Today’s episode is a rerun of Deeper Dive Episode 20: “Master Plan + Zoning.”
Transcript
JL: Hi, Ann Arbor AFers. This is cohost Jess Letaw. The pod team is taking June off for a much-needed break. Council is still going strong, so make sure you pay attention to the a2council hashtag on Twitter, Council meeting threads on Facebook in the Ann Arbor Humans Who Wonk group, and check Legistar to read the agendas for yourself. Even though we’re off, we hope you still keep getting informed and getting involved!
In the meantime, we’re rerunning some old episodes you’ve told us you liked, with a little context about where the topic came from. Today’s rerun is episode 20: The Master Plan and Zoning.
In politics and governance, there are always conspiracy theories about the quote-unquote real power behind the power. Dark money! The mayor and his allies! 5G causes autism! Just as a reminder: surprising and/or bombastic claims should be scrutinized closely and fact-checked vigorously. On the other side of the coin, real policy and governance tend to be the most mundane, seemingly boring matters. For example: if you want to get to the heart of a real deep vein of Ann Arbor feeling? Talk about trash collection. And one of the biggest not-secret secrets is, a city’s land use affects everything you probably care about locally, in one way or another. Care about schools? Land use. Care about sidewalks and bicycle safety? Land use. Think affordable housing and housing affordability matter? Say it with me, Oprah: Laaaaaaand uuuuuuuuse.
I say it’s not a secret because there are COMPREHENSIVE policies around land use. The processes governing how it gets changed and how those changes get implemented are exhaustively regulated at the city and even state level. But the reason it feels like a secret is that we often aren’t even aware that it is a thing until something hurts – say there’s a traffic pinch point, or a proposed development we’re unsure about, or a new affordable housing option got shot down again – and by the time it hurts, the reason it was possible in the first place was because of land use decisions that were made years before.
Because of its key relationship to many local policies, and because land-use related decisions come up at literally every City Council meeting, Molly, Michelle and I planned to do this deeper dive from the very beginning of making the pod. And because it’s complex, we took a few months to develop the material to try to make the episode about it interesting, and hopefully kind of fun.
Here for your re-listening pleasure is episode 20, “Master Plan and Zoning.”
JL: Today we’re taking a deeper dive into master planning and zoning we’ll be talking recipes racism and heights you know normal master planning stuff to help you in arbor follow along and get involved.
Part one the master plan and zoning or the destination.
I first want to start with a disclaimer that zoning and land use and master planning are really complex sets of legal and financial moral and environmental and public health considerations.
This episode is going to get into all of these issues at the very highest possible level, because we want to invite you in and encourage you to ask your own questions.
without necessarily being the source of all the answers.
I want to thank in advance the urban planners who listen to this podcast because I know they’re going to be yelling in their heads, about the things that we’re leaving out, I know I get it, I hear you.
But this isn’t about getting a degree it’s about getting involved and certain aspects of all of these issues are going to get left on the cutting room floor so.
If you want to share some things that you wish we covered today, please come and find the thread on this episode in the Facebook group Ann arbor humans who walk.
Having said that, the definition of a master plan, according to the city of Ann arbor is that it’s composed of documents or elements.
That cover the city’s major geographical areas and it’s essential city wide facilities these plans, provide a framework for preserving the city’s unique character.
and sharing its diversity, supporting investment and promoting desired change so essentially What it does is capture the reality on the ground and give us a blueprint for change, we might like to see in the future.
We talk so much about zoning and I don’t think on this podcast we’ve ever defined at once, so definition number two what our zones, the nice thing is this is super easy.
We just never done it before, so the zone is an area or a piece of land having a particular characteristic purpose for use or is subject to particular restrictions.
In an arbor we have residential commercial manufacturing office research and industrial public recreational utility and mixed you sounds.
As of this recording planning, Commission and Council are still talking about a potential addition to our zoning designations having to do with transit oriented zoning so we may possibly have a new category soon.
All right, alright, so we know what a master plan is it’s a set of documents we know what individuals zones are essentially just uh huh.
MH: yeah the thing um we talked about it at a high level, but like.
I want to, I want to talk a little bit about like the.
zone, the individual zones, sometimes they’ll say like Okay, this has to be.
residential use, but then it will also get really specific about like it has to be set back from the from the road this many feet and it has to be this many feet high and it has to be this many feet so some of the some of the zoning.
You know zones.
can get.
super specific about how how buildings have to be built and that’s just what they used for.
JL: ya know that’s exactly right and we’ll talk about this now, and also a little bit later in.
MH: The episode.
JL: So the anatomy of a zoning ordinance and zoning ordinance covers all the zone in the city and the zoning ordinance is also the backbone of a master plan like this is the legal document, everything else is.
aspirational or strategies, you know, this is what we’d like to try to hit the zoning ordinance is the nuts and bolts of.
The master plan, so the zoning map establishes what zones are aware, and then the zoning ordinance text defines what those uses are.
What you just refer to Michelle dimensional standards so setbacks, is how far back from the street or sidewalk a building has to be.
heights or floor area ratio refers to how tall building can be and in Ann arbor and most other places height restrictions are always can’t be higher than not must be this tall to ride.
I think it would be cooler if some buildings were more like roller coasters but that’s where we are and then.
easements well we’ll get into easements right now but setbacks are also from neighboring buildings side to side.
So we’ve got dimensional standards we’ve got development standards which can include signs lighting and I will just highlight parking because we’ve talked about that, on this podcast before and i’m pretty sure we’re going to do a whole episode.
Just on the development standards around parking and then the procedure so amendments and administration, so the zoning ordinance.
MH: Your.
You mentioned oh sorry.
JL: No you’re fine.
you’re fine.
MH: yeah.
You mentioned setbacks talking about you know the.
The distance between one building and another, and it reminded me of like.
In some in some like older town blocks, you can actually see like houses that share a wall, or that the walls are exactly about at each other, so it looks like one big building but it’s actually a bunch of little buildings and.
