by P.D. Lesko

NATHAN VOGHT IS the project manager who wants us to Reimagine Washtenaw Ave. as an economic development opportunity. Like the controversial WALLY commuter train project on which over $32 million in local and state funds have been spent, Reimagine Washtenaw has no dedicated funding and no voter mandate. But both projects do have full-time project managers.

If Washtenaw is Reimagined, there will be mixed-use “workforce housing,” low-income housing, business in-fill, new sidewalks, a new Park & Ride and alternative transit galore to whisk residents into Ann Arbor to work and play, but not to live. Washtenaw Ave. would become a miles long inter-connected thoroughfare running through four municipalities.

Voght, an economic development specialist with Washtenaw County, won’t say how much reimagining Washtenaw could cost.

“Is it half a billion dollars?” I ask.

He grins and presses on: “The idea that we have to put a price tag on this would be speculative.” Voght says.

If I have to ask how much, I’m obviously not reimagining hard enough.

In 2008, Voght left his job as a municipal planner with the City of Ypsilanti to work as the director of the Howell Downtown Development Authority. In 2012, he was hired by Washtenaw County to manage the Reimagine Washtenaw project.

He doesn’t want people to obsess about the price tag; he wants people to be swept away by a vision of Washtenaw Ave. as transformed by New Urbanism.

“No offense, but this kind of sell reminds me of the used car salesman who wants you to love, to adore the car, and not think about what it might cost,” I say.

Voght chuckles. For him, Reimagining Washtenaw is all about smart growth.

In that vision of reality, people will work and shop near where they live. Pedestrians will amble along Washtenaw Ave. and bicyclists will find in-road paths for their convenience.

The practicality of how someone earning poverty wages of  $7.50-$10.00 per hour pouring coffee 20 hours a week, or bagging groceries at Hiller’s will afford $800/month rent rarely figures into the New Urbanism zeitgeist that focuses on obscure lingo such as AMI. Voght and his fellow New Urbanists are “Field of Dreams” kind of folks: “Build it and they will come.”

I loved the “Field of Dreams” movie, but the  baseball players who walked out of the mist were the Chicago “Black Sox,” cheaters who fixed the World Series and who may or may not have been in cahoots with racketeer Arnold Rothstein to so do.

Say it ain’t so, Joe.

The Reimagine Washtenaw Final Plan calls for the eventual construction of 1,000 new units of residential housing.

Nathan Voght says that “Affordable housing is in the best interests of everyone….What we want is permanently affordable housing, a range of housing.”

Reimagine Washtenaw plans propose no apartments for very low income residents who earn less than 30 percent Area Median Income (AMI). Ann Arbor’s AMI was $68,130 in 2013.  The plan states that 15 percent of the proposed 1,000 new units be for low income residents who earn less than 50 percent of the Area Median Income. Rent for those apartments would be between $706-$1,100 month.

In the Reimagine Washtenaw Plan, 42 percent of the proposed units would be for moderate income renters whose monthly rents would be between $849-$1,538. Then, 43 percent of the proposed 1,000 units would be apartments for renters whose income equals the Area Median Income, with rents of between $1,400-$2,020 per month or more.

I want to be able to reimagine Washtenaw. I really do. Nathan Voght is persuasive, enthusiastic, patient and well-versed in the doctrine of Ann Arbor’s Complete Streets initiative. It’s just that I’m the kind of person who looks at the cost of the item before I put it into my shopping cart. I clip coupons, shop the end caps and delight in stumbling onto amazing sales.

I’m an unabashed pragmatist and Nathan Voght is pitching the virtues of building a Field of Dreams. I want to know what’s going to come out of the mist and he wants me to stop fretting and start imagining.

Voght and I met at the perpetually crowded Arborland Starbuck’s on Washtenaw to chat about Reimagine Washtenaw. We both drove to the meeting, knowing full well that the AAATA couldn’t get us there and back to our offices in less than two hours.

“You’ve got a problem today with traffic congestion on Washtenaw. You need a plan to address that,” says Voght.

Washtenaw Avenue is the busiest street in the county with some 45,000 cars using the thoroughfare each day—primarily to get to and from the entrance to U.S. 23. In what Voght refers to as “the corridor,” there are more than 500 businesses and “about 6,000 units of housing—mostly multi-family,” Voght explains.

In the Final Report provided to Ann Arbor City Council last month about the Reimagine project, business vacancy rates along the corridor were said to be 11 percent. As it turns out, the vacancy rate was carried over from a 2009 report and stands closer to between five and six percent. According to a 2009 Reimagine Washtenaw report, the stakeholders invited to participate in Reimagining Washtenaw included now Council members Kirk Westphal (D-Ward 2) and Chuck Warpehoski (D-Ward 5) and Warpehoski’s wife, Nancy Shore. Shore is employed by AAATA.

