At the Ann Arbor Planning Commission meeting on 4/6/21, new text was approved for the portion of the zoning ordinances that addresses "Home Occupations". The new language, if eventually approved by Ann Arbor City Council, would prohibit "Machine shop/metal working" as a Home Occupation.
Francis Mills encouraged local makers to participate in the Public Comment on 4/13/21 at the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission Special Meeting, to reconsider the Home Occupations question.
Here’s the latest update from Francis: (Apr 19, 2021, 9:28 PM)
Tomorrow (Tuesday) evening, the Ann Arbor Planning Commission will, again, have the Home Occupations ordinance on its agenda.
Last week's public comment seeking for "metal working to be treated like woodworking" was highly successful in stopping the ordinance from going to City Council. This week, the Commission has a chance to further slow the ordinance by postponing further discussion to a date when it is not jointly meeting with the Transportation Commission.
4/20 Planning Commission Joint Meeting (with Transportation Commission):
7pm meeting will be televised (with 15 second delay) on CTN and CTN's youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/CTNAnnArbor/
Full meeting details and the documents/motion relating to the ordinance are here. See file 21-076
The treatment of the Home Occupations ordinance is expected to be a postponement of the topic to a May 4th, when there will be more time for discussion.
Action Items:
Leave an E-comment indicating "support" of reconsideration and postponement here.
Write an email to the Planning Commission before noon on 4/20, to be included in their meeting materials (planning@a2gov.org)
Wait until item 8.b. (probably around 9:00pm) and provide brief/constructive public comment (877-853-5247 or 888-788-0099 or 206-337-9723 or 213-338-8477, Enter Meeting ID: 990 9896 8122, press *9 to raise your hand during comment period for agenda item 8.b.). Possible tactics include:
Thank the Commission for hearing unsolicited comment last week
Thank the Commission for their support in reconsidering this question.
Support the postponement
Ask commissioners, during their discussion on April 20, to identify any questions or concerns they have on their mind, so that during public comment on May 4th, the maker community can provide constructive answers or suggestions.
Offer to remain on the line to provide answers if the commissioners have questions during their discussion
Looking Ahead:
May 4th: If postponed, the real discussion of the ordinance will likely come in two weeks. This will be the critical time for further public comment. This would be the time when the Planning Commission decides how to amend language, roll back sections, vote-down the language entirely, etc.
Past Progress:
For those that really want to dig in, the recording of the meeting from 4/6 is essential viewing, starting around 3:17:21 into the video.
The amendments made during the 4/6 meeting, prior to Planning Commission's approval are finally available in the public record. They can be reviewed here.
The city does not yet appear to have posted a recording from 4/13. However, the GoTech meeting recording has most of the public comments.
From Francis: (Thu, Apr 15, 3:42 PM)
Congratulations:
Tuesday night's public comment was a tremendous success!
Much appreciation to all who wrote or spoke at Public Comment on April 13, 2021 at the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission Special Meeting! Your level of participation has City Hall abuzz.
Summary:
On April 13, 2021, the Ann Arbor Planning Commission unanimously decided to reconsider the Home Occupations question that proposed to prohibit "machine shops/metal working". There are still hurdles ahead, but the Ann Arbor home machine shop community (and its neighbors) was heard.
Highlights:
This was the first time since any of the current Commissioners' terms (at least 6+ years) that a "reconsideration" by the majority of Commissioners was even attempted, let alone successful.
The decision to reconsider was effectively unanimous--and this will be far easier to resolve at Planning Commission than at City Council.
In the last seven years, this was the largest quantity of public commenters (21 people spoke or wrote a letter) that have ever turned up for an issue not on the agenda.
Recording:
The city's video recording hasn't yet been published. We’ll post a link when it’s available.
Next step:
This topic could be continued as early as the Commission during its Joint Meeting on April 20, 2021. The agenda (and any revised language) has not yet been published, but keep an eye out here: https://a2gov.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=837097&GUID=EBAA127F-95CB-425C-B838-C1CF2E0A830B&Options=info
Thank you again for your interest. Please keep your ear out for more interested parties and help our Commissioners reach a constructive resolution.
Let's treat metal working like woodworking. In fact, let's protect composites, stone, ceramics, plastics at the same time. Let's simply allow all home machine shops, regardless of materials.
Please contact Maker Works if you’d like to get in touch with Francis.
If the “Machine Shop / Metal Working” zoning ordinance interests you…
Join the Go-Tech group to connect with other makers! In this self-proclaimed “geek show-and-tell”, makers present their creations at the meetings, which are remote at this time. There’s an active email group as well, which is where many first heard of zoning ordinance issue.
The group includes people interested in a wide scope of topics and endeavors. Programming, robots, machining, welding, artistic creations, metal casting, anything being built or created. Pretty much anything someone is "Making" is welcome at a Go-Tech meeting.
Also, if you have a problem with your project ask for help and the brain trust of Go-Tech will amaze you with solutions to difficulties you haven't even explored yet.
This is an open group. All are welcome and especially young makers are encouraged to show off a project.
Meetings are held on the second Tuesday of each month at 7pm.
https://www.facebook.com/Go-Tech-of-Ann-Arbor-331901170294292/