Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

real 30 second warning. All right. Good evening everybody and welcome to the November 19th, 2025 East Lancing Planning Commission meeting. Mr. Bartley, would you please take role? I will. Uh, Commissioner Chapen here. Commissioner Denult here. Commissioner Hendris here. Commissioner Lein. Commissioner Overby here. Commissioner Puts

here. Commissioner Seilleski. Sealleski. That was a here. I think he's here. Scott. Uh, and Vice Chair Widner here. Chair Sullivan here. We have quorum. Thank you. All right. That takes us to an approval of tonight's agenda. Is there a motion? So moved. Seconded. Moved by Commissioner Overby, seconded by Vice Chair Wagner. Seeing no discussion. All those in favor vote I. I. I oppose. [clears throat] Nay. Motion carries. Agenda approved. Up next is approval of the minutes from the October 8th, 2025 planning commission meeting. Is there a motion? So moved. Seconded.

Moved by Commissioner Denal. Seconded by Commissioner Putts. Seeing no discussion, all those in favor vote I. I. I. Oppos. Nay. Motion carries. Takes us on to item number two, committee reports. Mr. Mr. Bartley, I didn't see age friendly or community development block grant on there. So,

yes, I uh I forgot to add the individual committees, but um my understanding is that the uh actually I don't have the next meeting for the CD advisor group. So, perhaps Commissioner Buzz does. Uh but as far as the age friendly committee uh or age friendly communities committee, their next meeting is tomorrow uh the November 20th. Um, we expect the uh committee to hear from uh Commissioner Chapen who has been working with ELPS on some uh questions about the high school track. We also expect the group to um adopt formally adopt their age friendly work plan. Uh they've been updating that. Uh the last one was adopted in 2020 and so I expect them to be uh sending that to council next and we'll have that for you to review at your next meeting. I'll also be asking members of that committee to be reporting to their individual boards and commissions. So you might hear from uh Commissioner Chapen about that work plan at the next meeting as well. Um and then the Age Alive uh group at MSU has their town gown series. The next one is noon this Friday uh November 20 uh 1st at People's Church and that is about MSU's relationship to Vietn I think Vietnam um especially during the the Vietnam War. As far as the comprehensive plan uh committee, we held debriefs for the uh committee on October 15th and October 28th. Uh both of those retreat or meetings were fairly I would say lightly attended, but the group that was there uh had a really good conversation in both both meetings. Uh the the intent was to sort of understand what the experience was for that coordinating committee over the course of the comp plan process. I'll talk about that a little bit tonight in our retreat. But um and we got some good feedback and uh good ideas about how to improve things next round. Uh and then as far as green code committee um that group hasn't met since the last time um which was before your last uh meeting. There are

recommendations uh that we'll be bringing to council for discussion at their December 16th discussion only meeting. Um, so following that meeting, we might get we expect to get some guidance as far as uh which amendments we want might want to bring forth forth first uh as far as code amendments to make it more um make our code more green. So I'll have more to report um possibly at your December meeting. I think that wraps it up for my committee reports. Um Commissioner Puts here on the CD Advisor group. I I couldn't recall when the next meeting of that is December 11th. December 11th. Okay. So that's the report for that. That's when they invited me to anyways.

Perfect. So Commissioner Puts will be at that at the CD advisor board next at the next meeting which is on December 11th. Any questions about any of the committees? Questions for city staff. All right, we'll keep it with you for the staff report.

Sure thing. Uh for staff report, um c we council met last night. Uh there was relatively little business transacted a decent amount of public hearings or public public comment, excuse me. Uh new council members uh Griggsby and Wayland were sworn in. Uh council member Altman was elected mayor and council member Griggsby uh was elected as mayor prom. Uh so um we don't know if the liaison will be changing. Our current leaison as you know is council member Meadows. He wasn't able to be here tonight. Um I my understanding is that he intends to stay on but uh we should have liazison appointments at the next meeting on o on December 9th. Uh our planning staff the planners went to the Michigan Association of planners statewide planning conference in October October 22nd to 24th. Great conference uh really good stuff. Um a lot of good sessions and a lot of ideas for us to bring back and and hope to implement someday. So uh we'll work on that and have more for you in the future. Um the Michigan Association of Planning will be will be hosting their student conference and their transportation conference uh both in February of 2026 and both right here in East Lancing. We're also excited because uh in April the American Planning Association will be hosting their national planning conference in Detroit. Uh and I'll bring that up for this group again in the future because we do have budget uh to have at least one planning commissioner attend that conference if you're interested. So um there have been questions about the sheets uh proposal that you saw at your last meeting o in October. Uh they did not come back as intended the following meeting because they were updating their their uh traffic study as requested by this commission uh to to take place during while school was in session essentially and while the marathon gas station at the southeast corner. Uh this this sheets is proposed in the northeast

corner of Abbott and Sagenoth. So that the marathon station is now open and uh I believe Sheets has been updating their their report and we'll have that they did their traffic study yesterday.

Okay. So they did their traffic study yesterday and they'll be coming back to the planning commission in uh December with those results and for the continuation of that uh discussion and potential vote. And then finally uh Commissioner Chapen had just asked me about this uh before the meeting. Uh you may know that in the Tro Trobridgeidge business association I should mention the Trobridgeidge business association has been doing um strategic planning and also uh has development concepts that are being developed by a uh MSU class. Um the de those concept will be presented by the class at MSU libraries on uh December 4th. Um so if anyone's interested in attending those, please let me know. I can I can get you to details. But what Commissioner Shapen asked about was Dairy Queen because he's a big fan. Uh there was a former Wendy's building with a drive-thru uh that was then Paparoti and is now a Dairy Queen uh down there in Trobridge Plaza. And the question was, hey, they have a drive-thru. Um should we have seen that as planning commission and then ultimately city council? Uh just so just as sort of a reminder let you know here's how basically when when we have a land use that's continuing or hasn't been abandoned uh we would let a new applicant continue that land use. So the drive-thru even though it would be a special use that would otherwise if it were a new use would require planning commission consideration recommendation vote and then a public hearing and also a vote by council. Um if it was a new drive-thru we would have required them to do that because it hadn't been abandoned. we considered a continuation of a previous use, which is why you didn't see it. So, Dairy Queen's open. They have an operational drive-thru. Uh, just a I guess a a shout out to them. So, and answering to Commissioner Chippen's questions.

That's it for my staff reports. It's all about the ice cream commissioners. It's understandable. Makes sense. Top priority. All right. Uh, any other comments or questions from commissioners? All right. Moving right along. takes us on to item number four, commissioner announcements. This is also your opportunity to disclose any conflicts of interest on items on the agenda. Um, first off, I'll just say thanks for the thanks to city staff Landon and Alicia for the treats over there. Uh, it's a nice um incentive to get us to stick around to discuss the very awesome comp plan that we'll be deliberating tonight. So,

all right. Any other commissioner announcements? All right. Great. Takes us on to item number five, communications from citizens. I did not see any written communications in the agenda packet. So, verbal from the audience. This is your opportunity to come forward and address the planning commission on any items on or off tonight's agenda. Um, please keep your comments at five minutes and identify yourself on a card up there. So, does anybody wish to come forward and talk to us? Seeing none. All right. takes us on to item number as we have no public hearings. Item seven, unfinished business. Item 7.1, review and approval of plan commissioners 2026 meeting calendar.

Mr. Bartley,

so we brought this draft calendar to you uh in October for your review. Uh we're looking for a vote tonight to adopt it or to make changes if you need to. uh the planning commission by bylaws and unless there are exceptions typically meets on the second and fourth Wednesdays uh 6:30 p.m. and we're proposing to to continue that uh for 2026 I don't believe with any exceptions. Uh so we have the meeting date and sub submission deadlines um in your packet there following the second or fourth w Wednesday Wednesday's uh schedule. I guess if there are any questions or changes that need to ma be made, uh I would ask for a motion to change the uh calendar if needed, but and also a motion to adopt it if if that's your pleasure.

Okay. Any comments or recommendations? Okay. The only one on here I would note is that March 25th date looks like East Lancing Public School spring break essentially starts the day after. That one might be tough, but um I don't have a strong opinion on it. Just pointing it out. Uh I will likely not be able to attend the July 23rd or August 12th meetings due to work conflicts. Also pointing that out, but not recommending to change it. Just for me, any other conflicts or [clears throat] just as a comment if I may. Yeah, please. I'm I'm having shoulder surgery on January 29th, so I'll be here on the 28th for a sendoff.

And the last harrah. Yes. Yes. And and I'm hoping that I will be recovered enough and able to to to to get out enough on February 11th to come to that meeting. Okay. Yeah. Goes well. Thank you. We hope you'll be here. So, I do. I may be one armed, but I'll be here [laughter] as long as you can vote. Unless I can raise my hand. Okay, I will. Thank you, Ed. Okay, [snorts] any other comments or questions?

I have several conflicts in September and October, but you know, similar to uh right you that I we don't need to change it for one person. Agreed. Yeah. Right. L. Does this does this require a motion? Uh, yes, please. Okay. All right. Is there a motion? I'll move. So moved. Moved by Commissioner Ch to adopt. Yep. As presented. Okay. Second. Seconded by Commissioner uh Overby. Seeing no more discussion, all those in favor vote I. I. I. Post. Nay. Motion carries. We have our agenda for 2026. [clears throat]

All right. That takes us on to new business. Up first is item 8.1, assignment of a planning commissioner as an alternate member of the zoning board of appeals. Landon, I was hoping you could provide a explanation of their function and their meeting frequency and that sort of thing.

