Selling Park Land

A Tale of Bad Faith

Vol.1, Issue No. 1.

Ann Arbor (A2) politics and policy discussions can be confusing. Our fellow city residents - neighbors, if you will - are seemingly good, nice people, and overwhelmingly vote Democratic. Yet the divisiveness, especially since the advent of social media, can be intense. Debates are often mired in cross-cutting accusations of “misinformation,” “disinformation,” “false statements,” and “lies.” I believe most Ann Arborites believe they are speaking and want the truth. But the truth can be elusive, both because it takes a lot of often boring research, and language is slippery. Sometimes disagreements are rooted in semantics. I’m launching this blog mainly to share my understanding of local issues, to try as best I can to cut through linguistic confusions, and “deconstruct” what is actually going on and at stake. (It’s also a gentle play on words - A2 is in the midst of historic levels of new construction; this blog attempts to deconstruct the rhetoric and politics surrounding that and what it means for the city, among other things.)

To be up front about my political philosophy, I have never voted anything but Democratic except for my first presidential election in 1980, when I voted for the Independent, John Anderson. I’ve been a member of the Washtenaw County Democratic Party (but not active) and have donated exclusively to Democratic candidates. As some observers have noted, Ann Arbor presently appears to be divided between, on one side, what on a national level would be considered progressive Democrats (or even Social Democrats, e.g., supporters of Bernie Sanders) allied on certain issues with local Republicans (who may or may not also be MAGA Republicans), and on the other side, “neoliberal” Democrats in the mold of Bill Clinton and ersatz libertarians. Politics can make for strange bedfellows. I would place myself on the more social democratic end of the Democratic Party, very sympathetic to Social Democrats but still enough of an economic realist (as I see it) to have neoliberal ideas in me. Generally, regarding Republicans, I believe they sometimes diagnose problems well, but almost invariably push for counterproductive solutions. I hope this introduction will help dispel some misinterpretations of what I write and direct questions in a fruitful manner.

The two issues roiling A2 today are the Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP) revision that is underway, and Proposals A and B on the August 5 ballot, which would enable City Council to give away a central downtown space that was earmarked as a park by voters back in 2018. As there is an entire group devoted to pausing the CLUP, my time here seems better spent looking at the ballot proposals. The proposals are also close to my heart. Commuting to Dearborn at the time, I didn’t focus much on Ann Arbor politics until 2018, when I first heard of the proposal to turn the “library lot” into a park. NextDoor use was relatively new then (at least to me). I had no opinion. I didn’t know how I would vote. I sought to learn. I read social media, where discussion goes much deeper than our local press. What I found shocked me, and sent me on a path questioning the neoliberal consensus and their political tactics (in this, my experience is not that different from progressive Democrats in state and national politics). The proposals are essentially a continuation of that debate from seven years ago.

Since the pro-A and B side is much, much better funded and organized, and their messages are out there everywhere, this discussion will take the form of their talking points, one by one, each followed with a response. Let’s start with the “guide” published by one one of my City Council representatives, Erica Briggs.

“Over the last seven years, the City has explored developing a park or a civic center.”

Depends what “explored” means. This skims over an enormous amount of history. First, right out of the gate, once the ballot proposal was approved and it was in our city charter that the space was to be developed as a park, it should have been put in our Parks and Recreation Open Space (PROS) plan and rezoned from D1 (high-density mixed residential, office, and commercial development) to public land (the designation for almost all parks in A2). I partially fault the nonprofit behind the ballot proposal - which also became the community representative for the park and fundraising after the charter was amended, the Library Green Conservancy (LGC) - for not insisting at the time. Yet, as a partner in multiple public-private parks partnerships around town, city administrators and City Council knew how crucial at least putting it in the PROS plan was to raise private funds to implement the charter.

To illustrate, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources says that grant eligibility requires the land must be “encumbered for public, outdoor, recreation use only”.¹ PL zoning would have made that status clear. Grantees are “obligated to dedicate the project area to public outdoor recreation” and “use agreements will normally only be allowed if . . . the lessor is a . . . unit of government legally constituted to provide public recreation,” i.e., the Parks Department, which only has authority over parks in its PROS plan.² The Urban Institute notes that the public partner in public-private parks partnerships is virtually always a parks department, reiterating the best practice of inclusion in the PROS plan.³

The city similarly failed to follow best practices when it refused to sign an agreement, or Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), with the LGC. As the National Recreation and Park Association notes, it is “imperative to have a formally approved written agreement - a MOU”.⁴

All of these best practices are, upon reflection, self-evident. Grantors and donors want to know a park they are investing in will be there for the long haul and be dedicated to recreation, which typically requires inclusion in a city’s parks plan and zoning as public land dedicated to public use. If they give through a community nonprofit, they want to know that nonprofit has the authority to accept and deploy funds for the benefit of the city’s land, which is only guaranteed through a written agreement. This summary should make clear what is meant when it is said the city obstructed the LGC’s fundraising and development of a park.

