41 Ellie Abrons I think I have raised awareness about the planning process and the existence of the commission among my colleagues and personal friends who aren’t part of architecture or planning generally. How do these things even happen in our city? Why does it look the way that it does? What is going on? Why did this entire block of single family homes suddenly get demolished and a chain link fence went up? People want to know and I’ve tried to inspire them to pay more attention. My next step will be to get people to come to at least one meeting a year and make a public comment for or against a project. That would be a small way to engage that’s not so time consuming. If you have a thought about a project that’s on the books for your city, go tell somebody what you think about it! Isabelle O’Toole Do you think it’s still easier to enter those planning conversations and to integrate those two spheres more? Ellie Abrons Sure, our city’s planning staff are very accessible to the public. They’re out in the community tabling at street fairs or standing by their posters at the farmer’s market trying to spread the word. Also, this isn’t the case in a lot of other, bigger cities, but in Ann Arbor, we don’t limit public comment at our meetings. We limit the time any one person can speak, but we don’t limit the total elapsed time or the number of speakers. So around the CLUP, we’ve had multiple meetings with more than three hours of public comment before we even begin discussion of our agenda items. We are small enough that we’re able to remain quite accessible and that’s a good thing. Small City Housing • Interview • Ellie Abrons 45:42 46:57 47:16
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