A2 City Council Meeting: 12/7/2020
Below you’ll find a quick overview of meeting highlights and actions taken. Meeting highlights are agenda items that generated discussion. All items not listed below, but on the attached agenda, were approved unanimously without discussion. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have questions on any of the actions that were taken.
Meeting highlights:
Appointments to City Commissions (MC-1): All of the nominations received unanimous support, except Wonwoo Lee and Sadira Clarke (to Planning Commission) and Robert White (to Historic Discussion Commission) whose nominations were approved with majority support.
Council approved the Brightdawn Development at 2805 Burton Road: Allows for the development of a vacant 8-acre site adjacent to US-23. The proposal is to construct four, four-story buildings that include 120 units at market rate with parking garages located beneath each building along with surface parking. City Council approved with an amendment that the staff-recommended connection between Burton and Eli Road wasn’t made and instead a locked gate installed. Unanimous approval, with CM Briggs voting against the amendment.
Ordinance Changes: Per the City Charter, ordinance changes require two “readings” which essentially means the written ordinance change will appear twice before City Council. Ordinance changes that move past the first reading, will be voted on at second reading.
Passed 1st reading:
Water Rate Increase (C-2): This ordinance amendment would authorize a 7% increase in water rates effective January 1, 2021, followed by 6.5% increase on July 1, 2021. It has been a year and a half since the last rate increase, previous increases were delayed by Council. Find out more about how Ann Arbor’s water rates and how they’re set here. Approved 7-4 with CM Nelson, Griswold, Hayner, and Ramlawi dissenting.
Update to the City's Floodplain Ordinance (DC-2): The City has been working through a multi-year process to update and improve our Floodplain Ordinance. If adopted, it’s anticipated the floodplain ordinance will result in a 25% reduction in flood insurance premiums for residents. Passed unanimously.
Passed 2nd reading:
Update to City’s Sign Ordinance Approved (B-1): In 2017, the City started work on updates to the City’s Sign Ordinance. The newly approved sign ordinance modernizes the City’s sign regulations and approaches sign regulation from a content-neutral regulatory framework, consistent with recent Supreme Court law. (Approved 10-1, with CM Hayner dissenting)
2 Sidewalks Assessments were voted down unanimously. In November, Ann Arbor voters approved a new sidewalk millage to fill sidewalk gaps which made the sidewalk assessments moot.
Note: Prior to the Council meeting, CM Disch and I withdrew a resolution (DC-3) we co-sponsored. The resolution would have delayed the process of seeking a Superfund designation for the Gelman Dioxane Plume until 30 days after a decision is reached by the Washtenaw County Circuit Court. (The decision to pursue Superfund designation was made November 6th at the last meeting of the outgoing Council). Hearings are currently scheduled for January 11-13th and Judge Connors is anticipated to make a decision following those hearings about the standards by which the plume will be monitored and cleaned ups. We were/are concerned that it may not be possible to pursue dual path strategy of continued litigation against Gelman to improve remediation, while seeking a designation as a Superfund site. However, after receiving numerous requests from fellow council members, community members, and community partners we withdrew our resolution. Read more in this MLive article.