Sure. Uh so the the our city zoning ordinance allows for a member of the planning commission to act as an alternate member uh of the zoning board of appeals. And uh we do have the current alternate one of the alternates. There are two alternate positions and one is typically a city council liaison to that that group and another one is a citizen. Uh the citizen's term is is ending and we're interested in the possibility. It's a it's a best practice I should say to have a member of planning commission also um be either on or as an alternate uh to a member of the zoning board of appeals. So we're interested in in doing that. Um the the terms are three years. uh it would begin at the beginning of the 2026 calendar year. Uh the ZBA uh typically sees variance requests uh for dimensional variances. We don't have a use variance process in the city. So typically uh reviews and decides upon dimensional variance requests. A variance uh very quickly is essentially saying for some reason related to the property that is not in my control, I cannot I cannot comply with these requirements of the zoning ordinance. I need relief from the zoning ordinance requirements. And when it's that case, the zoning board of appeals is there to consider and potentially grant that variance. Um so that's typically I would say that's the most common uh item that the zoning board um reviews or or does as part of their their role. Uh they interpret the zoning ordinance. They classify new land uses into zoning categories. Consider appeals of a staff or a planning commission decision if that's the case. Um and generally an alternate member is there to meet quorum if if quorum can't be met and then stays with the case uh until it's decided if it takes more than one meeting uh to decide the case. Currently the ZBA meets at 6 p.m. on the first Wednesday of each month. Uh it's scheduled to meet monthly

uh in 2025 it met four times. Is that accurate? Okay. [snorts] So there'll there will be a fifth one coming up next month. Uh but basically to say that it's not it's not a sure thing that you'll have every Wednesday uh first Wednesday evening taken up by ZBA, but uh we would request that if there is a member that's interested to be an alternate that they would mark those off on their calendar. Um so we're interested if planning commissioners uh have interest in in being an alternate member to the ZBA and and could make that commitment. Um we'd be very interested to have a member appointed. Any questions or interested members question for question Lon. So

we don't have an alternate to step in. So why does this why does the the zoning board of appeals need an alternate to step in? And and and I do they have to have a quorum and if if anyone is is absent do they not have a quorum? Yeah, basically the ZBA is a quasi judicial body. So it has some different requirements under state law than the planning commission does and quorum is a little more important when it comes to decisions and continuing decisions if they last more than one meeting. So uh that's why generally there are alternates that are included as as by ordinance, right? So So they're more important than we are.

They're more important for what they do than you are. But you're more important for what you do than they are. So All right. Any other questions from commissioners? Anybody interested in serving as an alternate on the ZVA?

I could do it. And if nobody else is interested, sure. You want to be interested? I nominate Vice Chair Wagner. I will second that nomination. Okay. [laughter] Yeah. Um, first Wednesday 6 PM. Okay. Anyone else interested?

Well, just as a comment, I I am interested, but I've made an application to to be on the city's financial review committee and and they I haven't heard any decision on that yet or not. and and my my concern would would be overbooking myself if I if I did this in addition to to that committee. That that um if it turns out that that that committee doesn't if I'm not appointed to that committee, I would be glad to do this, but that's not a decision I can make tonight.

Yeah. And just as a as a point to Mr. Mr. Overbee's comments, Commissioner Overre's comments that uh generally um no one is is by by code people can't serve on more than one commission at a time. Uh except for where there are specific carveouts such as this one. Uh committees, there's a question as far as whether an appointed committee that's appointed by council essentially also has that prohibition. Um but most committees that are convened sort of ad hoc committees by groups such as this such as the green code study committee or the comp plan uh coordinating committee or the mass timber committee last year as an example would not have that same kind of prohibition. Uh but the one that commissioner overview mentioned we're still waiting on an answer to determine whether or not that financial author review committee uh can be served on. In this case with the the ZBA, uh you would be doing both where you'd be on the planning commission and also appointed as the alternate on the ZBA.

Any other comments or questions? I nominated Vice Chair. Yeah, I'm I'm really happy to support Vice Chair Wagner for this position. Um I think I think I'd be great. Yeah. Okay. And do we have a motion and a second? I'm not I don't think we do we we don't need to make a motion. If you accept the nomination, you would be all right. Wait, if I don't accept it, do we have to [laughter] override? Hostile veto hostile appointment. I accept it. Okay. It is done by Wagner shall serve as an alternate on the on the ZBA. So, um I do have a question. When is the December meeting? Am I am I expected to go to that? No, you wouldn't be appointed until December 9th.

Okay, great. And you don't have to go to that meeting either. The first meeting January January 7th. January 7th. Well, and you only have to go if you're needed. Is that right? Correct. Uh, in our experience, the alternates usually show up regardless, but uh really it is meant to just meet quum if needed. Right. And does alternates vote if they if they show up? Um, do they do they if if they're acting on the board at that time. So, if there's a full quorum without them, no, they wouldn't. But if they're sitting on the board acting as a member, then they would. Yes. Great. Any other questions or comments?

Congratulations. All right. On to 8.2, our commission retreat on the comprehensive plan deep dive. So, Mr. Bartley, I've been waiting patiently for this.

I've been waiting. Um, okay. Let me share my screen real quick. Okay. Uh, so we had a lot of uh there were some a lot of ideas about what we should do tonight for this retreat, but essentially the planning commission after adopting this document in August, uh, there was a couple questions from commissioners saying, "Hey, this was great. We we read it." And I'm not concerned about that, but I am concerned about sort of making sure that we have a sort of a full understanding. And so wanted to go through the document sort of highlights of the document tonight. Um I don't [clears throat] I don't want to take a super long time. I do have 40 slides but I won't go through 40 slides very slowly. I promise. Um but I just wanted to us to have an opportunity to sort of look at some points and discuss them. Uh if essentially we'll have a facilitated facilitated discussion. Uh but mostly it's going to be me presenting and then you have questions or comments or thoughts, please feel free to share. Um Mr. Chair, you mentioned the snacks. We have snacks. We brought Cheezits. So if you do get Cheezits, please stay very close to your microphone so you can crunch right in the mic. Uh that's that's important. All right. So um with that, I guess I'll I'll just get started. Um the bigger picture and focus. And then I do have a couple of um Oh, I'm trying to make my slideshow move forward. One second, please.

So, Lennon, just to clarify, yes. Do you want us to sort of engage as you go through or do you want to wait until the end? There's some spots that are more convenient. Engage as we go through. Uh if it starts to become an in-depth conversation, I feel like we should hold off and Okay. Keep going. I'll tell you. But otherwise, please please do. Okay.

Uh so, um as you know, I'm I'm gonna get get right into it. We uh sort of the earliest uh earliest outcome of our early community engagement was what are our top priorities here and that was mostly from the winterfest activity which was in December 2023 conversations at the planning commission level conversations with staff and with city council. Uh and so we found but but mostly these four uh priority items were basically reflected what we heard from Winterfest which was very well attended. I felt quite confident in the results of our activities that at that event that this is what came to the top. Social equity was the number one priority of folks uh at the Winterfest event and also from conversations outside of that event. Housing, public health and climate resilience uh came up close third uh close I guess second, third and fourth. Uh but social equity is the over overarching u highest priority. So we determined that uh the best way to approach this would be to have sort of topical focus on housing, public health and climate resilience and then try to look through all of at all of those through a lens of social equity. Uh so to start with I'm just going to give a brief overview of social equity, how we see it in the comprehensive plan and we'll get and we'll keep moving. Uh I like to show this this uh graphic as a good way to show sort of what we mean as far as equity. uh because equity and equality get get uh mixed up quite a bit essentially. So what we have here is this bent tree and in the hypothetical bent tree the lower side has more fruit. So you have two children the one on the shorter side of the tree is looking up and saying hey I can get fruit easier easier because the tree is bent towards me. So that's essentially inequality. The one person has more resources because the playing field is tilted towards them. Um, and consider that in whatever societal framework you want to. Essentially, equality is saying, okay, the kids are both having trouble reaching the tree. Let's give them the

same size ladder. So, they both get the same size ladder. And as you can see, the child on the shorter side of the tree is can easily reach up and get the fruit. The child on the other side of the tree is still having trouble because again, the playing field is tilted away. The the the the system is not favoring that child on the right. So equity says okay let's recognize the inequities of the system. Let's recognize that the system the tree is tilted and and give resources accordingly. So they've given the child on the right a taller ladder so that now they can reach the tree as well as the child on the left which can reach the tree which should shorter ladder [clears throat] excuse me. And then justice is essentially just saying let's fix the tree so it's not tilted. Uh so so the idea with equity is that you're redistributing resources uh and sort of energy and whatever those resources might be, you're redistributing them towards people who don't otherwise have access because the system is essentially biased against them. And again, how you want to approach this and how you want to consider how does this play out in different areas of of East Lancing and our society is up to you. But um but this was the lens we're looking at is how do we make sure that those who haven't had haven't had the resources are going to get them. And so what we did is we took took a hard look at what are some equitable elements and I wanted to shout out to the uh DEI department here at the city because they're really helpful with this part um and all the parts but this part especially. Uh so we we said okay what's our equity element here? How do we assess community needs through data collection and stakeholder engagement for example and how are we going to do it do that with this process. Uh so for for example for that element we said okay we want to have significant data collection we want to engage residents a lot you know early and often uh through monthly activities wide ranging uh and diverse coordinating committee. Um so that was sort of our our best guess there. We wanted to identify systemic barriers that contribute. What makes that tree tilt, right? And we s sort of sought to

