ANN ARBOR, MI — City Council has twice delayed adopting the city’s new A2Zero carbon-neutrality plan and one concern is it calls for more housing density.
As the plan goes to council for consideration again Monday night, June 1, that remains a point of contention.
“I’d like to support a plan. A plan that relies too much on density as a solution is not going to fly well with me,” said Council Member Jack Eaton, D-4th Ward.
In addition to goals like powering the community with 100% renewable energy and significantly reducing car use, the plan touches on zoning policy and recommends allowing denser and mixed-use neighborhoods to expand housing options and allow more people to get around by walking and cycling.
“I think there are very few citizens who know that that’s in here,” said Council Member Jane Lumm, I-2nd Ward, who argues it could adversely impact neighborhood character.
Residents are concerned about potentially allowing triplexes and quadraplexes to replace single-family homes as by-right developments, said Anne Bannister, D-1st Ward.
The Ann Arbor City Council holds a virtual meeting broadcast by Community Television Network on May 18, 2020.CTN
Lumm convinced a majority of her colleagues to support another postponement last week, saying the plan is flawed and needs to be changed to be more surgical and implemented in phases, with a focus on high-leverage actions.
The $1-billion plan was put together by city staff based on a climate-emergency directive from council last fall.
Since it was unveiled two months ago, council hasn’t been quick to adopt it.
How will Ann Arbor pay for $1B carbon-neutrality plan?
Expanding transit service with electric buses is a major focus of the plan and accounts for a majority of the estimated costs.
Lumm has suggested eliminating initiatives that could have a low impact on reducing carbon emissions and could be controversial — like allowing by-right density and mixed uses in single-family neighborhoods, and a potentially $50 million solar farm on city property in Pittsfield Township.
Lumm also has suggested holding off on adopting the A2Zero plan until the University of Michigan has its own carbon-neutrality plan, which could happen in early 2021.
She also wants to wait until the city better understands the financial ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We know the adverse impacts on the city will be significant — in the millions of dollars,” Lumm said, calling it fiscally irresponsible to embark on major new initiatives.
When delaying action on the A2 Zero plan last month, council asked staff to first develop a funding plan and framework for prioritizing initiatives.
Ann Arbor council not ready to adopt A2Zero carbon-neutrality plan
Missy Stults, the city’s sustainability manger, presented the new documents to council last week, but some council members wanted more time to look them over.
The A2Zero plan calls for over $1 billion in spending over 10 years — well over $100 million of which would be direct city costs. Other possible funding sources include private philanthropy, state and federal dollars and local transit funds.
Documents presented to council show a breakdown of potential costs and funding sources for initiatives such as launching a community solar program and a green rental housing program, electrifying city buildings and vehicles, installing electric vehicle charging stations, starting a community choice aggregation program and facilitating bulk purchases of renewable energy, expanding transit services, creating more park-and-ride lots, expanding recycling and composting services, promoting plant-rich diets, and changing city code to allow greater housing density and more mixed-use zoning.
Under one potential scenario, estimated city cost impacts (counting operating costs and debt service) are:
- 2020 — $775,781
- 2021 — $18.1 million
- 2022 — $10.3 million
- 2023 — $9.8 million
- 2024 — $9.7 million
- 2025 — $9.6 million
- 2026 — $9.4 milion
- 2027 — $9.2 million
- 2028 — $9.1 million
- 2029 — $13.7 million
- 2030 — $13.7 million
The plan assumes the city would borrow $46.5 million upfront and pay off the debt over 20 years. The idea of putting a carbon-neutrality tax to voters has been discussed, as has the idea of increased property taxes for public transit.
Only $80,000 in costs are shown for the city’s potentially $50 million solar farm project in Pittsfield Township. That’s because it’s expected DTE Energy would pay the upfront costs and the city would repay DTE through monthly energy bill payments, while receiving credits for the solar.
“The funding plan we were provided just is not realistic,” Lumm said, adding it assumes the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority and Southeast Michigan Regional Transit Authority will “somehow magically come up with $700 million in these challenging financial times.”
She also questions the assumption that federal funding will cover a large share of costs for park-and-ride services.
“There’s no mention anywhere of the new property tax millages — city, AAATA, RTA — that likely will be required, if we’re honest, to deliver the plan,” Lumm said.
State law a hurdle for Ann Arbor’s 100% renewable energy plan
Noting the plan assumes $1 million per year in ongoing support from the Downtown Development Authority, Lumm also questioned whether that’s realistic given the financial challenges the DDA faces with the pandemic. She said she’d rather the DDA focus on helping businesses recover.
Council Member Jeff Hayner, D-1st Ward, said carbon-neutrality is the right thing to do, but like Lumm, he still had a lot of unanswered questions.
“When I look at the land-use element that is highlighted in the introduction letter but only represents one-tenth of 1% of the total carbon emissions moving forward, I think, does that belong in here?” he asked.
Council Member Elizabeth Nelson, D-4th Ward, echoed Hayner’s concerns about the plan’s introduction letter in which Mayor Christopher Taylor states carbon-neutrality means, in part, adopting new land-use strategies.
“If we are to achieve our goal, Ann Arbor 2030 must be vastly different from Ann Arbor 2020,” Taylor wrote in the letter, saying it will necessitate disruption.
Land use is “one tiny piece” of carbon-neutrality, Nelson maintains.
“And yet land use is stated up front as, like, No. 1 that’s what we’ve got to do in the introductory letter to this report — which I found just absolutely bizarre,” she said, adding she thinks it’s also concerning to a lot of residents.
“We’re making a very big statement about changes in what our city is going to look like in sort of a sideways direction on a topic where it is admittedly going to contribute only a small piece.”
Taylor said Nelson overstated the emphasis his letter placed on the land-use aspect of the plan, noting it got a mention in the fifth paragraph. That said, Taylor maintains the city has to use every tool at its disposal to achieve carbon-neutrality and that includes land use, which comes with opportunities and risks.
Timeline: Ann Arbor’s downtown housing boom and what’s to come
Noting the goal of increased density is tied with reducing car commutes, Nelson said society is changing a lot with the pandemic. In her own household, she said, her husband’s future as a commuter is unlikely now.
“There are just a lot of changes that I think none of us can quite imagine at this point,” she said, pointing to trends in people working from home and suggesting there may be downtown office space that won’t be needed anymore.
Taylor and his allies on council — Zachary Ackerman, Julie Grand and Chip Smith — have indicated they’re ready to support the A2Zero plan. For those who are hesitant, “It’s about not being in support of density,” said Grand, D-3rd Ward.
It’s going to be difficult to achieve carbon-neutrality and it will require changes in the way people live and what neighborhoods look like, said Ackerman. D-3rd Ward.
“And what our community looks like physically — how we use land, where we live in relationship to services, be they grocery stores, be they places of work,” he said.
Situations may change for office workers, he said, but there still will be other working-class people who need to get to jobs.
“We as community leaders, as elected officials, have a responsibility to encourage changes in the way that people live, and some of it’s going to be disruptive,” Ackerman said. “But the largest global catastrophe that we’ve ever seen is looming and disruption is a good thing, because heading down the path of the status quo is deadly.”
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