for development of the city-owned lots downtown.  She was reviewing with them the PROS plan update.  As described by the Ann Arbor Chronicle, the plan was passed by Council on March 7.  One of the distressing (from the DDA’s viewpoint) facts made evident by the plan is that the Central Area is rather sadly deficient in parks.  The Central Area, which includes but is much larger than the downtown, is bounded by Seventh Street, Stadium Boulevard, Ferdon, and Summit Street/Huron River.

Central Area from city website

As the statistics in the plan make clear, even with the relatively large swaths of West Park and Fuller Park (soon to be a transit hub!), the Central Area is far below other parts of Ann Arbor in park acreage per thousand residents.

From PROS plan; click for larger image

Note that the chart indicates open space that is not city-owned as well, though the figure of 3.7 acres/1000 residents is calculated using only city parkland.  Ann Arbor resident Rita Mitchell, who has been following park matters very closely, made calculations based on addition of city and non-city open space and found that even including the additional open space, there were only 4.79 acres per 1000 residents in the Central Area. Compared to the city-wide average of over 18 acres/1000 residents, that’s not much.

Downtown has very few parks, as is obvious from looking at the map.  The most well-known (Sculpture Park, Liberty Plaza) are mostly concrete with some plantings.  A group advocating a “Central Park”  for the Library Lot make that statement forcefully on their website. But this doesn’t fit with the DDA’s push for development on all downtown lots.  So as the Partnership Committee discussed parks in the downtown, Collins’ frustration burst forth, with a statement that “the public doesn’t understand” the dichotomy between suburban and urban space.  “A suburban template drawn on urban space kills the urban space!”  He urged Kuras to “help us figure out how to communicate”. Kuras agreed that downtown is different qualitatively, that downtown residents “recreate” differently from “suburban” areas.  Susan Pollay pointed out that the public also misconstrues what a “park” should mean.   “We have to stretch the vocabulary.”  She said that the word “park” can mean different things – hardscape is also valuable. It doesn’t have to be green grass.

The group discussed different types of “open space” in the downtown.  University spaces like the Diag were brought up, and the proximity of West Park and Wheeler Park were mentioned.  But for those “recreating” in the downtown, Main Street is open space.  People throng down those wide sidewalks, dine at tables, sit on the planters.   And several times a year, Main Street is closed off to traffic, so the whole street becomes open space.  Kuras mentioned that contributions from developers are supposed to be used to support parks in the same neighborhood, but they are trying to find creative ways to use those contributions in the downtown.  Pollay described an effort to fix up “Transformer Plaza”, a wobegone stretch of concrete filled with electrical transformers next to the Forest Street structure.  They are hoping to place more amenities there to make it a place people can relax.

Another idea is flex space – maybe for some events, the Palio parking lot could be temporarily opened up and “activated”.  Library Lane could be closed to make room for book reading events.  Really, there are already so many open space possibilities in the downtown.  If only we can get those Ann Arbor suburban brains to take it in.

UPDATE:  Dave Askins, in his account of a recent DDA meeting in the Chronicle, captured Collins’ thinking this way:

“Russ Collins commented on a theme he’s often explored, namely the idea that Ann Arbor is ostensibly a suburban community and that when people talk about the downtown, often they speak of it as if it’s an urban area. But the types of parks that are effective in a suburban area, Collins said, are not necessarily effective in an urban area. In urban areas, he said, density, activity and noise are positive attributes, even though those features are considered anathema in suburban areas.”

SECOND UPDATE: The final PROS plan was adopted by the City Council in May of 2011.  Download it here.

Categories: Neighborhoods, politics, Sustainability

Comments: 16 Comments

Sustainable Ann Arbor: Georgetown Reborn

January 11, 2011

There are two competing narratives today about Ann Arbor’s future.  One is Metropolitan Ann Arbor.   In this one, “Ann Arbor” is really a significant fraction of mid-Washtenaw County, and perhaps even beyond. (SPARK calls this our brand,  “Ann Arbor, USA” and this includes a business incubator in Plymouth, Michigan (Wayne County). The actual city itself is the center of a growing nexus of enterprise and development, with high-density residential buildings springing up along transit corridors (Transit-Oriented Development) that use sophisticated rail or other rapid, high-volume transportation, centered around the University of Michigan (see also our post, Our Shining City on a Hill).

The other narrative is Sustainable Ann Arbor, where local (city) residents foster interdependence and build connections and resources that will support us as a community over the long run.  Sustainable Ann Arbor is focused on becoming ever more a walkable and bikeable community where local businesses (run by local people) thrive, food produced in the immediate area is sold in farmer’s markets and local eateries, and where a quality of life and special character that is “home” is fostered.  Yes, I am talking about localization and making our city work for its residents.

