Ann 
Arbor 
residents 
gathered Tuesday night to 
discuss developing affordable 
housing at a meeting hosted 
by the city and SmithGroup, 
an 
architectural 
design 
firm. Held in the Downtown 
Development 
Ann 
Arbor 
Authority 
building, 
the 
meeting served as a follow-
up to a series of workshops 
held in December to garner 
community feedback about 
possible affordable housing 
sites. 
Attendees 
were 
handed 
a fact sheet that provided 
information about affordable 
housing in the city. In Ann 
Arbor, the area median income 
is $101,200. Families with 
incomes at 60 percent AMI or 
below qualify for affordable 
housing developed by the 
state, with affordable being 
defined as costing 30 percent 
or less of the household’s 
annual income. 
The 
lack 
of 
affordable 
housing in Ann Arbor has 
been a hot-button issue in 
recent years. In 2015, the 
city adopted a plan to create 
nearly 2,800 new affordable 
housing units by 2035, though 
less than 100 have been built 

since then.
Discussion at the meeting 
focused on redeveloping 350 
South 5th Ave., also known 
as the former Y-Lot, a site 
adjacent to the Ann Arbor 
District Library and Blake 
Transit Center. There was also 
a discussion of overhauling 
415 West Washington St., 
which is adjacent to the 
YMCA and the railroad track. 
Michael Johnson, an urban 
designer at SmithGroup, gave 
a presentation summarizing 
the results of surveys and 
feedback 
from 
community 
workshops 
regarding 
both 
sites. The results showed that 
respondents rated optimizing 
the number of affordable units 
for those with 60 percent AMI 
as the most important priority 
in redeveloping city-owned 
properties. 
Johnson 
summarized 
the 
community 
feedback 
into a set of assumptions in 
creating 
possible 
designs 
for new buildings in each lot 
and presented the preferred 
options to the audience. As 
he presented the possible 
designs, audience members 
shared criticisms. 
Johnson said the purpose 
of the meeting was to provide 
a space for the community 
to 
discuss 
and 
agree 
on 
requirements to set before the 
actual development process 

begins. 
“The hope is that based 
on what we’ve heard, we can 
begin a process that with the 
city’s assistance pre-entitles a 
series of criteria before even 
engaging a developer going 
through the next steps of that 
process,” Johnson said.
The proposed design for 
the former Y-Lot site included 
two 
buildings 
reaching 
a 
maximum of 200 feet and 
containing a total of 418 
units, 130 of which would 
be affordable housing. Some 
audience 
members 
shared 
concerns about the height of 
the building, while others felt 
it did not provide a sufficient 
number of affordable housing 
units.
The 415 W. Washington 
proposal, which contained 173 
total units with 15-20 percent 
affordable, raised additional 
concern from the community 
because of its location in a 
floodway 
and 
floodplain, 
which renders it ineligible to 
federal subsidies.
Some 
residents 
brought 
up concerns with parking 
and 
traffic 
congestion 
in 
the residential area. Others 
said they felt the location 
was unsafe for housing and 
advocated alternatives such as 
creating a park or community 
center. 
Ann Arbor resident Julia 

Goode expressed frustration 
with 
some 
community 
members’ 
unwillingness 
to 
consider 
the 
415 
W. 
Washington design proposal. 
“It felt like a ‘not in my 
backyard’ meeting,” Goode 
said. “People all started out in 
support of affordable housing, 
but as soon as it starts to 
get dense, then people get 
concerned about how big the 
building is, how tall — even 
though it’s not taller than 
the buildings around it — and 
that’s the only way you have 
affordable housing, is to build 
it denser, and that’s how you 
get cars off the street, by 
having a dense community so 
it becomes walkable.”
City 
Councilmember 
Ali 
Ramlawi, D-Ward 5, who was 
in 
attendance, 
encouraged 
attendees to be more open to 
the proposals brought forth 
by SmithGroup.
“I think the SmithGroup is 
listening to the community,” 
Ramlawi said. “I think we 
need to approach this with 
a little bit more optimism 
and go from there because 
we’re not really going to go 
anywhere if we think this is 
another exercise that goes 
nowhere.”
Reporter Angelina Little can 
be reached at anglit@umich.
edu. 

