Ann Arbor City Council Preview: July 7, 2025

 

Gentle readers, tonight is #a2Council night. Here's the agenda. 

The evening kicks off with a modest, 14-item consent agenda. CA-1 is an update to the site plan for 625 Church Street. CA-2 is an update to the site plan for 303 Detroit Street. 

There are no public hearings nor ordinance first readings on the agenda tonight. 

There is but one resolution on the docket this evening. DC-1 is a resolution approving the recommendation of the City Administrator for the Timing of Bond Issuance for the Arbor South Project. This is probably tonight's spiciest chili. The big question here is how involved the city should be in the parking structure for new South Town project. 

And that's all there is. If you want to follow the blow by blow tonight, make sure you check out the #a2Council hashtag on Bluesky. 

NPNA Yard Sale tomorrow in Ypsilanti's Normal Park

 

The Normal Park Neighborhood Association annual multi-family yard sale is tomorrow. There will be close to 100 homes selling things in what many consider to be the nation's premier yard sale. Stop by and say hi. 

Ann Arbor City Council Preview: May 19, 2025

 

Gentle readers, it's #a2Council Night in Ann Arbor. Here's the agenda. 

The evening kicks off with a scant, 2-item consent agenda. CA-1 is for the YMCA Community Block Party and CA-2 is to accept a $200k Shared Streets grant for improvements around the Transit Center. 

There is one public hearing on the docket this evening, PH-1/DB-1 is for a routine township island annexation at 1155 Arlington Blvd.

There is one ordinance first reading on tonight's agenda. C-1 is an update to the UDC rules on land divisions. 

What this meeting lacks in ordinances and consent items, it makes up for in resolutions. DC-1 through DC-5 are appointments and I'm going to skip them. 

The next batch are fund allocations. DC-6 is for Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Intervention Programs. DC-7 is for Expanding Food Access and Supporting Local Food Distribution. DC-8 is for Shelter Diversion, Eviction Prevention, and Programming in Under-Resourced Communities. 

DC-9 directs the administrator to explore a replacement records management system for the city. 

DS-1 is allocating some of Ann Arbor's Marijuana Excise money to the Home of New Vision.

DS-2 and DS-3 are resolutions to accept sewer and water main easements from Midtown Ann Arbor. 

DS-4, DS-5, DS-6, and DS-7 are fee adjustments for the AAFD, AAPD, Public Service Area and Airport, and CSA, respectively. 

DS-8 is the big one. This is the resolution to adopt the city budget and property tax millage for FY26. 

Dad Arbor: YPT presents: Shrek the Musical this weekend at the Power Center

 

Ex-Damn Arbor editor, and current my spouse, Erika Jost, choreographed Young People's Theater's production of Shrek the Musical. The show runs Friday through Sunday at the Power Center. Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for students and children. 

Jost is known for her dynamic ensemble work and Berkeley-esque showmanship. Shrek, will, no doubt, deliver. This is her second time choreographing a production of this outstanding show. The first was almost a decade ago so it will be exciting to see how Jost has grown as an artist in the intervening years. 

When I asked "how has your approach to choreography evolved since the last time your worked on Shrek?" Jost responded "I've been in the theater to 11 every night this week. Please, just tell people to see the show."  

All kidding aside, if you are looking for a fun show to see with the kids this weekend, take them to Shrek. The musical is tremendously fun, with rousing numbers like Who I'd Be and Story of my Life. It's hard to beat a nice spring show at the Power Center and YPT always delivers. 

Die-in tonight at City Hall

 

On Monday night, a pedestrian who was crossing Huron at 4th Ave was killed by a driver in a hit and run crash. This is the 4th pedestrian to be killed by a driver this year in Ann Arbor. 

In response, activists are organizing die-in tonight at Ann Arbor City Hall at 6:50 pm. Here are the demands:

1. To City Council and MDOT, hurry up the takeover of MDOT roads within the city
2. To MDOT, allow safety improvements and signal adjustments now
3. To City Council, turn on the GridSmart camera features that automatically create longer crossing times for pedestrians needing extra time
4. Allocate money for Stadium safety improvements to make changes on streets the city controls right now
5. Turn off all flashing yellow left turn signals that don't yet have a pedestrian walk button override

It is imperative that Ann Arbor improve the safety for all road users, especially pedestrians and cyclists.  MDOT is not just an obstacle to this, they are actively working against it. Please show your support for a safer Ann Arbor by participating in the die-in tonight. 