Now that the Council is underway with budget talks, these two narratives are competing for resources.  There is plenty of grim news for the Sustainable side of the story.  So for that reason, the news that the ruin that is Georgetown Mall might be redeveloped is very good news indeed. According to AnnArbor.com, the new development would be called Packard Square and, from the description, would cover a good deal more of the land area at the site than the current buildings do.  From comments attributed to the developer, it appears that this may be the first development to take advantage of the new zoning resulting from the Area, Height, and Placement project (see detail of changes to the previous sections).  Those changes increased allowable heights, but more importantly perhaps for this case reduced the necessary setbacks.  I haven’t seen the proposed design, but the article indicates that  “The retail space would surround a public square, with a small amount of park space and some benches… Beyond the retail space, the apartments would surround a pool area. Parking would be largely around the perimeter of the property, with a total of 450 spaces and some located under the basement of the apartments.”  That sounds much more attractive and people-friendly than the old huge front parking lot.

Aside from a more attractive appearance and functionality, this is very good news because of its location.  This development comes at a time that the Packard corridor has been undergoing a number of interesting changes.  There have been a couple of new businesses near the upscale Morgan & York gourmet food and wine shop.  Fraser’s Pub has evolved from a smoky bar to a family-friendly neighborhood hangout with good pizza.  With the business development at the corner where Food and Drug used to be (NW of the intersection of Stadium and Packard), the area has a deli, a good liquor/wine shop, a coffee shop, and still keeps its Dairy Queen for summer ice cream.  Do I sound like a booster?  Yes, I am, because this is exactly what a sustainable neighborhood should look like, with many different services available within walking distance.  And the Kroger at South Industrial, plus a number of other services, are not far away.

This last year I and my husband have been making an attempt to expand our walking range.  Thus I have taken to using a simple Google-map-based pedometer to calculate the distance to various locations within Ann Arbor.  I am pleased to discover that the distance from our house to the east side of downtown (and the west side of the UM campus) is only 2 miles.  Since we can now walk 1 mile very quickly without noticing it, and 2 miles with a little break at the end, this means that even when our local bus service doesn’t run, downtown is accessible to us without an automobile, at least in decent weather.

My definition of the good life (and the sustainable one) is being able to reach most of the necessities of life without climbing into an automobile.  Ann Arbor still has a very decent local bus system, though Metropolitan Ann Arbor is driving it toward service concentrated on commuters coming in from elsewhere.  Residents of the new Packard Square will be able to reach the intersection of Stadium and Packard by walking only 0.8 miles (perhaps 15 minutes) and the UM campus or downtown at 2 miles.  By bicycle, hardly any time at all.  And AATA’s Route 5 comes right up Packard every 15 minutes, 12 hours a day.

There will, of course, be some issues to work out, like perviousness (swales?) and details of the design as it affects immediate neighbors.   The preliminary plans call for 220 rental apartments and they will be “upgrades”, according to the developer.  There will also be a few additional service establishments. This is what urban infill should look like. No demolition of an existing neighborhood, instead a denser development within walking distance of downtown, in an emerging area.  And the neighborhood will no longer have to co-exist with a ruin.  The New Year couldn’t start off much better.

UPDATE: The Number One exhibit of  Metropolitan Ann Arbor’s tug on our city’s resources is the Fuller Road Station.  The recent article on AnnArbor.com, reporting on a recent working session about FRS, contains many pertinent comments from readers about this open sink for city funds.

SECOND UPDATE: Today’s AnnArbor.com story includes a rendering of the project.

Categories: Business, Neighborhoods, Sustainability

Comments: 2 Comments

Mother’s Day Meditation – What Do We Owe the Future?

May 9, 2010

A friend wished me a happy Mother’s Day in advance yesterday.  I replied that, as a childless person whose mother and mother-in-law are both dead, it didn’t mean much to me.  She replied “Oh, but you’re the mother of the city.”

This was a rather jarring image which I immediately put aside.  But in today’s New York Times I read yet another diatribe by Thomas Friedman about “mortgaging our children’s future”.  And there was also a semi-humorous but rueful discussion of Gen X‘s midlife crisis.  (They are now in their 30s and 40s.)  And it hit me.  I’ve been spending my entire career in public life trying to protect the future.  Not my children, not your children, but those who will occupy our place a generation from now (30 years is a good approximation).  If worrying about the future of those to come makes one a mother, I’m your worrier.

Since this is a meditation (some might call it a rant), I’ll step aside from my usual practice of documenting every statement and linking to as many original records as possible.  I’ll just tell the story. (Much is from my service as a Washtenaw County Commissioner, a member of the Board of Commissioners, from 1997-2004. I actually recycled most of those records but memory still persists.)

Here are the sources of my worry.  First, local governments began to mortgage the future beginning in the 1990s and certainly in the decade we are just finishing, by taking on obligations for the next 30 years.  That’s right, for an entire generation.  In the past, millages were often for 5 years at a time and bond issues were characteristically for 15 or 20 years.  Suddenly we started hearing of millage, bond proposals, and other obligations, for 30 years.  A couple of examples:  the Ann Arbor Greenbelt millage ballot measure was for 30 years, as was the proposed TIF arrangement for Broadway Village.  (That development has collapsed of its own weight but is showing signs of renewed life.)  The Ann Arbor DDA charter was renewed for 30 years, committing all TIF (tax increment financing) from the downtown area for that period.  The new parking garage under the Library Lot will apparently be paid off in 2035 (only 25 years, what a relief).  This list is by no means complete, but you get the idea.

