BUSINESS
From Page 5C

Ladd also cited the need for housing affordable to the workforce, but 

said she thought costs were going up commensurate with national trends 
and the local population.

“We’ve always been pretty prosperous in Ann Arbor,” she said. “The 

standards of living and I think the earning capacity of people that live 
in Ann Arbor has very much increased and so that has an effect on the 
prosperity of downtown. I don’t think we’re pricing people out downtown.”

Finding a balance
When it comes down to the policy on how to create that affordable 

housing and how cost of living increases should be treated overall, the 
issue has been contentious for years.

At a Council retreat for strategic planning in 2012, former Ann Arbor 

Mayor John Hieftje said the city had become gentrified, according to 
MLive.

“I’ve seen the city gentrified from the time that I’ve been here,” Hieftje 

said. “It’s less affordable now, and I think that’s something we can’t ever 
forget. We have to continue to work in that area. We can’t forget that we 
need to make it possible for others to live here who may not have the best 
of jobs.”

A year later, at another retreat, multiple members of Council raised 

concerns about cost of living, and affordable housing was also an oft-
mentioned topic of discussion in the 2014 Council and mayoral races. Most 
recently, in the 2015 Council elections, it resurfaced as a focus for multiple 
candidates.

Krapohl, who was elected in 2014, said he thought keeping housing 

affordable downtown would continue to be an ongoing issue for Council.

“I just don’t see how we’re going to get around it,” he said. “Because 

it’s an issue that affects multiple income levels within the city and our 
residents. And we have a relatively diverse economic group here and for 
the health of a city, the health and growth of any city you need to maintain 
that. And a big part of that is having affordable housing.”

So far, he said, it’s been hard to find a policy to promote affordable 

housing that had a long-term impact.

In many ways, Briere said, City Council is limited in what it can and 

can’t do.

The state doesn’t allow the city to mandate building sizes, or require 

that developers building downtown also build affordable housing. Nor 
is funding generally available to increase housing downtown through a 
government effort.

“The reason the Council hasn’t moved forward is it doesn’t have 

sufficient revenue itself to put aside many, many millions of dollars to 
build and then support enough housing for young workers, for retirees, for 
people who are earning but who aren’t able to afford to live in Ann Arbor,” 
she said. “Being able to provide housing for people who are living in public 
housing is pretty much the maximum we can do, at least today. It’s a source 
of frustration, and I don’t have an answer. If I did, I’d be promoting that 
answer.”

Beyond the numbers, discussing the changing face of downtown also 

raises another series of concerns — what it means for the character of the 
city.

“The fear that the people have who want the community to be stable 

rather than growing significantly is that not only will the charm that 
Ann Arbor possesses disappear, but also that the sudden growth will be 
followed by shrinkage,” Briere said. “And all of the changes will occur 
and then the new buildings will become derelict, the old houses will be 
abandoned, because the change is not sustainable.”

Others, she noted, think that change is what builds the city’s character, 

creating two ideas about the city’s future with vastly different outcomes.

Overall, Krapohl said there’s no easy answer to what the balance should 

be between growth downtown and cost of living, or how to to mitigate 
unintended effects that might come from it.

However, he noted that the solution might lie in a new approach to 

looking at the issue — thinking of development of the downtown, and 
development of the neighborhoods around it as a single concept, not ones 
at opposition.

“It’s a nice thing with some of the new development, new building,” 

Krapohl said. “It strengthens the city center. To me the city is like a wagon 
wheel, and the downtown area is like the wagon hub, and you have to have 
a strong hub for the spokes of the neighborhood going out. I think there’s a 
lot of discussion at times, the development of the downtown at the expense 
of the neighborhoods, that to me I think they have to go together.”

Wednesday, October 21, 2015 // The Statement
8C

