Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Uh, good evening everyone and welcome to the May 13, 2026 East Lancing Plan Commission meeting. Mr. Bartley, could you please take role? Uh, yes. Commissioner Chapen here. Commissioner Denalt here. Commissioner Greening. Commissioner Lein Ray. Commissioner Overby here. Commissioner Puts here. Commissioner Rimeirez Roberts here. Vice Chair Wagner here. Chair Sullivan here. And we have quorum. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve tonight's agenda? So moved. Moved by Commissioner Denal, seconded by uh Commissioner Overby. Seeing no discussion, all those in favor vote I.

I. I. Oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Agenda approved. Is there a motion for approval of the minutes from the April 22nd, 2026 planning commission meeting? So moved. Moved by Vice Chair Wagner, seconded by Commissioner Putts. Seeing no discussion, all those in favor vote I. I. Oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Minutes approved. Takes us on to item number two, committee reports. And item number three, staff reports. Mr. Bartley.

Uh, thank you. Uh, we haven't had any committee meetings uh since your last meeting on April 22nd. Uh the age friendly communities committee will be meeting tomorrow morning um to uh a quarterly meeting to essentially check in on implementation of the age friendly uh work plan that was adopted last year. Uh we're also setting up a staff work group about data centers. Uh Commissioner Putts will be uh representing the planning commission on that and we expect that to start in the next couple weeks. I'll talk about that more in uh item 8.1 tonight. Uh, as far as staff reports, uh, you'll see in your packet that I included three council manager reports. Uh, council manager reports are produced by staff at the end of each week and sent to the manager's office. Uh, essentially just summing up what we've been working on and uh, then the manager sends that to council. And last week manager said, "We would love to have you start sharing that with your boards and commissions." So, I've included the most recent uh, three reports and we'll start doing that. Uh, and I think that would basically be a big staff report for you. So, if you want to see what staff's working on, that's that's a good start. Uh, last night council met and appointed your newest planning commissioner, uh, Dr. Laura Greening. Unfortunately, she's sick and couldn't make it tonight. Uh, she was bummed, but she'll be hoping to join you at your next meeting, uh, which will be on May 27th. Uh, the commission also, or excuse me, council also introduced and referred two ordinance is uh, two ordinances your direction. Ordinance 1575 will be uh recommendations from the green code committee and ordinance 1576 will close a loophole that is uh a loophole around the diverse housing requirements. So uh we'll have both of those for you probably in your June meeting. Uh they approved a site plan request at 601 Abbott here at Abbott and Fern uh to uh convert that building uh St. James Place into nine apartments. Um so that is approved. Uh let's see. And also uh I

gave a brief report on ordinance 1559 which is the diverse housing ordinance that uh this commission recommended approval for uh last time with several modifications. Uh we discussed that briefly uh and the council scheduled a public hearing for June 16th uh for their public hearing for that ordinance. Uh finally um myself and my the other planners in our department went to the American Planning Association's national conference uh last month in Detroit uh April 24th to 28th I think. Great conference. Uh it was really good. I really appreciated uh that also Commissioner Denalt was able to join us. Um and I just wanted to see if Commissioner had any comments about the conference how it went for you.

Sure. Thank you Landon. Um just I think first of all really grateful to have the opportunity uh to attend the conference. Um and I saw some really wonderful presentations on uh encouraging smallcale development from within neighborhoods. Uh which uh I thought was really relevant to a lot of the conversations we have especially small-cale housing development. um and got to go on a a handful of tours in Detroit to look at some art projects and the new riverfront park and um yeah, it was a wonderful time and uh got to spend time with staff and yeah, it was uh it was great and again just so grateful for the opportunity to go. So, thank you to staff and thank you to the city.

We'll try to keep providing those opportunities as they come up. Thanks for representing us subject to uh funding. That's that's my staff report, Mr. Chair. So, I have a question. Can I Mr. Chapen, please?

Okay. So, since this board packet has so much about student housing, rental, uh, downtown, uh, development out in the neighborhoods, I picked up on a, first of all, I love those reports from city manager Bellman. Um, and I read them. Uh, the May 8th report, uh, there's a comment, Landon met with MSU campus planner collaborating. love that word. Uh on a project that will identify priority locations for improvements. So given all that we have in our packet tonight, we've never really talked about this directly. I wonder if there was conversation about student dorms. We just haven't talked about it. I'm assuming that the developers have vetted that and there are no plans for student dorms. But given the fact that we're talking about some big topics tonight, uh I had to just that just jumped out at me. So, is there conversation about building student dorms? I don't believe there is. So, I'd just like to get it out on record tonight uh in advance of a conversation like we're going to have. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Okay. Uh as far as I'm aware, no. is uh we I check in with the planner uh meet with them typically quarterly or or more often and that's always a topic of conversation is what are your plans what are my plans um and I'm not aware of any plans of MLC to build housing

so in other words you know I would make a pointed remark about this and student um tuition and the cost of a college education but I'll choose not to make that comment it's the burden maybe not the burden but the responsibility lies with the city of East Lancing on good developers uh and um good ordinance work uh here in the city of East Lancing. So that helps me set the table for some conversation that's going to occur later tonight. Fair enough. Yeah. Okay. Good question.

All right. And on that, Landon, I guess is is the trend that you're aware of across campuses nationwide, is it more of dorm development or is it more just apartment development, different type of housing development? I guess there's multiple ways to house students, especially with, you know, sophomore, junior, senior level students. Um, it was any of additional housing in general discussed on on campus, not just dormatory housing? Yeah, we I mean it's it's hard to give a sense of national trends. Uh I I'd like to find out more about that and let you know. Uh as far as MSU goes, uh we did talk about what are the future plans. Would it be would it be more dormatory housing if housing is constructed? Uh it seems to be that the trend is moving somewhat away from that and more towards uh more like you'd see at the private privately owned apartment buildings uh including uh university developed apartment buildings that are constructed outside of the university campus. Um but again my my understanding from MSU is that they don't have any plans uh either way on on constructing new housing right now.

Okay, fair enough. There was some discussion, I should say, on a a potential sort of development that would be near the stadium um that I think is contemplated. I'm not sure if anything's been uh I guess officially proposed. Uh some developers I know pitched their some proposals to the board uh but I haven't seen those beyond some renderings that were in the land state journal. Um my understanding was that would that was that there may be some housing that would be included in that but it wouldn't be uh designed for students. It might be for alumni. Um again though that's it's pretty conceptual. I haven't seen any plans and uh the campus planner didn't have any information he could share with me.

Got it. Thank you. Fair enough. Any additional comments or questions for Ramirez Roberts? Just a quick thing. Um, I so I read through a few months back now like the 20-year plan that MSU has for development and there's no I guess large scale dorms or student housing anywhere that they're really looking at. All they're looking at in that plan is specifically like mixed use stuff with maybe some scattered housing throughout. Okay. Good. Interesting. Thank you.

And just if I can make one last point on that. Uh generally the campus plan is sort of a an exercise on what could be built according to sort of internal zoning. Uh so there there are several like renderings shown in that plan that show a new south campus for example and that isn't necessarily proposed uh but they're just sort of exploring what could be what could what could buildings look like uh in the current development framework on campus in the future. So, just be careful when you look at that plan uh that it's it's not necessarily saying this is what we're going to do. It's more saying this is what we could do. Thanks for the clarification.

Okay. Uh seeing no other comments or questions, it takes us on to item number four, commissioner announcements. Uh this is also your time to disclose any conflicts of interest on items on tonight's agenda. So, are there any announcements or conflicts of interest disclosure from commissioners? All right, moving right along. Uh, up next is communications from citizens, uh, written communications, item 5.1. I did see, uh, quite a bit of written correspondence for item 6.1, um, and 6.2 in the agenda. Um, I don't think there's anything outside of those two items, right? Uh no, just to note that we added uh we received several uh emails or letters since the packet was packet was first published last Friday and we generally don't republish the packet until Wednesday or excuse me yeah typically the afternoon. Uh so several of those letters would have shown up to the public uh this afternoon. Uh we had a couple questions saying hey where's my letter? Uh so just to sort of clarify that's it it comes it just doesn't we only republish once generally.

Yep. Okay, noted. Thank you. Uh, up next is I'm sorry. So, so Landon, they are in the current packet now online. Online all the letters that we received as far as Thank you.

Okay. Up next is uh verbal from the audience. Item 5.2. This is your time to come forward and address the planning commission on any item on or off tonight's agenda. We please ask that you keep your comments limited to 5 minutes. Identify yourself on a card up there if you have if you have yet to do so. And if you are here tonight to speak on one of tonight's public hearings, which are items 6.1 and 6.2, uh the overlay district item and then the Grand River development proposal, we do ask that you speak uh during those agenda items. Um but um now is your time. So would anybody like to come forward and address the planning commission? Okay. Is there anyone online in the queue?

Yes, we have two caller with a phone number ending in 233. You're now online to address the commission. You may need to unmute. Moving on to the other one. Caller ending in 713, you're now allowed to address the commission. You may need to unmute your phone.

Um, can you hear me? I have unmuted my phone. We can hear you.

Okay. Good afternoon, uh, commission. Um, my name is Jacqueline Genevi. I am an owner of the property located at 353 Division Street in East Lancing. And this is regarding uh item 6.2, the ordinance 1572. So, what I would like to do is um address that the current ordinance as I am reading it does not specifically eliminate those overlay districts. It simply creates for us homeowners a fair and reasonable process for us to request consideration when the unique circumstances that exist that are laid out in that ordinance. Um, this current current ordinance that is in place effectively traps homeowners like me and my neighbor because there's really no mechanism that we can use for removal. Even when I believe in this case, the original neighborhood conditions no longer exist. When the overlay was put in place 20 years ago, it was there for a purpose. And that purpose is no longer in that specific neighborhood where I reside on 353 Division Street. Um, in fact, I view my home as an isolated island in a sea of rentals. Um, meaning that overlay is not really preserving the type of neighborhood it was originally intended to protect. Um, when we purchased the home, we understood the overlay, but the longer we have been in there, we realized that our neighborhood isn't the type that the overlay was meant to protect. We are surrounded by rentals. And

East Lancing, where my son is a student, continues to face housing demand from responsibly managed licensed rental homes and a way to provide safe and stable housing without really changing the character of the entire neighborhood. So what I propose is that the ordinance 1572 move forward for further consideration. I still feel the ordinance protects public input because every request would require the public hearings, the planning commission review, and city council approval. but it's written very narrowly so that if you as a homeowner meet those three requirements to have an overlay removed, then you should be able to have it removed. Um, again, I don't believe the original overlay really protects what the original intent was. And it's really um restricting me from my ability to retain value in my home as a single family home owner occupied and limits my ability to what I may want to do with my property in the future. And that's it. Thank you for allowing me to talk to speak.

Okay. Thank you for your comments. Is anyone else online in the queue? Just the two, right? Just the two, but the the first one um the woman the person who was just talking was the first one. She must have unmuted before I moved on. So, okay. Can I check with the other one?

Thank you. caller ending in 713. You're now free to address the commission. Okay, I think we're good. All right. Thank you. Uh that takes us on to tonight's public hearings. Uh, first is item 6.1, a public hearing to receive comments on a request from Evan Williams on behalf of Harbor Bay Ventures for approval of a site plan for a 12-story mixeduse development consisting of 1, 2, and 3bedroom dwelling units in a ground floor commercial space at 401, 421, and 427 East Grand River Avenue. Uh, Miss Wright,

good evening. This project was before you several months ago in a different form. Um the com the applicant has resubmitted for a 12story mixeduse building utilizing mass timber for an additional two stories and lead for an additional lead gold for additional two stories. In the B3 district buildings are permitted up to eight stories by right with a principal use on the first floor. the additional stories permitted by the incentives from the ordinance that was previously provided gets them to the 12 stories that they're proposing. The building does consist of one, two, and three bedroom multif family units with commercial um areas on the first floor. This project does not include parking. They have two restaurants on the first floor as well as their bike parking and amenity spaces um mechanical and loading and so forth. It's a.7 acre parcel which currently h houses the student bookstore, former Starbucks, and a former restaurant. It is approximately 316,683 square ft building 139 ft and 9 in tall. Uh they're utilizing the entire site with zero setbacks by using an bonus allotment which is in section 50-593 for development standards where the site itself building wise can only be 80% and ground coverage can be 85% but if you offer a qualifying feature which they are providing outdoor dining you can get up to the 100%. One note for this is if the outdoor

dining were to change at any point, they would have to provide a qualifying feature of no less than 445.3 ft² to allow the building coverage of 100% and no less than 750 ft to allow the 100% lot coverage should the outdoor seating dining be eliminated. Um the building does include 296 efficiency 1, two, and threebedroom units with a total occupancy of 748 spaces. They do provide an alternate plan, but for four you uh fourbedroom units are not permitted by right or by special use in the district. uh the next floor plan. This is a layout on the screen that shows a general layout of the second floor which also provides amenity spaces and then the 3rd through 12th stories generally the mix of bedrooms. Um, the main entrance is proposed off of Charles Street. There is an elevator that's provided, but it it's not defined whether it's a freight elevator or not. Um, back to the second floor. I'm sorry about that. Um, their amenity deck. There's no access shown um from I'm sorry to the terrace and there is no detail related to the uh railing because it is quite high. That will need to be determined. Um the applicant is providing 348 bike spaces. There are some deficiencies in the plan requirements such as the lighting fixtures and heights. Um they have to they'll have to provide those the landscaping they're deficient on the Charles Street side by one but they do

have enough proposed on East Grand River. The environmentalist and um our arborist requests that they consider um multiple species of trees rather than just one as they've got now. Yeah. So they're showing three on Charles. The other concern is the intersection at Charles Street and East Grand River that there's a sighteline distance that's required for tree setbacks. Uh they do have wall signage depicted which will require its own permit after um approval. They are providing a storm water detention basin. It is not required based on the threshold subject to city requirements um which a minimum trigger is one acre but they're listing that there'll be a detention or holding area for runoff mitigation but they have not provided calculations to what amount that would be in the holding area. Uh they'll need to do a soil erosion plan. Um, other departments had comments considering with concerns related to the alleyway and the loading dock um, being perpendicular. The alley is only 16 ft wide, so a perpendicular access might be a challenge. The building department was concerned about um, a life safety plan, egress and distances for travel for all floors, turning radius options for the fire department. Um they do provide restaurants on the first floor. So there's concerns for showing that the mechanical hood vent discharge is provided. Uh fire department echoed those comments. Public works had provided um comments that consider the plan submitted as preliminary.

