Goal: Ensure that the built environment promotes public health and improvements to the natural environment
Our urban environment will be healthier when new construction and redevelopment are designed with stormwater controls, efficient energy use, passive solar, bike parking, and mass transit access. We can do more to deconstruct buildings to reuse their parts and reconstruct using recyclable and non-toxic materials.
Health-Promoting Urban Environment Indicators
State of Our Environment 2007
To the extent possible, changes to our built environment should promote public health and/or improve the natural environment. Redeveloping a downtown site with more density helps to support public transit use. Similarly, redeveloping what was a paved parking lot improves the stormwater detention, reduces the burden on the system, and may improve the stormwater quality. Road repairs that include new or improved bike lanes support healthier commuting choices. Fewer car trips also leads to cleaner air. New buildings are often more energy efficient and use less water than their older counterparts.
Background
Sustainable communities are those with a diversity of land use covers.
GIS records indicate there are 17,252 acres of City zoned land as of 1998, which includes roads, right-of-ways, rivers and lakes. This is quite a large increase from the 1 square mile (640 acres, or one township section) that John Allen and Elisha Rumsey were originally granted in 1824.
While population growth in Washtenaw County has lagged behind the national average, the city of Ann Arbor experienced even less population growth from 1990 to 2000 than the surrounding region. At the same time, the population within the downtown area has increased at a faster rate than Ann Arbor as a whole. The current 2007 Ann Arbor population is roughly 114,000 (including the student population) with about 50,000 dwelling units. Ann Arbor's predicted population growth through 2030 is expected to be slight, but job growth may increase by up to 30,000 by 2020. The City is working to increase density in the downtown area, mindful that increasing density in already developed areas is likely to have less environmental impact overall than building in previously undeveloped or less dense areas.
Sources: Ann Arbor's Recommended Vision & Policy Framework for Downtown Ann Arbor (pdf), and SEMCOG Regional Development Forecast Executive Summary
Related Indicators
What the City of Ann Arbor is Doing
- Ann Arbor Planning and Development Services provides expertise and information to advise and guide the development, redevelopment, construction and preservation processes.
- Natural Features Master Plan - This master plan describes our natural features, both publicly and privately owned, and sets forth policies to protect, restore and sustain them.
- 2000 Current Land Use Inventory - Ann Arbor Planning and Development comprehensive land use survey.
- Ann Arbor Discovers Downtown - As a means to relieve development pressures on valuable open space, the City sought a smart growth approach to land use that would direct development where it could provide the most benefit, namely in the Ann Arbor city core. The City went through an extensive public process to create development priorities, is now implementing recommendations on urban design, office/industrial/retail development, housing, public space and mobility.
- Stormwater Rates Study - Currently, this stormwater utility is being updated to make sure that the properties in Ann Arbor pay for their proportional share of the operation and maintenance of this stormwater drainage system. This utility update project includes collection of new aerial photography to help estimate the runoff from each parcel, and is gathering input from citizen and organizational representatives to make sure that concerns from different user groups are factored in to the revised utility rate structure.
You Can Help
Although population is an indicator of resource pressure, arguably a better indicator is the total acres of earth required to maintain 1 person's individual lifestyle. If every person on the planet reduced their total footprint, a population increase will not cause as much strain on the larger natural environment as it would otherwise.