You know, in a in a row, and like you don’t really see that kind of thing anymore.
And you know we basically made it illegal to build in that way, like.
Occasionally we sometimes will get row houses built, but they’re usually all part of the same development and they’ll be like.
You know they won’t be like individually owned they’ll be like condos or something like that.
But you don’t see any more like people building a development where it’s like here’s a house this land belongs to someone and it exactly abuts the neighbor’s house.
JL: One of my favorite examples of what you’re talking about Michelle so as a renter in Ann arbor I know many different places around the city and, with the exception of my current house which I love I love my neighbor chickens and my favorite place that I lived with.
pittsfield village, which was a Community built in 1943 it’s between Washington and Packard behind our Berlin on the South side the Washington.
And it is so lovely like either these small like 700 square foot homes that are homes just directly a budding one another.
Right now it’s a condo association, so you can own the individual homes but they’re clustered around green spaces.
So everybody kind of has their own private park that they share with seven or 14 or 20 of their neighbors it’s a really fun place to get out with kids get out with dogs get out look at the sky and you don’t have to know anything, because the.
Just fun.
yeah but, like you said you it’s not really legal to build that way right now and and achieving a variance or something like that it’s pretty hard to do.
MH: And I think there’s you know I think there’s a lot of ways that you know.
Our older neighborhoods and we love them and we put you know historical designations to keep them just the way we are and it’s because, like we can’t we’ve we haven’t allowed ourselves to build that.
way anymore.
And then, all of the beloved neighborhoods can’t be built now.
JL: I think it’s really interesting that there’s pretty heavy overlap between what we designate as historical and what we designate as non conforming.
We, like you, like you said not legal to build now and and there’s a.
reason for both of those and we could do a whole episode on historic preservation in historic districts that I think would be really interesting conversation around sustainability and affordability, but it is interesting that the things we love, we tend not to allow uh huh.
MK: But then we complain about green cookie cutter development.
MH: Whether a lab.
JL: So why do we have zoning I did want to just touch on this, because some folks I think asked a pretty reasonable question.
Which is if zoning makes it hard expensive and slow to develop, which it does, then why do we have it at all the reason really originated in public health, maybe, public health and safety if you wanted to stretch it a little bit, but at the end of the 19th early 20th century.
The cities were starting to develop so quickly and so high that we were starting to see our first like city canyons or concrete canyons where sunlight.
Really wasn’t reaching the sidewalk where natural air was not really getting into the middle of buildings, because they were so enormous and for a while, so physically dense.
So the first zoning designation was passed in DC in 1910 but the better known one was the New York City zoning resolution in 1916.
Which limited the height and bulk of buildings, and it also had regulatory language around the areas of courtyards and other open spaces regulating the uses of those buildings and how they could be designated.
and establishing the or designating the boundaries for those users so New York City was really the first time in the 1910s was really the first time that we saw this and then the 1920s and 1920s.
or when zoning ordinances across the country started to proliferate, including in Ann arbor we had our first zoning ordinance and 1923.
Part of this proliferation was fed by the Federal mortgage underwriting program I believe this was in 1934.
which encouraged zoning they were saying that we will approve loans for homes in these zones or homes with designated uses such as X, Y Z.
And again, that was in the 1930s so by the at the beginning of the 20th century, I believe 1910 or so the majority of Americans lived in cities.
By 19 it’s either 1940 or 1968 probably 1960 the majority of Americans lived in suburbs, which was a first in human history.
Not that people had always lived in cities, but they’d either lived in farmland or in trading areas, and now we had created this third place for people to live, which was not a city not farmland, but something that sort of aspired to be both.
MH: It was a desolate wasteland.
JL: That that’s one way to talk about stuff.
MH: And i’m going to say you’re not wrong it’s a place where you can’t get anywhere if you’re not in the cards and stuff.
JL: Right and.
And that’s kind of the definition right like the suburb is the point was to be able to need a car or to need a car to get there.
MK: Right well and i’m going to push back on this a little bit because I come from the coast, where there are lots of older suburbs.
That were built before car dominance was so great and they were often built around these train lines that would take you into whatever city, they were the suburb of.
Okay, I grew up in a place like that and.
it’s funny I think just you and I had this conversation very early on in our acquaintance where I described in our breath feeling very suburban and people take offense.
JL: like that and I got.
And I got.
MK: really upset when I see that Ann arbor feels like the suburbs, because in terms of the layout and the zoning the extent of these single family household neighborhoods.
that’s what it looks and feels like to me growing up in I grew up in a suburb that was almost twice as dense as in arbor is i’m still definitely a suburb with all of like a lot of those cultural features that we.
derive about suburbs, but in terms of structure and layout it, it was denser than here, and so there is, you know I just like to push back on that I think here in Michigan that’s largely true the suburbs, are very car oriented very strongly.
JL: that’s true and molly i’m going to push back on your push back and i’d like to start over I completely validate your lived experience, and I do not believe that the majority of suburbs in America.
reflect the experience that you had I grew up in Atlanta, which is basically all suburb la the Midwest the Northwest like you don’t need to be in Michigan which is.
very explicitly car oriented, but you don’t need to live here to kind of be saturated in the car oriented suburb get are still being built today like this is not a relic of the 20th century at all Okay, I think it’s great that you had a positive experience, but I think that yours.
MK: I wouldn’t go that far i’m not.
That far at all I think my point was more about like the structure of the physical spaces um and the the two.
So, like there there’s more than one way to like think about how like what makes a suburb um and I think if you define it purely by as car orientation, you lose you lose a lot of places not all over the country for sure um but.
yeah I mean I got out of that suburb I wanted to live in a city um but.
I you know I often debate how much of a city and arbor is or feels like.
JL: My favorite part about what you’re saying molly is that my partner jack describes Ann arbor as suburban as well.
And that made me mad for years until like over breakfast one day we finally hashed out as a relationship conversation what is a suburb mean you know, like normal people do and jack grew up like five miles from you molly.
MK: We reference.
very similar places.
