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City Council meeting called to order at: 19:02:37

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Good evening and welcome to the January 5th, 2015 meeting of the Ann Arbor City Council. If you're able please rise and join us in a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. 

>>GROUP I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God ["under God" elided by some] indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Will the clerk please call the roll of council.

councilmember Kailasapathy, here
councilmember Briere, here
councilmember Westphal, here
councilmember Lumm, here
councilmember Grand, here
councilmember Kunselman, here
councilmember Krapohl, here
councilmember Eaton, here
councilmember Warpehoski,  here
councilmember Anglin, absent
Mayor Taylor, here

>>CITY CLERK We have a quorum.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR  Approval of the agenda. May I have a motion to approve the agenda, please? Discussion of the agenda. All in favor. All opposed. It's approved. Are there communications from the city administrator?

>>STEVE POWERS Yes, thank you. First, the Ann Arbor Board of Realtors has notified the city that they are awarding the city's greenbelt program an environmental excellence award. Second  with the end of the state legislative lame-duck session staff will be reporting out on several issues of city interest that were on hold pending possible state legislative action and since those actions did not occur, staff will be reporting out to councilmembers on several on several items, not this evening, and that report will be provided this week. A reminder that your January 12 work session will be a joint work session with the planning commission and that will be held at the CTN studios 2085 South Industrial Hwy. starting at 7 o'clock, it will be a joint session with the planning commission regarding redevelopment readiness and affordable housing. Your next regular meeting, your January 20 meeting because of the Martin Luther King holiday will be back in the Council Chambers at City Hall. And last I would like to ask Larry Collins to stand. Larry started today as the city's fire chief. [Applause] There will be a public swearing-in ceremony for Larry Friday, January 9 at 10 o'clock at the Fire Station Number One which is across from City Hall on N. 5th Ave. so I would encourage you all to attend if you are able, and there is an opportunity for Larry to answer some questions for you later on the agenda if you so desire.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR We have no introductions today so we come to public comment reserved time for which you need to have signed up in advance. Public speakers have three minutes i which to speak so please pay close attention to the timeclock. You need to adhere to the topic at hand. Public speakers cannot delegate their time to others, and for fairness we only have one person speaking at a time. And thank you, if the blue light is not on on the microphone in front of you, please press "push". Our first speaker today is Kathy Griswold.

>>KATHY GRISWOLD Happy new year, Mayor, Council and community members. My topic is pedestrian safety item C-1 on the agenda. I would like to begin with some positive news. On January 1st the New York Times reported this headlineL New York City Pedestrian Fatalities Total Lowest on Record in 2014. The decline in pedestrian death comes as the city continues to put in place Mayor Bill DeBlasio's Vision Zero plan, a set of proposals modeled after a Swedish approach that treats all road deaths and serious injuries as inherently preventable. The description of the plan is in the article I will forward to all Council members and the city administrator later this evening. It includes reducing the default speed limit from 30 to 25, education, aggressive traffic enforcement and a dozen bills on traffic safety. Equally important to the methodology is the mayor's championship of the plan. The article goes on to state that the mayor has often spoken about Vision Zero in public and has frequently met with the families of victims of fatal crashes raising the visibility of the issue. As an aside I was not aware of the plan when I was in New York City last July but noticed an emphasis on pedestrian safety including police officers wearing bright green vests reading "pedestrian safety" assigned to busy intersections. The leaders of the city's nonmotorized transportation committee praised the plan, for example Paul White director of transportation alternatives called this a "historic reduction" and stated that "the mayor has made this a top priority and I think this is the number one factor in what has led to this accomplishment." Tonight you will be considering  an ordinance amendment that will not significantly improve pedestrian safety similar to the original ordinance. The ordinance may have raised awareness of pedestrian safety but has been a distraction from meaningful improvement for many years. The Ann Arbor community remains confused and many visitors are not aware of the ordinance. Tonight I want to acknowledge the work of the pedestrian safety and access task force. However more is needed. Significant improvements require a clearly articulated vision by the leader of the community and a well executed plan with the resources needed for success. Please look at the proven methodology of the New York plan and Vision Zero.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Thank you. Our next speaker is Blaine Coleman.

>>BLAINE COLEMAN I trust everyone on Council has a copy of these remarks. Spend trillions to build up Detroit not Israel. Now Israel is facing criminal prosecution in the Hague for its massacres in Gaza. Israel has responded by compounding its crimes. Israel is now collectively punishing the Palestinian people for daring to even seek a hearing. So you the Ann Arbor City Council are called on to schedule a public hearing on the proposed resolution to boycott Israel right there at the top of your page, before Israel harms more Palestinians. I'll read it. Humanity Resolution to Boycott Israel and to Rebuild the Inner Cities. One: Ann Arbor City Council hereby resolves that the city will boycott all products imported from Israel to the maximum extent allowed by law. Two: The Ann Arbor City Council hereby calls on the US Congress to stop spending trillions, to stop spending trillions on killing Muslims and instead to spend those trillions of dollars to rebuild the inner cities, starting with Detroit. I'd appreciate if councilman Kunselman would stop laughing and start listening, this is public comment, right? That resolution will be heard around the world, if you do your duty and approve it. That resolution may stop Israel, actually I think that resolution will stop Israel from massacring more Palestinians. It also may save you from winding up at the Hague. In July and August of 2014 you saw hundreds of your constituents in the City Council and marching through the streets of Ann Arbor, demanding that you do something to stop Israel's massacre of Gaza. While Israel was bombing 600,000 Palestinians out of their homes last summer, the victims' families and friends in Ann Arbor asked you for a very modest human rights resolution. They simply asked you for a resolution boycotting Israel, quite similar to the resolution Chuck's peace group approved years ago. Chuck should be spearheading this not me. Your response in September 2014 was inadequate. A great insult to the 2,200 freshly killed Palestinians, 600,000 bombed out of their homes, as I said and also an insult to their families who came to you for help. That September you passed a proclamation celebrating world peace. The proclamation blamed no one for the murder of 2,000 Palestinians, the proclamation demanded no no action against the perpetrator Israel. Why do you protect Israel so ferociously even as it acts like Hitler? Thank you.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Our next speaker is Margaret Lynch.

>>MARGARET LYNCH Hello my name is Margaret Lynch also known as Peggy. I'm here to address incorrect statements made at the last meeting of this Council. It was stated at the council's last meeting that I own the property at 3501 Stone School Rd. This is and was incorrect. In October of 2013 I conveyed title to the nonprofit MISSION. MISSION has held title to that property ever since. All taxes have been paid and will continue to be paid on that property. It was also stated at the last meeting that not only had I  purchased a home in Ann Arbor in my personal capacity but the price that I paid for my house was discussed in this council. I consider that inappropriate and an embarrassment to this council. It was accurately stated that I live at a house of  hospitality patterned on Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker House model. I do. On of the things that we do is to welcome short term overnight guests into our home. For example, late last year a young homeless couple with an eight month old stayed  with us one night because they literally had no other place to go. After their one night stay, a local church put the family up in a hotel. Additionally late last year a family of five including three young children also literally with no other place to go, stayed with us for approximately 10 days. After that, we helped them stay in a hotel for nearly a month, which is what it took for them to get into a shelter. Our experience highlights the real issue here – not who owns 3501 Stone School Road but the need for affordable housing here in Ann Arbor. I am very grateful for this Council's approval of its emergency shelter response funding. We all understand however that that funding is a bandaid on a major problem – a lack of affordable housing for people experiencing homelessness in Washtenaw County including young children. The OCED reports that in 2013 more than 4,000 adults and children received services in Washtenaw County. Of those, 22% were adults and families and 19% were children in families. In other words, in 2013, professionals estimate nearly 1,000 children in Washtenaw County experienced homelessness. 1000. That is not and cannot be acceptable. Too many people, including families and children, and also many vulnerable adults experience homelessness in Washtenaw County. I respectfully submit that that is the real issue for this Council.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Our next speaker is Caleb Poitier. Poirier, my apologies.

>>CALEB POIRIER So the news hasn't yet broken on MLIVE or the other outlets to my knowledge. Today at 2:30 the Washington County Election Commission validated four different versions of recall language for Stephen Kunselman as both both factual and clear. I wish to state clearly that the nonprofit MISSION never was a sponsor of this, is not currently a sponsor of this, and of course will not in the future be one. It's been mixed up by statements by Stephen Kunselman as a sponsor and that is incorrect. I and other homeless folks are the originators of this recall. There has been a lot of – a lot of discussion on-line about what the reason is for the recall. And I stand before you to let you know that private property is well within the owner's rights to do whatever the hell they want with it. And although a lot of my friends were unhappy about the way they were displaced, this recall is not about that. This recall is about the potential for individuals to lose their life in the wintertime. And interestingly it is the crux of the disagreement between this recall and Stephen Kunselman's position. For four different categories of people, they are placed in danger when they are displaced forcefully by the police. One of those is people with pets. They often, their pet is their only object or thing that they care about and they refuse to leave their pet and go inside at night during night into the shelter. There's also folks with significant others and for those  who desire to sleep with each other, the shelter is not a place typically where that can happen. For several kinds of mental illness the shelter is not a great place for those, some of those varieties of mental illness, not all of course. And finally, while there is more people living outside than the shelter can accommodate, it is inhumane to send the police to evict them. And that is upheld not only by the Point in Time Count but also by the comments written by the shelter director. Thank you. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Thank you. Are there  communications from council. 

>>JANE LUMM Thank you, mayor Taylor. I would just like to pass along some information that was forwarded from former councilmember Sally Hart Peterson and this has to do with Christmas tree pickup, a fundraiser, Christmas tree pickup fundraiser is being hosted by the Huron High School football men's basketball teams, also any funds that are raised for this Christmas tree pickup will also go to support their graduation party. The services being offered on Saturday, January 10 for a suggested donation of $20. According to the announcement the last day to sign up is today and you can sign up by going to and it's kind of a long WWW address but here is www.signupgenius.com\go\30 E as an elephant of 4 CA 9AD as in David 229-Christmas. They need your name address, phone and the day you would like your tree picked up although, again according to the information that was provided us, January 10th, and again for a suggested donation of $20. Thank you.

>>KIRK WESTPHAL Thank you Mr. Mayor, just as a follow-on to councilmember Lumm's announcement, I got some late-breaking news, I've been told you can sign up through this Friday, clarification there, for Ward 2 folks who want to get their, anyone, ok, who want to get their Christmas tree lovingly chipped up for trails in Gallup Park, you can also email someone by the name of Michelle Armbruster at [email protected], again localgirl one word at comcast.net. Just as a follow-on thanks. 

>>JACK EATON I spoke with councilmember Anglin yesterday and he wanted to convey his regrets that he is missing this meeting, he is in Florida there was, a yeah [laugh] it's not all sunny in Florida. He is attending a funeral for a member of his family this week and he is unable to make it today and he sends his best and Happy New Year's and all of that but he will join us again next week so he just wanted to let everybody know but he was taken away by a family event. Thank you.

>>JULIE GRAND Thank you Mr. Mayor. I would just like to pass along some parks news. The Michigan Parks and Recreation Association awarded two awards to our park system. One for Park Design of the Year for the Veterans Memorial Skate Park, so congratulations to Amy Kuras who is the manager and all of those who collaborated on that project. The park system also won the Innovative Parks Resources Design of the year for our citizens pruner program – that's an award for innovative maintenance programs and it's a collaboration between our adopt-a-park program run by Tina Russell and field operations run by Kerry Gray from Forestry and 74 volunteers so far have been trained and they have pruned 550 trees in our parks and streets and will continue to do so, co congratulations to Colin Smith and his staff, that's great. And I also wanted to report out that Councilmember Briere and I had our first meeting as public school liaisons with some trustees from the Ann Arbor public schools school board and Dr. Swift and Mr. Powers and that was a very productive meeting. I was really impressed with Dr. Swift and her discussion about how healthy communities have great collaboration between their schools and the city and I look forward to some of the exciting things that we can do together and already we have started to communicate by sharing some upcoming resolutions, so we have planned that whenever there is a resolution that will impact one another, for example, tonight we have our potential sidewalk assessment, we are giving them a heads up about that and I'm sure they will do the same in the future. That's it. Thank you. 

>>SABRA BRIERE I just wanted to make a statement about the weather, everybody's favorite topic. Yesterday, I received several communications from people living on one of our few gravel streets. I drove out to the gravel street and discovered that what I was hearing was completely correct because I got down the hill and couldn't get back up the hill. So the neighbors and I stood in the middle of the road chipping the ice off the road. After we had finished all that work, the city truck came and we were all grateful to see the city truck because then I could get up the hill. But that brings up how frequently it's difficult for the city to know when there is a bad place. And since I have represented the First Ward for over seven years this was the very first time I've received a complaint from this neighborhood on an issue that is an annual and recurring issue because of the slope of the land and the way the everything drains on a gravel road it just became a sheet of ice. The same is true to a great extent for the Broadway Bridge today which also became a sheet of ice on the sidewalk. If you can, people listening, or people writing notes, hopefully the press. Please make certain that you let the city know when there is a problem. a2fixit works really well. Many of us now rely on a2fixit. But call somebody if there is a recurring problem that affects public safety. And we'll all go out and act although I won't promise that everybody is going to slide off a road and have to chip their way out of it. Thank you. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Thank you. Further communication from council? I have some communications. I would like to recommend the following nominations for your consideration. Alex Milshteyn to the planning commission, a filling a vacancy left by the indomitable Kirk Westphal, to the energy commission, Kim Wolske, filling a vacancy left by Elizabeth Gibbons, and we thank her for her work on that commission, and to the Local Officers Compensation Commission, filling a vacancy, Robert D. Picken. I give those to you for your consideration they will be considered in all likelihood at the next meeting.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR We now come to a series of public hearings. Public hearings are opportunity for members of the public to speak to Council and the community about matters specific to our agenda. You need to speak exclusively to the matter on the agenda and you have three minutes in which to speak, so please pay close attention to the timeclock. We can have only one person speaking at a time, so please take note. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR PH-1 An Ordinance to Amend Chapter 55 (Zoning), Section 5:10.20. A Downtown Character Overlay Zoning Districts Building Massing Standards. Is there anyone who would like to talk at this public hearing.

