Residents urge pause to Ann Arbor comprehensive plan over data, outreach, affordability and infrastructure

Dozens of residents urged the Ann Arbor Planning Commission on Tuesday to pause work on the city’s draft comprehensive land use plan, saying the plan’s underlying numbers, public engagement and cost assumptions are unreliable.

Speakers from across the city told the commission the draft uses growth estimates that diverge sharply from Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG) forecasts and lacks a documented methodology for population and jobs projections. Several commenters also said the plan fails to show how the city would pay for needed water, sewer and roadway upgrades that would accompany the higher-density growth in the draft.

The concern surfaced in a series of public comments. One speaker who handed the commission a written memo told the panel: “We spent many hours on the research that's in that memo because we care about our community like you do. We want a plan for our city that starts with correctly sourced data and accurate numbers.” (Mr. Berry) Several other speakers explicitly cited SEMCOG as a benchmark and said the draft’s growth assumptions — which some described as roughly a 60% population increase by 2050 — conflict with SEMCOG’s forecast of modest growth.

Commenters also raised job-growth assumptions. “The plan claims that employment in the city will increase by 30,000…