Gentle readers, below is an email from Kirk Westphal. I agree with the sentiment. If you care about making Ann Arbor more affordable, equitable, and sustainable, it is imperative that you engage with Planning Commission and #a2Council in the coming weeks. I'll have more on this later.
Friends!
The next 6 weeks is GO TIME to help the planning commission write the forward-looking, nation-leading Comprehensive Plan that we desperately need — and that so many of you have been advocating for!
Thank you for all your energy and showing up when it counts!
I also want to remind you of the monthly
Blue Tractor Happy Hour happening tomorrow (Weds) from 5pm onward!
(I am always available for phone/coffee/beer chats if you can't make the bimonthly get-togethers, just shoot me a note!), and save the date for a
Town/Gown Urbanism Forum on Thursday, April 24 at 6pm on Central Campus.
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On to the Plan! If you want a quick primer as to what the plan is (and is not) and what priorities you and city council have expressed, the planning staff put together this
4-minute video. There are also councilmembers who put together very
good posts on the current status of the plan. Also, don't miss the excerpts of public comments and a zoning backgrounder at the end of this email.
Here's what you can do... you don't have to be up to speed on all the details to make a difference!
TONIGHT!
Go to City Hall in person at 7pm, and give a comment at the open mic comment period at the beginning of the meeting (up to 3 minutes, no sign-up required) — or just be there in solidarity with folks speaking up for more housing. Several of us will be there! There have been misleading and alarmist
flyers being stuffed into thousands of homeowner mailboxes in the past few weeks, so recent planning commission meetings and online discourse have been quite the spectacle (see excerpts at the end of this email).
Zoom/dial into the meeting at 7pm, give a comment or just watch!
Passcode: 882985
Dial-in: 206-337-9723 or 213-338-8477 or Toll Free 877-853-5247 or 888-788-0099
Meeting ID: 977 6634 1226
NOW OR ANYTIME!
Send an email to planning@a2gov.org and copy citycouncil@a2gov.org (this morning/afternoon if you want to be included in tonight's packet, otherwise anytime is great). Even if you think you might speak or show up to future events, it is always advisable to document your thoughts in a short email! Some ideas for what to say are later in this email. It's helpful to put "support for new housing," "tackle the housing shortage" or something to that effect in the subject line.
LATER THIS MONTH!
This is going to be difficult or impossible for many of you to do, but there will be additional meetings in City Hall as well as public engagement events held at libraries around the city in the coming 6 weeks, according to a new proposal from planning staff last night. The original proposal was to review the draft plan in private among city staff, but they are now suggesting that it be an open process, with the public, planning commission, and city staff reviewing it concurrently. This is better, but, given the delays in the process, it is unfortunate that the draft revisions will be taking place when a key constituency (i.e., half the residents of the city!) will be in exams or away for the summer.
Watch for future emails about these meetings, but if you want to be emailed directly about these and other city processes right as they are scheduled, there is a city-run mailing list that will alert you here.
OK, SO WHAT IS HELPFUL PUBLIC FEEDBACK?
Here are some things that pro-housing activists are emphasizing in their comments to the planning commission and council:
- supporting the process and thanking planning commission and council for how seriously they are taking the housing shortage and trying to undo the harms of exclusionary zoning
- describing your own housing journey, the stress and cost of finding housing, and your living conditions relative to what you pay (this is also important for those of you who are priced out of Ann Arbor and forced to commute)
- if you're not able to come to this and future meetings, pointing out why, and your hope that this and past feedback will be weighed appropriately despite the current surge in misinformation
- responding to any of the feedback that has been received about the process (see excerpts below)
- pushing back on the false narratives that "more housing doesn't mean affordability" — it is well-documented that more market-rate housing does lower rents and creates vacancies in affordable units because it immediately soaks up the demand of wealthier people who can afford to pay for them and stops them from outbidding everyone else for the existing housing. Also, as these buildings age, the rents get lower (study, TikTok). Finally, in Ann Arbor, all new buildings pay into the affordable housing fund through their property taxes, and this fund builds subsidized units.
- pointing out the irony that many commenters are living in luxury-priced $600K+ older low-density housing stock... as they are arguing against allowing smaller, denser, more walkable "luxury" housing opportunities for others
- highlighting any of the (unanimously-agreed-upon) City Council directives for the Comprehensive Plan, and talking about why a particular one is important to you:
- Carefully consider and implement those portions of the A2Zero Living Carbon Neutrality Plan applicable to land use and development activity in the City.
- In the context of a largely developed city, make recommendations for adding new homes and densification in single-family zoned areas, and other areas and zoning districts.