>>TED ANNIS Mayor, member of Council, Happy New Year, everyone is smiling. I would like to speak, I would like to speak to this ordinance which is here for a second reading.  I am very much in support of ordinance B-2 but I'm not in all support of this B-1. I am disturbed by the fact that this ordinance B-1 even made it to the agenda and I've been working with I've been going to planning commission etc. trying to keep an eye on this, and this popped up. Basically ordinance B-1 guts ordinance B-2. Ordinance B-2 is about changing the zoning of a 1.1 acre parcel, which is basically across from where I live, changing it to D2 zoning and that is appropriate and consistent with all the planning that has been done, all the money that has been spent, but all of a sudden B-1 comes along and it guts the intent of B2 and I would, what B1 does is take some of the parcel and make it D1 and take some of the parcel and make it D2, that makes no sense whatsoever. It guts the intent of ordinance B-2 and I would ask that you not approve it. It's hard to understand how it got here. Thank you. 

>>Scott Bonney Hello again, my name is Scott Bonney from Newman Smith Architects, and I thought I would remind you I was here last month when you discussed this at the first hearing. I think the big issue that I think is on the table is the notion that you are downzoning the parcel to D2 which allows obviously less density and limits the maximum FAR from 700% to 400% that's what we all understand. So at the table right now is if you are to do that to this parcel, is there still a way to maintain some of the merit that was installed when the original zoning was taking place when it proposed the taller zoning. So we have been working with Wendy and Alexis at the planning department as well as with your ordinance review, or is it revision committee I forget the middle word, to provide graphics so that you can understand the ramifications of this. Now we have studied a number of different solutions to this to find some sort of compromise that seems to work, and the bottom line is whether you rezone it as D2 with a 60 foot limitation on the entire site, or these two alternatives that we have shown where we would recommend a 120-foot height on the north end of the site with exchange for having more setback on the east end of the site. That's really the bottom line, it's the same FAR, it's the same lot coverage, it's the same open space requirements, nothing has changed except we're proposing to trade more setback from the more sensitive residential on the east and potentially on the south, as well as allowing to take that density and place it on the north, that's really only difference here. It's been placed 150 feet south of William again with no adjacent residential, there's the Beer Depot on the east and Ashley Mews and the gas station on the other side, again Ashley Mews is 122 feet, so again so this was the Ordinance Review Committee's recommendation to find that compromise between 180 feet downtown in the D1, 120 feet at the north end of the site and 60 feet for the south end of this site with the additional caveat staying 30 feet from the residential properties. So it's really not any more stuff, it's not any more people, it's not any more cars, it's not any more anything, except shifting the density from the east to the north. We have drawings by the way, if you don't have a copy and you want to refer to these during your deliberations later let me know and I can give you as well as a PDF if you'd like to present it on the screen.

>>ETHYL POTTS Is this on, are you hearing me? Because I'm not always hearing when someone stands here. My name's Ethyl Potts 1014 Elder Blvd. This so-called compromise zoning is being proposed for the Main-William-Packard site, it is the latest try at trying to make the D1 and D2 zonings workable. Mainly it has been tried for locations. Some of the difficulties with applying D1 and D2 were predictable and actually were predicted, but were not considered over the push for density. Buildings of quantity not quality were what was wanted, regardless of the effect on neighborhoods, whether or not they are historic neighborhoods. I find this proposal to be unsuitable for this area, even scary. This proposal has only one new public benefit – a greater setback for future buildings along Packard is proposed. Good. This is the same block and across the street from residential and some of them single-family great but there are no required setbacks from sidewalks and no required open space. Permitted would be D1 with 180 feet in height roughly 18 stories in the Main and William corner, D2 for the north half of the lot, 120 feet or 12 stories permitted with 60 stories – 60 feet, six stories permitted on the south part of the lot. D1 and 120 stories, in D2 must be removed. Such large buildings that would be permitted that will meet the requests of the land owner, but this would be a major negative effect on houses across the street and the alley on three sides and this would be incompatible with the historic Main Street up on the next block. Have you seen the D2 building on S. Main St. between Madison and Mosley? It gives you an idea of what six stories, a 60-foot D2 would be like, and so what's being proposed in this compromise is twice that height or three times that height in the D1 area, so look at that building on Main and then picture it. An that building on Main has an asset, som open space that is not included in any of what is in front of you. In conclusion, I would like you to remove the D1 zoning and limit the D2 overlay height to 60 feet. Thank you.

>>Andy Klein. Hi, I am Andy Klein, I represent the owners of 425 S. Main Care G investments and I'll try to correct some of the factual inaccuracies I'm hearing which are totally not correct. As you know, the project was developed 30 years ago we have owned the property that long. We've had DTE as our tenant and they are there today. During this process I made a conscientious effort over the last almost 18 months, to engage, talk to as many people as I could,  council people that who would correspond with me, some refused to, the planning department and everybody else. Let's go back historically to what has happened on this site. In 2009, there was no height limit and then right after that it was decided to lower the height to 180 feet. At this point now we are further changing the zoning again by amending the Main Street Overlay district, the height limitations we're talking about 120 dropping to 60 and then rezoning the property to D2. The results of these are very extreme. First of all it reduces the potential height of the building from 30-60%, it reduces a maximum lot coverage by 20%, reduces the FAR by 30%, and now what we've agreed to, is a suggestion from your own planning department, creating an additional setback which will be 30 feet to protect the neighbors on one side, which is actually a 60 foot setback, because it is measured from the rear of the home to the building. Nevertheless, even though this clearly results in diminishing the parcel's value, I've agreed to it, and I've tried to worked as hard as I could in engaging the process, because I still think even with the  restrictions of the 120-foot heigh limitation provides architectural flexibility and some symmetry. It provides ups the opportunity to create a taller element on the north side of the site, which is consistent with the 120 feet that Ashley Mews has, which actually is further south than us. The taller height creates no more square footage, it's just the opportunity for a better design. And as it was said by our consultant, if you look at it logically going on Williams it's 180 and then 120 and then 60, it's just good urban planning and nothing more. Not only that but the 120 foot position that we worked with the community on is endorsed by the city's own consultant that was hired suggested a D1 zoning and 150-foot height. The ORC came back that consisted of two architects, local architects  and city planners at 120 – the city planning department endorses 120, and our consultant who we hired said we could live with that. And even DTE who sent a letter to the city, recommends 120 as well. It's a gateway parcel to the city, we've try to come up with something that is reasonable here and consistent with Ashley Mews. I don't know how we could have taken a more compromising position. I had a lot of options that aren't compromising and I rejected all of them to try to engage the city and come up with something that works. This is a very fair compromise and protects the neighbors on the one side.

>>THOMAS PETITE. Good evening Mr. Mayor, Councilmembers, my name is Thomas Pettitte. I'm the owner of 432 S. Fourth Ave. I was – excuse me I've got the flu – I was involved in many of the discussions regarding the changing of the zoning. My understanding at the time was that D2 was 60 feet. Somehow we slipped a 120-foot building in the middle of that at the north end or the the north half I should say of that parcel. I'm rather concerned about that and as a graphic artist I decided to create an idea of what that would look like, in terms of height. You don't really get an idea of what that is until you see it, and I'm gonna just pass this around. If you look at this you'll see that currently the Edison Building is 30 feet. The new building would be twice at high. The first illustration shows that you've got about from the side from the church across the street if you look at this you see that you've got about half a sky now with a 60-foot building. The second illustration shows what it would look like with 120-foot or 150-foot building. In the camera's eye there is no sky, you have pretty much eliminated the sky. You can't see it. My big objection is the height compared to the buildings on Fourth Avenue, it's ridiculously oversized to be 120 or 150 feet. There's a couple of Victorian houses on the north end of William near north end, I'm sorry end of Fourth near William, my illustration shows the houses further in, but there are at least four houses on that side that are going to be completely dwarfed by this. And I'm just, as Milt Kimnitz, another artist, who is very much in favor of preserving the look of Ann Arbor, I am afraid this is going to destroy another part of the look of Ann Arbor. You're just going to have a big wall right there and I don't see that this is going to benefit anyone but the developer, it's certainly not going to develop us, who live and own property on Fourth Avenue so I wish you would look at this again, revisit this idea of a huge building on the corner of William and Main because I just think it's going to impact negatively on that area. Thank you.

>>KATHY BORIS My name is Kathy Boris I live at 1726 Charlton here in Ann Arbor. On May 13, 2013 Ann Arbor City Council voted to approve the site plan for 413 Huron, this approval resulted in a tall, massive structure being constructed next to a historic neighborhood. Just before City Council voted on that night Chuck Warpehoski said it would be "a very pit in my stomach sickening vote yes." Just before City Council voted on that night Christopher Taylor said he would vote yes because he feared losing an eight-figure lawsuit to the developer. Please, tonight change Ann Arbor's zoning so that in the future no City Councilmember can claim that he or she feels bound to vote yes for a site plan that will put a too-large building next to a residential area. Thank you so much.

>>CHRIS CROCKETt Good evening I'm Chris Crockett. And I live in the Old Fourth Ward Historic District. There has been much made of the conferences between the owner who is definitely a stakeholder, the owner of this property, and his many meetings with members of city government, the planning department and councilmembers. What hasn't yet been invoked is the public trust. Now we are walking, we are looking now at the direction of the Incredible Hulk on the corner of Huron and Division. No one likes it. None of you standing, sitting in front of me likes this building you thought you had to vote for it – I disagree. You didn't. But we are stuck with something that is massive ugly and inappropriate and why? Because the zoning was wrong. It's not about what was on the other side of Huron, it was what was behind the Incredible Hulk now called the Foundry isn't that a miserable name. It looks like it's ready to grind us all into the bowels of the earth. Here we have another choice that is a very similar  choice that can be rectified by correcting the zoning. And it's not an issue strictly that this building would relate to the building across the street on Main Street, it's how it relates to the stable residential neighborhood that is on, that is to the east. That is what was not taken into serious consideration with 413 E. Huron. And that is what must be taken into consideration with this zoning. D2 is the only possible choice. It's the only thing that is going to save this part of Ann Arbor. And while there is a legitimate stake that the owner of the property has, there is also a legitimate state that the community has, there is the public trust. And we need you to uphold the public trust.

>>RITA MITCHELL Hi, I am Rita Mitchell, I live at 621 5th St. and I want to echo some of the comments made by others that I oppose the D1 zoning for the parcel under consideration and I'd like to ask you to walk along S. Main St. as an example of an area that is now overshadowed and then walk down Ashley Street just behind the 600 block and see the difference and just to feel what it is like to be in that area. Is that the kind of walkable area that we are planning for our city? If we continue to make buildings at the edges of residential areas, we're really going to create more barriers and there will be this ridge around the downtown that I think is not the kind of welcoming gateway of downtown that we have in mind, at least not what I would like. So I ask you to reconsider and keep it at D2 at that site.

>>STEVE KAPLAN Hi my name is Steve Kaplan I live on Division Street. And I don't, I don't have a specific, I'm not here to condemn the idea of a new building on that corner area and I'm sort of torn to be honest. On one side I can envision something loosely described by the owner of the parcel and his representatives that might be nice there. And I'm also very very wary like a number of people who have been up here already about what happened about what went wrong at 413, and I hate to be keep bringing this up, or being another person to bring it up,  but it sticks a lot in a lot of our memories. I think that zoning for a best case scenario or what we think might be a nice building you know and providing for that in zoning leaves us open to a lot of options that none of us really like, and I'm here really mostly to ask a question I know that spot zoning is a horrible thing, and PUD's I'm not sure where they are in terms of the current vogue, but is there a way to have what is being specifically considered looked at as opposed to creating an envelope that says anything that fits within these guidelines belongs here? Because I would like to see them have the right to build something really nice there and something is definitely gonna be developed on a corner and there's nothing wrong with that. On the other hand, I'm worried like many of us are, to see something go as horribly horribly wrong as did is on the corner of Division and Huron. Thanks.

>>RAY DETTER My name is Ray Detter 120 N. Division. And I just want to make a statement first of all with regard to the nature of what the possibilities are. We don't really have a clear sort of idea what might be built on the site in terms of something that is designed because there is no proposal that is coming before us. And we'd like to know what it is we're going to get, we're very concerned about the nature of design, it's very important. But  keep in mind, I just want to give a little bit of background, keep in mind that if this goes to D2, a planned project has recently been used at 618 S. Main, some people think it's too high but nevertheless a planned project is perfectly possible with D2.  It's possible to go higher on the north end if it comes with public benefits.     Now the argument here is that we already have public benefits by having the opportunity here for somebody to build something on this site. But I want to see those public benefits I want to know what it is that we're getting first of all in terms of a designed building, and also what it is that the benefits might be if we allowed it to shape itself differently perhaps even going higher on the north side,  but in terms of the background on this the downtown citizens advisory Council was heavily involved as many of us were with the A2D2 Ann Arbor discovering downtown initiative process that led in 2009 to the rezoning of downtown Ann Arbor with greater height and intensity of use. In the last three years we've also been involved as also many of you have, of trying to correct the mistakes of that rezoning.  Those problems that have been recognized as people have pointed out here in the out-of-town developers forcing us to approve the by-right development of 413 E. Huron.  In the process of meetings over the last two years the community with the help of consultants Purdu Associates has also recognized that the D1 180 feet buildings allowed on  Main Street Overlay district were obviously inappropriate for the property at S. Main bordered by E. William and Packard, directly across the alley from residential and historic properties on S. Fourth it should have clearly been an interface location where D2 zoning designed to protect residential and historic areas outside the downtown core was appropriate.       You see the whole situation with regard to how this has come about, in the background though the Ann Arbor city planning commission in December 2013 recommended to the Mayor and City Council a number of important changes to correct the mistakes that we made a 2009. Among them to rezone the parcel at 425 S. Main from D1 downtown core to D2 downtown interface and establish a maximum height of 60 feet for D2 zoning in the Main Street Character District. And on January 21, 2014, the City Council resolved after reviewing the consultant's and planning commission's recommendations and considering commitments, comments rather, presented at public hearings to direct the planning commission to begin the process of implementation of their recommendation changes to city code and the zoning map. Well that was recommended and we didn't get that, instead we got a negotiation and that's being offered to you tonight and we would like to see it rejected, thank you.