Second, decisions have been made that seem to depend on wishful, or worse, magical thinking.  This is what I also refer to as linear or “what could go wrong?” thinking.  For example, during the housing boom, the county budget director repeatedly and yearly came out with budget forecasts prefaced with the statement (in writing!) that “the best predictor of the future is the past”. I objected to this more and more vehemently but glaring across the podium had little effect.  The county engaged in obligations based on the supposition that the increase in property values (and county revenues) would continue on an upward climb indefinitely?  Although I was continually digging in my heels, the county administrator continually proposed expansive building projects and other enterprises (the county is now supporting a number of “economic development” agencies and projects that are, to my mind, of questionable value).  We built a new administrative building at Ann and Main and then a huge new building on Zeeb Road (it is now for sale/lease).  We paid to build a Head Start school building in Superior Township (it was not our responsibility).  We built a homeless shelter at much greater cost (millions and millions) than we should have (among other things, we had to pay a bonus to the banks who owned the worthless piece of property because we took it by eminent domain and had to make up a complete new set of working plans after the completed plans were deemed illegal; the building was in the floodway).  We renovated the old administration building (which was working ok) to make a “world-class” set of offices and meeting chamber.  Over and over we heard that budgets were rosy, right up through the period when the state revenue sharing began to fail and we had to start laying off workers.  When I asked the administrator what we would do if, contrary to the projections, we entered a deflationary period, he replied, “that hasn’t happened in my lifetime”.  Now the county has been going through budget cuts that have meant a severe paring of many good functions, that actually served the public.  It has been painful to watch.

A third point is that many of these public decisions have been based on a growth model rather than on a sustainable model.  Sustainability in its original definition was “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.  This is a core belief and philosophy of mine.  But it isn’t very good for making money.  Our local governments have been development-oriented for years and real estate interests, allied with the building trades, have had an interest in making sure that we keep on building.  Unfortunately, most systems do not allow for unending growth; growth is simply not sustainable (in a different sense) indefinitely.  Eventually the whole house of cards comes down. We saw that on a national level in the last couple of years.  But the county and to some extent the city are based on a continued development model in order to continue increased revenue.  Policies have been adjusted accordingly.  While on the county Board of Public Works I worked hard to stall or modify a proposal to install a new sewer system and water supply system in the western part of the county.  It was to be based in Sylvan Township near Chelsea.  Because our Huron River phosphate allowances are over the top, the sewage effluent was channeled to Jackson County.  Of course the whole point was to enable much more development in that area (rural development has been hindered by lack of water utilities).  In a what-can-go-wrong scenario, a group of developers promised to make the bond payments.  That’s right, the county sold full faith and credit municipal bonds to support the project that was really to benefit sprawl development – and development that would especially favor a group of developers.  Predictably, the cost of making bond payments ended up falling back on the township, and recently the county has refinanced the bonds.  According to a story by the Ann Arbor Chronicle, assurances were still being made that the county taxpayers would not be “stuck” with the payments as the county refinanced the bonds this year.

At core, much of my frustration and worry is based on a view of local government and its relation to local residents that is not shared by those in power.  As I expressed in an earlier post, I believe that we should run our local government like a household.  Here’s what I said:

But I think we should be running our local government like a household.  In a household, you save money during the good times so that you can tide yourself over during the bad times.  If one of the children is at an age when he costs a lot (maybe he is outgrowing his clothes too fast), you don’t jettison him, but cut the rest of the household expenses (hamburger instead of steak) to support him.  You certainly don’t buy a Mercedes, then complain about how much that kid costs.

And like a household, we should not be taking out a big mortgage on the house and leveraging it in investments that may be speculative or helpful only to a few people.  (We should not be spending it on new toys either, like that sink for money named WALLY.  And by the way – the Greenbelt millage has already been at least half spent, during the time of highest land prices.  They bonded against the millage proceeds and took the cash upfront.) Again, we have seen the result of such behavior both for individuals and for government over the last couple of years.  If we owe anything to the future (to all those who will be living in this city in five, ten, twenty, or thirty years), it is not to spend their inheritance – the assets of the city.  (That would include public lands and infrastructure.)  And we should not encumber them with debt that will make it difficult for them to maintain a reasonable life in a good community.

So please, wear your galoshes and make sure you have bus fare to get home.  I’ll worry.

UPDATE: The Sylvan Township sewer deal went really sour, leading to a lawsuit by the developers against the township, and now AnnArbor.com reports that the township is in real trouble after a decision in the Washtenaw County Circuit Court. We may be looking at the first township bankruptcy in Washtenaw County.

SECOND UPDATE: The saga continues.

Categories: civic finance, Sustainability

Comments: 6 Comments

Our Shining City on a Hill

March 11, 2010

About the University of Michigan transportation forum of March 10, 2010, and what it said about the relationship of the UM and Ann Arbor.

The University of Michigan presented a thought-provoking look into its future on March 10 (see here for AnnArbor.com’s coverage of the event) by combining a student project with presentations both from vendors of alternative transportation and by people who are actually operating such systems.  But the evening also demonstrated how the UM is really another city or state, not part of Ann Arbor at all.  How will its future affect that of our city?

