Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the East Lancing City Council regular business meeting, excuse me, of March 3rd, 2026. The meeting will come to order. Could we have the roll call, please? Council member Whan here. Council member Meadows here. Council member Singh here. Mayor Prom Griggsby here. Mayor Alman here. Uh, is there a motion to approve the agenda? I will move to approve the agenda. Second. Second. Second by uh Griggsby. I will also move an amendment to the agenda, which is to move item 5.1 uh consideration of charter amendment resolutions to be placed on either the August or November 2026 ballots to the end of the business agenda.

Support that. Motion by Altman, second by uh Meadows. Any discussion of the amendment? All those in favor say I. I. I. Uh. And now uh we need to approve the agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? I made the motion to approve the agenda. So we're back to the main motion. All in favor of approving the agenda as amended, please say I. I. I. Any opposed?

The amend the agenda is approved. U. I will also approve the minutes of the regular council meeting of 17th February uh 2026 with one amendment uh page five paragraph starting moved by council member Carrie Singh in the phrase quote ordinance to return to council in 60 days unquote insert or report after ordinance. So the phrase reads ordinance or report to return to council in 60 days. That's my motion concerning the minutes.

Second.

Second. Motion by Alman, second by Singh. Any further corrections to the minutes? So the motion is on the minutes with that one correction. Uh all those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Minutes are approved. Communications from the audience. All written communications that we get at the city council account are linked to the agenda packet and I will take the opportunity to remind people that sending email to council@c cityvlancing.com is an excellent way to reach us. Uh we all get forwarded the email immediately and the city manager also sees it and then it becomes part of the part part of the public record. Communications from the audience. We have uh several slips for some of the public hearings we will hear uh tonight. I will call those slips during the hearings. Uh we have one other slip which concerns the deer problem. Gordon Stewart. Good evening. My name is Gordon Stewart. My wife Jacqueline and I live on Lantern Hill Drive in East Lancing. I'm here to talk about the deer problem, but I wanted to say a couple of things before getting into that. The first is I've been to several council meetings. This is the first time I've talked and I want to express my admiration and appreciation for you folks being willing to do public service. It's challenging enough in ordinary times, but there's such a febral atmosphere in this country just now that it must be even more challenging. I can see what you deal with when the fraught issues come up in the council meetings. And I just wanted to say I'm glad I'm living in the city with people willing to serve on the on the council. The second thing in relationship to that, and I think I speak for everyone who talks about the deer problem, we're well aware this is not the most important issue in the city. There's some foundational problems

about city finances that the fraud issues you dealt with last week. There are many other issues. So, we're not pretending this is should be top of the list, but there are some things we think the council can do. And I also worry a wee bit here that I'm speaking to the choir because a lot over the years you various councils have tried to address this problem. Let me explain what we've seen in the home you live in. We've seen over the past three or four years a herd of 12 deer in our yard, churning up muddy trails through the yard, eating shrubs and grasses, not fancy for stuff. Good old Michigan shrubs and Michigan grasses are being eaten. We have a neighbor who can't let his grandchild play in the yard because a deer is all over the place. Those little round balls are very appealing to toddlers. So this is having a direct impact on the quality of life in East Lancing. What I would like to see is this being put on put in the context of good stewardship. We have an environment here in East Lance. We have homes, we have people, we have children, we have roads, we have cars, we have animals like deer. No one's talking about eliminating the deer, but there should be an ongoing management of the deer problem. So we don't every two or three years get a burst of activity in the newspapers and some kind of crisis. In the same way you have to deal with cleaning the sewers, getting rid of garbage, recycling. I think the deer management falls into that routine category of good stewardship for all the people who live in East Lancing including the other animals besides we humans. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Is there anyone else in the audience who would like to address council on an item that has nothing to do with the public hearings that we will be addressing in a moment? Are there any callers? There are two callers in the queue. Okay. Caller with the phone number ending in 552, you are now free to address the council. Good evening, Kath Edel Daisy Laneing. Last week, Eli published some of the information which was provided to the financial health team

by the police chief. Interestingly, the crime data, quote unquote, doesn't support the thesis that we need more officers as it indicates that violent crime is down in East Lancing as it is across the nation. Instead, poverty crimes and disrespecting cops crimes are up. And it appears this is the chief's justification for putting the city deeper in the red. Crime data is incredibly imperfect, and it's important that the council and the financial health team understand that moving forward. The following is an excerpt from a book by Miriam Cabba and Andrea Richie. Beyond the fact that crime itself is a political construct, crime rates only reflect violations of the law that people have reported to police, police choose to report and have resulted in an arrest. In the summer of 2020, the research and evaluation center at John J. College of Criminal Justice convened a panel of experts in the fields of criminology, so social and behavioral science, public health, epide epidemiology, law, and public policy to study and summarize research on the ending violence. This final report confirmed that reliance on crime data based solely on reports to or by police is wholly insufficient if the goal is to prevent and reduce community violence. They go on to explain, "For one, most violent acts are not measurable with police data because they are never reported to police. Not only do conventional definitions of violence fail to capture half of all violent acts between neighborhood residents, but they also emit any violent harm resulting from organizational behaviors, social structures, and systemic racial and class oppression. If the goal of violence reduction is to enhance the peace and security of neighborhood residents, efforts to reduce violence should attend to all forms of violence. In other words, because crime stats don't capture all violence and not all reported crime is violence, crap crime stats are an unreliable measure of violence and therefore a problematic basis for making policy decisions intended to reduce it. What is also essential to recognize when looking at

crime stats is that cops don't just report crime, they create it. Police enjoy vast discretion around who and what they want to pay attention to and how. Every time they decide where to focus their attention, they are making laws. Even in what is defined as crime, cops display selective focus. They generally uphold the status quo and normalize neoliberal economic arrangements by f focusing on crimes that penalize poverty and discipline public space like prohibit prohibitions on disorderly conduct, drinking in public, and unreasonable noise. Meanwhile, they largely ignore criminalized activity perpetated by wealthy white people such as tax evasion and financial fraud. In short, enforcement of criminal law ends up facilitating control over systemically underresourced communities and racialized populations while protecting wealthy white people from accountability. By choosing which laws to enforce against whom, which calls to respond to, and how, cops decide who and what is out of order, and what actions restoring order requires. For instance, during an LAPD ride along, the author and the cop she was assigned to assigned to observed three people urinating in public. An act that was against the law in each case. One, an unhoused black man with no choice given the lack of public restrooms in the city was arrested. The other, a white gay man outside of West Hollywood club was ticketed. The others, a group of giggling white women out for a night on the town, were encouraged to just go in the bushes by the cop as he flirted with them. The first two people were perceived as inherently disorderly, though their punishment varied according to the place they occupied in the hierarchy of power. The cop didn't see the young white women, part of a group for whom social order is explicitly preserved, as disorderly at all, even when they engaged in the exact same behavior that had authorized police intervention in the other cases. Cops target black people, hanging out in the corner on the assumption they are up to no good, stopping and frisking them, demanding their IDs, running their names for warrants, telling they better not be there when they come back around. White people doing the same are almost

invisible to police unless they do something to call attentions to themselves. These are but a few examples underscoring how crime rates are better understood as a reflection of cops perceptions of the proper order of things rather than harms people are actually experiencing. In addition to creating crime data through their actions, cops further shape crime data and crime rates by controlling when and how an incident is reported as crime. Police departments have broad latitude in recording crime statistics. They control the numbers and types of crimes they report to the FBI as well as the general public and no one is checking their numbers. When cops claim that increased budgets or numbers of cops led to lower crime rates, they are citing data they themselves produce and control. When cops claim that demands to reduce their budgets are causing an increase in crime, they completely control the evidence offered to support their claims. There is substantial evidence that police manipulate crime statistics for political purposes. For instance,

seconds remaining. In 2010, a whistleblower filed a report on the New York Police Department confirming the nation's largest police department systematically underreported crimes. John Eterno, a retired NYPD officer, said, "The crime numbers are being gamed, plain and simple, and the numbers are being gamed because the police district commanders are under tremendous pressure to make numbers look good. This is happening everywhere. Please keep that in mind as you evaluate the data and make policy decisions. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Could we have the next caller, please?"

Caller with the last name Wagner, you are now free to address the council. Hello. This is Yes.

Great. Good evening. Uh, Mayor Elman, Mayor Pro Gby, and honorable council members. Uh, my name is Andreat. I am calling from Germany actually at 1:00 a.m. in the morning because Eastlanding's future is worth the loss of sleep. I'm here to respectfully urge you to reject the special use permit for 53 Albert and the ordinance 1559 P inlier buyout. Thank you for your comments. I believe that concludes communications from the audience. Uh communications from uh mayor and council members. Council member Whan.

Mayor. No, I'm sorry. It's too late. Thank you. I have no report tonight. No report. Council member Meadows. Since this is the shortest uh public comment period that we've experienced in quite a long time, I'm I have no report this evening either. So, uh Mayor BM Griggsby, I'm in the same boat. I have nothing to report tonight. Okay. Council member Singh.

Yep. Uh just real briefly, I want to highlight um an agenda item that's on the consent agenda regarding um the expenditure of up to 30,000 um by the city manager for emergency shelter operations. Um, I want to just remind uh community members that, you know, we've had a terribly we, if we have forgotten, we've had a terribly cold winter. We had the unfortunate um loss of an MSU student who froze. Um, and I believe while we have more work to do and um, with much of the meetings and discussions we've had with the Michigan Coalition Against Homelessness as well as the ACLU as well as um, the Tri County Tenant Resource um, clinic that we know that there's we need a regional solution that's more of a longer term solution. uh but to be able to support our unhoused uh to ensure there's no further tragedies in our community due to the weather. Um I think this is a really important step for us to take this evening. So that is all I wanted to highlight. Thank you.

Would it be okay if I responded a little bit?

Yeah. I just want to say I completely support everything that you just said. I had a meeting uh today with a a representative of the NAACP here in Lancing who made the same comment, the the same argument. This is a regional issue and that we should um get together a group of uh of governmental officials and uh these public um organizations to talk about a regional resolution of this. you know, when we're accused like they're sending all their people to Lancing. This is really a regional thing and the opportunities to provide appropriate housing for individuals. Not every community has the resources to to provide some of the things that Lancing does, but we should be supporting that and we should be part of a reasonable resolution of the issues that we saw this year. So, I want to just thank you for bringing that up. I I wish I had thought to mention the meeting that I had today. Any further comments from anyone? Okay, I have no report uh city manager report. Mr. Bowman,

so I have one report and that is I'm would like to welcome the Michigan Downtown Association to the city of East Lancing. MDA is holding its advocacy day today or held it today and its spring workshop tomorrow and the mayor and I are going to be uh doing the official welcome uh tomorrow morning. So, uh I know they were at Fosters did a tour thanks to Heather Pope um and Lorie Mullins of the downtown um to learn how East Lancing is uh developing and um solutions to some of our issues and then um they're at the Hopcat uh for a reception tonight. So, uh I hope they have a good time and I'm glad they selected East Lancing to hold their spring conference and advocacy day.

Thank you for that comment. Uh, city attorney's report. Mr. Jopic. Thank you. Uh, no report this evening. All right. Very good. That brings us to the consent agenda. Mr. Bellman.

On tonight's consent agenda, 3.1 is approve the following appointments to boards or commissions. Chris Hodes to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission for a partial term ending December 31st, 2026. Second is Christopher Thompson to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission for a full term ending December 31st, 2028. And the third appointment is Ryan Todd to the housing commission for a partial term ending December 31st, 2027. 3.2 Two is approve a resolution temporarily consolidating precincts 10, 11, 12, and 13 into one precinct located at the student union for the May 5th, 2026 special election. 3.3 is approve a contract with Lopez Construction LLC for the 2026 2027 miscellaneous concrete project in an amount not to exceed 230,000 and authorize the city manager to sign 3.4 Four is approve a street closure request for the East Lancing Art Festival for Albert Avenue from Albert Avenue garage to Bailey Street MAC Avenue from the East Lancing Marriott entrance to the Grand River Avenue intersection. Grove Street from the south edge of the 7-Eleven driveway to Elbert Avenue and Bailey Street surface parking lot from 5:00 a.m. on May 15, 2026 to 10 p.m. on May 17, 2026 and approve the use of amplified sound and regulations of vendors during the art festival. 3.5 is approved a contract with 100 Acre Woods LLC for 132,500 to provide turf field and ground

maintenance at the East Lancing Soccer Complex in the Hannah Community Center soccer fields for a one-year term with the option to renew up for up to four additional one-year terms by mutual agreement and authorize city manager to sign. 3.6 Six has approved deer management activities through 2026 and authorize the city manager to permit lethal removal of deer by USDA wildlife services and direct the city manager to discuss forming a regional wildlife management partnership with neighboring municipalities. 3.7 is approve a resolution to terminate the agreement between all of us express children's theater and the city of East Lancing effective May 18th, 2026. 3.8 is approved the local development finance authority LDFA FY26 budget amendment and approve a related budget amendment and authorize the chief financial officer to modify appropriations accordingly. 3.9 is approve the scheduling of a public hearing for April 7th, 2026 to receive comments on ordinance 1562, a request from the Hagen Group LLC to conditionally reszone 743,755 and 765 Grove Street from R2 medium density single family residential district to RM32 city center multiple family residential districts 474 43 and 765 Grove Street to be used as multifamily dwelling units licensed for four unrelated or a family. 3.10 approve and authorize the expenditure of up to 30,000 by the city manager for emergency shelter operations to provide safe accommodations for

unhoused community members during code blue periods of extreme cold weather. That concludes the consent agenda. Would any council member like any items removed from the consents agenda to the business agenda? Seeing none, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? Moved by Meadows, second by Griggsby. Um, any discussion? I'd like to make a small comment. Yes.

Um, thank you for to the city manager for being responsive to the deer situation. Um, I speak personally, we've got a huge issue in the backyard and in the in our front yard and um, there's no natural predators for the deer in our community other than cars and that is my concern for our public safety. So, I really appreciate your responsiveness to this and also I really appreciate the creative thinking that you have around this new um, agenda item. Thank you. Turns out motorcycles work well to kill kill deers too. Um um so the motion is there a motion to approve the there was a motion to

There was a motion. Motion by Meadows, second by Griggsby. Um any further discussion? So the motion is on the consent agenda as presented. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Consent agot carries. Consent agenda is approved. So, that brings us to uh the first of a series of public hearings. Um item 4.1 is a public hearing to receive comments concerning proposed ordinance 1555, an amendment to the zoning ordinance which would establish an RO1 rental restriction overlay district within the Harvard Cali neighborhood. Mr. Bartley,

uh thank you. Excuse me, Landon Bartley, your city planner. Um, so yes, this is a request uh for an overlay district. Uh, there are rental restriction overlay districts in the city of East Lancing which are neighborhood initiated. There are three types uh that essentially are more restrictive or less restrictive as they go, but the RO1, which is what is uh contemplated here, is the most restrictive. That essentially says no new initial rental licenses may be issued in this district um if if approved. So, um the planning commission uh had a public hearing for this on January 14th. Uh we received or the commission received one comment in support of the proposed overlay and they chose to act that evening and voting uh voted unanimously to recommend city approval uh city council approval of the proposed overlay. Um there was some discussion about whether or not additional properties should be added uh three more three more properties on Sagena but the planning commission did not um recommend that change. Also since that public hearing we have received one comment uh by staff or two staff uh from a gentleman who owns a property on Koolage who would like that to not be included in this rental restriction overlay district. So tonight's uh tonight's step is a public hearing. Uh the council can choose to uh take action tonight, but typically waits until the next meeting. Um this tonight's uh purpose is to receive comments on whether or not this overlay district should be approved or denied. Can I answer any questions?

Questions for staff. Mr. Meadows. Yeah, if I could confirm on the map, uh the there are uh three properties that that front on Coolage uh 912, 820, and looks like uh 806. And those are commercial properties, correct? That's correct. And and they are zoned that way. Is that That's correct. Okay. And which what's the address of the other property on Kulage that we're somebody is requesting that be excluded? Yeah, that that property owner is 938 uh at the corner of Harvard and Coolage. Okay.

But again, uh you still have a you still have a meeting if you'd like. Um but we did hear that that um that feedback from that gentleman interested in being included. Further questions. I'm sorry. 938 I see on cool. It's right at the corner. I see it. Okay. Council member Singh. Yes. I the planning commission recommended made the recommendation to adopt this. Correct.

And now in qualifying for even consideration. I thought there had to be 50 addresses within.

Yeah. So typically um to create an or propose an overlay district like this it would require 50 addresses except where there's uh a condition where it's sort of a separate it's called a discrete neighborhood unit that sort of is by itself uh and that can be any size. So this is less than 50 but considering that there is commercial uh to the southwest rental properties around R3 zoning which is not eligible for this uh to the east and north and other restrict rental restriction overlays uh immediately to the north. There really wasn't another option besides these uh less than 50 properties. I think it's around 20. So it did it does meet the requirements because it's considered a discrete neighborhood unit.

Okay. Further questions? I do have one more. Just uh looking at the map again. 954 um CI is excluded. That is does front on CI at the end of the street. Do is there a particular reason that was excluded? Uh yes. I believe the zoning for that is not R1 or R2. It is it's R R3 zoning and only R1, R2 or RM8 uh properties are eligible for these districts. Great. Thank you.