>>ALAN HABER Hello council, I'm Alan Haber 531 3rd St. I wish that the microphone could give more voice to, so that people could hear, maybe I am just old, but the sound isn't so good.  I will try and be short and clear. When spoken of as the rights of the property owner, I appreciate that, but the property owner is really an investor, an investment company. The character of downtown for the investment  is how much money they can make out of it, not character in the way that we sense is what the human ambience is, that is what is important to me. And I think a big building D1, 12 stories, 18 stories, whatever, could be with all the arrangements made there, is just too big, it should not be a big building on that corner. I hope you will keep it to D2. I hope you will keep it low. I live by the 618 S. Main by Madison. That is an overwhelming building in that neighborhood. It shouldn't be like that, but the neighborhood's going for it. Don't put a big building there. Keep this at D1,  keep it restricted, keep it the sense of what the character of our community, not the skyscraper but a community that is more or less human scale I hope you will keep that. I had a little trouble distinguishing between these two things what is a character and what is zoning, but the important thing is – keep this for human scale Ann Arbor. Don't put a big building there. Don't let the investors find the maximum way they can get the most money out of our town. Our town is for our town, it's not for whoever can come in here and figure a way to extract the most property and the most money out of it, so please for the future of Ann Arbor keep that space whatever is developed beyond the Edison Company you know that is something for our town that we'll be glad it's there, not another big tall building and I'll probably say the same thing at the next public hearing, because I'm not sure what the difference is between the one and the other is, the character and the zoning. But please don't do something that we are again going to like on Huron Street regret. Thank you.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Is there anyone else who would like to speak at this public hearing? Seeing no one, this public hearing is closed. Again, we apologize if members of the audience are unable to hear speakers at the public hearing, speakers they are as loud as they can be made. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR PH-2 An Ordinance to Amend Chapter 55 (Zoning), Rezoning of 1.1 Acres from D1 (Downtown Core Base District) to D2 (Downtown Interface Base District), 425 South Main Street City-Initiated Rezoning, 425 South Main Street  Is there anyone who would like to speak at this public hearing?

>>SCOTT BONNEY I will kick it off again, again Scott Bonney from Newman Smith. Again we would support the idea of rezoning from D1 which was originally proposed when the A2D2 committee put together all these suggested heights and then now the suggestion that perhaps the 180 foot high D1 is inappropriate for the site. We just feel again the granularity of the D1 and D2 zoning, as an architect and urban planner we find it odd that the city came up with this gigantic step of 180 feet or 60 feet. It just seems a difficult way to have a nice transition of your downtown. I'm very familiar with the city of Bethesda, Maryland that has a very granular zoning ordinance where everything is based on the distance from the metro station and it's 120, 125, 130, 137 and they do a great job of protecting the neighborhood by providing this graduated system.  I think this is a perfect example of allowing this graduation, and at the again, let me restate again it's not a bigger building, is a slightly taller building on one part of the site but a smaller building on the other part of the site, it's just shifting things. And I forgot to mention before, that I believe as a designer, this would give someone a chance – hopefully it's me someday – to come up with a very clever design. We purposely didn't want to propose anything on this site because that's not what you're talking about, we're not proposing a building, we're just proposing  an envelope that would describe what the zoning would allow. And hopefully that's why we didn't show a fake design that you might fall in love with but then maybe the next developer or DTE or whoever might develop in the future might do something that you might not like. And again I think we also mentioned the fact that it's probably unlikely that someone would really build out the entire site with premiums, most likely it would have less than 400% FAR which again is going to  reduce the massing on the site which just wouldn't be as big. So just a couple of ideas to think about. And again I remind you I have these drawings if you want to take a look at them.

>>ETHEL POTTS Ethel Potts again. I think the D2 zoning can work for this parcel, as long as there are the public benefits added to it which the height is limited to 60 feet, there are setbacks from the sidewalks which are not now required, and that a percentage of the lot be green open space. And I don't mean the kind of open space we've been getting with these buildings which is a place to store cars and dumpsters. It's open all right, but not an asset. The consultant's report, if you look back at it, it notes that there was public, that the public asked for, a very high percentage of the public asked for open green space in the D1 and the D2 and in any part of the downtown – we're not getting that, not in the overlays, not in the requirements of the zoning. That's important. To improve our situation struggling with D1 and D2, we did have diagonals in our plan, people talk about creativity, this is a way to take the same FAR, the same piece of land and make it slim, make it maybe taller but a slender building ,not these massive buildings is I think what are really irritating people. But the City Council took diagonals out really at an early stage, nothing to substitute for it has been back, has been brought back. I've been waiting for the architects in town to come up and the planners to come up with an idea that would be easier to understand, the only reason it was taken out is that the Council couldn't understand it. We also have design review, but the Design Review Board and others have agreed that we need to rewrite the requirements in the design review, and that has not begun as far as I know, and the Design Review Board is reluctant to make mandatory what it is they recommend. And also, I've been – talk about creative ideas, I've been hearing the idea that we need a D3, which would be truly a buffer, which would not be the tall, it would not be the medium size, 6-8 whatever story, but it would be smaller it would actually be a buffer between bigger buildings between commercial buildings and neighborhoods this to be a true protection, so I hope so, if somebody would creatively begin to talk about D3. Thank you.

>>THOMAS PETITE I just want to briefly mention that the process that we went through a long time ago, many of us thought was completed there were many more people than you see here tonight we are just a few are bringing this up, who thought that D2 was 60 feet, this is what we thought, and most of us were in favor of D2 for this parcel. We were surprised suddenly to find that there was a proposal that is going to be 120 feet on one end and 60 feet on the other end. This was not really understood by the many people who were involved in this planning process. So I think the process has been short-circuited here. The problem has been  there was a miscommunication as to what D2 really was, we thought it was 60 feet height, that was the limit, unfortunately it seems that that's not the case. If that process was worthless, then I think we need to revisit it, because there's a lot of people who I don't think are  willing to go with 120 feet on that corner, more than you see here tonight. I think I'm hoping you know, that you will look at this situation and about what has led to this and think again think twice about putting a large building on that corner.

>>ANDY KLINE Again, Andy Kline the property owner. Again I find it amazing that you invest in a piece of property and is multiple times downzoned. We're not talking about once, this is not the first time, we're doing it again. The whole reason, though we tried to step aside and think of other options, that most developers would have taken in this case was to try to engage the process and not be forced to design a building that was a blocky ugly building. So we tried, I spent my own money and time to try to come up solutions to present to people in the planning department to engage back and forth which we did, to try to come up with something that pulled the mass of the building to the street and away from the residential area. That is a fact. We didn't have to do that that is what we did. We came up with a suggestion of doubling the size of the buffer. We already have an alley, we didn't have to suggest more space to protect the residents – we did. So the whole       inclination that you know that you're trying to wrench out as much profit, that's a bunch of malarkey, that's not what was here, we were just trying to come up with something, that you have a Main Street of Williams and Main right there, typically on that you have a taller building, we pulled the mass to the front. It's no more square footage it is not 1 foot more square footage than we're allowed to build under D2, we just shifted the mass up to the street. That's all we tried to do, and come back with something that was attractive instead of being forced into something that was going to be downright ugly. And that's what would have happend, because if you look at the dimensions of that site, you're going to get a rectangular building, a 60-foot wall, we didn't want to do it.  So we tried to use our ingenuity and the best people I could hire, to come up with something else. Again, this was exactly approved by the original person who did, when Perdu did that report, it said 150 D1, that's what she said, she didn't want to rezone it, and she said specifically in her own language, you can read the report, it says it's a gateway parcel, you're going to force them into something that's ugly, make it a flexible nice design, they need height. The planning department, it's too bad Wendy is not here, she'd say the same thing, there at the Ordinance Review Committee, it came back, 120 that was their suggestion. You know, that committee had two architects on it, local Ann Arbor architects, and planners, it's your own people. So I just, we tried to engage the process as much as we could. We tried to come back with something with just flexibility. We don't have a plan right now. But I need a plan. Ultimately if DTE decides that they want to have more of a marquee building, and a landmark and a bigger footprint here and create a larger headquarters building to serve the Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County areas, I need the flexibility to do that and I want to do it tastefully not something I'm force because of D2. And one more thing I want to address, the whole idea that the situation is well the D2 has to be consistent forever and all these other areas. This is a very unique parcel. You can step out of the thinking of that nature. The fact is that it's the only parcel that would be D2 in the Main Street Area, so you can do something different here.

>>TED ANNIS Mayor, members of Council Ted Annis, 414 S. Main. You have heard a lot about the parcel, I get to speak to it again, as everyone else has. What I have just heard is the parcel owner and the architect make a pretty good case, I don't think they realize it, they make a pretty good case for keeping this parcel zoned at D2. So I would suggest that we keep the parcel, that Council keep the parcel at D2 and let them do something interesting and creative within the confines or within the provisions of D2 zoning. Thank you.

>>RAY DETTER We have heard it again and again you know and coming here tonight I heard it out in the parking lot I had somebody come up to me and said, that what they thought this was was a situation of spot zoning, you have the planning commission and the ordinance revision committee siting down with the developer or the owner and coming up with something to zone their property so that they could do the best job in terms of design, we have yet to see the design by the way and we keep hearing that it's the same FAR that it would be otherwise at this particular site. I still don't believe that because I have never seen that particular design. It stands to reason to me, if you are going to be reducing the height on a D2 property and it's all D2 that if you're going to take it down, if you're going to raise it here that your going to lose something here, but again as I say, I have yet to see a design that indicates that. But I'm a believer in compromise, if we're going to compromise, then why don't we go to 80 feet or 100 feet, nobody has even discussed that, we discussed 150 and beyond, but when I sat in on those meetings, what people wanted in this community was wanted something that was less destructive of the environment that was next door to it, a residential environment, that the downtown plan was supposed to try to preserve. And I also want to repeat again, because the possibilities are there but we have control over it. If the owner with D2 comes up with a proposal, planned project to increase the height on the north end, by decreasing the south end and therefore benefiting the community with something we can all understand, is it a rain garden as it was at 618 or whatever it was, we decide whether or not it's a public benefit and then go ahead and let them do that, and I'm all in favor of that at this particular site, because what we want is a building that works. To me at least on that south end, the smaller in height that section is, the better, and if we can have something at the end that is a good design and go higher, that's not a bad compromise if it does produce benefits that the community accepts as benefits.     

>>ALAN HABER Just to add one, when I hear that D2 can be 120 feet or 60 feet, what is D2 anyhow? And I was a little, you know, making money downtown is not a lot of malarkey, that is sort of the name of the game, and I think your responsibility is to make sure that the game is not about making money, but about making a community we would all be glad for the children and grandchildren and so on. And so whatever the numbers are of D1 and D2, I hope that height will stay a reasonable height, six stories whatever it is 60 feet, basically within the downtown. And I hope you just figure out a way that you don't give the flexibility, the creativity to give us a big tower there or frankly anywhere else and I hope that the lesson of 413 E. Huron sinks a little bit – that you did what you didn't think you should do but  you had to do, well don't do it here again, keep it low, say you want a building that is not so high, say we want that space to be developed at a human scale.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Is there anyone else who would like to speak at this pubic hearing? Seeing no one this public hearing is closed

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR PH-3 An Ordinance to Amend Section 9:42 of Chapter 107 (Animals - Keeping Chickens) of Title IX of the Code of the City of Ann Arbor. Is there anyone who would like to speak at this public hearing. 

>>ALAN HABER Well, me again. This one is close to my heart because I raised chickens. I'm glad that this resolution  has it that the neighbors right around don't have a veto on the chickens. I hope for more chickens, but I wish there would be an amendment to include ducks. I raised ducks and chickens in our commune, it wasn't here it was in Berkeley, California, that's a different place. Ducks are wonderful the eggs are very good, they're even better to my taste, but chickens and ducks get along very well, they're nice, they're not foul they're are fowl. So I think more flexibility about the kind of fowl that can be raised, chickens and ducks go well together, andI wish there would be some amendment people don't think about it because mostly people think that chickens are the thing you raise. Ducks are easy to raise, they get along well, the eggs are great, so I hope that this will be passed but with that amendment to be more flexible about the kinds of birds that can be raised together they get along well together, the eggs are great and bring a little bit of that flexibility to our town, I think that would be just wonderful and the neighbors shouldn't be able to say, no, there may be should be a way to encourage the neighbors, everybody to raise more of the stuff for ourselves. Thanks a lot. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Is there anyone else who would like to speak at this public hearing. Seeing no one this public hearing is closed >>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Approval of the minutes. I have before you the minutes of Work Session of December 8 and Regular Session Meeting Minutes of December 15, 2014. Discussion. All in favor. All opposed. It's approved.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Consent agenda. Discussion of the consent agenda.

>>SABRA BRIERE Just very briefly, I want to commend the city administrator for acting swiftly when there was a need to act swiftly. I know that both of these resolutions ask us to ratify decisions he's already made. I'm pleased to do so and really appreciate not having a delay in the process.   

>>JANE LUMM I wold simply add as a follow-on to councilmember Briere's comments, with regard to the emergency purchase order approval for the repair of the tower truck, that this was discussed at the board of insurance meeting just before the holidays. And the board recommended this action as well.  