identify those inequities through this process. We noticed some, they're in the plan. We'll talk about them, but we think these are going to become more visible during implementation. [clears throat and cough] Uh we want to make sure that we're engaging with marginalized groups that might not otherwise show up or might not be in the table at the table. So we sought to identify who are those people. Can they make it to a meeting? if they can't, can can we get meaningful representation for that that group? Uh so we saw things like this with the Capital Area Housing Partnership, for example, uh for some for the Michigan Disabilities um council. There were a couple other groups uh that were represented on the committee uh because they might have had otherwise a very a more difficult time participate in the in the process. [sighs] Um development of policies that prioritize marginalized groups. So, so trying to address these historical injustices uh is sort of a key consideration during mostly during an implementation. How we implement this plan is going to be very important and the methods we use are going to be where we can really have some impact as far as equity goes. Uh this is this is kind of the the the theme I guess um among this when we're looking at equity. How do we collaborate? How do we make sure that we have inclusive solutions? And that's part of the part of the key reason why we convened a coordinating committee that was pretty big, pretty diverse. Um, and making sure that there was coordination among a a wide range of stakeholders in the community. Um, we want to make sure that we have equitable economic development practices. Uh, that's going to be up to the economic development team in their implementation of these. Um but also continuing to have collaboration uh with all our cities departments and divisions including DEI and with other agencies uh such as LEAP which is the Lancing Economic Area Partnership and other other groups that were on the committee like um Capital Area Housing for example and then focusing on getting good quality housing at an attainable price point right uh that was that was a big big one that

kept coming up uh throughout the comp plan process is how do we make housing affordable because that's a major issue Um, you know, I can say we we're seeing a increased incidence of unhoused in the city. For example, homelessness is a housing market issue. So, so how can we change the housing market or incentivize changes uh within the market to get housing to be more affordable. We have a lot of groups working on this too, but this is central in the plan. Um, so that [clears throat] that's kind of that was where we started with the social equity lens, right? We're looking at trying to look through at all the different topics and all our activities and our implement excuse me implementation steps through a lens of equity and determining how can we make these implementation steps equitable. A lot of the work here has not been done. Uh we're the the the comprehensive plan is the easy part in my opinion. We're saying hey what do we want? Here are some ideas of how to get there but actually getting there and actually doing the implementation is when we really have to focus on this. what are we doing right now and how do we make sure it's equitable? So, we'll continue to work on that. Um, this was a plan update, right? It wasn't a replacement and that was uh discussion early on with this group uh in late 2023. Um, so we have a chapter in there or a couple pages, I guess, saying, "Hey, what what's new and what's old?" Uh, essentially the demographics are new. uh we updated things in since 2018 when the last plan was adopted, but you should still compare in in this project or excuse me in this presentation. I'm going to go through a few of those data points and I've combined them when I could to show sort of the whole range of demographic data. Vision and goals are still there from the the first uh plan except for when it comes to our focus areas specifically in social equity and housing and uh public health and climate resilience. So we have new visioning goals in that in that sense. We did not update the future land use map as part of this planning process. That's an implementation step and we'll we'll get to that. Um I'll talk about that more.

We did up update the zoning plan. I just kind of took a fresh look at it. The zoning plan is essentially saying uh how do our zone districts correspond to um comprehensive plan uh use designations land use categories. Housing was uh f was a focus area of the first um of the first plan and or excuse me the 2018 plan but it's a much bigger uh priority for this plan. So so again this is this table is essentially saying which which document should you rely on? Uh but public health sustainability and social equity were not parts of the 2018 plan. So those are real focus areas for this one. So if there are questions or people want to understand, hey, what are we going to do as far as those topic areas, they should use a 2025 plan.

Can you repeat that word to social equity and what was he on? Uh social equity, public health, and sustainability or or climate resilience. Um because those 706 for the minutes,

Commissioner Le6. Thank you. Um so essentially those those three topic areas weren't really focused areas in the 2018 plan. they were and part part of the reason why they were was because they weren't a focus there in the 20 2018 plan. So in 2025 we wanted to make those a bigger priority. Other key themes uh there were other themes from the 2018 plan that aren't really talked about here. I just want to mention that the student engagement report um that the student engage engagement happened in uh January to April of 2024 and that included some other key themes uh in addition to housing and public health and sustainability or climate resilience. It also included focus on the business districts uh and also transportation. So, as far as community engagement goes, um I just kind of wanted to lay out a little bit of what we did. Uh on the top you have the committee work, the coordinating committee, uh which started which was convened back in um early 2024, started meeting a couple months later and met all the way through to last month. Uh you can see a couple gaps there. um when we had breaks while we were finishing up co community engagement and then when we were uh writing the document and then when we were in the public review period. So uh the committee is is is finished. Did a great job. We were very happy. We still got to figure out how to like to give you guys to say thank you. So we'll work on that. But the bottom uh of this timeline shows our community engagement um activities. Um, so all those little arrows, especially between the the two bars, the the bar on the left says onampus student engagement. That was sort of the several um different meetings. I'll show that in a second. We started with a public workshops during that time. We had a dreamplay build in April. Uh then we had another workshop in May, June, July, August, September, October. So we just kept going on through excuse me [clears throat]

with those focus areas. Uh and then again there's a little gap there between at the end of 2024 uh into early 2025 when we were writing the document and then you can see the public review period uh council review this planning commission reviewing it several times a couple public open houses and then finally the adoption at the end of or in the middle of August. So any questions about what's on this timeline? I know you can't read it but there was a lot. Uh then I just wanted to show too that the students uh the work that they did they had 13 engagement 13 uh separate workshops in the few short months that they were working on this uh they had 35 uh hours of engagement almost 500 students that took part. Um and that was their goal is make it a significant number and it was uh had 160 responses to their online surveys. Total participants in their sticky note workshops were 241. It was a really good um very impressive uh student engagement work in my opinion for for a lot of work in a fairly short time that had a pretty good size impact on this plan. Any questions about the community engagement part before I move on?

And I'll just make a comment. This is the first time that I saw the student engagement report. Maybe if I missed it earlier, I missed it. But as I reviewed for tonight, it's the first time I'd seen that in its entirety.

And I was I was impressed first of all by the quality of the report. And I think they they exceeded their target. They wanted uh a little less than 500, but they received uh input from 500 people. But I was impressed because the students there was a lot of alignment with what the community said, especially around affordable housing. Uh better food options, healthier food options was a theme. And there were a couple others, but I was impressed that their findings had a lot of similarity to what our community out, you know, our non- studentent community, if you will. But anyway, [clears throat] thumbs up to that group, you know, when they present it here and um to see it included in the plan is good stuff. I think we just need to acknowledge that.

Yeah. And we did make it an appendix to the plan, so it is included in the full document final. Yeah, it is. Yeah. And that it wasn't in the original plan document that you guys looked at. So I didn't miss it. Correct. Okay. Good. And we have a couple printed copies of both these plans up on the front right in front of Vice Chair Wagner, including of the 2018 plan if you want to review that. So thank you for those comments. Any other comments or questions before I move on?

Okay. Uh so we really uh early on we had a lot of comments especially from people on the commissions council and at the early events saying hey make this all about data. We really want to make sure that you have a good basis uh for data before you start your ideas. You want to have a good clear picture of what East Lancing is like right now. So um here are a few key data points. Basically the median age in East Lancing and this is mostly 2022 census data 21.4 years old. uh the state average is 40.3 years old. So we and you can see the demographic uh curve or curves just down below that. So city of East Lansancy on on the uh left has between 18 and 24 years big bulge. We have a lot of people in that those age ranges um in the city uh versus the state of Michigan which is much a much different profile and that's just to the right. So it shouldn't be any big surprise uh I think to anyone who's been in East Lancing for more than a minute but we have a lot of students uh which is not unusual for a college town. Um as far as u the ratio of sexes in East Lancing uh between female and male at least we have uh a little bit higher female population than male. The numbers aren't quite adding up here as I'm noticing but that's just because there are fractions that aren't accounted for. uh population projections. Um right just before 2020 uh the student population at Michigan State University exceeded the total population of the city. Uh and we see the overall population continuing to grow uh over the next several years um but probably not much past 50,000 um until 2030 and then maybe up to 56,000 uh about 20 years from now. And then finally, um, so we see we've seen over the last 80 years, uh, before 2020, we saw a 6% growth rate of the city, which

is about 292, uh, almost 300 new residents every year, but we're seeing about 239 new housing units per year. Um, and but that was on a different time scale, just to point that out. The almost 300 new residents are from 1960 to 2020. The number of new housing units, about 240, is from 2010 until 2024. Any questions about this slide before we keep going?

Yeah, actually I don't want to I don't want to talk too much here, but I'm going to jump in. You've asked. So, there was one piece in the report that I was a little concerned about because it projected between now and 2050, I think, an additional 8,000 students. I'm sorry, an additional an additional uh enroll population on enrollment, Dave. A population increase of 8,000 people. But there was also a line in here that said it got flat beginning in 1970, but that 8,000 projection was based on something uh prior to 1970. I don't think the enrollment I'm sorry, the population is going to enroll quite as much as we project here because it flatlined in 1970 according to what we have here. The other thing I'm concerned about, and we had a presenter uh talking about the Howard um and some proposal down there, and they were big on this significant increase in student uh enrollment at Michigan State.

