A view of the Library Lot from the balcony of the Denali condo building, 322 E. Liberty St., in Ann Arbor on Oct. 31, 2018. Proponents of a central park on this site envision a park starting at ground level along Fifth Avenue with a tiered level stepping up over the underground parking ramp area here in the foreground with a link over to Liberty Plaza through property to be redeveloped by Ann Arbor developer First Martin Corp., while opponents of the park proposal support a 17-story high-rise development on the Library Lot with a smaller, developer-funded plaza and new revenue for affordable housing, schools and other services. (Jacob Hamilton | The Ann Arbor News)

ANN ARBOR, MI - It's a question that's been hotly debated and has left members of the Ann Arbor community divided.

Proposal A on the Nov. 6 ballot in Ann Arbor asks voters whether the city charter should be amended to require all city-owned land on the downtown library block to remain under public ownership in perpetuity and be developed as an urban park and civic center commons known as the "Center of the City."

The city-owned property on the block includes the Library Lot, which is the surface of the city's underground parking garage along Fifth Avenue next to the downtown library, and Liberty Plaza, a sunken concrete park at Liberty and Division.

Prop A’s approval could potentially halt the city’s plans to sell the Library Lot to Chicago developer Core Spaces for $10 million. Core Spaces wants to build a 17-story high-rise including a hotel, apartments, retail and office space, and a developer-funded plaza that would be slightly bigger than Liberty Plaza and function like a city park.

Some in the community are supporting the Core Spaces development, while others are rallying behind the idea of a larger downtown central park.

Here are six voices for the proposal and six voices against it.

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Downtown business owner Claire Tinkerhess poses inside her store, Fourth Ave Birkenstock, 209 N. Fourth Ave., in Ann Arbor on Oct. 31, 2018. She's in favor of Prop A, the central park proposal. (Jacob Hamilton | The Ann Arbor News)

Claire Tinkerhess, downtown business owner

Claire Tinkerhess, owner of Fourth Ave Birkenstock, is a longtime Ann Arbor resident and downtown business owner who sees a need for a downtown central park.

“I think at the heart of the issue for me is just wanting to retain that in public ownership — that space, that land,” she said. “I think there’s so much development pressure on the downtown and there’s so many out-of-town developers investing in Ann Arbor, and sometimes it feels kind of hopeless to fight against that.”

She sees Prop A as one way to keep something for Ann Arbor and create a space where the community can come together.

“It’s been a really hard-fought citizen effort to bring this about, to give us this choice to retain this land in public ownership, and I think that we should do that,” she said, suggesting it would be risky to let the property fall into private hands and expect that a plaza would always be maintained there for the longterm.

Tinkerhess and her husband, Paul, started the popular Water Hill Music Festival in their neighborhood several years ago, featuring musicians, including their own family band, playing music on porches throughout the Water Hill neighborhood.

Tinkerhess said she sees the same kind of community effort and visioning happening around the central park space.

“I’m excited about the idea of what might happen in that space, and how we might improve our public spaces downtown,” she said, suggesting it could bring about changes to Liberty Plaza, which has its challenges now.

Tinkerhess said it’s unfortunate that the issue of affordable housing has gotten mixed up with the central park proposal. Opponents of Prop A argue selling the Library Lot to Core Spaces would bring in millions of dollars needed for affordable housing, but Tinkerhess thinks the community is wealthy enough to fund both affordable housing and a downtown central park without selling the Library Lot.

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Doug Kelbaugh, a professor at the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, poses in his home at the Armory condominiums, 223 E. Ann St., in Ann Arbor on Oct. 31, 2018. He's against Prop A. (Jacob Hamilton | The Ann Arbor News)

Doug Kelbaugh, University of Michigan architecture and urban planning professor

Downtown resident Doug Kelbaugh, a University of Michigan architecture and urban planning professor, believes the Library Lot is the wrong place for a large park.

“Yes, we do need a commons,” he said. “But we need one on terra firma.”

Kelbaugh said he consulted on the underground parking garage project and the deck was designed to support a high-rise with a plaza along Fifth Avenue.

“We specifically undersized the columns at the front so there would be a 10,000 to 12,000-foot plaza, and if any tall building happened it would be in the middle of the block where it doesn’t loom over the streets,” he said. “The Core proposal has done exactly that.”

Kelbaugh argues Prop A is a bad proposal and would be one of the city’s worst decisions in decades if voters approve it.

