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Residents urge shelter, remediation and stronger local affordability rules as Ypsilanti forms Water Street committee
Summary
At a packed Ypsilanti meeting on the Water Street RFQ, residents pressed for protections for people living on the site, called for environmental remediation and for community benefits that use a local AMI; dozens introduced themselves as nominees for an ad hoc committee ahead of a Feb. 17 council appointment.
YPSILANTI — Dozens of residents used a public meeting on Thursday to urge the city to protect unhoused people, require stronger affordability measures and prioritize environmental cleanup on the Water Street site, as staff and consultants described a forthcoming RFQ and the ad hoc committee that will shape community benefits.
"This is our piece of land. We are the public and this is public land," said a longtime organizer who told the room Water Street has been contested for more than 20 years and warned that development without local safeguards would displace minority residents. Multiple speakers raised the presence of people living in tents on the site and said those neighbors need shelter and representation in committee deliberations.
Environmental and cultural concerns were frequent themes. A consultant noted cleanup work "over the last 30 years" but residents warned that "the ground is poisoned" and urged that any plan address remaining contaminants and the riverfront’s ecological health. Several speakers asked the city to consult Indigenous communities about possible burial grounds and to protect important trees and riverside access.
Speakers also pressed for concrete affordability standards. Advocate Kat Wheaton urged use of a local area median income (AMI) measure rather than the county AMI and cited homelessness statistics as context: "For Ypsilanti, the 60% area median income is 26,485," she said, arguing that local AMI would better reflect residents’ ability to afford housing.
Multiple attendees announced plans to apply or be considered for the ad hoc committee. Staff facilitated a nonbinding, in-room raise-of-hands to gauge support for nominated community members; officials emphasized that the straw poll was informal and that council will make final appointments at its Feb. 17 meeting.
Community members proposed a range of alternatives to market-driven development: leaving land in public trust or a land bank, creating permanent shelter or rehousing programs, community land stewardship, and using the RFQ process to require developer commitments to local hiring, apprenticeships and small-business spaces. Several speakers offered to volunteer technical assistance, including brownfield remediation expertise and landscape-architecture input.
The meeting closed with staff reminding residents to submit formal applications online or via paper copy; the ad hoc committee is expected to hold public meetings and produce refined community benefits language for inclusion in the RFQ.