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Further discussion. All in favor. All opposed. They are approved. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR B-1 An Ordinance to Amend Chapter 55 (Zoning), Section 5:10.20.A Downtown Character Overlay Zoning Districts Building Massing Standards  (Ordinance No. ORD-14-12) Discussion of B-1.

>>SABRA BRIERE I'm going to spend my first speaking turn on this actually addressing issues related to what we're really talkin about. I think it's very confusing, listening to people who addressed us tonight it's apparent that what were talking about in the Character District overlay is very confusing. The definition for D2 zoning does not include a height. It does include the amount of space that can be built upon – which is 80% of the lot. It does include a requirement that 10% of the lot be open space. And it establishes massing standard called floor area ratio, a minimum of one time the area of the lot, a maximum of two times the area of the lot, unless the property owner and developer seek to build with premiums in which case it can go to up to four times the area of the lot. Because there's no building in front of us we really can't talk effectively about whether this is a good building envelope or a bad building envelope that is proposed, but it is important to recognize that what we're talking about is changing the standards for Main Street Area only and that those standards did not include D2, do not today include D2, and will not include D2 or any controls over D2 if this resolution in some form, this ordinance in some form is not amended. We could zone this property to D2, but with no Character District Overlay the only thing that would be that would govern would be the massive standards. And I think that's important for the people in the audience to understand and for people on Council to understand. We could reject the Character District Overlay and send it back, but if we rezone this property to D2 then what governs is only the massing standards – where it can fit on the lot and how many square feet of usable floor area a new building can have. A lot of us thought D2 meant 60 feet. And so wrapping my head around the fact that it didn't mean 60 feet has been a challenge. But this is not a split parcel. It's not D1 zoning that's being proposed. It's a change in the Character District Overlay to allow D2 in the Main Street Area Character district and to put certain restrictions on the D2 parcel so that it can't be too close to the adjacent neighborhood, it can't be too tall behind those houses. But it also allows the developer to build, some prospective developer at some point in the future to build a building that masses out at four times the area of the lot. And I think that that's just the important standard keep in mind. We could address and may address whether 120 feet is the right height, whether there should be height restrictions on this lot or on any lot, we could address whether the entire lot should be restricted to 60 feet, and if we have those discussions it's going to be potentially a vigorous talk, but the important thing I wanted to say in this, my first speaking turn, is that what we're talking about is changing the Character District Overlay and that if we don't want to change that Character District Overlay, we really should not vote in the affirmative on the next ordinance change, because that establishes D2 with no restrictions. Thank you.

>>JACK EATON I want to thank councilmember Briere for all of her hard work on this. I have to disagree with her though about not changing the zoning from D1 to D2. Without regard to what we do with the overlay, because in fact a D1 zone on this property without a character overlay would permit even more than the D2. I've sent to the clerk a proposed amendment, she has passed it along to you. And you may want to go back and forth between the character overlay table in the packet and my proposal. Primarily the Main Street Character District I would propose capping a D1 building within that district at 150 feet, much like we have on University. I would change the 120 feet to a 90-foot height for that 150 feet area from William Street. I would increase the minimum setbacks to acknowledge that part of that setback is actually an alley, it's not really a setback, it's an alley. And if anyone has any questions about the terms of the amendment that I have circulated I would be willing to answer those.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR The text of the amendment is then, well, is there, to re-state prior to seeking a second, amending D1's character overlay district from 150, pardon me, from 180 to 150, amending the proposed change here in D2 from D2 from 120 to 90, in an area extending 150 feet from E. William, that's the second element, the third element is altering the setback requirement for D1 from a minimum of 30 feet to broadly speaking a minimum of 20 feet, measured in a different distinct fashion, that is measured from an exterior walls of the building ...  

>>JACK EATON ... I'm sorry. You said changing it from 30 to 20, and actually in a D1 there's no setback requirement and it would establish a 20 foot setback, because I don't think you're going going to build on the alley. But then ...

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR ... But then with respect to D2, altering it from a 30-foot setback to a 40-foot setback. I guess with your acquiescence can we handle those in order? Do you think, would you prefer them a package? Package it is.

>>SABRA BRIERE Just a point of factual information, if we remove, rezoned the parcel on William to D2, no parcel in the Main Street Character District Overlay touches a residentially-zoned neighborhood, none of the D1 zoning touches a residentially-zoned street. So I'm not really certain, that go ahead. 

>>JACK EATON Just to clarify, on the other side of Main Street,  the west side of Main Street on the same side of William, isn't that all D1? 

>>SABRA BRIERE But, not, excuse me, help me out. out.>>JACK EATON So the gas station, and the properties from the west from there, ...

>>SABRA BRIERE They touch D2. 

>>JACK EATON Behind them that's not residential? Ok, thank you.

>>JANE LUMM I wonder if we could we bring Ms. Rampson up to kind of talk us through what's being proposed? I admit to being a little confused here, or a lot confused. Did you get the ...? 

>>CITY STAFF No, I did not.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Is there any discussion that does not continge, depend on Ms. Rampson knowing the amendment? 

>>STEPHEN KUNSELMAN I guess while we're at it, I guess I'll just as the city attorney, are these changes substantive enough that would require after this vote to go back to first reading? 

>>STEPHEN POSTEMA That's always an interesting question. Going down from 180 to 150, these are all, they are more restrictive provisions, for D1 and D2 at the bottom, we've usually taken more restrictive things to be substantive. As far as the 180 to 150, again I think that still is a substantive, and I think as a total certainly could be viewed as substantive and it may need to go back to first reading, but I haven't asked councilmember Eaton, but I think they are intended to be substantive.

>>CITY STAFF As a practical matter because the changes to D1 affect property owners that have not been notified of this, as a practical matter having this as a first reading would make for a second reading and a public hearing for any changes so that there can be comments.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR I think this is going to be constructive, councilmember Eaton. 

>>JACK EATON No, it's not going to be constructive. Sorry to disappoint you. It was suggested that there is no D1 adjoining a residential neighborhood in the Main Street Character.

>>CITY STAFF That's correct.

>>JACK EATON So it wouldn't be substantive it would actually be kind of pointless?

>>CITY STAFF It wouldn't be necessary if you rezoned this particular property to D2 then there would not be any abutting, there may be across the street but not abutting residential and that's how the zoning is measured, if the property lines abut. 

>>JACK EATON I don't mind keeping it at 180 then, but I don't think that changes the city attorney's assessment that the remainder of the changes are substantive and it would require a second reading. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR I guess what you saying right here is that this is a friendly amendment proposing a friendly amendment to pull out the 150 reference or the D1 minimum set back reference.

>>JACK EATON Maximum height. 

>>JANE LUMM So it's still at 180? 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR The question related to R zoning and the R zoning reference in the proposed amendment is the minimum 20-foot setback for D1 – is that the one that you are seeking to pull out? 

>>JACK EATON It was my understanding that councilmember Briere pointed out that the maximum height of 150 in a D1 in this character overlay – is that correct? Or were you pointing to something else? 

>>SABRA BRIERE I think that there are two things that affect D1 zoning. One is setting a maximum height in the Main Street Character District of 150 feet. The other was sitting a minimum setback from adjoining adjacent residential. And my concern was that that minimum setback from  adjacent residential was probably not a valuable change. 

>>JACK EATON So Mr. Mayor then, yes I would withdraw the minimum setback in a D1 adjoining a residential. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR That's the 3rd proposed change I suppose that's a proposed friendly amendment – is there a second to that friendly amendment? Is there any objection to that being a friendly amendment since it is now the council's motion? Seeing none we will take that out. As it stands now the changes relate to altering the D1 from 180 to 150. With respect to the parcel in question, altering the height from 120 to 90 and then for D2 generally in the district altering the setback from 30 to 40. Further discussion.

>>JANE LUMM Just again a confirmation or clarification that because the proposal is to go from 180 to 150 that other property owners would need notification, so this would make this not a second reading but a first reading? 

>>CITY STAFF I don't know whether technically it needs to, but from a process standpoint really this affects many property owners other than the one that you are discussing this evening. 

>>JANE LUMM And because this is city-initiated on all of this it would require eight votes as well, right?

>>CITY STAFF No, it would require a simple majority. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Further discussion of proposed amendments? I guess I will step in. I'm not going to be voting in favor of these. I think that the one reference to D1, you know, it is well within the right to bring the amendment and I think it is precipitous however I think that changes to D1 are you know are pretty important and ought to be the result of a broader process rather than an amendment made, in this, and again by right, and without stain but in this manner, so even though there would be a subsequent conversation because it would come back to a second reading, I still think that this is something that I don't want to be involved in. Second we are dealing with two substantive changes to the proposal that have gone through this broader process, bringing it down from 180 pardon me from 120 to 90 and then from 30 to 40. I view the 120-foot limit as appropriate here. I think that, you know I think it as indicated, will result in a shift of the mass of the building to the place where it ought to be. I think on that corner we have Ashley Mews and I think that does no one a disservice, I think that is a building  that is well in place. I think the building of a similar height in this context with a gradual diminution towards the south would be similarly in place. I think that the protections of the setback as proposed for the residential areas on the Fourth Avenue side are appropriate and sufficient. So I'm going to a vote against the amendment. And I guess by praising the proposal as it is also vote affirmative on the main motion if it comes to that.

>>KIRK WESTPHAL Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I would echo your sentiments. It's not that I couldn't imagine revisiting our conversation about D1 in specific places. I think that could be warranted. But I think to start expanding the scope of what we're looking at tonight would be tough, given the process that we have gone through and from what I recall tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars in consultants and hundreds of people's feedback. So, I do not wish to touch D1 tonight. Nor do I wish to unravel the compromise that has been reached with the community and the consultant and the property owner on the main motion.

>>JACK EATON To respond to the two basic points, there are other D1 areas that have a character overlay of 150 feet. East Huron. South University. So, I don't think that's outside the scope of the discussions that we have already had with the downtown zoning. I think if it goes to a second reading that gives everybody enough time to speak to it. But I'm not attached to that I can understand that, more importantly, the idea of a gradual reduction in height or a gradual increase, I mean whether you're going north or south, having one end of a block a 60-foot building and at the other end 120 foot building is not a gradual change in height. It's a phenomenal, it's a geometric increase in height. And so if we  really want to talk about what the architect was talking about, having a gradual change in the height of buildings, then having a 60-foot tall building on the south end of this block and then a 50% taller building at the north end is that gradual buildup at the center of our town where we have decided we should have density and height. It also represents our goal of providing a buffer in a transition area between those areas that we have designated as appropriate for tall, dense buildings and those nearby neighborhoods that we wish to protect from the impact of these horrible buildings, such as 413 E. Huron. It would be like building a wall on the edge of this neighborhood if we allow a 120-foot tall building. Would also like to address the idea that because Ashley Mews, which was allowed to progress under a different vision of downtown, is that tall that we could just allow anything adjacent to it to be that tall as well. We don't want every building to be exactly the same height as the adjacent buildings. That's a boring downtown. That's why we want the two different height limits on this very same block. What we want is we want  different size buildings, we want an interesting character to the downtown we're more likely to get that if we don't set single height limit and have every building be exactly that height, that's just a boring downtown. So I would hope that we look at this as an opportunity to design the envelope that is going to be completely filled. If we allow a 120-foot building were going to get a 120-foot building. We allow a 90-foot building were going to get a 90-foot building. We can see that. And so we really want this buffer area to represent this gradual buffer between a nearby neighborhood and the core downtown and I think that this proposed amendment does all of those things. Thank you.

>>JULIE GRAND Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I am very concerned with councilmember Eaton's last remarks because I don't know that he in particular or even the 11 of us sitting around this table should be the arbiters of what is appropriate progression. We have city staff that have worked on this compromise, we have consultants who worked on this compromise, we had a community process with a lot of input that went into this potential compromise. I for one am very comfortable with 120 feet across from 120 feet as a potential gateway to the city. But I don't know that I should personally be the one to say that's what it is, we are not in the design business on Council. It is appropriate for us to talk about vision but if a number of architects and city staff felt that this would be a potential interesting progression as well as the ORC, which has as was mentioned local architects, then I for one am a lot more comfortable with that conclusion then one that seems somewhat more random and haphazard, so I will not be supporting this.

>>JANE LUMM Thank you Mr. Mayor. I'm trying to grapple with the various proposals that you are making, and I know you want us to vote on this as a package. I wonder if you would reconsider allowing us to separate out a couple of these things and in particular for the Main Street overlay district. Because I am comfortable going from the 60 feet except changing the 12 to 90. You now just extending this distance, 150 feet from E. William Street property line, so just putting that out there. Councilmember Grand is certainly correct that there was a lot of study of this both by the professionals, by the consultant, we had a lot of citizen input, but I for one was surprised that D2 wasn't 60 feet. And that we needed to come up with these massing standards, and I do think, as some of the public speakers noted, that a lot of folks just assumed that D2 equals 60 feet, not to oversimplify, but to discover that that's not necessarily the case, you know, again as one neighbor noted they felt that the process is in effect a bit short-circuited because there is not that clear understanding of what could be built in these overlay districts, given that D2 doesn't define the height per se. So, again, if councilmember Eaton would perhaps consider separating that out from this so we could vote on that separately from the others I would find that helpful, thanks. 

>>JACK EATON I would entertain that. We could take the three main portions of this and treat them individually. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR I guess that's a friendly amendment to pull out ... 

>>SABRA BRIERE ...it's just a simple motion. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR ... So the motion has been made to deal with the three proposed changes in the one amendment serially. Is there any discussion on this motion. All in favor? Opposed. It is approved and shall be done. I guess moving on let's deal with the first one first. Let's confine our discussions please to the 150-foot limit in D1. Is there further discussion of that proposed amendment. Councilmember Briere?