Ann Arbor City Council Preview: May 5, 2025

 

Gentle readers, tonight is the first #A2Council meeting of May. Here's your agenda. 

The evening kicks off with a modest, 13-item consent agenda. Strangely, no street closures. Of note we do have CA-1 the design agreement for 1209 South University. This will be a 19-story building and use a 30% sustainability bonus. 

There are 9, count them, 9 public hearings on the docket this evening. PH-1/B-1 is the second reading of an ordinance that makes some minor changes to the city's alarm code. PH-2/B-2, PH-3/B-3, and PH-4/B-4 are the second readings to ordinances that update the city's water, stormwater, and sewer rates, respectively. PH-5, PH-6, PH-7, and PH-8 are all public hearings and resolutions on updated fees for the Fire Department, Police Department, Airport, and Community Service Area. PH-9 is a resolution to adopt the city budget and update the property tax millage rates for FY26. 

There are 6 ordinance first readings on the agenda tonight. C-1 and C-2 are for township island rezonings on Stone School. C-3 is rezoning ~10 acres from R4A to Public Land to expand Hickory Nature Area. C-4 is the downtown library rezoning to D1. C-5 makes changes to Ann Arbor's rules around Planned Unit Developments (PUDs). C-6 would add green rental housing rules to the city code. 

On to the resolutions. There is only 1! DC-1 makes appointments to the Building Authority Board. 

If you want to follow the blow by blow tonight, make sure you check out the #a2Council hashtag on Bluesky. 

Call to Action: Tell Council what you think about the new Comprehensive Land Use Plan

Gentle readers, this is a call to action. If you don’t regularly engage with #a2Council or the City Planning Commission (CPC), it is imperative you share your thoughts on the new Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP) draft with them. If you are one of the sickos who regularly engages with these groups, you have a different job: you need to reach out to your friends and neighbors, and make sure that they too are sharing their thoughts on the CLUP with Council and Planning Commission. The City is hosting feedback sessions on April 30th (today) and May 7th from 3-7 pm at the Mallets Creek and Traverwood Libraries, respectively.

However you choose to engage, it is imperative that you share your thoughts on the new CLUP. Council will be voting on this in the fall of this year and it is imperative they hear sustained support for this. This effort won’t stop once the plan is adopted. You need to keep advocating for this as the city adopts new zoning based on the new plan.  Make sure to tell all your friends.

Hyde Park, Chicago, IL. Some people are trying to make sure that this stays illegal in most Ann Arbor Neighborhoods

Ann Arbor is in the middle of revising the city’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP). This document serves as a template for the city’s land use going forward. Hopefully it will usher in major zoning updates. Ultimately, Planning Commission will create the new CLUP. Council passed a resolution instructing the commission to generate a plan that will increase affordability, sustainability, and equity. This is a great direction. CPC answered the call and generated a great plan. Full disclosure, I was on the CLUP Steering Committee, a group that helped advise CPC on the direction of the plan. 

The draft plan is very good. It allows more housing to be built throughout Ann Arbor. This is the single most important thing that the city can do for affordability, sustainability, and equity. Over the last decade, Ann Arbor has seen housing costs rise dramatically. The city’s current zoning dramatically restricts housing supply which causes price increases. Study after study shows that when cities allow more housing to be built, it dampens price increases across all market segments. Cities that have built lots of housing, like Seattle, Austin, and Minneapolis, have even seen rents decrease. 

The new CLUP is also a huge step towards making Ann Arbor more sustainable. Allowing more people to live on the same amount of land reduces sprawl and preserves important ecosystems outside of the city. By allowing more people to live in Ann Arbor, it will allow people to commute shorter distances. It also makes transit, biking, and walking more feasible. Shorter commutes and more transit/walking/biking lessens the environemntal impact of the city’s residents and workers. Studies show that allowing people to live more densely is one of the most important ways that we can reduce GHG emissions and other pollution. 

The new plan also helps equity. By allowing gentle density throughout the city, it makes things like neighborhood grocery stores more viable. The new plan also liberalizes rules for businesses in neighborhoods. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every neighborhood had a Jefferson Market or a Washtenaw Dairy? Beyond the fact that these are forbidden in most of the city's neighborhoods, many areas of the city don’t have the density to support these neighborhood businesses. Restrictive zoning is also associated with decreased racial diversity in neighborhoods and increased wealthy residents. 

I also think something like this is totally fine for most residential areas. But I guess it really freaks a bunch of people out. This is also in Hyde Park.