JL: Right so apparently like if you were to very particular part of like the area around Philadelphia.
Then you have a different construct of suburban.
MK: Right well, and I mean I allow my family was in New Jersey New Jersey, is the most suburban state in the country, I think, but it’s also the densest.
JL: mm hmm.
MK: um and so that there’s a duality to that um I don’t want to live in New Jersey either probably sorry family.
But anyway, back to Ann arbor is zoning.
JL: zoning.
MH: So actually actually you get since you guys were pushing back on stuff I wanted to push back on something.
today.
You talked about the first zoning laws being created around these concrete canyons where there was no access to sunlight and all that and i’m.
Like I hear that story a lot when I hear about the creation of zoning and I also hear that story a lot anytime like someone tries to build a four story building an Ann arbor.
Like oh my God is going to be no sunlight is going to be nothing so i’m kind of like it kind of makes me skeptical about the history of it like was it the same type of people who would complain about a four story building now just being like a snowflake.
JL: Right.
And that speaks, I think, to a larger issue of how people utilize the language of oppression when really what they’re talking about is comfort.
In justice and discomfort are absolutely not the same thing, but especially in places like Ann arbor where we are like so proud of how progressive we are.
We say things like it’s it’s an equitable to have a building this tall, when what we’re talking about is 40 feet and not 200 feet, or you know 800 feet, whatever the super calls are.
So, Michelle your question is a good one, and the answer is yes, buildings were killing people the they were fire hazards, they were toxic air hazards.
In New York, there were issues around tenements packing people so densely in that if they didn’t have access to natural air or sunlight and that was not mandated for a while right now.
The definition one definition of a bedroom is that it has a window that wasn’t true always.
And so we were creating genuinely unhealthy genuinely hazardous environments both living and working for people, so this originated for good reasons we are using it now to do a lot of different things.
MH: But I kind of feel like a lot of those type of problems are solved are better self by building codes and come zoning codes that directly say like.
A bedroom has to be this big, it has to have a window, it has to have a fire escape you know, like that’s the kind of thing that you say in the building code, not in the zoning code.
JL: I know and and you’re right and we do have much, much better building codes, now that we do, then we did this time a century or a century and a half ago.
One caution that i’ll put on that is that building codes are largely driven by building industry professionals, and so what that means is that we’re often hitting minimum standards when it comes to health and safety.
Are not health and safety tho those are actually fairly well established, but when it comes to sustainability for absolute sure, and then for efficiency of achieving a city’s larger goals, so if you’re trying to achieve density i’m.
going to use a metaphor that’s a little bit off topic, but it’s the one that’s coming to mind if you ask a transportation engineer what a road is, for they will say it’s to move as many cars as possible.
When if you ask a transit engineer what a road is for those say it’s to move as many people as possible and those two have very different goals and very different strategies.
The building code is kind of the same thing they want to build houses that are, how do we want to say this.
Good for the building industry but doesn’t necessarily speak to a city’s goals, so we probably need the two sets of standards talking to one another, we need urban context, and we need good buildings.
MH: yeah I mean i’m just saying, like a triangle shirtwaist fire.
Was not yes that’s not that’s not going to be something that’s presented by by zoning that’s gonna be something that’s present present presented by building codes.
JL: building codes and better Labor practices.
Yes.
MK: There are also and correct me if i’m wrong because i’m the real news like the newbie here when it comes to all this stuff but.
zoning.
JL: Experts at this table only.
Interest, obviously.
MK: During also regulates what can be were and my understanding is that some of that early work was about.
Keeping living spaces away from the really hazardous industrial spaces, so that you don’t have people breathing like tannery fumes all day or whatever, whatever the big heavy industry at the time was.
JL: Right right that’s correct, so it wasn’t just about building form, it was also about beginning to segregate building use that’s exactly right and for exactly that reason that’s actually.
An underpinning of part of the 1960s and 1970s sustainability movement, the one that started the phrase, not in my backyard which right now has a really complicated, meaning that I will ask you very nicely to not get into right now.
But in the 1960s 1970s, what they were saying is we do not want toxin producers.
It started as a around our children’s schools and then around homes, which is where the backyard came from, so what they’re saying is, we want to live in a neighborhood that’s environmentally friendly.
How this got mobilized in the service of white supremacy, you know that that’s relatively well documented but but it nimbyism started with sustainability goals and and was rooted in zoning specifically.
MK: Internal sustainability, but also health and safety right so like we know for a fact.
That living in proximity to coal fired power plants has like produces higher rates of asthma and cancer like genuine health concerns and I think one thing that really stands out to me is that we’ve had zoning for a long time.
And it’s not ever kept these like kinds of poison industries away from all of the people’s homes so like Detroit has major neighborhood issues with.
I think there’s even generators even now.
MH: It never stopped being a.
MK: problem and, in fact, a lot of times.
The really industrial.
uses were put closest to black neighborhoods.
JL: Black with black and poor absolutely.
MK: And that’s what.
MH: I kind of feel like i’m you know another suggestion of minus that like.
These types of problems can be solved by stricter environmental standards rather than zoning like rather than saying hey let’s put the toxin spewing factories over there, and why don’t we say hey let’s not have toxin spewing factories let’s have factories that.
must deal with their toxins responsibly and then we don’t have toxic toxins feeling factories and then like, then you then you can put them right next to you know penny can put the jobs right next to the people were the people who live.
JL: The that’s absolutely right and Michelle I think that’s where we’re going, and I also think that’s part of the urgency that people have around climate carbon neutrality and climate plans is right now the benchmarks are often set so far in the future, or 2035.
But the urgency is now to get those going because changing over the technology and the training of people who use it is not a small process and we do need to manage for that time, but we have to start like 50 years ago and, failing that we have to start today.
So I agree with you, we need great system, we need great environmental legislation, we need solid building codes and we need good zoning.
And we’ll talk a little bit in the in a couple of sections about the future of zoning.
But for right now, I just want to close out this section and say that, as I mentioned, and harbors for zoning ordinance was a 1923 its first modern zoning ordinance.