>>SABRA BRIERE I find the idea of the 150 feet really interesting, since it's the historic district which which extends through much of Main Street is considerably shorter from here some of those buildings are considerably shorter than 150 feet, but not all of them. But I am reluctant to think that's is the right number. And part of the reason I'm reluctant to think that's the right number is that the Ordinance Revisions Committee is thinking about the changes to the East Huron Character District and those changes include potentially dropping the maximum height to 120 feet on East Huron on the north side of East Huron. And if indeed that is the outcome, we may want to revisit this particular area at some future time because we may feel that 150 or 180 remains too tall for being a part of what is the award-winning historic district Main Street that it is, and so I'm reluctant to support this, because I would rather see a slightly more restrictive change. 

>>GRAYDON KRAPOHL I'm just not comfortable with making decisions like this on the fly. There has been a public process. There has been input. We've had, I guess we would say experts or people more knowledgeable than most of the members on this body, look at and make recommendations, and I think we have to be very careful about random numbers based on what we perceive to be good heights or bad heights and what we would like to see.  So in that sense, I agree I don't think I can support it just because I think there's other things going on and there's been a much broader process where we've gotten to this point that basically gets thrown out, and I don't think that is good policy overall for this body to be doing, we're a policymaking body and I think that's one of the things we have to look at, and I don't think that's good practice to get into.

>>CHUCK WARPEHOSKI So I'm sitting here trying to find on the city's website, there used to be a table of the different building heights trying to find how tall the First National building is there on Main and Washington, which I think it's the tallest building in a historic district in the downtown area, and I can't find it, and I'm trying to think how this all plays, and I think  off-the-cuff I think 180 foot is probably too tall for next to Jolly Pumpkin, I spoke to a fellow councilmember about that just last night. But I don't know that 150 feet is the right number so given my level of ignorance, and how many questions are still going through my mind having it in front of me at this late hour, I can't support it at this time.

>>STEPHEN KUNSELMAN Yeah, I'm sharing some of the same hesitancies is as far as jumping into D1 after many years of discussion of D1 and D2 going all the way back to the Calthorpe process. I mean, when we embarked on this it was specifically this parcel that we've been talking about, I think we passed a resolution directing staff to look at this parcel and then to be this late in the game to all of a sudden go from this parcel and the DTE property to all of Main Street D1, again, is not necessarily following good process. It's not to say that I'm not going to support changing numbers in the future. But at this point I'm confused, I'm not really sure what all of Main Street D1 district entails so I can't supported at this time.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR I'd offer a suggestion I guess can I get sense of the room on this on, is there anyone that requires speaking? All in favor of the proposed amendment with respect to bringing the D1 zoning limit from 180 feet to 150 feet? All in favor? All opposed. Fair enough, a rollcall vote starting with, I believe me.

Mayor Taylor, no
councilmember Kailasapathy, yes
councilmember Briere, no
councilmember Westphal, no
councilmember Lumm, no
councilmember Grand,  no
councilmember Kunselman,  no
councilmember Krapohl,  no
councilmember Eaton,  yes
councilmember Warpehoski,  no

>>CITY STAFF Motion fails.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Moving on to the portion of the amendment which relates to decreasing the height in the parcel extending 150 feet from E.  William Street property line from 120 feet to 90 feet. Discussion?

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Rollcall vote starting with me.

Mayor Taylor, no
councilmember Kailasapathy, yes
councilmember Briere,  yes
councilmember Westphal,  no
councilmember Lumm, yes
councilmember Grand,  no
councilmember Kunselman, no
councilmember Krapohl, no
councilmember Eaton,  yes
councilmember Warpehoski, no

>>CITY STAFF Motion fails

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR The portion of the amendment reducing, pardon me, increasing the minimum setback measured from the exterior walls of the building to any R zoning district boundary on the same block as the building, increasing that from 30 feet to 40 feet. Is there any discussion?

>>SABRA BRIERE When we get microphones that work I hope that they work just a little better than these. There aren't many places in, where we should be struggling for consistency. Each Character District is slightly different and that should be something that we embrace, but in this case we have already created that slight difference, because we're counting the alleyway. Oddly enough, most of the other Character Districts that are D2 zoning that back up to residential don't have an alley anywhere nearby but the one that does have an alley is the South University Character District zoning where there is an alley that separates Forest Court from D2 zoning. And that has, I have forgotten exactly but I believe there is a 30-foot setback on that particular parcel for D2 zoning. What we would be creating here would be 56 feet from the property lines of the houses on Fourth Avenue, and that's not really going to help the view from those yards, they will still be blocked by a 60-foot building, if it is a sheer 60-foot it will still be unpleasant. But what it does is put greater impetus toward pushing height on the Main Street side, which is something I particularly want to do. It also reduces the amount of usable space beyond the minimum, beyond the D2 zoning, which is a problem for me, one that I'm still struggling with, I haven't done the calculations that would tell me how this affects the outcome, but it seems to me that we are demanding a greater – a smaller footprint without at the same time requiring a greater community benefit. The only community benefit is moving something away from an alley and a little bit further away from adjacent residential, away by an extra 10 feet, but it's an extra 10 feet and that is important. So I'm going to struggle with this as we all talk about it and I hope we will talk about it before we vote on it, because I'm not really clear on whether this is a smart decision when it comes to the zoning.

>>JACK EATON I would point out that on page 76 of our packet it describes the South University Character District and that has a 40-foot setback from a residential zone for D2 zoning, the same as I am proposing for this. And so it's same thing, if anything it's seeking consistency rather than an exception. 

>>JANE LUMM I'm wondering if Ms. Rampson could again. Because I'm looking at setbacks, the side and rear setbacks for these various districts and you're right, South University for D2 it's minimum of 40 foot, 30 for D1, State Street it's not applicable, Liberty Division, 5 foot. Could you, could you help explain, I mean because they vary with each and every, but as councilmember Briere said, we should all look at these, and they obviously have been studied as unique overlay areas, because they do vary in terms of the setback as well, so could you just maybe explain the rationale here for 30 versus the proposed 40. 

>>CITY STAFF On this particular site or on the others?

>>JANE LUMM On this site

>>CITY STAFF Well that was not discussed, the  rationale for the 30 foot is, in almost every zoning district within the city there is a requirement to pretty much pick up the setback of the adjoining district, and in most cases that's a maximum of 30 feet, a rear yard, and so that's what the ordinance revisions committee was using as a basis. It's used on East Huron, it's used in South U. for the D1. Remember there was a lot of discussion in the South U. about some wrap-around the two properties because of the configuration of some face onto Forest and some face onto South U. so there was a unique situation there that because there's a small sliver of land that is a parking lot, trying to address that. So that 40 foot came in very specifically to that lot configuration. For all the rest of the places where it's mentioned in the downtown it is 30 feet, and that does reflect the standard for rear yard for instance in an R4C district or any of the downtown residential districts.

>>JANE LUMM Thanks, that's helpful. 

>>STEPHEN KUNSELMAN Wendy, I've a question. We've been talking a little bit about the Fourth Avenue adjacent property they're R4C between Packard and Williams. It's not a historic district if I recall. 

>>CITY STAFF That's correct.

>>STEPHEN KUNSELMAN Are there any protections whatsoever for any of those existing structures?

>>CITY STAFF For residential structures that face onto Fourth Avenue, no. There are structures that face onto William, the Beer Depot and the house at the corner that are in the William historic district so those have protections. 

>>STEPHEN KUNSELMAN But the other houses especially going towards Packard are not. So a property owner or a developer could buy two lots tear down the properties  and build how big of a building? Three stories?

>>CITY STAFF 30 feet to the midpoint of the roof for that district. So it'd be very similar to City Place over on ... 

>>CITY STAFF ... potentially, yes. 

>>STEPHEN KUNSELMAN That's all I had for the moment, thank you.

>>JULIE GRAND I would like to just point out in looking through the table, that there is no consistency in terms of setbacks. Some of them like Kerrytown can be as little as 10 feet going up to 40. So it doesn't seem ...

>>SABRA BRIERE ... 5 feet on Liberty. 

>>JULIE GRAND I stand corrected councilmember Briere. But my point is that there is no consistency and that it goes based on the character of the district and the surrounding buildings in the neighborhoods, and so there's nothing magical about 30 or 40, this is just based on the best judgment of those who worked on the design.

>>KIRK WESTPHAL Thank you, I would just like to reiterate that there has been a robust discussion to this point with lots of time and energy and cost expended to provide the ordinance revisions committee and staff and us with different kinds of renderings and this whole discussion has been predicated on the measurements and criteria that we have been provided before, so I really hesitate to start unraveling because this does have the effect of shifting some of the floor area around and I can't visualize the results so I would be hesitant to support this.

>>GRAYDON KRAPOHL. I would agree with that because  I think again we're making changes on the fly and that's not good. I think that we don't know, there is as councilmember Grand pointed out, there is no set standard it changes depending on where you go, and based on the comments from staff, those changes are generally made based on a group of people based on that area and the characteristics there, so again I don't think's it's good possible policy to do it on the fly, it's not that I would not support something in the future, but I think there needs to be a public discussion which there already has been on this, before we start unraveling and making changes. 

>>JACK EATON I would dispute that we are doing this on the fly. There has been a lot of discussion, and as pointed out in our expensive consultant's report, the residents of our city expressed some rather strong opinions on this subject. And I don't think it's making a decision on the fly or disregarding experts when you listen to your constituents. And not be bound by the preferences of out-of-town consultants. I believe it's our ultimate responsibility to reflect the desires and goals of our constituents and when we have a planning commission or a consultant who fails to listen closely to our constituents, they're really not providing us much assistance at all, and I  don't have any difficulty not following advice that ignores the wishes of our residents, and so this is not on-the-fly. We are ultimately the decision makers and with the numbers come here we are fully empowered to change those numbers, and our residents have asked us to do so. And it's sad that we would feel constrained by somebody who merely advised us, without listening to our constituents.

>>JULIE GRAND I personally don't feel that our constituents all speak with one voice. I hear comments about downtown that are all over the map. Some that are very similar to what we heard this evening, but also from people perhaps that wouldn't come to a Council meeting because hopefully most of their kids are in bed by now that feel generally very differently about this, that don't take issue with heights such as these in the downtown and actually support them, that are very supportive of downtown density for environmental reasons, or for aesthetic reasons or because they have a different vision for the downtown. So to say that we are not speaking for our constituents is I think is false in this case because our constituents don't speak with one voice on this issue. I think where there, and I certainly appreciate the feedback that we received tonight, but I think it's one voice among many and I think it's one that tends to sometimes lead with more fear about how scary buildings can be instead of – I guess the point is that it just doesn't represent all the voices and so I won't be supporting it, because I don't think it's necessarily reflective of how all the  residents feel. 

>>GRAYDON KRAPOHL I would just counter this because I think it is on-the-fly because the first time we saw these numbers was tonight as we got ready to discuss these. And from my viewpoint of listening to other councilmembers, very few of us are comfortable with them, where the numbers came from, how the numbers were developed what was the determination of them. I think as a leadership group you have to take the best advice from  the people that work within the city, the staff, and the consultants hired. If there's a problem with the consultants, then that's an issue we need to adress with the city administrator, that's separate from this. I would agree that our constituents don't all speak with one voice and it's  our decision based on a process that has going on in looking at this issue, this specific property not the entire downtown area, not every area within Ann Arbor, but to look at this issue there has been a process and they have spoken, and we have guidelines that have come out from those folks. I can't support this because I don't feel it's had enough discussion or the proposal as it is has been discussed enough or reviewed or been talked about in a public forum. 

>>JANE LUMM That's okay no need to apologize thank you. In terms of the massive standards and that's obviously what this enters upon, I appreciate what you're recommending in terms of the height requirements and making that adjustment, and I'm sorry that you didn't prevail on that. In terms of the setback requirements, I do think there was some significant compromise and I am comfortable with what's been recommended in terms of the 30 foot setback and appreciate that it was adjusted in a way away to increase the setback at this location. And that it will be measured from the walls of the building and include then the alleyway as well. At this location I do think the setback is adequate so I'm comfortable with what's before us. 

>>CHUCK WARPEHOSKI Thank you, I would like to start by zooming out little bit and talking about the big picture we're trying to deal with on this. When we looked at the 413 E. Huron situation a lot of us came to the conclusion that there were places where we got the downtown-core-to-neighborhood interface wrong, and that was an example of that. The initial process of that, we looked at the Huron Street corridor and looked at a lot of those. The first resolution that came to this body said: we need to take a look at these ones.  I was the one who said wait a second, we've got this DTE, the site where the DTE building is, too, and 180 feet is too talk for that site. And so,  but that's, remember that's what the current status is, the current status, we hear members of the public say, keep it the way it is, don't make this change. If we keep it the way it, it's D1 with a 180-foot height limit. So my starting place is: Is this getting us better than where we are now? And I think that this is a significant improvement than where we are now. Then I think about the specific context of this site and I look across the street. I look across the street to the – well I look at both sides of the street, I look across the street to the Ashley Mews complex. Do I think that the Ashley Mews tower is too tall for the site, do I think that the building that Mr. Anis lives in is too tall for South Main? I think it's a decent building I think it fits as I approach the downtown core. So I think that building works. But now  it's next to residential brownstones. How I think that interaction between the Ashley Mews tower and the Ashley Mews brownstones works? I think it's all right, it's a bit of a jump, but it's ok and that's much more than going from 60 to 120, those brownstones are much lower. And their setback, the distance between the brownstones and the tower is much lower than the proposed 40 foo setback. So when I look at the context and when I look at both sides of Main Street, I think that the original zoning ordinance revision works well for Main Street. Then we get into the other side of the question, because Main Street is just part of the picture we've also got the Fourth Avenue properties. And that's where I think things get a little bit harder to work out. So as I'm trying to evaluate how deep that back setback should be, one of the other things I'm looking at one of the things I'm looking at is lot size. This is a very long lot, but it's also a fairly narrow lot. And so, and so one of my concerns is that that increased rear setback will make – will be detrimental to a final project on this site. Again back to the context we're dealing with now, I look to the Ashley Mews side of that block, I think that's a good approach to our downtown. I look at the building that is there now, I think ti's a dead zone. The way it interacts with the street with the sidewalk is not conducive to a sense of vitality and energy, apologies to the property owners, but I think we can do better. And I think that these, the existing, not the existing ordinance, but the proposed revisions as drafted thread the needle. They get us a lot better than we were at 180-foot height limit across the entire building at a much higher FAR limit, and so I will be supporting the original language and I will be voting no on this proposed amendment.