They are asking for information related to the sidewalks. um referencing sheets that are not included, valve sizes, leads, um ADA compliance, um limits of demolition and installation on roadways, sidewalks, curbs, and so forth. And there is concern related to the construction schedule, um how the alley and the um two main streets will be utilized and secured. parking department has indicated that they would um request temporary metered loading zone spaces along the building on Charles Street because this property is not providing any on-site parking which is prohibited. The previous um comments from the parking department still echo that there are only 215 available spaces in the parking system to be rented on a monthly basis for all downtown development. That is what the parking department has indicated that they are comfortable providing. The applicant has provided some details related to the ratios that they determine that they'll need for parking which they are here to speak to. Um this application is a site plan approval and as part of site plan there site plan approval is required to minimize adverse impacts on surrounding properties, public streets and public services and to pro protect the public health, safety and welfare general welfare. And there are specific elements within a site plan that are missing from this packet. Um there are a list included in your packet. Um it goes from the details

related to what's required in general on a site plan. Um I've already mentioned the trees. I've already mentioned the light fixtures. um their narrative needs to further identify how a 12-story building is consistent with the neighborhood. There are several buildings four, three and four blocks away that are similar in height, but the immediately surrounding area doesn't have the same scale. Um there was also a requirement in this text which requires that non-residential uses provide the period of a lease and the approximate range of sale and prices and rentals of the proposed development units dwelling units. Uh land use statistics reflected in the plan against the required conditions meaning what the ordinance allows and what they're providing. Um and there is has not been provided a proposed construction schedule and staging of the development which is required. So some further elements related to the height requirements. They're not providing any special u specific yard areas which aren't required because they can utilize the setbacks. But to keep in mind, if that outdoor dining that's provided were to go away and this were approved, they would have to have a plan in place to maintain the amount of square feet to of a qualifying feature. There are concerns for the natural features and with zero setbacks, no additional natural features. there there may be some um planters that are in the drawings based on some of the renderings and they do indicate in their narrative that there's landscape courtyards, treelined pedestrian paths and programmed open spaces but it they weren't clearly defined in the plans. Um furthermore with the traffic there is concern related to the emergency

vehicles access and turning radiuses. Questions whether or not the building will be sprinkled. Um calculations related to storm water which is not required but they're providing it. So they should provide the information related to those numbers. Um and then some of the further comments are repetitive just different sections of the ordinance hit the same things in different times. Uh couple of side notes and the applicant is aware of these comments. They were provided them. The there are three lots on the property would need to be combined should this project be approved. They're aware of what that process is. There's some inconsistencies with the legal descriptions. Um, and I think the rest of this I've already addressed. So, if there's any questions specifically for me before the applicant were to give their presentation,

vice chair, thanks for that overview, it's great to hear. Um, I have a question about, excuse me, qualifying features. So, I know I understand, you know, a outdoor restaurant qualifies, which would be great. We don't have very many of those in East Lancing. Um, probably primarily because for half the year we can't eat outside. It's too cold. So, if you had a qualifying feature like a restaurant and it was 50 degrees below zero, I mean, would they have to have it open all year round or is there a season? Is it seasonal? And

no, they just couldn't abandon it. So, it would be expected that it would be seasonal. But if the the restaurants or the outdoor dining were proposed to go away, the qualifying features under the bonus aotments include items such as atriums, arcades, enclosed walkways, rooftop gardens, landscaped areas, plazas, and so forth. So, they would just have to maintain a certain amount of the square footage that I previously mentioned. Okay. Okay. Thanks. Any other questions?

Couple of comments. If I may please. Um I I I'm concerned about the parking issue. I I understand that there's some number of parking spaces from the city. Um I I'm I'm a member of the Bailey Community Association and on our association are two members that live on Division Street, which is right near the hub. And parking from the hub floods into the neighborhood and they park in the streets. They park in the businesses and they sometimes block the the private homes and it's parking is a very difficult problem in that neighborhood and the hub has no no onset parking as and nor does this particular development and I live five blocks from this development which which could flood into the neighborhood in my area. So I'm I'm expressing a general concern about the whole issue of of parking. Um,

if I may, please. Parking is prohibited in the district unless they provide it with a demonstrated need, which they're not required to do. Um, the 215 spaces for monthly rental based on the parking department's determination that that's what they'd be comfortable use using. Doesn't mean that there aren't additional spaces that could be purchased potentially individually. Um the the way that the ordinance is designed is to try and encourage less cars, more bikes. I understand that the mult uh transit we had talked with MSU previously about the commuter lot, but that is not an option.

Um students may apply on their own potentially, but there's not going to be an opportunity for an agreement there. Uh but because the ordinance prohibits it strictly,

right? Well, and there's a there's a ratio that's used to determine how many beds how many cars per per this number of beds. And I I I admit to a great deal of skepticism about that ratio. I I see the traffic in East Lancing firsthand. Um, my my other comment has to do with with with the the structure and and just the size of it and and and it there's a requirement that it reasonably be compatible with the surrounding properties and I saw nothing that addressed how this development achieved that compatibility. Um, so those are my comments. Thank you. Commissioner Denal.

Um I just had two questions. Um one was uh building off of uh Commissioner Wagner's comments about the um bonus space um or the bonus building coverage that they get by having the the certain amenities. Do those amenities have to be publicly accessible or accessible only to residents? Is there a sort of like divide between the two or do all spaces like that count no matter who has access to them? it. The ordinance specifically says for buildings and sites where the principal use is a combination of any commercial use identified in section 50-592 and housing bonus coverage shall be allocated on the basis of five square feet of added building and ground coverage for every one square foot of site area occupied by qualifying features. And that bonus allotment may be granted provided that the proposed use, its site or its relationship to adjacent properties incorporates certain architectural or site design features which allow for public or private open space, free movement of pedestrian traffic, abundant light and air, interior community space and other related elements.

Okay. So public or private um Okay. Um and then my second question, I saw that the um police uh did not have time to share their comments um on the proposal before you wrote your report. Have they since had time to share any comments? No. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? That's an interesting point though because if they were to have so it rules out some of the qualifying features unless they want to have a rooftop guard with public access so people could go in use the elevators and go up.

Yeah. And I think that's what my not to have cross cross talk at this point because that's not what this time is for. But my my question my I think I was interested in are these extra bonus amenities being provided to us the public or are they just for residents? And I it's hard for me to sort of balance both of those equally. Okay. I have a series of questions I'm gonna get to. Um so Alicia, you mentioned storm water and that you were still I think doing your analysis of what the overall impacts would be there. Is is would you characterize it as a net positive or

I'll have to have the applicant speak to that. They didn't provide any stormwater calculations and their plan just indicates a a rectangle with storm water detention and holding. A lot of these I think I'm going to be double dipping with the applicant. Um but uh humor me for a second. Uh and the engineering comments on page 14. Um look like there was a series of comments that are those in progress? Are you are you working with the the applicant on rectifying those issues? was I think the alleyway uh in particular melt pull page 14.

So there is material in your application packet that arrived the day before I was to complete my um report. I have not reviewed it there. Some of that information may be in there. I did also receive an updated list of comment responses from Evan yesterday which were added to your packet. Again, did not have time to review that. Okay. Well, I'll I'll review those in between meetings, but it looked like it was the, you know, a handful of issues regarding the alley, uh, safety plan, uh, layout of the three-bedroom units, mechanical hood vent, and turning radius for fire department. So, all those are included. That's a combination of engineering and building.

Okay. Um, parking. I spent a lot of time reading about parking ratios and what cities utilize and the formulas there. I thought that was pretty insightful. I I hadn't seen it characterized in that way. Um, did the parking ratio change significantly with the reduction of the size and mass of the building? No. No, they went down by 160ome beds, I think. Um, so that's not a significant change when you're at 0 2 or.3

just 2. So 160 bed reduction doesn't reduce. And they're still asking for essentially the same amount of spaces from the city. So the ratio would have improved at least somewhat. Right there. Yeah. Go ahead. The the code the code requires and allows zero spaces. Yeah. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the number of spaces that they plan to lease for the city that that aren't on the on-site development. So,

so the way that they calculate their space is they can provide the data more detailed related to it's either 02.3 is the general amount. Um the previous development they hadn't actually stated how much that they wanted from the city. They just indicated that they thought there would be enough um as the was provided with the development availability for shared in the department but they're I believe asking for a little bit more this time. Um, but it will ultimately depend on what gets approved and what developments are occurring because there are and that 215 is for all developments. It doesn't matter if it's this one, the other one, a new one comes online downtown. That was what the parking department was willing to say it could be monthly rented. But again, individual students may be able to obtain their own parking passes um through the city directly. And then lastly for you, I do have more questions for the applicant, but we'll let them go uh before that. Um for the sidewalk, uh and safety of of the patio, so it looks like the building there is inset and they have sort of garage style doors that open up. So the restaurant is sort of inside outside. Are they required per ordinance to have um I don't know a fence or screening for the patio that blocks the pedestrians from the restaurant patio?

There's a building code requirement and a food requirement. I believe if they serve alcohol, which that hasn't been discussed at this point, but if there were alcohol, you would see it again as a special use and that would require fencing barriers, which is state requirements. Great. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? No. Oh, I did have one. Oh, Commissioner Nal. Um, I saw that in some of the proposed drawings they are or renderings, they're asking for a series of four bedroomedroom units which are not permitted.

Um, and so we are only reviewing right now a site plan. They would need a variance. So we are are are we approving a site plan with threebedroom units right now only? Should we ignore the fourbedroom units until we see yes a request for variance? Yeah, they have not submitted a request for uh variance. Their their project is for one, two, and threebedroom units. Okay. They indicate that four bedrooms would be preferred and there's a narrative that they've provided with their argument as to why but they are prohibited by yes

ordinance. Um to my knowledge they don't intend to apply for variance but they're here so they can answer that. Thank you. Okay at this point we are ready for the applicant. So Evan Williams and Mark Bell. Which presentation do you want? The parking one or your big one? Uh no presentation. I'm just going to use some boards and keep it casual. Do you want this up?

Sure. Sure, you can leave that off. Thank you. Um, I thought I'd go a little bit more casual tonight. I know I've been up there a couple of times and so um I actually hate PowerPoints personally. It's a pet peeve of mine. So, you have some great PowerPoint presentations in your uh packets that you can certainly read, but you don't need me to read a PowerPoint to you. I think that's uh Well, that's it. Would you state your name for me?

Oh, I'm sorry. Mark Bell, CEO, Harbor Bay. Um, so within those packets, pretty comprehensive on the project itself. It goes over what we've uh presented thus far. Some of the consultants that have come, you've heard from structural engineers, you've heard from sustainability engineers, you've heard from architects, uh, talking about things like sustainability, mass timber, so on and so forth. Um, we also have a PowerPoint presentation um, on parking. We can talk about parking tonight. Would love to. Um, so what I'd like to do is just try to keep this free form. We put some boards together to create some thoughts, uh, spearhead some questions, some dialogue. Um, I maybe I'll stop kind of here and there, uh, to see if there's any questions or comments. But I think from my standpoint tonight, what I wanted to try to do is articulate what this project means to me personally um, and really to the Balline family. Right. So for me personally, um there's two main fundamental principles that I think embody this project. One, first and foremost, is the Howard Howard ball line. Um I think some of us in this room have had the fortune to to know and meet Howard back in the day. Um obviously Greg and Brad are here in the audience. Um Howard being the patriarch of the family. I think that this the goal of this project has always been to extend that legacy of the bookstore that you know uh originated plus or minus 65 years ago. So uh I'd be remiss if I didn't say that as as kind of the uh one founding principle. The second founding principle that I like to spend quite a bit of time within reason is talking about mass timber. And I know that we've talked about mass timber a lot, right? And um I think from my standpoint, we've heard from engineers, we've heard from sustainability um uh folks um I know that many of you I think have spent plus or minus 18 months uh on ordinance 1536

environmental sustainability mass timber. What I'd like to do tonight is talk to you about the practical nature from a developer of mass timber. So what I mean by that is when we look at this development um often times developers can be guilty of what I would call hyperbolic rhetoric right a lot of cliches a lot of words like transformational and different things like that um but when we look at this project uh and we take the two variables of mass timber tall mass timber so eight stories or higher right resi gold lead certification when we take those two variables and we we intersect them and we look at the data set. There are two buildings in the entire United States that qualify under that circumstance. There's one in Portland, Oregon, and there's one in Cleveland, Ohio. We developed the second one. So, the point that I'm trying to make is that we're at the doorstep of dramatic innovation. Uh innovation that's evolving as as we as we speak. As an example, when we developed Intro Cleveland back in 2020, there was not a single domestic American manufacturer that bid that job. Mass timber. That's about a 500,000t building. Um, America has generally been very slow to adopt mass timber. Europe, Canada, even Japan have been decades ahead of us. Um, for me personally, I looked at Mass Timber and there's a great developer, international developer called Hines that develops mass timber office buildings called T3. I walked the first T3 building in Minneapolis and I've been schooled in real estate for a long time. It's always been taught as a commodity and that building spoke to me differently than any building I've ever walked in uh uh in my life. Right. So, that really changed the the trajectory of Harbor Bay. We became impassioned to

develop mass timber as it relates to residential. This is back in 2018, forging forward to Cleveland in 2020. At that time, the IBC code, the international building code, um was way behind where it is today. Okay? So, we had to get what what's called an alternative engineer method. We worked with the governor of Ohio. We worked with the mayor of of Cleveland. Uh everything everyone came together and we built that building. Right? Today, fast forward and Michigan is one of 22 states that have adopted the 2021 tall mass timber code. What does that mean? It means to me it's actually I look at the inverse, there's 28 states in the country right now that don't have mass timber in it code, which is wild, right? So, there's only 22 states that can actually do that project by code and Michigan is one of them. When I look at Michigan and I look at American timber production, um we just broke ground about seven months ago on a very similar project in Columbus, Ohio. In fact, timber just showed up last week. We're on site. Would love anybody that wants to come down to Columbus to see the project. Timber's going up. Um big deal. I This isn't political to me, but there's obviously a lot of movement going on right now as far as onshoring, manufacturing, different things. Um, Cleveland, I should note we we uh uh got the wood from Austria company called Binder Holtz. Great company, great people. But as we move into mass timber and again the kind of overarching thesis of this particular project and we look at domestic production and we look at Michigan, okay, so Michigan for example in forestry services has 27 billion per year in annual GDP as it relates to the forest industries uh industry, right? So it could be paper mills, sawmills, loggings, 27 billion very rich history in in in wood particularly in the UP, right? So when we look at mass timber, I actually really compliment the

commission and council and stakeholders in 1536 because as I understood it and I researched this extensively and had my team research it and we we are mass timber enthusiasts as you can tell. East Lansing I think is the only city in the entire country that has a mass timber incentivized ordinance within its within its zoning. So I think looking at this building and saying what does it really mean, right? It's saying again that intersection of gold lead certification, we should talk about that because gold is extremely hard to achieve in residential. Um and in fact as we go back when we looked at this building our first iteration, our second iteration town hall means what does it want to be? What we didn't want to do is overpromise and underdel. Very easy to say, okay, let's do a master gold lead certification building. But again, there's only two of these buildings in the entire country, right? Um, gold lead certification, lead certification in general, by the way, is constantly being iterated, scorecards, different things, pre-certification, and we need to be cognizant of that. So, again, for for me, looking at this deal, it's about leadership. Um, I think Michigan's got a great opportunity to lead here. Um I do think that in 10 years from now um I won't be at a podium saying that there's only two of these buildings in the country. There's agreeing probably a lot more. Um we're seeing this a lot in the public sector whether you know take for instance Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor I think has about four or five elementary schools going on right now as mass timber. There's museums, there's libraries, there's offices. But in order for mass timber to really get mainstream, it has to be into buildings like this. Why? Because when we get into billions like this, it actually, in my mind, believe it or not, solves affordability. We all want affordable housing. Um, but I'm a big believer personally of of non-governmental affordable housing. And so, we study construction extensively.