I'm not sure I I'm convinced that's going to happen at the rate that they projected. So, I just want to make sure I sort of throw that into the mix. Um I think to project a continuation of an increase not only in population but also in student enrollment I think we have to be a little careful about that. It's all I'm suggesting. I can tell you that oops the uh 19 sort of 70 when it started to flatten then decrease or decline in the 80s. Uh we're certainly taking into consideration but the trend that we've seen since that at least since 90s is continual increase. So that's how you got to 8,000. Correct. Okay. Um

post post 1970. Sure. I would say that mostly post in the 21st century is when we've seen more growth. All right. Yes, sir. Just to just to note on that, we have a obviously a cap on what capacity we have for residents to increase in the city. So it largely depends on what the development trends are over the next few decades and whether or not we build additional housing for people for that population to possibly be able to creep up, you know, depending on what the university does with adding dorms or student housing there. But it's largely dependent on um the planning future for the community. And this is our best guess based on is it is it trends?

Um you don't know what's going to happen until it's happened. So this is our best guess. I'm not making a strong case one way or the other. I'm just sort of lodging. Oh, sure. That's a good point. Question or concern, that's all. So,

um, as far as racial composition, uh, on on the right you see our current racial composition, at least as far as 2022, uh, the largest about 7 75.3 is white. Uh, 9.2% is black or African-American. Um, excuse me, that's Asian alone. Asian. Uh 7.4% is black or African-American. And I'm gonna have trouble with the the rest, but essentially you can see that that's just my eyes. Uh 75% is is white in the city and then we have a smattering of 25% of others. U the where this where this makes a difference is that to the left you can see the change in racial composition. So, so trends uh in the last 20 years since 2000 to 2020, we've seen the white population uh decrease slightly down by 14%, black or African-American uh increase by 62%. As well as Hispanic or Latino, 92% increase uh multi-racial of two or more races, 65%. Um a slight slight increase of 7% for Asian alone. A slight decrease from American Indian and Alaskan Native. uh no change for Native Hawaiian or Pacific and then a decrease in other. Uh so that just should give you a little bit of uh context. And then 13% of our residents were born outside of the United States. Uh as far as income inequities, uh we've noticed that between uh 2010 and 2020, uh median household income uh increased the greatest for people identified as Asian. Increased significantly. it decreased the most uh for people identifying as American Indian or Alaskan Native in those 10 years between 2010 and 2020. Uh and then we noted we found that the median household the income of black, indigenous and other households of color bipac was 42% lower

than white households in 2022. So we have some income inequities in the community. Our median family income family income was 121,000 uh in 2022 which is higher than the state median and I'll talk about that as well in a in a couple slides except the BIPO families earn on average $30,000 less than white families. So should give you some context on um race and income in the city. Bless you. Um let's see. Moving on. This is directly out of the student engage engagement report. I thought it was a good uh good look at the houses uh or housing the median home value uh increased u between 2000 and 2010 and then started to flatten around 200,000 in the city of East Lancing and versus uh Ingam County which is just below that the lower lower line on the graph and Midian Township which is just above that. So we've seen an increase and then sort of flattening of home values uh approaching 2020. Gross rents uh for the same three uh East Lancing Midian Township and Ingam County also increased uh significantly across all three of those between 2000 and 2020. Uh the most of most increase was for the city of East Lancing. And then as far as the renter renting versus owning uh in the city we have a higher proportion uh of rental of renters uh than we do owners uh than the comparable areas. So the 2022 data showed about 55% uh renter to 45% owner. Uh my understanding is that current data is closer to 60% uh 60 to 40 whereas we're seeing the opposite of that in Midian Ter Township 65% rental or excuse me ownership uh and in county as an average 64% ownership. So we have a higher number of rentals uh renters than we do

owners in the city which again is not uncommon for a college town. The these charts show a little bit about our income and changes uh in income. So the 2022 data is right in the middle on the on the left side. I have these little houses and people standing on on coins. um the 2022 or the center two. Uh so the median household income um the top is 2014 and the the second row is 2020. I'm trying to understand what my 2018 is right there, but the the the second row is 2022 data. So you can see that median household income increased across the board in East Lancing, in Michigan, and and in the United States as a whole. Uh and increased about 11,000 uh dollars per household in uh in East Lancing. It increased about 17,000 in Michigan and it increased about 19,000 in the United States. So we saw a little bit less of an increase in East Lancing across than in Michigan or the United States as a whole. As far as median family income, so that's separated from like an individual or two people who might live in a house in a household. Median family income uh also increased over the same time period. So 2014 is all the way at the bottom and then 22 2022 data is just above that. Uh we see an increase from 88,000 to 121,000 in East Lancing. Um from 61,000 to 85,000 in Michigan and from 65,000 to 92,000 uh in the United States as a whole. And then finally, our household type uh sort of non-family housing versus family housing. Uh we see increasing for non-family housing uh since 1990, but a slight decrease from 2010 to 2022. And then so essentially

the opposite for family housing, a decrease from 1990 to 2010 and a slight increase in 2022. And then just showing the home ownership versus retorship. Again, 2022 data is about 60% to 40% rentals to uh owned houses. Any questions about this before we move on? I'm trying to balance between talking too fast and stumbling over my words and not making this a 4-hour presentation. So, you're doing great. Great.

Uh, as far as change in household size itself, this is over um from 1990 to 2020. So you can see uh ownership has been essentially as far as owned properties the size of the owned properties the number of people in those houses the average has gone down uh from from 1990 to 2010 went from 2.6 uh average people in the household to 2.3 and then started kicking back up into 2020 up to about 2.5 people per household uh for owned households. for rented households, it's been a little um a little bit lower. It started sort of dropping from 1990 to 2000. Uh 2000, it stayed about the same at 2 2.15, etc. Um between 2000 2010. This is for rented households. And then it dropped to 2020 to two two just over two people per household. That's again in rented households. And I might just mention that we have a cap uh in East Lancing that up to two unrelated individuals can live in a in a rented household. So um that might be part of why we're seeing that that level of two. And then as far as new housing units, uh you can see that there were a lot of new housing units. New essentially is the is the darker color and um the running total is lighter color. Uh we've seen significant um new housing units in 2018, a few more in 2020, excuse me, [clears throat] 2020 and 2021, but very little as far as new housing units uh since then or before 2017. And they're just sort of those the type that's been constructed. Um, between 2014 and 2024, we saw a lot a lot of these units uh were in high-rise fraternity sority or assisted living and fewer were in multif family or single family. Um,

I had a question. Yes. Is that just random that the the uh the fire four happened to be consistent or in number as it was growing or I mean was that planned or just kind of the far forward on the on the chart showing yeah so because because there was relatively new there was relatively little new housing construction over those years 2021 22 23 24 the the higher part of the graph is showing just so the running total. So since there were very few built those are going to stay about the same. It was kind of static then it wasn't.

Yeah. So that connects to my point earlier about you know we're projecting an increase in population but there's there's just an evidence here that it's going to take place. I'm I don't want to beat that that horse. I'm sorry, but that there's too much in here that makes me that raises questions in my mind about projecting growth. I don't think it's a good thing, bad [clears throat] thing. I just don't want us to make plans projecting in a way that may indeed be inaccurate. I might just counter a little bit to say good. I like that.

If new housing units weren't constructed, it may not necessarily be because there wasn't a market. It may be because they weren't approved. So there may have been proposals that didn't get through and therefore new units weren't weren't constructed. There may have been a demand, maybe not. I'm not sure. Okay. But where there was say a demand and not a supply to meet that demand, we see other communities building more residential nearby. This is a beauty of conversation.

Excellent moment like this. So in Landon, one of my favorite components of this plan is how each section has a short, mid, and long-term action item. And I think that's that's contemplated essentially with we expect a population trend based on the analysis we've seen and what data we have available to increase by X. And then you can look at some of these short-term action items which are essentially like planning for that potential population increase by adding additional housing to compensate for it or making other adjustments based on the goals of the of the master plan. So, I think a lot of it requires us to do all three of those things in tandem or we're doing the short-term things that are kind of the lowhanging fruit or the quick action items we can do and then planning for potential outcomes to make sure that the community is prepared and achieving the goals that they set out to according to this plan. [clears throat]

Excuse me. Or that's how I see it anyways.

No, that's good. Um, I'm going to move on real quick to a little bit more about work work and commuting. Uh, basically what this what this uh little teeter totter at the top shows is 1.39 is the is the ratio of jobs to housing. Uh, so we have 1 point about 1.4 times as many jobs in the city of East Lancing as we do housing. So there is a net in migration happening uh from outside of the city of people who are living outside of the city coming in every day because they don't live in the city. That could be for all kinds of reasons but the number at the top 2018 showing 1.25 that was the number from the 2018 uh comprehensive plan. So there has been an increase in the in the I guess a widening disparity where there are continued to be more jobs compared to housing uh in the city. There were there were fewer jobs compared to housing in 2018. There were one and a quarter times as many. Now there about 1.4 times as many jobs as housing in seven years later. Any questions on that? And then the bottom two just show examples of what it looked like otherwise. But yes, sir. Not not really a question, just more of a comment on, you know, one kind of tying into this and to the housing question was if you look at back on page like 39 of the PDF, we noticed there's only five groceries in East, you know, grocery businesses in East Lansing. And I I don't know about out the rest of the commissioners, but last time I was in the Target on Grand River, I wouldn't exactly plan a week worth of groceries out of there. So I you got you have to think about some of those food deserts that may or may not be appearing on the map too because if we want more people to be able to [clears throat] live in East Lanzine, there has to be more access to food and it can't just be, you know, not not necessarily a criticism, but it can't just be

convenience store food. Okay. Um and actually we'll talk about that a little bit a little bit later, too. Sorry, I jumped again. [clears throat]