“Parks on decks are mediocre parks,” he said, arguing the garage is not designed to support big trees except for some over columns, and he believes trying to create a tiered plaza over “those onerous and conspicuous parking ramps” would be a challenge.

“And importantly there are no buildings fronting it,” he said of the Library Lot, suggesting good urban parks have front doors facing them.

Kelbaugh said Ann Arbor needs more people living downtown to reduce traffic congestion and carbon emissions, and the Core Spaces project would add 360 apartments.

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Frank Wilhelme, former director of the Historical Society of Michigan, poses outside the West Side Book Shop, one of three historic buildings on Liberty Street he fought to preserve when they were considered for demolition in the 1970s, on Oct. 31, 2018. He's in favor of Prop A. (Jacob Hamilton | The Ann Arbor News)

Frank Wilhelme, historic preservationist

Longtime Ann Arbor resident Frank Wilhelme, former executive director of the Historical Society of Michigan and chairman of the city’s Historic District Commission in the 1970s, sees Prop A as an opportunity to restore a public town square in the heart of downtown, making up for the one it lost when courthouse square was redeveloped in the 1950s. After all, he asks, what great American city doesn’t have one at its center?

“And we really don’t,” he said. “It’s not West Park. It’s not the Diag. Where is it?”

Wilhelme said he personally collected somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 petition signatures between two attempts to get Prop A on the ballot, and he views it as a David-versus-Goliath effort. After Nov. 6, if Prop A passes, he hopes to put his energy into raising community donations to fund the central park.

During a nearly 30-year career at the University of Michigan’s business school, retiring as assistant dean for development and alumni relations in 2009, Wilhelme worked to raise funds for a number of different projects.

“A lot of that money went for construction and open courtyards, etc.,” he said. “I only wished I had a project like this.”

Wilhelme sees the central park as a community partnership, and he hopes it can come together in time to celebrate Ann Arbor’s bicentennial in 2024.

He said he wants to see a nice public space downtown where residents and visitors can go and not have to buy a $6 latte for the right to sit at a table or bench.

“There’s just not a civic center, a public square or an urban park, and our vision is that it will be all of those things, that really belongs to the people of Ann Arbor, and I think it would be a wonderful gift to the city to observe its 200th birthday,” he said.

“This is a town that really values its history,” he said. “We have 14 historic districts, 1,800 structures protected under state law and local ordinance. We’re going to have a participatory process. I only wished I had this kind of setup to raise serious money for a community benefit. It’s going to happen.”

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Matthew Altruda, local music promoter and Sonic Lunch concert series organizer, poses at Liberty Plaza on Nov. 1, 2018. He's against Prop A. (Jacob Hamilton | The Ann Arbor News)

Matthew Altruda, local music promoter and Sonic Lunch organizer

Local music promoter and Sonic Lunch organizer Matthew Altruda, host of the Tree Town Sound radio show on 107.1 FM, is against Prop A and instead supports the Core Spaces development proposal for the Library Lot.

Altruda recently started a discussion about it on the “official” townie Facebook page, asking whether Ann Arbor really needs a downtown park “that no one will go to.”

On Thursdays in the summer, Altruda helps bring Liberty Plaza alive with Bank of Ann Arbor’s Sonic Lunch concert series, but other times the space has its challenges, including regular reports of crime and drug activity.

Altruda said he loves city parks and loves programming them and creating lifelong memories in them, but he’s voting no on Prop A. He said a central park is a great idea, but putting it on the Library Lot is a terrible idea, especially when taxpayers would be paying for it and, in his view, it would just be expanding Liberty Plaza.

“To have a successful urban park you need serious foot traffic on all sides or at least three sides and this isn't the case here,” Altruda wrote in a Facebook post, saying he wants to help position Ann Arbor for a stronger, more affordable future.

Altruda said he’d rather see a development that brings in more than $2 million per year in tax revenue than “a city park in the wrong place with zero budget to get built.”

“We need to position Ann Arbor for the future with affordable housing and more options for people to live downtown,” he said. “This amazing building will be incredible for downtown and has a park atmosphere that we don't have to pay for.”