This is a call to action: Ann Arbor has a once in a generation opportunity to dramatically improve affordability, sustainability, and equity. Please take a moment and engage with Council and CPC on the CLUP. Drop them an email (City Council, CPC) or call in to the next meeting and share your thoughts on the plan. Since the plan’s release, the usual cast of anti-housing activists have been working hard to foment opposition. Ann Arbor has the chance to make the city a more equitable, safer, and vibrant city that more people can call home. We need to do this not just for the city’s current residents, but also for our children and grandchildren. It is important for the city to hear your voice. 

Ann Arbor City Council Preview: April 21, 2025

 

Gentle readers, it's that time again. That's right: #a2Council night. Here's the agenda. 

The evening kicks off with a healthy, 16-item, consent agenda. Of note we have CA-1, the road closing for Taste of Ann Arbor. We also have CA-2, street closures for the African-American Festival. 

There are three public hearings on the agenda tonight. PH-1/B-1 is an update to the UDC to legalize pinball parlors downtown. PH-2/B-2 is an update to the rules regarding the Design Review Board. PH-3/B-3 is an update to the city's gas franchise agreement with DTE. 

There are 4 ordinance fist readings on the docket this evening. C-1 is an update to the rules around Alarm Systems. C-2 is an update to water rates. From the looks of it, it seems like they are updating for inflation. Here's some background reading on water rates: Revisiting Water Rates in Ann Arbor. C-3 and C-4 are similar updates to stormwater and sewer rates, respectively.

On to the resolutions. DC-1 is a resolution to appoint Molly Rowan to the Downtown Development Authority as a Non-registered Elector. DC-2 is a resolution to adopt the council's legislative policy agenda. DC-3 is a resolution to authorize the City Administrator to negotiate sale of air rights over Library Lane with the AADL, if voters pass the AADL charter amendments. DC-4 is a resolution to finalize the evaluation report and amend the employment agreement for the city Attorney. DS-1 and DS-2 are resolutions authorizing publication of the changes from B-1 and B-2. 

If you want to follow the blow by blow tonight, make sure you check out the #a2Council hashtag on Bluesky. 

Ann Arbor City Council Preview: April 7, 2025

 

Gentle readers, it's #a2Council night in Ann Arbor. Here's the agenda. 

The evening kicks off with a substantial, 24-item consent agenda. The first 4 items are street closures. CA-1 is for the Glacier Area Memorial Day Parade. CA-2 is for the Dexter-Ann Arbor Run. CA-3 is for Sonic Lunch. CA-4 is for Top of the Park. Elsewhere in the consent agenda, with CA-24, the city is selling air rights over 616 S Forest for no less than $1.2 million. Nice. 

There are three public hearings on the docket this evening. PH-1/B-1 is for the second reading of a ordinance that will make some minor changes to the rules around non-conforming structures in the UDC. These changes make it so that non-conforming structures don't have to go back before the Zoning Board of Appeals for renovations that don't increase the non-conformity. PH-2/B-2 is the second reading of some minor changes to the Fire Prevention Ordinance. PH-3/B-3 is the second reading of the sustainable energy utility. 

There is one ordinance reading on the agenda this evening. C-1 is an ordinance to amend the city's Gas Franchise rules. 

On to the resolutions. DC-1 is a resolution to authorize the city administrator to negotiate city participation in the south arbor project. DC-2 is a resolution to approve amendments to city council rules. DC-3 is a resolution to align city operations with Vision Zero and 2030 VMT reduction targets. DC-4 is a resolution to return $2.0 million to the general fund from the Rainy Day fund. DC-5 is a resolution regarding low-rise residential in the comprehensive plan update. As written, it would direct Planning Commission to limit low-rise residential in the new Comprehensive Plan to be limited to 35 ft. This feels like something overly specific for the Comprehensive Plan. 

If you want to follow the blow by blow tonight, make sure you check out the #a2Council hashtag on Bluesky. 

Opinion: Ann Arbor has failed its Vision Zero goal. Now what?

A coalition of residents and advocates are calling upon City Council to take a bold step and commit to a level of action and urgency that's commensurate with our goal to end traffic deaths, starting with Stadium Boulevard: Safety for Stadium NOW! Sign the petition at https://safetyforstadium.org.