We love it. I was just there on site in Columbus. mass timber, you can build that building, okay, with a fraction of the labor as compared to steel and concrete. So, if I'm building that building out of PT construction, post-tension concrete, usually 30 to 40 carpenter crews uh laborers have to turn that floor in order to do PT construction. Alternatively, if you want to do cold for metal stud construction, which is the Landmark, which is the Abbott, which is the graduate, same thing. Ton of labor. So in the crisis of affordability with costs going up, labor going up, commodities going up, the inflation report just, you know, the federal inflation report just uh went yesterday, not good. Um we've seen postcoid costs go up by 40%. Utilities go up by 50%. Insurance, which is horrible in mass timber, talk about that if you want, um up 100%. Right? So we can we have to hit affordability at a lot of different levels. Um and from a enthusiast of non-governmental affordability, it's how do we build faster, cheaper with a labor market meanwhile that is being eroded as the years go by, right? Not many people are getting into the trades. It's still a big problem. I think it's actually bottom out coming up, but we've battled this problem for about for about 10 years now. So, um speaking about the trades, just a little update on where we are on the project. We're at 100% schematic design on that project. We're out to um all the divisions of construction bidding out right now. 50 to 60 subcontractors. We're talking about mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection, concrete, wood, carpenter, so on so forth. Um state of Michigan, I love the mass timber uh aspect. Um I want to talk about student housing real quickly, actually. So, student housing, I I think there's a lot of talk about student

housing and okay, is are students going to live in that building? Yes, they are. Um, but it's not regulated to students. Um, what I believe in Mass Timber is that these are such innovative buildings. They're very diverse. Um, I think everyone knows, right, that when we walk into a mass timber unit, the living room and the bedroom are exposed. So when that floor panel comes down, that is your finished ceiling. There's no drywall in the ceiling. So when we bring into a concept like biofilia, which is taking outdoor elements into an interior building, that is a desired place to live. A building that does not exist in the entire state of Michigan right now. So you build that building and I would submit to you similar to what we're seeing in Columbus is that yes, there going to be students that live in the building, juniors and seniors, right? Because there's freshman and sophomore have to live on campus at Michigan State. But we see Ann Arbor, Madison, Austin, Raleigh, uh these towns that are taking the graduates and the graduates are choosing to live in that same town where they went to school. They would prefer it. I mean, people are not moving to Chicago as much as they did or New York City. Um so I would submit that there's going to be plenty of non- students that could live in that building and enjoy that building. Um the average age, uh if I'm reading the comprehensive report, is 21 years of age in East Lansancy. I'm assuming that takes into account Michigan State obviously, but I think that demographic is that building, right? That's a beautiful building that will be great in every sense of the word. I'm very passionate about it. So, um, I was going to transition to parking, but maybe I can stop there and field any questions you might have from a technical standpoint or mass timber or domestic production or where the wood's coming from, Michigan, any of those things that you want to talk about. We should talk about the cost too of mass timber and lead certification.

Any questions before we pivot to parking? I mean, Commissioner Nol, I I wasn't interested in where it was coming from and now I'm like, where is it coming from?

Yes. Awesome. Okay. So, it used to come from we got it from Austria uh during COVID uh across the sea into the St. Lawrence Seaway down into Cleveland and we did the Port of Cleveland, which was a big economic development hurah rah type of thing, which was awesome. And it it all worked out in the end during co um since then the Americans have um started to ramp up this uh innovative construction means and methods. There's a company called Smart Lamb out of Alabama and in Montana. So you can use a uh uh different species of wood. So believe it or not, southeast United States, southern yellow pine is great for mass timber. They harvest it very responsibly. basically for every tree they cut down they they plant three trees. I think everyone knows um real quickly uh global warming, right? I mean just I think everyone realizes there's global warming that maybe the debate is how much global warming, how severe it is, but you can always stop a global warming one of two ways. You emit less carbon, right? Or you take carbon out of the air. Second grade photosynthesis, you plant the trees, they suck it down. Basically, a tree maximizes its uh sequestration of carbon in its teenage years. So, we want to cut down trees in their teenage years, not old growth uh trees, and replant them, cut them down again, 15, 20 year aged trees to uh to to to stop the uh uh the carbon emissions. Um the other really cool thing, um now that I'm on the carbon emissions, uh thing is that most people talk about operational carbon. So, we talk about le LED bulbs, we talk about solar panels, no one talks about embodied carbon. Embodied carbon is the carbon that is produced during the construction process. 40% of all greenhouse gases come from the construction industry. So that's another reason why we need to be responsible and be looking at renewable resources to build mid to high-rise buildings, not out of steel, concrete. There's always going to be concrete. That's the other

kind of funny thing is that are we competing against concrete? We we have great concrete subs that we love. Answer is they have to work together. Our podium is concrete. Our stair towers is concrete. Our elevator towers are concrete. Um, and honestly, the carpenters from the concrete are a great um symbiotic relationship to of oftentimes erect the timber. So, I don't Okay, so yes, the wood from Columbus is coming from Alabama. This would also likely come from Alabama. Um, and I think on Michigan, which is interesting. And I talked at the Michigan tall mass timber uh conference, I don't know, six months ago. Sandra Lupian was there in Kalamazoo. I think that's the next kind of moment for Michigan is they have the sawmills. Do they want to invest in manufacturing facilities for CLT cross laminated timber and glue uh columns and beams? I think the answer is yes. There's a company called Element 5 which is just in Toronto. So it's it's right there for the taking. Yeah.

Can you talk a little bit about um the noise of construction with mass timber? I think we had heard previously it was reduced because you're not cutting on on site. Yeah. Could you speak to that?

For sure. Great question. Yes. Noise, speed of construction, um, all are are vastly, uh, superior for mass timber. Basically, what we do is we have to get our design completely done. A lot of times, um, if you're in a steel and concrete building, what I would like to say, you can kind of chase design through construction. In mass timber, you have to get your whole design done. Why? because your BIM model, okay, so all your MEP and FP penetrations go into a model. That model goes to the manufacturer down in Alabama. They then create and manufacture the wood. The wood then goes into a CNC machinery with a five-axis machine that actually drills all those holes so that when it comes to the site on flatbeds, it's erected with the tower crane and it's basically a kit of parts like a like a Lego set. So again, the speed of construction is probably um improved by maybe 30%. And there's no, you know, when you're doing concrete, you're drilling, you're hammering, it's it's it's none of that because all of your penetrations are are done. When we talk about again the affordability on penetrations, for every dollar that a developer or construction spends, 66 cents plus or minus is labor, 33 cents is materials. So when we talk about affordability again there's litex and there's lots of ways we can solve for affordability right but the private sector needs to innovate and so how do we build faster how do we be more predictable so we most of our conversations when we talk to these 50 to 60 subs mechanical electrical plumbing fire protection we say I can improve your manh hours which means they could be more profitable get on to the next job we have to study this and Michigan State is one of I think of only four universities along with Oregon, Auburn, and Oregon State that have a mass timber program within a school of design, uh, uh, planning and construction. So, um, God willing, if the project moves forward, suffice it to say, Sandra Lupian and her team, George

Burkhorn, great study applications to really study how do we build these buildings faster so then we give confidence for other developers to do it and the subcontractors to build it. Um, vice chair. So, you've been talking a lot about construction, but I think Miss Wrightton said there was no construction plan in your um in your packet. Sure. So, do you have an idea of when construction would be? How long it would take? Would you close down Grand River? Right. Where would your all of your materials be? Because there's no there's no place around there. Yeah, great question. Um,

if I if I may, Evan Williams Harbor Bay, I knew that some of these more specific questions I would be the one to answer. um draft construction schedule was included in the agenda packet as of today as a response um to the city comments. Um there is an MOT plan that was included with our site plan uh application that shows our draft not confirmed by the city by any means, but our first thoughts as to where we would ask for potential lane closures, including Charles Street and the alleyway. We don't anticipate shutting down anything on Grand River because that's a state highway. I actually have a follow-up question about closures. Don't go.

Um, so, um, I did see the that the tenative plan was to close Charles Street, one lane of Grand River and, uh, the alleyway is the Grand River closure. It sounds like that's not happening because that is a state trunkway. Yeah, that would we think it'd be more difficult. It would be ideal. Um but uh it would have to get approved by MDOT.

Okay. And then the second question was the alleyway and the Charles Street closure. How long do you anticipate those being closed? The entire construction time? A minimal construction time that just is and will you have uh sort of plans for pedestrian traffic especially during uh I'm I'm guessing the fall is going to be a little bit pedestrian traffic heavy.

Yeah. Yes. So, that's one of the things we would want to make sure that we're working through with um the building department to ensure that we're meeting all the safety requirements uh that our general contractor would already uh set forward. But I would say just generally speaking, not being the expert in the room on construction specifically, uh we would look to have uh the oneway southbound on Charles and then the alleyway closed to the extent of the eastern property line of uh the eastern most parcel from the beginning of construction in August, which is when demo would start until the tower crane comes down, which would be uh roughly February of 2028. But again, I preface that by saying I'm not the expert on all of those specific details and I know that we'll work with the building department to ensure that we're um meeting all of their requirements.

Okay. So, all of Charles I only half of Charles Street will be closed. Just just the southbound lanes on Charles Street. Thanks. Do you have a Sorry, that's right. Just in reference, they are required to provide an alternate pedestrian way around the construction site. They'll have to mark it and make sure it's a safe access. Perfect. Thank you. That was my question. Commissioner Ramirez Roberts. Yeah. So, when you said August, that would be August of this year with wrap up in February of 2028. That's correct. Okay.

I I had a design question. Given that this is the second building on Grand River Avenue that will have this sort of I don't know how else to describe it, like an Mshaped design with the inset with sort of the um the patio right there. What's the thought process behind that design? Does it increase the sight lines, the lighting? like what's the what's the purpose of shaping it that way?

Yeah, sure. And we we know that well because we we were obviously the ones that developed Landmark. Um I think you're trying to uh have good urban design principles uh to maximize uh net rentalable square footage in an urban design application. Right? So de typically you're going to have a double load of corridor. Right? So I look at the alphabet, right? Typically build we're looking at you know a building could be an L, a building could be a C or building could be an E, right? And depending on the urban application uh density, so on so forth. In this case, we decided for an E, you typically have a 60 foot leg, right? Double load a quarter, 30 ft off off the off the hallways, uh just to maximize space. You get into kind of, in my opinion, esoteric debates about like swimming pools. We're not a big fan of that. Um but my other colleagues of mine debate that all day long. So, you know, we we what's interesting about this this and I and again, you're going to I'm passionate about mass timber, but like the unit itself in the arms race amenities um we hear all the cliches come out, the gyms, the lobbies, this that and the everything. Truthfully, a resident spends 90% of their time in the unit and the unit is what's forgotten. So with mass timber again, biophilia, I didn't even know what that term meant 10 years ago. But man, when I walked in that Hines building, that building just spoke to me differently. I just felt better being in that building. So this building, the best amenity of this building is the unit itself, the health of the resident. Um, again, the first of its kind in the state of Michigan. it. I thought that uh in the agenda packet, you had a whole section in there about community interaction, community feedback, and one of the things that stood out to me throughout all of your community feedback is an emphasis on showcasing the mass timber within the building. I know you described the the

open concept with the roofs. Is there any other ways that inside the building you can tell this is Yeah. a mass timber building?

For sure. I think um that really resonated with us a lot. We we had the two town hall meetings. Um I think back actually to our Cleveland project and we missed on that. You know, we we just missed it. Um obviously unintentionally, but it's a I love that building, but uh and we still own that building, operate that building, but no one knows. I've had more comments go like, how do we know it's a mass timber building? People don't know until they get in and they experience it. So that really got flushed out in some of those town hall meetings. Um some people were attended that were uh you know more of a design you know experts per se and in that design cheret became this introduction of the colonade um which you know I was nervous that if the building is at the at the at the sight line even the generous kind of width of the grand river sidewalk it's just not comfortable given the vehicular traffic you know going buzzing by so it really needed to do something setting the whole building back would obviously be economically unfeasible going up. So introducing this colonade and then the colony detail was that the introduction of mass timber in that colony, right? So mass timber there, mass timber columns. We would love for the restaurants um we'll get into this with them. Uh but to have that kind of introduction of mass timber into the restaurant itself. Um so that was really the expression on the grade level floor for the public to experience the mass timber in addition to the residents themselves. I was going to save it for later, but since you mentioned it, um I saw you had specified two restaurants that are going to be located there. Is that speculative or do you already have agreements in place? Uh could you speak about

speculative? Um we uh we're just we're very passionate about this particular topic. um passionate about a lot of things obviously but uh you know if you take center city you know we had endless amounts of nationals that wanted to sign up um and it was important to us to meet the Nick Pex of the world to meet um Jay Collie at Bario to meet Tony Grant and John Carlson of of of Jolly Pumpkin so um you know our wish is for that to to happen there as well um so that you know and that was really a lot of the feedback that we received in town halls I I made the joke but someone literally said, "Please, not another chicken place." Right? And so, I think these are the things that developers wrestle with where they chase credit. Um, if they're a merchant builder, a lot of questions will come up and say, "Well, does the developer want to just sell uh the development? Uh, are they chasing credit or is a long-term hold?" Right? Tough question to answer. Honestly, as a developer, I would say that we we designed to u do a long-term hold, but we're cognizant of the market. We have investors. We have bankers, but we we manage our own properties. We're still owning the Cleveland deal. And I think that location with a colonade wants to be something great. Um there's obviously a new coffee place that opened right at the the state news building to the east. So we don't need any coffee either. So um it's just trying to find that balance and we do not above everything want any vacant retail. So it's trying to not have too much retail. If you can tell in the pink actually that's building amenity. Um and the green is retail that's done because we just don't want too much retail. We want to be purposeful and we want it to be occupied.

