Signed, sealed, delivered

Bill Godfrey of the Three Oaks Group has delivered their signed and notarized agreement to control commercial use in the Near North development.

As agreed in negotiations with NCPOA prior to City Council's action on the project, Three Oaks will implement deed restrictions to assure that there will be no increase in commercial use on the southeast corner of Main and Summit. NeNo's proposed commercial space will be built only if the existing party store is permanently removed.

This is the final step in implementing our agreement with the developers. Now that it's complete, we'll be taking down our lawn signs. The signs are fully recyclable--the paper in the paper bin, the frame in the containers bin. I'll be picking up signs this weekend from people who don't have email, and can get yours too if you'd like--just let me know.

The fight over giant PUDs isn't over. Other developers also want to put Downtown buildings in Ann Arbor's Near Downtown Neighborhoods, and too many members of Planning Commission and City Council seem eager to help them. NCPOA will continue to defend the planning and zoning that protect "Downtown's Greenbelt."

Agreement Reached on Near North

NCPOA's area committee met on Labor Day with the neighbors who will be most affected by the Near North project. After reviewing changes made by the developers in the past few days, we agreed that the project is now acceptable. We no longer oppose its approval by City Council.

Tom Fitzsimmons will present our position at Council's public hearing on Near North today. We plan to schedule our own meeting next week to discuss the implications of the project and the continuing threats to North Central and other near-downtown neighborhoods.

Cutting Downtown’s Greenbelt

“The [Near North] project is on a main road where the placement of such a building is not only permissible but expected”

--Diane, commenting on arborupdate.com

No, Near North is not remotely “permissible.” The existing zoning would allow the developers to more than triple the floor area on their proposed site. They’re asking for a rezoning that will permit nearly ten times the current density.

And No, an industrial-style, five-story building ten feet from the sidewalk is not “expected” just because Main Street is “a main road.” Like every other street leading into downtown, Main Street is zoned differently in different places.

The photo above shows the 500 block of W. Liberty. Like the proposed Near North site in the 600 block of N. Main, it is two blocks from the DDA boundary. Whether you go into town on N. Main or W. Liberty, Washtenaw, Packard, South Main, or Jackson/Huron, every "main route" begins in fringe commercial near the city limits and ends in downtown commercial in the urban core. And in between, every street passes through a green, tree-lined neighborhood.

This is no accident. Since the 1970s, the city has protected the residential character of the near-downtown neighborhoods. It’s permitted redevelopment--the North Central neighborhood has added more than sixty bedrooms in the past twenty-five years--but always within setback and height limits that preserve a residential landscape by leaving room for mature trees. Thanks to the city’s foresight, North Central joins with other near-downtown neighborhoods to form a “greenbelt” surrounding the urban core.

No one “expects” a building like Near North on Packard in Burns Park, on Liberty in the Old West Side, or on Washtenaw in the Oxbridge neighborhood. Nothing in the city’s planning or zoning “expects” it on this block of North Main, either--which is why the city planning staff has consistently opposed the project.

When the Three Oaks Group first proposed a supersized condo on this site five years ago, they falsely claimed that our neighborhood was in Main Street’s industrial zone along the river. This time, they’ve falsely claimed it’s downtown. Unfortunately, some naive new urbanists believed them.

The truth is that Near North will cut a gash in downtown’s greenbelt. It will reverse decades of good planning, and badly hurt both our neighborhood and the city.

For Rent: Kerrytown apartment, $575

When I've talked to people at Zingerman's about NeNo, they say the city needs its "workforce housing." As an example, several have told me their own employees would like to live closer to the Deli. Yet no one there was interested when I told them that Mrs. Seeley had a newly refurbished 2-bedroom apartment for rent. Her house is one short block from Kerrytown, and two from the Deli.

At $650 a month, two people could have shared that apartment for $325 each--but I was told that their staffers prefer to live alone. Now that option is available, too: Mrs. Seeley rented the 2-bedroom, but she now has a vacant 1-bedroom. The rent is $575 a month, and anyone who's interested can call her at 662-9716.

If you do the math, you'll find that this apartment costs $199 LESS than than the $774 ceiling for NeNo's 1-bedroom "workforce" units. But of course, few entry-level workers would rent a 1-bedroom in the first place. Mrs. Seeley's rents are a bargain, but even she charges an appropriate premium for having your own kitchen and bath.

That's why 1-bedrooms are by far the most expensive type of rental housing. I just did a quick search on arborweb.rentlinx.com, looking at 1- and 2-bedroom apartments currently offered for rent within one mile of the NeNo site. The first ten 1-bedrooms that came up rent for an average of $836. The first ten 2-bedrooms average $1,060, or $530 per person. That's $244 PER MONTH less than NeNo's $774 ceiling.

No wonder people trying to save money typically share apartments and homes. It turns out that some are even doing that again in 3 Oaks' houses on N. Main. Margaret Schankler recently spoke to a tenant who's moved into the gray house. It's a 3-bedroom and the rent is $1,000 a month. With three people sharing it, each is paying $333 a month. That's just a hair less than the $337 a month average we found in our own survey of Main Street rentals in May.

NeNo would provide less workforce housing than already exists on this site, at well over twice the cost. Tell us again--what's the "public benefit" here?

Housing the Homeless

"40 units at Near North will be set aside as supportive housing for persons with special needs"

--developers' website

We've constantly been surprised that so many well-informed people think the NeNo site plan includes forty units of "supportive" housing. In fact, only one-third of the building--fourteen units--would serve people with special needs. The developers have always acknowledged this during the Planning process, and it's documented in the June Planning Staff report.

Thanks to Cindy Pomerleau, we've finally tracked this error to its source--which turns out to be the developers's own website!

As noted previously, the great majority of the units in NeNo will have little or no value to the community. They're supposed to be targeted at working people--but because 3 Oaks wants so much money for the site, they would be more expensive than thousands of existing Ann Arbor apartments.

We hope this web posting is an oversight, not a deliberate attempt to mislead. Many Avalon supporters, including Paul Saginaw of Zingerman's, have argued that the county's Blueprint to End Homelessness justifies blowing away fifty years of planning for our neighborhood. It's past time for Avalon to come clean about just how few homeless people NeNo would house.