I love going onto the UM campus.  The very air is different, as though of a different ionization state.  The campus sparkles and is thronged with students preoccupied with the bigger issues.  The buildings are monumental.  And when we townies are allowed to participate in some of its events or lectures, the result is so stimulating.  Of course some of this almost somatic reaction of mine is due to my own history as a child of a college professor who became a college professor.  Until I moved to Ann Arbor, I was always part of a college campus in some role or another.  But I think that even those without this personal history can feel the magnetism and power of this institution and this campus.

It is almost as though the UM were part of an alternate reality.  Let’s suppose that we are still living in the Michigan of before September 11, 2001.  Our manufacturing sector is still strong.  The tech boom hasn’t yet faltered.  And local and state governments still have plenty of money for infrastructure and programs, enough to make grants and other investments in the future. The Federal budget is even in surplus!  In that auditorium, breathing that air and listening to the student presentation, I could almost believe.

As described by the forum’s moderator, Jim Kosteva, the forum was forecast by UM President Mary Sue Coleman last fall (a video interview is here and a discussion is here) when she said that she wanted to get in the cutting-edge, best thinkers on transportation.  She also acknowledged (rather perfunctorily) an interconnection with the city on transportation issues.  In the interview, she also says that the UM began to seriously consider the Fuller Road Station (also called the Fuller Intermodal Transit Station, or FITS) when they acquired the Pfizer campus on Plymouth Road, now called the North Campus Research Center (NCRC).  (The city webpage has a list of documents describing FITS;  the Ann Arbor Chronicle reviewed one of the public meetings about the station.)

Acquisition of the NCRC has nearly completed a necklace chain of campuses that make UM cut a swath through the heart (slightly displaced to one side) of Ann Arbor.  Beginning with the East Medical Campus in Ann Arbor Township at the corner of Plymouth and Earhart Roads, to the NCRC on Plymouth Road and then to North Campus (between Plymouth and Fuller Roads), the Medical Campus (Fuller Road to near Geddes Avenue), the Central Campus (near downtown, extending down State to Hill) and then to the Athletic Campus (between Main and State, and parts on South State), there is a nearly continuous crescent of UM property and facilities.

The students taking Industrial and Operations Engineering 424 were tasked last fall with applying their training to constructing (in concept)  a transportation system that would unite these campuses.  They worked in several teams to apply their training (which was not previously in transportation) to come up with fully-fleshed plans.  The class voted to use a monorail system for their plan.  (This eliminated several other possible choices, including buses, commuter rail, streetcars, and autonomous vehicles.)   With the monorail (an elevated system), the entire system would be traversed in a 24 minute round trip, with 9 stops.   There would be three high-capacity stations, at Fuller Road Station, CC Little in Central Campus (this looked to be compatible with recently announced plans for a transit center in this area), and Pierpont Commons on North Campus.  That would leave six lower-capacity “intermediate” stations scattered along the route.  All was very tightly calculated and scheduled, with different teams coming to similar estimates of time for the route.  Some dollar estimates were provided; the monorail system to cost $434 million (construction) and the stations $31-50 million.  It was stated that operating costs for the bus system could then be reduced.  (Different teams provided estimates for their own sections but there was no unified budget presented.)  One group did explore funding options, which included Federal funds: formula funds ($1 million), New Start money ($225 million) and another grant program (something about electrical transmission)for $10 million.  They estimated $421,000 annually from advertising and $1-2 million from parking revenues at NCRC (using the current parking lots, which require no new investment).  Mention was made of a “funding gap” with the AATA – apparently to pay the cost of the UM’s agreement with the AATA for connection with city buses.

Students were the major expected customer class, and a number of them were interviewed for the study. But the team also looked up zip codes for UM employees and found that most of them live north and west of Ann Arbor.  Accordingly, they made some regional transportation recommendations, including a connection between AATA buses and WALLY, a new freeway exit at Nixon Road, and a commuter shuttle bus between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti using the old Norfolk Southern railroad right-of-way.

The rest of the program including some eye-opening technologies and some examples of functioning systems.  The Cleveland Bus Rapid Transit system was impressive.  (Michael York, who spoke on behalf of the Euclid Corridor, noted that it has “train-like” properties and that it required total reconstruction of its route. ) The Minneapolis Hiawatha Line is a classic light rail application.  There were also funitels and automated people movers by Bombardier (their representative was so well prepared that he showed a stop at FITS on one slide).   My favorite of all was the Unimodal Personal Rapid Transit vehicle (a gondola-style maglev).  These typify what you would expect to see in a city of the future – what we used to call the 21st century.