Great. So the focus and emphasis is on sort of non-ol aim demographic broader focus. That was the main thing that came in in you know in looking at the comprehensive plan report. It's just saying hey diversifi diversification of retail. Um that really was also a byproduct of the colony outdoor seating but doing it right. So having the planters, having a kind of a bifurcation, another further bifurcation from the vehicle traffic on Grand River, all that has to be very very carefully done with with careful placemaking.

And then uh if if I may, um to the question of the qualifying um design to meet the uh additional bonus coverage, um that's the two specific retailers. So those will be open to the public. Um, to answer your question, Commissioner Dol,

I I have a follow-up question actually. Um, what if one of those restaurants does close and therefore the outdoor seating is no longer provided? Do you have uh a contingency in place to continue to provide an amenity space that would meet those um requirements? So both of the outdoor seating spaces um are roughly 900 square f feet. Um so we would need both restaurants not to be open and completely closed in order to not meet that requirement. Um but we have not actively worked on a contingency plan, but we absolutely can. Okay,

Mr. Chapen, I'll take a a question here. So there's uh and we may hear from the state news here on public comment uh but they wrote a really nice letter in the packet as did the Lancing Chamber of Commerce. Um in my mind sort of a macro the Lancing Chamber of Commerce the state news you know important to our community. Um so talk about being a good neighbor addressing those issues which I think are reasonable issues. Yeah. Um, and I think, you know, while you're up here, I think you're going to speak later, but I like to hear you just talk about being a good neighbor. You know, you are you're going to be the Goliath on that uh block, and we want you to be a good Goliath. Yeah. Um,

but we want this to work. I'll speak for myself. So, talk about being a good neighbor and specifically uh react to the state news input.

Yeah, great question. Um well, listen, first and foremost, um we we just we met right before the meeting. So, and I think the commonality was let's find a a a a um reasonable, you know, solution, right? And so reasonable obviously is is a little bit of a maybe in the eye of the beholder. But here's what I could say is that number one um this is an urban design corridor that we want to be cognizant of what the B3 district is is wanting to do in urban design principles. For example, um there doesn't need to be any setback on that eastern boundary unless it's touching a residential district which is not the state news is in the B3 commercial district. Um, having said that, above floor two, which is basically at the same linear plane as the state news, we are voluntarily stepping the building back 5' 1 in going all the way up to um, level 12. So, I too just read that uh, letter about an hour ago. So, um, I would just say that there's already a setback in place. Number one. Number two, they can preserve all the rights just like anybody can to develop the property if and when they want to develop the property. Number three, um we previously had a 168 foot uh building. It it did not move forward for various reasons um including just listening to public feedback. So now it's at 139 ft. That's about a 20% plus or minus reduction in height. Um we're trying to be cognizant of of trying to I don't know what the word was to um Alicia, what was it was to be surrounding, you know, within reason of surrounding properties, right? So yes. So, is that a perfect solution? I'm I you know, I want to be uh respectful of of the other person, but that would be my response.

I will also say while I have the floor here, maybe I still do. The student bookstore has been a wonderful neighbor of our community for a long time. And we don't want to we don't want to upset that relationship that student bookstores had and the ballline families had for such a long time. So, I love your enthusiasm for Mass Timber. Uh, I was on the Mass Timber timber committee that worked, so I can appreciate some of what you've said. Uh, but at the same time, 10 years from now, this beautiful building will be built perhaps, I think.

Um, but we want that beautiful building to be a good neighbor uh when you're off to the next project. So, I speak for I think many in East Lancing. Um, so just just be a good neighbor. Sure. Fair enough. Appreciate that. All right, Commissioner Ramirez Roberts. Yeah, I guess I had a question for staff here. So, if both of the restaurants did go vacant or something like that, but they were actively trying to lease the space, would that still count under the I guess use? Yeah, it would for like the uh outdoor space for the uh for the bonus aotment. Yeah, the bonus a lotment.

There would have to be some condition tied into a timing mechanism that they couldn't just be perpetually vacant and utilize that amenity without having a backup plan. Okay. Okay. Uh you guys want to talk about parking at all? I was going to say, do you want to proceed to parking and traffic?

Sure. Um okay, parking. Um, maybe I'll start off by saying that it's a an opinionated subject, right? So, I don't I have an opinion on it. Um, I'm not saying that my opinion is right. Uh, so, but I am an urban design enthusiast. Um, and I believe in urban design. I believe that this sounds crazy, but I think in 20 years, uh, cars are going to be functionally obsolete. Um, there's a lot of data that says municipal parking garages, watch out. I mean, it's it's it's coming. Um, one example of a really cool podcast on the all- end podcast I was listening to is that who's more safer, a robot or a person eventually, right? The insurance carriers are going to force people to have robotic cars because robotics are actually safer than humans. Okay? So, I'm not trying to do back the future on anybody, but I'm just saying that I think as we look into urban design principles again, I think that we have to be cognizant of what's coming down the pipeline. Number one. Number two, looking at the system, um 3,000 plus or minus parking spots at the peak, and this is all in the packet, right? So, I don't want to blabver the point, um and just cut me off if I if I am blabbering the point, but at peak occupancy, there's a thousand vacant spaces. You peel back the onion further and the Division ramp and the Charles ramp are at 50% peak occupancy, right? So, there's massive amounts of parking in the system. totally respect Caleb Char saying that they can only get 215 spots. I totally get that. Um the reality is the market probably responds to the parking the way that the market wants to respond. Meaning we can't build parking per the ordinance. Um I think it would be advantageous I think although it's a decision obviously for the city to enter into a master lease from a revenue

guarantee standpoint um just to maximize good prudent um uh uh source of capital uh for the city on a long-term lease. Alternatively, and we're fine with this, the developer could not enter into a lease and the residents could then go to uh Mr. Shar and rent the spaces on the demand basis as needed. Right? that'd be the other way of doing it. Um, there are a couple data points within reason. I understand that East Lancing is East Lancing. It's not Madison, Wisconsin or Columbus, Ohio, right? I get that. But in those particular instances, they also have zero parking requirements. Um, we're building zero parking at our Ohio State deal right now. So, I I I believe in urban design. I don't believe in cars within reason. If it was in suburbia, I would have a different thesis to that. I get it. But um we believe that in a perfect situation, we would want maybe plus or minus 150 spots. When we did center city and built the center city garage, we entered into a long-term agreement. We actually come together after every 5 years and reevaluate that because at some point maybe we want less cars, right? As a as an owner, it's it's a little bit of an uneasy feeling to enter into a 30-year lease when all of a sudden demand all of a sudden what happens if it dips below that demand threshold? we're still paying that payment to the city, right? So, it kind of works both ways. Um, but again, generally speaking, from just looking at the data, I don't want to no rhetoric here. I look at the data and there's a lot of vacancy in the parking system right now. Um, good example on the hub, for example, I was kind of thinking I was listening to what you were saying. I would think or submit to the hub is I've actually walked it. The hub to downtown is a 13-minute walk, right? So, and they have no city garage right next to the house. So, I think that it's a little bit of a an outlier. Obviously, if the division street here has capacity, and that's got to be obviously up to the city to determine

that. Um, and the capacity wants to be rented either by the developer or by the occupants itself. I think that's obviously the the decision for the city to make. So, I just had a couple of additional last kind of responses or answers because obviously there's a lot of information here. Um, really quick turnaround to getting a lot of the city comments. Um, again, in the agenda packet, there's a 4ish page response packet that I put together. Um, we have a lot of people working really hard to make sure that we can answer all the questions and if we can't have answers to those questions, we want to be able to work with uh the city whether you know it's any specific division or the planning department. Um, so we are uh totally committed to that. I would say the majority of the questions have been answered and if they aren't answered, we'll have drawing revisions available shortly. Just a couple of the key points that I would make. Um, in the agenda packet, uh, as an attachment, again, as I mentioned before, you'll see that there's a construction schedule draft there. Um, there's also a storm water detention report, um, that shows an 88% reduction to the existing uh, storm water runoff of the site. Um, in regards to the engineering questions on the sidewalk on Charles Street, um, 6T is required. We have 9'4 in of clearance. And um for the second floor terrace um we'll add the doors to the site plan and that specific terrace guardrail on the south side of the building will be at least 42 inches per code. So um happy to answer all those other super minutia details. Um but just in general I think most of the those comments are addressed in that um response letter that writen was not able to review just yet.

I had a traffic question. So, I I thought your traffic report study was pretty insightful. I was looking at page 213. It seems like you guys have a particular painoint with the northbound crossover from Grand River and and Charles right there. Um, are you making any modifications to account for that? Is it just kind of a function of where the building structures or any other solutions you're contemplating? Um, I wish that I had the expertise to be able to answer that question, but I will absolutely make sure that there's follow-up to that. Okay, got it. And then I asked city staff this question earlier. I'll ask you the same question. Just a a general comment about storm water uh impact uh on the site post development.

Yeah. So that's um those are the three pages by KeS in the report um that Miss Ryden wasn't able to review just yet. Um 100year plan is reviewed and there's an 88% reduction to the overall storm water runoff of the building. There's a very large underground detention tank that we'll be installing on the north west corner of the building underneath the bike parking. That was my next question. Thank you. Um, any other questions? Can I elaborate on that comment really quick? Please. Urban design. Um, think of it this way, which I think is kind of beautiful from a stormwater standpoint.

Um, by doing that and not having parking in an urban design application, right, it allows us to be innovative with our storm water engineering, right? So that that those two go hand in hand and I think that's sometimes missed but I I really believe that one allows another um um asset from an engineering standpoint to happen based on sound urban design principles. Thank you. Commissioner Denal, did you have a question? Yes. Um can you um talk a little bit about what is planned for the amenity space? I know you the packet mentions a gym. Is it a gym for sure? what's going in that space on the grade level. Um on the eastern uh kind of book end would be Yeah. Right now it's a gym.

Okay. And that's like for sure. Yes. Okay. Um I had a question about the public art requirement. Um so you estimate um that construction costs will be 2.5 million. Um you're required I think for one% of that to go towards what's it two and a half? Is it two and a half? I think you're right. I think it's two is it two $2.5 million 2.5 million is related to I was told there'd be no math. Yeah, there's there's there's a cap at there there's a cap on the calculation of um of $25,000. Um but I'll let Mark answer because he's more of an artist than I am. I'm just an engineer. But you knew that you could do the math.

Yes. Um, and so I just wanted uh a general question about um because that is tied to how much construction costs are. Will that change over time or is it a set cost or

as it relates to the art requirement? Correct. Right. Yeah. I mean it's just a mathematical function. Um I know that he he laughs at me but I I'm very passionate about the art requirement. I I mean like I look at center city and we had that muralist and then it's on the alley and then it's an extra grease trap. Now it doesn't really look that great kind of you know like so I just think that I look forward to talking with the arts commission about doing something very purposeful um not a mural hopefully uh which I think is the copout amongst developers. So um yeah. Okay. I think my question, and maybe I just didn't phrase it right, was is will that amount that you're spending on the art requirement change in response to overall construction costs?

I think so. Okay. No. No, it's not. Was it cap to 25,000? Maximum is $25,000. Okay. Okay. We overspent on the mural that we did, the art we did there, but that was our choice. I guess that was more of a question for staff. Sorry, staff. The maximum is 25% or or $25,000. Not 25%, $25,000. They will far exceed that with their construction costs.

Perfect. Thank you. Um the other question that I had was about um we talked a little bit about transit uh or um right about parking and not having trying to discourage people from using cars. Um, do you have any plans to give residents um uh like I I know we don't use tokens anymore, but bus bus passes? Yeah. Yeah.

Uh, that's a great question. Um, and I saw that uh staff in maybe one of the most recent ordinances actually earmarked that as a as a solution. We would be totally open-minded to that. Um, obviously the Catalina is right there. So, it's, you know, to uh transit which makes all the sense in the world. So, yeah. Okay. Um, I'm sorry. I have two more questions. Um, uh, cooperation with the city's arborist who has recommended that you have a diversity of trees instead of all the same trees. Is that something that y'all would be amendable to? Absolutely.

Okay. Um, and then last question. Um, uh, Miss Wrightton, uh, pointed out, um, that y'all do not say anything about rents and what rents would be. It just says market rate. Is there any details you can provide about that? Yeah. Yes, that's uh included in the response. So on a per bed basis, there's a range uh 1,200 to 2200 per bed per month. Thank you. Vice chair, can I ask a couple questions about safety? Yeah.

Um so I noticed that that Tim Schultz, city staff, said um he'd like to see a life safety plan with travel distance to eress exits for floors. So that's one of my questions like how do you address that? And the other question I have is more general about uh fire um protection. Um is there mass is there a difference with with mass timber like fire prevention or fire code that is different from concrete buildings and how do you um address

I love engineering questions as you can tell. Um to the first question, uh by code we're required to meet all the ADA um requirements that and the maximum travel distances, uh deadend requirements, so on and so forth in order to pull a building permit that Mr. Schultz is referencing. Um it's just a function of the evolution of design. Um so I would say within the next 60 days or so, there will be a draft sheet that'll be available for um the building department to start reviewing. as it relates to um fire protection. Yes, absolutely. The building is 100% sprinkled to NFPA13 requirements. We've been working with the fire department specifically on a lot of those design details. Again, it's more or less a function of the evolution of design. So, we've met with the fire department briefly, discussed um the location of the fire pump room, the PIV valve on Grand River, the fire alarm room being next to the elevator bank. Um all of it comes as a function of how the fire department wants to be able to respond in case of an emergency. Um specific to mass timber versus concrete, there's no major differences um other than the when we talk about fire rating of specific mass timber components. So for instance, a concrete deck in terms of PT construction might be 8 in thick and have a 2-hour fire rating. Um in terms of mass timber, we have to um meet that with the mass timber uh slab itself and then we also have to uh pour additional concrete on top of that and have different uh direct applied gypsson board to ceilings in different areas of the building. All of that's encompassed as a part of what's required in the uh 2021 IBC code.