Test Your NeNo Knowledge

1) If Avalon Housing has 600 people are on its waiting list, and Near North is built, how many people will be left on its waiting list?

a) 300
b) 560
c) 586

2) The eight homes that will be demolished to build Near North have a total of 26 bedrooms. Before 3 Oaks vacated these houses, what was the rent per bedroom?

a) $337 per month
b) $555 per month
c) $774 per month

3) Near North will have 24 “workforce” apartments targeted at people earning no more than 50% of the area’s median income. How much can the developers charge for these units?

a) $337 per month
b) $555 per month
c) $774 per month

4) How many such "workforce" units does the county Affordable Housing Needs Assessment recommend building in the Downtown and Campus areas?

a) 5
b) 50
c) 500

5) Which of these will NOT be part of Near North?

a) housing for people with substance-abuse issues
b) underground parking for every unit
c) a liquor store


Answers:

1) c: 586. The people on Avalon’s waiting list need “supportive” housing. However, Near North will have just 14 “supportive” units.

2) The developers have never revealed how much they charged when they rented the existing houses. However, comparable houses and apartments on this block rent for an average of $337 per bedroom

3) c: $774 per month, including utilities.

4) a: 5 units. The county's Blueprint to End Homeless seeks to add 500 units of "supportive" housing. However, "workforce" units are a much lower priority. The Needs Assessment calls for building 100 citywide, with just 5 in the Downtown and Campus areas.

5) None of the above. Near North will have housing for people with substance-abuse issues, underground parking for every unit, AND a liquor store in the building!


Comments:

1: Many people who support Near North mistakenly assume that it's a classic Avalon project, made up entirely of supportive housing for formerly homeless people. In fact, the building is THREE TIMES the size needed to accommodate its 14 “supportive” residents.

2: The other 26 units are described as “workforce” housing. That is exactly what the existing homes provided--before the developers moved their tenants out.

3: Because 3 Oaks wants to be paid more than $2 million for the property, the "workforce" units will rent for more than many existing Ann Arbor apartments.

4: The study notes that "the private sector and the market will absorb many of the units needed for lower-income households." With 2,000 new student bedrooms recently opened or under constuction, rents are falling citywide.

5: Sad, but true. Contrary to city policy to limit retail sprawl along major arteries, the Near North site plan includes commercial space. The developers have said repeatedly that they want to move the Summit Party Store into the Near North building.

North Main Street Today - and Tomorrow?

To minimize NeNo's impact, the developers' renderings make the existing houses appear as barren as their own site plan. Here is the rendering from their latest submission to Planning:

Here's how the neighboring houses really look, from the sidewalk across the street:

At Planning Commission, Jean Carlberg repeatedly criticized the neighbors for saying the site plan would destroy the scale and character of our residential neighborhood. But that is exactly what it would do.

This block is now a neighborhood of one- and two-family homes. The city's Central Area Plan calls for it to continue in that use. NeNo, in the developers's own words, would be a "gateway to downtown."

If Downtown doesn't end at Kingsley Street, where does it end?

Near North vs Liberty Lofts

"the large industrial-looking structures provide a nice contrast to the surrounding traditional two-story homes."

The quote is from the developers' website, where an unnamed West Side resident compares Near North to Liberty Lofts, the condos in the former GT Products factory downtown.

As Margaret Schankler pointed out at Planning Commission last week, it's quite a stretch to compare the two projects:

• There have been factories on the Liberty Lofts site for a century.
• There have been one- and two-family homes on the NeNo site for a century.
• Liberty Lofts occupies an entire city block.
• NeNo would demolish 8 houses in what is now an entirely residential block.
• Liberty Lofts' addition is more than 100 feet from the nearest neighbors.
• NeNo would be 12-24 feet from the nearest neighbors.
• Liberty Lofts is in the Downtown zone.
• NeNo would be in the North Central Neighborhood, two blocks from Downtown.

Liberty Lofts creatively reused an existing Downtown building. NeNo would insert a Downtown building into a residential neighborhood.

Planning Commission Recommends Denial

Planning Commission reopened its public hearing last night to allow citizens to comment on the developers' latest plan for NeNo. (Above, Damien Farrell and Bill Godfrey answer questions). Thanks to all 17 (!) speakers who opposed to the project.

The revised plan would demolish the 3 northernmost houses, as requested by Planning Commission at its May meeting. It also expanded the rear setbacks, as requested in our May letter to Planning Commission.

Unfortunately, as our speakers pointed out, the developers just moved that space to the front of the main building. It's now more supersized than ever, towering 55 feet above Main Street. The plan still calls for a new retail space that's contrary to all planning for this block, and detracts from the PUD's intended purpose--it would put a liquor store inside a building housing a vulnerable population!

And of course the core problem remains: the project would rip open the fabric of an intact residential block. In the words of Commisioner Eppie Potts, it will create a "new edge" from which future developments will encroach on our now-fragmented neighborhood.

Planning staff recommended DENYING the PUD zoning and site plan. Their report concluded that NeNo would have limited benefits, would have a detrimental effect on surrounding properties, and that it needlessly violates the Central Area Plan. Click here to read their full report.

The bad news: only two commissioners heeded the staff recommendation. Both Potts and Kirk Westphal clearly articulated how far NeNo deviates from what the site's zoning and planning would permit, and the enormous damage it would do to the "scale and character" of the neighborhood.

As noted in an earlier posting, the "workforce" units will actually be much more expensive than existing housing in the neighborhood. At the hearing, we cited evidence from a rentlinx.com search that found more than 800 units within a mile of the site that meet the developers' definition of "affordable"--renting for less than $774 per resident per month.

Unfortunately, the other five commissioners present either missed or doubted the information provided by their staff and the neighbors. Their comments showed they'd accepted the false choice offered by the developers, and believed that failing to approve this project would hurt the homeless and the working poor.

On the contrary, we believe that both populations would be poorly served by this expensive boondoggle, and that the government money spent on it could benefit many more people at a less expensive, less hilly site. We'll expand on this in a future post.

The good news: with pro-NeNo Commissioner Tony Derezinski absent, the project's proponents still fell one vote short of the majority needed to recommend the project. It will go to City Council with a recommendation for Denial.

Avalon's TARP

"We figure we can recover our costs and make a reasonable profit." --Bill Godfrey


The Ann Arbor News reported that 3 Oaks spent $3 million on the proposed Near North site. At the January public meeting, Bill Godfrey said that was too high. He said that they'd offered to sell it for $3.5 million, but had paid just over $2 million.

According to neighborhood landlords, though, even $2 million is far more than those houses are worth. We believe that if they had to sell the property in this market, they'd be lucky to get $1 million.

No wonder 3 Oaks wants the City to change its zoning to bail out their bad investment. That's what makes partnering with Avalon such a brilliant move.

