City’s Action to Revoke Center of the City Charter Amendment is a Betrayal

Alan Haber serves on the Ann Arbor Community Commons Initiating Committee, AnnArborCommunityCommons.org

by Alan Haber

While they brought it forward with smiles and promises of a new jewel in the Center of the City, this new Library Lot action is a bad deal and it should be reversed by resolution. Resist, Push Back. This was a bad deal that the City Council passed on March 3, 2025. Just say No!

First, it is a betrayal of the agreement made in 2023 between the the City Council and the Council of the Commons,  that the next stage in the implementation of the 2018 vote would be to issue a Request For Proposals seeking ”Consultants” to evaluate the work done so far by the Center of the City Task Force, the Council of the Commons, community groups and neighbors and  to suggest positive next steps forward in developing an urban central park and civic center commons. 

This RFP was not written because, we were told, City staff was so busy with Bicentennial activities that it had to be delayed. But now, with the cause of the delay past,  would not a good faith, honest government write and issue the RFP?

The City Council member who arranged the deal between the City Council and Council of the Commons (involving disbanding the Council of the Commons, because the question would be in professional hands) was absent when the matter was debated, and no other City Council member provided the information, and my public comment was not heard.

Good faith demands Council reconsider their March 3 meeting action on the Library Lot, and when those two tied together Proposals are back before the Council, one or more Council members familiar with the Commons’ development should move a vote to Postpone consideration  until at least after a consultant’s report is requested, received and evaluated.

The City promised $40,000 to join with $70,000 raised by the Library Green Conservancy from individual donors. When last year the City was discussing what to do with unexpected excess money, I reminded them to include their existing commitment of $40,000 for the consultant’s cost. Instead, they set up a contingency fund for the possible effects of Trumpism.

They said there was no money for development. This is untrue. The previous City Council provided a development fund from the revenue generated by surface parking until the parking is terminated. The current Administration refuses to account for or release this money. It could be more than $800,000 dollars, after maintenance overhead is deducted. 

Also, in 2018 there was no need for a lot of money. 

Those who were trying to activate the space raised what was needed, and improvised the stage and sound and lighting and tables and chairs and benches as best could be done— which was good enough, and getting better with every program. The actual  programs have demonstrated the space is very good for open, casual use and also concerts, flea markets, free markets, food and food trucks, art and fun for kids. 

Worse than the false assertions of under-utilized and un-funded,  the City  disrespected the 2018 vote itself.

“Let the people vote — but the Government will do what it wants;” this is what I have called “totalitarian democracy.” 

Mayor and Council call the Library Lane Lot “an under-utilized site.” The fact is the current City Administration has refused to allow any motion in the implementation of the people’s 2018 vote. They have refused to remove car parking to allow the casual, unprogrammed use of the Central Park. They have refused to call the neighbors together to activate community involvement, as the City Administrator was directed by the Center of the City Task Force and City Council accepting those recommendations. They have refused to share storage space to help community events when they are programmed. They have certainly not volunteered any City Park material, equipment  or help in activation.

And for the last year and more, they have refused to write a Request for Proposals to seek professional help, as agreed with the Council of the Commons. Now, they have spent City money and time on a new plan to annul the old vote, to build a new Library and many floors of market rate housing.

The Library has been wanting a new building for a long time. The Board of Dir. of the AADL proposed a millage in 2012 to pay for it, but the proposed millage was defeated. They have a new idea of rebranding themselves as a “mixed use” building in their existing space with a public library and on top of that 12 or 15 floors of housing, the equity value of which would pay for or facilitate financing of the new Library.

I met with the Library Director to explore how the new Library could interface with a new Civic Center Building, envisioned over Library Lane and connecting with the Library. Rather than being kept in the loop on developments, which was the understanding I thought we had, eye-to-eye, the next thing I heard was this done deal going to the City Council to give the Library Lane Lot to the Library for housing development and Library expansion. It was a plan to void the 2018 vote and sell public land to the AADL for $1.

There is no integrity in this deal; it is deceptive in its imagined benefits.  When the commons was on the ballot, the “housing first” people argued, “let the profiteers build their fancy housing, they will have to give a share of the benefit to the affordable housing fund.” So affordable housing was a benefit of the big build, though such housing would not be in the Center of the City.

In this new deal, affordable housing gets little of the benefit, maybe a few units, but the bulk of the benefit is going to support financing needed for the new Library. We have not been told the particulars of how this “no tax” plan works.

One could conclude that the numbers for private housing over the AADL’s current space did not yield enough equity to pay for the new Library, so they needed a larger footprint … so take the commons space too…which they never supported anyway …and promise the people a jewel of a new Library and housing complex with stores and programmable public space.  Nowhere are to be seen are the words park or commons or user participation in the development, or green.

Last time the question came to a vote the people chose to have a central park and green space and not a big, big building. I expect the people will choose so again. 

The City Council and AADL current proposal has no pictures, no numbers, no details, no oversight, only the gittering promise of a jewel with many imagined facets.

It would also show good faith, however belatedly, for the City Council to invite a presentation of the ideas as they have developed on the Central Park development and Civic Center Building plan and commons process. The Ann Arbor Community Commons Initiating Committee could do this: it is recognized and empowered by the City Council to develop community participation in the Center of the City development. ….Beautiful ideas and pictures, welcoming to everyone.

Beauty and good design are what will draw the private money and generosity of Ann Arbor to build what voters envisioned in 2018. 

The negativity of the City Administration and the Library does not help, but it might draw forth a fairer assessment of the commons development.  Such an assessment is what the City Council should offer the public, not another bait and switch, disappearance and cancellation of the Central Park, Civic Center Building and the community commons.