Commissioner May Roberts. Yeah. Uh, so I guess I have two separate questions. Um, so one of the things that was brought up by Tim Schultz was the alley unloading and basically whether or not the city vehicles would be able to get in. I don't know if you had anything for that.

So, uh, it wasn't ready to be sent just yet, but, um, there will be a followup with turn studies for emergency vehicles in general, um, general other vehicles. Um, there is commercial loading and unloading proposed on Charles Street with an a curb inset. Um that's where uh Mr. Char was calling out for there to be um some uh paid metering. Um so I think it's a combination of the both uh or of both of those subjects and um ultimately what we really need to do is just work with the city staff and with DPW in order to make sure that we're meeting all of the um all the requirements or or wishes. And I guess the I guess the second part there was and I guess this might be more directed to staff where if this project I guess gets approved before the city potentially approves the diverse housing ordinance that we talked about at our last meeting. If this project gets approved before that, would it apply retroactively since it's still in construction or would it only be if this project is approved after the other one is approved? Uh,

we've discussed I'm sorry. I was going to say if you wanted to chime in. Seems like you were going to. Yeah, we've discussed it at some length with the uh city attorney and we have some different opinions. My understanding is uh is we're not entirely sure how to answer that, I guess. Um, essentially we believe that if this is approved before the ordinance becomes approved, assuming that both happen, then this would not be subject to the ordinance. We're still waiting on clarification.

And then I guess this is a question for you is so let's say diverse housing ordinance, you know, the amendments to that doesn't pass. What would be the plan for this project if it does get approved or This this project doesn't require diverse housing because it's a site plan. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. And they're utilizing the eight stories by right with the two sets of additional two stories for incentives. Apologies. That's a really good question, Josh. We'll have to keep track of that. I think that's worthy of continued conversation.

And just to comment on that, Josh, if I may. Um, I I compliment ordinance 1536 for this reason. Um, and we're happy to provide detail uh on what I'm about to say. The hard cost on this project is right around $100 million. Might be a little bit more, might be a little bit less when we buy it out. Working with the subs right now. The mass timber and lead gold premium cost is about $8 million. So it's about 8%. Okay, which I look at that ordinance and this is why I compliment the ordinance is that the ordinance in order to get the mass timber in order to get the gold lead of which only two of these buildings in the entire country are there. It's about an $8 million premium, right? So, when we look at the diversified housing ordinance, there's been a couple other ordinances have been introduced. We've heard loopholes and different things. This is anything but a loophole. This is a passionate project that costs more to build, which I hope will reduce. I mean, we have to build more of these projects to teach subcontractors to get American manufacturing in the state of Michigan. Um, this is what the goal and the thesis is, right? So I I just want to make that point because I think that 1536 I don't think there's going to be a lot of developers that are going to be proposing mass timber gold lead certified buildings in the next 3 years here in East Lancing. Um I'm excited and we are excited and the ball family is excited to have this innovation at the doorstep and it's a result of 1536. Um, one final point which is important if I'm in your shoes is I did like to I I saw a pre-certification of gold lead, right? It is not easy to get gold lead.

Um, and Evan's way better than me than talking about it, but we work with the USGBC um, green building council to get a pre-certified so that we're not overpromising and underdelivering. Here's the plans. Here's the schematic set into DD into CDs. here's how it's going to be. Then you got to build it. Make sure that it's following the building permits. But that pres-certification is absolutely critical.

Any additional comments or questions? Did you have anything else to uh present on this? Um, no. I think I'm good. Okay. Sounds like we have a few outstanding items to clean up. Uh, I think this may set the record for the longest agenda packet I've ever seen at 466 pages. So, a lot of reading materials for us all. What? Not that it's a contest. I I'm certainly not trying to start a competition. Um, but appreciate your presentation and your overview. Um, and are there any additional directions for city staff? Commissioner Chapen? No. No, I don't. I think No, I'm ready for public comment. I mean, I think No.

All right. At this point, we will open the the public hearing. Thank you. And thank you. Uh and bring forward members of the public to address this item. Uh up first is I have one card up here. Uh Nolan Moody.

Uh thank you and good evening uh members of the commission. My name is Nolan Moody. I'm an attorney for the state news. Um, I heard from uh, Commissioner Chapman that I know at least some of you have read our letter that was submitted today. Um, and those that haven't, I encourage you to please read it. Um, we're up here not to try and stop this project. It seems like a beautiful building. It seems like there's many benefits. Uh we do have concerns as a neighbor and most of those concerns come from what we consider a site plan that has um missing pieces that don't answer what happens to the state news building and how do we work together to get that done. Uh I heard um Mark come up here and say he looks forward to working with us and having conversations. I hope that's true and I hope that uh after this meeting we are able to have those conversations so that we can come back up here uh at a future site plan commission uh meeting and uh voice our uh approval of what's been done. But as we sit here right now, there are two primary concerns that we have as neighbors that we feel like are just not addressed or are inadequately addressed. Uh and the first uh was the step back. Um, we are right next door to what will be a 12story building. The state news is a two-story building and there was a zero stepback. I I did see recently that there is now a 5-ft step back. Respectfully, that's still not going to fix the issues when you're dealing with a residential building. They're putting windows on the side of the building that's going to face the state news. and then you still don't have a life safety plan or the other um pieces of the plan that go into ensuring this residential building is made correctly. And the reason why that matters is because the state news could someday look to build up or could use its, you know, north northward space if it wanted to. But if the building is too close, of course,

that makes it nearly impossible. And the 5-ft step back that was recently proposed still isn't enough. Now, my hope is that we can have a conversation and we can figure that out ourselves. But as presently proposed, our request to this commission would be to either withhold their decision on recommending anything to the city council on that issue or if it were to approve a recommendation now, it would be with the requirement that a further step back is made that would be sufficient for the state news to be able to do what it wanted with its building at a later date. That was issue number one. one that really comes to the forefront for us. Uh the second issue and I know the entire commission has already uh addressed it in numerous ways but I just want to speak to it from the state news perspective is the um staging development and construction plan. Um I saw that there was a one-page attachment that was submitted today with some very general dates. It doesn't provide the detail that we need and the biggest concern we have is the state news has tenants. It has Panda Express. It has Foxtail Coffee and it has um the Detroit uh Wing Company. Those tenants use the alley where so you know State News is right here. The Howard would go right here. The alley extends the entire way in the back. That alley is used for food supply chain for food. It's used for all business deliveries. That is actually the entrance for the state news. And I heard for the first time tonight that the plan was to shut down the entire alley, including our portion of it, for 19 months. that candidly is is essentially unworkable for these businesses. The Panda, just to give an example, Panda Express gets two to three deliveries a week for food. It uses the alley to deliver them. There's no secondary plan. There's no how do we work around this? There's no discussion at all. It's just we're going to shut down your alley for 19 months. And we need more to understand what's going on.

We need a more detailed plan so that we can understand it. And again, the hope is to have that conversation that Mark talked about so we can work it out. But if not, and as we as we sit here tonight without that detail, we ask that there is no recommendation of approval of the site plan in its current form because those details are not there. Those are the two primary concerns that we that I sit here right now and and ask the commission to consider. Um the the commission has already noted these other things, so I'm going to just briefly touch on them. Um but uh the the construction is going to cause significant deterioration to roadways, especially the alley. We don't know how those will be remediated or what will be done to fix those when they're done. There's no vibration monitoring plan. There's no shoring underpinning protocol and we've had no construction protection agreement uh proposed to us by the other side. These are critical aspects. We're not trying to stop the plan. We're not trying to say don't allow this building to be built, but we are saying to pause until we have the details so we know what's going to happen to our building. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Would anybody else like to step forward and address the commission on this issue?

Okay, seeing none, is anyone online in the queue? We have one person in the queue. caller with a number 713, you're free to address the commission and you may need to unmute your phone. Thank you. I already spoke. Thank you. 6.2.

Okay. Thank you. Uh at this point, we will close the public hearing. Um and then given there's a lot of uh information and uh work to do uh on this item, uh we will see it at the subsequent planning commission meeting. Right. We're meeting on the 27th, right? Okay. Uh any additional comments or direction for staff? Seeing this pending issue and you know, I think this has been a good discussion tonight. Great packet. a lot of lot of pieces in motion it appears to me. So, um look forward to our next meeting. I echo that. Thank you. Um all right, that takes us on to item 6.2, a public hearing to receive comments on proposed

one quick question. Could you just let us know when there's so like additional things? I did all my my research and my time on Saturday and I didn't have time to go back and look at it. So, I was a little bit off caught off guard that there was so much additional stuff so late. I mean, I know it's not normal, but if you could just get like a warning or something, right? A lot of information was provided at the last minute. Um, and then some additional information came in yesterday and I had not reviewed it either. Okay. Okay. Or you can procrastinate like me and do your work this afternoon, you know.

Thanks, guys. Uh, okay. Up next, item 6.2, two, a public hearing to receive comments on proposed ordinance 1572, an ordinance to amend chapter 50 zoning uh division 5 residential rental uh restriction overlay districts of the code of the city of East Lancing to add a new section 50-778 removal of property from the rental restriction overlay districts. Mr. Bartley,

uh thank you. So, uh, yes, this is a ordinance proposed by members of city council, uh, that would, uh, amend the zoning ordinance to allow, uh, under very specific and narrow circumstances removal of properties from a rental residential rental restriction overly district. Uh, the currently, um, I guess the there is a process for establishing a residential rental restriction overly district. Um, I guess I want to I want to talk a little bit about uh sort of those districts and how they're established and what then then talk about what the uh proposed ordinance uh says. So essentially a neighborhood can uh if if they have at least 50 properties uh or a discrete neighborhood unit that's smaller but definitely its own unit uh somebody within that neighborhood can petition the their neighbors and uh if they get twothirds at least twothirds of the property owners within the specified area uh they can then return that petition uh to the city uh and request that there is a uh rental restriction overlay district that be applied to that area. Um and at which point there would be a uh an ordinance that would be created to uh it's essentially a zone change. So it would come through uh the planning commission and city council uh public hearings each uh to be approved. There are currently uh 21 um excuse me 22 uh districts across the city. Uh we did a little bit of research uh to find out I guess what what the current extent of rental restriction in early districts is. Uh we found that there are about 8 8,154 parcels in the city of East Lancing. Uh to be eligible for uh residential rental restriction overlay, uh your parcels have to be zoned R1, R2, or RM8. Uh there are about 75% of the parcels in the city are zoned that way. Um, and 3,72 parcels uh with that zoning are located in an existing uh rental

restriction overlay district, which means about 54% of eligible parcels uh are within an overlay. We also found that there are 233 licensed rentals within an existing overlay. So that means that they're essentially non-conforming. If those rentals go away for any reason, they can those properties could no longer be rented. And then we finally we found that uh 13% of all single family houses in the city currently have a rental license which represents about 11% of all renters. So uh that's sort of current state. Uh the and and and there really isn't a process uh that's clearly defined in the code to amend or remove property I guess amended district in any way. um our our understanding and sort of our best advice to people uh who have inquired about doing that and in the two and a half years I've been here I probably have fielded um probably 25 to 30 uh requests uh but essentially our best advice is we believe that you need to follow the same procedures as to establish one. So you need to go uh and petition the area within within the district uh and get twothirds of property owner signatures that provide or that that causes some sort of practical difficulty. However, because essentially if a property owner wants to remove their property, they would then have to a the petitioner has to be within the district. So they would have to rely on somebody in the district that is they are proposing to remove themselves from. they'd have to rely on somebody else to do the petitioning and they'd also have to rely on twothirds of the property owners in the district that they're trying to leave to approve uh or to sign on to their u proposal. So that represents some difficulty and we believe that this is one of the reasons why there has not yet been uh since rental restriction over the districts have been established there has not been removal of any properties from them. Uh the current ordinance uh proposes uh some sort of pathway uh to get out. Uh the the essentially the criteria to be eligible

for removal would be that the applicant's property must be located on one side of a city block where other homes on the same side of the city block are not subject to the rental overlay district in question. So that's one. Number two, the applicant's property must be owneroccupied and not currently rented. And number three, no more than two owner occupied, unrened properties, including the applicant's property, may exist on the same side of the city block as the applicant's property. My understanding is that the way this was drafted was essentially trying to be narrow enough that it would only apply to a certain a few properties in the city. I think the council members were looking to be responsive to the constituents who asked for it. Uh but we've we've been able to identify about 10 to 15 properties across the whole city uh that would meet these circumstances. So it would be a very limited uh application if this were to be adopted as proposed. Uh the housing commission has uh discussed it at some length. Uh they did so on April 8th and then again on May 7th. I went to the May 7th meeting. Um and they've they a couple of commissioners have included some comments in your packet. I should mention we also have a lot of letters and emails uh either in support or in in opposition to this uh this ordinance. Um at the end of the day on uh May 7th, the housing commission ultimately voted uh to recommend that city council not adopt this ordinance as introduced uh instead recommending that there should be a section uh to allow removal. But uh this essentially is not the way to do it. So, uh, and I'm I'm sorry, I'm just paraphrasing that those weren't the words, but, uh, essentially that was the outcome. Um, we from from the staff perspective, I I I also don't, uh, recommend adoption of this ordinance as proposed. Um, I I think that the there certainly needs to be a process for removal of properties from a district. uh that the sort of principle of zoning is that you can add yourself to a

district or you can remove yourself from a district and this sort of district has significant impacts on a property uh not always established by the owner of that property and they need to have the ability to change their zoning including overly districts. So it's sort of a generally accepted principle of planning and zoning uh and not having that that ability is is not a best practice. We we'd like to change that. So, I'm very interested as professional planner to see uh some sort of avenue created. I don't recommend that the criteria for uh for being eligible for removal be so narrow. I think that there are other options. I'm not quite sure what those are. Uh I think this is a great opportunity to start the conversation. Uh but again, just just to put it out there, uh I as staff am not recommending approval in its currently current form. Um, I would I would suggest that uh if the planning commission ultimately sends this ordinance back to the planning or to the city council uh with a with a recommendation for adoption, I would suggest that it would include some sort of a uh sunset provision or a provision to review uh a specific overlay at a certain uh certain frequency, probably a regular uh period, maybe every five years, and perhaps uh require the same kind of petitioning to go through again. And if we don't have twothirds uh majority, I guess, that are supporting that, then maybe the the council could at least take that into consideration when they um re-review each each overlay. So, that's kind of where I'm at right now. Um I'm trying to explain the RRO's and how they work, the process, and what the current ordinance proposes. I'd love to answer any questions uh before we open the public public hearing. Um, real quick, I I think that context is really helpful for me as I'm trying to understand the impetus for this and it seems like it's a very few specific scenarios that they're trying to consider and craft an ordinance. So,

to me, I think initially it's it's really two questions since number one is do you think a mechanism should be in place to allow a property to be removed from an overlay district? And then the second question really is is this the best way to do it? Um, so with that, I saw a couple hands over here. Um, Ramirez Roberts, you want to go first? Yeah, I guess I have a few questions, so I can I'll just ask a couple and then let other people go. So, um, I guess my first one that and this just came up is, uh, as you're speaking with the rental houses or I guess the properties that have rental licenses already in the overlay.