But all these dazzling notions were brought down to earth when public comment began with a couple of speakers from the Center for Independent Living inquiring about access for the disabled. (One of the forum presenters pointed out that AATA provides paratransit service but the gondolas include a special ADA vehicle that is dispatched on request.)  Most of the public were speaking from the viewpoint of residents of Ann Arbor rather than UM students or employees.  Alice Ralph asked about the social impact of an elevated system vs. a ground-based system.  She pointed out that much of the talk about density in Ann Arbor over the last few years has focused on the notion of a vibrant street scene.  What is the impact of removing people to a system that isolates them from the street?  She concluded that “as a double community, we should talk about that”.  Another speaker, who identified himself as a “citizen who is part of the silent majority”, said that the point seemed to be only how to connect the UM corridors.  He pointed out that a lot more people use Plymouth Road and State Street besides UM-related travelers.  He asked whether the passenger numbers that were being used to plan the system included other consumers in the community and challenged the planners to look a little further – “is it good for the community?”.  Kosteva responded that “we are in partnership with the DDA and AATA to do signature corridor analysis and fully recognize the importance of the broader impact” (on the community at large). (He was referring to the Ann Arbor Connector Study; the Ann Arbor Chronicle’s comprehensive history is here.)  Richard (Murph) Murphy asked at the end how the planning was addressing different groups of users.  Part of the system will be carrying hospital visitors and much of it campus traffic.  How will the technology differentiate between those (and, I will add, other users)?

Peter Allen’s comment was one of his typically scintillating overviews and futuristic visions.  Allen nearly threw off sparks as he noted the gleaming future with the North-South rail (WALLY), the “game-changing” East-West rail (the Ann Arbor – Detroit project being managed by SEMCOG), the need to take into account the “bike agenda” and “walking agenda”, and the expected increase in Ann Arbor’s population as a result of the 5 years of analysis following the Calthorpe report.  He said that we would be adding 20,000 to 30,000 people to Ann Arbor’s population and reminded us that he teaches TOD (transit-oriented development) and spoke of the “sidewalk excitement” around the NCRC, with people living, shopping, and recreating in the new areas created by a state-of-the-art transit system.  But he had a somber assessment of the likelihood that Federal funds would be available to pay for the new system.  Instead, he said, we should look to the “excess” land around the stops and use it to create income to pay for the transit.  In other words, create dense development along the system line.  (Allen and his students have been advancing proposals for heavy development associated with FITS.)

Allen’s comments highlighted an uncomfortable inference I made months ago.  It appears that much of the city of Ann Arbor’s planning has been guided by the needs and plans of UM.  As I reported earlier, the city has engaged with the UM to plan FITS at a final estimated cost to completion of $40-45 million.  The memorandum of understanding was adopted by council in the summer of 2009.  But it appears that the major point of both FITS and the connector study (discussed in my earlier post)  would be to enable the UM transportation system.   As I also noted in another post, the city has engaged in a number of planning exercises that seem to be pointed at establishing TOD along “signature routes” as defined by the Ann Arbor Transportation Plan Update.  Two of the important signature routes are those highlighted in the UM plan, Plymouth Road and State Street.  Apparently, some invisible hand has been guiding city policy to fit the UM’s long-term plans for some time.  When the Area, Height and Placement public meetings were being held in the summer of 2009, one city planner was pushed repeatedly to explain why the pressure to pass these changes seemed to be so intense, given Ann Arbor’s current slow population increase.  He finally acknowledged that it was partly the UM’s expected employee growth. Put the UM’s expansive vision of its future together with the local wish to make a source of wealth available through development, and you have TOD and signature routes.

But what is the benefit to the city of Ann Arbor of these visions, increasingly being clothed with flesh?  When I say “the city of Ann Arbor”, I mean the civic body itself (the government and all its agencies), its residents, and its local businesses, as well as that group identity that makes us a community.  First, if these transit plans can be realized in any substantial part, will they be usable by the community at large?  The picture presented on Wednesday night was mostly that of an internal connection within the UM family of campuses.  Will advanced technology and signature routes make the life of the non-UM employee who lives in Ann Arbor any easier or better?  Will a UM monorail system (for example) even be accessible to non-UM personnel?  (To my knowledge, only UM students and employees can use their bus system.)

The second concern is the cost to our city and transportation budgets of realizing this vision.  The way FITS is materializing is troubling; we have committed to a fair proportion of its costs, and the funding thus far has come directly from our own infrastructure accounts.  But it seems unlikely that in its earliest form (as a mostly UM parking structure), it will benefit city residents.  Meanwhile, we read depressing headline after headline.  No more mowing in the parks.  Police and fire personnel being laid off.  Loss of trash removal a possibility.  Stadium Bridge is falling down. Our city grows shabbier and more and more down at the heels.  (I learned in January why my street is no longer cleaned after leaf pickup.  The street cleaners were shifted to another fund and they don’t do that kind of cleaning any more.  So I have leaf compost blocking the spring runoff.)  How do we afford supporting the UM’s needs or wishes, especially since they don’t pay taxes even on the new NCRC research facilities (which apparently will be hosting start-up companies).

All this seemed rather petty when sitting in that fine auditorium.  The UM’s vision makes a lot of sense from its own viewpoint.  It is an internationally recognized university with a far-reaching vision that is being realized successfully.  Our poor little shabby town has become something of an awkward appendage to this shining city within a city.   And even as a momentary guest in it, briefly I could believe.  But I still live here in the other city.  I hope that someone is watching out over us, too.