>>STEPHEN KUNSELMAN Yeah, so when I asked the question regarded what's protecting the houses over on Fourth Avenue I'm think of the future all right. Chances are those houses are not going to be there 10, 15, 20 years from now, so in order to create this setback which is fairly significant, because there's also the alley, in anticipation of those houses staying just doesn't seem to jive very well. So I can't be supporting it. I think it's too draconian for this particular property, so so I won't be supporting it.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR I think you had two on this.

>>JACK EATON Just want to clarify. The 30 or 40 as proposed foot setback is from whatever building might be built to the residential side of the alley, it includes the alley. The alley is 16 foot, so whatever the the setback is, subtract 16 foot of alleyway from that, and that's the real setback. And that's something that came out rather late in the process I thought.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR I'd observe that I think we are ripe on this, any objection? Further discussion?

Mayor Taylor, no
councilmember Kailasapathy, yes
councilmember Briere, no
councilmember Westphal, no  
councilmember Lumm, no
councilmember Grand, no
councilmember Kunselman, no
councilmember Krapohl, no
councilmember Eaton,  yes
councilmember Warpehoski, no

>>CITY STAFF Motion fails. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Discussion of the main motion? 

>>SABRA BRIERE To clarify, none of the amendments were approved. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Right.

>>SABRA BRIERE Okay. Thank you.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Further discussion of the main motion?

>>JANE LUMM Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just to recap because we been looking at this a long time obviously. Over two years ago Council directed staff and the commission to look at the zoning for the sites in the interface areas adjacent to the residential neighborhoods and that was certainly appropriate as we did not want to repeat the mistakes of 413 E. Huron  allowing construction of a massive building that overwhelms the neighbors next to it. This site at 425 S. Main was one that had the same potential that has the same potential with D1 zoning and fortunately we do have this opportunity to address that risk before it becomes a reality, albeit it is hard to do that in the absence of a project and a specific design. The proposed downzoning to D2, which is the next item on our agenda, however does not in itself establish as well know the height or specific setback requirements for the site and that's what this amendment on the character overlay and massing standards would do. In considering what would be most appropriate in terms of height and setbacks I feel we should be guided by a finding a balance insuring that adjacent residential neighborhoods are protected and not overwhelmed, like 413 E. Huron, but still allows development at this important site at the corner of Main and William. How that's best achieved is the question. The modeling of massing and shading impacts showed all properties fully built out to their maximum height and massing. It was helpful, I also think it was a bit misleading. When I voted to move this along to second reading, I asked to see the modeling with just this 425 S. Main site fully built out and no change to the surrounding properties. That, I felt, would allow us to see what the immediate impact might be, but that schematic hadn't been developed. I recognize that Main and William is most definitely a key gateway corner to downtown, and agree that it is a gateway corner. A taller element may be appropriate. Having said that I'm not convinced that by approving this proposal of a 120-foot limit on the northern portion of the site with a 60-foot limit on the southern portion, that we won't be making the same mistake that we made at 413 E. Huron, albeit on a smaller scale. There's good reason the other residential interface districts in the city contain 60-foot height limits – to protect and maintain the character of the adjacent residential neighborhoods. But I'm struggling to find sufficient justification that this interface area 425 S. Main should be treated differently. Yes, it's a gateway but that doesn't change the fact that I think that a primary consideration should be protecting the adjacent residential. Coming here tonight I honestly wasn't sure where I would come out on this, I wanted to hear from neighbors at tonight's public hearing, and I also appreciated hearing from my fellow council members on how they see the pros and cons of this proposal. To vote for this I would need to be convinced that the adverse impact on the adjacent residences have been sufficiently mitigated, and I will say that I am not there yet. Thank you. 

>>SABRA BRIERE So this will be my second speaking turn on this item and I will get it out of the way. I will still be listening to what members of Council have to say about this. My mind remains unfortunately squishy on this because, excuse me, do not embrace the idea of changing the community's expectations for D2 to the point where the height limits become non-predictable. I think it's the predictability of the height limits the made so many people comfortable. But I think the biggest problem that we face is not the height limits. I think the problem we face is trying to find good design. One of the places that we consistently run into problems is that what we want is good design, and in order to create an opportunity for good design, we try to design our zoning to be as flexible as possible, but we don't have any standards for good design that we can enforce, and while good design, whatever that means, may vary from person to person, whether that good design means that we have narrower taller buildings or it means that we have buildings with ventilations and cannon ports, that doesn't really matter as much as our deep desire to have interesting well-designed sympathetic buildings in this town. And nothing about this Character District one way or the other is going to produce that. So what we are doing is struggling to come up with a vision that is enforceable, that creates a building opportunity rather than a contentious building issue, a building opportunity that gives us what we want. And that's our – where  we have not achieved our goal. So as we look at any new development whether it's a new development on this site or on some other site, what we constantly run up against is a desire for imaginative, creative exciting architecture that is sympathetic to the adjacent properties, not imitative, sympathetic, and yet what we get are schematic boxes. And that's why we fought so over 413, and why if we imposed a 60-foot height limit on this site and then went with a planned project at some point in the future, that might give the property owner the opportunity to show us real creativity rather than just filling a building envelope box.

>>STEPHEN KUNSELMAN Thank you. You know it's been a very interesting conversation. We talk about height limits and design and things we've been talking about for many years. And you know design requires money, good design requires money. And we cannot force a building or a property owner to spend money to get the kind of quality building that we would expect in this community. So that's really kind of going down a path that we have no control over. In terms of height limits, you know, I voted against the original Calthorpe, or whatever the zoning ordinance was, because it created height limits were we had none before. As the property owner of the DTE property indicated, he had no height limits, but he had FAR and he had some other restrictions that probably would have created maybe a tall slender building as opposed to the midsize blocky buildings that this town is now being developed, allright.  I kind of knew that going into it that's why I voted against that. Height limits create blocky buildings. But that's what we have, and that's what we've had for many years. And if we vote this down tonight, then we still have 180 feet D1 at this property. I'm not willing to do that. I want to see something different. I want to see something that's a little, you know,  more palatable to the community, 180 feet is way too tall for this intersection. 120 is pretty substantial, I mean that's a number of floors, and the compromise that has come up, again I was the one I think who asked the question originally, would the property owner be willing to work with us and the community and our staff to come up with a reasonable compromise, because this is only one property. We already voted on some items that would've changed all of D1 in the Main Street area, which I don't know which buildings those included and I was not willing to do that. But this is a compromise, it is something that could be changed four or five years from now if nothing has been built. We are already watching ourselves changing things that we had voted on years ago. And so we can only control for the time that we are on Council. Others will control the future. So for today, I'm willing to support this as I'm willing to support D2, because to do nothing to vote it down because you want more, is basically voting to keep 180 feet D1. And I'm not willing to do that and I would encourage none of my colleagues to that, either.

>>GRAYDON KRAPOHL Yeah, I agree with councilman Kunselman's statements, you know we can't enforce good design, that's something the developer has or hasn't. But we can do is try to create the conditions that set the standard for the type of buildings development that we want to go on and we do that through some of the things that were working on tonight. I think that's what we can do and can't dictate exact design in those types of things. So I'm going to support both this and the other amendment also.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR I guess I will say as I indicated earlier I will support the main motion. I think councilmember Briere raises some good points with respect to the public's desire and property owners' desire for predictability. I think that, I'd say that this does not violate, this change this additional overlay on D2 does not violate that principle. We have other instances of height limits that are different from the typical 180 and 60 foot standards. So I think that the public and the property owners are sufficiently versed that they can make that further inquiry and determine what is the predictable height limit in the area that we're talking about. There's been a lot of talk about design and I think we all look for good design we may differ as to what it is but I think we all have a sense that what we have is not always there, and I think it is boxy and I think the issue of diagonals has been raised and we as a Council turned away from diagonals before and turned to a height limit. You know diagonals are perhaps something or other mechanisms unknown to me and only known to those practiced the dark arts of planning, may be useful for us to look into, useful for the planning staff and the planning commission to look into, so that we can make sure that the buildings that we have, that the zoning that we have, creates a city, you know, makes us even more proud of the city than we already are. So I'm gonna support the motion for the reasons indicated. And as per many of my other colleagues as well. Further the discussion? 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Rollcall vote please on the motion.

Mayor Taylor, yes
councilmember Kailasapathy, yes 
councilmember Briere, yes
councilmember Westphal, yes 
councilmember Lumm, yes
councilmember Grand, yes
councilmember Kunselman, yes
councilmember Krapohl, yes
councilmember Eaton, yes
councilmember Warpehoski, yes

>>CITY STAFF Motion carries.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Ordinarily I'd like to take a break, but since the zoning in B-2 is so intimately connected with B-1, we'll take a risk and move this forward.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR B-2 An Ordinance to Amend Chapter 55 (Zoning), Rezoning of 1.1 Acres from D1 (Downtown Core Base District) to D2 (Downtown Interface Base District), 425 South Main Street City-Initiated Rezoning, 425 South Main Street (Ordinance No. ORD-14-11)

>>SABRA BRIERE Many speakers tonight told us to rezone this to D2. Whether they knew exactly what that meant when they gave us that advice, they know now and I am willing to rezone this to D2.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Whether they knew what they were getting into is also an open question. But I think they also knew plainly that it was moving away from D1, and so I think that although we may not all love where we are, we are glad to leave where we were. Further discussion of B2?

>>JANE LUMM  Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, clearly under D1 if fully developed 425 S. Main would have the potential to overwhelm the adjacent residential neighborhood and this proposed downzoning to D2 addresses that risk. It reduces the allowable size by almost half from a 700% FAR with premiums to 400% and I will certainly be supporting this. There was certainly reason to debate the specifics related to height massing and setbacks covered in the previous item. I don't believe there's any question that the site should be zoned D2 rather than D1. I think it should most definitely be zoned D2 given its proximity to the residential areas, and I would like to thank staff and the planning commission and the Ordinance Review Committee, they have worked very hard on this and is taken a lot to get to this point but the 425, and I would also like to think the owner's representative and architect who participated in all of this, and attended many meetings. The 425 S. Main property is a very important one to our city and taken the time to get it right is worth it and I believe that with the downzoning to D2, gere, coupled with the downtown character overly massing standards that we just approved that we hopefully and ultimately will end up with a reasonable and balanced outcome, so thank you.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Further discussion. Rollcall vote please.

Mayor Taylor, yes
councilmember Kailasapathy, yes
councilmember Briere, yes
councilmember Westphal, yes 
councilmember Lumm, yes 
councilmember Grand, yes
councilmember Kunselman, yes 
councilmember Krapohl, yes  
councilmember Eaton, yes
councilmember Warpehoski, yes

>>CITY STAFF Motion carries. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR It's approved with 10 council members present, unanimously thus satisfying the 8 vote requirement. Let us take a short break. 

Recess started at: 21:25:31  Resumed at: 21:33:02

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR We have a quorum? We don't quite have a quorum. I think we've got our quorum. No. [Gavel] We are back after a short break. From the sublime to B-3.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR B-3 An Ordinance to Amend Section 9:42 of Chapter 107 (Animals - Keeping Chickens) of Title IX of the Code of the City of Ann Arbor (Ordinance No. ORD-14-28)

>>CHUCK WARPEHOSKI Thank you I have a substitute amendment to offer. I have shared it with you all prior to the council meeting. So I move that substitute amendment now. Should we just vote in the substitute amendment and discuss the motion on the floor, or should we discuss the substitute amendment now? 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR I guess if there is no discussion of the amendment, and or is the amendment friendly? Well, it's ours. The motion, the motion is the body's not the mover's. Is the amendment friendly? No objection? Friendly.

>>CHUCK WARPEHOSKI The amended ordinance that we have in front of us now tries to thread the needle based on the concerns that we heard at, that some of us received about this ordinance. The amendment would essentially create two classifications or permit for backyard chickens. The full permit was basically as stands, you get your neighbor's permission, you get a five-year license. The only change would then be you'd be able to keep up to six hens. The permit, but also adds in a let's-just-try-it-and-see-how-it-goes-and-see-if-there's-a-concern, a provisional license. A provisional license does no require neighbor permission, allows the keeping of two hens, needs to be renewed annually, and I think this is how it will thread the needle is, if there is an animal control ordinance violation, then – in a five-year window, then the provisional license cannot be renewed. Our existing animal control ordinance includes as violations, that a violation can be based on an odor nuisance or a noise nuisance. So the biggest concerns we hear about odor and noise, this provides an enforceable way to say there's a violation of the animal control ordinance, you are not going to be able to renew your license after it lapses. So my hope is that this both relieve some of the burden for people that haven't been able to get chickens to keep a very small flock and aos for people who can get their neighbors' buy-in to have a longer-term commitment to have a larger flock. The question that came up during public comment, during the public hearing, about ducks,  I actually did talk to the city attorney's office about that today, we'll see how things go tonight, it's something I might be willing to do, but I don't want to muddy the waters with this, ducks muddy the waters enough, the other issue, I would just point out, my consultation with the city attorney's office is that this is a substantive enough change that this would require us to bring it back for a second reading. 

>>SABRA BRIERE I'm going to call this not an amendment but a substitute, just for my own brain, so this is a substitute ordinance. I have a question for councilmember Warpehoski to make certain I understand. What you have sent us says that a provisional permit would be granted to  someone if they have not had a violation of the animal control ordinance, but I find myself wondering how likely it is that someone who isn't keeping chickens would have had such a violation in the past, and wondering if that's a phrase that really refers to renewal rather than initial permit. 