Let's say that like I'm looking at the Bailey neighborhood one right now. um if one of those rental properties loses their rental license and or maybe they just you know choose to let it go or they say I guess would they even have to lose their rental license but just simply say that they're owner occupied would they then be able to remove themselves under this provision if they meet the other criteria? No. No. So holding the rental license at all? Uh, I guess if the rental license is abandoned or or goes away for some reason and you're currently within overlay, you cannot get that back. Yeah. So, I'm Oh, sorry.

I I should just specify there are three different types of rental restriction overlay districts. Yeah. So, RO1, RO2, R3. R1 is most restrictive. No new licenses. RO2 is essentially saying no new licenses after the current owner of the license leaves. Uh, and number three is only only class one licenses, which is the owner occupied with one rumor. though there are some opportunities for very limited rentals in certain types. RO1 is by far the most uh common district that we have. Uh but I I'm not sure that I understood your question. So let's Yeah, let me rephrase that. So if there's a home or property that currently owns a rental license within the overlay district,

but then the owner of the property moves into that home, could the owner of that property, even if it maintains the rental license, but it's technically owner occupied now. Mhm. Could they opt or I guess petition to be removed from the overlay district?

I see. Under the current ordinance, no. Uh the the status of a h of a property having a license or not does not affect whether or not it's in the overlay. The overlay supersedes that. So the overlay is essentially going over the other zone districts, whatever it might be. So you might have R1, R2, RM8. The overlay can go over any of those. And now it's applying to those properties no matter what their status is with the license or not. So, if the license went away and the owner was owner occupying, that's fine. They can be there. That hasn't changed whether or not the overlay applies. It still applies. It would just not they would still not be able to get their license back. So I guess what I'm referencing is is in relation to this particular ordinance. Okay.

Could a property with a rental license where let's say it maintains the rental license but the owner of the property moves in keeps the rental license. Could the owner of that property under this ordinance petition to remove it from the overlay while maintaining the rental license? I see. I think I understand your question now. I apologize. Uh yes, I believe so. Uh my reading of the ordinance is that uh if the applicant's property is owner occupied and not currently rented, it could still be maintaining a license and holding on to it, but it can't be currently being rented. Uh otherwise, it's not eligible. But if it's not being rented, even if it has a license, it could be eligible to be removed.

Yeah, I suppose it depends on what what the definition of owner occupied is, right? there's no time when they for how long they have to live there and and maybe they have to change their their voting residency or something. I don't know. And I guess my follow-up question to that, my mind is blanking at the moment, but I guess I'll let someone else go and the question will come back to me. It's going to take me a second. Okay. Um, any other hands down here? I thought I saw one. You guys I don't really have a question. I have some comments question. Not right now. Okay.

Landon, you said 2/3. Where is that? Where's that provision? What subsection is that? I'm looking for that. And and that's a deviation from the percentage that's required to establish the overlay. And is it two/irds of a block, two/ird of the whole overlay? What is it? Uh twothirds of the proposed overlay. Where is that in the uh let me find here. So I have an excerpt uh of of this this section. It's in section 50-775 uh procedures uh subsection 1D.

So the petition must contain the signature and address of twothirds of the parcel owners within the proposed boundary of the overly district exclusive of public property. Jointly owned parcels are considered owned by a single person for petitioning, but a co-owner may be able to sign. So only one owner of each parcel will count towards this two-thirds requirement. If a person owns more than one parcel, they can sign for each parcel. Okay. May Roberts,

I remembered my question now. So I guess going along with my other one, would this petition I guess would it be up to council discretion or legally would it essentially, you know, in terms of not getting sued be a grant by right where if you meet the criteria and you petition it would be discriminatory for the council to deny you removal. Uh under the current under the current ordinance that's proposed there is no petition requirement. The petition is only required right now to establish a district. I I brought that up as a potential what I would see as a as as a change to the ordinance. I meant like the property owner petitioning.

Oh, I'm sorry. Uh, okay. Then I think you better restate it because I'm I'm I'm sorry. Can you Can you see that? Yeah. So, if the property owner I guess if I'm a property owner and I petition to have my property I petition city council to have my property removed from the overlay using this ordinance. Is there a mechanism in place where the council can say well because it doesn't meet this cr you know we believe it could be harmful in these ways or is it set up in such a way where it's essentially an approved by right where if you meet the criteria and you petition to have your property removed that city council doesn't effectively have a mechanism to deny it.

Okay. I I I understand. Thank you. Uh council has the final say on a zone change. So, and and the as as written that if if eligible and it would meet those narrow circumstances, the property owners could then petition essentially through the resoning process uh to have that re their property removed from the overlay. And so that requires public hearing by both planning commission and council, but council has the final decision on that. If they find that the that it doesn't meet the standards for resoning uh at that time, they could turn down that resoning request. So council doesn't have there is no there is no obligation to approve I guess or to deny.

Does that answer your question? I think comments or questions? I I just have a question for Landon. Sure. So you you mentioned that there seems to be an informal process that you could use to to get out of an overlay district and it's mentioned in the in the writeup. Um, and you also mentioned that you had contacts from some number of people that were interested in getting out of the overlay district. Why did those people not pursue this the the the getting out of the overlay district? Did they not think there was a process? Did they think the process was ownorous? What what was what was their thinking?

Uh, so I guess you use the word informal and I wouldn't say it's informal as much as not explicit, right? It's it's quite kind of unclear because so that we have just been coming back to our understanding is that hey this is how you can this is how an overlay is created. So follow that same that same uh process and I think I explained the issues. I haven't received much response. Typically when I have received responses back from people they said you know we talked to a few of our neighbors and just we don't think we're going to get the signatures. They don't want us to leave. So, we don't think that we're going to have luck getting all those signatures, which is why I'm I mean, we don't have anything any other advice to give them other than this is the best we have is this procedure. So, one might argue there's there's not a procedure. There is one procedure to establish. That's what we've been falling back on uh as far as amending as well. But, but in a handful of cases when people have come back to me, just I pulled my neighbors and they didn't want to they wouldn't have signed One more comment for Oh, vice chair.

I just have a a comment too for I mean I've I live in Bailey. I know a lot about we've heard a lot about overlays and or over the time I've lived there. Um and I think this is a community um and neighborhood issue. So I think the unit of analysis is neighborhoods and communities. I think um whatever I understand the two-third solution is difficult um but I think that's the unit of analysis not individuals. So I think if we get rid of if a individual says I'm special, I don't I want to get out of this, it's sort of a slippery slope, right? You say, "Oh, well, okay, that's fine. Oh, you you you're removed, too." And you removed and then,

you know, it just sort of erodess the community and the neighborhood that made these agreed to these overlays in the first place. So I I I get the problem that you're having with the two/3s, but I think anything that we have as a solution should be something that's a larger unit, not individuals asking to get out of their the contract with their community. No, it's great answer. Thank you. Roberts,

yeah, I apologize if I'm kind of monopolizing this. So I know in the packet it said that you identified potentially 10 to 15 properties as being eligible for removal. But you also noted and I think it was in Red Cedar or maybe somewhere else that essentially the removal of two of the eligible properties would also create more eligible properties potentially. Is the 10 to 15 I guess have you guys identified all of those that could possibly be dominoed?

No, I don't. That analysis was done by housing staff. Um, and my understanding from them is that they did not go that extra step to see what would happen if those were removed. I think that that would be likely uh if one property is removed then other properties would become eligible. Um, but we haven't we haven't done an analysis. I can check tomorrow and see if they're planning on doing that for your next uh next look at this. So essentially like a domino effect potentially. I mean, yes,

but there's 50-778A3, I think, that says no more than two owner occupied unrened properties can exist in the same side of the block. So, I think that would be a restriction as they propose it. But yeah, I don't know. I'm struggling to Yeah, that's understand the need for this. But anyways, um uh quick question um on ADUs. Would you remind me does a I know we we don't have we're not permissive of ADUs, but would a rental related district restrict the use of an ADU as well if it were to be leased out? Okay.

Yeah. I mean, you'd need a rental license for an ADU for any rental rented unit, whether it be the full unit or part partial ADU would be considered that as well. So, uh and right now, I guess we do allow ADUs in one district. Uh my understanding is there and that's a neighborhood neotraditional neighborhood overlay that I think there's only one of and I believe that they're all destricted so they can't get ADU. So for all intents and purposes we don't allow them anywhere. There is a district that allows it on its face. Uh practically doesn't but yeah as far as ADU goes uh it would be it's a dwelling unit. So if the owner was living in that and wanted to rent out their house they could do so with license. vice versa. If they live in the house and wanted to run out the ADU, they could do so with license, but they need a license for both.

Got it. Thank you,

Mr. I I just have a comment and I want to dovetail on Vice Chair Wagner's comment about the community, I live in the Bailey neighborhood and I believe that of all the city neighborhoods that are vulnerable to student rentals, Bailey is at the top of the list. I can see the rentals and I assure you I can hear them um when when when the students are living there. And so the issue of community is going to come into play based on where you live because various communities in the city have have more or less vulnerability to to the issue of student rentals and those that are further away from the university of course have have less vulnerability. So the issue of distance and community I believe is very very important in taking this into account.

Yeah. I heard you can calculate the number of rentals in the city by listening out your windows in late August. So all right. Um any other comments or questions? I may Yeah, I had one. So, I didn't know if it wasn't on the map, but Glen Karen a few years ago did put in an overlay district, but I didn't see it brought up here. Is that just because there wasn't any eligible homes in there, or was it just another reason in in the housing analysis of different

I'm assuming, sorry, I'm going to phone a friend. This is our planning, building, and housing director, Elise Hodgeges. Hi. That's my really bad uh Oops. Uh good evening. That's my uh really bad uh uh uh graphic design. Um so I did that uh the initial mapping. Um and correct. So, I highlighted the ones that um based on the ordinance proposed that would potentially be eligible at least they met at least two to three of the um they maybe didn't meet all of them and I don't believe there are any in that neighborhood.

Okay. Okay. Okay. And I guess I one more comment I guess while we're thinking about this is because I know it got brought up you know potentially other mechanisms by which this could be done and there was talk about you know every 5 to 10 years having it go through the same mechanism of two to three petition signatures again. I guess just from a community organization standpoint that would seem pretty talking about ownorous process every five years having to go and petition the same people every time to maintain this I guess essentially what they've said they already supported. I guess if we're just thinking about potential formats, maybe the reverse where every five years there could be a two-thirds petition if people, you know, could sign to edit or amend the existing overlay instead of, you know, having to approve it again every 5 years. Every 5 years, it could come up for edit or removal if the 2/3

If you have the two/3 signatures. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay, I think at this point we're going to open the public hearing. Um, first I'm going to read from the cards I have up here. Diane Wing.

Okay. My name is Diane Wing. I am a resident of the Chesterfield Hills neighborhood. Chesterfield Hills is a historic district in East Lancing. Um, I'm a former past president of the Chesterfield Hills Neighborhood Association. I have spoken in front of the planning commission on several occasions. I think some of you will recognize me and you will maybe recognize that all of the issues that I bring in front of you, my concerns are related to neighborhoods. Um, neighborhood preservation. Most specifically, the subject of tonight's public hearing may be the biggest threat to our neighborhoods that the city has created. And make no mistake, the city has created this ordinance to mllify one dissatisfied homeowner at the expense of all other residents who own and live in single family homes within overlay district neighborhoods. This threatens every single overlay district. It's not just the district that's being talked about by this one particular homeowner. It threatens all of us. If passed, this ordinance will open the door to other property owners in overlay districts, both owner occupied and homes owned by real estate companies, rental homes making claims of hardship pressed upon them by the existence of a rental overlay. If passed, this ordinance will begin chipping away at the one tool, the only tool that neighborhoods have to retain their neighborhood's quality of life as primarily owner occupied dwellings. Each neighborhood that's all 22 overlay districts represents an a neighborhood people living there, right? People living in those neighborhoods met the overlay ordinance rules in establishing their own individual boundaries for each overlay district. They're the ones who do it. The neighborhoods do it. They have to organize. They have to plan. They have to make everybody aware. They have to create all of this. It doesn't just like grow out of, you know, whole cloth. determining the type of overlay district. As Mr. Bartley was not noting, there's three different types of overlay districts. Think about the debate that

has to go in just to figure out what is our overlay district going to be. They have to provide the required notifications to all property owners within the proposed boundary, gaining petition signatures, the two/irds, seeking petition approval by the city clerk, and lastly, approval by city council. Establishing one overlay district can take years of work. I think Chesterfield Hills took almost three years of work before we finally got the overlay district approved. Yet, this ordinance would weaken a district on the basis of one person's request. and for no reason other than their dissatisfaction, whatever that dissatisfaction may be. Allowing this ordinance to pass would literally undo the hours of work that multiple neighborhoods, multiple residents, citizens of the city of East Lancing who are trying to maintain neighborhoods have done to establish these districts in good faith and following the regulations of the ordinance. It is not hyperbole to say that the ordinance has saved the Chesterfield Hills neighborhood. We are a very small neighborhood. We are directly adjacent to MSU next to Brody Hall. We are extremely attractive to rental owners, rental u companies. If this starts chipping away at it, we are looking at things as to all of a sudden um a neighbor says, "Oh, my house needs to come out for some reason." they they think that they can meet the ownership uh the the criteria that's been proposed and all of a sudden we have an Airbnb situation that's coming in. This is not this is this is not conjecture to state that starting with this ordinance we will begin to chip away the protections that our neighborhoods have against more rentals. And please remember any rentals that are in the overlay districts right now, they're grandfathered in. If if they were if they were a rental at the time the overlay district was

established, they're grandfathered in. the only way they're going to get quote out of the district or I don't know why they really want to unless as commissioner um Ramirez Roberts said if they were planning to figure a way to do that is if they lose their license if the license expires and even then has a year it's my understanding a year that the license has to expire. So the the rentals that are in there now will stay there. the the problem becomes once you start taking some of these out, you start shifting the boundaries, which has also been a question as to how this ordinance has been written. If an if a property comes out, does that shift the boundary or does it simply remove that particular um that particular property from being