FE ATU RE

2A — Wednesday, February 26, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News

TUESDAY:
By Design 
THURSDAY:
Twitter Talk
FRIDAY:
Behind the Story

MONDAY:
Looking at the Numbers

WEDNESDAY:
This Week in History 

 ANGELINA LITTLE
Daily Staff Reporter

Urban designer from SmithGroup meets with community members to analyze and 
debate number of units of affordable housing included in various proposed plans

Discussion examines opportunities for 
 
redevelopment of two city locations 

Feb. 25, 1998: Hundreds rally for affirmative action

Hundreds 
of 
students 
attempted to capture the essence 
of the ‘60s and ‘70s social 
movements as they demonstrated 
support for affirmative action at 
the University yesterday.
The National Day of Action, 
designated by the Rev. Jesse 
Jackson as a day to support 
affirmative action nationwide, 
was celebrated at the University 
by a rally and march on the 
Diag, two teach-ins and a sit-in 
at Angell Hall. Event organizers 
also encouraged students to skip 
classes for the day.
The day hit close to home 
at the University in light of 
two lawsuits filed against the 

University last fall that target 
its use of race in admissions 
policies. 
“It’s 
important 
for 
the 
students to show the media and 
the nation that it’s not business as 
usual when affirmative action is 
under attack,” said Law second-
year student Kevin Pimentel. 
After 
the 
morning 
teach-
in, Pimentel stood before 250 
students who gathered on the 
Diag to rally for affirmative 
action. 
Pimentel 
described 
affirmative 
action 
as 
“the 
last game of the Civil Rights 
Movement that is still standing.” 
Pimentel said that although his 
classes at the Law School were 

not cancelled, his professors 
accommodated 
students 
by 
offering audio and video tapes of 
missed lectures to students who 
participated in the day’s events.
“I think we have had a great 
showing of the school,” Pimentel 
said. “The people are really 
listening to the speakers here at 
the rally and at the teach-in.”
University officials said no 
classes were officially cancelled 
for the events. But several 
professors and graduate student 
instructors offered alternatives 
for students who missed classes 
yesterday.
History GSI Alice Ritscherle 
said she encouraged her class to 

attend the sit-in to learn more 
about how diversity affects the 
campus. 
“I am going to let students 
make up their own minds,” 
Ritscherle said. “I think it’s 
an unusual case where a lot of 
different interest groups have 
come together and listened to 
each other seri- ously.”
About 20 high school students 
from Ann Arbor Huron High 
School 
and 
Detroit’s 
Cass 
Technical High School, several 
of whom spoke at the rally, came 
to campus to take part in the 
day’s events. 
Alianza Co-chair Diana Derige 
said yesterday’s demonstration 

in support of affirmative action 
should not be limited to one day. 
“We need to think ahead and 
show our solidarity together,” 
said Derige, an LSA junior. “The 
plight of minority students on 
campus goes beyond affirmative 
action.”
After the rally, nearly 250 
students 
marched 
through 
campus, 
crammed 
into 
the 
Angell Hall Fishbowl area and 
staged a sit-in. Students sat 
on the floor for three hours to 
hear testimoni- als about how 
affirmative action, racism and 
diversity have impacted the 
campus.
Organizers said they were 

pleased with the number of 
students who took part in the 
day’s events. 
“I’m really impressed with the 
tumout. I think it’s obvious that a 
lot of people support affirmative 
action and are willing to miss a 
day of class” said Law first- year 
student Meera Deo, a member of 
United for Affinnative Action.
Engineering 
sophomore 
Robert 
Green 
said 
he 
was 
impressed with the diversity of 
the crowd that attended the sit-
in. 
“We need to take a stand as 
students,” Green said. “Awesome 
turnout, but there could be many 
more.”

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RUCHITA IYER/Daily
Panelist speaks on the hidden plight of moderm farmers at Food Literacy for All, a weekly lecture series sponsored by the Sustainable Food Systems Initiative in Angell Hall 
Tuesday evening.

Pence opened his 30-minute 
speech 
by 
expressing 
his 
continued support for Trump 
and reminding the crowd that 
Michigan was a state Trump 
won back in 2016. 
“Here 
in 
Michigan, 
you 
believed 
we 
could 
be 
stronger,” 
Pence 
said. 
“You believed we could be 
prosperous again. You said 

‘yes’ to Donald Trump in 2016, 
and I know that Michigan is 
going to say ‘yes’ to four more 
years of President Trump.” 
Pence then talked about 
Trump’s immigration policies 
and 
the 
administration’s 
commitment 
to 
building 
a wall along the southern 
border. 
“Under 
the 
President’s 
leadership, we have made 
historic 
investments 
in 
border security and working 
on 
the 
crisis 
of 
illegal 

immigration on our border,” 
Pence said. “Once we secure 
our border, we’re going to 
pass immigration reform that 
puts America first.” 
According 
to 
the 
2018 
Enforcement 
and 
Removal 
report, ICE made 158,581 
administrative arrests in the 
2018 fiscal year, as opposed 
to the 143,470 arrests made in 
2017. 
Lastly, Pence talked about 
the Trump administration’s 
track record on promoting 

and creating manufacturing 
jobs. 
“Now, as I stand before you 
here today, I’ll tell you here 
in Michigan, the American 
economy is booming,” Pence 
said. 
“Since 
election 
day 
in 2016, almost 8 million 
jobs have been created by 
businesses, large and small, 
including 120,000 right here 
in the Great Lakes state.”

PENCE
From Page 1A

See PENCE, Page 3A