So when the city says it “explored developing a park,” it means it talked about it. It didn’t actually implement the three fundamental, no-cost actions that are best practices - and sometimes required - for grants and major donations. They certainly didn’t make this mistake when it came to the Skatepark. The Skatepark was already in a PROS plan park zoned as public land (Vets), and the city wasted no time in signing an MOU before Friends of the Skatepark had raised much money at all. Subsequently, that group won hundreds of thousands of dollars in state and county grants. The LGC was never given the opportunity to even set the table to apply for such grants, despite the library lot being designated a park by voters in our city charter. Former City Council representative and political analyst Elizabeth Nelson covers this well in her section of this video, at 7:52, entitled, “The Myth of the Skatepark” (the whole video is well worth a watch).

It is worth noting that in its final report on May 4, 2023, the Council of the Commons, a body appointed by the mayor and City Council to study and make recommendations about the library lot, recommended entering a formal partnership with a community nonprofit, i.e., an MOU. Despite that report winning unanimous approval from the Council, which contained two sitting City Council members, the city never tried to implement this or any other of its many recommendations (among them, removing cars from the surface lot). At that same meeting, the Council endorsed a recommendation for the city to issue a request for proposal (RFP) to begin design work, with substantial funding from the LGC. City Council never acted on that recommendation, and the RFP has remained stuck in the city bureaucracy til this day.

Failing to follow best practices for public-private parks partnership fundraising and failing to implement recommendations from a body you yourself formed to guide successful development of a park can really only be called bad faith and obstruction. The claims that the city “explored developing a park” or that the “LGC failed” are substantially false. The responsibility rests on the city officials who didn’t take even the most basic steps to try to raise private money, or do more than talk, to implement the city charter amendment approved by the people.

“Ann Arbor residents have indicated a low preference for creating a new park on this parcel”

False or extremely selective use of data. This statement is based on one question in one survey that used a very small, non-random, easily biased sample. This is in comparison to a November, high-turnout election vote of all Ann Arborites. It’s also worth noting that that survey was set in the context of spending priorities for the Parks Department. If the city implemented the no-cost best practices enumerated above, there’s literally no reason this park could not be funded with private funds. With a partnership with the city, anything is possible; without it, nothing is. If respondents were asked if they would support a privately-funded park that would not take up the Parks Department budget, their responses might well have been very different.

Relying on that single survey also ignores the analysis of the Parks Department in that same PROS plan, which acknowledges that the downtown area has a far below average park-to-resident ratio and that opportunities for new open spaces should be explored.

But let’s dive deeper into that survey to see if it even indicates “low preference.” Residents ranked “downtown parks” in the middle of the pack of parks they had visited recently, ahead of pools, golf courses, and far ahead of the skatepark (which City Council nonetheless supports). In terms of funding, respondents supported downtown parks at the same rate as improving connections between parks (which the city nonetheless supports, through the Treeline and Border to Border trail), adding solar panels to park buildings, and adding splashpads. The answer on developing a “new” park didn’t separate out Liberty Plaza from the Library Lane parking lot, yet the responses still mirrored the 2018 vote: For a park on the Library Lot, 40.7% supported and only 36.2% didn’t. Even though it was a nonrandom sample, it still was consistent with the plurality of residents wanting to develop the library lot into a park. When asked to rank priorities, developing the Library Lot ranked right in the middle, 7 out of 13. None of this indicates “a low preference,” certainly no lower than for many other things the city funds and champions.

Let’s go back further. 2013’s Park Advisory Commission (PAC) Downtown Parks Subcommittee Report was a formal attempt to answer “how one or more [downtown] properties might be utilized for open space.” 76.2% of respondents said Ann Arbor would benefit from more downtown open space; only 15.3% said no. A stunning majority rejected the idea that we don’t “need another park/open space downtown.” A solid plurality expressed a preference for a “large park/open space” over a small or medium park. A majority said funding priority should be to fund both existing parks and create new parks, and 19.5% on top of that said we should prioritize funding new parks – i.e., 70% supported funding new parks. When asked about funding sources, 67.8% supported a combination of public and private funding (which, as discussed above, the city obstructed here). Astoundingly, when asked to rank the desirability of eight different city-owned spaces for a new downtown park, the Library Lot came in first, followed by the Y lot across the street! In the end, the report recommended a small park on the Library Lot, noting it was appropriate for a public-private partnership, but with a development that would create “eyes on the park.” This despite the public’s clear preference for a large park, and the already existing presence of businesses all around the space (Earthen Jar, Jerusalem Garden, the library) that could easily orient activities towards the park. And, of course, the city never took step one to be a public partner in a public-private partnership. They created commissions to talk. That’s all.

