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.