We call it would be like 1963 our current master plan was implemented in 1998 and updated in 2009 and has a number of other elements and resource documents created over the last 20 years.
MH: Who can I ask.
When you say the first modern zoning code was 1963 what what is the feature that like, why is that what what what makes that a modern zoning code and why, like such a bright line cut off.
JL: Short so that’s one of the technical things that is staying on the cutting room floor but I am.
MH: How.
JL: To put the definition for why that’s.
kind of.
In the show notes and it’s.
Alright, so let’s go to Part Two master planning the process.
MK: I really hope that this was going to be about heists.
Imagining like cate blanchett and a really good suits like helping to steal some jewels from the met Gala.
I gotta say anytime with.
JL: cate blanchett the suit I start getting some feeling.
Yes.
MK: And we all.
JL: I mean the totally off right.
it’s not an inactive metaphor, because the question of the value of a Community when you’re talking financial the value of Community obviously rests and its people.
And the Community that we build together but we’re talking when you’re talking about the financial value of a community.
runaway winners are Homeowners right so, especially the less change you make Michelle your questions earlier about historical.
Historical designated neighborhoods and buildings, the less we change the more the people who were here before or during those changes.
When right like those are the winners of the system and the harder it is for new people to buy into renton to come in so yeah master planning is a bit of a highest if we don’t have a whole bunch of people at the table all stealing the jewels together.
I would just like to be mindy kaling in that movie it’s.
MK: stealing from.
MH: God, then we can.
be thrown him.
JL: yeah good i’m glad.
MH: The attack of the throne God correspondent.
JL: alright.
guys.
Co host for this.
MK: Okay, so what is it master plan.
Right, no.
JL: No jewels only metaphorically alright so as a verb master planning is the Community process through which we identify our shared values.
Our aspirations our long term goals and needed action areas master planning is often many, many meetings in many, many different formats, with many, many different kinds of stakeholders, and when I say many I mean hundreds.
if not thousands definitely thousands of stakeholders and typically hundreds and hundreds of meetings over the course of a couple of years, to be able to get to a solid master plan.
During this process city staff, the urban systems and transportation planning as experts and engineers.
Take that high level guidance from the Community back to their digital drawing boards and together with one another with, as you know, technical experts in their field.
Excuse me, they create technical planning documents that reflect those goals and then periodically bring them back to the Community for review revision and approval, so a lot of times you’ll see a two or three step master planning process where there’s a big.
Just really listening sessions, you know big town halls tell us what you want, tell us what you think tell us what you’d like to see.
And then they’ll come back with this is what we hear based on your feedback help us understand how close we are people give review revise and give feedback on that.
And then staff will often bring it back one more time and say this is what we’ve heard based on your original input and your feedback.
There can be a lot of confusion when people are engaging in a master plan process what part they’re coming in.
And what I mean is a lot of folks tend to hear about the end of a master planning process where stuff is maybe 90% baked in.
and feel like because they’re only just now hearing about it, they want to go back to the very beginning and start talking about big goals, and you know high level values.
And everybody else is like no we already covered that so that’s definitely attention in the master planning process where Ann arbor is in this is in.
Council put out a request for proposals for a team to drive a new one to two year master planning process, as well as rationalize our existing master planning documents right now.
We have eight I believe master planning documents and 15 to 20 resource documents which are technically part of the master plan, but are used to inform different decisions.
And, given that many different documents, all of which accomplish individual goals, like the reimagine Washington on court or a plan their transportation plan, the non motorized transportation plan.
The well, I was going to say the carbon neutrality plan that’s actually not part of the master plan these all accomplished valid things but they don’t really talk to one another and so sometimes their goals or their strategies are in competition with one another.
And and don’t play out well don’t or don’t play well together.
At that time, 2018, as I mentioned, they put out a proposal folks responded full disclosure that nonprofit that I read building matters and arbor was on one of those teams Council didn’t end up selecting a firm and.
Ours wasn’t that team, but it was a great team, but they didn’t move forward with the project, and then the pandemic kit.
So we are now sitting on a 23 year old master plan that has seen one meaningful update and many, many additional documents in that time and the state of Michigan mandates updating master plans every five years, so.
MH: Our not only our rested.
Let off because.
MK: What yeah there’s a State mandate that we’re just not following and i’m confused about that piece.
JL: I mean you can look at the different elements that we add there’s an argument to be made that those are updates to the master plan I think that’s a little bit like writing a 10 page paper and triple spacing like.
Okay, you hit the requirement but you’re you’re cheating on detection technicality, and I feel that’s a little bit what we’ve done.
At the same time, we have a pretty lean planning staff and master planning requires significant significant staff time.
Even if it’s they hire out to a consultant, which is likely that’s most what most cities, do they contract out at least part of it.
Even with that it requires significant staff time and we’re just really not staffed for that, right now, so yeah I mean and i’m not going to get arrested, this time.
MH: But.
JL: it’s not great it’s not.
MH: Like the process, you described, you know it takes and like we were planning on this process taking one to two years if we’re mandated that do that every five years, then you know if we do that, like we’re just going to be constantly master planning which hey maybe you know.
JL: Maybe that’s not yet.
And we’re going to get into that when we talk about the future right you’re exactly right.
one to two years to do the Community engagement, maybe one to two years if you’re going long on implementation and then boom it’s master planning time again.
What really isn’t ever a bad time to listen to your community, and especially right now, when we are seeing technology and social change at a rate that is really unprecedented in this culture shouldn’t we be listening faster anyway.
that’s more in the future section.
MH: And the thing you were talking about like people hear about the process at the end of the process and then coming want to talk about beginning of the process stuff and that’s like okay just wait 23 years until it’s.
Until it’s your turn to bed.
JL: that’s right.
So, with a master plan what that what having a master plan means is that we have a guiding vision for various goals.