Five years ago, 3 Oaks sought a PUD for a supersized condo project, the Terraces on Main. It was practically laughed out of City Hall. Now politicians are tripping over themselves trying to find a way to approve the still-supersized Near North.

The partnership with Avalon brings 3 Oaks more than political respectability. With the condo market dead and the commercial credit market frozen, it's also their only chance to redevelop this property.

But a good deal for 3 Oaks is a bad deal for Avalon. They're not only putting up the political capital, but the financial capital as well - the money to build NeNo would come entirely from federal tax credits and state and local grants. Avalon would even find the tenants. As far as we can see, all 3 Oaks is bringing to the partnership is the "opportunity" to buy some very expensive land.

In effect, Avalon is running its own Troubled Asset Relief Program. But if they really want bail out private failures with public money, they can do better elsewhere.

In this economy, there are plenty of other developers who are underwater on Ann Arbor real estate. Once this project is defeated, Avalon should put out a Request for Proposals, inviting offers from anyone who's willing to get rid of a vacant parcel in exchange for a share in an affordable housing project. I bet they'll find plenty who'd be glad to make a deal.

Only next time, if Avalon really needs a downtown-sized building, they should put it downtown.

note: this entry has been revised since its original posting.

Sign Us Up

Embarrassed by the dozens of "No Giant PUD" signs in the neighborhood, Near North's developers are faking support by putting up pro-NeNo signs on their own vacant property.

But they don't need an "astroturf" campaign. We'd be glad to put these signs up ourselves.

No one in the neighborhood opposes affordable housing on Main Street. In fact, there's more affordable housing there now than there would be if the entire Near North project were built.

We opposed the developers' original plan to build expensive condos here because the building was too big. We're fighting the supersized Near North for the same reason: it's 3 times the maximum scale permitted by the zoning!

All the developers have to do right-size this project, and we'll be at Planning next week to support it.

Postponed!

"I don't want to vote against it, but I'm not ready to vote for it." That was Planning Commissioner Tony Derezinski, moving to delay today's scheduled vote on the Near North project. By a vote of 7-1, the rest of the commissioners agreed.

Several commissioners made strong and cogent comments about the many problems with the project, but it was also clear that 3 Oaks' calculation in recruiting Avalon Housing as a partner paid off - several others quoted the developers' sales pitch word for word.

Derezinski in particular seems to be hoping the developers can use the time to fill out their "vision" for the neighboring properties - persuading the city to buy and remove the three houses on their own site as well as the Summit Party Store. Since the city, not the developers, would have to put up the money and create the park, it's hard to imagine how this could count as a benefit provided by the project.

At this point, however, the neighbors are essentially shut out of what's become a private negotiation between the developers and the Planning Commission. Planning staff has even refused to release the letter they sent to the developers following the May 5 meeting.

Hopefully, we'll at least have a chance to make these and other points in writing before the project returns to Planning Commission on Tuesday, June 16.

Sonnet from a Supposed Neighboring Nabob of Negativism

Three Oaks, you've stooped to slander. Tell me why

You've spread the word that neighbors who oppose

Your Near North plans are NIMBYs. Why this lie

That bleakly casts us all as so-and-sos?

You know what's true and not. Can you not bear

The thought that truth proves barren to your plight?—

Your need to wash your dirty underwear

Of poor investments in your Near North site.

Had you applied to build this monstrous wart

Within your neighborhood, would you still call

Nay-saying neighbors NIMBYs? Still resort

To tactics "Robbing Peter to pay Paul"?

You claim you're trying to help by what you do.

But what you do do says, "This PUDs for You!"

Michael W. Brinkman 5/5/09

Workforce Housing: Is Less Really More?

As noted below, most of the huge Near North project would not be the "supportive" housing that Ann Arborites associate with Avalon Housing. Instead, 24 units would be "workforce" housing targetted at people with low-paid jobs downtown.

According to the developers' website, the "workforce" units would rent for “$450-$650 per month, plus utilities.” That's less than the $750 figure they initially cited in neighborhood meetings, so I wonder if they can achieve it--but if they can, it would be an attractive price for the proposed large one-bedroom units. I'm sure Avalon could find enough single, childless individuals to fill them. (Keeping them filled would be another matter—a couple working full time would break the income ceiling and have to leave—and there would be no room at all for families.) [Update: a pro forma budget the developers submitted to the city assumes an income per unit of $774/month.]

It's important to note, however, Near North is not being sold as a way to upgrade workforce housing—it’s being sold as a way to increase it. And to build those 24 one-bedroom units, the developers plan to demolish or convert to non-residential use eight houses with a total of 26 bedrooms. The bottom line: a net loss of two bedrooms. The new units would also be cost much more than existing rental housing on this block.

Reading the Planning packet for the April 21 meeting, I was surprised that the developers had presented no evidence that the proposed new units would make it cheaper to live in the neighborhood. In fact, they never even revealed what they charge their own tenants in the eight houses they presently own on this site.

After doing my own quick survey, I think I know why they didn’t: it turns out that this block already has a lot of affordable housing—and it costs less than Near North’s claimed $450/650 per bedroom.

My unscientific sample consisted of emailing people I know to ask them to tell me tell me their rents. I got responses covering four units on Main Street with a total of 14 bedrooms. Those bedrooms rent for an average of $337/ month - 50 to 100 percent less than NeNo’s “affordable” units!

Near North would hurt its neighbors, intimidate the many people who pass its site daily on foot or bicycle, and trash 50 years of planning for the near-downtown neighborhood. To offset this destruction, it claims the "benefit" of creating workforce housing.

Yet it would actually provide less workforce housing than exists on that site right now - at a much higher price.

Supportive Housing: Is Less Really More?

Near North's developers want the city to ignore its zoning and planning because their project would create 38 one-bedroom apartments. This would include 14 subsidized "supportive" units targeted at people with various problems, many of them formerly homeless.

This is the kind of housing Avalon has always provided, and we know they do it well - they already operate a seven-bedroom “supportive” house on this block, at 532 N. Main. They've been good neighbors to us, and we've been good neighbors to them.

But until the Near North project was introduced, none of us saw any sign that Avalon wanted more supportive units here. In fact, we had the opposite impression.

That's because Avalon already owns a second house on this block, at 618 N. Main. Yet instead of using it for more supportive housing, they've chosen to rent it to Dawn Farm.

