Midwestern Consulting

Some zoning ordinances are subject to the rule of unintended consequences. The intent is often not codified in a way that anticipates every possible application of the ordinance requirements. An example is the Ann Arbor Off-street Parking ordinance intended to prevent parking between commercial buildings and adjacent rights-of-way. 

Our client owns a shopping center in a C3/Commercial zoning district with frontage on three public streets. A remodeling project is proposed to construct entries on a blank face of the center and add parking between the building and the street.

City planning staff opposed parking in this location because the “intent” of Chapter 59 is to require buildings to be located close to front property lines with parking in side or rear yards. We argued that the “content” of the ordinance is the controlling factor and that the ordinance includes an exception for sites with multiple frontages.  We submitted a Zoning Compliance Permit Application.

Chapter 59, Section 5:168, item (2) c, describes an exception to the prohibition of parking between the building and the street. “Sites with more than 1 front line; the requirements of paragraph (1) in this section shall apply to only 1 front lot line. For all other lot lines abutting streets, parking shall be located behind the minimum front setback requirement, per Chapter 55 (Zoning).”

That paragraph reads “Vehicular parking structures, lots and space shall not be located in the front open space. No space within a parking structure or lot may be closer to the street than the front face of a building.”

1. The site has frontage on three public streets.

Item (2) c applies and requires that only 1 of the frontage cannot have parking between the building and the street.

The preliminary site concept showed proposed improvements including removal of all parking spaces between the building and one of the other two frontages, one that is functionally a rear yard.  Removing that parking makes that frontage comply with paragraph (1). The front line adjacent to proposed parking no longer has to meet that requirement.

1. The other two front lines are not subject to paragraph (1) and are subject to the requirement that “parking shall be located behind the minimum front setback requirement” which is 10 feet.

The Zoning Compliance Application was approved. The City immediately began the process of changing Chapter 59 to revise the ordinance to require a minimum 25 foot setback rather than the 10 minimum permitted in the C3 district.

We submitted a Site Plan that showed a minimum 25 foot parking setback and that was unanimously approved.

What’s disappointing about all this is that the site plan was approved three-years ago.  Why now after many meetings and changes ecide that things are not moving forward? 

Things would go much more smoothly if planning commission and city council members could keep in mind that time is money and that a constantly moving site plan target is very hard to pin down.

The following is from www.annarbor.com, October 12, 2011:

The project called for construction of five buildings on a 15-acre site owned by Grace Bible Church, off South Maple Road near Pauline Boulevard on the city’s west side. It would have included 494 parking spaces, a number far in excess of that required by city code.

When the site plan expired recently after three years without activity, Rampson said the church, acting as the applicant, came in seeking an extension.”And then they found that they were going to have to make significant changes to the plan in order to meet our new codes and opted not to do that,” she said.

Rampson said the developer of the site never exercised its option to purchase the property, and the church was hoping to extend the site plan to make it available to a future developer.

A representative of the church could not be reached for comment.

The controversial Varsity apartment complex to rise up next to the First Baptist Church on Washington Street in downtown Ann Arbor has gained final site plan approval from the Ann Arbor City Council.   Construction will begin this fall and is slated to open in late summer 2013.

See the full article from www.annarbor.com here.

Midwestern Consulting provided civil engineering services for the Ann Arbor underground garage currently being constructed next to the District Library at Fifth and William in downtown Ann Arbor.

We saw this recent article in  AnnArbor.com and thought the green credentials it has earned was very important.

“The DDA has worked throughout his project to minimize its environmental impacts,” Amber Miller, the DDA’s planning and research specialist, wrote in an email to AnnArbor.com. “Our efforts now allow this structure to become part of this unique program designed to encourage the standardization of sustainable initiatives within the parking industry.”

From the top floor of the Ann Arbor District Library, the view of the new downtown underground parking structure taking shape on Thursday Photo by Ryan J. Stanton | AnnArbor.com

The Green Parking Council is a nonprofit group dedicated to expanding green parking practices through its Green Garage rating system. It developed the Demonstrator Site program as an evaluative tool to initiate the process toward Green Garage certification.”The GPC has created the Demonstrator Site program to bring recognition to those facilities that have committed to making an effort towards sustainability and who have made progress towards this end,” the group’s website states.