No, it's great. It's great. Excuse me. Uh what I want to show here with commuting methods is that because we have 1.4 times as many jobs as we do housing, we're going to have this net in migration. So, we have a decent decent amount of commuting commuting traffic. Uh by and large, the this is the 54.7% of people in 2022 were commuting by car, truck, van, taxi, or motorcycle. For the most part, that's cars. uh about 50% of our total commutes are driving alone in a car. Uh this is actually a much larger I mean for a college town this is not unusual. For a non-ol town we would have a much larger proportion of driving alone to work much smaller of walking, transit, biking. Uh car pooling you can see a little bit there's about 5% that are carpulling and then several are working at home. Um that's a higher proportion than past years but 2020 and and beyond changed a lot of things. So, we kind of called out uh some historical changes as far as walking, biking, and bus um community methods to see how those have changed over the last couple years. Uh we saw essentially walking has gotten a little bit less. Uh although there was a bump I wanted to show in 2014, between 2000 and 2014, walking was about 22%. It's dropped since then to about 20 uh just under 20% of people are walking to work. Uh, biking has we saw a drop where it went from 4 and a.5% in 90 down to 2000 3% in 2000, jumped up to 9% in 2014 and has dropped back down to 5% in 2022. And then B bus uh has gone up steadily uh was about 3% in 1990, went up to 4% in 2020 or excuse me 2000, 6% in 2014, and then just below down to 5.7 uh% in 2022. These are are significant uh mohares to me, but they're also thrown off by students because a lot of

students bike walk in and bus. Um although you can argue and when I was looking at this when I was putting the presentation together going they're not counting going to school but they're counting going to work but a lot of students have jobs so this is still counting uh but it doesn't it doesn't [clears throat] reflect their trips to school. Any more questions about this before I move on? Okay. So last couple points here is that I wanted to sort of consider some history. This is one thing that we looked at uh as well when we were talking about social equity. What you see on the left hand side is sort of a um is an excerpt of a redlinining map that was created for the lancing area in the 1930s I believe. Uh and it showed city lancing. essentially the the parts that you see off to the left side of that when they're those are the the non-desirable parts and that's where mortgage brokers would essentially push people they didn't want to have a mortgage in East Lancing to that area so into lancing the darker colors around Bailey and Glen Karen Chesterfield Hills those are considered more desirable so essentially banks would not lend to people that they didn't consider desirable and what we found uh over history is those have been people of color so there is a legacy in East Lancing from 100 years ago. That may not be true today, but maybe. So, we looked at did this have impacts? Can we can we see clear impacts on say our median household income by census tract? Uh, I would argue not very strong. They're not super strong correlations here. This is also almost 100 years past. Uh but we can see say Glen Karen has a little bit more money than uh a higher income than some areas of city such as around downtown uh Pinerest uh White Hills certainly but those weren't part of the city at the time of the the mortgage or the red lining map that's shown here. Uh we also wanted to look at our zone districts and future land use. Hey, is there future land use somehow tied to uh some some old historical patterns? No, generally not. And we also looked at the

zoning map. generally not seeing too many uh correlations between how things have been zoned except that I would say you have these as largely residential areas uh where they're shown as having mortgages. I I would say we don't have a real strong correlation though between the redlining map and our current practices. Yes, sir. One thing I didn't see reflected is all of the university housing out on Harrison

and, you know, all around uh just south of the basketball stadium, all of that um single family, small family, um university sponsored housing is all gone now. And if you drive out on Harrison, that's really it just seems such a waste to have a thousand units sitting there empty. Is that caught up in this in the movement of all those people obviously north of Grand River? Um or is the university just not providing it and people are on their own? No. Universe provides housing. Um I mean they have student housing, they have University Village. Uh I'm not aware of

Not anymore though. I mean, if you drive out there, there's no cars there at all. Well, they may not be driving as we saw last. No, no one's living there. It's It's deserted. Um, north of the or south of the railroad tracks on Harrison.

Oh, I'm sorry. Spartan Village. I'm sorry. I was going to say University Village. I live right next there and I see people there all the time. Spartan Village. Absolutely. Spartan Village is sort of um I think plant attrition that they seem to not be moving anyone else in there. There are still some people living there as far as I know, but they're just moving out and as they move out, they're not replaced. So that Spartan Village, uh, my understanding is that they have plans. It seems to be evolving. Um, so we don't what what we haven't seen recently is a proposal for a massive amount of housing. Um, there have been some discussions about uh more businesses moving in, but we have seen those discussions kind of grind to a halt as university u financial situations change recently. It used to be so dense in there. I remember even Cherry Village or whatever that was called

where the new inter mural building is.

Super. I used to mow it when I was in college and it was just full of people and families and you know it just isn't you don't see that anywhere in East Lancing proper and I just you know that it's a huge change. I just didn't see it caught in the uh in the plan. Well, it's certainly a this plan didn't really focus on the university very much. Um, a university is although it's part of the city, it's it's a separate entity. It essentially governs itself. We have a his own district for it, but it's permissive. Whatever the university wants, it does. So, as the university has essentially slowly reduced their amount of net amount of housing, yes, there is a need and there's a change in supply for our demand. Um, but I' I'd argue that you just have that just points to a more of a need that we could be improving more housing or in the right forms. And I think it's an opportunity because as long as we have a demand, we can choose what kind of housing we want to allow and and bring forward. Yes, ma'am. I also think that to Scott to your point and I don't know that it's necessarily reflected in this document but I do think it's important to call out the history that the university used to own some of the responsibility for housing graduate students

and a relatively large population that now they have essentially shifted onto the city of East Lancing

to address with an influx of an influx of students, but really they've reduced some of the housing that's available for students on campus and have pushed the onus onto the city um without necessarily offering any um support to the city to house additional students. And I think that's an important piece to consider in the broader history of housing in East Lancing and the university as a whole. that that used to be something that the university took more of an ownership in particularly for graduate students that they they don't anymore.

I think that's well said and I think it sort of gets to a area where we really need to have better conversation with the university about how we're going to treat the increase or stability in terms of enrollment. Um, you could even go back to the quanza huts that were uh in place on campus where the faculty bricks are or were before those were knocked down. Yes, I've observed that going way way back and it's certainly a change and I think your point, Lauren, needs to be um well, we can't lose sight of that. That's really something we just can't lose sight of. I mean, literally thousands of units with,

you know, a two-bedroom place with probably four kids. Yeah. And I think it's really telling that several um city council candidates, right, brought up this as an issue, right? Um uh housing that's not being used for single families ra they're being used as rentals because the burden of housing is on the city of East Lancing and rather rather than the university. So I think it to me it was really telling how many candidates were articulating this as an issue versus just you know a year ago.

That's a great segue into our first discussion about focus areas and goals and implementation because this is a great discussion but I want to keep moving on. Uh we're going to focus on housing. So the focus areas were housing, public health and climate resilience, right? Uh again alter social equity lens. [clears throat] the the vision and goals uh didn't change significantly from the previous plan in 2018. Uh but essentially the major goal that came out of of this process was saying let's expand our housing choices through appropriate and thoughtful density and design. And that was really what what it comes down to and especially as far as what's considered missing middle which is essentially uh housing types that you don't see very much. So, we have a lot of mid-rise and high-rise uh apartments, and we have a lot of detached single family homes, but where what about the middle? And we actually have a decent number of duplexes and forplexes scattered about, but should we should we allow these more um I guess should we be more permissive for duplexes or forplexes, town houses, cottage courts, um multiplex, triplex, uh live works? These were all sort of brought up in the 2018 plan, too. but we haven't seen too much change as far as actually sort of allowing them or encouraging them. Um, so what we found that came out of sort of the key key themes coming out of the housing part of this section uh was the the large text on top of each sentence is mine trying to sort of um summarize limit green field development in the nor northern tier. We found that the city is kind of built out except for north of Lake Lansing. There is a lot of land but a lot of that land is wetlands and other environmentally sensitive areas. Uh and we found that our community engagement reflected that said it's not close enough to transit. It's too far from services. We have to use our cars. We want to uh you know keep this undeveloped if we can. Um so we heard

that quite a bit. Focus development in already developed areas. very similar kind of uh response saying, "Hey, if we can fill in these places that have are already developed or have been already, uh we can have more households along transit. We can have more households near goods and services. We can make use of our existing infrastructure. Maybe we can make use of our existing buildings." I think people on here have quoted a previous planning commissioner who is quoting somebody saying, "The greenest building is the one already built." So we the that idea is like, "Hey, if we can reinvest into what we already have instead of building on green fields, we're going to be better off." Excuse [clears throat] me. We saw also the discussion about, hey, let's locate our new housing at a higher density downtown and in and in uh denser business districts. And uh basically this this acceptance saying, yeah, we can have more dense, you know, more multif family housing. Uh but let's keep it in our bit busier districts already instead of pushing the neighborhoods. uh Spartan Village came up uh like Commissioner Sevelleski said uh the area around Lake Lansing and 127 and Sagenol 127 and also downtown um and along m major corridors including along Sagenol, Lake Lansing and Hagedorn. These three study areas that I'm showing uh here are from the 2018 plan but I wanted to show that hey the more things change more stay the same because you can see north end study area is a discussion about Lake Lancing and 127 uh by the Meyers. So you can you're showing some concepts for some infill around Lake Lanson and Koolage. Uh the center city study area is additional uh construction and higher density construction around downtown. And then the southern south end study area at the left or excuse me at the right uh shows some ideas for more development along Trobridgeidge. So at at 127 and Trobridgeidge or near Spartan Village. So we're seeing some similarities from the 2018 plan to the 2025 plan as far as development priority areas. Um and then just uh real quick as far as like sort of select community engagement, this was a reflection of one