Ann Arbor Crash Data, 2019-2023

Ten years ago, Ann Arbor set a goal to achieve Vision Zero by 2025. Vision Zero is a traffic safety framework that aims to eliminate all traffic fatalities and serious injuries by recognizing that humans make mistakes and designing streets to ensure those mistakes are not deadly. A core principle is that wherever cars and people not in cars interact, speeds must be low enough that human errors do not result in severe injury or death. This requires a shift in road design, policy, and enforcement to prioritize safety over vehicle speed and throughput.

We have now, officially, failed to achieve this goal — and 2025 is off to a pretty awful start. In mid-March, a woman was killed while attempting to walk across Plymouth Road. Three more pedestrians were seriously injured in crashes in January and February. Also in February, a driver died after crashing into a tree on Jackson Rd.

This is not a fluke. According to official counts, 2023 was the worst year since 2014 for deaths and serious injuries; we don't have official data yet for 2024, but based on some citizen journalism on crashesinannarbor.org, we can be pretty sure that it's not going to be much better.

Fatal and Serious-Injury Crashes by Year

(Source: City Of Ann Arbor Traffic Crashes Dashboard)

Now, there's some nuance here; Ann Arbor has done some good things. The rate of severe pedestrian and bike crashes has risen dramatically across the US, while in our city it's remained mostly flat. That's a positive sign; we're doing less badly than most. And to be clear, this is almost certainly a result of some very successful safety projects — for example, the downtown protected bikeways, which have dramatically improved safety outcomes on those corridors for all users, including drivers. But what we've done is not enough. Not even close.

Plans upon Plans upon Plans…

At this point it's worth asking: what have we actually done in the last 10 years? Well, we've certainly set up a lot of committees and made a lot of plans:

• The effort that led to our Vision Zero declaration started in 2013, when City Council empaneled a Pedestrian Safety & Access Task Force. That task force met and worked for two years.
• In late 2015 the task force delivered its final report and recommendations including a 2025 Vision Zero target, and City Council formally adopted it.
• In 2016, City Council passed an ordinance establishing the Transportation Commission, a permanent advisory commission with no formal powers and charged with considering and making recommendations around all modes of transportation within the city.
• In 2017, after a Huron High School student was killed by a driver while he was crossing Fuller Road in a crosswalk, City Council passed another resolution reaffirming vision zero and demanding that the city administration actually take some specific actions toward this goal, including developing "a work plan to implement Vision Zero."
• In response to that directive, the city administration proposed initiating a major update to the citywide transportation plan. In late 2018 the city awarded a contract ($351,670.00) to kick off this new comprehensive transportation planning effort.
• Developing this update took until 2021, when the plan was finalized and adopted. So now we're six years into our 10-year goal. Time to start implementing? Well, no, not really…
• Next, we had to set up a vision zero implementation planning effort. The city awarded another contract ($362,739.30) and empaneled another committee in 2021, which met until mid-2023, with their eventual output being … mainly some tweaks in the city's Capital Improvements Plan.
• In 2023 the city was awarded a $3.8 Million Safe Streets For All grant from the Federal Highway Administration, which was technically … a planning grant. So in 2024 we awarded yet another contract ($1,073,636.22) to a consultant firm to help us administer the grant and develop more plans on … I'm not even sure how to put it. To develop a plan for how to implement our implementation plan for our vision zero comprehensive plan?
• Meanwhile, the city also launched a couple transportation studies for specific areas of the city, including a Lowertown Mobility Study ($579,478.00) starting in 2019 and completed in 2022, and a Downtown Circulation Study ($209,674.00) in starting in 2023 that's still ongoing.
• Also in 2023, Transportation Commission recommended, and City Council passed, a resolution instructing city staff to prioritize reconfiguring Ann Arbor's multi-lane roads, recognizing those corridors are disproportionately dangerous — streets with four or more lanes account for 40% of severe crashes but only comprise 7% of all streets within the City. In response to that resolution, City Council will be voting on a contract ($280,000.00) at their April 7, 2025 meeting next week to hire a consultant to study possible reconfigurations with a final report due sometime in 2026.

Ann Arbor's Comprehensive Transportation Plan

So now it's 2025. We've spent millions of dollars and 10 years developing a series of plans. Most of them are indeed good plans — but plans are of little use if we're not going to actually implement them. We're seemingly stuck in an endless cycle of plans and more plans, with … not a lot of on-the-ground improvements to show for it. It's past time to ask: when do we get to stop planning, and start doing?

