Title
Resolution to Approve Agreement with Clarion Associates for Integration and Clarification of Zoning and Land Use Ordinances ($122,480.00 Project Budget)
Memorandum
Attached for your review and approval is a resolution to approve a professional services agreement with Clarion Associates, in the amount of $97,480.00. This contract is for consulting services to reorganize and revise the zoning and land use regulations in Ann Arbor City Code in a consistent and user-friendly format. The additional $25,000.00 in the project budget is for up to $15,000.00 in outside counsel fees with a project contingency of $10,000.00.
The current zoning and development ordinances have many issues that make it difficult to use. The issues can be summarized as: 1) the overall organization structure is cumbersome and it can be challenging to find code sections; 2) related standards are often contained in different code sections and can be difficult to navigate; 3) a lack of clarity in code language makes the code difficult to interpret; 4) there are some ordinance gaps and provisions that are out-of-date or may have minor inconsistencies with state law, and 5) the use of terms is inconsistent.
The professional services agreement with Clarion Associates is for consulting services to reorganize eleven different chapters of the Ann Arbor City Code and to address the identified issues to produce an integrated, internally consistent and user-friendly version that is: 1) comprehensive - to eliminate cross referencing between code sections to determine standards governing development and redevelopment; 2) clear and internally consistent; 3) usable, both internally by staff and externally by the public; 4) enforceable and legally defensible based on objective standards and Michigan enabling laws; and 5) adaptable and structured to make it easy to amend or to add/ delete provisions in the future.
Material changes to the code will not be addressed in this project. This effort will ...
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