of our uh exercises that essentially is showing the sort of bluish and cooler colors are saying higher density housing is better around business districts and like along the major corridors. Uh a lot of people put it around Spartan Village and Trobridge. Um several around Michigan um close to Lancing and then all the way up and down Grand River. uh but having the lower density stuff, the warmer colors in the neighborhoods. So we saw this sort of um that was just a very a constant that we saw. Keep keep density in the business districts, keep it lower in the in the neighborhoods. I'm not going to go through all of these. Um but I wanted to sort of point them out. Right here are some implementation activities. And as the chair mentioned earlier, we have short-term, midterm, and long-term actions for each one. I highlighted where we have planning commission shown as sort of a partner a champion and there are a lot of them. So updating the future land use map. I mentioned that that's an implementation step. I want to do that sooner than later potentially um next spring. Uh review and update the housing needs assessment. Typically our community economic development department has done that. Uh I'm not aware quite quite yet of their plan to do that when when their next one's going to be but they do that periodically and regularly. uh improving the development process came up quite a bit uh as far as making it easier to to uh provide housing to meet our needs and that was essentially just saying can we can we modify our development process to take away some of the steps that we're identifying as barriers um or developers are identifying as barriers. So I'll have um I'll have proposals for that uh next year. Similarly, zoning updates to increase supply of uh housing supply and increase the diversity of housing would also be zoning ordinance changes. Uh the city council is discussing and this uh group discussed the diverse housing requirement downtown uh at Nauseium I might say, but uh the city council is currently considering some changes to that and I think we'll see uh changes or

at least more discussion starting in January. But that's not just about downtown. This this point is saying across the board uh let's let's consider other housing types that we're not seeing very much like these missing metal housing types that I've talked about or perhaps accessory dwelling units. Uh these are different housing types that we don't see much of. Let's let's see them. Let's see how they work in East Lancing and so we can we can explore that in the future. Pre-approved housing plans came up. Uh the um MEDC actually um based on uh my old employer Grand Rapids uh has worked on some pre-approved housing plans for for missing middle. So you see two, fourplex, etc. Two, three or four unit uh pre-approved plan. So if a developer says I want to build a two two unit, if they use that plan, they can build it without having to go through the whole process. So it can make if if we have certain housing types that we want to encourage, we can just pre-approve a plan and then anyone who takes that plan can just build it and we can see introduction of what we call gent gentle density uh very effectively using those. Um there was a discussion about the plan for unhoused community members. Uh that's being I would say being done right now actually. Um we have the police between the police and the community economic development uh department. They're working on a a task force that's coming up with some ideas really focused on downtown. Um, and I would say somewhat somewhat temporary. Um, looking at how do we address our our short-term uh concerns or issues that we're seeing right now. Uh, as I mentioned earlier when it comes down to it, homelessness is a housing market issue, you know. So, the items that we're that we're uh looking at as far as how do we change the whole system? How do we change how we approach housing uh overall and and allow more and different types of housing? That's going to be what changes uh this in the long term, but certainly the work is being done for the short term as well. Um consider incentives uh for more attainable housing, for new home buyers, aging in place. Um I mentioned the age friendly

communities work plan. That's a a strongly held value among our senior population is, hey, I want to be able to age in place. I want to be able to stay here and not have to move out of my house necessarily or my neighborhood or into some home. What if I what if I have options here to to live where I want to instead of feeling I have to move uh because of circumstance. So, uh we can certainly change um ordinances and policies to address that. Parking needs assessment we do um periodically we do a a parking report uh annually, but a parking needs assessment is more is less common. typically every five years. Um the planning commission will look at that. We have a downtown parking force or parking task force. I'm not aware of when the next parking needs assessment is going to be done, but I know the last one was I think we're almost due. So I will hopefully have a

next one. Oh, they already did it. Well, great. There we go. It's been done. I'll have the report for you at the next meeting. Uh there was a Okay, so moving on then the discussion of the formbbased code. Can I can I just ask a quick parking question? Yeah. Um because I just noticed this the other day and I may I probably missed something. Is parking not free on Sunday anymore? I think it is in most of the lots with gates. Did that change? I just went I just used a garage and it worked. I thought I thought it was

cuz I was at the um I was surprised. I was on Sunday on Sunday the lot behind um the peanut barrel and like Campbell's and that one you still have to pay on Sundays which I was surprised by. Privately owned. Is that privately owned? That one is city lot of the land is privately the land is privately owned. Um but I think they lease it to the city so I'm not really sure. It might just be that it was full. Sometimes the garages won't open. Yeah, it wasn't full. Okay. I was just curious. I'll find out about that and let you know. Okay. Um, but obviously I don't think I'm the top person to talk about parking because I didn't realize that parking needs assessment was done. So, it is.

I'm sorry. I just know because we're talking.

Yep. Yep. Um, okay. Uh, forbased code. I know that several on this commission uh feel strongly about that because you did a lot of work. It's re worth revisiting that formbbased code. And uh essentially a form-based code is one that says the form of the building is more important than the use that's within it. And that certain certain building forms will be more conducive to certain kind of uses. Uh and so you can put more of your regulatory power I guess towards uh changing the form of a building instead of focusing specifically on the use. Uh so I know that there was uh an attempt or a lot of work that was done on a foreign books code draft that wasn't ultimately adopted um and and that this was brought up as a priority item to bring it back and we'll certainly be talking about that. Uh and then redeveloping under utilized public buildings. Uh we've been talking about that city council and uh city manager's office has been talking about that right now and for the last couple years. And then I just want to mention a recommendation from the student report that is to incorporate more inclusive zoning language. They specifically wanted to see more diverse housing options focused on accessory dwelling units. That was a big focus for them. They're also very interested in community benefits agreements. Uh although those aren't necessarily as related to housing, but essentially that's just saying a developer will get certain incentives from the city. uh and in return they might provide certain amenities to the neighborhood uh based on a private sort of negotiation with that neighborhood. Um so any any last comments I guess I I'm going through this fast because I know it's almost 8:00. Is it past It's almost 8:00. It's 10. Uh and I said I promised I'd be out by 7:15. So we're a little bit past time.

7:15 count. Oh, I thought you said 7:15. I got time. I got 9 minutes. any any questions about housing? I still want to cover public health and climate resilience. No, I I have a a couple things at the end of it I was hoping to go over just to outline what I was hoping for for action items and then to discuss overall next steps and how we approach this. But perfect about housing specifically about all

I'm I'm kind of with Joseph too. I I did note that you highlighted planning commission especially in this area jumped out at me as well. So one broader question I would have is we're a little reactive in our position here. Things come to us. So this sort of speaks to me that we need to be a little more proactive about doing some work as you have outlined here very capably here and uh I think that's I don't think we want to lose sight of that our role you know good comprehensive plan we take a deep dive makes us you know be introspective about what our role is and how we might be a little more proactive versus reactive so it's a broader question leave it on the table

well that reflects I think the difference between planning and zoning. And the planning commission acts as a city zoning commission right now. So you see a lot of the zoning questions, land use approval requests and then you recommend changes or approval or denial to the city council. Um so that's a that's why a lot of what you're seeing is is zoning related. It's reactive. But this this kind of thing, the planning part, we're creating planning plans. We're going out and doing community engagement and deciding where do we want to go with with things. Um that's an opportunity for planning commission to do more proactive uh activity. Uh I mentioned uh and and and also I'd say the committee work um is al is can be proactive. Um I also want to mention that we are doing an east village sub plan uh that we're going to get into uh next semester. I'm doing a couple uh meetings with uh stakeholders in the area. I guess again east village is going to be the the planning scope area for that will be like Bogue to uh Stoddard east or west east and then the river past Grand River to Albert and the north. Uh so that's kind of a focus area for that area uh for that plan and that's just revisiting a plan that was done in 2006. Uh but we're going to start that over the next uh couple months. So if if there are planning commissioners who are interested particularly in being involved in that, let me know and I'd love to involve you. Anything else about the housing section before I keep going?

Any other questions? And I will have a time for time for like sort of next steps wrap up at the end, but if there's housing specific stuff that you want to talk about, this would be a great time. Keep going. My my u comments are for the the wrap-up and next steps.

Okay. Uh as far as public health go um essentially creating a built environment that promotes physical and mental well-being. Um I we you know sometimes in planning we joke about does the city make me look fat right and just the way that you have your built environment can significantly uh affect your your health. Uh is it easy to walk around or to have to to recreate, you know, uh to be active? Uh or do you have to get in your car? Uh or can are there options to get on a bike? Uh or for people who who can't, you know, are they able to get on uh move around uh in a in a chair, for example, can we support health public health through our built environment instead of making it worse? And so that's the whole goal. Can we decide which types of housing go where so that we can have housing close to your work or in a place where you can walk or bike or get on transit? Can we design streets for slower vehicle speeds so it's safer for pedestrians and bicycles? Um can we can we adjust our our policies and procedures so that we're not making it more difficult to build the kinds of things that we want. Um so these are things we're looking at as far as public health goes. Uh what this shows is uh another result from our community engagement which was saying the the green greener dots essentially are saying where is this healthpromoting where where are good health promoting opportunities where can I get to a park where can I walk easily or bike easily and then the red reddish ones are saying where do I have problems and so we saw some issues um we saw a lot of green on campus we saw a lot of green around our parks and our trails Uh we saw some red around some bad intersections. Uh I know that there were some concerns about trash uh in in some areas. Uh but essentially we didn't see