>>CHUCK WARPEHOSKI A fair point. I will acknowledge that this language was drafted hastily after conversations with the city attorney's office and some colleagues, so it can certainly be improved upon. But yes it's unlikely that somebody would've had an animal control ordinance violation, but you know if  is somebody had yappy dogs and there been violations of that, then maybe that's not a situation where they should be able to have hens without neighbor permission already, if there's already existing concerns, I'm comfortable with using that as a basis to say you'll have to get permission to keep hens.

>>JANE LUMM Thank you Mr. Mayor a question to Mr. Warpehoski on the provisional, I'm assuming you can only get, you did say it needs to be renewed annually but on the provisional one-year permit, class of permit, I'm assuming you can even though you said what you said, I'm assume you can only get one of these that you couldn't just keep getting these to avoid the neighborhood requirement? 

>>CHUCK WARPEHOSKI You, the ..

>>JANE LUMM You could only get one provisional? Because otherwise, you could just keep getting them, you're just avoiding the neighborhood requirement. 

>>CHUCK WARPEHOSKI You would be able to renew the provisional license, if there are no nuisance, if there are no animal control violations that you've had. So it would be a renewable license. The thing I would point out is that the noise nuisance provision of our existing animal control ordinance is fairly straight – it presumes that any noise from 10 at night until seven in the morning is a nuisance. I'm looking at councilmember Kunselman who has more first-hand experience than I do, I'm assuming that people would likely be able to hear birds before 7 AM in the summer. 

>>STEPHEN KUNSELMAN Birds or chickens? I can hear the song boards early in the morning before I can hear my hens, they can be just as loud. But yes, hens can squawk a little bit early when the sun starts rising. 

>>CHUCK WARPEHOSKI My point is that if there is a neighbor who is unhappy, after seeing how the hens behave is unhappy with it, they are probably going to be able to use that existing ordinance language to say, no this license can't be renewed. That 7 AM, I think it's an appropriate noise guideline but is also a fairly strict one for an animal that's kept outside. So I think that's going to be a pretty strong exit path for people who aren't able to get some level of neighbor buy-in.

>>STEPHEN KUNSELMAN:  When we discussed this ordinance back in '08, one of the issues was to ensure that we weren't burdening staff and we didn't want police, we didn't want planning, we didn't want any of our staff to be going out there checking on chickens and how they were being dealt with. And that was one of the benefits of the neighbor waiver. It kept down all of those issues of complaints that would drive staff involvement. The use of a provisional permit, which and I really don't care for the word "provisional" because it's really not provisional. You get either get a permit for a year or you don't and it expires you can renew it, apparently. But the idea that we're going to use staff, or that staff are going to then be brought into compliance review of somebody that might have two hens because a neighbor wasn't forewarned and just doesn't want them, is setting up kind of the problems that we were trying to avoid, and that is using staff to become mediators between neighbors. And so again I said it at the first reading, I'm very reluctant to take out the neighbor waiver, because it has certainly worked in terms of keeping complaints down, of not having to involve our staff, and if we go into the realm of involving staff then we've got to start talking about funding an FTE as an animal control officer because we don't have one right now. And the last thing that I would ever ever want to do is use a sworn officer to go out and deal with a chicken keeper and their hens and mediate a complaint with a neighbor. I just, I can't do that. I understand the desire to make it more easy for people to have hens, but given what we went through in '08, given the amount the many months of community discussion, the drama at the Council meetings, it was a fun time, I still you know am hesitant to kind of I don't want to say throw that out, that's not the right word, but to discard that, that time. I know that many communities do not require the neighbor waiver – that we know. So Ann Arbor is not that cutting edge in that regard. But it has become very well accepted in this community under the conditions that we have, and so I think that by using the provisional permit, a one-year permit just is going to use more of our staff time that we presently have available for that. I mean I think that was one of the reasons we went to a five-year permit that the clerk's office was not to be dealing with chicken permits you know on a constant basis. Again there's not that many, I think in our staff communications there's 110 permits out there, I think it was actually higher at one time, if I recall, maybe 130. ... But maybe someday it'll be a time maybe we'll have an animal control officer again, you know but right now I can't support doing anything to jeopardize the goodwill of the way the ordinance works today.

>>KIRK WESTPHAL Thank you, just a question of application or fact. Does giving permission to a neighbor to keep chickens preclude you from filing an animal control complaint?

>>CITY STAFF No. 

>>KIRK WESTPHAL So I wondering, I appreciate the comment about staff time and I certainly would not want to create a burden. I'm wondering if there haven't been complaints now, why would there be greater complaints on a scenario where there is this one year license necessarily, if people can complain already?

>>CITY STAFF I think that it's all speculation in one sense in that we're not sure. But the one has the advantage of having a process where the neighbors have already bought into the idea and they understand it and the other doesn't. That's really the whole point, so whether there's anticipated objections, I think what councilmember Warpehoski is trying to do is to provide a safe haven for people who really will prove to their neighbors that in fact this will work. But the anticipated difference may in fact be that with a neighbor permission you're simply not going to get those complaints that certainly has been borne out by the lack of complaints that we've had from this it has fallen apart and it worked and it has worked well.

>>KIRK WESTPHAL So I guess it seems as though,  I've gotten some concerns from constituents about the potential for odor or noise and at the time I didn't realize that there is an enforceable odor ordinance for animals and given the fact that it seems like there were no substantiated complaints thus far about the keeping of chickens, I'm leaning towards giving this a try. Again this is something that can be changed if we're finding that despite neighbor meetings and of course there's going to be an attempt to get permission, if there is a holdout or if there's somebody who just doesn't respond, this would give somebody an opportunity to be a responsible neighbor have an opportunity to keep chickens. You know I don't sense there would be an explosion of applications, but it seems that this does strike a nice balance between opportunity and control and a trial, so I'd be curious to see to hear what other thoughts are. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR For my part, I agree, I do think that this does strike a nice balance. I think the renewal in the absence of a violation gives a two-hen owner and ability to demonstrate to skeptical neighbors or absent neighbors that maintaining the flock, if two hens can truly be called a flock, does not impact their lives and does not create noise and odor and so forth provided that is borne out by the facts. And if it is not borne out, then there will be a violation issue identified and this person will not be able to maintain the chickens thereafter. So I think that this cuts the issue well, and so I'm happy to support it going forward. 

>>JANE LUMM Thank you, mayor Taylor. As you all know I didn't support this ordinance change at the first reading, and I've not heard anything since that changes my mind. I do appreciate councilmember Warpehoski's amendments, but I just think we should leave this ordinance alone. I don't have a problem increasing the number of chickens allowed from 4 to 6, my issue is with the eliminating the neighbor approval the neighbor approval requirement that's been in the ordinance since its inception. I understand councilmember Warpehoski is trying to find some middle ground with this provisional one-year permit, but I don't think that eliminating the neighbor approval requirement regardless of the timeframe is appropriate. There has been a good bit of correspondence regarding what other municipalities do regarding neighbor approvals, and whether neighbor approval is appropriate for chickens but not for dogs or cats. And certainly while benchmarking other municipalities generally is a good  practice generally, I do think this is about common sense and  what is reasonable. I do think keeping chickens or other  farm animals is different from keeping a dog or a cat. I have no problem with chickens but in a non-farm setting, in an urban environment with close quarters, chickens are just not the same as domesticated pets like dogs and cats, and I believe maintaining a neighbor approval requirement is reasonable. One person  corresponded with a few councilmembers about this issue said, I think this is very well pointed statement and I quote "the degree to which this matters is a function of how close together everyone is." I think that really speaks to the concerns and why the rationale and why getting neighbor approval is important. Again the ordinance has had this requirement since it was adopted, and the ordinance seems to be working fine as best we can tell as is, so  I do wonder why we need to change it, and as they say if it ain't broke don't fix it. And the requirement itself, approval by residentially zoned adjacent properties just to me does not seem onerous, it seems very reasonable. So the bottom line is I just think that the neighbor approval requirement for keeping chickens is reasonable, and should be maintained for any and all time frames. So I will not be supporting this tonight.

>>JACK EATON I will not be supporting this either. I think that this will create an unusual burden on staff without really addressing probably the real problem. And that problem is the adjacent landowner who can't be contacted. And I think that we could probably address that real problem in different way than this amendment attempts to do it, and when a person buys a house, they are buying into the character of the neighborhood. And they should have some say in continuing that character, including whether or not they are gonna have farm animals within their neighborhood. So I understand that many people want to do this, and in many neighborhoods in the city it's really quite accepted. But that's not universal and as councilmember Lumm has said, I don't see that this is necessary. There isn't a problem that we are addressing with this. But we are creating a new problem by creating the additional burden on staff that councilmember Kunselman has identified, so I won't be supporting this.

>>SUMI KAILASAPATHY I guess I'm really conflicted on this, because I do see where when  somebody wants to have chickens and the neighbor has basically a veto power over stopping that person from having chickens, and this two I know it's a small number, but at least it allows someone to do that without the neighborhood permission. And I was just thinking I mean neighbors dump chemicals on their lawns we don't have a say over that. You say we buy into a character of a neighborhood,  and so there are certain things that happen in next-door neighbors that we might not like because it hurts our children, it hurts our environment nobody wants to live near a chemical dump. So anyway, this is one of those amendments, it's really difficult because I can see both points seriously.

>>SABRA BRIERE I had a number of interesting conversations about the original ordinance amendments and then, to an extent about the substitute earlier today. Councilmember Lumm's statement that if it isn't broke why are we trying to fix it is an important thing to consider, because the tension that we as a Council address here is the difference between my right to do on my property what I want and the community's right to address the fact that what I'm doing affects the community. Certainly we have ordinances that control which types of lawn chemicals can be put on your neighbor's lawn, so having an ordinance that says the conditions under which you can raise chickens does not bother me. My biggest concern has been how many people are affected negatively by being asked to get permission from neighbors and not being able to do it. The city attorney sent us information earlier today from Grand Rapids about their ordinance which requires notification, not permission. And he indicated to me after he had sent that that Grand Rapids treats silence as consent. That if you don't respond when you are notified and so you object that you have consented to letting chickens move in next door, which is an interesting way of looking at things. Portland, Oregon says rather similarly to this, that if you're getting between one and three animals, and they actually are much broader than we are in what they count as animals including goats, but you don't need neighbor permission, but if you want more than three you have to do neighbor notification. So the tension that we're confronting here is really not whether to move forward with this, but rather whether to move the whole concept  to first reading and really dig into these amended ordinance provisions to determine whether those are a bigger benefit to the broad community than they are a burden to the broad community. I don't know because after all, we just got these amendments this evening, but I do think that since we have a different way of looking at this that I should encourage this to move to a public hearing. I'm really disturbed that I haven't been able to find a significant number of people negatively affected by the neighbor permission requirement, because I'm back to: well, what is broken? But I could imagine a significant number of people affected by you can have two hens, and they could be both affected negatively and positively so I'm willing to talk about the two hens. I'm not necessarily, well I'm simply, my mind is not made up about how this affects the community, which is a better reason to have this move back to first reading than just, no. So thank you.

>>JULIE GRAND The reason I'm comfortable moving forward with this is, we don't lose 3i which is the 40 foot rule, and for me it's about tensions with people living in close quarters. If you need the 40 foot waiver anyway, for a lot of neighbors, that we're speaking of, they're going to have to go to their neighbors regardless, to get the waiver in a lot of neighborhoods in Ann Arbor to meet this 40-foot apartment or waive the 40-foot requirement. So for neighbors that are living further apart from one another, I don't really see there being a great deal of conflict with one or two hens, I just don't see this becoming a big problem, I think the people who are really interested in keeping chickens if anything is going to impact more people it  probably would be going from 4 to 6 as people take advantage of that, but I don't, and I think like councilmember Briere said I don't think this is going to impact a great number of people one way or another but I'm comfortable giving this a try and supporting councilmember Warpehoski's efforts to try to find some compromise on this issue.

>>GRAYDON KRAPOHL I kind of sit on the fence, too, I'm a little convicted because I'm not sure what's broken or what was broken beforehand and what's really driving the need for a change and who has really been adversely impacted by the need for a change. I would agree that maybe we need to send it back the first reading and give us a little bit more time to think about it.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR For my part I think that we, I guess, it is broken for people that, maybe it's a numbered people, but people who cannot obtain neighbor consent and for one reason or another. And I think that you know councilmember Briere brings up an important issue to be able to use your own property for your own purposes so  long you don't negatively impact other people's property. And here we have an established mechanism for policing those ross-border conflicts, and that is our are noise ordinance in our odor ordinances and so forth. To my mind, this you know puts us to rely on those ordinances and that is sufficient and that is proper. If a person objects to, in the example of an instance where a person declines to give consent, they would under this regime, there would be an opportunity, to have two chickens. If those two chickens did not create cross-border problems, then that consent ought to have been given, and there is no real reason why the continued permission to hold the two chickens ought not to be renewed year after year. If the person is unavailable, if it's an absentee landowner, well then  I think that's an example where you're helping out a property owner who cannot get consent for one reason or another and we will at least have the opportunity to have the two. The city will not rise or fall on this, [laughter] one hopes, but I think gives a little flexibility and puts reasonable reliance on established mechanisms for mediating conflicts among neighbors.

>>CHUCK WARPEHOSKI Thank you. Just to start off I want to give you know, credit that yes the ordinance that we have has been, for many people has been working very well and we haven't had complaints and it hasn't been controversial, is a testament to that initial drafting of the ordinance. So when I think of councilmember Kunselman, I think noncontroversial. ... Obviously councilmember Kunselman has a gift for ... Some of this has worked well. I know several people within the Fifth Ward for whom, either because of absentee landlords, or conflicts, pre-existing neighbor conflicts, or a landlord who doesn't have to actually deal with chickens on a day to day basis, but just doesn't wan them on the property next to him. So I do see in my ward, maybe the Fifth Ward is unique in that way... In terms of this question of staff resources. Over the life of the ordinance, we've had 110 permits. The volume of permits we're dealing with is very low. I don't think we're going to see an explosion in the use of staff resources if this moves forward. It still strikes me as a lightweight ordinance revision in terms of cost to implement it. So that's that.