Further questions. Okay, this is a public hearing, so I will open the public hearing. We have one slip submitted from Matias Steiner.

Hi, I'm Matias Steiner. Uh, I live at 1426 Harvard uh with my wife Charlotte. Lived there 29 years. That's 20 years fewer than my neighbor Dick Hess who's also here. Um, I just rewatched the planning commission hearing and there were some questions that came up which just came up again. U one of them was what started this and that's simply that uh a rental license was applied for has since been granted in the neighborhood and that caught our attention because that's really not a problem and there is a renter there now and it's wonderful no problem but the neighborhood being so small and so close to uh MSU it could become student central it could become loud there's only 18 houses here and the dominoes could fall. We've been uh a little paranoid for many years because that corner, that already commercially zoned corner across from the Walgreens would make a superb strip mall and we don't want that to happen. So, in interacting with the housing commission, that's when I learned about the you don't actually need 50 houses. And my wife and I took it upon ourselves to go canvas the neighborhood. We got 16 signatures from those 18 properties. And that's that's the the genesis of this. That's that's why it's so late, right? We should have done this 20 years ago, but we didn't know. Now we know. I think everything else has been covered. The R3 zoning of 954. We didn't go gerrymander. So, we have enough votes that boats are not a problem. And another question came up. 1402 Sageno at the bottom corner of the blue. um that actually has it's a Sagena address. The front door goes onto Sagena. The

driveway goes onto Cowi north and south of the barrier. Mr. Meadows is nodding his head because he remembers when that happens. So that was my idea in 1999. He said, "You may not want this because people will go through your property and that's happened once or twice. But it's great because those uh Amy and company can go in and out whichever they want. Um, that's it. Thank you very much. Thank you for your and thank you to Landon and the planning department because it was a pleasure working with them and really helpful to say that.

Thank you for your comments. Is there anyone else who would like to address this agenda item during the public hearing? Okay, seeing none, I will close the public hearing um and ask the council for their direction. Well, I'd like to make a motion. Um I'll see if I can find the actual recommended motion here, but um you got it. Yeah.

Yeah. Go ahead. Done. Sir, I'd like to make a motion. Um, due to no negative public comment tonight, I move to approve the ordinance 1555, an amendment to zoning ordinance which would establish an R01 rental restriction overlay district within the Harvard Cow neighborhood for the following reasons. The proposed overlay district is consistent with the policies and uses proposed for the area in the city's comprehensive land use plan. Number two, all of the uses allowed under the proposed overlay district would be compatible with other zones and uses in the surrounding area. Number three, public services and facilities would not be significantly adversely impacted by development or use allowed under the proposed overlay district. And number four, the uses allowed under the proposed overlay district would be equally or better suited to the area than uses allowed under the current zoning of the land.

Motion by Whan. Second. Second by Meadows. got there by here. Uh any discussion of the motion?

I do remember uh you know a while ago uh that we we talked about an overlay district in this particular location and uh Amy who you mentioned uh um worked for the attorney general's office for many years. It's good to see you. And um I know this was originally this neighborhood and I didn't realize you were the the person who talked us into putting a little culde-sac at that end, but it became a pass through because left turn was pro prohibited at at Coolage and that really made a huge difference for that neighborhoods. So that helped but this will help as well and so I'm very much supportive of this

further discussion. So, did I hear So, there's 18 properties. 16 said yes. And then one of those 18 is already a rental. Correct. Is that what I heard correctly? Uh, that's Yes, that's correct. 140, excuse me, 922 uh Sagena, excuse me, that's Kelly address is a licensed rental 938 Coolage. Uh, asked to not be included. Gotcha. Thank you. Further discussion. I just want to say a couple of Yes, please. that that address that already has a rental that could stay the rental. The the 922 Cali uh can continue to be a rental, but if that rental is abandoned, the license is is abandoned, then it could not,

then it would automatically become in the overlay. Correct. No more initial rental licenses could be issued at that address. If they ever interrupted that license, yeah, mayor. Yes. Can I ask clarifying just clarifying question? Uh, Council Member Whan, did you intend to uh include 938 Coolage or to strike it from the ordinance? 938 Coolage was the the uh address that requested to be left out as read. It would be included. That's fine. I just wanted to clarify.

Yeah, I' I've been to that house. Um, is there any concern from the city with that being cut out from there? I think it's kind of natural that the whole thing is and it has good square lines right now. But did they share why they wanted to because they have interest in renting it out? They didn't share. They just asked to not be included. It's certainly it's it's up to you. Y further questions of staff. My motion stands I think. Okay, thank you.

Okay. Um, seeing no further discussion, uh, all those in favor of the motion, please say I. I. Any opposed? That motion carries. The overlay is approved. Which brings us to item 4.2, two, a public hearing to receive comments regarding uh proposed ordinance 1556, an amendment to section 50-147 uh of the zoning code to require the finished side of a fence to face away from the owner's property. Mr. Bartley,

uh thank you. This ordinance would amend the zoning ordinance to um require all fences to face outwards away from the uh owner's property for all properties in the city, not just within historic districts. Uh the this originated from the historic district commission uh that felt um that this would be appropriate uh and suggested uh to to introduce this this ordinance um to council to introduce it. Council introduced the ordinance and referred it to the planning commission in October of 2025. Um, planning commission had a public hearing in January and uh had additional discussion on January 28th and uh moved ultimately to not approve the ordinance uh 1 to 7. So tonight's step is a public hearing uh by council. If you wish to uh act tonight, I did include a sample motion. Um can answer any questions

questions for staff? So, so for all properties, it's not just this one that they're talking about. Is that what you said? Uh, yeah. I I just wanted to clarify that the historic district commission suggested this, but for all properties in the city, not just those inclu in historic districts. There was a question in discussion earlier today.

Other questions? U just a u just a comment that I was a little surprised this came to us because I thought this was already the law and I think if you look within our community at any wooden fence basically the finish side is to the neighbor's house of the person who puts in the fence. That's sort of a standard thing. Uh not just in this community but in virtually every other community in the state. And um I'm surprised that it was recommended to be rejected, frankly. So,

Mr. Will, I've heard that good fences make good neighbors, right? Um there is a few things like there's how tall the fence could be, all these things. This is the only change to this whole ordinance, right? So, everything else stands the same except for the intention of having the good side out. That's correct. And we did include an exception. So if an owner has offenses, two finished sides like a shadow box, either side can face out. So then what happens if someone puts it in and they have the nice side to them and the bad side to the neighbor, then if we receive a complaint about that fence, uh we would take enforcement action to rectify that.

Enforcement action meaning they've got to tear it down or there's a they would have to switch the sides. Yeah. Okay. So either tear it down or if it's the right kind of fence where they could do it, they could unfasten the panels and switch them to the other side or but they would have to change the orientation of the fence. Great. So what governing body would be telling them that planning staff would do enforcement. Okay, that's all I have. Any other questions? And just to confirm, so the historic um commission brought this up uh as a need, but the planning commission did not recommend it. Correct. Correct.

Okay. So, what happens when this if this happens for existing fences that are out there? Does that just rectically hit all them as well or how's that work?

Uh no. The in the zoning ordinance, uh there are non-conforming rights. So, if you don't meet the ordinance but through no action of your own, in this case, the law would change from somebody under somebody. So, if they have a current fence facing out or excuse me, facing in, uh, that fence could remain like that until something happens to the fence. So, either they take it down or it's damaged and they have to put up a new one, we would then require that to comply with the ordinance. So, I was at the planning commission meeting where they discussed this and I I am at some level sympathetic to the idea that this is maybe a little bit overreach, but at the same time, I think that it's not just good fences that make good neighbors, but also good rules can make good neighbors. And so, if you I think neighbor relations can get complicated quickly. And if you have rules that everybody knows they need to follow, um, then people can get mad at the rules and they don't have to get mad at each other. So, I think there's I think there's good reasons to have sort of this class of ordinances if they if they make sense. So, I'm supportive.

Do you need a motion? Uh, yeah. If there's a motion, that would be uh in order.

Yeah. I'll move to uh approve ordinance 1556, an amendment to section 50-147 to require the finished side of a fence to face away from the property for the following reasons. The proposed amendment is consistent with the policies and uses proposed for that area in the city's uh comprehensive land use plan. All of the uses subject to the proposed amendment would be compatible with other zones and uses in the surrounding area. Uh public service and facilities uh would be would not be significantly uh impacted by a development or use subject to the proposed amendment and uh the uses subject to the proposed amendment uh would be equally or better suited to the area than uses allowed under the current zoning of the land.

Okay. Motion by Meadows. Second. Second by Whan. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. I. Any opposed say nay. No. None opposed. So uh the motion carries and that uh zoning amendment is approved. Which brings us to the third of our public hearings. a public hearing to receive comments on a proposed special use request from Cody Dietrich on behalf of TDP Acquisitions LLC. Mr. Mayor, uh if I may, sorry to interrupt. I think uh it's been determined we did not open and close a public hearing on that last agenda item.

I'm sorry, we did not uh we did not. And so it would be in order for me to open a public hearing for item 4.2 at this point.

Yes. I declare open the public hearing for item 4.2 uh to receive comments regarding proposed ordinance 1556, an amendment to section 50-147 to require the finished side of a fence to face away from the owner's property. Is there anyone who wishes to speak to that zoning code amendment? Seeing none, I will close the public hearing. Do we have to rehold the vote? Considering the fact that there were no public comments made, I think you can stand on the vote that you had or on the on the existing motion and vote. Okay. Yes, we will stand on the existing vote. Motion and vote. Were there any calls?

No call. No calls either.

No calls either. Okay. All right. Very good. Which then brings us Thank you incidentally um for everyone for uh catching that. Which brings us to item 4.3, a public hearing to receive comments on a proposed special use request from Cody Dietrich on behalf of TDP Acquisitions LLC for approval of a new building with height exceeding eight stories at 5:30 Albert Avenue. The applicant request is to construct a 13-story development consisting of one, two, and threebedroom multif family dwellings, ground floor ground floor commercial space, and two levels of interior parking. The property is zoned B3 city center commercial business district staff.

Evening. Alicia Wrighten, Planning Department. Thank you for summarizing what the actual request is for. The purpose of the district, which is the B3 city center commercial district, is to provide a wide range of commercial and highdensity residential land uses designed to serve the residents and shoppers. The provisions of this district are intended to encourage the planned development of pedestrian amenities and public and private open space and closely regulate the need for direct automobile access to each establishment. The application is before you because for a special use because the building exceeds eight stories, which is what triggers the need for a special use. The 2018 comprehensive plan designates this site as M3 mixed use, which allows for a mixed use of building heights and uses. The intent of the land use category is to increase the number of housing opportunities in close proximity to the university and maintain or increase opportunities for commercial type uses throughout redevelopment. In the B3 district, multif family dwelling units, which also contain one or more of the principal uses, require special use approval by the city council with a recommendation to I'm sorry, by the planning commission. On January 28th, the planning commission recommended approval 6 to2 with conditions. On February 26, the DDA recommended approval 5 to2 for this request. The maximum number of stories in the district allows for eight with a maximum building height of 112 feet. The city council may upon an affirmative vote of 3/4s of all members of city council permit an increase in stories or maximum building height of up to 140 ft. This building is up to is 139. Um, the proposed building includes 236 units of 1, two,

and threebedroom units with an occupancy of 505 beds. Uh, there are amenity areas on levels 1, three, and portion of the rooftop, which include a variety of business center opportunities, on-site service, uh, coffee shop clubs, and game room, grilling stations, and outdoor fire pits. Several murals are proposed throughout the first floor to comply with the public art requirement. Uh there are two floors of interior parking propo proposed which will have its entrance off of Albert Avenue as will the main entrance for the residential portion. Parking is prohibited in the B3 district. However, under certain conditions, the planning commission may grant a waiver and the applicant when the applicant has demonstrated that parking is necessary for the residents or customers of the proposed use and the municipal parking facility cannot accommodate the use. The applicant did meet with a variety of uh neighborhood community and business members. they are here this evening as well to speak further um regarding this site being an existing surface lot that has 86 spaces that two levels of proposed parking in this development will be 83 spaces which are intended to be for commercial use. So an agreement would need to be worked out with the city to allow city to operate it under the regulations that we have. It does also include two level two charging spaces on the first level of parking. Uh the planning commission did provide that the applicant has demonstrated that on-site parking is necessary when they made their recommendation of approval and listed that as well. Um the landscaping is proposed to be met and one additional note that there are four trees on the southwest corner of the property that are intended the mature trees that are intended to be protect protected.

Um there was a traffic study that was submitted. The city's traffic engineer has not yet responded to that or provided a review as of this evening, but they are expected to provide that information this week. um the engineering department had not previously had a concern about what would the results of that impact study would be but again we're still waiting on that traffic engineers response uh the diverse housing requirement that is exists for this particular development because it is a special use in the downtown is intended to be met by this applicant they are proposing to miticate onsite moderate income units at the 80% AMI level to make this feasible. They would be be applying separately for a pilot program which is a tax um option of relief. So payment in lie of taxes for those affordable units provided on site. The planning department did route the application and associated documents to all of the other departments in the city, fire, police, building and engineering. Various comments are included in the packet. Um some of the remaining items are to be sorted at permit time such as the type of sprinkler system and so forth. Um the planning commission has made a specific recommendation of approval related to the on-site parking in addition to the project recommendation to city council. And just one more in on the parking that the applicant I mentioned previously has indicated that community input has led them to include these two levels of interior parking. Um the applicant is here and does have a presentation, a visual presentation in addition to their own if city council is willing to allow that. um they would

like to give a presentation verbally, but if there could be support documents and I can try and answer any questions or defer to the applicant as needed. Any questions right now for staff? I have one question. the the 80% of AMI uh is that 80% only if they get the pilot program funding or they're offering 80% regardless.

So it would require the pilot program. uh they are planning to make the application and in addition should any of the other add- ordinances be adopted in the future and find that that might be something suitable that they would like to take advantage of such as if a diverse um fee loo comes available or a credit transfer they would have to return to city council and ask for that change. Gotcha. And what is 80% of AMI? I just want to hear it out loud unless the applicant knows 70. I can I defer to the applicant?

I was going to suggest we hear from the applicant. Sure. Next. And if you'd like to give your presentation, that would be great. Thank you, Mr. Mr. Dietrich. Thank you, Mayor Mayor Proam, and city council members. Um, I think that'll be up. I have some extra slides in here just like floor plans and stuff we can skip through. I know you guys have heard a lot about this. The 80% AMI thing I'm going to have to come back to. I don't remember the exact piece on that. Um I know that a 50% AMI I think is in the low 30,000s for a single person. Um but I don't remember how that translates to 80. And are you do is this based on a single person or do I There can be multiple people in that piece too. It just depends on how many people are living in that unit. Yeah. So So

yep, that's for East Lancing. It's $80,650 for a four person. Yep. Yep. I googled at the same time. I'm sorry.

