OWSA’s Recent Accomplishments
October, 2024 through April, 2026
2024
October: Community meeting at Argus Farm Stop to generate ideas for what to focus on as we work to revitalize the Old West Side Association.
2025
March: Meeting at the Ann Arbor Downtown Library, organized jointly with the Old Fourth Ward Historic District, featuring Ann Arbor Planning Department staff Jill Thacher and Michelle Bennett, to discuss the potential impacts of the Comprehensive Land Use Plan on historic districts.
April: Reached out to the Old Fourth Ward Historic District about possible collaborations; that conversation became part of a broader effort to revive and revitalize the Ann Arbor Preservation Alliance. Three members of the Old West Side Association Board serve on the AAPA steering committee.
May: The OWS Association Spring Meeting featured a community conversation at West Side United Methodist Church about the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, with a presentation by the Ann Arbor Neighborhood Network.
May: The Old West Side Association Board met with City Planning Commissioner Dick Norton at Hathaway’s Hideaway about our desire to see more positive and committed language regarding historic districts in the Comprehensive Land Use Plan.
June: We hosted a free Ice cream social in Wurster Park that attracted 150 neighborhood residents, including many children, on a brutally hot day. The event was sponsored by a neighbor who wanted to express her faith in the direction and activities of the OWS Association.
July: We helped to organize a meeting at Hathaway’s Hideaway to launch the Ann Arbor Preservation Alliance.
October-November: Dan Rubenstein and Sue Kaufmann prepared two documents for the Ann Arbor Preservation Alliance: “Proposed Historic Preservation Amendments to the Comprehensive Land Use Plan” and “White Paper on the Benefits of Historic Preservation.” They were shared with the Ann Arbor Planning Department, the City Planning Commission, and City Council.
October: Our Fall Meeting with Ann Arbor city planner and historic preservation specialist Jill Thacher provided an opportunity to learn about living in a historic district. She particularly focused on how to submit successful applications for approval of renovation projects by the Historic District Commission. The meeting was held at Hathaway’s Hideaway.
October: The OWS Board met with senior planner Michelle Bennett and planner Mariana Melin-Corcoran about the Land Use Plan, particularly our concern that the eastern part of the historic district is in a Transition land use category.
December: The Ann Arbor Preservation Alliance Steering Committee met with Dick Norton to propose improvements to the stance of the Comprehensive Land Use Plan toward historic districts. The meeting took place in the home of OWS Board President Sue Kaufmann.
2026
January: The OWS Board met with 5th Ward City Council Member Erica Briggs regarding the Land Use Plan, again emphasizing our concern that the eastern part of the historic district is in a Transition land use category.
January: Draft #4 of the Land Use Plan, now adopted, includes improved language about historic districts; the additions or revisions were facilitated by Commissioner Norton. See the final version of the plan here.
September 2025 through March 2026: We donated issues of the Old West Side News ranging from 1988-2020 to the Ann Arbor District Library, which has now digitized all of them and posted them to the AADL website at https://aadl.org/owsn.
March: We finished updating the Old West Side Association bylaws.
April and ongoing: We are launching a new, comprehensive OWS website that we envision as a dynamic tool to communicate with the neighborhood, and vice versa. It includes many kinds and layers of information about the OWS, from neighborhood events to geology to history to neighborhood assets, articles about the neighborhood and our neighbors, links to historic district design guidelines and preservation resources, and much more. It will even include a pet-of-the month feature. We want it to be so interesting that you will revisit it often. Kudos to OWS Board VP Dan Rubenstein, assisted by Larrea Young, for creating it. The URL will be oldwestside.org.
Ongoing: We have been building an Old West Side neighborhood email group so we can communicate with you; it now includes approximately 200 neighbors and we are always looking to add more. Sign up now through the website to be added. Please encourage friends and neighbors to join.