For better or worse, this slow and exhaustive approach to planning is far from unique to Ann Arbor. In the USA, the deck is stacked at every level of government toward these kinds of drawn-out and exhaustive planning efforts that often produce few tangible results. Though well-intentioned, federal / state laws and regulations around environmental protection, public participation, etc. are impeding efforts to solve the urgent problems our society now faces — and too often, government's solution isn't to eliminate these barriers, but instead to invest even more time and resources into making more and more-detailed plans.

For example, why did Ann Arbor receive a planning grant from the Federal Safe Streets For All (SS4A) program, when we already had all these plans? Well, the city actually did apply for an implementation grant! However, Congress — when it created SS4A in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs act — included a requirement that 40% of program funds be spent on planning. The implementation funds were all awarded to cities and regions viewed as having more critical needs than Ann Arbor (e.g. the City of Detroit); Ann Arbor received its planning grant essentially as a consolation prize.

"Quick Build"

But if these problems aren't unique to Ann Arbor, then Ann Arbor can look to other cities for solutions. While all cities generally (and understandably) see a need to carefully plan major capital projects, many have managed to augment this approach by also deploying Quick Build infrastructure. Quick Build is an approach that's supposed to help cities break out of this endless planning cycle, where they can use temporary inexpensive materials (paint, plastic flex-posts, etc.) to try out new configurations in the real world, evaluate them, and tweak them as needed — before eventually making them permanent with concrete and asphalt. Indeed, one of the "Key Mobility Strategies" proposed in Ann Arbor's Comprehensive Transportation Plan is to "Establish a quick-build improvement program."

Quick-Build Examples from Ann Arbor's Comprehensive Transportation Plan

There's actually a precedent for this, even in Ann Arbor: the pandemic-era 4-to-3-lane reconfiguration of South Main. This was a project conceived and executed in a period of months, not years. It was positioned as a pilot project, and made permanent with some tweaks only after an evaluation period, including careful analysis of safety outcomes as well as public surveys. Notably, the data showed a significant reduction in speeding along the corridor, while adding a negligible amount of delay for drivers. This reconfiguration was an unqualified success.

In 2021, City Council appropriated some initial funding for further Quick Build projects in Ann Arbor. However, with the spectre of a global pandemic receding, our approach to Quick Build seems to have gotten stuck in the same mentality that we have to exhaustively plan everything for multiple years before actually doing even a tiny bit of work, and this is just for some paint and plastic flex-posts. It took years to complete a handful of minor improvements, and a second phase of similarly-minor, unambitious projects has been delayed until at least the summer of 2026.

What are the reasons we, as a city, cannot simply keep doing cheap, life-saving changes to our roads?

Safety for Stadium NOW!

This kind of business-as-usual, plans upon plans upon plans approach was never going to be sufficient to meet an ambitious goal like "no more traffic deaths by 2025." We need to do something fundamentally different; we need to behave in a fundamentally different way, and with a lot more urgency.

Therefore, a coalition of residents and advocates are calling upon City Council to take a bold step and commit to a level of action and urgency that's commensurate with our goal to end traffic deaths. We have data to prove that our multilane roads are by far the most dangerous in the city, and City Council has even already expressed an intent toward reconfiguring all of them. But the way things are going, this ambition is again going to get stuck in a years-long planning process — as mentioned earlier, City Council will be voting next week on a contract to engage in a year-long study of potential multi-lane road reconfigurations across 10 corridors in the city. While we do not oppose this contract, we propose that — on at least one corridor — we turn this slow, endless planning approach on its head: that we actually make the change and then evaluate how it works.

Reconfiguration Area

We believe that the Stadium / Maple corridor — basically, from Trader Joe's to Aldi — is the best candidate for such a pilot project. It passes three major schools, is a designated "focus corridor" in our transportation plan, is not currently planned as a signature transit corridor for the AAATA (that would require dedicated bus lanes), and is fully under city jurisdiction. Further, creating a more pleasant environment for walking and biking along Stadium / Maple would help encourage walkable, mixed-use development within multiple TC-1 zoning district areas. Finally, it's worth noting that parts of Stadium and Maple have already been successfully reconfigured — we just need to finish the job.

We call on the Ann Arbor City Council to urgently appropriate funds to reconfigure (“road diet”) all remaining multilane segments of Stadium Boulevard and Maple Road — as well as the adjoining section of West Liberty Street — by August 2025 for a 2-year pilot. This conversion must include protected bicycle facilities and speed management devices to ensure that drivers do not endanger pedestrians, cyclists, or other drivers.

If you support this effort, then we encourage you to sign the petition at https://safetyforstadium.org, and stay tuned for further updates and actions!