Second from being able to be rented? Even that question hasn't been answered as part of the ordinance. Um, please, I ask you on behalf of all of the neighborhoods who are already served by this ordinance to please do not recommend that this ordinance be um forwarded on to council for approval. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Up next is Ted Bena.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Ted Ben. I'm president of the White Hills Neighborhood Association and uh to an earlier comment, our neighborhood is not close to campus, but I'm here to support the neighbor neighborhoods that are and I' I've actually changed what I was going to say tonight after I've read the staff proposal because that was a a a hearing earlier. and and to the extent that the ordinance is is poorly drafted. I I I spoke in front of council when they referred this to planning and housing at 11:30 at night back in March. And the reason was from uh council member Meadows is that we needed an opt out process because the city would be cha would be subject to legal challenges if you don't have an opt out process. Planner Brantley has said that we he pretty sure we we have one although it's the same process that creates it which makes sense to me. I spent a lot of years in the state government passing rules and regulations and the attorney general always advised me, Ted, use the same process to undo something that you use to get it done. Now, the ordinance is very specific and I'll answer the question, what's the primary reason for it? Enhance the value of property. People want to enhance the value of their properties. So do I. But this isn't how you do it. And so I would suggest that you reject this proposal because it's so narrowly conrict constructed. And it's just it's

just a horrible piece of legislation to start with. And that's what I told council at 11:30 at night. So, you do need to have a if you want you do need to have a process and Commissioner Wagner, I think, touched on on the pro on the process that I think most neighbors could support, but if you want to flesh that out, fine. But we have these situation, we have these overlay districts for a reason. You're going to hear from many other people who were uh directly involved in this. I wasn't, but I was around. I've been in my neighbor I've been in my house since 1997. So, I've been through a lot of things with the city. So, with that, I won't uh take any more of your time and appreciate it.

Thank you. Uh Justin M. Booth.

Uh thank you. Yes, my name is Justin Booth. I live at 710 Chittenden Drive. I am also the uh chair of the Bailey Community Association. Um what I'm here I'm here today uh representing myself. Um but allowing this modification will create a slippery slope. Um what modification will come next? Um my property is on the edge of the Bailey uh overlay district and this uh the three potential options. This does not would not um allow my property. But what happens uh if we start adding more to that, it'll just create another slippery slope and it would be um a mistake to approve this. As many of you know, this uh rental overlay district um was developed out of a grassroots movement by the community of East Lancing. This was done through hard work, creative problem solving with city council listening to our issues, the city attorney, the city staff and citizens of east of East Lancing that came together to develop this rental overlay district. My family and neighbors feel comfort in knowing that we have these restrictions in place and we do not want these changes. I remember going door todo talking with neighbors in Bailey. There is an overwhelming uh sense of support that came knowing that the city uh was was putting this uh ordinance together to support our efforts against the encroaching rentals. And I would second that comment that Bailey would be um in a different place today if we did not have those overlay districts. And we in Bailey the boundary is not all of the Bailey neighborhood. the the district is called the Bailey district, but it is a subset of our neighborhood because we could not get twothirds of the vote of of all of the extra properties because of all the rentals that were coming in from Grand River.

So, um so now is not the time to make these changes as we're discussing more developments downtown, more rentals that are moving up and in into the air 13 12 stories. Um, so now is not the time and it seems only fair, however, if the council feels a need to make changes that those who wish to change this district should be required to go through this process. These boundaries were not willy-nilly. They are not gerrymandered to pull people in. They were thought through. There was uh great detail put into this ordinance for how we could draw these boundaries. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Chair, I just have Can I be momentarily excused for a second?

Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Uh, up next is Lynn Richardson. My name is Lynn Richardson and I am a resident of the Pinerest neighborhood at 1300 Blanchett Drive. Um, I am the president of the neighborhood association, but I am talking to you tonight on in my own uh on my own. The rental overlay districts were enacted to preserve the character of East Lancing's various neighborhoods. The districts are not anti- rental. Indeed, as others who have spoken before me have noted, these properties, there are properties that were rental properties within the district and they were grandfathered in when the overlay districts were approved. While it is not unusual to hear complaints that rental properties are not maintained, there is no guarantee that properties will be wellmaintained even if they are owner occupied. Uh, as a college town, we live with a substantial transient population. Whether it be students, visiting faculty, or new hires looking to get a feel for the city before choosing a neighborhood in which to purchase a home, the rental overlay districts were really created to cultivate micro communities, if you will. neighborhoods where you get to know the people who live across the street and down the block, where parents are comfortable with their children playing outdoors and unsupervised with others, and where neighbors help neighbors in large ways and small. As my husband noted when he moved into my Pinerest home, it's an oldtimey neighborhood. The rental overlay district ordinance is somewhat flawed in that it does not explicitly provide a way for the districts once approved to have the

borders modified or entirely reversed. But I submit that the proposed ordinance before the commission this evening is fatally flawed. First, while the ordinance appears facially neutral, it constitutes spot zoning as applied. only one property would be reszoned and removed from the overlay district at a time. Spot zoning is illegal. More importantly, the proposed ordinance allows city council to overrule the decision of twothirds of the parcel owners who petition the city for the rental overlay district with only one exception in East Lancing, that of Harvard Cowi, which is a discrete geographical neighborhood. That means that a simple majority of city council, only three members, may overrule in its discretion at least 33 parcel owners who supported the overlay district. There should be a process by which an overlay district may be amended or improved, but that is not the proposal before you. I respectfully suggest that such a plan should require the same procedure that was required to approve the district. In other words, a parcel owner or entity seeking to amend a rental overlay district would need to circulate a petition approved by the city that would describe the changes to the rental overlay district and it must be signed by twothirds of the parcel owners in the district. Amendment of the rental overlay ordinance, including some suggestions for a periodic review of rental overlay districts, both made by both Mr. Bartley and Mr. Ramirez Roberts, are worthy of further consideration by city council, but with the advice and counsel of the city attorney. The proposed ordinance before

this commission tonight, that's far too much discretion in the city council to the detriment of neighborhood parcel owners. I respectfully ask that you recommend that the city council deny its adoption. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Uh Molly Spinner.

Molly Spinner 815 Stewart. Um, I am also um not supportive of ordinance 1572. It takes a democratic process, makes it undemocratic. Um, I don't know what we're doing here with this. We have so many problems. I mean, just two weeks ago, we were in our living room and it was a nice night and we live three blocks from here in Glen Karen and I had to circle the neighborhood to find the house party that was so loud that we couldn't have our windows open. So, the students are encroaching the it's it's MSU is getting bigger and we're getting smaller. So, why are we eroding our overlays when this is happening? Do we want our elementary schools empty? Like these are I just I don't know what we're thinking here. I understand that we need an outlet an outlet. I think we already have one. Um it's already if you look online and read about overlays, but the city has published it actually tells people, hey, how do you get out of an overlay? There's an FAQ that actually says twothirds to get in, twothirds to get out. So I I think it's there. If we want to make it more clear, that's fine. Um the five years thing I no thank you. Um like every 5 years should we review rental licenses or my property taxes? I I just don't know where we're going with that. Um we should be looking at ways to protect long-term resident housing. Um we're at 38.5% owner occupied and going down. So I think we need help, not harm. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh, Sally Newton.

Good evening. My name is Sally Newton. I live on Sunset Lane in Glen Karen neighborhood. And like those of you from Bailey, I'm close enough to students to hear them every weekend. It took a long time for us to get our overlay. Uh, before that, again, we saw housing being overtaken by by rentals. Um, I wrote you a letter with uh several other neighbors. Several are here tonight, but many who couldn't attend, but are um they oppose uh this proposal. One of my neighbors suggested that this proposal is like tossing a pebble into a pond, potentially causing a catastrophic ripple effect. Many East Lancing neighborhoods that have successfully established overlays in order to preserve their character integrity would be affected. Our neighborhoods continue to feel pressure from investors eager to buy our properties for their own personal gain. Many do not even reside in the city and have no absolutely no vested interest in our community. At a time when our owner occupied home rates are declining, it is more important than ever that we preserve our established overlays.

Thank you. Thank you. And Beverly Bunning.

Good evening, Commission. I'll keep this short. I know it's a long night for you. you would have received a letter from me possibly Tuesday morning, I think it was, expressing my my concerns about 1572. So, I'll keep this very, very brief. First, there was a misstatement in my letter, and Mr. Hanks did point that out to me. And in fairness, Jeff, I do want to clarify that that my letter stated he intended to sell his home. And to the best of my knowledge, that is is not the case. So, I want to clarify that. My apologies, Jeff. Um the only the only piece of this that's really important for me tonight to express to you is the slippery slope of the proposed 1572 that if properties are exempted or opted out. Um in my understanding based upon the housing commission meeting I attended those boundaries are then redrawn redrawn becomes a new boundary for your overlay district and and upon that redrawing then additional properties become eligible for an opt out. So there's a gradual erosion of of the boundary of an overlay district. And having participated in the comprehensive plan update team, which I was very privileged to do, and many of you served with me on that team, I really appreciated the piece on housing and attainable housing. And now I'm not going to go to my notes. I'll speak from the heart that it was quite an education for me about attainable housing and the value of that in our community and the importance of it. What also came out of that though was a balance of our various needs in our community to be addressed. And one of those needs is to maintain a healthy stock of affordable home ownership in

our neighborhoods and that we preserve the number of homes that are eligible for purchase. And for me personally, that's because of our school district that we are very dependent in our East Lancing public school system for families for that renewal in our neighborhood of of families and keeping our enrollment where it needs to be to have a healthy public school system. So any movement to erode our boundaries or the availability of affordable and attainable home ownership in our neighborhoods is important to me. So I thank you for your time tonight. Thank you for your comments. That is all the cards I have. Does anybody else wish to come forward?

Jeffrey Hank, 349 Division Street, and I'm here to speak in support of the ordinance. Uh I quite often am referred to as the sole person this applies to which isn't true. I want to dispel some of the misinformation, misunderstandings and try to make this factual, practical, and reasonable uh when we have this discussion. Um I live at 349 division. I'm surrounded by rentals. I've lived there for 22 years prior to the overlay coming into effect. Uh I have two young children. We're the only family with children on the block. I think there's a family with children on Sycamore Street, but there's no one else around us at all. So, a lot of the concerns that my neighbors have, uh, I already deal with. That's one of the reasons that my property is better treated as a rental property. It's I'm I'm surrounded in every direction. Even outside of the overlay on Charles Street behind me, I have a fraternity uh two properties away across Division Street, which plays terrible loud music all the time. I can't keep my windows open. The Hell C Center's flood lights flood into my child's bedroom every night. People breaking into my house, breaking into my garage, breaking in my car, ripping out my bushes, breaking glass. All the things that you all are concerned about, I deal with. A family shouldn't live in my home. If I were to be in the situation I am now, I would not buy that property, which is part of the problem. Uh I'm in a situation where I need to leave the home. I don't want to sell the house cuz I'd like to live there later in life. I have I have no interest in selling it. I want to keep it. The result of the cities and people keep saying I want to sell it. They don't even know me. And talk here about talk about community. Anybody wants to have a coffee with me who opposes this, I'm I'm happy to have coffee and sit down with you. This is the result of about uh two and a half years of asking city council to address uh a handful of properties, including my neighbors. Um we've been asking for some sort of relief, and it's taken two and a

half years to get to this point. This wasn't a hastily crafted thing. Um as Mr. Barley said, the city needs a best practice procedure to change this. My neighbors that live next to me, I moved in have died. Besides, we're talking about micro community and kids. I can't let my kids go run around, play outside. It's not safe. Cars are speeding down the street. We don't have a stop sign in Division Lon. It's not a family home. It should be a rental. Um, I'd like to provide affordable housing. So, the absurd result of the current situation would be if something's not changed, I'm going to leave my house and there's going to be an empty house two blocks from campus or we're talking about building 12 and 13 story buildings a block or two from my house. It It doesn't make sense. I empathize with the concerns of everyone who is opposed to this because I I agree with him when I talk to different council members over the last couple of councils about this and I can show you an email sent to Mayor Alman. He was council member Alman in December of 2023 from my neighbor asking to sit down and meet that me that email was ignored but we met with almost every other member of council trying to come up with a solution that would protect the overlays but also provide for some relief. The city is lacking a process right now that's a legal liability for the city. This ordinance before you is narrowly tailored. It solves the handful of uh people who have problems that have been recognized and a solution has been crafted to try to solve while also protecting people still in the overlays because if there isn't a process there will be litigation. The overlays could be challenged and we could end up with a lot bigger uh bigger concern. Now, I agree with some of the things that um the planning staff has said about potential reviews of of these, but you know, again, I'm 2 and a half years in waiting for some relief. I went to the housing commission last week and I'll tell you, you can look, you should look up the 2023 McKenna housing study that the city of East Lansancy did. Housing Commission, I don't even think he's aware of it. Most people don't understand how the overlays work. There is no process to get two-thirds of signatures that just repeals the overlay. All right? I will never get

twothirds of Bailey signitories uh to repeal the overlay in the meantime. That that won't work. And we talk about let's just have the process that you did to get into it. The process to get into it, city council has the ability to modify the boundary of an overlay. That's the process you could give back to them. This ordinance does that but with like serious handcuffs on it. So, we're not even when people say these things, they're not actually factual about what the amendment over uh amendment does or what the overlay uh does. The true 2023 McKenna housing study, which I think is flawed, but had some interesting findings. There are moderately significant potential impediments to fair housing based on East Lancing zoning and land use restrictions. There are highly significant potential impediments to fair housing based on Eastland occupancy restrictions. and their highly significant potential impediments to fair housing based on East Lancing's community opposition to achieving more balanced affordable and fair housing patterns. This proposal, at least for the 10 or 15 of us, which I think is about the limit of what this will affect even when you start taking people out because of the restrictions in there with two properties, is about fairness for the handful of us that need it. You have an opportunity to move this forward. I encourage you to do so. That doesn't mean that not more could be done some other time and there's not more thought to put into this, but you know, government can't move so slow where people take years to get something done. That's a national problem. You have an opportunity to be

uh the antidote to that. I thank you for your time tonight. Thank you for your background. Jeff, can I get you to fill out a card for me, please? Thank you. Well, would anybody else like to come forward and address the planning commission on this? All right, throwing it over to the queue. Anyone online? The same person is on the queue and she has already spoken. Do you want me to give her another opportunity? I I think she already spoke, so I think she had her opportunity. Thank you. Okay. You're welcome.