————–

Note: the phrase, “a shining city on a hill” has a long history.  My picture of it was always as a dazzling promise of wonders to be aspired to, but where all may not enter in.

Categories: civic finance, Sustainability, Trends

Comments: 11 Comments

Young Talent, Innovation, and the Growth of Ann Arbor

March 7, 2010

Introducing a meditation on the underlying themes in a discussion of  the future of Ann Arbor.

Concentrate, the online magazine that has a strong pro-development stance, recently (March 4, 2010)  sponsored a speaker event called “Downtown Development – a Generational Divide”.  The intro on the website was ominous. “Who decides what Ann Arbor’s downtown looks and feels like? Are we making it a place where young and talented people want to be? Is density good for our community?”  Many of us who are tired of being called “NIMBYs” for supporting neighborhood integrity and historic preservation found ourselves on the defensive, since it seems to imply that the old folks better get out of the way and let development blossom, because that’s what the young want.  (Some of the comments on AnnArbor.com’s story reflected this defensiveness.)  But the talk wasn’t like that, and the panel, which consisted of two “younger generation” and two “older generation” types, avoided all the pitfalls and pointed the way to a number of discussions that we are having and should continue to have.  The evening also highlighted the need to examine the underlying assumptions that are guiding much of the talk about Ann Arbor’s future.

Dan Gilmartin, executive director of the Michigan Municipal League, was the speaker.  He has apparently been giving the same talk all over Michigan.  (The MML is an educational organization that promotes the causes of cities.)  His message is blunt: Michigan is sinking fast, and it’s never going to be the way it was.  We have to change.  But much of this was predicated on the loss of the auto industry, less of an issue for the Ann Arbor area.  (We are the company town for the University of Michigan, which looks as though it is staying put.) Still, he made an important point.  It is important for a city, including ours, to attract and retain young people who will bring their vitality and creativity to bear on making new kinds of economic opportunity.

Gilmartin was supporting a campaign that has come out of Detroit, called Let’s Save Michigan. A handout passed out at the talk had the following bullets, not visible yet on the website.  I wish they had done a little copyediting before putting it out.

What We’re For

  • Attracting and keep (sic) a talented/educated workforce by offering livable communities, green jobs, vibrant downtowns, and arts and culture.
  • Targeted economic incentives by bringing jobs to cities and urban areas.
  • Improved quality of life by promoting bars and restaurants, parks, and museum in walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods.
  • Innovative job creation by incentivizing entrepreneurship and small business.
  • Smart city redevelopment by rebuilding downtowns and repopulate mixed-use areas.
  • Sustaining and improving existing infrastructure by maintaing (sic) and improving public transit in urban areas.
  • Appropriate taxation policies that reflect our modern economy and promote better use of existing infrastructure.

The language is garbled and sometimes opaque on careful reading, but the theme is a familiar new urbanist one with a strong dose of “Cool Cities” (what the points about economic incentives indicate are a mystery).

Gilmartin’s talk was easier to understand and well-presented.  He started right off by saying that there was a cultural and attitudinal divide in discussions of Michigan’s future.  “Michigan is in such a funk.”  Everyone in Michigan is, he said, basically managing the decline, right down to the municipal level, where we talk about how many police and firefighters to lay off this year or next (sound familiar?).  He urged us to change the conversation.

Much of the talk was around the idea that Michigan has to move beyond the old paradigm of a one-industry state where people could get a good job without a college education to one that entices the young talent to stay here and create a new economy.  In 2008, Gilmartin said, Michigan was 37th among the states in per capita income.   Meanwhile, the young Millennials (defined here as young adults under 35) are not staying; 46% leave Michigan after graduation.

Now here is where we get to the crux of his thesis.  He says they are not leaving because they don’t have jobs, but because they don’t find the experience of living here sufficiently enticing.  While in the old paradigm, people moved to where the jobs are – now (young) people move to where they want to live, then create the jobs.

“Place attracts people.”  With the global economy, knowledge-based industries are the future and people can work anywhere because of the Internet and general connectiveness.  So young people will choose where to live first, then look for work. They are choosing urban centers.  Citing a study in Fast Company magazine, he said that the young innovators choose “fast cities” like London, where one out of eight work in a “creative industry”.

What this means about jobs is that we are relying on these young innovators to create them. “We need to measure job creation in ones and twos instead of thousands.”  So for job growth, we have to bring the creative innovators here, where they will make the jobs.

And what do the young creative innovators want?  A sense of place. An urbanized area where they run into lots of others like themselves (but not too much like, they treasure diversity).  Open space. (Hooray for the park on the Library Lot!) Museums and cultural opportunities.  Walkable communities. Cafés. Bike paths. Informal “third places” where they can gather (Commons, anyone?). Green design.  They want communities built around happiness and well-being, that aim for excellence, not mediocrity.  Accessibility.  Sociability.  Much of this is about what commentator Alice Ralph later characterized as “density of experience”:  what Gilmartin called “1000 nights” worth of activities.  (That’s two nights a week for 50 weeks a year for 10 years, after which the Millennial gets married and moves to the suburbs.)