More recently, the library’s own survey shows great enthusiasm for a “space for kids to play safely outside” (#2 among proposed new amenities), an outdoor event space (#5), and a large venue for music (#8), all of which could be achieved under a public-private partnership in cooperation with the library. The library doesn’t have to own the space or be the primary programmer of all activity on it to have a play area and host large outdoor concerts (this would also be an excellent venue for Sonic Lunch). This is even among staunch library supporters, as evidenced by their support for Props A and B later in the survey. No survey question asked if respondents felt that new housing above the library in its current footprint would be sufficient and preferable so as to preserve a larger open space.

In all, Erica’s assertion is based on one flawed question in a nonrandom-sample survey, and is contradicted by all other evidence.

“These ballot proposals are consistent with the intent of the 2018 Charter Amendment. In 2018”

I find this a fairly outrageous assertion (one might even call it gaslighting) given that the chair of the LGC took the No position against Erica in the recent League of Women Voters (LWV) debate. The LGC does not feel these proposals are consistent with the intent of their own ballot initiative. Erica claims:

1. The props would keep public land for public use. First, semantics. This land is owned by the city, but it’s not zoned public land (one of my earlier points). Second, there is nothing in the language of the ballot proposals or the charter revisions they would implement (the wording of which, oddly, is quite different) that says the land must remain public or be put to public use. Instead, it enables the city to transfer its “interests” in the land to another public body, the library (AADL). Just as the city can sell interests in land it owns, so can this other public body. Third, the library has already said it intends to monetize at least a portion of the land by selling or leasing air rights; buyers could be public or private. A private developer buying or leasing air rights over public land would not “keep public land for public use.” It would be selling or leasing part of that land for private use.

2. Establish a town center and commons. This also depends on semantics (about which more below), but elides the fact that the 2018 ballot proposal and charter amendment also designated this land a park. The library’s plans for an open common space akin to a park are about the same size as Liberty Plaza, and 40% of that is the library lane, which will only be opened for events. Even counting the library lane, this is a space about eight times smaller. So these proposals would shrink the “town center” and “commons” to a small fraction of what the 2018 charter amendment intended, as ably articulated by the LGC chair in the LWV debate above.

3. Preserve the possibility of a future civic center building. Well, that is possible today. These proposals are unnecessary to achieve that objective.

Other Voices

Other pro-Prop A and B communications have been coming out as August 5 approaches. Let’s examine some of the additional claims they are making. Here’s a recent video by a young woman who touts Dan Adams, a major donor to the mayor’s political coalition whom the mayor appointed to Planning Commission. It’s a cool, slick bit of public relations, but full of dubious assertions. E.g., she says:

1. “The LGC claimed they would pay for this park privately, without the city having to pay for it.” False. Two members of the LGC said that IF the city designated it a park, they felt they could raise sufficient funds. As shown above, the city never designated it a park for purposes of funding. You don’t have to believe me that putting it in the PROS plan is necessary for it to be considered a park in this sense. In its recent “debunking” of what it calls “misinformation” (itself arguably an act of disinformation), AADL goes out of its way to argue that of course the library lot is not a park: “The surface of the Library Lane parking structure is not parkland. . . . the surface parking lot has not been developed into a city park and is not maintained by the Ann Arbor Parks & Recreation department.” I.e., they claim if it’s not in the PROS plan, it’s not a park. So the basic condition LGC members put on their ability to fundraise was never met by the city. The city is responsible. (“Stop selling park land” is nonetheless, regardless of AADL’s protestations, a truthful slogan; our city charter sets aside that land for development of a park.)

2. “The proposition that [the LGC] got passed in 2018 has been essentially holding this parking lot hostage.” False. It is the city’s failure to put in place basic, no-cost, public-parks partnership best practices that has stopped the LGC, the city, or any other community partner from being able to raise money or move forward with 2018’s proposition. It is the city’s actions that have been “holding this parking lot hostage.”

3. “What we voted for in 2018 is no longer relevant with what we need in our affordable housing crisis.” Dan Adams and this woman are entitled to their opinions, of course, but saying a vote from just seven years ago is not “relevant,” or that the surveys over the past decade or more, including the recent PROS plan, don’t matter (as explained above), is disrespectful of citizen input and democracy. Moreover, Ann Arbor’s CLUP revision promises to open up virtually every parcel in the city to greater development, increasing supply of luxury, market rate, and, hopefully, affordable housing. Supply can be met without this parcel. The library lot is a unique central parcel, identified as such in the William Street Corridor and Downtown Parks reports. It’s nonsense to say we can’t have even one parcel newly dedicated to park space downtown. That’s an extremist position that implies we can’t have new parks anywhere downtown lest they hurt affordability. This is not the position of the Parks Department or the PROS plan, or of city planners around the world. It sounds more like an ideologically-driven dogma.