At this point, we will close the public hearing. Uh any additional questions, comments, or guidance for staff? Well, I I'll Mr. Ch I think the seems to be the consensus is and it's late tonight too that we're going to wait for some modifications. Uh we've taken some input tonight uh and we'll wait for this to be um uh updated, modified. Uh, you know, I have to tell you too, while I make that comment, I'll I am struck by the packet, the the I don't know, the 455 page packet, whatever it was, with a 296 unit building for rental, uh, and an overlay ordinance that affects just a very, very, very small group of people. Um, I I'm struck by the dynamic there and it's helped me to lean a little bit. Uh, I'm I favor strong neighborhoods. Uh, I favor opportunities for uh, single family homes. I can appreciate what Mr. Hanks said there at the very end. Um, but, uh, we have to find a balance. Uh um and I appreciate I'm a school guy, of course, you know, uh the bonding reference to school district and having affordable housing or uh single home uh opportunities uh to support our our excellent school district is a factor for me as well. I'm rambling here a little bit. I'll stop, but I think we should pause uh and wait until we get a better update from planning commission and city council. Um, but I lean towards I'm not going to pause, I guess. I lean towards strong neighborhoods. I understand that we're building downtown. Uh, and we have 296 rental units uh on

the table right now. Uh, and that's a community trying to address a a series of needs. So, I don't think that was rambling. I think that was coherent and well thought out. So, thank you for the level setting, Commissioner Overby. I have a question that I'm wrestling with myself that I would ask my fellow commissioners to wrestle with as we think about this issue and it's very simple. Why should it be easier to get out than to get in?

And we should ask ourselves that question when we think about how to proceed with this. Well said. Um any comments on here? All right. Seeing none, uh we will see this meeting at a this item at a subsequent planning commission meeting potentially late May for additional discussion. Okay. Uh that takes us on to uh new business for tonight. Item eight up first 8.1 initial discussion of data centers in East Lancing. Mr. Bartley, thank you. Um,

this is really meant as a brief discussion item tonight. Um, essentially uh we we don't have an ordinance before you. Uh, we I have about 100 pages of different uh materials for you, but really we wanted to provide sort of this the starting point to discuss data centers. Um we at the request of staff uh council adopted a moratorum in March uh for 6 months. We had started to receive some interest in uh establishing data centers in East Lancing and didn't really have a way to um I guess address those those inquiries um because it doesn't explicit our Arizona ordinance doesn't explicitly include data centers and um there are some land uses I think that could at sort of be stretched to include some data centers but it really it really demands a little uh closer of a look. So I've had our our very uh capable uh graduate student intern uh Neo Sutar who's recently completed a lot of uh good research uh about on this topic and is included that in here uh essentially um that we sort of put a little TLDDR uh version of her 30some page report um but just saying hey here are some here are some considerations you know uh when as we approach data centers and when I say data centers I should say there and you'll see in the report there are sort of the three categories that we're really talking about you know these these smaller ones uh sort of small medium size and large and large maybe you've heard it called hypers scale in in many cases where it's uh potentially several hundred acres uh the hypers scale data centers I think are the the source of most of the concern that we've heard from community members uh where there has been some about what is going to be the electrical uh electricity consumption here um what is the water usage like? What kind of noise do we

have to be concerned about? What kind of air pollution? Uh what's yeah, how is this going to increase our own electricity bills? What kind of wastewater impacts can we expect from these big uh facilities? And so there were enough questions essentially we said we need to take a deeper dive uh have a moratorum for 6 months. Um and so my intent is to uh establish a staff work group um with at least one planning commissioner. Commissioner Pots has has indicated he's interested in uh being on that work group and we'd like to start uh probably in the next couple weeks uh with the idea that we meet bi-weekly and have uh some sort of recommendation uh to bring to council my my hope would be for their July 21st meeting that they would introduce and refer ordinance language back to the planning commission. Uh so I I for what it's worth, we all we did a little bit of analysis about where could these actually be established in East Lancing and right now there's essentially nowhere. Uh we have two two industrial districts being the M1 manufacturing and OIP being office industrial park and I think we have eight parcels in the whole city about that that have either of those own districts. Um, so we'd certainly need to consider if we were to allow these uses, uh, where would they be if it was an industrial zone district, where would we want to reszone to industrial? There are a lot of questions, uh, to be answered. So, I guess that's that's sort of where I want to stick it right now is just this is an introduction. We have some pages for you to review. Uh, one thing I'd like to call out that's not really in the the working document uh sort of larger uh report that NA put together um but later on uh we have a little discussion about utility burden and just have noticed that essentially the the the costs of your utilities and how and your monthly costs of utilities and how they're sort of related to your income your annual income is a question you know and we've been seeing essentially

what we consider moderate utility burden uh like 3 to 6% of your income is going to utilities. We've seen those decrease over the last few years, but we've seen high burden of 6 to 10% of your income going to utilities increase uh substantially. So essentially that that tells us utility costs are generally increasing. We have seen some some uh cost increases resulting from larger data centers in some cases. So we sort of want to keep that in mind too. Anyway, I think that's sort of my brief start. I'd hope I want to give you this to good reading material to read. Really going to hope that Ryan re uh reads it. Our new commissioner, Lorna Greening, has also expressed interest in being involved if if not able to be on the worker itself. She's said, "I want to be interested in she has a background in energy policy." So, um so anyway, I wanted to answer any questions if you have them right now if I can answer them. Uh or just any comments. But that's about the extent of what I want to talk to cover tonight. Quick comment on the the agenda packet. I thought um you guys did a really good job of constructing pages two through five, just really outlining some of the the key points and summarizing those really well. So, if you guys haven't had a a chance to read that, I I strongly recommend it. Um,

but the rest was terrible, right? Yeah. Well, the rest was the rest was a lot of, you know, a lot of info. I think this uh largest agenda packet in total I've seen, but um no, I it was really good information, but I think the summary is really good. So, um July is the deadline. You're hoping for a a report from that subworking group uh to submit a recommendation to city council. You said I think so. Yes.

Is there any decision point before us tonight on this? Is this more so just an update on on what the process is going to look like and what the expectation is? Okay. I mean if there if there are if you have suggestions on hey I want I think that you should do XYZ in this process that would be great feedback but beyond that just informationational for you. That's good and it's good packet I mean I learned

I actually even read beyond page five and I even kept learning after page five but you're right up to page five was excellent. So, uh, any no joking aside, it was very good, very helpful, and something I think we all need to be tuned into. Appreciate the city council's six, uh, month moratorum to give us a little breathing room. I noticed in the packet that other uh, municipalities were doing just the same thing. So, um, that's good. All good. I I will say

this really isn't like an ordinance driven thing, so I'm not sure it's going to be necessarily applicable, but there's a lot of other municipalities or larger like groups, not groups, but larger like organizations that are requiring data center construction to foot the bill for any like infrastructure improvements in order to handle the additional water and electrical consumption. And I think that would be I mean it it's worth looking at even at you know city council level or whichever other commissions need to be involved in stuff like that because like if they're going to be coming in and you know consuming the resources that are right now going to residents and businesses and stuff you know that's definitely something that you know we need to take into account.

Yeah. Um, I think to your point, Landon, um, looking for guidance from us, I think I would be interested in seeing, um, someone from the Commission for the Environment appointed to this group just because of the significant environmental cost that data centers tend to have. Um, and I don't know if it would be relevant to also have someone from engineering or public works as well.

Yeah, for what it's worth, um, we we are putting together that work group. It's an internal work group, but I expect to have plan at least one planning commissioner, at least one commission on environment uh member. We've talked to the DPW staff about it. Uh I think that it's mostly going to be DPW and planning staff. Uh we may have a handful of others. Um but it we're going to try to keep it light and it'll move fast. Perfect. Break things. Okay, good. Thank you, Ryan, for tending to that. Appreciate it. Special interest member is interested as well. She is good. Good. Great. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Bartley. Appreciate the overview.

That takes us on to our last remaining agenda item 8.2, review of proposed fiscal year 2027 capital improvement programs. Mr. Bartley.

Uh, thank you. So, um, capital improvement program is essentially, uh, the city's program to, uh, say this is what we're going to, um, install sort of physical, uh, physical improvements over the next few years. Um it is required by the state uh and typically it's a planning commission's responsibility to prepare one uh after the adoption of a comprehensive plan. Um unless otherwise exempted and in the city of East Lancing uh you are exempted from that that role. It's the city manager's uh role to create the CIP every year. Uh so really this isformational as well. Uh, I wanted to, um, present it to you, uh, especially since we just adopted our comprehensive plan update last August. Uh, it's a good time to look at it. Um, but I also intend to bring it back every year. Uh, just so you have an idea of what the city is looking at installing for its own public purposes essentially. Uh, so in the CIP itself, uh, there's a description up front that talks about the various funds, uh, sort of introducing just laying the stage for it. Uh and then there's a significant several pages of tables uh that sort of finish out the document and those tables essentially show the budget for the item at the far left uh the budget and when it's proposed to be installed or constructed uh at at the left and then the sort of thick line right down the middle uh and then there's a bunch of items to the right. That's essentially the sources of funding. So you have your when you want to use it and for what and then on the right is who's going to pay for it. So in in what fund or is it going to be bonded? So that's that's really it. Uh and then it's just divided sort of uh among different areas. You know what what go into city hall or the library or the fire station or Hannah community center etc. Uh that's all listed down as you go through the document. Uh essentially if you have I I would request that you look through this document. We're not going we don't need to go through it tonight in detail. This

is about this is where I'm going to end essentially. But if you if you go through and you have specific comments or questions, please get in contact with me directly. I'll find an answer from for you from the finance division. Uh because they're really the ones that can answer those questions. Uh we do expect council to uh they've already seen this in draft form. We expect them to um approve it at the next meeting on May 26th. So with that, any any questions? Uh did anyone look at it and has any initial feedback or concerns? Mr. overby.

Do you have any guidance for us on what what comments the the city council is interested in in in looking at the I mean it was a list of of and I I actually enjoyed the list and and and it was an indication of what the priorities were for the city. Um but but is there any guidance that you can give to us in providing comments? No. Or or maybe maybe a city council member could give us that. about the may or

I mean I would say that in general uh if you if you look at something and have a concern about it and say whoa this seems I have some expertise in X field and this seems way too expensive or way too low or something like this uh you can bring that up and or if you had a question about why is this in this fund and not something else but beyond that um we don't have any specific guidance from the council here comes the mayor to step forward

mayor if I may just be indulged by by the chair briefly. Um we're looking for what the community thinks their priorities should be in terms of infrastructure. And so we uh we took the opportunity at the last council of neighborhood president's um last couple of meetings to discuss uh the city council's bonding proposal that the city manager has proposed um just to try to solicit feedback for what projects do you think are important. And so that's what we're looking for because it's um a lot of those capital improvements are going to be funded by bonding which we will all be paying for. And so we're looking for feedback on what people think is important.

Thank you. Great, commissioner. And I'll So if we have specific feedback or requests, we should relay them to you, Landon. Yes. Or say them right now. Sure. Yes. And yes,

on the record. Um, so, um, one of the things that, uh, I noticed as someone who uses this city asset quite frequently at the Northern Tale Dog Park, um, there's no, um, there's no plans, it appears, to add water service to the dog park, which has been a long time desire for folks who use that, especially in the summer. dogs are very susceptible to heat stroke, especially when playing with other dogs. That park is mostly in the sun. Um, and so I know that that's been something that uh folks who use that park often talk about and um we there's already water service to the softball complex. And so that would be I think a priority for the dog owners. I speak for the dog owners of East Lancing.

Yeah, the dogs. Thank you. Thank you. Roberts. Yeah. I I guess I had one comment, one question. Um so I one thing for me, I know that uh city recently or maybe like 6 months back at this point had a report on uh vehicle barricades and part of that was specifically ballards, but I I don't know what to call them. the ones that don't aren't static but

go up and down. Um I don't know if that is the modular vehicle barriers or if that is specifically like the huge planters that are you know basically vehicle barricades.

I don't know mayor. Do you know? So, I guess my comment would be big fan of Ballards, especially when we're looking at what happened to El Fresco this year and how there's all these conversations about how, you know, we want everything to be more walkable, but then we have businesses that are saying, well, when we do that, we can't get our deliveries and then also we drop, you know, two-tonon steel, I mean, concrete barricades on an employes's foot. Those types of things. How can we prevent that? ballards going forward where we can allow these types of activities at night to have walkability while still also allowing for at other hours, vehicles to get in, deliveries to be made, those sorts of things. And then so big fan of those. If those aren't in here, they definitely should be considered and added. And then there was one which I just saw here. It was the solar the DPW solar array in geothermal. Um because I saw there's 500. I guess I'd have to go through a lot of funding sources, but I guess would that be purely solar? I I guess I'm having trouble imagining that the geothermal would be that cheap. Do you

Yeah, I can find out from Cliff Walls, who's uh Okay. project manager there. I was just I didn't know if we had an answer. I don't necessarily need it or anything. I just want to say that geothermal is very cool. So, good to see we're putting money towards that. I just want to say I never knew that it was the Northern Tail Dog Park. I always assumed it was the Northern Trail dog park, but I I checked and you were right. So, of course, I'm right. I represent the dog owners. Yeah. And the bice and the landscaping and the trees.

Yeah. Um, no I it's insightful. So this is this is a plan of what's to be funded as projected. So the the expectation is that we outline any potential additions or I guess even concerns of things that are are funding that we're funding that maybe we could fund something else uh and just send you feedback. Okay. I I would just ask um just because of timing, if you do have specific feedback, and I've gotten these two comments uh in questions tonight. Uh but if you have more, please send those to me by next Wednesday, a week from today, because uh we need that amount of time to turn it around to get it back to council uh for their for their information and also get you answers from finance or others.

All right. Thank you. Appreciate the overview. Uh up next is uh commissioner concerns. Any concerns from commissioners? All right. Is there a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Moved by Commissioner Overby. Second. Seconded by Commissioner Chapen. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor vote I. I. I. Oppos? Nay. Motion carries. We're adjourned at 9:22 p.m. Okay.