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Maggie Hostetler and Lorri Sipes and pose on their balcony overlooking the Library Lot at the Denali condo building, 322 E. Liberty St., in Ann Arbor on Oct. 31, 2018. They're in favor of Prop A. (Jacob Hamilton | The Ann Arbor News)

Maggie Hostetler and Lorri Sipes, condo neighbors next to Library Lot

From the balcony of their fourth-floor condo in the Denali building where they’ve lived for four years, Maggie Hostetler and Lorri Sipes, like some of their neighbors, have a south-facing view overlooking the Library Lot and beyond.

They’d rather look out at a park than the side of a 17-story high-rise blocking out the sun and scenery they now enjoy.

“We’re in favor of the park proposal because there are only two options, either a park or the Core development, and we think the Core development is completely out of scale,” Sipes said. “It’s surrounded by three historic districts that are on average two stories tall. This is not a place for a 17-story high-rise. It’s going to add over 1,000 people every day to this block of downtown. It’s massive and the impact for the whole neighborhood is going to be just increasing traffic, increasing crowding.”

If the Core Spaces building is built, they joke they’ll have the best view of a hotel room in Ann Arbor, as floors three through six would include hotel rooms.

“Our view will no longer will be the sky. It will be a hotel room 16 feet from us,” Sipes said. “We won’t have any sunlight any time of the day. We’ll have a side view of the sunset and the sunrise, but that’s it, so we’ll really lose all the natural light that we have.”

Sipes, a retired architect, said they’ve tried to get Core Spaces to change the building design, potentially increasing it in height to make the footprint smaller so it steps further away from their condo building, but that hasn’t happened.

Hostetler and Sipes say they’re disappointed that Prop A opponents have characterized this as an affordable housing issue when what’s proposed is expected to be a mix of luxury housing with some workforce housing set at 150 percent of fair market rent.

They don’t see the $5 million in one-time sale proceeds earmarked for affordable housing as being that significant, and they say it won’t solve Ann Arbor’s affordability problems.

“I’m for affordable housing. This is not the answer,” Sipes said, suggesting the community can come together to fund affordable housing.

“Let’s do it as a community. Let’s get behind it,” she said.

“If every person in Ann Arbor puts $50 in the pot, that’s $5 million,” Hostetler said. “It’s not so big when you just split it up with people.”

Hostetler said she knows a lot of people have concerns about Liberty Plaza, but she thinks the problems there stem from design, and she thinks a central park on the Library Lot could be an attractive space with a more open feel.

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Tony Pinnell poses in front of his Burns Park area home on Oct. 30, 2018. He's against Prop A. (Jacob Hamilton | The Ann Arbor News)

Tony Pinnell, Burns Park area resident

Burns Park area resident Tony Pinnell, who works as a language translator for a large German corporation that does energy and mobility projects, says he’s for a green downtown as much as anybody, but the surface of an underground parking garage is not the best place to try to make it happen.

“This is Tree Town – we don’t do scrub pines in concrete bunkers here. You can’t grow beautiful tall trees on steel-reinforced concrete,” he wrote in an open letter, encouraging fellow community members not to be fooled by people saying you’re either “for” or “against” a downtown park depending on how you vote on Prop A.

“Everyone wants green space downtown, so let’s plant the green flag on one of our other lots, one where trees and grass can actually grow.”

Pinnell thinks it would end up costing taxpayers a lot of money to try to create a park atop the Library Lot garage, and he argues it would amount to taking one of downtown’s most valuable properties to replicate Liberty Plaza on a larger scale.

He also argues there wouldn’t be much of a view of anything attractive surrounding a park there and he’s not sure why Prop A proponents are so fixated on the Library Lot when there are other city-owned lots downtown offering “far superior qualities in every way” for green space, where tall shade trees could grow. He points to the Y Lot lot across the street, the parking lot at Main and William next to the Palio restaurant, and what he considers “the jewel in the crown” — the Kline Lot at the northeast corner of Ashley and William streets “with its clear, beautiful outlook to the Old West Side.”

Pinnell said the city’s plan in place for the Core Spaces development not only yields financial benefits for affordable housing, roads, basic services and schools, but also includes a plaza with stakeholder oversight and the bustling activity the space needs.

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Vince Caruso, local Sierra Club board member and coordinating member of the Allen's Creek Watershed Group, poses at Eberwhite Nature Area near his home in Ann Arbor on Oct. 30, 2018. He's in favor of Prop A. (Jacob Hamilton | The Ann Arbor News)

Vince Caruso, local environmentalist

Vince Caruso, a local Sierra Club board member and coordinating member of the Allen's Creek Watershed Group, said other communities have been successful at creating green spaces in challenging urban environments and he thinks Ann Arbor can do the same.