Uh thank you. Well, um again, really appreciate you guys taking the time to listen this. We've uh had a long journey up at this point. We started this project last April. If you want to go to the next slide, I can start off with that piece. Oh. Um I think one slide's missing already. Um but so we started our first meeting was with the business community. We had a meeting with several people organized by Mike Krueger. We had Greg Boline, Jeff Rand, uh Doug Cone, and several other community members there. And the biggest thing we heard that first meeting was parking. We started that with our first proposal with 30 stalls that connected into the Bailey service lot. That was just a no-go from the beginning. So we went back and we came back several times to that different group and different members of the business committee also attended that later on like Al Bay from the wild goose in and we ended up going to two levels of parking to try to place one to one as close as possible and so the engagement with them was the the biggest piece of that. The other big most important things were activating and engaging with the alley making that a better place that people want to traverse through rather than just be the backside of of restaurants and and businesses. Um additionally we met with staff multiple times. We met with the Bailey neighborhood back in October. Uh they at first said, you know, 12 13 stories. Okay, tell us why. So we started talking about the parking and so when we added the parking, it had it was a more of a need to get that additional height to allow for us to build those two stories and put that back. Um and then they seemed to understand that piece and nobody said anything about the height after those initial comments. Their main concern was don't put any silver metal panel on there like lay and hub. those metal panels that are being used are just reflective and and not not very aesthetically pleasing is what their mind was. But generally, they didn't have any other concerns when we met with them. And then we've met with um several of you as well as people before the city council election that would meet with us who are running for city council. So, we tried to engage with as many people as possible as we were creating this project before we

submitted back in November. Um you can go to the next slide. Oh, there's the timeline. Um you can go to the next slide. That's fine. Uh this is the first floor plan of our project. So as you can see you come in off Albert. Uh we have one entry, two exits. One thing that we've talked about with Caleb Sho and the parking department actually is that we would not do a gated system anymore. He'd like to do a license plate reader system instead and start implementing that more in future uh parking situations. Um and then we have our amenities on Albert. We have 260 bike stalls. Um required we're supposed to have 218. So, we're exceeding that to make sure we're plenty at plenty of capacity. And the remainder of the first floor has about 30 parking stalls. And then you'll see the bottom left corner, that is where our transformers, generators, um, and loading area would be. And when we are not uh having trash hauled out there from the trash room, uh, that would be open, but when it is, we'd have a retractable screen that would cover that, so we're properly screened at all times. Um, another big piece that we worked on with with Al and trying to, you know, it's not ever going to be perfect for him, but trying to massage as best as possible, the setback requirement is zero foot. So, we have just over 5 foot at the first two levels of the building and then we step back to 10 feet on that side next to the wild goose in. So, trying to, you know, give as much relief there as possible as we're working through that. You can go to the next slide. On that first, on the last slide, there was about 30 parking stalls and on this one there is 53. If I remember, I might be off one or two. So, you come up the ramp and then it's a circular back down and through the public parking ramp, we'd be working with the engineering and building department. Um, our architect has built several public parking ramps. So, we'd make sure that that's all coordinated to meet as close as possible to the 2017 parking structure guidelines and work with them to make sure everybody signs off with that. I know there's a question if there' be a third party engineer. are open to that piece

if we want to engage with one that signs off from the city's perspective. Um in the bottom right hand corner you will see a stair and elevator that is specifically for the public parking itself to get up and down. Uh you can go to the next slide. Here is a rendering uh showing next to the wild goose in. Originally we had that section of the building pulled out uh additional 5t to the property line. We recessed all this back to be even with the building at that corner and then the rest of Albert we actually step back five feet from there and then further as we get closer towards uh Bailey but we wanted to try to provide as much relief as that as possible. So we've can kept massaging that trying to get as much landscaping in there. I know Al's asked for more. Um right now structurally we don't know if we could pull it back more. You know we'd be open to it if possible but I can't make that call in today's note knowing if we're going to have any structural issues just where columns and things are at. Um you can go to the next slide. Here is a couple of more of our floor plans. This would be at the level right above the parking. Um we'd have some amenities there and then amenity terrace with some grill stations, fire pits. Um you go to the next slide, which is just the standard residential floor plate. And then we have if you go to the next slide, we have the the rooftop uh amenities up there. And so we are working to try to maximize parking as much as possible in the lower level. So trying to put our other areas in places where we could find and trying to pull peel that back from Albert. So from Alberta it appears this is 12story building. Um you can go to the next slide. Here are a couple examples of what we'd use for screening. So we'd have glass screening walls at the third level and the 13th level uh around those uh active outdoor areas on the lefth hand side as you can see and those would be 6 to 8t tall. Um, we need to confirm the exact height on that, but knowing that that's been an issue on some other buildings. We look to make that higher. Um, and then on the right hand side is a metal panel screening that we'd use for any mechanical rooftop equipment. So, that those are a couple examples from other

projects from our that our architect has done. Um, you can go to the next slide. Here's a rendering of the street level. Um, as you can see too, we pulled back the whole first level as we go further west on Albert um to add more landscaping in there. One of the additional parts we heard as we were going through those additional business community meetings is the landscaping the alley is very important. So, we pushed and pulled parts of the building back to try to get as much landscaping around the perimeter as possible versus just being, you know, more of a concrete jungle. So, that was very important to us and and the community and making sure we were able to handle that. So, we wanted to provide that more relief there to help with the public realm as people are walking by. Uh, you can go to the next slide. Here's an overall rendering of the building. Um, at the bottom side, you can see kind of where the building is notched in. We created that after several meetings as well too to allow for some sort of public art sculpture and additional landscape in that area too to enact with that. Uh, you can go to the next slide. This slide is just the ex or the rear elevation. So, we did look at the the building and making sure we were taking the aesthetic all the way around instead of cheapening up the backside or the sides that you may not see as much. So, we wanted to really make sure we carry that around. On the bottom, you will see uh several different mural locations. So, we have four of them back here. Then, we have the art sculpture locations. We actually sent out an RFQ about six weeks ago to over 100 artists with 80 to 90% of those being local Michigan artists. We've received at this point 15 responses of people interested in providing some sort of artwork. They all have different trades. Some work with metal, some do murals. So, there could be some really cool abstract metals with a core 10 uh that we put some screening up on the backside versus murals. So, there's some different creative options. And we were back with the arts commission back in December too to talk about that and how can we activate that to make it really feel inviting and use some different local people to to blend it up. So, we may end up going with two artists. We may end up

going with five different artists. Just, you know, whatever that looks like. But, um, giving a lot of people a different fair shake and want to spread that around to get, uh, as many different as many different creative minds in the room as possible. Uh, you can go to the next slide. Here is a rendering of that back alley. As you can see, we mixed in those planter walls uh, along with benches mixed into those. We were planning to do festune lighting. Um, we have got Jeff Herand able to sign off on that. they'd be willing to let us do that. We would manage that lighting. We'd pay for the lighting ourselves and then we'd have that uh encroachment or easement to clip on to the buildings across the alley. Uh another big piece of the alley or the alley and parking was safety. Um safety is one of the number one concerns as you've heard in some of the other uh ordinances recently with people uh in camping in public garages. So, we would keep these as open as possible while also providing high level of LED lighting to make sure these are well lit that people feel comfortable using those. And then one of the last things with the parking too is the perception of surface parking that we wanted to make it feel like if you were on the first level, you could just walk right out. So, we have two different spots where you can just walk right out between the ADA stalls where you feel you're like you're doing surface parking versus in a true public parking structure. Um, you can go to the next slide. Here's a rendering from higher up. Uh, next slide, please. Here is a rendering from down uh the alleyway. One other note, too, when we first had those conversations, we asked the community, what would you rather see, relief on the Albert side or the alley side? And everybody, without missing a beat, said the alley side. We want the relief on the alley side so it doesn't feel like a canyon like you see between Landmark and Target or Landmark, excuse me, and Newton Lofts. Um, so we stepped our building back on the lower levels. We have a slight can lever, but we wanted to make sure it was open on that side to give that relief and it feels more proud on the Albert Street side, which feels more appropriate from a from architectural planning standpoint. Um, you can go to the next

slide. And then just a couple notes I want to hit on. I know at the DDA meeting last week was brought up on, you know, the enrollment cliff and some of these D2 schools and things like that. Um, I attended a state university in Minnesota. It peaked at 18,000 kids and now it's down to 7,000 kids. So completely understand that piece. Um Michigan State has a lot of staying power and that ties into many things, athletics and just being one of the top universities in the country. They've actually seen since 2017 2018 they used to receive about 30 to 37,000 applications a year. Now they're above 60,000 applications a year. So they continue to grow um extremely quickly and they are accepting in about 8,8500 kids back in 2017 2018. Now that's 9,9600 kids. So, it's going up about a th00and to 15 our kids per year um from MSU's uh enrollment statistics uh from this fall. Uh you can go to the next slide. And part of that ties into athletics. Athletics has become a big thing. There's NIL and all these things which NIL is a whole another topic, but there was the billion dollar initiative just uh added out here in the fall and the hiring of Pat Fitzgerald, the football coach. To date, they've already raised $540 million for this initiative, which is just going to draw more people to the university and help with that enrollment growth. Uh, you can go to the next slide. Uh, this slide is um in response to some of the conversation around taxes. I was able to watch the city council meeting two weeks ago and um made it to the the tax part uh from the city's tax assessor. I've had some follow-up with staff throughout the the point there. And so, and I can be correct if I'm wrong, but my understanding is actually so the entire downtown DDA is in covered in the DDA TIFF district. So, 68% of the the mills go to the DDA, 6% go to the state operating education, and then 18 mills go to the local operating school district. So, those are, excuse me, the

state education district, and then 18 mills go to the uh local operating school district. So, the city DDA gets 68% of all the increment. And looking back, and I I think staff will have something for you guys in the near future, hopefully this week on on this piece. But, um, looking back, the our property was assessed when it's at the base at about $170,000. We anticipate that to be around $20 million just for the residential once, uh, we're fully assessed. I did copy in the bottom there. This is the the Abbott and then that blue box it says 19.667 million. that is for the residential and the retail at AVID. That's their assessed value. And so they pay about $1.45 $1.5 million in taxes currently. With that, uh just on a residential piece, we'd be we would be creating just over $1.5 million in taxes, assuming no pilot or anything like that. Um on just the residential piece, excuse me. And so a million dollars would be going to the DDA per year. And then 10,000 be that base that would get distributed between the operating fund, um the local school district, all those different other things, the the 1215 uh taxing jurisdictions. So the the part with that is the DDA can't really ever change that because then they reset the base and then all that other tax go all the increment currently getting would go back to all those jurisdictions. Um and then just you know downtown retail support, groceries and and eating per week is about $150 a week. So if you took that times 40 weeks out of the year, assuming they're not here the full year, that'd be $3 million of, you know, economic revenue to the local businesses in the downtown area a year, assuming they eat locally, shop at Campbell's Market, shop at Target. So that'd be additional revenue coming to those businesses who could really use it throughout the year. Uh you can go to the next slide. Um and I just want to hit quickly on diverse housing. I know this is topic is rolling around. So what this map represents is the area that is required to have the diverse housing applied to

it and where you can build it as it currently sits. What I really wanted to to show is it's primarily all built out. So our parking lot is one of the last ones along with the remaining Bailey surface lot the city owns. Otherwise it's all controlled by other land owners like the PK property if that ever goes forward as the affordable housing deal. But otherwise it's all operating businesses or small rental properties. and we've engaged with several of them and uh the astronomical number someone wants to get rid of their operating businesses just doesn't make sense. So finding a place to build in DA is really tough with the diverse housing. We do have the property that is a parcel outside of the DDA uh at 421 431 Abbott under contract from the Fabians and Mezer family um that we've looked at affordable housing or condos. We're actually out in the market to gauge condo interest right now for 32 condos there and we'll see how that shakes out. We're happy to share that information once we know. um that currently is in the DDA. So that wouldn't qualify unless something changes there. But still looking at that piece. Um but just wanted to to put that out there. You know, this is the area that it truly is when you start looking at it from a 30,000 foot view. Um if you want to go to the next slide and then over the last week, I've been putting it together information of, you know, where is inclusionary zoning or diverse housing mandatory? And so not including Boston College and four California universities. uh nine out of the 62 remaining, not including Michigan State, um or East Lancing is the town where where Michigan State's at, has a mandatory inclusionary zoning policy. So about just under 15% of the communities where major power for colleges are at have that piece and they're primarily in the Big 10. Uh seven of those nine are in the Big 10. The only ones outside of that is Pittsburgh and Boulder, Colorado, where uh University of Colorado is. Um, and what you see is they typically have a 10% requirement on that piece, but they're uh, and they all have fee and lose on all of these ones. And I'm happy to share this after the meeting so you guys have this information as we're talking through

that piece. But their their fees are also higher, too. On on average, you know, at 10% they're north of $100,000 per unit to buy out of the inclusionary zoning. Um, but I just want to provide these as information as we keep talking that piece. You know, at at 25%, uh, you know, we would need a pilot. We need that tax relief to make those numbers work. in our building. I think if it was 10% I think we could be open potentially figuring out how to get the 80% AI units in our building without any tax relief and just take that uh on our side and eat those costs and figure it out. Um we'd be willing to talk through that piece but um as it is today uh if we were to move forward nothing changed at diverse housing we'd be looking to do 25% at 80% AMIs in the building and get just get the the tax relief. So, which would then likely take our million dollars going the DDA to around $800ish,000 going to the DDA a year after you net out other jurisdictions and everything too. I think that was my last slide. You can go to the next one, please. Oh, just a touch point, too. So, I you know, just wanted to say, you know, we we've put a lot of work in. We've tried to engage with everybody. Um, you know, so community engagement has been a big thing. replacement of parking. We really wanted to make sure we're taking care of the business community and they're not being left behind. I know there's been a couple different news articles as well um as people interviewed on the news where they've said parking is the biggest concern. So, us being able to replace that, have them be able to have that to support their businesses long term is huge. And then, you know, we're we're taking a very serious look at enriching the public realm with our public art. We'll probably spend 10x the minimum requirement around 250,000 versus just buying out at 25,000. So, we want to make sure it's in, you know, some place where people want to be and and interact with. And then, you know, this extreme supply shortage of housing, you know, it's only going up. Um, I saw the number today from a new student housing report that's 22,000 beds short. I think that's a little too high when you start factoring in online classes and and commuters and things like that. So, I do still think it's around the

15,000 that we've been talking about beds short here at uh to serve Michigan State. And then just the increased tax revenue. Um, I know it's not all going to the really none of that's going to the general fund, but it is still coming to the DDA at that point, getting a million dollars a year in increased taxes. Currently, the tax bill on the property is about $21,000 and the city actually pays that as part of their lease agreement. So, um, and now I think that's the last slide. Uh, next one, please. Thank you. But happy to answer any questions. Um, questions at the moment for the applicant. Mr. Well, did you uh just uh one at this point in time? the um the city to operate the garage. Is there a proposed contract?

Not yet. All right. Well, I'll just from my own standpoint, I'm not voting yes on anything unless we have all the documents together. All right. It would be a condition. Yeah. Just to respond to that, we've had a conversation with Caleb Shar and he'd either want to do a revenue share agreement or a simple lease agreement like they've done on other ramps. though. Could it be a condition? It might be. I need to see it before I will do anything with this. Right. It could be a condition of approval. I'd defer to

ultimately the um I believe the contract would need to come back to city council for approval. Um it's obviously in council's discretion whether it wants to see it before it approves the development or not. U it could make it a condition, however, and require it to come back for approval. That's in council's discretion. I'm just one vote on this, but yep, that would be my my preference to have it all together so that we can take a look at it. Mr. Well, very small question. So, there's a beautiful picture of everybody walking in that alley. In general, there are some people that walk, but most of the time there's cars going through there, right? That's the same alley that we're talking about,

correct? There's commercial deliveries and things, but people do still drive through there. Yes, your renderings are beautiful and it's nice seeing all these people walking casually. But is it an alley still, right? Yes, it is. Okay. Yep. Mr. Griggsby,

I just had a kind of followup to that same. So, that alleyway like the payment there, let's just say that uh other businesses or the city wanted to or commission wanted to do something with that space. How how would that work? or would that where maybe it's a question for you, but um do we have that flexibility and being able to have not necessarily events but functions within that area like closing it down and having it be something at certain point in time because it's a great opportunity to have some things in between those two buildings. I was just curious

city council would approve uh any request for use of that alley outside of what it already exists as. So, if you wanted to close it for an event, it would be brought to city council to request that that alley be closed like they've done for other events. Um, when there are if there's a community engagement, they there would be an application that someone would present. Again, city council would have to approve it. Uh, it is owned by the city and is regulated by the city. So, the city controls its interest. Gotcha. because I know uh there used to be and maybe there still is there were a couple of businesses that did certain events uh yearly so they would just go through the city and they would have that opportunity to still continue those activities.

Yes, unless city council says no. Okay. Um I just kind of had a weird question about the glass panels on the 12th and 13th floor. You talked about there was issues with that in other places and you're looking at making sure that you don't have those same issues. What were those previous issues or some of those dings that were going on? I I think those are safety concerns of um jumpers to be honest. So making sure that it's not climbable or anything like that from a a safety point somebody falls off the building. And you said that uh you said that you were thinking about raising it to 8t. 8 ft would be our goal. Yeah.

But that wouldn't necessarily be I mean still doable, right? I mean as far as kind of a 8 feet doesn't seem very high for something like that of a concern. Yeah, it would have to take you'd have to jump and pull yourself. It would take a little more effort to do that piece. I mean, it's it's not bulletproof by any means. Um, but it would it would take a lot more effort versus somebody be making the a rash decision. Um, well, I mean, this is my first major go through when a process like this with applicant and I got to say your community engagement game is strong. I really appreciate you and your team really going out the way from what I think I understand of what you've done and that really is an important aspect to to my openness to this whole project and some of the different things that's going on. Um I I do have some concerns. I think uh the parking is the main thing I've been hearing about and you guys are asking for us to kind of adjust that. I think um with the experience of my other council member and just making sure that we have everything together um is very very important as well. Um and do and and I also like you know the the I'm not quite sure about the numbers with students and and how that works and kind of what the future holds. I I think for for me it's mostly more of a density issue and and being able to alleviate some of the uh pressures on our neighborhoods, but also have uh this project uh this development um be in place to be a little bit more competitive uh generally speaking for um other places that are around. So students have a little bit of opportunity or anyone have an opportunity to kind of be have affordability. So I like that as well. also. But that's all I add.

And I'll just say to that, too, again, we're still open even though we're geared towards students. Anybody can still live there. We can't discriminate by fair housing. If somebody wants to live in there, they want to pay the rent, anybody can live there. So,

yeah. And I remember you talking about that when we met and I I appreciate that and I hope that that is that is very much an initiative because even though uh it's important to have a little bit of that student element there and of that but just being open to some other opportunities for other people um first year graduate MSU student or uh students and and first year professors and things like that those are very important things that I heard uh when I was on the campaign trail about having a little bit more diversity within that option in there. No. Yeah. Thank you.

I want to start too um thanking you for the engagement along the way. Understand it's been a lengthy process but um it's an important one. Um just a couple of questions. One is um you you mentioned a student housing study recently. Who did that? Uh BCadia just released their student housing study today. Is that I can send you guys in if you want to see that. Um, yeah, it's just a national student housing survey that they had and they listed basically supply demand and they showed 22,000 beds short here at Michigan State.

Oh, that's strange cuz if you talk to MSU, you know, you can still get an apartment north of town. Now people, as actually someone in the biz once told me like everyone wants to be close to the beach. The beach in this situation is Michigan State University. So, um, you know, I understand the the market is driving towards those forces.