Avalon could add another five supportive bedrooms on this block overnight simply by reclaiming that house. The fact that it has not done so suggests that until the 3 Oaks Group approached them, Avalon saw no need for more supportive housing here.

If that has changed, and Avalon now wants to maximize supportive housing here, it could, and should, propose a purely supportive project. As Margaret Schankler and Steve Glauberman have previously pointed out, they could construct 24 units on this site under current zoning. This would solve all of the worst problems with the supersized Near North PUD - while providing ten more supportive units than Near North.

More Neighbors say No to NeNo

David Santacroce: Let me begin by being clear that I do not oppose the project based on the proposed demographics it will serve. I spend my days teaching at the University of Michigan Law School, where, with the aid of students, I represent low income people primarily in housing matters. They, like all Ann Arbor citizens, deserve affordable housing in all parts of Ann Arbor. My opposition to the project is simply based on its size. As a matter of aesthetics, a building of the size and character proposed belongs downtown, not in a residential neighborhood.
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Rachael Seidler: I urge you to hold to the Central Area Plan’s commitment to protect, preserve, and enhance near-downtown neighborhoods by disallowing this project. The proposed scale and design would simply overpower the street and neighboring houses. This is a clear example of developers trying to recover from a bad investment - they admit that they can’t make money on any project that complies with the site’s zoning. Bailing them out would clearly come at the expense of this lovely, diverse, and friendly neighborhood.
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Ovide Pomerleau: The local residents and our neighborhood association have made repeated attempts to work constructively with the developers to re-scale their proposal to protect the residential character of the area as well as to be in conformity with Ann Arbor's development and zoning regulations. To date, despite numerous entreaties in well attended community meetings, the developers have ignored our suggestions and have chosen, instead, to submit a proposal that only minimally addresses the neighborhood's concerns.
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Julie Pomerleau: I am a resident of Chicago, but a frequent visitor to the neighborhood, where my parents have been living for the last several years. . . . I have been impressed most of all by the quality of this closeknit, multi-generational and diverse neighborhood. I would hope that any plan for development takes the special character of this neighborhood into careful consideration.
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John Hilton: Near North would demolish five . . . homes and replace them with a five-story, institutionally styled apartment building. Such a building would instantly and permanently reset the block’s “scale and character” to its own downtown scale. Once it’s built, it will be the houses that are “out of scale and character.” And the City would have accepted a precedent that would encourage similar developments all the way south to Kingsley.
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Share your own comments with the City Planning Commission and Staff by mail (PO Box 8647, 100 N Fifth Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48107-8647), or by email to planner Matt Kowalski. We'd appreciate a copy by mail (608 N. Main St., Ann Arbor, 48104), or by email to John Hilton.

Find Us on Facebook

It's true--the old folks really are taking over Facebook. Visit and join our Facebook group, "No Giant PUD."

Blaming the Victim

“these properties are unkempt and frayed . . . in poor physical condition . . . . This area of North Main has become increasingly blighted over the past 30 years…"

That's how the developers describe the neighborhood they want to destroy to build Near North. You'd never guess that the "blighted" buildings belong to the developers themselves.

I know that Mr. and Mrs. Cannon, who owned the house behind me on Main when I moved here, would have been angry to hear the developers suggest they neglected their carefully-tended home. So would Nina Gelman, who remodeled both the Cannons' house and the one next door to the north, and Joyce and her husband, whose home to the south I could only envy--it was better built and better kept than my own house on Fourth.

As a neighbor, I saw only positive changes for the first twenty-five years I lived next to this block of Main Street. In addition to many instances of good stewardship and remodeling, I saw several dramatic improvements: a historic home from Lower Town was towed down Beakes Street to replace an abandoned gas station, and a battered shelter beside North Main Park returned to single-family use.

Social services also found a permanent place: it was during this same period that Avalon Housing bought two houses on the block. Today Avalon operates one as "supportive housing" and rents the other to Dawn Farm.

So where's the "blight"? Unfortunately, it's all to easy to find: five years ago, the 3 Oaks Group bought the houses at the north end of this block on speculation, with the intention of demolishing them. They have since chosen to let most of the houses go vacant. Last year, they boarded up three of them.

In their presentations, the developers always point out that drivers arriving on North Main Street get a bad first impression of Ann Arbor. Well--no kidding. Their own boarded-up houses and the party store next door (which belongs to their prospective tenant) do indeed give a bad impression. But it's one that's entirely within the developers' control.

If the developers really cared about the city's image, they could improve it overnight by repairing these houses and allowing people to live in them again. Evidently they feel they've got more to gain by creating the false image of a "blighted" neighborhood.

To Be Continued . . .

Thanks to everyone who spoke at the Planning Commission public hearing on Tuesday. We were able to cover many of the key issues, and I'm hopeful the commissioners gained a better understanding of the project's history and just how comprehensively it violates the city's zoning and planning.

A special word of thanks to Michael Brinkman for finding the metaphor that caught the ear of the Ann Arbor News: Near North really would be "a whale in a swimming pool."

As usual, the pro-NeNo position boiled down to "anything for Avalon." While that's a good policy for us as individuals when it comes to contributing time and money, it's a terrible basis for a Planning decision of this magnitude.

3 Oaks recruited Avalon as a partner only after their own City Hall-sized condo project, the Terraces on Main, was laughed out of City Hall. They figured out that telling the City "We want to build affordable housing" would get them more sympathy than saying "We spent too much."

They figured correctly, as we saw at the public hearing. But violating planning and zoning is never a one-time thing. The precedent created by Near North would effectively move the boundary of Downtown. And if Downtown doesn't stop at Kingsley, where does it stop?

Near North will be back on the Planning Commission agenda for discussion and action on Tuesday, May 5. We're sorry to lose the momentum gained during the public hearing, but are hopeful that time is on our side. Because the longer you look at NeNo, the worse it looks.

Planning Staff says No to NeNo

The City's Planning Staff issued their report on the Near North project Friday. They are recommending that Planning Commission DENY the Near North PUD and site plan.

The full report is available in the planning packet for Tuesday's Planning Commission meeting, but here's the key paragraph:

"The length of the proposed building (210 feet), its height (ranging from 30 to 50 feet), and overall massing are inconsistent with the goals of the Central Area Plan (CAP) regarding neighborhood preservation, infill development, out of scale construction, and historic preservation. The proposed PUD zoning significantly exceeds the area, height, and placement standards of the comparable R4C zoning district in this neighborhood. Furthermore, the public benefits provided by the project are not substantial enough to justify the resulting impacts on an intact, traditional neighborhood and streetscape."

