I mostly lounged about the beach last week. My children, smothered in sunscreen, played in the Florida surf, constructed cities of sand, captured crustaceans. It was beautifully sunny and warm.
Like true Midwesterners, we marveled at dolphins taking a ride in a tour boat’s wake and little lizards leaping along a boardwalk winding through coastal oaks and mangrove swamps. I only wished to return home when creeping — so, so slowly — through northbound Georgia traffic. Every day since, it seems, I’ve been catching up on all I missed.
Now, refocused, I’ll bring you up to speed this stormy week. Will more, taller housing help Ann Arbor? Documentary filmmaker and Ann Arbor native Ken Burns fears an Ann Arbor Planning Commission proposal for higher density development will alter the city’s landscape too radically, Ryan Stanton reports . “The plan’s broad-stroke approach exposes much of old Ann Arbor to tear down and high-rise building catering only to wealthy buyers and high-end renters,” he wrote in a letter read Tuesday, April 1, to the Planning Commission.
Under the plan, the city could allow multi-family housing buildings in all neighborhoods where only single-family homes or duplexes have been allowed. A 5-hour meeting addressed whether those buildings should be three- or four-stories . Pro-density advocates argued for rejecting “the failed experiment of 1950s-style suburbia.
” More housing is needed, they said, to balance supply and demand and help curb ri.