That are sitting wants to accomplish what a master plan doesn’t mean is that we know exactly what should go on every individual piece of land.
it’s not saying one House should go here and one business should go there it’s saying we’re trying to reduce the number of single occupancy vehicles on the road by 2030, what are the various tools and measures that we can use to accomplish a goal like that.
The master planning process Michelle to your point, why the processes awesome is that it is a deeply community and formed.
Long Range vision for the whole city like that’s it that’s great that’s what it’s supposed to do we’re supposed to listen to people and we’re supposed to think big, but why it’s terrible.
Is that it tends to be over represented by people who are already over represented in the system.
Typically white typically Homeowners typically 40s and older typically long term residents, so if you fall into any or multiple of those categories you’re going to essentially the master plan is a document for you, it disenfranchisement.
MH: to pull a heist.
and
to pull a heist on the rest of Anna.
JL: that’s right, so if we could just get more heists going like.
Exactly.
MH: Like if we get if we get everyone involved, and you know it’s not just people it’s not the same people pulling a heist on the same people every time.
yeah.
JL: Okay, so that zoning and master planning any questions before we go into the future.
MH: Well, one thing I wanted to talk about about the.
The master planning process and.
And stuff is like back in 2018 there was.
A development that.
You know a lot of people I was talking to I was running for City Council at the time.
A lot of people that I was talking to you were.
Pretty mad about.
The the cottages at Barton green.
Which is a development that was a by right development, so they were following every zoning ordinance they weren’t asking for any special treatment they weren’t asking for.
The zoning code to be changed or for their zoning designation of that parcel to be changed, they were just saying hey you told us, you wanted a building that was like this and we’re going to build buildings that are like this, and everyone hated it and.
and
So you know when I heard that I thought well.
You know why, why do, why is this what we’ve asked for them, you know if if they’re doing if they’re giving us exactly what we’ve asked for and we hate it what we ought to do, maybe it’s like all get together and really talk about what what we want and what we won’t hate.
I didn’t realize that I was like reinventing the process of master planning.
yeah like that is something that we are doing, but apparently not doing very often.
So I look forward to the master planning process for that, for that reason is, I don’t want us to hate everything either.
MK: Right, so this is one question that I have about about the master plan so we’re legally mandated by the state to have a master plan and to do master plan and we’re not super following the that rule the master plan is supposed to lay out like our big vision for the city, I think, but.
To what extent is the master plan binding like.
JL: that’s a good question, and that was one of the things that I left out the but it’s it’s an easy answer the zoning map the zoning map is what’s binding, but what the zoning map is is a document of what we have, it does not capture where we’re going.
MK: mm hmm.
JL: So we absolutely must conform to the zoning map that we have in that I can’t put a school on a piece of land that’s designated for apartments.
But what the zoning map doesn’t capture is all the other elements of the master plan it’s kind of the the zoning map is the letter and the elements are the spirit of the law.
Okay, and the elements and the resource documents assist with interpretation, so if we have a potential use that’s incompatible with the zoning map which again as you’re asking is the thing that we’re legally bound to.
What we can do is look at our larger masterplan documents and understand is this perspective new US consistent with other goals in the Community that perhaps its existing zoning designation doesn’t fulfill or doesn’t all the way fulfill.
MK: Right so, then we can rezone and the idea is that we want to be rezoning within the spirit of our of our goals.
But they don’t necessarily have to be laid out to the letter in the master plan or the zoning I mean i’m thinking right now right of the, this is a recent development that we’ve talked about on on the podcast 2111 Packard.
JL: I were talking about that one yeah.
MK: The zoning for that parcel was parking which doesn’t really align with any of our current stated goals in terms of climate in terms of transportation.
And so you know they rezoned that and that was that was okay right like rezoning is allowed and then and the master but yeah I guess.
We have to abide by the zoning but also we can change the zoning if we want to.
guided in theory by the master plan is that.
JL: yeah yeah absolutely.
So let’s say you are I knew I was going to bring food into this at.
Some point we’ve made it we’ve made it to the food portion of master planning.
Alright, so let’s say you’re planning a dinner party.
And you have your menu all planned out you’re going to make your favorites the ones that you know, are not going to leave you super sweaty from the oven five minutes before everybody walks in the door you’re good.
And then you find out one of your guests is allergic to a couple of the ingredients that you were planning to use and you’re like.
Okay, I need to update what i’m making to accommodate the health and safety of my guests and and I like this person, so I plan to not put them into an electric shock.
So you update your menu and you’re like Okay, I will put pecans on the pie, I won’t stick them into the chicken whatever it is you do with the cons I don’t know.
I just like to eat them at the Shell, but you change your menu a little bit because your understanding of the evening has changed a little bit.
zoning is the exact same thing we’ve got a menu that’s what our zoning map is.
But the when we have different guests coming to the table and the guests can either be literal people like neighbors that we have, or could potentially have with new housing.
or it could be new ideas right like the carbon neutrality plan a to zero is new, as of the last two years, we did not have the sustainability framework, three years ago.
We should absolutely be making different decisions based on that framework and based on the information that we have so yeah it’s okay that things change you kind of want them to right.
MK: Right, I mean we talk a lot on the on the show about the ways we want the city to change.
And so.
I think i’m what i’m trying to poke at is sort of like where are the boundaries of the flexibility of all this stuff is and like.
MH: Because I at the time, I hear about the master plan most often is when somebody opposes a particular building and they oppose a particular proposed rezoning.
And they’ll say, well, that rezoning doesn’t fit with the master plan, and so you know it’s kind of I kind of feel attention that like how strictly Well, first of all how strict, we are we’re required to stick with the master plan and then how strictly should we stick with the master plan.
JL: For sure, and you know as we’ve talked about the master plan is a complicated thing right it’s the map it’s the it’s the other elements of it it’s the resource documents.
And so, when you say that doesn’t conform to the master plan that that’s a fairly broad statement when it comes to all of these like large and competing documents Michelle you were reading about an area of town not too far from your House.
And you like it was hundreds of pages right like.
MH: Right.
JL: it’s a lot.