"I know there is a long way to go," says NCPOA president Tom Fitzsimmons. "But Round One goes to the neighborhood (or is at Round Three, counting the developers' earlier plans since 2004?)."

The next round will be at the Planning Commission Public Hearing on Tuesday, April 21.

Petitions Oppose NeNo

Volunteers from NCPOA are circulating petitions opposing the Near North development.

Since defeating a destructive urban renewal plan fifty years ago, we have worked to improve our neighborhood. As YIMBYs, we've welcomed thirty-seven new homes, condos, and apartments since I joined the group in 1981. In recent years, we've seen more families choose to raise their children here.

But five years ago, at the height of the real estate bubble, a group of novice developers paid too much for a row of homes along North Main Street. Now they're going to lose a ton of money--unless they can get the city to approve a supersized building there.

NeNo is the third plan they've presented for this site. And like the Terraces on Main and "NoMa," it violates almost every aspect of the city's plans and zoning for this block. The only difference is that this time, the developers have cut a deal with Avalon Housing to make it affordable housing.

That's an important goal, and one that we support. But it shouldn't trump the city's entire planning and zoning process--and that's exactly what the developers are trying to do.

Five years ago, we told the developers that we would support tripling the density on this site. They never replied--but we still would support such a project for Avalon. To get there, though, we first have to stop this cynical and the destructive plan. To sign the petition, or to help circulate it, please email John Hilton or Tom Fitzsimmons.

More Letters to City Hall

John Beranek: I moved into the North Central neighborhood 17 years ago, as a young, single professional, renting half of a house. Nine years later I bought a house on North Fourth Avenue. A few years later I met Karen, who also lived in the neighborhood. Karen and I have now turned that 100+ year old home into Michigan’s first (and the nation’s fifth) LEED Platinum certified house remodel. We both chose to stay and invest in North Central because of its unique position as a true pedestrian scale neighborhood with a sense of community that also provides great access to the Downtown Area. But we also chose it because it is not downtown Ann Arbor.
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Karen Park (to City Councilmember Sabra Briere): Soon after I moved here from the D.C. area in 2002 to work as a physician at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, I discovered the Farmer's Market and Kerrytown. I originally lived in what is/was called a "Doctor's ghetto" subdivision over by King Elementary. I did not have any sense of neighborhood there, everyone pretty much kept to themselves, driving their cars into their garages and going into their homes. When I was looking to move I knew I wanted to live in the district you represent.
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Gene and Nancy Eavy: We were surprised and greatly disappointed to see the plans that Three Oaks and Avalon shared with North Central residents at the community center earlier this year. . . . they completely disregarded the zoning restrictions within the area and suggestions from the residents to stay within scope and build homes that complement the existing housing in the neighborhood. Three Oaks stated that they needed to expand the size of the building in order to meet the return on investment for the property, as they were limited in their development options. Furthermore, Three Oaks openly shared that with Avalon’s backing and acceptance in the community as a capable property manager, they could finally recoup their investment.
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Kathleen Baxter: At first glance this proposal meets an important community goal - more supportive and low cost housing. Our community supports this goal, and so do I. BUT, this project has a scope entirely out of scale to our neighborhood (52,000 square feet, isolated in design, one major entry, 5 stories + stair and elevator towers, 37 1-bedroom apartments, to be built upon 4-5 lots). This project would overwhelm our neighborhood of 1 and 2-story single and multi-family homes and rooming houses. The proposed building would be a visual signal and planning precedent that tilts this block irrevocably toward institutional buildings, taking what is now a neighborhood and making it esthetically and economically part of downtown.
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Share your own comments with the City Planning Commission and Staff by mail (PO Box 8647, 100 N Fifth Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48107-8647), or by email to planner Matt Kowalski. We'd appreciate a copy by mail (608 N. Main St., Ann Arbor, 48104), or by email to John Hilton.

Public Hearing: Tuesday, April 21

It's official--just four months after the developers went public, the Ann Arbor Planning Commission will hold its public hearing on the "Near North" project on Tuesday, April 21.

We need to submit as many letters and petition signatures as possible before that deadline. Please contact John Hilton or Tom Fitzsimmons if you haven't yet signed the petition, or can help circulate it. And we'll all need to be there to make sure our voices are heard--this is our only chance to speak directly to the Planning Commission before they vote on the project.

Public hearings are scheduled at the start of the meeting, at 7 p.m. But another controversial development also is on the April 21st agenda: a large apartment project on North Fifth that's opposed by our friends in Germantown. They're well organized and are likely to make good use of their opportunity to speak.

The Near North hearing is up second, and even after we talk, we'll need to keep a strong presence in the room until the commission votes. So it's likely to be a late night. I'm an early-to-bed guy, but I'll be there--because if we lose this one, some day soon soon we'll all wake up downtown!

Click here to read the meeting agenda.

Germantown Fights Back

North Central isn't the only neighborhood that's under attack from developers trying to make an end run around the city's zoning and planning. The Germantown area just south of downtown also is threatened by a supersized PUD.

Like "Near North," the "Moravian" would grossly violate the scale, height, and setback requirements for its site. And its developers, too, are trying to persuade the City to ignore the downtown boundary. They claim that because big buildings are permitted nearby, they should be allowed in R4C areas, too.

If City Council buys that argument, its review of R4C zoning will be over before it begins. And the city's near-downtown neighborhoods will be annexed to the urban core.

North Central and Germantown are fighting the same fight. Learn more at the Germantown website. To join the list of people opposed to the Moravian, click here to email Germantown association president Tom Whitaker.

Supersize Me

Near North's developers have repeatedly claimed that they want to create a project that will win approval from the neighbors. NCPOA has a long, well-documented history of supporting appropriate change in our area. So why don't we support it?

The short answer: 3 Oaks keeps saying, "Supersize Me." In the five years that they they have owned this property, every plan that they have shown has called for at least twice the legal maximum density on this site.

As noted previously, the zoning would permit a building size of about 20,000 square feet here. December's "NoMa" plan, with 64,000 square feet, was more than three times that maximum.

When 3 0aks and Avalon presented the "Near North" plan at the January public meeting, Bill Godfrey complained that they'd "cut and cut and cut" its size. Yet Near North still included 44,000 square feet--more than double the 20,000 permitted.

And now it turns out that even the 44,000-square-foot figure was "miscalculated."

