Election Endorsement: Reelect Mayor Taylor for a Progressive Future

The short endorsement

In recent months, rents in Ann Arbor have declined faster than the national average. Via: Realpage.

Housing and affordability is the greatest issue facing Ann Arbor. Mayor Taylor has a a demonstrated track record of improving affordability for market rate housing as well as provisioning more subsidized housing. In recent months, rents have begun to move downward in Ann Arbor and the city has opened new subsidized apartments at Dunbar Tower. The city is making real progress on housing. 

In a recent interview, Rabhi shows that he does not understand the economics of housing. Research consistently shows that new market rate housing (e.g. any unsubsidized housing) reduces rent for nearby units and that the effect is felt within the first year. Rabhi has great rhetoric about housing, but ultimately has few details about what his housing policy would look like. He says he supports duplexes and triplexes, but will not say whether he will implement the Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP). The CLUP is a generational opportunity to improve affordability and sustainability of Ann Arbor and the fact that Rabhi will not say whether will implement is quite worrisome. 

Other people have written better about this than I have

• Scott Trudeau: All Bullhorn, No Gavel: Why Ann Arbor Needs Taylor, Not Rabhi
• Dan Ezekiel: Battle of the Stringbeans
• Adam Goodman: Ideology vs Progress - Why I'm voting for Taylor, not Rabhi

In particular, Dan's article clearly illustrates that Rabhi is part of Ann Arbor's conservative, anti-housing faction in Ann Arbor. 

A strange coalition

One reason for Rabhi's coyness about his housing plans is the composition of his coalition. It is DSA progressives and anti-housing local conservatives. Indeed, numerous landlords are betting on Rabhi: Tom Stulberg, Stewart Beal, Sam Copi, and Issa Properties to name a few. They are all betting that Rabhi will be better for their bottomline than Taylor. Rabhi has come out swinging against "market rate, trickle-down housing." Again, research continues to show that more of this housing can and will drive down rent. Not hard to see why landlords are supporting a candidate that will prevent new competition for them. 

Rabhi has advocated "democratizing density" but has been light on the details. Initially this sounds great, but when you think about it a bit more, it really sounds like a way to allow incumbent homeowners to veto new housing. 

A combative style

Like Scott argues in his article linked above, I think it would be great to send Rabhi back to Lansing or even to DC. He has a combative style that I think would serve him well there. After Scott write that article though, Rabhi referred to him as "some guy that hates my guts" at the LWV/AADL Mayoral Forum. At that same meeting, Rabhi attacked the head of Ann Arbor's Sustainable Energy Utility, Shoshannah Lenski, erroneously labeling her a "former DTE executive." There are other indications that Rabhi's combative style could lead to him being a divisive mayor. Only one of his fellow county commission members has endorsed him and none of his colleagues from his time as state representative have. 

I don't know where else to put this--it's more of a paranoid style than a combative style issue, but in his interview with WEMU, Rabhi said that he believes that there only doing road projects in Ann Arbor right now because an election is happening. To me, this comes off as a wild accusation and it makes me uncomfortable to think that Rabhi is so comfortable pedaling wild conspiracies against his perceived foes. 

Via WEMU

Ann Arbor has a once in a generation opportunity to improve affordability and sustainability through the CLUP. Taylor has a demonstrated success in adding more housing and was involved in passing the CLUP. Rabhi has vague plans for housing and has housing-denier tendencies. The landlords are betting on Rabhi, if you want Ann Arbor to be more affordable and sustainable, vote for Taylor and make sure your friends do too. 

#a2Council races in brief

Ward 1: Vote for Harrison, she has a great record on housing and unarmed response. Arends is opposed to unarmed response and doesn't seem to have clear plans other than blogging. 

Ward 2: I served on the CLUP Steering Committee with Sandy Aldrich, she supports reasonable density and safer streets. Montague has voiced her opposition to street safety. Vote for Aldrich.

Ward 3: Vote for Ashley Hall. She is the pro-housing candidate. When asked how he would pay for the new programs he was advocating for, Ryan B. said: "I'm tired of people asking me this question" and went on to mention the city's bonding capacity. That's like saying we don't need to balance the budget, we have a credit card. 

Ward 4: Vote for Sova. He is the pro-housing candidate. Zeglen either does not understand housing economics, or is a housing denier. He has mentioned empowering neighborhood councils that could veto new housing. 

Ward 5: Vote for Cornell she has an incredible record supporting more housing. Monroe's against the CLUP and his campaign manager is a landlord. I don't have time to get into it, but his whole story about why he decided to run is nonsense.