Except maybe for the 1000 nights concept, there is little here that any thinking sensitive person would contest, and it seems that Ann Arbor already fills a lot of those criteria.  But then we launch into a new discussion: the role of density in achieving all this.  As Gilmartin said, we hate two things: sprawl and density.  “You gotta figure that out.”

It was clear that moderator Jeff Meyers and the institutional host of this talk, Concentrate, wanted to make the discussion about density and development, though that was not the major focus of the talk.  The panel, Anya Dale (a planner who works for Washtenaw County), Ray Detter (of the Downtown Citizens’ Advisory Council), Richard (aka Murph) Murphy, (a founder of Arbor Update and until recently the Ypsilanti city planner), and Alice Ralph (a civic activist who most recently wrote the Commons proposal) neatly side-stepped most of his efforts to make the subject contentious on a generational level, as the title implied.

In answer to a question about whether the Millennials felt too entitled, the panel agreed that we need a diversity of options for all ages, including more housing choices (other than, as Dale said, single-family houses or expensive downtown condos).  Meyers then asked who gets to define the character of a neighborhood (and, he added, is this question too focused on aesthetics);  he interrupted Ralph to ask whether that should be current or “future” residents.  The panel generally answered that the “neighbors” (current residents)  should decide, regardless, as Murphy said, of age and tenure (he left the operational question of contacting future residents aside).  Detter also made the point that increased downtown density should not extend to the near-downtown neighborhoods that come under the Central Area Plan, where scale and character were considered important by the plan and the residents alike. (This was not a direct answer to the question but met the implied challenge, since much of the recent controversy has been about the near-downtown Germantown area, where one of Concentrate’s principals has an interest in the Moravian project.)  Ralph made the insightful comment that the presentation was about encouraging a positive social development, not about encouraging business, commercial and development interests to create more of what they already have. Murphy observed that some near-downtown neighborhoods (the Old Fourth Ward) already were quite dense (density being defined as number of housing units per area) and that other near-downtown neighborhoods could help meet the challenge of increasing density without altering scale or character by allowing accessory apartments.  This would acknowledge that many households are quite small now (1-2 people) and allow more people to live in that area.

Meyers then asked if you couldn’t have medium-size buildings in between, but Dale said that is not how a successful community works; the solution is transit.  There was then a turn of the discussion to improving transit, so that (young) people can live many places in the area (not just downtown) and get places they need to go efficiently.  Murphy mentioned that there are areas elsewhere besides downtown that could accept a lot more density (State Street/Eisenhower being an example); if good transit systems exist, this is a good workable solution.  All four panelists agreed that regional transportation as well as local transportation was important.

So the panel was able to show pretty fair unanimity on this question: how do we create more diverse housing and greater residential density in our community?  But some of the underlying questions were not addressed.

1. Does the thesis put forth by the speaker that we can and should intentionally create a community that will draw young talent to Ann Arbor in order to provide for a future economic benefit make sense?

2. If so, is residential density at all part of the strategy?

3. What is the current state of that demographic in our city?

4. How does this idea fit into our overall hopes for Ann Arbor’s future and where we go from here?

UPDATE: Jeff Meyers, the editor of Concentrate, wrote a lengthy comment and rebuttal to much of this post, which I have posted below under comments.  (It was sent to our gmail address after he was unable to post a comment in the ordinary way on the site.)  I won’t comment on his statements except to acknowledge that I was evidently in error regarding Newcombe Clark’s current involvement with Concentrate, for which I apologize.

SECOND UPDATE: Crain’s Detroit Business has a story about 20-somethings who have come back to Ann Arbor – for the quality of life, among other things.

Categories: Basis, Business, Neighborhoods, Sustainability, Trends

Comments: 19 Comments

Density and the Conference Center

January 24, 2010

As the debate about what will happen on Top of the Parking continues, part of it is being conducted on a familiar Ann Arbor battleground.  After we were told earlier that the RFP Advisory Committee’s main concern was the financial benefit to the city, given the city’s big budget troubles, suddenly the old division between proponents of parks vs. “density” has emerged.  Indeed, when some members of the advisory committee say the word “park”, it is spat out like a bad word.   But a major thrust on defining the fate of the former Library Lot as being about density has come from a strange quarter: the Ann Arbor District Library board and its director, Josie Parker.

As we reviewed earlier, the new look at the Library Lot and its possible uses began with the AADL, which began in 2006 to do strategic planning toward a new library addition.  The DDA and Council both responded by beginning to plan for an underground parking structure, ostensibly to assist the AADL.  But only two months after the DDA approved a plan to build the structure, the AADL (in November 2008) voted to suspend their construction plans.  As the city has progressed toward making a decision about the use of the surface above the parking structure, the AADL has been the elephant in the room, often alluded to but rarely heard from.  But at the December 21 AADL board meeting, when the board engaged in a rather tentative discussion about the proposals on the table, board chair Rebecca Head suddenly came out with the classic “greenbelt link” density argument.  Her statement (paraphrased from my incomplete notes) was approximately this: an open space option was not a sustainable choice for the library lot.  A basic tenet of sustainability is that density should be in the city and open space should be in “appropriate” (her word) places, namely outside the city.  The greenbelt initiative was to place parks and greenbelt around the city, and infill should take place within it.