That's how City Planner Matt Kowalski put it when Tom Fitzsimmons, Peter Pollack, Ray Detter, and I met with him on Monday. Matt explained that when he went over the plans, he couldn't get the developers' figures to add up. He asked them to recalculate the building's floor area.

Sure enough--instead of 44,000 square feet, the latest plans now show a total 52,000 square feet. According to my calculator, that's more than 2.5 times the legal limit.

Matt told us he'd sent four rounds of comments to the developers, and every time he'd pointed out that a massive, institutionally styled apartment building is out of character and scale with the neighborhood. Yet they've changed nothing. The current plans look virtually identical to the ones we saw at the January meeting.

Near North violates the site's zoning in so many ways that even Matt hadn't fully tallied them yet. But for starters, it would have a "floor area ratio" of 99 percent--2.5 times the maximum allowed under the current zoning. Its five-story north face would be 50 feet tall--20 feet over the height limit for buildings on this block.

The existing homes here are set back a minimum of 19 feet from the sidewalk. Near North's minimum front setback is 7.5 feet. And the houses' setback is measured to their single-story front porches--the average setback to the body of the building is 30 feet. Near North would raise a sheer, four-story wall right off the sidewalk.

At their public meetings, the developers' claimed they had to violate the front setback so much to maintain a required 30-foot "conflicting use" buffer in back. But it turns out they didn't do that, either. In back, the current plans show a minimum setback of 18.5 feet.

Matt hadn't officially determined the project's setback requirements, but they will almost certainly be stricter than my rule-of-thumb assumptions, because the city requires extra setbacks for buildings this tall. But even without taking that into account, I calculate that Near North would violate the height limit by 60 percent, the rear setback by 38 percent, and the front setback by 61 percent.

If Planning were a poker game, the neighbors trying to stop Near North should be holding a royal flush: this supersized building violates almost every planning and zoning requirement for its site. Yet 3 Oaks and Avalon keep on pushing it, even in the face of Planning's negative comments.

I think the developers are going all-in: they're betting that even if Planning Staff and Planning Commission oppose the project, Avalon's good name and political connections will win the pot when they get to City Council.

That's a really fightening prospect--not just for North Central, but for every neighborhood in the city. Because if Council is willing to ignore such egregious zoning violations, there's a new trump card in the Planning game.

There are plenty of developers who overpaid for Ann Arbor real estate back in the bubbble. And like 3 Oaks, every one of them would love to have a "get-out-of-zoning-free" card.

If Council approves Near North, that's exactly what affordable housing will become. And the next supersized project could be anywhere in Ann Arbor.

North Central Neighbors Speak Out

Neighbors are speaking out against the Near North project. Here are some excerpts from recent letters to Planning Commission. (For the entire letter, click the "read more" link.)

Lois F. Brinkman: With great pleasure, my husband and I recently moved to our new home on North Fourth Avenue from Alpena, where we had lived for almost 40 years. Our new home puts us in a neighborhood that we truly appreciate; we are close to Kerrytown, the Farmer’s Market, within walking distance of downtown and the University and all of the wonderful benefits of small city living. While we like our house, it is not the reason we moved here—it is the neighborhood that made us choose this location. . . . And so, it is with great concern that we learned in December of this proposal about the “Near North” project that Three Oaks is planning or hoping to build on Main Street. Frankly, the size of the building proposed appalls me!
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Kelly Fitzsimmons: We decided the way we wanted to raise a family was in a neighborhood—a real neighborhood where you knew the people around you and talked with them daily; a neighborhood that you could walk to get groceries, a coffee, a bite to eat, or an ice cream; a neighborhood where there were parks with kids and parents and grandparents playing; a neighborhood that our children would be among all the generations and all the people that make this community one of the richest communities in the State; a neighborhood that I felt comfortable and safe going for a run or walk alone or with a young child. We found that place when we moved to 608 North Main Street in late October of 2002 just a couple months before our first son was born.
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Cindy Pomerleau: Given the history of the proposed project—namely, that it is a “downscale” version of a very similar for-profit condominium project proposed and rejected four years ago—it is difficult to avoid concluding that the present proposal is a cynical attempt on the part of Three Oaks to recoup their excessive investment in the North Main property by capitalizing on the goodwill that Avalon has built up over the years. This is not a good basis for urban planning!
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Margaret Schankler and Steve Glauberman: The only rationale the developers offer for this inappropriate building is that the city needs “workforce housing”. Yet the North Central Area already provides a wide mix of housing, including a good number of units that would be considered workforce housing under the criteria they identify. That includes the houses that they would demolish to build this project.
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Share your own comments with the City Planning Commission and Staff by mail (PO Box 8647, 100 N Fifth Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48107-8647), or by email to planner Matt Kowalski. We'd appreciate a copy by mail (608 N. Main St., Ann Arbor, 48104), or by email to John Hilton.

Near North: Still Big, Still Bad

The best that can be said about "Near North" is that it's not as big as its predecessors, the "Terraces on Main" and "NoMa". Yet it would still be a disaster for our neighborhood.

Tom Fitzsimmons's February letter to Planning Commission explains the city's zoning and planning for this block, and spells out how badly the Near North plan would violate them. Here, I'll try to give my own layman's summary of how it became the first project opposed by NCPOA in the past thirty years.

Near North, by the developers' own description, is meant to be a "gateway to downtown." It is an institutional structure, scaled and designed to announce to those who see it that they are entering Ann Arbor's urban core.

Yet by zoning, planning, and history, this block is not part of the city's core. It is a near-downtown neighborhood--and that's a huge difference.

As discussed in the posts below, North Central has a tremendously diverse population. Some of us live in asphalt-shingled "shotgun shacks," some in apartments of every vintage, and others in condos that, at the height of the real estate bubble, sold for more than $1 million.

Yet all these buildings share a domestic scale. Walking down tree-lined streets, we encounter one another on our front porches, tending our small patches of lawn or garden, or working on the larger gardens we plant in our city parks. This physical setting creates the experience we all share--that of living in a residential neighborhood.

NCPOA opposes Near North because if it is built, that experience will be lost forever. Instead of a neighborhood, our block will become an extension of downtown.

From the city's founding, Kingsley Street has been a key boundary. On the original 1824 map of "Annarbour," Kingsley is "North Street," the outer edge of the original village plat. To this day, Kingsley remains the edge of the urban core--the northernmost limit of the DDA area and of downtown zoning.

The A2D2 Planning process will allow greater residential density in the existing downtown. NCPOA supports this goal. But again--North Central is not downtown!

