In November 2025, a detailed plan for public subsidy of Arbor South was presented in two parts: brownfield tax increment finance (TIF) together with a public private partnership (PPP). The two-part plan was placed on (and removed from) two City Council agendas, due to absences and uncertainty around whether enough Council Members were willing to vote in support. A brownfield plan can be approved with a simple majority but the PPP – directing the purchase of land – requires eight votes.
On the January 20, 2026 agenda, City Council considers approval of one part of that plan: the brownfield TIF that will divert up to $373,825,905 in tax revenue toward the purchase of parking decks and other infrastructure to support a private development project called Arbor South. That brownfield plan requires only a simple majority for approval.
DC-3 (26-0098) Resolution to Approve a Brownfield Plan for the Arbor South Project
Last year, I submitted two FOIA requests for City Council and City staff communication around this deal, covering the weeks between mid-October and early December 2025. In response to my requests, I received hundreds of pages of emails and text messages. Below, I use that correspondence to show how the Arbor South brownfield plan was discussed behind the scenes.
BACKGROUND
City Council first discussed public subsidy of the private development “Arbor South” at a work session in November 2024. At that meeting, co-developer Jeff Hauptman of Oxford Companies pitched the idea of three City-owned parking decks to meet the needs of his private development. City Administrator Milton Dohoney offered support, proposing that the City establish a new Parking Authority to manage these decks. The City’s CFO presented a total cost to the City of $104 million.
The overarching theme of that 2024 work session: the development at Arbor South would not be feasible without a public private partnership and City ownership of those parking decks.
Six months later (April 2025), City Council discussed issuing bonds for those parking decks in the amount of $146 million. In November 2025, a public private partnership agreement for Arbor South required the City to issue $166,390,000 in bonds to buy both the decks and land from the developer (cost of land: approximately $12 million).
In just one year, the estimated City cost of these decks – as presented to the public – has increased by over $60 million.
To date, City Council has approved $350,000 on outside consultants and lawyers putting the deal together. It’s unknown how much City staff time has been invested. In emails from December 2025, one City staffer refers to “almost daily” meetings with the developer.
Last month (December 2025), by resolution, City Council directed the publication of a memo, theoretically to help the public understand the terms of a public private partnership. That resolution refers to how the deal is so “lengthy and technical… requiring clear explanations” that “a clear summary is necessary for the community to understand.” The premise of the memo: the public would struggle to grasp the complexity of the deal on their own. A Council Member promoting this memo offered it “in the spirit of educating them.”
The ultimate memo offers scant details, emphasizing repeatedly what the developer will provide. The words “risk” and “debt” appear exactly once, in a sentence emphasizing how the City’s general fund is protected. Notably, one Council Member described this memo as “almost the exact same summary memo of the PPA that we [Council Members] received, slightly redacted to remove anything that makes it privileged.”
BROWNFIELD THEN & NOW
The City has adopted standards around brownfield tax increment finance (TIF) and how it will be awarded. From the City’s Brownfield policy:
Brownfield Plan Review Criteria (all criteria must be met, if applicable):
1. Developer-reimbursable Brownfield TIF shall not exceed 20% of overall project investment. This limit does not apply to projects with $3 million or less in private investment, not including property acquisition costs.
https://a2gov.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=7242046&GUID=318A8181-B164-4944-8C99-8599919B017C
The brownfield plan for Arbor South lists a total private investment of $406,000,000 with developer reimbursable costs adding up to $345,054,904. Staff memos (dated last fall and again this month) estimate that over 30 years, the Developer is likely to receive $299,763,596 in TIF. Given these numbers, the proposed brownfield TIF would be between 74% and 85% of total project investment.
Last fall, when the Arbor South brownfield plan was presented together with a public private partnership agreement, a staff memo explained that the 20% standard was applicable “where a public entity does not have a direct financial role.” Staff implied that the standard did not apply because the project was “unique” due to the public private partnership. This week, without the added context of that partnership, staff language has shifted. A staff memo this week refers to the criteria – which, according to City policy, “must be met” – in the past tense, as “an effective benchmark for prior projects.”
The brownfield plan and staff memo attached to this week’s agenda are only slightly different than what was published last November.
As presented this week, an updated brownfield plan still refers to the PPP as likely or inevitable, referring to “an anticipated municipal bond issuance should the City of Ann Arbor chose (sic) to participate as such at a future date.” Without the benefit of the PPP, commitments to build affordable housing shift. The November brownfield plan describes the delivery of up to 215 affordable units “prior to delivering any market rate units.” That language is removed in the new plan.
A staff memo reiterates the need for the PPP and refers to a consultant report from January 2025:
“Based on PFM’s analysis, the project as proposed would not be financially feasible without City participation, as the developer’s projected returns fall below the thresholds typically required for a project of this type.”