This theme was then repeated by Josie Parker at the interviews conducted by the RFP committee on January 19, when the Dahlmann open space proposal was being discussed.  She was asked her opinion about the proposal and stated that she believed the greenbelt came with the assumption that density is a priority in the city.

At the advisory committee’s January 21 meeting, where they were reviewing proposals in light of the interviews, DDA director Susan Pollay made an unexpectedly vehement statement opposing a park or open space on the lot and characterizing density as a source of  “energy” on behalf of the library.  Pollay, who has been working closely with Parker since the days of planning the library expansion, said that open space would not be used there and that it would “leach off” the library, that traffic was needed to support the library and bring energy to it.  The library, she said, is the true community gathering space and only the two hotel/conference center projects were “legitimate” projects that will support the library in its growth.  (My reaction was to wonder why the library needs a hotel to bring people to it – it is a draw in itself.)  Then outgoing community services administrator Jayne Miller chimed in with a riff on how the city had been trying for years to get downtown density.  She said that the greenbelt initiative gave the city a direction to increase density and they had been working on it for years with the A2D2 process and other efforts and why would we waste that when we had an opportunity to increase downtown density.

As I reviewed in an article first published in the Ann Arbor Observer in December 2005,  city voters approved a millage (popularly known as the Greenbelt millage) in 2003. The resolution is worth rereading in its entirety, as is the ballot language. See here. There is no mention anywhere of density or balancing growth within and without the city.  Instead, the resolution leads with this resounding whereas statement:

Whereas, The City of Ann Arbor has long been identified as desirable place (sic) to live, work and visit in part because of the presence of parks, open space and natural habitats, watercourses and farmland in and around the Ann Arbor community;

Note that part about “in and around the Ann Arbor community”?  Yet development proponents have ever since been claiming that in approving the greenbelt millage, voters also approved increased density within the city while open space belongs outside it.  This is what I have termed the “greenbelt link”.  (See my 2005 article for a lengthy discussion with quotes.)

Pollay is understandably frustrated, since the DDA’s mission is to promote downtown development and yet the only successful project (at least, one that has been built) it has managed so far on city property is Ashley Mews.  The Three-site Plan, which would have built a parking structure on the city lot at First and William and developed the Kline’s Lot and First and Washington public lots (this was reviewed relatively recently by the Ann Arbor Chronicle), was truncated so that the only completed plan was the City Apartments/Village Green project on the First and Washington lot, currently delayed by lack of financing.  A great deal of venom was expressed by DDA board members at the time against the Sierra Club and neighborhood advocates who succeeded in taking First and William off the table. (The Kline’s Lot project was not seen as feasible at all, given the market.)  The Downtown Residential Task Force, which published its report in 2004 (available here), had its main impetus from the DDA (and its then board chair was the chair of the task force).  The DRTF provided the meat of the argument for downtown density and its inception was at the same time as the greenbelt millage initiative.  Clearly in the minds of many in the development community, the two were joined, and Pollay has been one of the strongest proponents of this notion.  But that is not what the voters saw on the ballot, or in the campaign literature.  Even so, the usage of the term “density” has slipped into being synonymous with “development”, which is not accurate.  Most planning documents and studies (including the DRTF) mean “residential density” when they use the term – in other words, that more people live in the area, not that tall buildings sprout up.  If you accept the greenbelt link (which I emphatically don’t), you’d be asking where all the condominiums or apartments are, not looking for hotel and meeting rooms.

Of course, another thinly veiled reason to oppose open space next to the library is its history of difficulties with the troubled population of the old YMCA.  Before the old Y was emptied, some of the tenants with drug, alcohol, and other socially undesirable problems often hung around the entrance to the library. Liberty Plaza, the only open space downtown, has also had a history with the homeless or “vagrants”. Fears of a recurrence of such problems were repeatedly alluded to by RFP committee member Eric Mahler’s references to “security problems”.  In response to a question from Stephen Rapundalo at the interviews, about “less desirable elements”,  Parker asserted that the space might not be well maintained: “it is our experience that people do not clean up after themselves – you have to monitor them”.

Also at issue are the economics of a park or open space vs. a development.  It was frequently mentioned at advisory committee meetings that parks take operational (maintenance) money that the city doesn’t have.  It has been assumed that the development proposals will bring a positive economic benefit (but more about that in a future post).  Miller, in a rather startling outburst, said at the last meeting that she wanted the ice rink removed even from the Valiant proposal.  “You don’t make money off effing free skating!”  (Really, that is what I heard.)

Still, in the end the open space vs. density argument is really about two competing visions of what kind of city Ann Arbor will be in the future.  Is it to be a gracious community where quality of life is defined by community festivals in the open air?  Or a bustling center of activity with visitors bringing wealth to enlarge business opportunities?  The dichotomy is much more nuanced than that, obviously.  But at heart the competing visions are what add passion to the debate.

UPDATE: The Ann Arbor Chronicle has now published an account of the Jan. 21 advisory committee meeting that quotes a number of the discussions.

Categories: civic finance, Sustainability

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