To our knowledge, during the entire lengthy A2D2 process, no planner or policy maker ever argued that downtown should expand into the adjacent neighborhoods. On the contrary, the low-rise "D2" zone was created specifically to buffer the high-rise city center from nearby neighborhoods.

Near North, located two blocks north of Kingsley, would make that buffer meaningless. At five stories and 52,000 square feet, it overwhelm its site, the street, and the surrounding homes--which is why, to approve it, Planning Commission and City Council would have to toss out both the site's zoning and the city's long-range plan.

We urge them not to do that. North Central is a city planner's dream: a thriving, diverse neighborhood that welcomes change. To abandon the plans that have successfully shaped our area for half a century would break faith with every Ann Arborite who's trusted the city's zoning and planning processes when deciding where to live and raise our families--not just in North Central, but throughout the city.

Say No! to NoMa

Last spring, I ran into Bill Godfrey at Ray Detter's downtown neighborhood party. Bill said 3 Oaks was no longer pursuing the Terraces on Main condo project. Instead, they were working with Avalon Housing to build "workforce" rental apartments on the site.

That seemed like quite a leap--Avalon's mission has always been to provide "supportive" housing, usually for people who were formerly homeless. But Avalon already has two well-run group homes on the block, and I told Bill I didn't see any problem with a new Avalon project in the area. And I told him that NCPOA would be glad to see the plans whenever they were ready.

It turned we were no longer part of their plan. The next anyone heard from 3 Oaks was in December--when we read about the "North Main" project in the Ann Arbor News. Avalon executive director Michael Appel was quoted as calling it "a neat opportunity for us to provide affordable housing downtown."

That was scary. I know and respect Michael, and most of the Area Committee know and respect Avalon. But here he was, throwing his good name and Avalon's political clout behind the project--and he didn't even know my block was not "downtown."

When we finally saw the planning documents, we knew why the developers had gone to the media rather than to the neighbors. It would have 60 units--more than twice the maximum allowed by the underlying R4C zoning. Under R4C, density on the site could triple, to 20,000 square feet. But "NoMa" had 64,000 square feet--ten times the current density, and more than three times the legal maximum.



And after more than four years of work, the developers were suddenly in a big rush. They announced that they would be submitting the project to the city for Planning review at the end of December.

NCPOA's Area Committee met and agreed that putting different tenants in the building did nothing to solve its problems. We put out a flier explaining the history of the project and why we opposed it, and urged neighbors to show up at the two neighborhood meetings organized by the developers.

Show up they did. After lengthy sales pitches by Bill Godfrey and Michael Appel, people peppered them with questions. Landladies were amazed to hear that the "affordable" units would rent for $750 a month. And everyone was shocked to see renderings of a seven-story building rising just a few feet off the sidewalk. When Michael said we lived "downtown," he obviously meant it.

Bill promised to take our comments into account before the plan was submitted to the city. We learned what that meant in January, when the developers unveiled a slightly downsized version of the project--which they're now calling "Near North."

The Terraces on Main

In August 2004, Kathie Baxter and I met with Bill Godfrey of the 3 Oaks Group. He was seeking NCPOA's support for the "Terraces on Main." The proposed 29-unit condo project would replace seven houses on Main south of Summit.

We told Bill that the Area Planning Committee supported new housing. But we also told him we knew there would be serious questions, because NCPOA expects new construction to fit into the existing neighborhood. He wanted to replace a row of modest homes with a building the size of Ann Arbor's City Hall.

He agreed to present the plan at a neighborhood meeting. Margaret Schankler and Steve Glauberman volunteered their living room, we leafletted the area, and about 30 people showed up.

Bill's a great salesman (he used to be a fundraiser), and he painted the economic benefits of the project in glowing terms. But the renderings he presented were shocking: a massive 71,000-square-foot block dug into the side of the hill, without so much as a front door--the residents would drive in and out through an underground garage.

My first question was, How was this supposed to fit into the existing neighborhood? The architect seemed surprised--he said he hadn't even been asked to consider that.

The architect tried to adapt the design, adding sidwalks to the street and creating some variation in the facade. But it was still huge. The Area Planning Committee unanimously agreed that it would completely destroy the character of the block.

We wrote to 3 Oaks to tell them we would oppose the Terraces. But because we're YIMBYs, we also told them what we would support: a well-designed project at the maximum size permitted by the zoning. This would have more than tripled the current density on the site and permitted a structure of 20,000 square feet--nearly as big as Bill Martin's new 201 Depot Street office building.

They never even responded to our offer. Eventually, Tom Fitzsimmons, Peter Pollack, and I met with Bill. We told him that if 3 Oaks went ahead with the project, we would fight them at Planning Commission and City Council. Bill said they'd take their chances.

And that was the last we heard about the Terraces on Main. We thought they'd finally accepted that there are good reasons the city prohibits putting downtown buildings in residential neighborhoods.

It turned out they hadn't. They just decided to pole-vault over Planning into Politics.

Yes In My Back Yard

Neighbors who oppose development are often dismissed as “NIMBYs”—short for “Not In My Back Yard.” The term expresses a paradox: while most of us recognize that a city has to evolve to meet residents’ changing needs, we also want to protect our homes and families.

Yet North Central has welcomed changes that would seem shocking in other parts of Ann Arbor. When I step out onto my front porch in the morning, I see the fourteen-unit Wickliffe Place, a two-unit luxury condo, and a two-unit, twelve-bed-and-bath apartment building. All are new since I first opened that door in 1980. To my north, both neighboring houses are also new—one occupying what had been a vacant lot, the other a “tear down” that replaced one of the “shotgun shacks.”

The home to my south is a rock of stability, home to six generations of the Baker family over the last ninety-some years. The four-unit apartment past the Bakers is new, however, as is the two-unit condo beside North Main Park.

Yet NCPOA opposed none of these projects, and actively supported every one that required Planning approval. It turns out that there’s an acronym for this, too—though you don’t hear it nearly as often: “Yes In My Back Yard,” or “YIMBY.”

NCPOA embraces change because we plan for it. Our core is the residential neighborhood between Kingsley and Depot. Almost all of it is zoned R4C, which permits a diverse range of housing while preserving a neighborhood scale. With guidance from U-M architecture prof Jim Chaffers's design workshop, we’ve developed a broad vision that includes supporting homes for young families, condos for retirees, and apartments for students and working people.

We also worked with the city to remove an anomalous stretch of Office zoning on Main Street--a holdover from the day when planners couldn’t imagine people wanting to live on Main. The Central Area Plan now calls for this area to become one- and two-family housing. Yet anticipating the planning trend toward mixed uses, we also have supported well-designed office and commercial projects outside the residential core.