Miller cited several examples of the project’s commitment to sustainable practices. For instance, the excavated sand from the site is being reused as part of the structural concrete for the project, and all demolished concrete, asphalt and wood from the site has been recycled.

Also, all of the stormwater that falls on the site will be detained, in excess of city requirements, and energy-saving lights will be used that can cast lower light levels in off-peak periods.

When the structure opens, it’s expected to include 22 electric car charging stations and set aside prime parking spaces for alternative fueled vehicles.

DDA officials said this represents only the latest in a number of DDA initiatives to promote sustainability as a part of downtown development.

The DDA also has committed nearly $500,000 toward a program providing energy saving audits, recommendations and installation rebates to downtown businesses. DDA officials said the program has encouraged downtown building owners to make nearly $700,000 worth of improvements that are anticipated to save $87,000 a year in energy costs.

The DDA also has played a role in alternative transportation programs by covering 95 percent of the cost for the popular go!pass — a free bus pass for 7,100 employees — as well as bike hoops and lockers, commuter rail research, Zipcar sponsorship, and the getDowntown program. Additionally, the DDA provided the funds for the installation of a solar-electric demonstration project at the Farmers Market, downtown LED street lights, energy efficient upgrades at the Delonis Center and downtown sidewalk recycling containers.

An aerial photo of the Lee Road roundabout mess

There has been a lot of discussion lately about “Complete Streets” – streets that accommodate all forms of vehicular and pedestrian transportation. And that creates the problem: putting apparently incompatible forms of transportation in the same space.  The solution often seems to be to subdivide the “shared” street into segments using signage or markings or signals that serve various uses. There goes the basic concept of “shared” use.

Two different approaches to solving potential conflicts are:

A. Provide visual cues and minimize regulatory signage:  Deleting or minimizing signs and symbols in favor of subliminal or visual clues appears to engage people more quickly, partly because they are not sure what they are seeing, and partly because the primitive part of the brain that reads the visual cues is faster that the rational part of the brain.  The colors and shapes of stop signs and yield signs are probably more effective than the lettering.  Commercial examples of symbols that are totally effective without lettering (branding) include the Shell Oil sign and now the Starbucks symbol.

Or,

B. Plaster everything with regulatory signage:  Most of the designs for these streets are full of signs of all descriptions, painted lanes, stripes, arrows, stop bars, flashing lights, and more. Reading and following these signs requires a reaction from our frontal lobes, the rational part of the brain. 

A good example of traffic regulatory markings and signage gone awry is on the roundabouts at the US-23 expressway Lee Road exit between Ann Arbor and Brighton.  Each roundabout has a forest of signs and a carpet of stripes, arrows and what all, and lots of drivers trying to figure out what the signs all mean while avoiding other vehicles whose drivers are doing the same.  To make matters worse, the signage and markings on each roundabout is different.  The roundabout on the west side of the expressway is under Livingston County Road Commission jurisdiction and the one on the east is under Oakland County Road Commission jurisdiction.

In a backwards sort of way, the amount of signage and markings on the Lee Road roundabouts may effectively be about the same as having no signs at all.  The visual cloud of directions can be so overwhelming that drivers ignore everything, shut off their rational brains, and simply go slowly and negotiate positions and directions with the other drivers while using the survival mode in their primitive brains.

An article in the March 2011 American Planning Association Planning magazine by Raymond Heinrich and titled “Traffic Accidents Don’t Just Happen…They’re Caused” provides an interesting take on traffic safety and regulations:  “When it comes to safety, the message is plain:  We are relying on signs, road paint, and the wrong side of our brain for traffic management instead of pattern recognition for vehicle guidance.  We should be learning from neurologists and cognitive psychologists who say that subconscious cues can automatically take road safety up a notch.”

Earl Ophoff, RLA is a registered landscape architect and can be reached at Midwestern Consulting in Ann Arbor, Michigan (734.995.0200).