- Develop recommendations and policies that promote fewer zoning districts or categories, that contain more flexibility for re-use and adaptability over time.
- A proposed land use framework that seeks to emphasize values over specified land use limitations where possible.
- Recommendations and policies that undo and/or seek to repair past land use policies and regulations that resulted in exclusion of people based on race, income or other characteristics and other inequities.
Rest assured, the planning commission has taken your feedback very seriously! But right now, the meetings appear very one-sided because again, some anti-change activists and neighborhood associations are manufacturing
outrage. This happens in literally every community that presents a vision for how to include more housing
— especially when it comes to envisioning how lower-density neighborhoods could look when homes get replaced decades into the future. These neighborhoods are often the "power base" of cities, as the people living there are categorically wealthier and have time to engage and navigate city processes (there are
books written about the "neighborhood defenders" phenomena).
That said, community concern is understandable, as city staff and others have superimposed images of very large Ann Arbor apartment buildings as they would appear plopped down in the wealthiest low-density neighborhoods. This is unfortunate, because 1) if this were allowed, it would be impossible or extremely unlikely, and 2) planning commission has NOT contemplated rules like how far ("setback"), tall, or wide a new house, quadplex, or apartment building could be when it's right next to another property line. This is a conversation that will happen later this year or next year, when specific numerical rules are put into place (zoning). This is not the role of the Comprehensive Plan!
FEEDBACK ABOUT THE PLAN
There have been many excellent comments in support of the plan so far! Thank you! Some people have asked what the skeptics are saying, so here's a sampling:
Short term renters are in no way as important as homeowners and long term renters. We (homeowners and long term residents) are here for the long haul. The motivation and interests of student renters versus homeowners and long term renters/residents are completely different. We should in no way pander to the needs of student renters.
I am 800 million percent opposed to any plan that ends single family zoning in the city of Ann Arbor. I specifically chose to live in my current home and neighborhood because it is a city neighborhood, close to city "stuff", in an actual home, with other actual houses next to me. The idea of a "low rise multi story" building next to my two story home is absolutely abhorrent... My neighborhood is already suffering from encroachment from U-M student renters. To be clear, I have nothing against renters, but I am against student renters, who are generally noisy (loud parties late into the night), messy (red cups, trash, unkept yards), and disrespectful (I have personally visited the home of an elderly woman who was terrified (her words) to go in her backyard because of the profanity and noise of her student neighbors)... I will not have the property value of the home that I LOVE, and my quality of life in a city that I love, destroyed.
How does this plan keep any neighborhood with owner occupied single family homes from being purchased by developers and eliminating ALL single family homes, replacing them with multi-unit buildings? This will result in the total loss of "neighborhoods" - where you develop long term, productive and caring relationships, where people know and care for each other, you can call on a neighbor for help, you can assist those trying to age in place in their homes, and the list goes on.
The influx of new housing units could lead to a glut in the housing market, driving down prices.
The sounds of birds and children playing are what I expect to hear—not increased traffic, construction, or commercial activity. This will not only degrade property values but quality-of-life.
I am fine with more development on busy streets and toward areas like Briarwood. But they do NOT belong in our residential neighborhoods.
[This is] your ongoing agenda of what appears to be your Project 2025.
It’s bad enough that our downtown is being destroyed with high rises, please don’t destroy our neighborhoods.
I would also like to reiterate the overwhelming sentiment that you heard tonight from RESIDENTS ... As someone so eloquently stated, WE ARE THE CITY.
The story is about an elderly woman that I had a chance to meet who lived on Dewey. I met her because she was fearful in her own home because there were numerous college parties going on two houses down from her home, a long-term home that she had lived in. She was afraid to go in the backyard because of noise and profanity from her neighbors. I still remember her face and the fear on her face in her home… there are no guard rails to ensure that I will not end up like that elderly woman trapped in my home.
I am not a NIMBY. I am not against increased density in our neighborhoods, but I am against losing the personalities and characteristics of our long established neighborhoods.
Our planning commission would shepherd us in the opposite direction, toward Hell, by instituting changes that would destroy our existing neighborhoods.
Increasing density should not mean forcing families out of neighborhoods.
There are plenty of opportunities for development on the outskirts of the neighborhoods that make this city great. There is no need for upzoning.
The Ann Arbor overlords seem bent on remaking this sleepy college town into an over-crowded polluted mess.
I encourage you to read this and to contact your council member and the planning commission REPEATEDLY. Let your voice be heard, this is extremely scary.