4. “This parking lot structure . . . was built with the intention that it could support a 20-story building on top.” Economics 101 calls that a “sunk cost”, which is irrelevant to deciding how to use an asset moving forward. She is arguing that her purposes for this land are better and more valuable than a park. Well, that’s precisely the question. She’s simply presupposing the answer.

5. “Turning this into a park would literally void the warranty [on the underground parking garage].” No evidence. The document she herself shows quotes someone saying that using the Library Lane (not even the whole lot) as a park “could” require repairing the waterproofing system “as it would likely be damaged during demolition,” voiding the 15-year warranty. So, first, her statement is false (“would literally void”). Second, there is no reason a park design has to entail "demolishing" the structure or damaging the waterproofing system (think about what a plaza-park looks like). In addition, the parking structure is approaching the end of its 15-year warranty. Any new work would come with its own new warranty. In all, this claim seems like a scare tactic. She’s provided no reason why the warranty, soon to expire anyway, would be voided.

6. “We could have affordable housing, a new library, and a city plaza all in one.” Yes, we can have all of those things without touching the library lot. That’s pretty much the point. “Senior, workforce,” etc. housing can be built over the existing library footprint, not to mention across the street on the Y lot, and many other places in the city. But this is the only place we can have a plaza that allows for much larger gatherings, events, and concerts, and is a more inclusive, inviting open space for residents and visitors traversing Main to State streets, visiting the library or waiting for a bus, or looking for a nice place to sit and eat on their lunch break. And more.

7. “[The library] is over capacity and it has structural issues.” Questionable. AADL’s own annual report shows decreased visitors and holdings over recent years. And structural issues can always be addressed (our own Office of Sustainability encourages refurbishment and reuse). But are these points even relevant? If the library wants to build a bigger new awesome library at minimal cost – which I’m sure most Ann Arborites would love - it can do so by selling the air rights to the property it sits on today, as the library director has explained. Would having the library lot, too, mean they would have to spend even less money? Of course. But if the ability to monetize air rights over its existing footprint, as well as its ability to ask for a millage as it did last time it wanted to tear down this library, aren’t enough, doesn’t that raise a question about the library and its board? How much does the city owe them, when it has its own pressing financial needs? One can love libraries (my family pays almost $400/year funding the library’s millage, and doesn’t resent a penny), support their ability to monetize their air rights over their existing footprint, and still agree that enough is enough.

8. “A downtown library is a city center.” This depends on semantics with the term “city center.” City centers are thought of as outdoor public open spaces. A library is not public open space or a park or a plaza. It is not outdoors. It is closed during many hours. And the outdoor space proposed under A & B is about eight times smaller than what would be preserved under honoring of 2018’s charter amendment.

9. “The LGC is going to claim they are close to funding what they need.” False. As explained above, the LGC cannot and has never claimed to be able to fundraise for this public-private partnership without cooperation from the public side, i.e., the city. Cooperation that would literally cost the city nothing.

10. “The library we currently have [can’t] build affordable housing on top of its building.” Specious. It can build housing, but not affordable housing? Something not penciling out the way you would like and being unable to do something are two different things.

11. “[The LGC] isn’t being truthful.” Projecting? If anything, the points above suggest quite the opposite. The truth is, the LGC never promised to fund a park privately without city cooperation, the city’s inaction (not 2018’s charter amendment) is “holding this parking lot hostage,” 2018’s vote and numerous surveys are very relevant, the foundation is a sunk cost that’s irrelevant to current choices, the warranty needn’t be voided, a new library can be built without the library lot, what’s being proposed distorts the concept of a “city center,” the LGC has never claimed to be close to raising the needed funding without a public partner, and affordable housing can be built across the street (which is already being planned) and many, many other places throughout the city. It’s hard to imagine a more consistent stream of misleading or false statements than the talking points in this video.

Conclusion

This has already gone on too long, but it is a function of the many dubious arguments that have been proffered to vilify the LGC and promote Props A and B. Next time I’ll look at the library’s own messaging.

1. Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Michigan Naatural Resources Trust Fund 2022 Application Guidelines, p. 4.

2. Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Development Grant Project Procedures, revised September 8, 2022, p. 6.

3. Chris Walker, Partnerships for Parks: Lessons from the Lila-Wallace-Reader’s Digest Urban Parks Program, The Urban Institute, 1999, pp. 8-9.

4. National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA), Park and Recreation Professionals’ Guide to Fundraising, p. 17.