Here are some of the “YIMBY” projects that NCPOA has actively endorsed in the city’s planning process:

• The Brauer Building offices at Fifth and Catherine
• The Wickliffe Place condominium between Fifth and Fourth avenues
• The Gandy Dancer and Casey’s Tavern
• The Trailblazers clubhouse on Division (since closed)
• The Washtenaw County Historical Society’s Museum on Main Street

• 645 N. Fourth Ave., a four-unit apartment building
• A four-unit apartment building on Beakes
• The conversion of the former Bethel A.M.E. church to apartments
• The 201 Depot office building
  

The Anti-Suburb

Built up helter-skelter in the 19th century, North Central is the "anti-suburb." The neighborhood's original homes come in every shape and size, from impressive Queen Ann houses to tiny cottages that one longtime resident compares to Southern "shotgun shacks."

Before the passage of open-housing laws in the 1960s, Ann Arbor's apartment complexes were whites-only. During this period, many North Central homes were subdivided and rented out. Many still are, and today, people of all races and incomes rent in the area, from plain, affordable apartments operated by resident landladies to spiffy "creative class" units in the Brewery and the onetime Bethel AME Church.


Other buildings have returned to single-family use. Thirty-five years ago, my 1,400-square-foot house on Fourth Ave. was owned by an absentee landlord and divided into four one-bedroom units. Deb Hollister and Ron Wollock converted it to a two-family, which was the only reason my late wife and I could afford to buy it in 1980. We counted ourselves lucky that when our last tenant moved out ten years later, we were doing well enough to pay the entire mortgage ourselves (and were grateful for the space--by then our daughter was three years old).

Families generally need more space, and that's the most striking change in North Central in the last twenty years: the construction of big new single-family homes and duplexes. Combined with generational turnover in exiting homes, they've brought a welcome boost to our kid count. After many years when our Halloween jack-o-lanterns attracted few or no trick-or-treaters, our Main Street neighbor Kelly Fitzsimmons has revived the tradition. Last fall, for the first time in twenty-eight years, I had to ration my candy--just two per furry creature.

The new one- and two-families were "matter of right" projects, exempt from the planning process. But under Letty Wickliffe and her successors as president, Steve Cattell and Tom Fitzsimmons, NCPOA has consistently supported appropriately designed condos, apartments, and even office buildings (see "Yes In My Backyard").

Over the years, our "anti-suburb" has seen great change. Yet it's also remained astonishingly diverse. And thanks to good zoning and (generally) good design, it still has the neighborhood "look and feel" that welcomes walkers, joggers--and trick-or-treaters.

NCPOA through the Decades

Some highlights of NCPOA’s work over the years:

1970s

• defeated the “Packard-Beakes bypass,” which would have funneled high-speed traffic through the neighborhood



• supported approval of the Brauer Building, the first new offices in the area


• helped create and design Summit (now Wheeler) Park

1980s:

• shaped plans for the Wickliffe Place condominium
• worked with the police and parks departments to resolve serious behavioral problems at Wheeler Park
• helped win approval for the Trailblazers clubhouse


• led the creation of Ann Arbor’s first residential parking permit system

1990s:

• worked with the police and parks departments to resolve renewed problems at Wheeler Park


• began annual garden at Wheeler, the longest-running Adopt-a-Park project in the city.


• supported construction of apartment buildings on Fourth and Beakes

2000s:

• expanded our garden planting to North Main Park


• supported approval of the 201 Depot office building, including the Depot Storm Relief project


• opposed the Terraces on Main condo PUD

Present:

• working to preserve the Ann Arbor's most diverse neighborhood


• fighting the Near North apartment PUD

The Leadership of Letty Wickliffe

After Walter Wickliffe’s death, his sister, Letty, led NCPOA for nearly thirty years. Open housing laws had ended the area’s de facto segregation, and she welcomed an increasingly diverse group of neighbors onto the Area Planning Committee, NCPOA’s decision-making body. In the words of U-M architecture prof Jim Chaffers, who worked with NCPOA for many years, she sought to create a neighborhood where “everyone is welcomed.”

Wickliffe herself articulated it this way:

What is NCPOA?

• IT IS PEOPLE – PEOPLE not interested in percentages of White or Black, Jew or Gentile, poor or affluent, or political party; but PEOPLE determined to become involved in the solution of problems that affect themselves and others.
• IT IS PEOPLE – PEOPLE learning how to exchange ideas based on their experiences, needs and dreams of a better life for themselves, their children and grandchildren.
• IT IS PEOPLE – PEOPLE rejecting paternalistic attitudes from city officials, business people, or selfish interest groups.
• IT IS PEOPLE – PEOPLE seriously examining their physical neighborhood, seeing how adjacent areas flow into and out of each other, considering present land use as it relates to them and to other people and planning for improvements.
• IT IS PEOPLE – PEOPLE developing plans with the assistance of professional planners and expecting to see those plans incorporated into the city Master Plan.
• IT IS PEOPLE – PEOPLE working together, recognizing that all people have similar problems, being willing to forget petty interests, extending a helping hand to a neighbor without expecting pay.
• IT IS PEOPLE – PEOPLE reasserting their rights as citizens and discovering effective ways to work together for self determination.

-From North Central: The Next 20 Years

With the help of Chaffers and his students, the Area Committee played a strong role in shaping city plans for the area. In 1974, City Council adopted a resolution that calls for consulting NCPOA on planning issues in our area—anticipating the recent rule requiring pre-planning reviews with neighbors by thirty-five years.

How We Got Here

Ann Arbor’s North Central Neighborhood is one of the oldest in the city. From the mid 19th century on, it was an important center of African-American life in Ann Arbor. That presence was institutionalized in the first half of the 20th century, when black Ann Arborites were prevented from buying homes or renting apartments elsewhere in the city.

The North Central Property Owners Association was founded in 1958 by Rev. C. W. Patterson of 2nd Baptist Church (then located at Fifth and Beakes) and Walter Wickliffe, a lifelong neighborhood resident and city forester. They led the fight against an urban renewal plan that would have demolished most of the homes and businesses in the North Central neighborhood, dispossessing hundreds of residents. The plan was defeated, and ever since NCPOA has worked with residents, businesses, and city leaders to revitalize the area.

See Eve Silberman’s 1998 Ann Arbor Observer article for more on urban renewal and the origins of NCPOA.