Um, I just want to note because we're having this larger conversation around diverse housing ordinance and recognizing even at 80 AMI and having a four person, four people, that's $1,680 a month per person. And I just like when we put that in context of that's you can't even do that without a pilot and make the building work. Right. Right. Right. So

and just to touch base back on that slide I had up at diverse housing. They all have incentives. So all the cities offer fee and loo or you get a density bonus or a hype bonus. You're getting some trade tax relief some tradeoff for those affordable housing. And then most of our universities don't have a mandatory program. They will offer you things in exchange like Ann Arbor offers you know a PUB zoning which is basically you set your own zoning for the property specific to make it work out for your for I was shocked that Bloomington has 30%. They just raised that recently. It was 10% at $20,000 a unit and they just raised I think within the last month or so. Yeah. So,

I just again I'm when I did the math from the AMI and then I think about now we bought our house in I can't remember 2013. I haven't been married that long but 2012 2013 we bought a new house and I think our mortgage is 2200 a month and it's a four-bedroom home right with a yard and a pool and you know all the bells and whistles. So again, when you think about college students market rate in this town, we just have a lot of challenges. Um, so I'm just again throwing out some variables for as the community has heard us along the way talking about what could possibly make sense for a diverse housing um, ordinance and what types of changes we want to explore. Um, now a couple other things. Um, on the roof photo that you showed, um, are there any sustainable features up there? Maybe I missed that.

Um, we might have focus on it. Nothing specifically called out right now. We do have enhanced, we're adding storm water management the site. We don't need to, but we're going to do storm water management on the site as well. Um, solar has become, you know, kind of unusable going forward. They just, uh, the tax credit just expired here at the end of 2025. So unless you financially unusable or financially unusable. Yeah. Yes. It's still a a good resource but you the payback period is 30 40 years. It's it's there's the investment is long term for the little you get

and my one I am asking these questions on my own behalf even though I know it may be a passion area for other colleagues of mine. Um, okay. So, the roof and then back to the I just want to have this straight in my head and I'm a verbal learner. So, um, 83 parking spots, all commercially available. Yes. Two level two charges. Love that. I just got mine installed after 5 months. BWL took five months to get that installed. Separate talk show. Um, you have something on the

I was just going to say too that what we've told in previous meetings too is, you know, let's say in 10 years the city doesn't want all 83 stalls, we could buy those back for the building or just amend the lease to then say, hey, 20 of those are now permitted for the building, whatever it may be. We can always have the flexibility long term. And so are you not committing to any of your leases, any parking? No, we'd work through the neighboring parking garages. So, uh, the parking department has confirmed they have 430 excess parking stalls available. I thought it was 20, but but they will only comfortably commit 50% of those. So it's 215. So that's what they're willing to get for permits right now.

Okay. Okay. Um and then so complete capacity for your building then in terms of individual 500 individuals. It's five. Okay. 505 to be all right. Thank you Mr. really

again planning thank you so much for all the work you've done on this um Alicia we just really acknowledge that we couldn't do this without someone of your expertise in Landon also I really really appreciate all the knowledge and the information um the diverse housing if we lower the percentage of diverse housing I'm not sure if this is for Landon or for you Cody if we lower the diverse housing percentage from 25 to let's say 10. Does that potentially make it more reasonable for a student to live there or not a student, whoever wants to rent there, does that possibly lower the rent for anyone renting those apartments or not?

Yes. If so, if if we had the 80% AMI units in those in the building, that would reduce it to the 80% AMI levels from what the market rate rent is. So, anybody at that if we had 10% of the building, they'd all pay at the 80% AMI levels depending how many uh you know, bedrooms they have and things like that. Does that make it cheaper for the general occupant then or not? Yes. Yes. 80% AMIs are cheaper than market rate apartments. No, I think he means for the actual general rent for the rest of the person that's renting the apartment. Yeah. For the rest of them. If we lower the diverse housing requirement, does it make it cheaper for a person that is renting an apartment, a regular unit, all the apartments, philosophically, the whole the whole thing?

Um, yes, it it can it can make it more feasible because you're reducing the the overall cost in the project. Now, I will say the the supply is so tight that like Abbott for this in for instance this year raised rents four to $500 on some units um just because there's nowhere else to go in the market and people are still paying they're they're almost sold out. So,

okay. So, um given that and also given other market pushes, I am personally in favor of lowering our diverse housing um percentage to closer to the 10%. That's just my um my input. Um then the I do think that um MSU is saying they're not going to grow. At least that's what the president kind of said. They're not going to do a lot of growth. But it seems to me every fall that there's still a huge demand and I think there's still more and more demand to move into the neighborhoods. And even though I think this is going to be an interesting situation for the Bailey neighborhood, I like the having less pressure on the neighborhoods. Um that's what I have for now.

Okay. Thank you. Staff has additional comments. Go first. staff has additional comments just in regards to the commercial parking and then in 10 years if they re-evaluate that maybe there's no longer a commercial need they would need to return to city council for an amendment to that parking element if it's approved and I do really like the fact it's ground level I thought it was going to be a half level up or something I think that's much if you're going to lunch at Chipotle or if you're going um all the different businesses, I think that's going to feel much more attractive. It's going to feel like it was before.

That that's why we put the ramp where it was too to try to make that so you could walk right out there. And you know, that was part of the feedback we got from the business community, too. Don't put the ramp along the outside of it because then it just blows up the views through and all these different things. So, Mr. Landon or Mr. Bartley,

uh thank you. Just in regards to the diverse housing ordinance, um, council member Whan, you were talking about potentially changing the requirement. So, city council introduced and referred an ordinance uh at last business meeting to the planning commission uh to take a look at that. And the public hearing for that will be on April 7th, excuse me, I'm sorry, April 8th, Wednesday, April 8th. Uh, so that will be the public first public hearing by the planning commission for that ordinance. Uh, and that would after that public hearing, they would make a recommendation. It would then come back to you. So I can certainly pass along those comments for the public hearing to let you know that. Thank you. Uh Mr. Dietrich, did you have uh another team member, Mr. Penorn? Yes, he's our civil engineer in our traffic stud as well. They can answer anything if you need it.

Okay. So there's no separate statement.

No, sir, that you like to make. Okay. So then I would like to uh hold our public hearing uh at this point and then we can afterwards bring it back to staff and the council and ask any remaining questions. Okay. With that, thank you for your presentation. I will open the public hearing on this item. I have several slips. Uh Jack Johns. Thank you, Mayor Alvin. Uh my name is Jack Johns. I live at 1925 Morris River Drive. Um I'll be very brief. I think that this has been a wonderful job by terine development and community engagement. To uh council member Grizzy's point, um I will say this, when it comes to affordability, the only thing that's going to bring affordability down here is more supply in the marketplace. It'll take pressure off the neighborhoods. I think they've done a wonderful job at providing the the parking at least as close to one:1 that is existing there now, making it as close to surface as they possibly can. And again, to affordability, it it's a supply thing. It'll take uh pressure off the community, bring uh cost of uh housing down for whoever the resident is, whether it's a student or a community member. And I think it's important to recognize that. That's that's really all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Uh, Denita Brandt. I'll start with my prepared remarks. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, council members. I'm Denita Brandon. I'm a 35-year resident of the Bailey neighborhood, and I'm here tonight to express my opposition to the proposed 13story student apartment building on Grand River Avenue. A 13-story building at this location would significantly alter the character and scale of this area in ways that deserve serious reconsideration. First, the height and mass of this proposal are out of proportion with the surrounding built environment. East Lancing has worked hard to maintain a walkable human scale downtown. A structure of this size risks overwhelming nearby properties, casting extensive shadows and creating a canyon-like effect. And I going to go off script for a minute. They're really nice illustrations, but that one of the wild goose in had sunlight coming from the east. I don't think that's going to happen with that building there. Second, infrastructure and traffic impacts. and we've heard all about this. Grand River already experiences congestion, particularly during peak university hours and special events. Adding hundreds of additional residents in a single highdensity project will increase pressure on roads, parking, utilities, and public services. If infrastructure upgrades are required, who ultimately bears that cost? Third, while students are an essential and valued part of our community, a healthy city depends on housing diversity. We've been talking about that including options for families, professionals, and long-term residents. Concentrating more high-rise student targeted housing along Grand River risk

accelerating the shift toward a transient population and diminishing neighborhood stability. Finally, I urge council to consider whether alternatives have been fully explored. Could a mid-rise development achieve housing goals without dramatically changing the skyline? Could mixed income or mixed demographic housing better serve the broader community? Growth is not inherently bad, but growth must align with our long-term vision, infrastructure, capacity, and community character. I respectfully ask council to pause and reconsider this proposal, prioritize meaningful community input. I am I'm I am shocked that is Is someone from BCA here tonight? Yeah. Uh Bailey Community Association that they're not here tonight. Um I didn't know about this meeting until 4:00 this afternoon when I ran into a colleague that oh you know they're talking about this tonight. What if you would like more input from the Bailey community I will bring it to you. I will there's a there's a BCA meeting apparently next Thursday and I will be there and I will encourage anyone who is interested to um email their comments to you. So I again I urge you to pause to reconsider this proposal, prioritize meaningful community input and ensure that any development reflects the scale values and long-term interests of East Lancing. Thank you for your time and your service. Thank you for your comments. Uh Bob Mezer.

Yes. Thank you,

distinguished council. Thank you for allowing me a few minutes to speak. My name is Bob Mezer. Uh I represent the Mezer Fabian family. We are the uh property owners uh on who the uh proposed project is being developed and uh it would be our intention to sell the property to uh uh the uh the developers. Uh I'm here obviously to speak in favor of the proposed development by TDP uh acquisitions and represented by Cody. Um one minute of background on this. You know, for the past 25 years, um the Mets Fabian family has leased the property to um to the city of East Lancing, uh for use as a as a parking lot. Um for many years, we had a long-term lease agreement. Then in 2022, now nobody who's in this room right now was part of city council or part of the uh the uh the uh uh staff of the city of East Lancing. But uh in 2022, the city informed our family that they didn't want to continue to lease the parking lot um and wanted the parcel to be developed. They really said either you developed the part the the property, fired somebody to develop it, but we don't not want to continue to lease it from you. So, you know, we kind of had our hands tied for what we could do with it. We had no interest in being turning into developers. Um so we started working with se Pardon me that is my phone uh alarm going off. Uh with your permission I will go turn that off so it's not a distraction.

Jack's got it. Thank you Jack. You got it.

That alarm reminds me to stop eating at 8:30. So I apologize for that distraction. It certainly wasn't my intention. Um uh we did not want to develop it. um we needed to do something with that parcel. We we searched out and worked with several different development possibilities over the last few years. Um and uh and I'm really, you know, we we've we had, you know, a few knocks along the way, but I'm really, you know, pleased to to be working now with with with Cody and with with with TDP because I, you know, several of you have mentioned it. I've certainly experienced uh that they have been a remarkably receptive and collaborative and positive to work with. It's been a It's been a a really uplifting experience, if I may say. Um, and I was reminded that uh I think Mr. Bellman, if I'm remembering right, the first time we we we had a a proposal for development, it was maybe your first meeting as city manager. Is that correct? Yeah. So, it's really not apppropo what we're talking about, but uh it uh it did remind that that's how long we've been we've been working on this. Um, it's fair to say it's been a challenging challenging few years, but uh I do believe it's been worth it. Um, uh, we've been so impressed with co Cody, with uh, uh, TDP. They're thoughtful, they're collaborative, the they are great listeners, and they've taken much feedback to heart, including, you know, making sure that there is not one loss parking space because three years ago when we were talking about this uh, with the first development opportunity, that was a a huge uh, uh, obstacle and barrier there. This room was full of people who were really frustrated by that the parking was going away. Uh Cody and TDP have solved that issue. Uh resolved that issue. Maybe not in a way that everybody's going to like, but it it sure goes a really long way toward showing their commitment to wanting to be good partners to the city of East Lancing. Um they're the type of people uh and this development is the type of development that makes uh East

Lancing a better place. I think um I encourage uh the council to improve the project. And I did want to mention one thing. The last speaker mentioned that Bailey community uh hadn't been addressed. Uh one of the the first time I ever met Cody in person was at a a Bailey uh uh community uh neighborhood uh meeting uh that was at the pump house on Orchard Street. So they they there it was uh several months ago now, but you know they they uh Cody did uh bring this project to that group uh many months ago. Um, uh, I thank you very much for your time and I apologize again for the, uh, the alarm that went off. Thank you for your comments. Uh, Paul Martin, I'm sorry, Paul Martin.

Hi everybody. I want to say thank you for your time. Um, my name is Paul Martin. I've managed the Wild Goose in for the last 17 years. Um, we're located on the 500 block and we've made a very successful business. We have guests from all over the world and many from right here in East Lancing looking to have a station at our little oasis in the center of downtown. We pride ourselves on creating an experience for all. Whether it is visiting a professor to MSU, a couple celebrating their anniversary, or a group of friends using our property as their own for a family reunion. One of the most important parts of our successful business is having the amenities many other places cannot. We currently offer parking that is basically on site in the current lot that this is uh proposed on. We currently um have patios in all of our suites for all of our guests to enjoy the outdoors privately with our canopy of beautiful mature trees. Although change often arises with developments, we are hoping city council will help us pressure pressure, sorry. Uh we're hoping city council will help us preserve our end to maintain the experience that our guests come back for and also what makes our small business continue to prosper. Please consider our desires to have larger setback from our downtown oasis and designated parking to keep our guests experience at the level we strive to provide. If this development is to proceed, it is important to us at the wild use in that during the construction phase of two years that our insuccess is taken into consideration by having the designated construction zone not be at our front door and to maintain our visibility and also provide our privacy for our guests. We plan to continue to offer the unique experience of peace and comfort to our patrons. Thank you again.

Thank you for your comments, Al Bay. Hi, I'm Al Bay. I uh I own the Wild Goose End. Uh we've been operating there for now uh just a little over 24 years and I've lived at uh the property for a little over 40 years. So, I um I remember the day when I would just sit on my back porch, look across the parking lot and see the student services building um and had four houses on the east side of my property and three on the west side. So, things have really changed and they're about to change again. Um, I uh um wrote you a letter uh explaining uh some of the things that we are most concerned about. We at the Wild Goose Inen. Um and I can tell you I I'm uh uh this is my home. I've as I say I've I've lived there almost half a century. I hate to admit. Um, but what I'm most concerned about is I'm concerned about the residents of our community that this project really works for them. I'm concerned that the residents of the building are uh taking care of my new neighbors. Um, all of the downtown businesses that uh depend on uh the parking there and then of course visitors to our community. So, uh, when you consider, uh, what you're going to do, I hope you consider all four of those those, um, uh, groups of people. Uh, I'm concerned about, uh, the

development. Um, uh, I'd like to see it be a mixeduse development. I I don't see um, uh, I know there's a small coffee shop on the main floor, but that's all. And I as I understand I guess that u meets the um requirements as far as mixed use is concerned. But I had thought that um uh it could have been uh uh worked out in a better way. Um, and that we could have had some more commercial space uh on the uh uh in the development uh particularly at the uh uh what would be the um uh the north uh east corner of the development. Instead of putting in a a uh gymnasium, put some type of commercial business. Um parking. I greatly appreciate um the work that the uh community has done as far as making certain that parking is available. Uh it we really depend on it. Um all of the businesses in the area depend on that parking and we uh the last development didn't include that uh in it. Um, I greatly appreciate um, Council Member Meadows mentioning that we really need to have a secure agreement before anything happens. Um, Bob Mezer mentioned that uh, uh, basically a decision was made um, not by the city council, but a decision was made to close the lot. None of the businesses around knew about it. Uh, and I would really like to make certain that whatever long-term agreement we have, uh, if it is when when it uh, runs out, I'd like the city council to be approached

uh, to make a decision as to whether or not it should be continued. I don't want it just to be a staff person's decision. Um, but it's really important that that be taken care of. um traffic. I'm a little concerned about uh I had a uh traffic engineer visit the M and he had mentioned that having uh access to the parking lot uh so close to division street could really cause a big problem on a uh football uh Saturday. um that uh cars that might be uh queuing uh for um the lot would quickly uh meet the Division Street intersection, then cause a traffic jam up Division Street to Grand River and then beyond. So, um I'm just hoping that uh the I mentioned this to the city staff and they said that they were having a traffic engineer look into that, but I it's really important that uh that we get something in writing saying that that uh isn't a legitimate concern. Um building compatibility and buffering. Um we've been working with Cody on that. Uh attempting to um uh make certain that um uh every effort is made to um uh have this building um work with the community, you know, with the neighboring buildings, our building, the wild gooseen. Uh the only other thing is um I'm uh and this is this is kind of a uh it's not self-interest at

all. It's just I'm concerned about the residents of the building, my new neighbors. I it it uh I spoke with the um manager of the Abbott uh a number of times and I'm concerned that we h will have 11 stories of people living in a building with no on-site parking. Um uh at the Abbott what they did is they have uh first floor um uh access for uh commercial use like the Walgreens and whatnot. They have a second and third floor of parking for their tenants. Um, I greatly appreciate that the first floor isn't going to be used for commercial building, uh, but it's going to be for, um, uh, uh, parking for the businesses around. I I'm running over time. So, I guess the last thing I want is the only thing I wanted to point out there is that uh if somehow I don't know if the third floor could be parking for residents there. I'm just worried that uh people won't have access to to uh parking on site and that's going to create a problem as far as traffic. Um thank you very much for your effort. Um, we're all in this together trying to make this a better place. Thank you for your comments.

Uh, Jeff Hand.

