Development proposals for site must include 100 affordable units

One hundred units of affordable housing will likely stay at the site of the YMCA building, in Ann Arbor's downtown.

The Ann Arbor City Council voted 10-1 to approve requests to develop the YMCA property at its Monday night meeting. Only proposals with the 100 units of affordable housing on the site, located at 350 S. Fifth Ave., will be accepted. Developers won't be allowed to look for less expensive places to build the affordable housing further away from the downtown, where the cost of land can be half as much. The proposals are due in 90 days.

"I think it is bad policy to limit our options," said City Council Member Mike Reid, R-2nd Ward, who cast the lone no vote. "I'm stunned we would enact policies that limit our options when we have such a large financial interest."

The City Council bought the old YMCA building a year ago for $3.5 million. The new Ann Arbor YMCA is being built on Washington and Third streets and is scheduled to open next spring. The city trumped the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority's bid in buying the building, in part to preserve the option of 100 units of affordable housing.

The council wants a diverse community downtown as it debates how to lure more residents to live in the center of the city. To do it, many believe they have to offer opportunities to middle- and low-income residents.

The dilemma the council is facing is how to get developers to build low-cost housing on pricey downtown property. Developers have complained its hard to make a profit on downtown projects when they have to build affordable housing in exchange for certain zoning changes.

The council recently allowed them to make contributions to an affordable housing fund in lieu of building those units in some cases.

But the proposal for development of the Y building will have to include the 100 units. The monthly payments for the units could range from $300 to $500.

Although the City Council can later ask for proposals that would build the affordable housing elsewhere, that's unlikely since the majority wouldn't consider that Monday.

Besides Reid, Mayor John Hieftje and Council Members Marcia Higgins, D-4th Ward, and Leigh Greden, D-3rd Ward, said they wanted to look at plans for moving the affordable housing off site.

Greden was the first to point out that by limiting the proposals to 100 units on site, the city could miss out on better solutions. But Greden said everyone but Reid voted yes because they knew they didn't have the votes to expand the proposal.

Council Member Jean Carlberg, D-3rd Ward, said it was important to keep the units on the YMCA property.

Carlberg said the city needs more of those kinds of low-priced units downtown, not less. And she said if developers have sites for affordable housing away from the downtown, that's good, too.

Carlberg also said at the Y building, there isn't the opposition from businesses or residents about who will live in the more affordable housing.

But Higgins said residents' concerns are sometimes unfounded. She pointed to concerns about the Robert J. Delonis Center, the homeless shelter that was built about a year ago on Huron Street.

Higgins said she's heard of no public complaints since the shelter was built.

Tom Gantert can be reached at tgantert@annarbornews.com or (734) 994-6701.