“If you look at some of the very successful cities in America, especially, say, let’s look at New York — they have the High Line,” he said, referring to an elevated linear greenway park atop an old railroad line in New York City. “It’s up on an old track. It’s lots of concrete. Somehow they were able to put a lot of plantings there.”

Caruso notes it’s been reported that the High Line has helped attract billions of dollars worth of new developments around it.

“When they came and presented to us in Ann Arbor, they said, ‘Well, we’re not as great as the Sphinx in Egypt, but we actually have a lot more people visiting us than the Sphinx.’ It actually generated $2 billion in investments within a few short years. It’s hugely popular,” he said. “And I think Ann Arbor needs a green space in our downtown. We need a green space where people can sit and meet their friends, not have to spend money.”

Caruso noted the University of Michigan did a study in partnership with other universities showing walking through nature can help lower depression and stress.

“And they do better than when they take anti-depressants and there’s no side effects. You know, it calms you,” he said. “There’s something in our psyche that we need green space, and I think this is a great example of why we want a green space in the downtown.

“We have all these people moving downtown. They need a place to take their grandkids, to take their kids.”

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Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor poses outside Larcom City Hall, 301 E. Huron St., on Nov. 1, 2018. He's against Prop A. (Jacob Hamilton | The Ann Arbor News)

Christopher Taylor, Ann Arbor mayor

Mayor Christopher Taylor is actively campaigning against the central park proposal, arguing the city has no money for it and it would be a failure.

"Do you have any idea how many millions of taxpayer dollars it will cost to build, program, and maintain an 'urban park and civic center commons'?" Taylor wrote in a letter to residents. "I don't either, but I do know that we do not have millions of dollars reserved for this purpose, and I do know that an 'urban park and civic center commons' does not pay for itself and the current proposal has no budget, no plan, and no funding."

Instead of having city residents fund Prop A’s vision for the Library Lot, Taylor supports selling the development rights to Chicago developer Core Spaces for $10 million and letting the developer pay to create a 12,000-square-foot plaza as part of its 17-story development, a deal already tentatively approved by the city.

The developer has said the plaza would be available for regular public use, potentially including outdoor concerts and other activities.

Taylor believes the city would be able to leverage the money from the Library Lot sale to secure substantially more outside funding and build hundreds of new affordable housing units in the city. He also doesn’t want to miss out on millions in new tax revenue “and be forced to either raise taxes or re-allocate millions of parks dollars to build and operate a failed park in the middle of our downtown.”

"The passage of City Proposal A will sentence the Library Lot to remain what it is today: desolate and uninviting,” Taylor argues.

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Mary Hathaway poses in front of an aerial map of Ann Arbor at Hathaway's Hideaway, 310 S. Ashley St., in Ann Arbor on Nov. 1, 2018. The map is a composite of aerial photographs taken on April 19, 1960. She's in favor of Prop A. (Jacob Hamilton | The Ann Arbor News)

Mary Hathaway, longtime park proponent

Ann Arbor resident Mary Hathaway, a longtime proponent of a park on the downtown library block, owns Hathaway's Hideaway, which is serving as the campaign headquarters for the Ann Arbor Central Park Ballot Committee. She issued an open response to the mayor's letter, offering a different perspective.

"Why does an urban park evoke such pessimism?" she wrote. "Downtown parks can be well-designed attractions. In other cities they even serve as economic engines, giving vitality to the surrounding neighborhood. Why do you assume the worst for our city?"

Other than designating the land as an urban park and civic center commons, Hathaway said, Prop A would not impose any particular vision for what that should look like, and it would be up to the people of Ann Arbor to decide what they want.

Hathaway said her group has offered some ideas, but the hope is that the community would create a collective vision.

As for the definition of a commons, she said, it’s “land or resources belonging to or affecting the whole of a community.”

"By retaining public land at the center of the city, we can take a more holistic approach to planning for development on the Library Block,” she wrote. “Rather than looking at a parcel in isolation and insisting on maximum development of a 17-story tower (or one even taller than that), we should look for an integrative approach that strengthens the relationships between the neighboring structures and welcomes pedestrian movement. Planning for this should begin immediately after voters approve Proposal A."

