Budget crunch may put limits on Ann Arbor city planning projects

Planning commissioners and city staff met in December to discuss major updates to the city's zoning ordinances.

Ryan J. Stanton | AnnArbor.com

The city's planning priorities will be the topic of discussion tonight when the Ann Arbor Planning Commission meets for its annual retreat from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.

The meeting is open to the public and will be held at the Michigan Information Technology Center building at 1000 Oakbrook Drive.

Bonnie Bona, chairwoman of the mayor-appointed Planning Commission, said tonight's meeting was supposed to happen in January but was delayed because of uncertainty surrounding the city's budget. While much of that uncertainty remains, Bona said planning officials agreed it was important to meet and discuss priorities for the coming year.

Among possible discussion items:

• The R4C zoning study.
• The city's floodplain ordinance.
• A2D2 downtown design guidelines.
• The Parks, Recreation and Open Space Plan, also known as the PROS Plan.
• The Zoning Ordinance Re-Organization Project, also known as ZORO.

"We have several projects that are in mid-process and, in our view, it would be fiscally irresponsible to drop them and lose that investment we've made already," Bona said. "On the other hand, with things like the master plan, maybe we scale it down to something that's not so comprehensive."

One of the projects under way is ZORO, a massive overhaul of the city's land use and development ordinances. That includes a consolidation of city regulations that currently are scattered among 11 different chapters of city code.

The city agreed in October to hire a consultant for $122,480 to work on the project for a one-year period.

As part of the master plan process, the Ann Arbor City Council also took action in November to consolidate the city's four area plans: South Area Plan (1990), Central Area Plan (1992), West Area Plan (1995), and Northeast Area Plan (2006). Now that those are contained in one document, city officials say it provides a guide for making land use decisions in a format that can be updated regularly.

Bona said the next step in the master planning process is to potentially do a comprehensive update that may include land use studies along the city's major transportation corridors like Washtenaw Avenue, State Street and Plymouth Road.

"It's an idea that we've been interested in for a few years, but we just haven't gotten to a point where we could do them yet," Bona said, adding that funding for continued work on the master plan remains uncertain at this point.

"There were some dollars for the master plan that are in this year's budget that have not been expended yet because we have not yet worked on it," she said. "It's possible that those dollars will not be there next year."

Mark Lloyd, the city's former planning manager, estimated the costs last year for a comprehensive multi-phase update to the city's master plan. As a result, the city set aside $85,000 in this year's budget and $95,000 next year. Little of that money has been spent at this point.

The city also has about $160,000 set aside for development of corridor design standards in the 2009-10 and 2010-11 budgets.

Wendy Rampson, the city's current planning manager, said the city may need to be more strategic about how it approaches its master plan update.

"We don't want to launch into any project until we have a good sense from the Planning Commission where they want us to go, so we can use those funds judiciously," she said.

City Administrator Roger Fraser is expected to present a 2010-11 budget to the Ann Arbor City Council on Monday showing additional cuts to various departments, including the planning department.

Ryan J. Stanton covers government for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at ryanstanton@annarbor.com or 734-623-2529.