ANN ARBOR, MI — A majority of Ann Arbor City Council members decided in an 8-3 vote not to adopt the city’s new carbon-neutrality plan Monday night, April 20.
At least not yet.
Some made it clear they don’t fully support everything in it and they’re worried about costs.
But they’re still moving forward and asking staff to begin or continue work to implement actions in the plan.
Instead of officially adopting the $1-billion A2Zero plan, Jane Lumm, I-2nd Ward, convinced her colleagues to simply receive it, thank city staff for their work on it and direct staff to now develop a funding plan and framework for prioritizing the many recommended actions.
How will Ann Arbor pay for $1B carbon-neutrality plan?
When a funding plan and prioritization framework are complete, council wants the city administrator to present the A2Zero plan to council for further consideration.
The eight who voted to go that route were Anne Bannister, Jack Eaton, Kathy Griswold, Jeff Hayner, Lumm, Elizabeth Nelson, Ali Ramlawi and Chip Smith.
Ramlawi, D-5th Ward, suggested the plan was hastily put together and said he didn’t want to waste precious resources going down the wrong path.
Mayor Christopher Taylor, Zachary Ackerman and Julie Grand argued for adopting the plan, as did Smith, though Smith voted for Lumm’s proposal.
Smith said he wanted to move the issue forward and he expects the question of adopting the plan will be back before council in two weeks, with the funding and prioritization work complete.
Then all council members will have to be honest about where they stand on it, he said.
The plan outlines strategies to power the community with 100% renewable energy, expand local transit services with electric buses, and switch to electric appliances and vehicles while transitioning away from fossil fuels, among other actions, including installing many more EV charging stations in the city.
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Hayner, D-1st Ward, said he doesn’t want to bankrupt the city while addressing a small fraction of global carbon emissions and he considers many aspects of the plan fiscally irresponsible.
“So I think there’s lots of ways we can take the best of what’s in this plan and make it work for us and prioritize those efforts,” he said.
Hayner said he was speaking up for people living in poverty and questioning how the city would pay for the plan, which he’s concerned may be “sadly too little too late” and “isn’t going to make the global difference that we think it is.”
“But as long as it doesn’t accelerate the gentrification in our community, because we don’t have a way to pay for it without only inviting the wealthy to live here, I’ll support it,” he said.
After deciding not to adopt the plan, council voted 7-4 to include the directive to staff to begin or continue work to implement the plan, with Eaton, Griswold, Hayner and Lumm opposed.
After some debate about whether that sent a conflicting message, Bannister changed her vote, making it 6-5.
Nearing midnight, after hours of discussion, council ultimately voted 11-0 on the final amended resolution.
Some of the initial work to start implementing the plan is expected to be included in the 2020-21 budget that goes to council for consideration in May.
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Since council declared a climate emergency last November and directed staff to draft a plan to become carbon-neutral by 2030, the world has changed significantly with the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, but the climate crisis hasn’t gone away, Smith said.
“COVID has not changed the fact that global emissions of greenhouse gases need to drop by 45% from where they were in 2010 in the next nine years to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius,” he said. “Failure to keep warming at or below these rates will be catastrophic.”
COVID-19 is forcing people to rethink society, and the economy needs to be reshaped to be more equitable and environmentally sustainable, Smith said.
“We need to take this opportunity to realize vast improvements in electrification, transportation and housing,” he said. “At the root of all of these efforts is equity. We cannot abide a society in which we continue to leave the vulnerable and the poor behind, and the A2Zero plan is rooted in equitable solutions.”
A majority of the plan’s costs — nearly $743 million — are related to transit improvements that officials say could be funded by the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority and Southeast Michigan Regional Transit Authority, along with potentially state and federal dollars.
More than $140 million of the plan’s costs are identified as primarily the responsibility of the city and Downtown Development Authority.
Noting the city and residents are facing economic uncertainty with COVID-19 and the city is simultaneously embarking on a multimillion-dollar affordable housing initiative, Lumm argued the A2Zero plan isn’t ready for implementation.
“We do not have a funding plan for the city actions, which are at least $140 million and upwards of $300 million,” she said.
She referred to $170 million in estimated costs for park-and-ride services — a potential partnership between the city, AAATA and state — and a potentially $50 million solar array the city is planning with DTE Energy and Pittsfield Township.
Implementation of the A2Zero plan likely will require a new city property tax, on top of likely new property taxes for the AAATA and RTA, Lumm said.
She alluded to other potential tax increases for affordable housing and solid waste services.
State law a hurdle for Ann Arbor’s 100% renewable energy plan
Lumm also raised concerns the A2Zero plan recommends allowing denser and mixed-use neighborhoods, which the plan states is to provide more affordable housing and allow more people to get around by walking and cycling. Lumm argues it could adversely impact neighborhood character.
The fight to halt the climate crisis will last generations, said Ackerman, D-3rd Ward, who compared the mobilization that’s needed to the response to World War II.
It will require companies to retool and people “to be true patriots by paying taxes and by buying bonds, investing in our shared future,” he said.
Ramlawi, D-5th Ward, argued the A2Zero plan is already outdated with the pandemic.
“I think it’s a start, but it has a lot of fallacies to it, and I think it’s dangerous to hitch our wagon on this plan,” he said, saying it includes huge financial assumptions. He echoed Hayner’s concerns about bankrupting the city.
Ramlawi said there’s no commitment yet from the University of Michigan, which accounts for about a third of the community’s carbon emissions, and the plan doesn’t account for all upstream and downstream emissions.
While there’s talk of equity, it could actually make Ann Arbor less affordable, he said.
“It does not take into account the cost that residents and businesses must incur into making the switch over to electrification,” he said, adding that’s a huge cost not counted in the plan’s price tag.
“It’s not to say there’s nothing here to work on and work with … but this has to be modified as we go forward.”
The plan also doesn’t ask enough of residents in terms of how they live, Ramlawi said, arguing people need to eat less meat and fly on planes less to reduce emissions.
The A2Zero plan includes a strategy to promote plant-based diets, saying eating more fruits, vegetables and grains is known to reduce one’s environmental footprint and improve health.
Ramlawi agreed with others who said the city doesn’t have time to wait for the perfect plan to start acting.
While he was against adopting it, he proposed keeping the implementation directive that Lumm tried to remove.
Grand, D-3rd Ward, said there are lot of partners in the community looking to the city to act, and having an adopted plan could position the city for stimulus grants.
Ann Arbor's A2Zero carbon-neutrality plan predicts a large drop in local carbon emissions in 2027 by switching to 100% renewable energy for the local power grid, following efforts to convert appliances and vehicles from gas to electric.City of Ann Arbor
Eaton, D-4th Ward, expressed concerns the plan would have little impact on reducing carbon emissions for several years until the city is able to get state law changed to purchase renewable energy on behalf of the community, and the plan also depends on the AAATA expanding transit services in several years. Eaton said he would much rather see the plan front-loaded.
Though the city is potentially facing revenue shortfalls due to COVID-19, Tom Crawford, interim city administrator, assured council members he wouldn’t recommend approving anything that could jeopardize the city’s financial stability.
He suggested the city can be opportunistic about implementing pieces of the A2Zero plan as funding and partnership opportunities arise.
The city is working on a financing strategy that likely will include federal and state resources, philanthropic dollars, innovative financing tools such as “green bonds,” public-private partnerships and more, said Missy Stults, the city’s sustainability manager.
There’s already a draft prioritization framework and a five-year work plan, and work is underway on a funding plan, she said.
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