So, saying that something is inconsistent with a master plan, in my opinion, is a little bit simplistic, it would be truer if you get at the heart of what the goals.
Of the different masterplan documents.
Are and then talk about whether a particular development a particular zoning or rezoning is consistent with those goals, because that’s what a master plan is.
it’s a document goals.
MH: I found some weird stuff in there, like it seems to it seems to vary quite a bit in specificity like it would say like we want this to be.
An an urban village, we want there to be pedestrian safety and we want you know, like we want, we want this to be an attractive area for pedestrians and i’m like awesome and they’re like.
Also, building shouldn’t be higher than 44 stories tall and i’m like what where’d you get that from like.
that’s not like a goal that’s like.
that’s something that should be at the level of like the actual zoning ordinance that’s not something we should be saying in the master plan like that’s not.
Evidence feel like an overall overarching goal for the city, you know.
JL: Michelle, thank you for practicing the future section of this.
Yes.
JL: alright.
So part three, the future and what i’m advocating is that we change both the process and the destination.
Post World War Two almost all zoning ordinances require all of the following.
Minimum lot sizes maximum heights maximum densities minimum parking and loading areas and minimum landscaping.
And what this means is that we’re asking property owners to use as much land as humanly possible and we’re asking each parcel to use up as much of the city as possible, which is pretty much counter to almost every goal that we have.
Using zoning and the master plan process the master planning process to achieve affordability sustainability and justice goals.
means that we’re trying to make 21st century decision decisions on a framework that’s reacting against 19th century problems using a 20th century mindset like we are not we’re not solving the right problems or using the right tools.
What i’m advocating is that we need more modest but more continuous Community engagement and to expect less out of each individual development but look for more of it overall.
MH: When you say development here you don’t mean changes to the zoning to master planning process you’re talking about buildings being built right.
JL: Changes on individual parcels right so typically not brand new buildings but typically changes to the buildings that we have an evolution either larger or smaller.
MH: And we should expect less we should expect the each building we shouldn’t expect each building to solve all of our problems.
We should expect there to be more changes around us.
JL: that’s right so, for example, let’s go back to the transit oriented zoning that we had talked about a little bit ago.
Excuse me, the transit oriented zoning is attempting to accomplish a lot of goals, but essentially what it boils down to is allowing mixed uses, which is to say office, commercial and residential space.
On our transit heavy corridors and we all know what those are it’s Plymouth it’s maple it’s Packard it’s maybe or maybe not industrial it’s Eisenhower it’s.
The Jackson it was Washington, I think you it’s the car heavy roads and what we’re trying to do is make it easier to live and work and shop, all in the same place.
What the transit oriented zoning originally conflict contemplated was mandating all of those uses on each parcel.
And the problem with that is that some parcels are as big as a mcdonald’s and some parcels are as big as a strip mall.
So if you’re asking a mcdonald’s to redevelop and have office and commercial and residential space and it only gets to be you know however many feet tall.
From a developer’s standpoint there’s no way that pencils out because either you only get one or two residential units on there.
That are so insanely expensive nobody’s ever going to pay for them or they’re tiny and and most folks don’t want it, like you, don’t want to incentivize only micro apartments.
If it’s Nice and a mix of users, but not only there, whereas if you’re looking at a strip mall sorry about that, let me just want us to send it to me i’ll take a breath.
Whereas if you’re looking at a strip mall it’s much more natural for something that’s at that scale to house a multiplicity of uses.
So what we need our transit oriented zoning to do is ask for impact in context, we do want housing and commercial and office space all along these corridors, but we don’t need every single parcel to accomplish every single one.
MK: You used a phrase that I hear people talk about that i’d had never heard in this contest context exactly which is this phrase does it pencil.
JL: Oh yes.
MK: For it doesn’t pencil can you just briefly explain that one.
JL: yeah definitely.
So when it comes to development, as with any business proposition, the question is, does this make business sense to me, or does it not.
When it comes to opening a new business if you’ve got a business i’m going to introduce a new sandwich or a new T shirt or new you know get you get it.
You do the math first to understand, are there, people that will buy my gadget gadgets and can I produce them at a cost that people will buy them at.
Development is the exact same thing and that comes into play with zoning because the property or the buildings that folks own.
Those uses are restricted by zoning So the question is, can I, create a new thing or can I modify the thing that I have.
In a way, that people will pay for if it’s office space can I create something at a price point that folks can afford if it’s residential.
Can I create new houses or new apartments at a price point that’s consistent with this market.
And arbor is not going to get the same rental prices as kalamazoo as indianapolis as Atlanta where i’m from like every market is a little bit different and so when we’re asking does it pencil that’s it’s it’s a it’s a shorthand for doesn’t make business sense to make this change right.
And, but now I want to talk about buildings as gadget gadgets.
MK: But then there’s also something that it sounds like we’ve done in parts of Ann arbor is that we’ve we’ve got so many rules that it become that nothing will pencil it like in in some parts of the city.
MH: We ask a lot of feature development, just like you’re talking about before like like we need him to we ask each development to be affordable and have and be sustainable and be both and be that and I put so many.
JL: So in our in our is known in the development and building community as having the Ann arbor factor and it’s two things one.
very dense very long, very risky process and to high land prices.
There are other places like Detroit who have typically have lower land prices that even if they’ve got exactly the same development process.
It tends different things tend to pencil in Detroit that don’t pencil here it’s faster easier and cheaper to develop housing in Detroit than it is here because price per square foot or price per acre.
is vastly different or there are places where land is just as expensive but folks have expedited the process Seattle, is one of those places, and I know that we have like this.
cultural knowledge that Seattle is expensive rents are falling rents have started falling in Seattle and part of that is an expedited development process, not that anything can build an anyone can build anything anywhere.
But that within the rules of their zoning and their master plan.
Individual developments are expedited and not submitted to quite as much Community scrutiny, because they’ve already done that, at the high level and so it’s cheaper to produce individual projects so in arbor suffers from that one to have tough process very expensive land.