The focus of that earlier report was the opportunity for economic gain that would come with the redevelopment of Washtenaw Ave.

The 2015 Reimagine Washtenaw Final Report, instead, focuses on what can only be described as Ann Arbor political chum: affordable housing, transit, walkability and Ann Arbor’s Complete Streets program.

Despite the irresistible political bait dangled before City Council members, Voght says “I think economic development would be an easier sell than Complete Streets.”

According to the Mar. 2011 Complete Streets Resolution passed by City Council, “A ‘Complete Street’ is one planned, designed and maintained to comfortably accommodate pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders, and motorists of all ages and ability levels. While there is no standard complete street design in the newly adopted state law, Complete Streets often feature elements such as sidewalks, bicycle lanes, full-featured transit stops, pedestrian and bicycle oriented traffic signals, medians, pedestrian crossing islands, and curb extensions.”

The 2011 resolution was prepared by Ann Arbor’s Transportation Manager Eli Cooper, the same city staffer who oversees Ann Arbor’s Non-Motorized Transportation Plan (NTP). The most recent NTP reveals that from miles of bikes lanes to sidewalks and from “pedestrian facilities” such as crossing islands and flashing beacons to bike roadways, Ann Arbor’s NTPs have consistently failed to meet multiple non-motorized transit goals.

For example, the 2007 NTP called for the addition of 25 miles of sidewalks. Only 3.4 miles of sidewalks have been added since 2007.

Regardless of the fact that the majority of NTP goals have not been met, Reimagine Washtenaw is perched atop the 2011 Complete Streets Resolution and that resolution’s balanced precariously on the city’s wobbly NTP.

In 2009, Council members voted to cut funding for non-motorized transit by 50 percent. Since 2010, the amounts allocated for alternative transportation have been as low as $181,000 and as high as $745,000. In the 2013 budget, $448,000 was set aside for alternative transit projects.

Unlike alternative transit, Reimagine Washtenaw—with its current emphasis on complete streets—has no funding.

Nathan Voght is blunt: “We know MDOT doesn’t have money.” He goes on to float the idea of a tax-increment financing (TIF) arrangement. “TIF financing remains an effective tool. The TIF would fund improvements—but not private development.”

Council members Jack Eaton (D-Ward 4) and Mike Anglin (D-Ward 5) are skeptical of the  use of a TIF to finance Reimagine Washtenaw. At a Feb. meeting of Council, Eaton said: “We don’t know how we’re going to afford this. It doesn’t address the real problem that we have.”

Likewise, Anglin said he was concerned that no funding for the project has been identified even as plans move forward.

Council member Jane Lumm (I-Ward 2), through whose Ward Washtenaw Ave. runs, has attended all of the public meetings held. Lumm has  questioned whether enough public input has been gathered.

Nathan Voght smiled when Lumm’s concerns came up during the discussion.

“It’s difficult to get people involved. When it comes to long-term plans, it’s harder to generate any interest,” said Voght.

However, he insists that the public outreach “was successful.”

Out of more than 500 business owners and approximately 45,000 residents who live in the 6,000 units of primarily multi-family housing that abut the length of the corridor, 200 people came to public meetings held on four consecutive nights in May 2014 and 75 people provided responses through online surveys.

A minority of those who provided written comments focused on Complete Streets issues. Many of the written responses focused on the timing of traffic lights along Washtenaw, for instance. While Reimagine Washtenaw calls for the avenue to be converted into a boulevard with buffered bike lanes, many of those who provided written responses argued against such a change.

Nathan Voght says without dealing with Washtenaw Ave.’s traffic, “the status quo is a not a pretty picture. Businesses,” he says, “could close between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. That’s what a business owner told me.”

Put simply, if people live near where they work there are fewer car trips and less congestion.

However, tens of thousands of the 45,000 daily car trips up and down Washtenaw are to the U.S 23 entrance ramps. Those trips are made by people who don’t live in Ann Arbor and who, perhaps, would never be able to afford to live in Ann Arbor or want to do so.

Then there are the business owners who have spoken out against the Reimagine Washtenaw Final Plan recommendations. At the urging of Ann Arbor City Council members. Voght is aiming to work more closely with the Washtenaw Avenue Business Association members.

“This is an incremental plan,” says Nathan Voght. “Ann Arbor is working toward the idea of Reimagining Washtenaw.”