Hi everyone. Um, I'm Jeff Herand. I'm representing FIPS Herand and Herand uh, owners of the Grand Plaza at 515 East Grand River. and I'm here in to in support of this project. I think it's been about three years ago I was here to um object to the proposed use of another apartment complex being built because they were eliminating all of the parking. Um, this this development I'm here to support because they're preserving almost all of the public parking that's essential to all our businesses in downtown, especially on the 500 block. There's three main reasons to support this project and one is need. There's a serious need for student housing. Um and the solution is to build up and the special need is the the the special use is needed to preserve our parking which is what they've tried to accommodate. This is the highest best you and highest best use of this property. It's going to be it's going to be something else. It's not going to stay a parking lot. Um there will be something developed on this spot and the and their development is accommodating the parking and they have been very proactive in in getting our input and you know changing modifying the design addressing the concerns of all the downtown business community. They've they've committed to enhancing the alley um you know with landscaping benches lighting public art um and and it is important for foot traffic. That alley is very important for foot traffic, but and most important, they're keeping 83 of the current 86 parking spaces. Um, and that's that's the difference. That's why I'm here and support this project and it and think it

will really help all of the downtown businesses with with the all those residents, you know, right behind all of our businesses. So, I encourage you to support the special use. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Is there anyone else in the room who would like to address the council concerning this issue? Okay, seeing none, I will close the public hearing and bring the matter back to council. Are there further questions for staff or the applicant? Mr. Griggsby.

Yeah, thank you. Um yeah, I just kind of wanted to follow up with um the applicant. I think it would be the best person. Um the concerns with the wild goose in um with the way that it's set up now, if I heard you correctly, and if I heard what their concerns was, they're going to lose all their patio space that they have as a business with the way that it's set up now. Is that correct? I I think they're more so concerned with their views because that that's they have no patios on our private property. It's more so there's some building next to their property now is the biggest thing. So we have just over 5 foot buffer between the property line and our first two levels where the parking is and then it goes to 10 ft. We you know we talked to them about potentially looking at some stuff like some shade sensitive vines that could lay there so the the brick walls a little bit better. So we have those shown on the plans right now. Um, another thing we talked about is do we provide some sort of historic mural in part take some of the brick off that part. Put a historic mural so you're looking out your window and it's like wow that's a cool thing of, you know, telling what East Lancing was in, you know, the 1850s, whatever it may be. So, um, we're open to doing a few more things to try to enhance that side of the building. Um, but it, you know, it really is hard to step that back. So, if you look at like projects like Landmark, Landmark is a zero foot setback. It's pushed up right to the property line of the neighbors. So knowing that we have a two-story house that's acting as a bed and breakfast next door, we try to pull that back as far as possible as still, you know, being feasible.

Um, thanks for explaining that. Um, so it's just really unrealistic to have any more setback based on kind of what you have set up for you. Yes. And especially on the first levels, too, because I mean, we're we're getting that parking as we go in. We need the drive aisle width and everything along those lines. So if we push it back anymore, we start losing parking stalls and just goes down that way on the first levels. And I think that's probably the those are right outside the window. So those would be the primary concerns I think.

So I know with the accommodations that you guys are making with parking uh once things are done. I guess I'm a little concerned I guess and I think we we touched on this briefly when we spoke, but I mean in the two years of this going on and the businesses and things like that and then the build I think Al had talked about just it being on the front yard. Um, can you tell me a little bit about bit about how you're going to accommodate that a little bit? Cuz I, you know, I I think about our events that we have, football games, welcome weekends, and some of those different uh challenges we have as a city as far as managing that. I'm just curious uh based on kind of what you have developing in your mind with how this is going to set up, what you know, what are what accommodations will you make or what are some of the different things you're thinking about when it comes to this two-year process? And then also within that two-year process, who where's the parking going to be for the existing parking now?

Yeah, I know. I can hit on a couple of those things. I think too, you mentioned like the football game and stuff. I I just want to note that our entrance to our parking ramp is further than the parking ramp below the Newton lofts and then any ones where you look at the Charles Street ramp and the division ramp where you just turn around the corner. And then we'll also be implementing the new license plate reader so we won't have gate systems blocking people from going into the ramp so they'll be able to just cruise in. We'll have which will help with that piece when you talk about the football games. Um from a construction standpoint, you know, some of the other urban developments I've done, I've developed a whole city block in Minneapolis. We build a 25 story tower and it's all you know we need to make sure we're on point with the local businesses and any neighbors who want to know about that piece. So what I've done to that point is try to do you know every Friday morning we give a notice of here's what's happening over the next week to everybody. If there's a day that's coming up for a special delivery or something like that that might be different than the normal uh shift. We would tell people about that. So we'd collect those from the DDA from the Bailey Neighborhood Association. We try to get as many people on our list as possible. So they have my contact information directly along with the construction project manager who's on site every day with the superintendent. So we're very transparent about that whole piece. And then what we do is we may focus on a lot of wayfinding signs where people are going to go. So we expect that we for deliveries that we'd be off of Albert. So we push those further down to the east on Albert um away from the wild goose in as far as possible for the actual deliveries. But that would take the sidewalk area and likely the parking lane to drop those off. The alley would be accessed freely at all times for deliveries, for businesses, for trash pickup. Um, and then our crane would be set in the backside in in the center of that basically opening where our U shape of the building is. So that'd be away from different things. Um, but then we just work on, you know, how do we how do we keep everybody moving? How do we point people to the right spots to go? If you're eating at the peanut barrel, if you're going to Chipotle, here's how you get there. So, we have to come up with a whole wayfinding uh plan along with a logistics plan to make sure that's appropriate and we'd share that with everybody to make sure they're in the loop. And then the parking uh they would

just park in the division and and Charles ramps. I mean, that that'd be the ideal spot. So, division ramp has that excess parking that our you know, we wouldn't be taking any of that permit parking until we get there unless we need to at that point. Um I would have additional construction workers would be parking those ramps as well, but they do have the access uh with the 430 stalls available right now to be able to service those. I just wanted to I think you said when we met that the way that the construction is going to be built out, the parking is going to be like a the first priority as far as within that structure so you can get that up and going as soon as possible. Is that was would that is that what my understanding is?

Uh I've not said that but but we we would we would try to do that. Yes. So if the parking is usable, you know, it might not be both levels, but if we have part of it that's usable, we try to turn that over as fast as possible. So that might come three or four months, five months before the actual development opens, but as soon as we're able to, we try to get that online. Okay. And then, um, if I may, he ask one more question. Um, can you tell me about the the bidding process for workers and and and and how that may like happen or and how you give notice to so we can have competitive and quality people coming in there and doing the work?

Yeah. So, it's it's we get a lot of calls too from local um bidding software systems who have networks. So, they they call and they say, "Hey, when are you bidding this project? Tell us when that's happening. Upload to our software and that goes to everybody on that network." So, that's all the plumbers unions. That's the carpenters union. So all those people get those blasts, but we would look to have at least three bids for every trade we have and then we'd competitively look at those. We wouldn't just pick the cheapest. We'd pick the quality work and the cost most cost effective of that.

Yeah. So, and that's very important to me. Um, uh, and just during speaking with the timelines, everything going like you think it's going, when when does that start to happen? Like when is the bidding and all that kind of stuff start or that notice go out? Yeah. So, I mean, there's going to be some preliminary bidding um done with just, you know, numbers they have in general up until we get to a little further set. So, we'll probably we'd probably have a set ready for preliminary pricing in May and then we'd have full pricing at the end of the summer getting ready to go for the fall. So, you're saying you would open up and that notice would happen first part of May or and then

Yep. That'd be able to go to that phase for preliminary. get come with their initial bids and then what we'd come back to is we'd go back for a full bid and then we'd pick our trades from there. You know, not every trade would be picked at the front end. We'd budget off of that. Then they'd continue to sign contracts, but if somebody's number changes or their commitments change with that might get bid, you know, seven months into the project if they're the countertop people and they're not coming for a year still. So, they are not all going to be selected at the contracts won't be fully signed to the front end. They'll sign those throughout the the full construction contract with the general contract. Okay. Okay. Um Does that make sense or Yeah, it does. I That's why I'm asking cuz I didn't know. I wanted to kind of cuz I I want to make sure that we have

So, yeah, we sign a guaranteed maximum price contract with our general contractor when we close and then they're responsible for then getting the subs lined up from there to meet those our contract with them to deliver on that piece. Yeah. But then what we always ask for is uh ability to sign off on on subs. I've had in the past where uh we've had a waterproofer who isn't very good and you know our subs want to our contractor want to use them. It's like we're not going to do that and if you do want to use them we have to bond against them so don't do that because they you know the last problem we had leaks so let's let's not do that again.

Okay. Um and I forgot to ask you uh I know you you your communication with community engagement has been strong. Have you talked with uh our public safety department, the police chief and fire chief just about the process of the two years and accommodations and some of the events we have and really coordinating with with them to make sure that we are because I I really I'm maybe I'm naive but I'm really concerned about the the the building process and the years that it takes a couple years that it'll take and just having um an environment that there's no consequence to that you know if anything because we didn't really uh have a plan or have uh some some understanding about cooperative or collaborative ways to go about this process.

We haven't got too far down that path. Just try not to put the cart before the horse a little bit on that piece, but we we would be happy to engage with, you know, fire, uh police, public services. That's where that logistics plan comes in. And we'd want to share with everybody. We're going to need sign off from public works to basically take the sidewalk and the parking lane as well or engineering. Um I I don't know exactly which department whichever one signs off on that rightway permit. So that would then you know trigger us submitting all these logistics plans. Tell us how you're going long you're going to need it. How are you going to use it? What are your hours of operations? And we then we have to be within the city ordinances on that piece. Okay. Okay. Um yeah. Thank you. That's all I had.

Anyone else? Mr. Well, this is more procedural for either Landon, city manager, city attorney, or the mayor. So, we're asked tonight to approve. I'm reading the recommendation, but we still haven't dealt with the diverse housing. We haven't dealt with Vloo and a couple other things. Do we need to solve those things before we approve this to be going or is this the first step and then we can handle those other things? That's my procedural question. So, let me make one. So, everyone's chomping about answering these questions.

All right. Well, I asked six people, so I guess it's fair. Procedurally, they're meeting the diverse housing with the um pilot and the ai uh for the required units within their development. So, they're meeting the current ordinance requirements. But if we would change that ordinance,

then he could need to be done before any of this is approved. No, because if you changed it and the developer elects one of the alternate options, the developer would come back to you to ask to amend their SUP and instead of meeting the 25% diverse housing through the AMI with a pilot, they could choose one of the other options that you have done. Now, if you reduce it from 25 down to 10, I believe that may apply. Well, you don't have anything at this point in terms of the fee and loo if that's the path they're going down in looking at whether to go that route. Um, so right now, as city manager indicated, they have a they this proposal is with a pilot. So, if it were to be approved tonight or at a future meeting, um it would include the pilot, which would include an agreement at some point, um and it would include everything in the plans that you see before you this evening. Um my understanding is council often doesn't approve immediately after the public hearing. Um, that's I'm not the most experienced person on that uh track, but uh that's my understanding. So, if you uh chose to, you do you do not have to make a motion to approve it at this evening's meeting, but you do would need to take some action identifying when it's going to be brought back to you for approval and what you're look what if anything you're looking for in connection with that. So on that point, I believe our operating procedures are that any item that we don't take action on automatically carries over to the next business meeting. And so our custom uh that we have broken with under certain circumstances is on especially on a big

project is we don't take action the night of we don't do anything and then it carries over to our next business meeting. So that would be the the default method, but we could certainly do other things. We could postpone to a later date. Uh, for example, I believe if two weeks isn't enough time, um, but I think it's up to the will of the council with the advice of the city attorney and the city manager.

So, it can be postponed without the vote to postpone it. My question is, does planning have the authority to discuss further? So, do you have enough without us taking any action tonight to have your discussion on I believe you said the seventh Oops. I'm not sure what date it is. The plan next planning meeting

you're talking about the diverse housing component. That'll be on April 8th. That is separate from the application that's before you. So, this would come back traditionally at the next business meeting which is March 17th where you could potentially vote on this application that's before you because what is included as the manager said meets the requirements of the ordinance for diverse housing. So, as an example, you vote with conditions as presented at that next meeting and then in four or five months an alternate diverse housing option ordinance becomes available that the applicant would like to take advantage of, they would return to city council to amend their SUP and request that change.

Okay. So, my question is is could we have something written? I'm not sure if this is a city. We're always asking the city attorney to do so much. I'm not sure if this is your office for us to have in writing. What would be different about changing that percentage? What would be the consequences of that? What would be the I'm not a builder. So, is that something we could see options of the changes or is that not in our purview? So you you had mentioned that you would like to see the 10% considered. So at the planning commission's public hearing, Landon will bring that up as part of a the information presented April which is April 8th.

April 8th. And that's the first public hearing. They will likely vote at their following next regular meeting. Then it'll come back to city council for you to schedule a public hearing. Then you'll hold your public hearing on that same ordinance and then likely vote following that. And there are opportunities during that process where amendments and changes could be done through the public process. Okay.

If I may, if I could just add to that, excuse me. Uh but but if the ordinance is changed in the future, the if there is a change to the to the diverse housing ordinance at the time, like Alicia was saying, if the applicant is approved at that time and wants to utilize one of those other methods that's been approved by the ordinance, if that happens, they would then come back and ask to change their how they're meeting their diverse housing requirement. But right now, they are meeting it through the pilot units. Correct. And they could also back out if they want or they could there's all kinds of different things that can happen. I understand.

And just to clarify something too, we do not have a pilot application in front of you tonight. So if you vote on that, the pilot application will be a sub subsequent application that come in front of you to approve that piece. So just want to make that clear. Have a pilot. What was that? You don't have a pilot before us tonight. No, no, the pilot application is not a part of that piece. So it' be approving the diverse housing and then we come back with a separate meeting to talk about the pilot for that diverse housing. But I just want to make that clear that that's not in the Anybody else? I have a few comments. Do you have I do have some

um I feel like we have an incomplete application here. Um one, uh I need a contract with the city. It seems more like we should have a development agreement of some kind with regard to this particular project. I don't have a problem with redeveloping this location. I want to make that clear and I appreciate everything the Mezer family has done for the city of East Lancing and I do remember when those houses came down along there to provide additional parking in that in that that block in particular and the city operating it for many years. Um, I know I wasn't on council in 2022 when you were told that, but I'm pretty sure I would have objected to that that statement uh at that particular time. But I I think we need a PILT uh in front of us so that we can look at, you know, what we would be agreeing to. I look at the the alternative diver diversity plan and the diversity plan that's in front of us with a a payment in lie of taxes as a potential way of funding that and uh I feel like we we don't really have a diversity plan in front of us. We have may maybe we'll have a a payment in lie of taxes. Maybe we'll have this alternative property. Uh I think probably it's the property over on on Abbott. I can't remember that you guys were talking about redeveloping

and which you know from my standpoint would be a preferable uh way of us looking at this. I also uh I think I indicated to all of you when I when we met that you know you really should be talking to the city about doing something on the entire piece of land that's back there which I think would be far preferable and that would require a development agreement with the city to deal with the city-owned property and the the Mezer and Fabian property as well. So I'm I feel like I don't have anything that's really complete in front of me. So, at this point in time, I know you're talking about pushing this down the road a little bit so that we can get these documents in place, and I'm in complete agreement with that. Uh, I'd like to look at the whole package before I make a decision on what I want to do with this. Um, I understand the comments from Bailey Neighborhood. Um, and I would just note that I want to compliment you in one respect at least, which is that you you took the mistakes made by the prior proposal that was on here and you you fixed them. You talked to the businesses. I know that you talked to the the um the neighborhood and that may be why uh the the association didn't show up tonight because they've already, you know, made their peace with this particular project. So, I want to compliment you on the way that you approach this. Um, I just feel like it's not ready for prime time at this particular time.

Can I ask a question back just is that procedurally typically I've done the land use separately from the development agreement and have all those things. You know, land use is no good if we don't ever get to the development agreement, but those are separate items. Is is that typical process? I'm just asking more. I I don't know if we have a typical process of a development agreement with regard to this particular project. You know, whenever city property is involved in a particular project, we definitely have a development agreement. I'd leave that up to the city attorney as to what we actually end up with here. Definitely, we need a contract to operate the the parking system that would be located on this property. So, I I know we need a piece of paper at least, and we're happy to agree. We have no problem with that.