MK: got it.
JL: Thank you you’re talking about all my favorite things now it’s good it’s good so one of the things that I wanted to talk about about as a potential future for Ann arbor.
Is some municipalities, excuse me some municipalities are trying form based code What this means is that, instead of segregating individual pieces of land streets neighborhoods or parts of town by zone.
The goal is to recreate the walkable mixed use neighborhoods that were the norm pre automobile.
By placing an emphasis on the form of a building or street instead of its use so Michelle to your.
kind of tension earlier about this is a goal that we want to have, and this is what the building should look like.
that’s true, but the third tension on top of that is that this is the goal, this is what it should look like, and this is what the building should do what foreign based code takes out is us telling it the building what it should do.
Which means we’re going to have a lot more percolation of houses and businesses and shops mixed together, where right now they’re fairly clearly delineated.
MH: yeah you know we see a lot of old like.
there’s like old.
neighborhood businesses that are like mixed in with the neighborhood and I think you know people get excited when there’s like ways that you can run businesses out of your home it’s a great way to like incubated so you don’t have to like you know.
If you’re just starting out you just have an idea for a business and you don’t think it’s you don’t you’re not ready yet to go and like rent a commercial space downtown you could be you know the Barber of your neighborhood and everyone comes to you.
JL: kind of thing or something you know.
MH: Just something like that and that’s kind of it’s something that people used to be able to do, but they can’t anymore.
JL: Because we told them that that’s true.
that’s true you know we talked about it with housing and neighborhoods but it’s true with businesses to that the stuff that we love that we say we love are legal Jefferson market nights the is it big city small world or.
MH: Small world.
JL: So I always get it backwards, so I assume.
I didn’t that time too, but stuff like that you cannot do that now it’s it’s absolutely illegal and so to your point Michelle we’re going to talk about how to query zoning in a minute which i’m super.
But when it comes to foreign based code i’m going to drop a couple of links in the show notes going into more detail about what it is.
Because there’s a lot to say about it and it’s a potential potentially really exciting opportunity for an hour Ann arbor.
One is a link to a strong towns article that’s quite readable and the other one is a White Paper, out of East lansing with specific examples around form based zoning in Michigan that include beverly hills and grand rapids what it looks like how it’s been implemented, what it’s doing.
MK: You say beverly hills there’s the beverly Hilton.
JL: 100% beverly hills and that’s why I said it because I thought it was funny.
I know.
And the other thing, the last thing that I wanted to say that would take the pressure off of big D development is to use pink zoning.
Which is a term popularized by the former planning director of Detroit Maurice Cox he has since moved on to Chicago and I am sitting miss him but.
When he was talking about pink zoning I wish he met querying zoning and in my head that’s what it means.
But what Maurice was describing was a series of strategies designed to reduce the red tape, but right now, it takes to create small businesses and develop small properties.
What it would take for a Ann arbor to get cheaper and more agile, is for us to think a lot smaller rather than a lot bigger about the changes that we’re trying to make an allow weird new cool stuff that right now we say with our zoning and our master plan we don’t want.
So part for get informed and oh you can’t get involved, but we’ll get you involved anyway.
So.
there’s a lot when it comes to the master plan to get informed on and a great place to start is just with an arborist master plan documents.
will drop the link in the show notes for all of master plan documents.
Read as much as you can handle or at least skim the ones that seem interesting and relevant to you, there is probably a masterplan element pertaining to your area of the city.
You care about transportation that’s in there, the treeline masterplan is in there there’s a ton of resource documents in there pertaining to sustainability and the downtown.
and other other other parts of the city so there’s probably something in there, that will peak at least one point of curiosity, if not two or three.
The other thing that you can do, but listen out for or excuse me that you can’t do right now but listen out for because there’s not currently a master planning process underway.
there’s nothing to get involved with there, but there are often smaller engagements so keep an eye out for city of Ann arbor surveys and Community meetings.
and get in touch with your Council members and ask them to inform you when master planning those get going there absolutely going to want more people and more kinds of people involved in these conversations and you’re one of those.
MH: they’re going to want that, and i’m gonna want that to happen.
I want this to be I want this to be not a heist.
JL: Or at least all of us walk away with all the crowns.
Right.
Something that’s helpful in I was thinking a lot when preparing for this episode of many years ago me who was really daunted by.
public meetings and never felt like I knew enough to be able to speak in these so if i’m describing you please come to the meetings you’re the one we want and.
If i’m not describing you find somebody who qualifies who feels really uncertain and maybe a little bit scared about conversations like this and bring them along with you.
absolutely every public conversation is a place to take space for your thoughts and feelings, but it’s also an opportunity to make space for others who have not often not been heard, and these processes.
So speak up but listen for who were not hearing and help them have a place at the table to.
That all the parts there’s no more parts.
MK: Well, I have more questions.
JL: Oh good.
MK: um one thing that I hear a lot, both in the national conversation around zoning and also locally, is this idea of banning single family zoning and.
It seems as though it gets fear monger it as people want to ban single family houses which that’s I don’t think anyone’s talking about ripping down all of the houses it’s more about.
banning single family zoning and so i’m curious if you could talk a little bit more about what that means, and then also it sounds like maybe there are some opportunities specifically around that piece of zoning that might be coming up in Ann arbor sooner.
JL: yeah that’s a great question thanks molly when there are a lot of examples of cities around the country examining their single families owning.
And, and let me talk I like to start with definition, so we all know what we’re talking about so single family zoning is a residential zoning where only one family is permitted to live on that property, there are a lot of asterisks and other possibilities so.
MH: guess what a family is.
JL: Who that’s right that’s an active conversation and honestly Colorado a year or two ago.
Had a fantastic conversation that ended with I think statewide legislation, saying that for you to have any conversation around what a family is means that you are talking about.
blood and emotional matters that the state has no business interfering with and so Colorado totally backed out a definition of families, which I think it’s RAD and everybody should do.
