Martin Bouma has watched housing prices climb and climb over the 41 years he's been a realtor in Ann Arbor.
"I remember the days when you could buy a ranch on the west side of Ann Arbor for $120,000," Bouma said. "But it's to the point now, where if somebody tells me, Martin, I can spend $300,000 [to] $350,000, they're pretty much priced out of the housing market in Ann Arbor, except for condominiums."
That means many middle class households can't afford to buy a house here, and it's no better for renters. Bouma said his own adult son pays $1,700 dollars a month for a two-bedroom apartment in Ann Arbor.
"When you're young — someone who's just getting started — that's pretty steep," he said.
Ann Arbor voters approved a millage in 2020 to subsidize low income housing. But city leaders say housing affordability is a big problem for everyone — and being a place where only the affluent can afford to live in doesn't match the city's progressive values.
The solution, the city council decided in 2023, is a new Comprehensive Land Use Plan, or CLUP. The council told the city's planning commission to develop the CLUP to set the stage for a later city-wide rezoning process, with the goal of harnessing the power of the free market to increase housing density — building up, not out.
In residential areas, the resultant CLUP would allow more than one unit to be built on a lot. That could include duplexes or triplexes up to three floors in height, where only a single unit is allowed now. In other moderately developed areas of Ann Arbor, there could be even taller four- to six-unit housing. Finally, in areas with significant commercial activity, high-rise housing.
Over time, that could significantly change the look and feel of the city.
Lisa Disch is a member of Ann Arbor's city council and planning commission. She is confident in the planning commission's research, but said some people still insist that housing follows different rules in the marketplace than everything else. "Does supply and demand work in the case of housing?" she asked rhetorically. "Yes, it does."
Disch said greater supply drives down housing prices even when new housing targets higher income people. The shortage is so bad in Ann Arbor, she said, affluent buyers are out-competing the less affluent. They're buying homes below their price range. Then they tear them down and build bigger single-family homes in their place.
"When you have (more) supply, those people will go to their appropriate rung in the market, and leave lower-cost housing open to others," she said.
Disch said this same principle applies to the rental market too. The principle is called a "vacancy chain," she said. More affluent renters leave their current places for newer units, allowing less affluent renters to move into the units they have left behind.
An overflow crowd came to the planning commission's February 18 meeting, with a vote on the fourth and final draft of the CLUP on the agenda. People lined up to comment, with about half expressing concern that the plan would destroy the character of residential neighborhoods, and allow unrestrained development.
Greg Monroe said he agrees that there should be more housing in Ann Arbor, but he thinks the CLUP is not protective enough of the environment or of people and businesses already in Ann Arbor.
"What do we lose in the process? Our natural features, mature tree canopy, local small businesses," Munroe said. "And it seems like whatever the outcome, we can always say, well, we haven't built enough yet."
But many others expressed support for the plan, including Stacy Mates.
"In the last few years houses in our neighborhood are selling for close to a million dollars," Mates said. "And I like our neighbors. I like the lawyers and the doctors who are moving in. But I would also like to have teachers, and nurses. I'd love if my dental hygienist could live in Ann Arbor instead of commuting in from Canton."
It was a long meeting. Four and a half hours later — and after more than two years of work on the plan — the planning commission's vote was unanimous. The group approved the CLUP and sent it to the full city council for a vote.
The final draft of the plan will go before the city council on March 16, where the vote to formally adopt it is also expected to be unanimous.
That's only half the battle, though. After the CLUP's approval, the planning commission would take up the equally laborious task of rezoning the city. That's likely when residents will get a clearer picture of how the plan will affect their own neighborhood.