And the payment in le of taxes, I just, you know, I'm I'm I'm a little torn on that. Uh, you know, I look at the, you know, for two people at this location, you know, we're talking about an income of $59,100. For one, it's uh, you know, less than that, obviously. And for three people, for the three-bedroom, you know, we're talking about $66,500. That's not an insignificant amount of money for a family or individuals to have in order to qualify for the 80. And you have the student rule which we haven't talked about because you can't rent those those units to students. And if we keep the 25% and I don't have any problem with looking at the percentage, you know, I think that we can go lower and we've talked about this and we'll wait to see what the planning commission recommends to us, but you know, we'd be talking 60 units here. That would be 80% AMI. If we went to 10, we'd be talking about um about 23 units. And um you know, I don't know if we look at units or people,

but uh at 25% you know, we're looking at basically 126 people and at 10% we're looking at 50. So whether that meets the objective in my mind of the diversity ordinance, we passed that because as a university community and as a community which has developable property immediately adjacent to the university, we wanted to make sure that we had a diverse population in the downtown that we just didn't turn into a um a student rental area in the downtown which would restrict the number of retail opportunities that are down here. Um, it would affect existing businesses in terms of whether they would be able to survive. We need a diverse population and that's why we set it up the way that we did. Maybe 25% isn't a magic number

and I'm I'm willing to spend time looking at that. But, um, at this point in time, you know, I'm just not ready to vote one way or the other on this. So,

yeah. And I will just throw out there too, I I I think I've mentioned in some of the the literature I've shared, but uh we did submit for preliminary funding last year um just to see where we'd shake out as a 90 unit deal at 421 and 431 Abbott and we had about a 7 to8 million gap and I think that was in our diverse housing letter I sent. I just I highlighted that piece and you know that was assuming a pilot on that as well. Um, but those are just really tough to get done. And we're working on a deal in Ann Arbor, um, a 340 unit affordable deal all at 60% highs with a little bit of income averaging. But we're going to be getting a pilot for a dollar per unit per year um to to make that work. And I'm just just putting this out there. Um,

and let me note that if there if there were um city land involved in this project, there are other opportunities for um helping with the funding that aren't available the way it's presented at this point in time. So, Yep. Nope. Understood. So for clarification, yeah, the application before you does meet the components for the diverse housing. If in the future a new ordinance comes about that would provide for a fee and loo or tax credit or uh reduction

reduction. Thank you. it. They could come back and reapply, but the project before you meets the diverse housing component as submitted as you wrote because it doesn't depend on a payment in le of taxes. Correct. Got it. I'm a little naive about the land use part and I think you talked about working with the city. Can you can you talk to me about what how that works outside of the development? T

typically the land my experience in in these approvals is the land use gets approved and then it's conditions that you do a development agreement after the fact. You get the agreements after the fact, but you can't pull permits or do anything until you have all those conditions met, but it separates the land use from the contract piece. And that that's how I've typically done seen in other cities. Okay. Anybody else? Mr. Topic,

I'll provide a little input on a development agreement versus what the city uh does with SUPs uh currently, which is um when you approve an SUP, there's a you you approve it with a set of conditions and those conditions are put into writing. They essentially become a document that is signed by the developer and recorded against the property and it has those conditions as requirements, special requirements applicable to that development um that they are bound to and anybody that buys the property will see them recorded against the the property just like you would with a development agreement. Um, and that's why the conditions are pretty important to get them, you know, get them right and get them done, uh, you know, as as uh, completely as you can with anything you need in it. Um, and that's why I mentioned, you know, the the parking public parking requirement and so forth and and getting those things in place. Those could be addressed not in the type of a de of detail of a parking uh agreement itself, but in terms of outlining what needs to be in it and in a brief form um as an alternative. uh could also work on the parking agreement at this time uh and bring it back and the condition could be signing the parking agreement at a specific point in time. In other words, before any development commences or something to that effect uh cuz obviously you're not going to want to buy the property and the city until you know you have the development going forward. So you could time it through the permit conditions. a lot of options to do in terms of how the requirements that city council has for this development get laid out in that particular document. It may not and it doesn't currently provide for it to be called a development agreement, but it is a document that sets forth the legal

requirements that you have established and that the developer and property owner are agreeing to. They sign on the dotted line and so forth. So, just to kind of put that into a little perspective of what your current ordinance provides and does allow you to do in terms of documentation and that document that you just mentioned would be the conditions. It would include your conditions. Yes. It would be the resolution though, right? Basically with conditions. It's the memorandum of special use. Okay. Yes. Which we would be voting on at some point. Okay.

You'll vote on the conditions. So if you recommend appro or you approve the proposal with conditions, those conditions are then rolled into a memorandum of special use which gets executed by the mayor clerk and then the developer and then gets recorded at the register of deeds at that time. Then they can move forward on the additional documents that may be necessary. But those could include an agreement for the parking garage. It can include other elements that you would like to see those conditions speak. So from the discussion tonight, it sounds like there might be some additional conditions that need to be worked in into the thing that the the instrument that we ultimately vote on.

Sure. Do you have sufficient guidance? Do planning staff have sufficient guidance to work with the developer to develop conditions that reflect the requests we've had about parking? Yep. Um I believe so. Okay. All right. Y if others have specific requests for what need to go in those conditions, now is the time to to mention them. Mr. Meadows,

I'll just uh indicate that uh to the extent that there is an additional negotiation that results in a set of conditions that we're going to look at. if you could circulate that to us before uh you know uh a time before we would actually come back and and detail it then we would have an opportunity to comment on it to the planning staff um each of us if we had an issue with something is that is that doable and appropriate procedurally works works we can certainly make that happen I believe but Mr. Bartley, I just mentioned that the planning commission's resolution is in your staff report which had it had all the conditions that they placed on this their recommendation,

but we would add the ones that were mentioned this evening.

Yep. Okay. Anything further? I have a few comments and questions. Um, and forgive me for jumping around a little bit. I've had my list and I've modified it through the presentations and discussion. So, we've heard a lot about um there's several balls in the air at this point procedurally in terms of possible amendments to ordinances. And um one of my questions is if if we if we approve relatively soon, that puts a whole bunch of things into motion and it sets a timeline for for you, right? At what point would other changes have to be available for you to take advantage of them? In other words, we've heard about April being

a hearing time for the planning commission. Then there's more time for it to come back to us for potential dis discussion and vote. So now we're talking early summer. Does that affect your timelines? The sooner the better helps. Um, you know, we wouldn't be closing until August, September, so we could work it into that point. But, you know, ideally if it was done in end of May, early June, that'd be wonderful. I think that that works with our time frames. Um, so so that's not impossible. It sounds like it's not impossible.

It's not impossible. No. Um, yeah. And again, I think we're open to different things too. And again, I'm open to considering if it was 10% moderate income of us just taking it and putting on the building without tax relief, too. Like we we'd look at that closer um as well too without doing the fe and to that piece. But I do agree or fe at least it needs some teeth to that fe when you look at I I'll send around that that information. you know, our project at some of those other universities be $3 million in fe. And I think something that has a little teeth um to be comparable to others is is appropriate. Now, hopefully it's a little less than that. I'm not trying to fight against myself, but but I think you you do you you can't make it five or $10,000 a unit. That's a drop in the bucket for for anybody. So,

um you're a you're a developer that does student housing, right? Um, do you have plans for like move in and move out? Yeah. Yep. So, we work with uh we have two property management companies work with who have been in this market before and they know it inside and out. So, this local market in East in the East Lancing market. Yep. Okay. So, we can expect no chaos in

the day might be a chaos a little bit, but it it it should go relatively smoothly. You know, typically we line it up so so many people are moving in basically every 15 to 20 minutes and keep everybody on schedule and just go go. The benefit that we have with the public parking is we'd be able to, you know, like the art fair gets carved out in the current lease. Maybe we can carve out a couple of those days to be like we have 10 stalls for people to pull into and they go right up the elevator and it works out super slick that way. That's a benefit we have because we have we have had uh other buildings that have managed move in and move out successfully and one that has not. Yep. And so this is an issue for us.

And you're going to do union labor? uh partial union labor. We we won't have a signatory to the whole piece, but we've talked to like the plumbers union. So, it'll be a mix of non-un and union labor. Okay. Do you know already which parts will be non-un? Uh we don't know until we go out and bid. We'll give opportunity of every trade to both union and non-un. Okay. Um do you intend to keep the building or do you tend to sell it?

We ideally we like to be long-term holders. um we intend to keep it but we may not control that situation. So we'll have an institutional investor partner. We are going to try to basically after they typically have a 3 to 5 year horizon and then they want to get out. We would try to get them out and bring a new investor partner in and just what we call recapitalize it where we stay in the deal as the operator and asset manager with our property management partner and we bring a new partner in. So we don't have full control of that piece as in any development that happens. the the people with the the bigger checks typically call more of the shots, but that is our intent. I can't promise that it'll go through, but

So, this is going to sound like a weird question and I'm going to cast it out to everybody, but what does it look like if a project like this fails? So, you're so you're asking for high rents, right? Pretty high rents. What happens if and and your argument has been, you know, you need those rents to make it pencil out. You've made other sorts of arguments. you need a pilot if we do 25%, you know, AMI or uh uh low-inccome housing, modern income housing. So, if it if the income doesn't meet your margins, what happens? And and so so by fails, you mean basically we're not we're not hitting our expected budgets and all that stuff and we're you're not making enough money,

you know, that's that's the part of risk we take on as developers, you know. So, we sign a guarantee on the construction debt. We sign a guarantee uh with operating carry reserves with our investor partners. So, we do take a lot of risk on this and it's it's a bigger deal. Um, but if something weren't to happen where we are 10% off on our our budget, you know, or we can't lease it up, we would just take that and we'd be on the hook for it and that would be our responsibility. And so, what you're seeing kind of across the country in some of these markets is people are getting really cheap debt, you know, between 2019 and 2022. They're now their building's built and things are coming due and they're selling their building below replacement cost. And that's just a you would take your equity and you might lose your equity in that sense. We would not leverage up to a point where we'd have an issue with that piece. It would just more so be like us and our institutional partner. The money would come out of our pocket if that were to happen. But it would be a benefit if that more supply was able to reduce housing prices. So it's a bad for us, good for the community if that were to happen. I I don't see that happening in any instance, especially in this market just being how tight the the supply demand charts are. But um that is a risk that we take on every day as developers. And um you know sometimes it get it gets a little overlooked on you know the millions of dollars that we put up you know in pursuit cost. You know we spent half a million dollars already in pursuit cost to get to this point to talk to you. And so if we you know something happens we're just out that money. So we are taking risks every day. And so um I hope that's appreciated.

So one question is um you know you could you could end up selling the building at a loss right I think. Yes. And then you take that tax write off, right? A little bit. Yeah. But then you get recapture on everything too when you when you sell it because you probably took some bonus depreciation. So it's a little bit of a left pocket, right pocket thing. But All right. So that's the money is more valuable to the tax write off. Okay. All right. Fair enough. What I'm worried about is a project that doesn't work out and then we're stuck with it. Yeah.

Right. As the city because we can't sell it. I mean, it's it's there. We can't get rid of it, right, once you've built it. Well, and I would say too to your your design guidelines of not allowing for four bedrooms and five bedrooms and six bedrooms like Ann Arbor and other places across the country. We are basically designing true apartments. So it it does work for a family. It works for you know a couple an individual whatever that may be. So there is multi-use where there it would get reused in some aspect. I I've seen in different markets um where they maybe built in a up and cominging redevelopment area that doesn't have maybe the the the market behind it where they then converted them into regular apartments and the first first group who did the development took it in the shorts the the second people did just fine and so there's always a reposition but the and it's not just students I think there's a housing shortage across as you guys talk about diverse housing I think too there's a housing shortage across all housing types it's needed amongst all it then just comes down to how's it pencil you know and you look at like Newton Lofts that took four to five years to to fully lease up but I think part of that was due to COVID and so how deep is the senior market maybe it's not as deep you know the condo market gets just really hard because to make construction prices work today that the prices of those condos just need to be higher so how deep is that pool so there's a few different things along those lines but from a rental standpoint I think there will always be people there and then it's just you know the the building will operate fine it will always be full it's just people have to reduce their rents if possible and that's just a landlord problem.

Well, and that was going to be my next question is if it ends up being not student housing for some reason, how easy is easy is it to repurpose it for uh because of the way we've designed it per your ordinance, it's it is already designed. We are designing as apartments basically as typical of Mercury apartments. Okay. Um thank you. Uh couple of questions about the parking um the parking issue. So you estimate between 2 and 3 cars per bed, right? Was that that was your coming and that's been your experience with your other developments?

Other developments talking to our property management groups as well too in some of these downtown areas and just because of the access we have to all the additional amenities. We know we have 260 bike stalls. We have the bus uh system to get around campus. Then we have, you know, if people are leaving for holidays or spring break, whatever it may be, there's the bus to DTW. There's the Lancing airport. There's the Amtrak. So, there's all these additional transit oriented development benefits you have of being in this downtown that don't require that car. And then there is also the commuter lot, lot 83. Uh I'm going to I forget the exact intersections on the souththeast corner of campus. Basically, they they are not open to a agreement with the city directly to uh accommodate a certain amount of stalls, but if you don't live on campus, you can apply for those permits to live there. And then it's just a mile about 1.2 two miles up the bus line back up to the downtown area. So that would be additional parking options for for students if there are people who want cars.

So one of the reasons I ask about this is that we have another local developer who has exactly the opposite theory and the opposite theory is that every student has a car and they will pave every square inch of their property that they are allowed to to accommodate maximum parking. So you have two different theories. Mhm. And they could both be right to some extent because of the location of this property. Right. It's more walkable than others. And in fact, we had uh the developers of the hub who came in with very similar assumptions.

I think it was between 02 and.3 uh cars per per bed. And so my question is since we have had that property online for a while, how well did that assumption work out? And that's a question for anybody who's able to answer it. Do we have data on whether in fact the hub with it limited parking and perhaps also the abbot with its limited parking whether those increased parking problems and enforcement problems and congestion problems in the nearby neighborhoods because we that's an experiment that we conducted and so I think we can learn something from that about whether your assumptions are valid.

Yeah. And I think the um the hub, if I remember, has I think 70 some stalls for about 585 or 590 beds. Every I mean, every time I've driven over there, I haven't seen mass congestion on the streets, and I know they're 100% full. Um the part that's the hardest about that is, you know, it's it's private data of what students are doing. Like, they don't give that to the property manager. It's 100% of like here's where I park my car, here's how I do that. So they, you know, these property manager groups do surveys and try to get that information to the best they can, but it's not 100% science and every student's different. You know, it might work exactly perfectly as you say in this spot, but it might be slightly different in another spot just based off of who that clientele is. But I think we do have those options and then there's additional permits available through the individually that they outside of ones that we would agree to with the city, you know, the 125 or so in the ramp. They can directly go to to uh the parking department and get those. There's a limited supply of those as well, too. But, but I think, you know, between those different scenarios, we can get up to half to one. But then I just want to point out, too, that Michigan State doesn't allow freshmen to bring their car. You have to get a waiver to to actually have a car on campus. So, they are trained young here at that point, too. Uh, we'll we'll call it that way. So, and again, it comes back to the point if if you're living downtown, you have access to groceries, restaurants, you're going to the bars, whatever it may be, why do you need a car? Except for the few people who do maybe work over in Lancing for a job or something like that. They work um you know 20 hours a week, 15 hours a week, but but I think that's a little more limited especially if those people are are going to get jobs are going to want to try to get something in the downtown area so they can walk the four blocks to their job or three blocks and and go back.

Alicia, go ahead. So I can check with PACE and the police department and see if we have any data available, but just as a reminder, this particular location prohibits parking without exception provided by the planning commission. No, I understand that. I'm just looking at the numbers. Yeah, I'll I'll check. Yeah, Mr. Bring that back at the next meeting. Thank you. Uh that was essentially going to be my comment is that in the Beach redistrict, as you know, parking is prohibited. So, the planning commission had to wave that prohibition to allow up to 86 parking spaces. So, essentially, they were presented with a choice. Do we recommend approval of a zero space uh development or 86 space? And they and they waved that prohibition to allow 86 spaces. 83. And then one more 83. 83.

83. Then one more parking related question. Um given that the city will be managing that facility. Um we've we've talked about this before. Is it going to be built to the city standards and how do we make sure that that's going to happen? Yes. So it will have to be reviewed by engineering and we'll have I believe our engineering department has already suggested that they obtain an engineer so that the engineer construction folks are on the same page. Y and there are standards um from 2017 guidelines for public parking facilities that have to be met and our engineering department will ensure that that is in compliance

and that other engineer would be essentially a third party consultant. Okay. Yeah. Which is what we did with the Albert Street garage I think. And just to that point too, I mean I I just don't think this is typical protocol. We'd be open to operating that ourselves a public parking garage, but my understanding is the city would like to operate that. I just want to throw that out there if that's something you don't want to do. No, I think we want to do it. I think we No, that's totally fine. Just want to put it out there. Did you have a Yeah, please.

Can I follow up on that? I just want to make sure I understand what I just heard about parking. The planning commission waved and permitted certain on-site parking. I guess with uh but that since the downtown area extends to uh Collingwood, ordinarily all parking would be public parking for this particular project. Is that right? Unless the planning commission granted this waiver.

No, they could have applied for private parking, but they chose to make this a commercial parking designation, which is what planning commission made the recommendation to allow for. But they could have applied for private parking. But our ordinance requires

no the ordinance doesn't require the ordinance says no parking period. But if they want to provide parking in whichever manner, the planning commission can make the determination that the need has been demonstrated. They have applied for it to be commercial and planning commission has agreed that they have demonstrated that the need exists. They could have applied for it to be just for their own development, which then again the planning commission could have made a determination that it was or was not a benefit.

Well, maybe I'm maybe I've got the wrong area. I thought our ordinance for the downtown development area required that any developer use public parking as part of their project. So there is there is a component for utilizing public parking when but in addition to that when it's demonstrated that additional parking is needed then they can have this additional area and they have demonstrated according to the planning commission's recommendation that 83 commercial spaces are necessary. Okay, I got it now. That's it. I just wanted a clarification on that.

