Monday, November 4, 2019

Ann Arbor City Council Preview: November 4th 2019

Gentle readers, tonight is the first #a2council meeting of November. Here's the agenda.

The fun starts off with a moderate 16 item consent agenda. CA-1 is approval of street closings for Kindlefest, Dec. 6th. CA-2 brings a new property into the Greenbelt in partnership with the county and the township. CA-3 is the appropriation of money from the parkland preservation millage to purchase a wetland near Traver Creek.

There is one public hearing tonight. PH-1/B-1 would amend the zoning ordinance to allow for increased floor area ratio (FAR) and increased heights Commercial and Downtown zoned areas for new buildings that incorporate subsidized/affordable housing units. Given that the state greatly limits the ways municipalities can coerce the construction of affordable units, this change to the zoning code seems like a great idea. Thought given the current makeup of council, I would not be surprised if there is heated debate about this ordinance tonight.

This brings us to the final spicy meatball of the evening: DC-5 Resolution in Support of Creating a Plan to Achieve Ann Arbor Community-Wide Climate Neutrality by 2035. Given that this is just a resolution to create a future plan, it will probably not be too controversial. Still I would be surprised if members of council did not take this opportunity to make big statements about climate change.

Gentle readers, what agenda items are you most interested in? Make sure you tune in to the action tonight 7:00 on CTN and follow along with the #a2council hashtag on twitter.

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