any real surprises here. Um busy intersections tend to be dangerous. I was surprised that we didn't see more more reds honestly than Stagen because that's a tough place to cross. Uh okay. As far as sort of the goals and implementations, uh I wanted to show this this graphic just because the social determinance of health, you know, there are several determinants, but neighborhood and built environment is one of several. That's so the the effect of the built environment on your health is what this chapter is all about. Especially because then we looked at the most frequent causes of death in the county. Heart disease. Uh you can impact by activity. uh malignant neoplasm or cancer maybe not so much but where you live and how you interact with the environment may accidents accidents happen when you're walking and get hit by a car for example if we made it so that it was easier to walk without getting hit by a car your health would be impacted uh quite positively so we certainly want to create more opportunities for things like that uh chronic lower respiratory diseases you know you can you can have a better breathing a better ability to breathe if you walk and run a lot and and and and there so basically this is the idea right that what we do with our built-in environment can impact you and can potentially increase longevity. I like that. Uh so what we did with is uh with activities reduce barriers to participation. Uh what are the barriers to participation in active recreation? Uh improve walkability. These a lot of these are are going to be in um DPW, parks and recck plant, uh hands, public schools, um safe routes, seniors commission, MSU, neighborhood associations. Uh improved sidewalks, crosswalks, and intersections. We've had that going on right now in front of Glen Karen Elementary. There have been a lot of discussions about the crosswalk there and safety. Talk about increasing tree canopy. There's been some discussions among this group about when when we've

had questions about removing trees without a permit. Um, this group has had to look at several of those requests over the last couple years. Uh, could we do something more proactively to help increase trees? Can we look at the green code study committee was looking at different requirements for landscaping, for example? Uh, we look at narrowing roadways or act adding protected bike lanes. Again, not super in the planning commission's uh wheelhouse, but certainly related. What are our ordinances that we have that are related to transportation standards? what what can we change in our codes that will make our city uh a healthier place to live? Allowing for mixed use development. This is where I'm coming back to the built environment. If you are closer to your health care, to your to your uh grocery stores, to your social activities, and you don't have to uh drive there, you might see some health health impacts. An accessibility audit is a great activity that we should definitely be doing. Uh where essentially you get outside and you put a blindfold on or you sit down in a wheelchair and walk around or go around and say, "Oh my gosh, this is really hard. Now I'm understanding why it's much more difficult to get around East Lancing in a in a wheelchair, for example." And I'm not sure I haven't done an accessibility a audit here uh yet. So, I'm not sure if it's if it's bad to go around in a chair, but I certainly do notice when I'm walking and I trip on a, you know, on a sidewalk corner or something like that. Where where can we be influencing our public um public space and and our transportation network that's not vehicular that can help uh increase health access to healthy nutrition? Yes, there was a question or a comment.

I think just a comment. Um, as someone who walks around at least my neighborhood quite a bit, um, you know, twice, three times every day, uh, walking my dog, one thing that I actually notice, um, that I think about a lot as far as walkability and accessibility um, is people often block the sidewalks with trash cans, with leaves, with right snow. Um, and so, you know, I will move their trash cans into their driveway because I'm an awful person, I guess. Um, but really, I'm just trying to think of neighbors who, right, don't have that ability and would have to like walk into the street. Um, it's really dangerous and I don't know that I'm I don't know, um, what we can do to sort of resolve that other than maybe an education [clears throat] campaign or maybe that's a PACE problem. Um, but it's it I see it a lot and it really worries me, right? I'm able-bodied. I can walk around it, but there's others with strollers or other with others with right canes, walkers, crutches that can't.

I need to clarify. You said you're walking your dog three times a day. Yes. That's a highmaintenance dog. My goodness. Oh, no. I I This is just something I brought with me from the city of Chicago, right? Where you don't have a yard. You just walk your dog. Sure. And are you kicking the cans into people's [laughter] yards or just moving them? I am kindly moving them for the most part. Sure. And she's using her social equity lens later with the bag, pick them up and recycle them. Well, and we certainly can. I mean, I I think that would be an implementation step here is to consider what what what can we change and how can we do it

or if we can't as planning commission, other commissions and boards can and certainly council can. Um, one thing we could look at would be a policy for sidewalk closures. When the sidewalk is closed, do we provide uh how what what kind of alternatives do we provide when a lane's closed? What happens? You know, so sometimes we'll see things where the sidewalk is just closed and good luck. You got to figure it out or do you just are you just shunted onto the street? Do you have to cross? Is there a crosswalk? Is it safe? So, we can look at at policies like that, but that's an implementation step. That's a great great condo.

Other comments or questions? Thoughts? There was a comment earlier about uh grocery access um improving access to healthy nutrition, fresh produce. Uh this is certainly this was in the in the comprehensive plan as a priority. Uh I want to mention that the students um I think I oh here it is. The students said hey we support local food systems. There should be a another commission another city commission about food systems and food sustainability. I reflect or reflexively was like, "Oh, no, another commission just because we have about 30." But, uh, they're there for a reason. You know, if this is a high community priority, maybe we do consider a commission or maybe we can adopt uh practices in our other existing boards and commissions that consider these kinds of uh these kinds of questions. So, what's the access to healthy nutrition? How do we support say how do we support grocery stores or gardens or other uses that might be able to produce uh more healthy food? Similarly, uh how do we maintain and increase acreage of parks, access to parks, access to recreation opportunities, sports, green spaces, etc. Uh parks and wreck has a very significant role in this, but planning commission certainly can as well. Just want to mention a couple more items from the students uh report that they were saying, let's try to address some gaps in off-campus uh transportation. they've noticed some gaps and they're they're thinking that they can fix those through information and ride share programs and mostly through MSU. Uh but then they talked about pedestrian crosswalk and bike lane visibility. Uh and they were speaking specifically about um having more raised crosswalks, more crosswalks with beacons and signage um and protecting bike lanes uh so that you can bike without quite as much uh concern about cars. [cough] That's it for health. Any questions, comments about health before I can move on? Okay, because we just passed 759,

but we're getting I'll still work on it just after 8:00. Uh deadline.

So, as climate resilience goes, um essentially saying, hey, how do we create an environmentally sustainable and resilient community? The idea with the resilience is that as climate change impacts uh arrive and we're seeing some especially with with say flooding storm water uh impacts from from more frequent more concentrated rainstorms. Um how do we how how can our community weather those better and be more resilient so we can change that? uh we we took a little different approach uh as far as the key questions and themes and just saying how can we weave this into our framework kind of like we did for social equity. How can we weave this into housing? How can we have resilient housing? Um can we have good housing, stable, affordable housing that can still be available even when there's an economic downturn? Um can we have housing that accommodates different household sizes, ages, etc. uh protects vulnerable residents from displacement during neighborhood changes or disasters. Uh that's certainly important. And then can we reduce transportation costs uh by having more location efficient housing. So again, so the idea is that you you don't have to if you're in a in a housing in the right location, you may not be able may not need to have a car to get to where you need to go. Um also tried to weave it in with public health. Uh, can the healthcare infrastructure remain accessible during crisis? Uh, does our built environment promote physical and mental well-being, clean air? Uh, do we have networks that support communities during health emergencies or weather emergencies? Um, do we have equitable distribution of health resources and emergency response? So, those like emergency response, uh, climate disasters, weather emergencies, those are the things that the sustainability and climate chapters uh, we're focusing on. And then how do we keep our our green infrastructure in good place in good shape for example how do we

manage flooding man how do we manage high heat days um how do we have food insecurity so so these idea waste management uh we talked about this a lot in green code committee too so this was we're trying to trying to weave resiliency and climate resiliency into the other categories like we were for social equity uh I just wanted to show the urban heat island uh that we saw essentially we We have some outliers uh but generally you see the heat temperature is higher around business districts except we have a sod farm up at the northeast corner of the city that has some dark soil and that tends to have some heat island effect. So that's sort of a little bit of outlier seen up there. Otherwise the heat is generally higher. The temperature is higher in the city around business districts where there's less green space and less water. Um, [clears throat] excuse me. So, as far as implementation activities, resilience plan that's underway right now. We have the wet wet weather resilience wet weather resilience plan that's being uh uh worked on, developed by the DPW crew. Um, and I think that's still going to be in process until mid 2026. Um, can we look at policy updates to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or storm water runoff or fire or wind damage? Uh, that's been an um an activity of the green code study committee. Uh, but we also see the commission on environment will be doing that a lot, city council. Um, and we have partners in Eagle and MSU as well prioritizing redevelopment along transit corridors. uh you're starting to get a uh a theme that if you have mixeduse compact development that's walkable, you can use uh you can use your legs, you can use bikes, you can use transit, these can have significant and concrete environmental impacts um just because you have the alternative and you have the ability to not have to get in your car if you don't want to. And that can just that can get people off the road and make it a lot easier

for the people who do want to drive still. So, um there are a lot of benefits to be able to uh sort of change your land use development uh patterns that can go well beyond just um boy I just completely lost my train of thought. So, let's forget that zoning updates to increase uh housing supply and type walkability mixed use while identifying resiliency opportunities. I would say this is very similar to the previous uh previous point but essentially saying can we have more density? Can we have this long bus routes? Uh, do we need to use imperous services all the time? Can we allow for pvious pavement? Can we increase our land our landscaping, for example? How can we have higher climate resiliency based on our zoning ordinance? Improved communication for opportunities within the home. Not too much is going to be uh that's going to be largely like communications and council policies. Uh, also increased use of uh solar and renewables for residential and small business. I would say that where we can have an impact as planning commission is to allow it in Arizona ordinance. Uh we've made some changes recently in fact to allow uh solar to be uh more easily adopted. Educate and prototype household resilience strategies. Again, that's kind of similar to implementation five where we're talking about communication of opportunities for homeowners. Um I would say that's more with the utilities with MSU with our communications division. Reducing energy consumption is a constant consideration for municipal facilities, for city hall, excuse me, for this building, for our wastewater treatment plant, uh, for some of our bigger operations like that. And that's on on the mind of our council and manager and DPW for sure. Um, expanding and improving our bicycle uh, infrastructure and expanding bike lanes and bike safety. Not too much with this uh, commission unless you want to advocate for it. Uh we do have a non-motorized transportation plan that DPW has traditionally kind of led. Uh we