Thank you. Um so from parking to traffic um my understanding is that traffic studies in the works right and we're we've received it and we're reviewing it now. Is that right? Our third party engineer uh for traffic study Fishbach is supposed to get comments back this week. So you'll have them as soon as I get them and then we'll also provide them at the meeting. So, I have I have heard concerns about um increased traffic uh up Bailey Street and Division Street. Um because the route to get out of the downtown area is often fastest to go up to Burchham up up those streets to Burchham. Uh and so if the traffic study addresses that, I don't know exactly what it's going to address, but that's one of the issues that is of interest to me.

I don't know. Okay. And we will find out. Okay. Um I I can just point a little quick note to that piece. And so the traffic say going to look at the traffic generated from the site specifically. So it's actually going down from 86 to 83 coming out of the same spot. But then they uh city engineer asks us also to look at the division ramp to how the traffic is coming from there. And okay, I think that's all the main two points. Yes. So John's nodding his head because they the traffic study will look at traffic volumes on all surrounding streets or just Albert four corners uh four corners Bailey to Grand Albert to Grand River and then division to Grand River. All right.

So that should give us and we looked at you know the crash data and all that stuff as well and all that stuff's included.

Okay, that sounds like that will be helpful. I'm still a little confused by the tax revenue situation because we got an analysis this afternoon that's that was based on the uh the landmark that suggested um $500,000 for a tax increment and then your suggestion today based on the Abbott was that it was a million based on the tax incre increment. So that's a substantial difference and I'm wondering if in the next few days we can figure out what the real story is. So, I had a conversation with staff in the economic development side on on Friday where we went through those numbers and we looked at, you know, what the app was paying and I can send that bill over, you know, their tax bills, 1.45 to $ 1.5 million a year, but then it just looks at the base. So, I don't know what the base was for Landmark previously. That might be the difference in the increment of coming there.

So, that's uh that's why they pay other people the big bucks to figure that stuff out. But uh I I really do want answers to what we can expect. We have narrowed the range now. We were at 1.3 to 1.6 million and 50,000 a year and we have come closer to the middle. So that is progress. But I think we still need to converge a little bit on what the expectation is here.

Yeah. And if you if you require any information staff or yourselves feel free to email me directly and I'm happy to to provide additional data on that. That's great. And I'm going to leave that to staff to pursue that to pursue that issue. Um, one of the things that I have talked about in context of other big projects coming through the pipeline is um, you know, we like to talk about tax revenues from these projects, but we don't talk about the expenditures associated with the projects, right? You're going to have 500 people living in this project. We have to supply those people with infrastructure and services. What's that going to cost the city? And it's a I understand that that's a tricky uh number to estimate because it's hard to price in all the services that the that the city provides. But I did do some back of the envelope. And um so we have a $52 million general fund. That's what we spend every year. We have about 50,000 people. So you divide those two and you get $1,000 per person per year that we spend out of the general fund providing services and infrastructure to our population. Right? There's going to be 500 people in your project. 500 people times a thousand is half a million dollars. So back of the envelope, we're spending half a million dollars. The estimate we got this afternoon is we're we're taking in half a million dollars if that one's correct. So it's a wash. and that money is going to the DDA,

not the general fund, which is what's hurting. So, this is why I'm so interested in exactly what the tax revenue is going to come in at, and also very interested in what mechanisms we're going to have or potentially develop to make sure that the cost that the that the city spends providing services and infrastructure to the people in that project that the that the general fund recoups those costs from the DDA. And there are mechanisms such as municipal devel uh municipal services agreements and so forth um that I believe we're starting to talk about, but that's a that's going to be a a high priority issue for me to make sure that the that the city's made whole for those expenditures. If I may. Yes, please.

The engineering department does include in the fees the costs of expansion of any infrastructure that's needed to create this structure. So the develop developer ends up paying for that. Now, long term that changes, but for the initial improvements, it is passed on. We'll pay over a million dollars in water and sewer connections, building permits, and all that. Yeah.

Yep. Now, I understand that my math is back of the envelope and could be off by many factors, but it's it's still a starting point for conversation. Um, the last point that I'll make is I I would like to believe that these large developments do in fact take pressure off the neighborhoods in terms of rentals, but because they increase supply of student housing. But I I also have heard from various sources that uh single family housing is attractive to some people who just want to live there and aren't going to live in apartment buildings.

And so the question is whether there really is a trade-off there. And do we have any evidence one way or another that these large development projects of which there are a lot if you look in Okamus and uh Lance Lancing you know beyond our borders as well as the new projects that we approved here. Is there any evidence that all that housing that got built actually reduced pressure on our neighborhoods? And that maybe I see people smiling in the back. Um that would be something that I would also be interested in learning about in the before before the next meeting.

Do do you guys have any stats on, you know, if every rental license if it's fully occupied? Uh is there any way to track that? I I don't know if there's a survey done or anything like that. um anecdotally but uh not comprehensively. Yeah. But there are rentals available in East Lancing right now today. Yep. So the comment um because that's not going to be on the recording is that there are rentals available in East Lancing right now. Just to put it put that on the on the record. But some information on that question would be would be of interest to me. Yeah. If I can just add uh many people like to live in apartments instead of houses as well. Yeah. Exactly right. And so they may not be perfectly sure

uh they may not be perfectly funible if that's the right word. Right. Because they're different housing types. There's a huge cost difference too between living at one of these apartments that have been built downtown versus a house. Y significant. It's cheaper to live in a house and get a onebedroom. Yep. Well, uh those are all my questions and comments. Um, like others have said, I'm not ready to vote tonight on this. Um, so is there any further discussion on this matter? Is there anything further that you would like us to know?

No, I think we've talked about a lot of things and you know there's there's been other um comments made like like just talking about these rental things too. the village crest apartments, the head of the PL housing commission, Parker Fischer at the plan commission mentioned, you know, rents are going up on the general population, $130 to $200. You're seeing and that's students just moving a mile away from campus because they can't find anywhere to go. So, the housing pressures are pushing farther out and if there's a way to to bring that back in and you know, for them being close to the university and making their lives easier is a big benefit as well too. So, and it does relieve that pressure. you know, I don't know if the perfect stats to to back up your point, but uh and again, we just want to say thank you for for listening. Um you know, we're looking to be partners in this. We've been trying to be partners with everybody these stakeholders throughout all these meetings, and so we we just look forward to keep keep working it and trying to get there. So, um if you guys have any more feedback for, you know, next time we're around, if there's a couple last things you want to see us bring back or try to look into some research, happy to do that as well, too. And as others have said, I think we we all appreciate your efforts to uh engage the community various levels. Anything else from staff that we need to know?

City attorney, city manager, anything we need to know. Okay. I guess we know everything we need to know. All right. Um so that concludes that item then and we will expect to see this on our uh agenda for the next business meeting two weeks from now. And thank you everybody. I thought that was pretty uh productive. back in 30 seconds. Okay. Are you do we want to recess? 30 seconds. 30 seconds. Okay.

Uh we are going to move ahead to our next uh agenda item uh which is item 5.2 two, uh, introduce and refer to the planning commission, uh, ordinance 1568, an amendment to chapter 50 of the city code to reszone 1049 Crescentwood Road from R2, medium density single family residential to C, community facilities for a new public park. Mr. Bartley,

thank you, Mayor Landon Bartley, city planner. Um, these next three items are all intros and refers to the planning commission for city initiated resonings. Uh, so I promise the clerk that these can go very quickly. Um, 1568 is a an amendment to reszone 1049 Crescentwood from R2 to C uh, community facilities to uh, to use it as a public park. Most of our uh, city parks are zoned C community facilities. Uh, city council accepted a donation of this property which was uh, the house was damaged by fire in 2024. Um, city council accepted that donation. The historic district commission approved demolition um in October. City council approved the demolition and that took place uh late last year. So now the the next step is simply to uh reszone the property and this would be an intro and refer to the planning commission to get that process process started. Any questions for me?

I have a motion. We have a motion. Please ready. I move to introduce and refer to the planning commission ordinance 1568 to an amendment to chapter 50 of the city code to reszone 1049 Crescentwood from R2 medium density single family residential to C community facilities for a new public park. Motion by Sing, second by Whan. Any discussion? Any questions? just quickly. Yes, please.

Um, I think it's fantastic. I walking the neighborhood, that neighborhood is so frustrated with the burned out house there so long. So, I really appreciate the action

of tearing it down. Um, I do think it's very interesting when someone I think is trying to do a caring thing by offering their property the city, but actually costs the city now. So, um, that means we have to maintain the park. It's our responsibility now. So I think um even though I think the residents were being very kind to offer this to the city that means we don't get the um property tax anymore situation. So I think it's just a consideration in the future but I'm in very much support of this situation tonight. Any further discussion on this issue? Okay. Seeing none, all those in favor say I.

I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Uh that ordinance is referred to the planning commission. Item 5.3. uh introduce and refer to the planning commission ordinance 1564, an amendment to chapter 50 of the city code to reszone approximately 40 properties north of Lake Lancing Road, west of Chandler Road and east of US 127 from their current Dwit Township zoning to East Lancing zone districts. Mr. Bartley.

Yes, thank you. So again, this is a intro and refer to the planning commission to start the process for reszoning. And I'd like to describe uh this as well as the next item uh together briefly if I may. Uh because the next item, ordinance 1570 would reszone 3859 stole uh and 3859 stole is surrounded by properties that are contemplated by 1564. The rest of the reszonings uh that are that are requested. So this is a city initiated resoning. um the the all properties those 40 properties in 1564 were uh transferred to the city of East Lancing in '98 or 2001 as part of a 425 agreement. Uh but at that time the zoning wasn't changed. Uh which I I believe was done as a placeholder or some sort of a holding pattern but but now 25 years later uh the property owners are faced with a bit of a dilemma when they try to uh develop their property or sell it because essentially they have legal illegally non-conforming property. So, in order to have the full breadth of of land uses available to them that the zoning might allow, they need to change their zoning to an east lancing zone district. We had a request at 2900 Coleman uh that was separate. It's now going to be rolled right into this. Uh but that was kind of the catalyst for this reasonzoning request. Uh we had a neighborhood meeting on Monday, last Monday the 23rd at MSU FCU uh HQ2. Had some property owners show up and and uh let us know how they felt. It was really good feedback. uh I think they understand uh what we're looking to do and that this is intended to help them. Uh and so we had some really good feedback, continue to get that. Um I'm interested and excited to see the uh discussions of planning commission. So uh and just to mention again, 1570 about 3859. This is a property uh 3859, excuse me, a property way up to the north uh on Chandler just near uh the overpass of I69. Um, and that I would just consider. It could be uh taken separately from the other resoning, but I would suggest that

they be considered uh together just because those Dit Township property zoned uh Dit Township zoned properties are surrounding 3859 stole. The intent would be when those are reszoned to B2, which is what's proposed, then 3859 stole would also be reszoned. But that does not imply that we should combine the motions tonight. Correct. Correct. You should take the still they should still be considered separately and the motions should be made separately. Um but I think they can be discussed in the same breath. Questions or comments for staff about either of these two items?

Just one confirmation. This is aligned with our master plan. Generally, the only place uh so far that that is not is there are a couple there are several properties along Coleman between Koolage and West that I'm proposing to change to RM14 based on my conversations with property owners and our understanding of current marketing conditions. Uh the the comprehensive plan would say have that be B5 uh which is a retail commercial district uh the zoning of Meyer for example. Um and we didn't necessarily feel that that was appropriate for that area at this time. Could you say a little bit about the feedback that you got?

Politely speaking, people were not happy with how the 425 happened and didn't feel like the east that the city really took their concerns into account. So, the feedback was generally positive that they felt like they were being heard. Now, um we weren't really happy, I guess, about becoming part of East Lancing. Um, beyond that, I mean, it was it was a very interesting conversation, but that was I would say the largest feedback is we didn't like it then, we're glad you're listening to us now. And you said they were not happy to become part of East Lancing or or they were uh it's hard to generalize, but I would say many people were not happy. Okay. And they know about the planning commission hearings and they will know about the hearings at the planning commission in here and will have an opportunity to come and speak.

Yes. We we actually had a noticing issue with the Catalyst property 2900 Coleman. Uh but it turns out that's just fine because we're rolling that into this larger resoning. Anyway, we've also identified where the issue was with our GIS and we won't have that issue again. Okay. And these were where were these people located on Coleman or where? Uh the property owners are all over. Um, so basically we have 40 properties that are spread out around this area between Chandler 127. Um, probably just south of Coleman and up to Stole. Uh, so there are 40 properties across there. We invited all the property owners to this meeting. Uh, I would say probably 20 25 of them showed.

Okay. And just for the city attorney, all of those individuals, should they have lived there when the 425 was proposed, had a chance to vote on it? Well, I think they had a chance to challenge it and correct and would have that would have been long gone at this point in time, of course. But yeah, I just know there was no challenge to it. So, are there current council members that want to hit doors out there to just shore up any lingering concerns? I'm happy to to talk to them. I'm not sure why we need to redo these right now, but I'm waiting for the planning commission to make the recommendation. So, sorry, it's after 9,

Mr. Well, I think it's already been covered, but we've we've published a public comment for this already or is it that we'll start at planning commission? Correct. So, this is the first step by introducing and referring to these ordinances to planning commission. We would then schedule the initial public hearings at the planning commission. They would then come back to you to schedule your public hearing and then you have another public hearing. Can I make a motion, please?

I move to introduce I'm sorry. I move to introduce and refer to the planning commission ordinance 1564, an amendment to chapter 50 on the city code to reszone several properties north of Lake Lancing Road from previous Dwit Township zoning to the East Lancing zone districts. Moved by Whan. Second.

Second by Griggsby. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? That motion carries. And that uh ordinance 1564 is introduced and referred. Uh which brings us to item 5.4, 4. Introduce and refer to the planning commission ordinance 1570, an amendment to chapter 50 of the city code to reszone 3859 stole road from B4 restricted office business to B2 retail sales business. Mr. Bartley.

Uh so again, this is one property just up near the intersection of stolen Chandler uh just south of the overpass of I69 that's surrounded by properties currently have dit township zoning that was recently introduced and referred to the planning commission under ordinance 1564. This ordinance would simply uh add that property to the mix uh for the planning commission to consider reszoning as well. And the intent would be to align the zoning of that property with its surrounding properties. Questions, comments, motions. I'll make a motion.

Motion from Griggsby. Uh, I move to introduce and refer the planning commission ordinance 1570 and amendment to chapter 50 of the city code to reszone 3859 stole rule from B4 restricted office business to B2 retail sales business. Motion by Griggsby, second by second

second by Singh. Any further discussion? A question from Mr. Meadows. I just uh note that uh when this was originally brought in with a 425 agreement, the plan was to put a motel on that property uh to service the golf courses that are up there. And part of it is the um the area that has already been prepared by MDOT for a ramp in that area. This change wouldn't affect the ability to do any of that. Is that correct? No. In fact, I would say it would facilitate it. Okay. Although my understanding is that interchange is not not currently planned, but maybe in the future. Got it.

Any further discussion? Okay. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Uh that motion carries and ordinance 1570 is introduced and referred. Which brings us to Mayor Five minutes. Yes. Five minute break. Yes. Let's recess for five minutes.

Okay, we are back in session and uh the charter amendments have finally caught up with us. So now we are going to uh consider charter amendment resolutions to be placed on either the August or November 2026 ballots. Uh Mr. Jopek, do you have context for us here?

Certainly. Yes. Uh council's met and talked about these several times. the um charter review committee uh kicked everything off with some recommendations on 29 um uh modifications to the city code. Uh you have had quite a few discussions about how to place them on the ballot such that uh considering space on ballots especially this coming primary and general elections there's only limited space to fit so many on there. through your discussions, you've come down uh come to the point of deciding that there would be three on the August primary election ballot and three proposed charter amendments on the November general election ballot. Um those six ordinance or six resolutions for those ballot proposals uh are in your packet. Three of them have a sec an alternative with them. So technically there are nine uh resolutions in your packet of materials today. Um I will go through them very quickly just to kind of make sure the public and everybody understands where we're at if that's okay. So um we have assigned these uh new numbers. They're different than the prior numbers. uh up to this point you have been using the charter review committee's resolution numbers based on the resolutions that that committee adopted. We have now uh with the assistance of the clerk's office transfer transform these into policy resolutions with the sequential numbering where they would land uh based on what you've adopted this year so far. So we start with 202610 which addresses charter section 3.3 relating to the terms of office and the second one is 2026-11

which refers to council organization specifically the election of the mayor and mayor prom. Both of these sections are tied together and they were given a high level of priority in your your previous discussions uh because uh the election laws in Michigan have been modified uh in such a way as to throwing um a question as to whether there's a gap period in the way when one office term ends and another begins and same with the mayor and mayor prom's office terms because they were tied to the election results under the old election laws. Under the new election laws, it creates a bigger gap and they don't line up as well as they did previously. So, this brings them into line with what is currently in the election law and makes sure that you it it makes it clear that you're not going to have a gap that you're not going to have a gap any longer uh and everything lines up in accordance with the current uh election law. So, that's the reason for the high priority. You don't want that because it leads to questions of decision-m during that gap period. So they were given the highest level of priority. There is no alternative pertaining to those two. Uh they would be proposed for the August election. The third one for the August election that we're looking at would be uh in the list of priorities is section 7.2 of the city charter and that falls under uh what are in your packet as resolution 26 or sorry 202612 version A and version B. Um uh um obviously you're going to consider adopting each of these resolutions this evening. The first two I just described. There's only one up for your consideration. With 202612, there are two versions and part of the decision making you would need to make tonight is

which of these two uh versions do you want to proceed with? um the one version uh and you've had some discussion at this but it was last time we discussed it it was a little late in the evening uh it might have even been the next day at that point in time so the discussion was a little a little challenging for all of us. So what you have in here is um version A um is most like the version you have today. Um and it includes a change relative to the city manager, the acting the designation of an acting city manager and the designation of a uh deputy city manager which is in your current charter right now. and it also um provides for the um residency of the city manager and that's a matter that's consistent between the two versions. The difference between the two versions relates to acting in deputy city manager positions. I see Mr. Mayor, you

Yes. I believe that version A eliminates the deputy city manager and therefore is is differs from what we currently have in the charter and version B is the one that retains the deputy city manager and therefore is closer to what we currently have in the city charter.

