Moratorium will halt development of City Place for six to 12 months while new committee studies issue

“A lot of the concerns that we've heard in the community were that we wanted to preserve a portion of an important neighborhood that's near downtown,” Hohnke said. “The action that we took tonight provides a six-month moratorium on work, which includes demolition.”

The vote on Hohnke's resolution came after more than four hours of deliberations and after Councilman Mike Anglin's proposal for a moratorium on development in the city's R4C and R2A zoning districts - which included a broader area - was voted down 8-3.

Only Stephen Rapundalo, D-2nd Ward, Leigh Greden, D-3rd Ward, and Christopher Taylor, D-3rd Ward, favored Anglin's resolution after it went through a series of amendments. Some council members said they thought such a broad moratorium would have sent a message that Ann Arbor is not business-friendly.

“It was too broad a tool that sent a message that we didn't need to send, given our goal of making sure that we didn't have houses torn down and replaced by big cubes with a surface lot in between,” Hohnke said. “I don't mean to be glib about it, but I think that's a relatively fair, accurate description (of the site plan).”

The site plan for City Place, which calls for razing seven century-old buildings along the 400 block of South Fifth to make way for apartment high-rises, was first introduced at a Planning Commission meeting in August 2007. It has since been reshaped by developers and the Planning Commission numerous times, but yet to be approved by the City Council.

Council members said Thursday they've heard the community's concerns loud and clear. Dozens of residents have shown up at meetings to protest the City Place development in recent months. At its last meeting in July, the City Council agreed to postpone consideration of the site plan - at the developer's request - until the developer can come back in six months with a revised Planned Unit Development for consideration.

City officials expect the new committee being formed will spend the next six to 12 months completing its work. A provision in state law allows the City Council to extend the moratorium for another six months, which would cover the 12-month period if needed.

Hohnke said city officials are going to spend the next two weeks identifying who may serve on the committee.

“We have a good start on identifying folks that would be interested and would be able to provide important input,” he said. “And they're going to look at the area we've outlined and try and come back to us in between six and 12 months with some recommendation about whether this is an area that we should provide some historical preservation for.”

The only two council members to vote against Hohnke's resolution on Thursday were Sandi Smith, D-1st Ward, and Tony Derezinski, D-2nd Ward. Derezinski said he wanted more time to consider the idea; Smith said she thought it was dangerous for the city, from a liability standpoint, to “change the rules of the game midstream” in an attempt to prohibit a specific development.

Mayor John Hieftje said the city and its residents have repeatedly voiced concerns about what's being proposed for City Place, yet the developer continues to use every tool it has to push the project. He said the city should use the tools it has available as well, and a moratorium and historic district study are within the scope of its powers.