Wrapped around the city's north and east edge. Creek corridors, steep slopes and the strictest natural-features rules in the county.
Request a ConsultationAnn Arbor Township wraps the city on the north and east, and it has the most demanding natural-features rules of anywhere we work. The Natural Features Setback Ordinance requires a twenty-five foot vegetated strip from the high-water mark of any watercourse, a hundred-foot construction setback from that mark or the edge of the hundred-year floodplain, whichever is greater, and another twenty-five foot vegetated strip from any protected wetland. Inside those setbacks, removing soil or vegetation is prohibited outright.
That matters here because the Huron River runs through the township and Fleming Creek drains a good part of it. The Fleming Creek subwatershed carries forty-eight miles of branching channel across thirty-one square miles, dropping a hundred and eighty-four feet. Its west branch falls at thirty-one feet per mile, steep enough to build genuine riffle-pool sequences, and steep enough that careless grading upstream shows up as erosion downstream.
The township also defines a steep slope as a rise of twelve feet or more over a hundred feet, requires saved trees to be tagged and fenced at the drip line with a three-year replacement guarantee, and requires graded ground to be planted or otherwise protected within five days of final grading. None of that is a reason not to build something beautiful. It is a reason to have someone who reads the ordinance before drawing the plan.
Twenty-five foot vegetated strips and hundred-foot construction setbacks from any watercourse. Design starts by mapping them, not by discovering them later.
A twelve-foot rise over a hundred feet triggers the ordinance. Slopes over 1:4 have to be planted with stabilising ground cover.
Saved trees get tagged and fenced at the drip line. Anything inside that line is an Impacted Tree with a three-year performance guarantee behind it.
At eleven percent impervious cover the subwatershed is described as at the tipping point. What you do with roof and driveway runoff genuinely matters here.
Every project is designed for the property it sits on. These are the services Ann Arbor Township clients ask for most.
Common Questions
Possibly. The township issues a Natural Features Setback and Steep Slope Use Permit and a Tree and Woodland Protection Permit, and either can apply to work that a homeowner would think of as just gardening. We check before we dig rather than after.
A band measured back from the high-water mark of a creek or the edge of a wetland where you may not remove soil or vegetation, deposit material, or build. It exists to keep sediment and nutrients out of the water. It also happens to be an excellent place for a designed native planting, which is permitted and encouraged.
Yes, but carefully. Grades generally can't exceed one-in-four, and anything steeper has to be planted with stabilising ground cover. Terracing with stone, deep-rooted native planting and proper water management are what make slopes work long term.
Very much so. Aaron is a certified Master Rain Gardener and has built sixty-six rain gardens in Washtenaw County, each inspected by county staff. In a subwatershed sitting at the impervious tipping point, a rain garden is the single most useful thing most properties can add.
It depends where you are. The township runs municipal water and sewer in partnership with the City of Ann Arbor, but it also issues private wastewater disposal permits, so unsewered areas exist. It changes the design, so we confirm it at the first site visit.
Aaron works personally with every client, March through November, across Ann Arbor and surrounding areas.
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