The original brownfield plan for Arbor South was placed on (and pulled off of) two agendas in November 2025 and deleted. However, the original documents (both the plan and the original staff memo) are linked here, via the public hearing held on November 6:
https://a2gov.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7728292&GUID=1521600B-01B4-43E3-A7A4-474DC1E17178
“I DOUBLECHECKED W THE DEVELOPER”
In late 2025, via emails and texts, Council Members and the Mayor collaborated on strategy to persuade colleagues to support plans to subsidize Arbor South. Council Members co-wrote their sales pitch to the public, exchanging ideas about how to frame it in a newsletter. In putting facts together, one Council Member assured colleagues that she had “double checked [with] the developer to make sure this is correct.”
Resident communication to City Council has been overwhelmingly opposed to public investment in parking decks at Arbor South. In response to dozens of emails, one Council Member copied and pasted the same cheerful reply:
Received. Thanks for providing feedback on this important decision!
I am still ultimately undecided and currently weighing a lot of factors on this project, so I appreciate learning your perspective.
Every report presented to City Council has emphasized the need for public subsidy of Arbor South, not only in terms of brownfield TIF but also the public private partnership that would commit the City to buying and owning three parking decks on site.
A resident, identifying herself as a certified Urban Planner and former Economic Development consultant, emailed City Council about these reports:
I have authored similar studies commissioned by deep-pocketed developers. Their conclusion, that the project is not “feasible” without City subsidies, is not surprising; it is strategic.
In private communication among Council Members, more details emerge. For example, where the developers of Arbor South are credited with financial support for affordable housing, one Council Member admitted that “it won’t be technically contributed in cash to the AAHC, just contributed work with a cash value.”
“SIMPLE AS THAT”
The public has been told repeatedly that the City must approve the PPP to buy and manage parking decks in order for the project to move forward. Communications between the Mayor and Council Members emphasize the same point: Arbor South is not viable without both the brownfield TIF and the PPP.
In private lobbying to Council Members, Mayor Taylor emailed his theory of the Arbor South brownfield TIF:
we are not committing to a subsidy in the traditional sense – your dollars, my dollars, are never going to this project. We are agreeing to direct taxes that would never otherwise exist to build the physical infrastructure necessary for the project to exist
He argued for the PPP and referenced a consultant report from January 2025:
the developer will not be providing parking, and that that is a cost savings to them, but as PFM has concluded, the project does not exist otherwise. Simple as that.
The mayor is eager to accept help from anyone willing to promote this project.
Last November, a Ward 3 resident nominated himself as a dealmaker, repeatedly emailing Council Members Ayesha Ghazi Edwin and Jenn Cornell with ideas about the public private partnership for Arbor South. Sending sometimes four or five emails in a single day, the resident persuaded Ghazi Edwin to forward him communications from the City Attorney. Eventually, the resident emailed the Mayor and other City staff with an elaborate plan for how he could insert himself as a participant in this deal. The resident proposed to:
give supportive members a defensible rationale for a “yes”
And
give the broader community confidence that this is not a one-off special deal
After arranging his own personal meeting with the developer of Arbor South, the resident offered “Maybe my role is to simply use this meeting to help the City craft the public summary and communication plan.” When he specifically volunteered his services to lobby council members, City staff raised alarm to Mayor Taylor:
I am very concerned that he will take it upon himself to email all of Council and whomever else with his recommendations that may seem reasonable on their face but reflect an extremely limited understanding of the project and will just further complicate things. For example, the gist of his email yesterday was that he could potentially help facilitate a conversation between the City and the development team, when, in fact, we communicate almost daily.
Replying by email, Mayor Taylor was unconcerned about potential miscommunication or misinformation from someone with “extremely limited understanding.” Instead, he was focused on counting votes:
On the other hand, if the 7 yes’s are firm, and if [Ghazi Edwin] has confidence in [resident], then perhaps this is an opportunity for him to be work with her/them to find enough adjustments to give her comfort?
In that email, Mayor Taylor references the eight votes required for approval of the public private partnership.
WHY THIS MATTERS
It makes no sense to approve the Arbor South brownfield plan on its own, as is presented this week. When proposed alongside the PPP with the City, the percentage of subsidy was excessive. Without the benefit of the PPP, the updated brownfield plan is an even more explicit giveaway: reimbursements are triple what is permitted under City policy, without any justification. Staff’s weak defense: pretending that City policy is not, in fact, a criteria but rather a soft ‘benchmark.’
The strongest advocates for this project are the Mayor and Council Members whose political campaigns have received thousands of dollars in donations from developer Jeff Hauptman. Hundreds of pages of emails reveal how aggressively they are pushing this deal on behalf of their campaign donor and how desperately they want to see it move forward. Council Members double check their understanding of the deal with the developer himself.
Presenting the brownfield plan for approval first, without the PPP, is intellectually dishonest insofar as it implies that the City might not ultimately approve that PPP. Approval of this brownfield plan brings the City one step closer to a very bad deal: committing the City to issue public bonds to purchase land and parking decks adding up to $166,390,000.
If the brownfield plan is approved this week – as it can be, with a simple majority – the next step is lining up the eight votes required to approve the public private partnership (PPP). Council Members who are skeptical about that PPP will face a barrage of lobbying from colleagues and whomever else the Mayor believes might be persuasive, even if they have an “extremely limited understanding” of the deal.