Yes, you're right. You're you're right. I apologize for that. Version A eliminates the deputy city manager and only has an acting city manager being appointed who would serve in the event of both a vacancy and any other type of absence or unavailability of the city manager. So that's version A and that that deviates from your current setup uh and and only allows for the appointment of an acting city manager. Um, version B has the alternative that I talked about earlier, which is more in line with what you have now, which is uh the appointment of a designated uh individual uh as the deputy city manager who would who would uh take the seat of city manager if there's a vacancy and only if there's a vacancy. Uh it also provides for the designation of an acting city manager. Um, in the event of any other absence or unavailability of a city manager, in both instances, a city manager, I should say in all of these instances, the city manager needs to bring the individual to city council for approval of the person that the city manager designates for those positions. So, your decision between A and B tonight, um, you would you would pick one of those, not both of them for the August election.

Council member Singh,

and then you both were on record supporting the same one. Yes, we we both both city manager Bellman and myself uh look to version B, the one that's more consistent with the current status right now as um we were asked for our preference or our our recommendation on that. That was our thought on that. I think we both agreed. I don't want to he's maybe won't be able to speak at all. I'm not sure. But uh I think that the reason is it provides for some succession and for some ability to uh cover in the instance of say you have say you have a deputy city manager in place uh because the city manager's position has become vacant. Well, if that deputy city manager is absent or unavailable, you have the opportunity to have the acting city manager appointed just as as you often do with the regular city manager. So, it provides some some coverage there for those circumstances. I don't know if you have anything else to add, M. the only addition that I would provide is I think the distinction between the deputy city manager and an acting city manager in proposal B provides clarity. So having a permanent acting city manager appointed by council creates confusion when that person is not available in the intermittent absences that we're appointing somebody else is acting. So using the same title or designation creates confusion in my opinion where having a designation of a deputy city manager that fulfills the duties of the city manager during unforeseen vacancy until council has an opportunity to meet and either continue with that person or

appoint an interim city manager during that point of time. on to the next. Would you like me to stop there? Uh, I can go to the next three or any questions for the city attorney concerning any of the ones that he has reviewed so far. Is your mic on? Let's not.

I do want to continue that discussion a little bit. I want to ask some a couple of questions with regard I got to find the one I'm referring to here. This is 12 with the uh that's a that's 13. Okay. So your recommendation is the B version of 202612. Correct?

Yes, that's that's correct. And I just have I mean the language uh which uh you're recommending the the counter language is the city council shall designate an administrative officer or department head to serve as acting city manager during the absence and unavailability of the city manager from the city and during a vacancy in the office of the city manager. The other one basically says we we appoint a deputy city manager and if the deputy city manager isn't around, the city manager will have appointed someone to to cover that.

Yes. Uh but isn't that isn't that ahead done in this version as well? So I think the point that you were making is the deputy city manager only acts in a vacancy in the office. The deputy city manager like any other administrative officer could be or administrative department head could be appointed as acting for the intermittent leaves but the charter would not declare the deputy as the next in line except for a vacancy unforeseen vacancy. And in B, the one that you're recommending,

the deputy city manager is identified as a completely separate from the administrative staff and or a department head. Correct. It can be somebody who's not currently associated with the city. No, I it it does not require um the deputy city manager to be a department head, but the approval is subject to council's approval. Yes.

So, right. So the but for a um acting city manager it would have to be a department head or administrative officer who would serve during the absence or unav and an availability of the city manager. Um,

okay. Let me ask this. The, you know, that may be consistent with the current version of the charter, which I think you've indicated, but the practice that we have followed since we gave the thumbs down to a deputy city manager a couple years ago is the process that is followed in version A. Is that correct? So version A is the process that is followed in version A is I appoint an acting city manager in my absence. There's still the gap that if there's an absence due to an unforeseen situation that an acting city manager has not been appointed, you have a gap in the leadership of the organization until council meets 18 hours after that determination to appoint someone to be in that interim role. where with a deputy there is someone on the team and I assumed it would be an existing member of the team a department head that would be designated as deputy city manager to step into the role of an unforeseen vacancy.

Okay. But the duty here in a is on the city council. So if you're gone, city council could designate an administrative officer or department head to serve in your place. I mean, I don't I don't see how there's ever a gap, frankly, because we have to notice a meeting. Well, we would, but So, that's an 18 hour gap. Presumably know in advance that we need to do something. So, not if the city manager gets hits by gets hit by a bus. And we could do that. Sorry about that. We could do that in advance of the city manager ever going We could do that like at the beginning of every year. Designate the department. I'm just trying to get in terms of the dynamics of this

how this will really function. So because we haven't in the past decided we were going to have a separate deputy and this is not it's not intended to create a separate position but to designate someone on the staff the title of deputy city manager for the incidences of unforeseen vacancy. Yeah. the rest of the process would continue as you know it today.

Yeah. And I'm I'm good with either one of these to tell you the truth, but I just want to note that we did have a deputy city manager uh in the 2015 through 2019 period uh who was a department head who had been designated. he was a department head and the deputy city manager so that we would cover our basis here which could be done even though somebody's a department head or another member of the administration as I understand this language anyway is that right okay Mr. Mr. Greg, do you have

So, uh, Council Member Meadows, is your is your your your uh process you're thinking you would just go ahead and decide who that would be despite if there's something that had happened or not happened? Yeah, I would say that um during that that period uh where the current supervisor of or not supervisor but manager of Meridian Township was the deputy city manager here. Um it was seamless. You know, when the city manager had to be out of town or something like that, you know, everybody knew who they would go to to get a decision. I just want to make sure we're still in that position that and it's not like a separate person that we have to hire to fill that position.

And in that version, that's B, correct? That's A or B. I think A or B. We just we're just not calling the deputy city manager to the deputy city manager in one of these versions. So that's all I just wanted to be clear kind of what you how the process of what you're thinking. That's that seamless which I remember that seamless process was under language that most mirrors be. Right. Right. Right. Any further Mr. Whan?

For the record, I support um B due to the amount of work and thought from city manager and the city attorney. And um my only little question is and I think this is this can be done at a later time. Does there need to be some compensation for someone being even though it's not going to change the job all year long that that you're ready to jump in? I don't know. I that I don't think that's part of this discussion, but um I support be I'm sorry. Did you want to say something? I was going to answer your question, but

Thank you. Yeah, I I'll I'll weigh in on it based on my experience. Um uh so a deputy city manager, as has been said, is approved by city council. Uh and uh is there in the event of a vacancy? There's there's significant to the word vacancy in the context of this charter amendment. Vacancy is gone from office like a disability or has moved on or whatnot. Uh so that's when a deputy city manager would come into place. In that instance, if that were to happen and that person took over, um that is the point in time when you would decide based on circumstances. Uh are we going to provide this individual some additional compensation assuming there's somebody from the inside, say a department head or somebody for taking on the additional responsibilities? because it probably will be for a more extended period of time. When it comes to under version um B of allowing a acting city manager to be designated by the city manager himself without necessarily having to come to council as is the current status quo. um that would be preserved in here and that's usually a much smaller period of time and the city manager is not necessarily completely out of touch and and but but could be but nevertheless that individual it's just for a very short period of time. If it ended up that it was going to be an extended period of time, you could take that into consideration as council as well to provide some additional compensation. But typically, I think you've seen it be a short period of time of not more than a week or two.

Correct. So B would indicate there would be somebody that would have that they would be the director of blank but comma if there is an emergency or whatever they would become the we would have one person in that in case of the bad situation then they would be stepped in as the deputy city manager.

Yes. In the event of a vacancy. Yes. So would there need to be compensation just because they're the pinch hitter just in case because it does carry a little bit more responsibility. Would there need to be compensation for that? I I've seen it done after the fact after the incident the situation occurs because you don't know when it's going to be and what their rate of pay may be at that time and what the appropriate amount might be. Uh you could do it ahead of time, but I haven't seen it done that way in my experience. I I don't know if yours is any different. I agree. I I think it's u after the situation plays out that council can meet and determine one if you want to maintain that person

in that role or two appoint somebody else to be the interim city manager. And go ahead. But it's also a policy issue more than a charter issue. Right. That's that's right. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Are we ready to move on to the next three? Sounds like we're ready to move on to the next three. Motion for all three. Uh that was my plan. Okay.

Okay. All right. The next uh the next three uh start with 2026-13 and 2026. Well, there's version A and version B. This is section 4.7 um of the city charter relating to city council meetings. uh it has uh a few modifications uh to the charter language. The reason for the version A and the version B relates to um the there there is currently a reference to minutes being taken in the English language. Uh the charter review committee uh recommended removing that language uh and that carried over into the draft you've seen previously. We provided a version B uh that retains the reference to English language for to make sure you have thought this through. You hadn't had any significant discussion on this subject before. This is going to be a ballot question. Obviously, you can read in those resolutions what language is going to be put in the ballot language. the attorney general provided us an informal review and one of the comments was if that English language requirement is going to be removed uh from the ordinance, it should be called out clearly in the ballot proposal. So that's the change of circumstances that occurred here where it was decided to bring you back a version A and a version B because the ballot language was changing to accommodate that recommended change and that was within the last week. So that's why you have a version A and a version B here. Uh same thing on 2026-14. It refer is the section 7.4 of the charter referring to the city clerk. Um the there is a change in this section to provide for the city clerk to have a u a designate or deputy uh some

clarification on that. I don't have it up on my screen. I apologize. But the reason for a version A and a version B is the same there's reference to minutes in this section 74 as well. Um and the same comment from the attorney general's office relating to whether you know if that langu if the reference to English language is going to be removed it needs to be in the ballot language. So you so wanted to since we're at the point where you have to make a decision both of these uh 2026 13 and 14 we provided that version B in case you just wanted to keep the English language reference in the charter uh for the time being then there's 202615 relating to contracts um and it provides for design for the CFO and city attorney section 15.3 um This is as is as you've seen before,

Mr. When. So I even though I think there is room for that discussion about being accepting to all people and accepting to all anyone that would maybe possibly come and speak it in a different language at the podium or whatever like that. I am concerned about the the fact in the ballot proposal saying taking out the English language requirement. I think that would limit the support possibly of the entire community regardless of of their motives or not. Um, so my concern would be the um unintended consequence of having that in there, but it's really not the spirit behind the change of the um the charter. I don't think that anyone wants to have the charter significantly changed with that. And that's where I think that it's I'd rather prefer this option B for both of those. That's my view.

And I will just uh add that the uh the charter review committee actually recommended deleting English only from one of those two locations.

That's true. And then we made the assumption that that was an oversight in the other location and we went ahead and but I'm not actually 100% convinced it was an oversight uh in retrospect and I've tried to go back and and view their uh the video of their meetings and the the video of the one meeting where they discussed the change they did recommend isn't posted. I wasn't able to find on the website. So I can't conclusively say based on observing their proceedings what what their intent was. We did make the assumption that they meant to remove it in both instances and I'm I'm not 100% sure that's warranted. Um, but I will say that I had the same reaction when I read the ballot language and that's why I requested the the B versions because uh I was concerned that uh that the ballot language in the A version would uh would undermine support for those changes. Questions? Discussion.

I don't have any questions. I I I agree that uh with you that the elimination of the reference to the English language in I think 20 202613 B if I've got the right one um is really an inappropriate reference to it based on the language that immediately follows it. By eliminating the reference to English, we actually have a complete sentence at that point which requires basically that whatever language is used in the meeting be reflected in the in the uh the document that memorializes it. With regard to the other one, it just makes sense for us to to have the minutes in the English language. That's primarily almost entirely almost 100% of what is presented to us uh at the microphone on any given night and most of our population speaks the English language and so that is a better method of our communication with them. So

any further discussion or comments? Another question. Yes, please. Did anyone call either the chair or vice chair to figure out why they removed it in one area or not? I did not know. No, I talked to the chair on something else that wasn't on this issue. Sorry. Yeah, I'll just note again we made the change to eliminate that second reference to English. They did not recommend that. So, but they're recommend we're going to do with the direction what I've heard through comments is we're about to overturn their recommendation. No, I think we're consistent. Keep it intact. We're consistent with their

We're not going to remove any English. Yes, we would remove what they recommended, which was the reference to English. The second, I guess it would be the reference to to English. Let me just find it here. That's 14. They wanted it removed in the first instance. No, it's the second. They did not remove it from four 4.7

7.4. Nope. 7.4. they did recommend removing the word English. 4.7 is where they did not recommend removing the word English, which we thought was a mis, you know, that they missed it, but perhaps not. 7.4 they recommended rem removing it. Yeah. And that that reads currently um shall keep minutes as a permanent journal in the English language of its proceedings. And if you if you take English out of that, it's the language of its proceedings, which actually makes more sense, not the English language of its proceedings. And the other one is just keeping minutes in the in the English language.

So, let let me respond to that. Yeah.

Okay. Because I actually I'm not going to support a I'm not going to support removing English from 7.4. And the reason I'm not going to support that is because of the ballot language. And I'm going to read the ballot language, okay, for 7.4A. Um, the ballot language for 7.4 version A reads, "Shall section 7.4 of the East Lancing City Charter be amended to permit the city clerk to appoint a designate to attend all city council meetings?" So far so good and remove the requirement for minutes only in English. And that statement I think is going to cause us to lose support for that amendment.

And also it may not be completely accurate there. So well and and then the other the other thing is that I I spent way too much time this past weekend thinking about the English language in the city charter issue. And it turns out that the uh leaving the word English in 7.4A actually makes sense if you imagine a couple of commas. So, I'm going to read that sentence, putting in a couple of commas. Okay, got it. The city clerk or the clerk's design shall attend all meetings of the council and shall keep minutes as a permanent journal, comma, in the English language, comma, of its proceedings

and that would be fine. But we don't have that here. But but you can read it. You can imagine those commas. Okay. Is there any problem with us putting commas in there? Um yeah, you would need to include it in your motion so that we're very clear. Uh but and and um that didn't uh wasn't part of the informal review, but I don't they didn't see any other issues and and it was nice to see that all of the other submissions we made to them were perfectly fine with them. They passed muster, so on an informal review basis, which is a good sign. So, I I think this this would not be a big issue in the AG's office.

And would the ballot language need to change if we added commas? You're are are you are you keeping the English language? Yes. You're keeping the word English in there? Yes, we're keeping the word English. No, I don't think so. Okay, let me let me get to that one very quickly if you don't mind. Yep.

So, there would be a comma after the word journal, correct? And a comma after the word language, correct? No, I don't think that that's going to require a change to the language. Okay. Well, I have a motion. I have one last question if I could before a motion. And the hundredword summary instead of saying only English, do we need the word only? No, because it's not in the charter. Oh, I thought we just I thought that was in the Hunter. Okay, I'm getting confused by the conversation. So,

can I ask a question about your motion before you make it? Are you only moving to approve three of these at this time or all? I'm just going to move to approve all six. I I'm with you. Okay, let's get it over with.

All right. Exactly. So, I move to approve the proposed charter amendments and ballot questions in policy resolutions PR 2026-10, PR 2026-11 and PR 2026-12 version B to be placed on the August 2026 ballot and the proposed charter amendments and ballot questions in policy resolutions PR R 202613 version B, PR 2026-14 version B, and PR 2026-15 to be placed on the November 2026 ballot and authorize the city clerk to submit to the governor's and attorney general's offices for official review. That is my motion. Support. Motion by Alman, second by Meadows. Any further discussion,

Mr. Griggsby? I don't have. So, so these will be split up on two different ballots, correct? Uh, yes. So, three will be put on the August ballot and three on the November ballot. That's what that's what I want to make sure. Any concerns from the city attorney about my motion? No. Okay. Any further discussion or comments? All right. All those in favor of the motion, please say I. I. I. Any opposed. That motion carries. And those charter amendments are on their way. And that brings us Can I ask you a question? Yes, please. The U. And we're going to continue to look at these proposed charter amendments over the next few months. Correct.

I think that's the plan. At discussion only meetings, we'll bring them up in batches of three or six. And with regard to the clerk, we're going to know in April whether we would might have more room on the fall. Um, no, no, deadlines don't start for November until the summer. So, okay. So, in the summer, we'll know whether maybe we can do four or five on the on the fall. Okay, got it. I just want to just say thank you, uh, Mr. Jopa. you did a wonderful job in getting that laid out for us and providing direction and I think steering us in the right way to get this done right. So, thank you.

Agreed. And thank everybody for their patience and work on this. Uh which brings us to uh adjournment. Is there a motion? So moved. Moved by Meadows to adjourn. Second. Second by Griggsby. All in favor say I. I. We are adjourned. Thank you all.