In Ann arbor, we have to I think three levels of zoning class our residential zoning classification and within those multiple different designations, but essentially three levels so there’s our one which is single family.
Those are two, which is essentially duplex and then there’s our four which is usually what we call multi family, which is, I can’t remember if it’s three or more units for more units or six or more units, but typically if you think about apartments it’s our for.
The challenge with residential zoning is that it’s incredibly restrictive and also incredibly proliferative like it’s all over the city we’ve got more land.
Besides public land and that’s specifically because of roads and the university really single families zoning takes up more land than any other zoning designation in the city.
But there’s only one views that can go there and when folks talk about banning single families zoning what they’re saying is let’s allow two or more a duplex or more in minneapolis the master plan update that they just did.
starts with a floor of four or more that’s mandated by the zoning it’s not saying you can’t develop single family homes it’s not restricting.
What it’s doing is allowing more different types of housing, so are one or two and are four would be allowed in all residential zones if single families owning were eliminated does that answer.
MH: I think so it’s.
Like saying you can’t you can’t require a single family home to be built, but that’s right.
JL: But you can allow it.
MH: We can yeah.
JL: Whereas right now we require it, in most residential areas of the city.
Where Ann arbor is in this process is the as our longtime listeners will know, we are in the middle of budget season at the city.
And the city planning department has requested budget allocation.
for doing research and Community engagement around single families zoning in the city of Ann arbor so we can expect some Community engagement around that.
between this and next summer I will say it’s not really possible to look at the historical roots of single families owning.
And not talk about white supremacy and the racist origins of zoning like you, you cannot separate the two that’s where it started.
So it’s helpful to understand that when we talk about banning single families owning a lot of communities when they do that it’s as a restorative justice measure correcting against historical decisions that we’ve made.
MK: So just tell us a little bit more about why it’s racist.
JL: that’s a good question and i’m also going to drop a link in the show notes to the book The color of law which goes into more detail about this so.
MH: For your listeners, I just wanted to tell you about.
Jeff he picked up the book and showed it to the camera.
JL: it’s always handy but for this episode, it was handy or it’s like it’s my moral support for this episode the color of law.
The Hill and i’m a little bit choked out because i’m trying to say 17 different things about housing, right now, where.
American housing in the 20th century kind of evolved through was where can we get away with racism, so it before 19 I think 18 or 19 the answer was everywhere, and then in 1918 or 19 they banned.
i’m going to get my history mixed up a little bit because you know you’ve asked me and my brains all excited but the they banned.
Oh gosh was it I think they banned saying that individual races couldn’t live in areas specific areas of a city.
But private no this was 1928 Actually, this was a Supreme Court ruling in 1928 saying that a city couldn’t say.
that people have specific races ethnicities or religion couldn’t live in specific areas of cities.
So, but what they didn’t say, or rather what they did say is but we’re not going to touch private transactions.
And what that meant was racially restrictive covenants went into force really all over the country, and here in Ann arbor it the first recorded ones were in the 19 times, or the 1920s.
And that’s what that’s.
Okay right no it’s fine so a private seller to a private buyer says, I will only sell this to you if you promise.
that no person of color typically black people, but sometimes Jewish people sometimes Italian people sometimes people of other races were named but almost always black people.
don’t live here unless they are domestic servants, those were allowable until the late 1940s and in the late 1940s, if you remember, this is really when between the the 20s and the 40s is really went zoning kind of kicked into gear.
What zoning so in the late 1940s racially restrictive covenants.
They were what’s called vacated by the Supreme Court, so they are essentially unenforceable but people were still like creating and selling on them, and there was a lot of like.
winking and you know good old boy elbow nudging and you know oh yeah this is illegal, but really no don’t tell this to black folks.
When zoning ordinances really went into force by that time they were codified racist housing practices that had been in practice in the country for almost half a century.
And what it was saying is that Okay, whoever lives here now, this is who gets to live here, so if you were able to buy a single families at home, before the 1960s, then then that’s who gets to live in this neighborhood.
Now that’s absolutely expanded there were civil rights legislation in the 1960s, that really took a lot of these limitations off.
There, there was a lot of legislation that took the laws off the books, but we still have a lot of information that’s as current is this year.
about unfair unfair mortgage lending practices about unfair realtor home showing practices about unfair inspections unfair housing assessments, where black folks are penalized across the board financially or access wise and.
MH: And also like you know, even if we take the take the laws off the books, even if we were able to stop getting people to behave badly we haven’t done anything to actively reintegrate these neighborhoods.
JL: that’s exactly right.
MH: And also like um I also wanted to mention the federal housing administration some original policy of giving loans to people to buy to buy houses.
But then they would only give those loans to white people, and that was their official policy for a while and I don’t know the date to that, but um.
yeah so like.
What you know the initial big housing boom of single family homes like was basically only available to white people.
JL: that’s right.
Right and that’s 1930s 1940s, when that really started picking up the pace and by the time those laws were outlawed is exactly when.
The art what we interpret as our modern modern zoning ordinances started being enforced so it’s it’s just it’s a it’s a troubling but very clear progression.
And it’s one of the reasons why we need to look the history of our zoning policy and the I sounds like a boring idle easy thing to say, but if you care about justice, it is a critical component of it.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
MK: Thank you.
JL: Well, thanks you guys, that was a fun.
ground.
MH: Excellent.
JL: zone interesting.
MH: So a molly do you want to sing.
Oh.
MK: No oh right So yes, as always, we wanted to thank everyone who has supported us through the coffee, we have our website now, which is supported by all of you.
You can find us at Ann arbor f.com and if you’d like to send us a few dollars to cover these hosting fees, you can find us at K oh dash fit comm slash Ann arbor a.
MH: And that’s it for this episode of Ann Arbor AF. We’re your cohosts Molly Kleinman, Jess Letaw, and myself, Michelle Hughes; and thanks as always to producer Jarod Malestein. For questions about this podcast or ideas about future episodes, you can email us at annarborafpod@gmail.com. Get informed, then get involved. It’s your city!