I feel a bit like I'm on a LifeBoat and the Captain of the Ship wants to throw me overboard in favor of folks who are NOT already in the LifeBoat... and there ARE NOT OTHER lifeboats I can go to…
For some reason City Council feels that it has a higher responsibility to people who have yet to move to Ann Arbor, than to the taxpayers who are currently living here. Cramming more and more people into this city is only going to help the affordability problem once you destroy its feel and less people actually want to live here. There are lots of places to grow both in and around Ann Arbor without resorting to this building/cramming/density frenzy the Council seems too happy to promote.
BACKGROUND ON ZONING'S RACIST PAST AND LEGACY
Here are two powerful book excerpts:
“[F]ew American cities recognize the fact that their zoning codes were drafted with the express intention of instituting strict racial and economic segregation. To this day, 'the wrong side of the tracks' is not merely a saying but a place that is written into law as a zoning district drawn on a zoning map. To the extent that zoning can prohibit apartments in this neighborhood, or require homes to sit on a half-acre lot in that suburb, zoning is perhaps the most successful segregation mechanism ever devised."
“This state of affairs is as true in the conservative suburbs of southern cities like Nashville and Atlanta as it is in progressive midwestern college towns like Ann Arbor and Madison. Tucked away behind a veil of 'protecting community character,' zoning has been used to determine who gets to live where since its inception. In practice, this has been used toward the end of rigid economic segregation, which in the American context often means racial segregation. In virtually every suburb in America, zoning maintains a kind of technocratic apartheid, preserving those areas most suitable to housing for the wealthy while locking less privileged Americans into neglected areas far from good jobs and quality public services.”
Nolan Gray, "Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It" (Island Press, 2022)
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In the wake of the 1917 Buchanan decision [which struck down the practice of prohibiting home sales to African Americans in majority White neighborhoods], the enthusiasm of federal officials for economic zoning that could also accomplish racial segregation grew rapidly. In 1921 President Warren G. Harding’s secretary of commerce, Herbert Hoover, organized an Advisory Committee on Zoning to develop a manual explaining why every municipality should develop a zoning ordinance. The advisory committee distributed thousands of copies to officials nationwide. A few months later the committee published a model zoning law. The manual did not give the creation of racially homogenous neighborhoods as the reason why zoning should become such an important priority for cities, but the advisory committee was composed of outspoken segregationists whose speeches and writings demonstrated that race was one basis of their zoning advocacy.
One influential member was Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., a former president of the American City Planning Institute and of the American Society of Landscape Architects. During World War I, Olmsted Jr. directed the Town Planning Division of the federal government’s housing agency that managed or built more than 100,000 units of segregated housing for workers in defense plants. In 1918, he told the National Conference on City Planning that good zoning policy had to be distinguished from “the legal and constitutional question” (meaning the Buchanan rule), with which he wasn’t concerned. So far as policy went, Olmsted stated that “in any housing developments which are to succeed, . . . racial divisions . . . have to be taken into account. . . . [If] you try to force the mingling of people who are not yet ready to mingle, and don’t want to mingle,” a development cannot succeed economically.
Another member of the advisory committee was Alfred Bettman, the director of the National Conference on City Planning. In 1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him to a National Land Use Planning Committee that helped to establish planning commissions in cities and states throughout the country. Planning (i.e., zoning) was necessary, Bettman and his colleagues explained, to “maintain the nation and the race.”
The segregationist consensus of the Hoover committee was reinforced by members who held positions of leadership in the National Association of Real Estate Boards, including its president, Irving B. Hiett. In 1924, two years after the advisory committee had published its first manual and model zoning ordinance, the association followed up by adopting a code of ethics that included this warning: “a realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood . . . members of any race or nationality... whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in that neighborhood.”
Other influential zoning experts made no effort to conceal their expectation that zoning was an effective means of racial exclusion. Columbia Law School professor Ernst Freund, the nation’s leading authority on administrative law in the 1920s, observed that preventing “the coming of colored people into a district” was actually a “more powerful” reason for the spread of zoning during the previous decade than creation of single-family districts, the stated justification for zoning. Because the Buchanan decision had made it “impossible to find an appropriate legal formula” for segregation, Freund said that zoning masquerading as an economic measure was the most reasonable means of accomplishing the same end.
Secretary Hoover, his committee members, and city planners across the nation believed that zoning rules that made no open reference to race would be legally sustainable—and they were right.
Richard Rothstein, "The Color of Law" (W. W. Norton & Company, 2017)
Thanks for reading! I hope to see you soon!
Kirk