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Linh Song, a member of the Ann Arbor District Library Board of Trustees, poses outside the library's main branch, 343 S. Fifth Avenue in downtown Ann Arbor on Oct. 26, 2018. She's against Prop A. (Jacob Hamilton | The Ann Arbor News)

Linh Song, Ann Arbor library board member

The Ann Arbor District Library's board of trustees is unanimously against the park proposal, and Board Vice President Linh Song is one of Prop A’s most outspoken critics, putting $5,000 of her own money into an opposition group’s campaign.

The library board is opposed to Prop A “due to its potential negative lasting effect on the future of the downtown library," according to a statement released by AADL.

"Designating the majority of the block in perpetuity as parkland, without the formal planning process, funding or public engagement that any other park or development would undergo, significantly limits future options for the downtown library and downtown area."

Song, who supports the Core Spaces plan with a developer-funded plaza, said if the goal of Prop A proponents is to force a partnership with the library, she’s not sure how they’re going to come to the table in a friendly manner.

She argues the UM Diag already serves the community well as a downtown public space for large gatherings and rallies.

And as for the idea that there could be a civic commons building of some kind as part of what happens on the Library Lot if Prop A passes, she argues the downtown library already serves as Ann Arbor's civic commons, with meeting spaces, educational classes, various programs and activities for the community, and artwork.

"So I'm glad this is something that we agree on -- there is a need for that space," she said. "What I don't agree on is that there should be a duplicate of it.”

Song believes city voters would have to later approve a new tax to implement Prop A if it passes. She noted Ann Arbor voters already rejected a $65 million bond proposal for a new downtown library six years ago, “so despite our love for it, we're not very good about funding our love for community spaces and civic commons."

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Alan Haber poses in front of the Library Lot at the ”Center of the City" on Fifth Avenue, next to the downtown Ann Arbor library on Oct. 26, 2018. He's in favor of Prop A. (Jacob Hamilton | The Ann Arbor News)

Alan Haber, longtime community activist

Ann Arbor resident Alan Haber, a longtime community activist and one of the leaders of the Central Park Ballot Committee, has been leading the charge on the idea of a community commons on the Library Lot for several years, fighting against city leaders who don’t want to see it happen and persevering until this year, through multiple petition rounds, to get the question on the ballot as the city tries to sell the lot for development.

“We could do something beautiful in the center of the city for everyone,” he said. “It’s not a complicated idea. And it is in some way exactly what I said before — to un-pave the parking lot and put up paradise.”

Responding to critics who argue there’s money to be made by selling the land to Core Spaces, Haber argues it shouldn't be about money. Instead of a money economy, he says, the vision behind Prop A is about “a love economy.”

“I’m looking for the gathering of the community to do something that could be beneficial for everyone and we put our hearts into it,” he said. “This is a proposal of heart and of love, and the money is to the side, because this is a rich town and there is money and there is talent and there is commitment here to do something beautiful.”

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Downtown Development Authority board member Jessica Letaw, moderator of Ann Arbor YIMBY, poses at the Library Lot on Fifth Avenue in downtown Ann Arbor on Oct. 26, 2018. She's against Prop A. (Jacob Hamilton | The Ann Arbor News)

Jessica Letaw, DDA board member

Downtown Development Authority board member Jessica Letaw is another leading voice against Prop A and a major supporter of the Core Spaces development.

Moderator of Ann Arbor YIMBY, a conversation about growth and development in Ann Arbor, Letaw says she’s a fan of big buildings.

As voters consider Prop A, Letaw asks them to consider the values that matter to them and vote accordingly.

“So, if you care about due process, City Council already voted to sell this land. The mayor supports a no vote on this proposal,” she said.

“If you care about fiscal responsibility, we’re forgoing so much money in terms of taxes by forgoing private development,” she said.

“If you care about parks and open space, you care about the fact that the parks advisory committee said please don’t give this to us without a plan and a fund,” she said.

“If you care about affordability, you care about the fact that we do not have another way to secure this $5 million for the most sensitive and housing-insecure people in our community,” she said.

“And if you care about what the experts have to say, urban planners and architects have been weighing in again and again on why they are not in favor of Proposal A.”

Letaw recalls the city actions and planning processes over the past several years, including a 2013 study by the Park Advisory Commission, that led to city officials supporting a mix of open space and high-rise development on the Library Lot, and she believes the Core Spaces development is in keeping with the community’s values.

Read more stories about the central park proposal and other local issues and races to be decided in the November 2018 election.