>>KIRK WESTPHAL Just a quick response to something that councilmember Briere said in terms of hearing from folks who may have been negatively impacted. I'm not sure necessarily given that the way it's drafted that folks would come forward and complain that it's against the rules, maybe issue a public call get some feedback maybe that can be helpful perhaps. The other issue that I keep coming back to the neighbor who maybe one owner has a coop or somebody pushes it to the limit where they are not responsible and there are odors I take great comfort in that a neighbor can basically shut it down or if it becomes a staff burden issue we as a body can pull the plug and within a year less than five years the problem will be completely resolved, so that's what the gives me comfort and why I support discussing this more.

>>STEPHEN KUNSELMAN Let's talk a little bit about enforcement. We act as if we're going to send somebody out there, they're going to smell something that we can pull the permit. It doesn't work that way. Because on a daily basis the conditions change. We all know how hard it is to catch somebody in the act of violation and believe me how are you gonna catch a chicken in the act of being too noisy, so if don't see it and don't hear it you can't issue a ticket and you can't issue a citation. That's where the staff time comes in. That's where the calls, we have those issues I believe with barking dogs, ok. When we held the hearings back in '08, a good number of people came to talk about their problems that they were having with their neighbors with dogs, they were not to even talking about chickens but they were talking about how city could not enforce the ordinance that we already had on the books, in terms of nuisance when he came to animals. And I'm sure the attorney's office can probably share some stories about how there are particular properties, particular neighbors that just do not get along but use an inordinate amount of staff time, that's been the beauty of this ordinance and the neighbor waiver, it has not used any staff time as far as I can tell from what we seen to resolve just a couple of complaints from just a couple neighbors who can't get along. If the issue is absentee landlords or at somebody not living there, that's a different issue than the direction we're going. I can see where Grand Rapids which I was not privy to the email, but I do recall that they're only recently within the last couple months talking about a chicken ordinance, and from what I remember reading in the news had actually voted it down, probably some years in the past and now there's a change in thought by a councilmember who's going to come back. They're looking at some different ways of structuring it like this notification. I can see that where somebody has to come and say this is an absentee landowner, I cannot get a hold of them, and then maybe there there's an appeal process by the staff for by this Council that says this person did everything they could do to get all the neighbor waivers but this particular property owner is not on site, they can't get a hold of them, they're not responding, maybe you deal with that as particular issue. But two hens, four hens, six hens. Two hens are going to create a nuisance if they are not well cared for. If there you know if nobody is cleaning that coop in the middle of July, it could smell. But if there's one police officer that has to go out there, that's one too many. That's my belief in this, allright. Because we want this to be a neighborhood supportive endeavor, allright. And that's been what's been happening, allright, when neighbors get together. Because if you have six hens, you're gonna have a lot of eggs to share and your neighbors are all gonna want to partake, except for maybe that one. I've gotten a couple calls just on this, that people are adamantly opposed to hens and then of course there's the more liberal minded who support it as we went through this effort. So I'm willing to try to find the solution for a real problem and that is if somebody can't get a hold of their neighbor, but create a one-year permit and a five-year permit and to try to create a regimen that creates different standards or whatever, it just seems confusing, it doesn't seem right, and if we need to, now that I hear that there are a bunch of colleagues here that support it, maybe look at something that is more of a Grand Rapids ordinance, how they're gonna do it you know consent by notification, I'm certainly open to all that as well, but I'd hate to try to tweak what we got approved in '08 without knowing that there is a real problem and I certainly cannot see us using any staff time whatsoever for any enforcement efforts regarding nuisance complaints when it comes to chickens, because they're not really not worth it.

>>CITY STAFF Councilmember, one point, I will send that Grand Rapids proposed ordinance, I sent it out to council members who were raising one issue specifically about what councilmember Eaton had talked about with respect to the notification provision, to that extent, they used Ann Arbor's as a prototype, and that was one of the prototypes that they had to address that issue. And so I will send that to everybody just to spur discussion.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Can we take a vote on this at first reading, unless there is further discussion? Rollcall vote, please.

Mayor Taylor, yes
councilmember Kailasapathy, no
councilmember Briere,  yes
councilmember Westphal,  yes
councilmember Lumm, no 
councilmember Grand,  yes
councilmember Kunselman, no 
councilmember Krapohl, yes
councilmember Eaton, no
councilmember Warpehoski, yes 

>>CITY STAFF motion carries

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR It's approved.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR C-1 An Ordinance to Amend Section 10:148 of Chapter 126, Traffic (Pedestrian Crosswalks), Title X, of the Code of the City of Ann Arbor.

>>STEPHEN KUNSELMAN In our packet I believe we've gotten some information from the pedestrian task force requesting that this not move forward at this time because I guess there's a lot of work to be had. I'm more than willing to, or I would like to request a postponement to give that some time, but more importantly I wanna see if the state legislature is gonna be moving. I did watch the tapes of one of the task force meetings where the state rep Adam Zemke was talking about the efforts at the state level to try to bring consistency to the pedestrian crosswalk law in the state of Michigan, and I certainly believe that's the forum for which the best regulation will take place. So  with that I'd like to postpone this until May, the first meeting in May, is that?

>>SABRA BRIERE Well, it won't be done until August.

>>STEPHEN KUNSELMAN Ok then the first meeting in September.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Perhaps tabling?

>>CHUCK WARPEHOSKI Point of order a motion to table would not be appropriate at this point, because a motion to table, it's in our rules, it's in Robert's Rules, too, a motion to table  is only to deal with something that comes up immediately you know and then we're taking it up immediately. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Fair enough.

>>JACK EATON That's not necessarily true. Tabling is used  to delay something until a contingency occurs, and councilmember Kunselman saying that he wants to give the legislature until the end of this session to act. And so that's the contingency and it's foreseeable and so I think tabling is appropriate.

>>STEPHEN KUNSELMAN I would like to table it until the first meeting in September ... or I don't know what I want to do.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Perhaps withdraw it and bring it back later if you wish. 

>>STEPHEN KUNSELMAN What do yo mean withdraw? It's on the agenda,

>>CHRISTOPHER Withdraw the motion.

>>STEPHEN KUNSELMAN Nah, let's vote on it. Vote to postpone until the first meeting in September.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Fair enough. Is there any discussion. All in favor. All opposed. It is postponed until the first meeting in September.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR C-2 An Ordinance to Amend Sections 3:11, 3:14, 3:15, 3:16, and 3:17 of Chapter 40, Trees and Other Vegetation, of Title III of the Code of The City of Ann Arbor.

>>SABRA BRIERE Thank you. I spoke this evening with city staff and confirmed that city staff are working on a series of brochures for the educational purpose of explaining to residents what types and where vegetation can be  planted on the city right of way. How tall it can be a variety of things, none of which I could tell you, because I haven't seen any of the drafts. What I can tell you though is that they think perhaps when they have completed this work, the changes in this ordinance might not be necessary, they might have clarified things sufficiently, so staff recommended tabling, but what I will do is postpone until the first meeting in June. I will ask to postpone until the first meeting in June, that's still early enough in gardening season that if we impose new restrictions people know what those restrictions are and it provides sufficient time, nearly 6 months, to complete educational materials. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Discussion of the postponement 

>>JANE LUMM Thank you councilmember Briere for bring this forward, I certainly support the postponement. This issue about you yow overgrown vegetation came up this summer in the Second Ward as it related to Ann Arbor Public School property and so had some to communication with folks at the AAPS and vegetation was trimmed in time for the start of school. That didn't really address the concerns that were raised, and I'm veering off topic here, but as long as you're on this Ann Arbor Public school city committee, this is something, since you're postponing it, thank you, that might be good to share with them to kind of get their take on how manageable this will be, I do think that you are clarifying a lot of things here and it's very important that we clearly and simply communicate this to all residents and public institutions, property owners you know what the rules are about how tall vegetation can be on property and city rights-of-way or the intersections and again thank you for bringing this forward and just planting the seed as something you might wish share at the next meeting. Thank you. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Further of the discussion of the postponement. All in favor. All opposed. It is postponed until the first meeting in June.

>>TAYLOR C-3 An Ordinance to Amend Chapter 55 (Zoning), Rezoning of 2.96 Acres from PUD (Planned Unit Development District) to C3 (Fringe Commercial District), Plum Market Rezoning, 3601 Plymouth Road 

>>SABRA BRIERE When this item came up at planning commission we on planning commission learned that the traffic study indicated that there would not be an increase in the number of, a gross increase, in the number of traffic visits to this site with the changeover from Cleary College, Cleary University to a grocery store, but a lot of the concerns of people have about this particular site is left turns, turning into it, crossing lanes of traffic, turning out of it crossing lanes of traffic. One of the questions I asked staff was specifically about that and I was told that there are indeed restrictions on left turn lanes from some of those sites, and if it turns out that there is a problem that they will put restrictions on this site, but they can't do that before they've identified a problem. So left turns remain a big issue,  the other changes that are being proposed by Plum Market for this site I will leave for further discussion, but I wanted you to know that we had asked those questions and we have been assured that city staff would look at left turn issues once the site was in operation. 

>>JANE LUMM Thank you mayor Taylor, thank you councilmember Briere, I appreciate your addressing this at the planning commission and also knowing that staff will look at this further. There have been concerns raised by residents in that area and also it came up at the citizens participation meter regarding this project as you know about the left interns, it has been an issue in a problem with other already developed, existing properties on Plymouth Road in this general vicinity, even though there is signage that is there saying you can't make a left turn out of this particular parcel, people do it anyway, so and that's created other traffic you know associated problems. So I'm glad that this is on everybody's radar screen, again thank you for bringing it up, and it's nice to know that there is an opportunity to address this again to make any needed adjustments or corrections. Thank you. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Further discussion of C3? All in favor. All opposed. It's approved. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR DC-1 Resolution to Re-Appoint Shannon Brines as a Member of the City of Ann Arbor Greenbelt Advisory commission. Discussion. All in favor. All opposed. It's approved.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR DC-2 Resolution to Appoint Charles Jason Frenzel to the Environmental commission. Discussion. All in favor. All opposed. It's approved.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR DC-3 Approve Deficit Elimination Plan  Discussion. All in favor. All opposed. It's approved.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR DS-1 Resolution No. 1 to Approve a Special Assessment Project for the Clague Safe Routes to School Sidewalk.

>>JANE LUMM Just very glad to see this coming forward. This does establish the project to fill the sidewalk gap along Nixon Road from approximately the Clague Middle School driveway to Haberhill Court and it also includes an RRFB on Green Rd., West of Kilbourn Park which is funded by the city's street millage. This is something that this neighborhood has wanted for quite some time. There will be as you know from the proposed special assessments two single family residences at the Northbury Condominiums, and  assuming this passes staff will invite the affected property owners to an administrative hearing to describe the project and its associated costs, and then staff the way the process works, staff will return to Council with further follow-up resolutions further identifying the cost of each parcel and also established a public hearing date. Just glad to see it, to see this project be advanced in this way. Thank you.

>>KIRK WESTPHAL Just wanted to add on my thanks to many of the residents who pursued this project. You know, grants are funny things that can come and go and you know occasionally staff can change and volunteers in different organizations can change, but there has been some very interested and persistent residents who have helped who have helped see this through so that's a good example of a community working together in this area, so thanks.

>>STEPHEN KUNSELMAN I'm just wondering if any of the council members representing this ward have any indication if the single-family residential homes might have a problem with being assessed?

>>JANE LUMM Good question, not at this point, I don't, it's $15,000 for two residences, so it's not insignificant needless to say. So I'm glad when this passes then the affected property owners will be invited to a hearing and we can get their feedback. Thank you though, for asking.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Further discussion?  All in favor. All opposed. It's approved.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR DS-2 Resolution to Approve the Purchase of Four Police Motorcycles from BMW Motorcycles of Southeast Michigan (ITB # 4354 - $105,624.80) Discussion. All in favor. All opposed. It's approved.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR DS-3 Resolution to Release a Water Main Easement at 3600 Varsity Drive (8 Votes Required) Discussion. All in favor. All opposed. It's approved, it is unanimous and thus satisfies the 8-vote requirement with 10 councilmembers present.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Are there communications from council?

>>CHUCK WARPEHOSKI Just to follow up on the earlier question about what is and is not allowed for the motion to table, our current, because I can't help myself, our current version of the rules is not yet up on the Council page but the Council rules do cite Roberts Rules that says that a motion to postpone [sic] is only in order to deal with something of immediate importance, so that is allowed for something that is of importance to let something pass it, but it has to be of immediate importance. And I think that never applies to the state legislature.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Further communications from council. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Are there communications from the city attorney? I have before you the clerk's report of the communications, petitions and referrals. Discussion. All in favor. All opposed. It's approved.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR We now come to public comment general time, for which you need not have signed up in advance. Public comment is an opportunity for members of the public to speak to Council and the community about matters of municipal interest. You have three minutes, so please pay close attention to the timeclock before you. Is there anyone who would like to speak at public comment. 

>>EDWARD VIELMETTI Hi my name is Edward Vielmetti. I would like to take the Council under advisement to try to get its last minute emendations and amendments and other sorts of things proposed ordinances by Council to get them to the clerk on time, so that the citizens can read what is being proposed to be passed by the Council. We had a couple of cases where amendments on entirely new ordinances came up very late without any time for citizens to take a look at it, or prepare public comment in advance of the thing being discussed. I'm not even convinced that you all know what you voted on in all cases, so it's best that if you have last-minute things to do, get them by Friday so we all can read them over the weekend and follow along with what you're all doing, thank you. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Is there anyone else who'd like to speak at public comment general time. Seeing no one, public comment is closed. Do we have a closed session for today? 

>>CITY STAFF No, not that I'm aware of. 

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR I won't call one if you won't.

>>CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR Can I have a motion to adjourn? Discussion. All in favor. All opposed. We are adjourned.

Adjourned at: 22:31:19