can always adjust that if needed. Um bike and driver safety education and enforcement. Um I would say along the same lines, but not central to this planning commission. Planting more trees and managing our forest and green space. That's a big priority for uh DPW and parks. And then also fostering incentivizing native plant use or pollinator lawns or pollinator gardens. uh th the this this group could could have some impact on that as well. Again, by sort of allowing it and we can modify our zoning ordinance standards for landscaping and and uh what the property needs to look like um and allow those those sort of plans. Finally, um conserving the Red Seed River, not too much from the planning commission, but that was a priority within the the comprehensive plan. Waste diversion. Uh DPW is working on this right now. Green code study committee was working on that. How do we increase uh recycling especially among larger multif family uh facilities for example and then considering our dynamic uh storm water runoff management approach and green code worked on this a lot uh so we'll be bringing some storm water runoff uh management policy changes potential policy changes to the city council uh for discussion in December and then hopefully action shortly thereafter. [clears throat] Okay, that wraps up the whole implementation aspect or section. Just wanted to show you real quick the zoning plan. I mentioned that earlier where we're sort of tracking how do future land use categories match our compatible zoning districts. We noticed that we didn't use all of our zoning districts. And so that's a good good opportunity to say, do we need all of these? Should we adjust them? And that is certainly something I want to look into um over the next year or so. So next steps, uh, I just sort of wrote down just summarized all the different implementation categories in each section and sort of what's what's currently happening. We have a lot more going on in housing. Housing is a pretty

high priority area for the city right now. So things are happening. Uh, in fact, I sort of put these out as far as like I organized these slides differently. The next two look different. Um, this is I'm trying to do chronologically like these are what's currently underway, what's coming up, right, very quickly, what's ongoing, what do I see coming up in 2026. Um, the ones further down the list, like changing the zone district, uh, look, taking a hard look at the form based code, I don't think those will happen immediately. I think those are going to be a little bit more midterm, long-term actions. Um, as far as health, I just kind of re reiterated what the different um, steps are. I think

goals on the side. For example, PH. Yeah, this is just the the number that corresponds to in the plan. Okay. And then same thing with climate resilience. So, just kind of summarizing them and then back to the housing. Um, I I didn't see the ADU on there. I just wondered since we changed the zoning, has there has anyone used that? We haven't changed the zoning. Oh, we haven't? Okay.

Not for ADUs. Um there's been some discussion. Uh we we brought the minor zoning amendments that talked about the terminology about ADUs. They were called accessory apartments in some places, accessory building units in others. But as far as like an actual policy change to allow them in more places, that didn't go through. So I I think that that that could be a low hanging fruit. Um, and it could be something that we could move on sooner if the planning commission wants to. Um, I would say that that kind of thing, the more proactive advocacy role, uh, could be the planning commission discussing and then say, council, we think this is a higher priority priority and we want you to look into this more. Direct us to take some action because council really sets the direction, I guess. Um, but you certainly have an influence. I think that's what I have. Yep. Look at that. Almost 7:59. Just looking for discussions, questions, thoughts, concerns, ideas, uh, or wrap up thoughts if you have them. But I'm happy to go back through any slide if you'd like or we can talk about other things.

Any comments or questions before I go? Yeah, you go ahead. I mean, I I I do have some things and I I'm betting you're you and I are on the same page. Stole my thunder because those last few slides were pretty much exactly what I was going to talk about. So, I made them just for you time. [laughter] I thought I bet Mr. Chair wants me to uh Yeah. So summarize,

you know, I I I think it's discussing the next steps is important and I think as as far as discussing those, like what's a realistic timeline from a capacity perspective because this is a ton of work, right? And I think trying to find a way to prioritize some of these and have reasonable, deliverable expectations is is key for us. And I think part of that too is is trying to deviate away from litigating what's in the plan and focusing on what we can do going forward potentially with a little discussion on how we redo the master plan next time, whether we can potentially partner with MSU or other entities to do it. And um I learned a lot throughout that process and it was a I think a really engaging process. But as far as what's in our lane, because not all this really is, as you pointed out, um I I think I'm particularly interested in um the future land use map and streamlining some of those zoning codes. I think some of it's just unnecessarily confusing andor restrictive. So, I think that's a good long-term goal for this group. Um, I think focusing on reducing some of the bureaucratic hurdles with the development process, uh, empowering staff to make some of the more, um, lowhanging fruit, simpler administrative decisions, I think is just a common sense quick thing we should focus on at the earliest possible stuff of this. um the formbbased code, you know, I know Cynthia is not here, neither is former chair Bowman, but they and Commissioner Wolf, they put a tremendous amount of work into that process, as did the rest of the commission. And ideally, I'd like to start from where they left off, have a staff level review of that. And that's what we get is potentially like a overview of what was completed at the end of that process potentially with new staff in place where do they recommend taking a closer look at maybe

modernizing some of those things because I think it's been what six years or something like that since that was completed. Um, and then ADUs I think is is another good hopefully simple ordinance because other communities have something there in place and um that's what I'm particularly interested in and I think a lot of the rest of it sounds great too but that's just just a lot like when you see it like 12 objectives just focusing on housing on one slide it's uh I want to be kind to you guys as well. So but that's what I'm interested in. So sure, love to hear what

this is a good work plan. Um I guess along those lines, I I I think that the future land use sort of consideration the categories and then consideration of should we change the map uh is something we could we could do fairly soon with uh with our current capacity. Uh, I think that the formbbased code that would be something that we could certainly could bring back to the count or to the commission and say here's what was this was what was developed a few years ago. What really what really sticks out to you like like you're saying Mr. Chair um sort of a consideration of that code and should we move forward or if so how? Um I think that there are changes a lot of changes that we can make to our zoning districts right now. um we have a lot of them. We may the the categories of the districts that we have right now may not make sense that they did when they were created and maybe the form based code is the way to go or maybe it's not. So I think that looking at that um and and the zone districts uh across the board is a great uh great exercise. I tend to look at that with a little more weariness that I do with a planning process. Uh the master plan is a is a nice document that people smile about and think this was great. I wanted to think about what we want and how we want to get there. When he changes the zoning ordinance, that's actually changing how you're going to get there. And that's where the controversy comes up in the the contention. So, um, so I think that's that's coming. That needs to come. I'm not quite sure the timeline. Um, and as far as ADUs go, I think that there certainly is some energy. We get inquiries about ADUs all the time. Uh and I think that there's a lot of interest in the community uh from that, but I'm not sure where the current council or the new council is going to come down on that. But I think if there's interest among this commit our commission, we should certainly look at uh considering changes sooner than later. Thank you for those comments.

There are others. Go ahead, Chuck. I I recognize this suggestion may require additional work, but I I appreciate the next steps that have been outlined here. Is Is there any way that that that this can be converted into a scorecard? It feels like a whole mass of data and information and A needs to be done and B needs to be done and and I'm trying to fit them all together. So, a scorecard I would find really helpful. Um, and I recognize that that would require additional work on on on your and your staff's part.

I think that's a great idea. I'd [clears throat] like to connect with you to understand your vision more because I think it'll be a useful tool for this commission and also council. Actually, that point maybe we ought to just put this on the agenda every other meeting. A little update to run back through the whole plan [laughter]

I'm kidding. So, but I mean I just don't want to lo I think this was a great document and you know to Chuck's point, you know, we be got to consolidate it some way somehow. But I just don't want to lose sight of this. So many of these get put on the shelf and we sort of forget about them. I think they have this on a on the agenda. Chair, I'm sorry I'm kind of uh in your turf here a little bit, but to put it on the agenda for uh on a regular basis, a little comprehensive plan update.

Um and however we however that goes, you know, I think that might be a good idea. Hey, a couple quick things. First of all, it's really great document. Love the social equity uh piece. So, if someone says to us, "Well, we'll solve the affordable housing problem when the interest rates fall." We've solved the equality issue but not the equity issue. So we don't buy that logic. All right. We keep plugging away on social equity like that lens. I think it's really well stated here. I think this affordable housing issue is going to be on a comprehensive plan forever.

It's not going away. And I think it's you may not like this. I think it's more a regional problem than it is a city east lancing problem. I think we're a big player in resolving that. But I think as you said early on, you reached out so well to MSU, Clinton County, Eaton County, Ingam County. Um there's so many other municipalities that need to be part of that solution. And I think we need to if we're really going to solve it, I think we need just need to think broader. And I know it's outside of our guard rails, if you will, but at some level, we need to if we're really going to solve that problem, we need to think bigger and we need to get more people, more municipalities involved in that decision. So, just a real quick little, you know, small I went macro, I'm going to go micro. So, there's some language on page seven. I like students were concerned about limited access to affordable and healthy food options in the city and that sort of surfaced a couple of times. So if we hypothetically have a new restaurant gas station proposing to land in the city of East Lancing. It seems to me that's a logical read from the comprehensive plan. talk about the food that you're going to make available to the surrounding community. So, it gets to a bigger question about how we want to implement how how we want to integrate this into questions that come our way. I'm inclined to do that. I guess I kind of like to hear from the commission. Do we really want to quote this and give this some traction in public comment or in public hearings? I think that would be well worthwhile. I think that's a fair question to ask. As

well as can you redesign your parking lot so there's less or there's there's less I'll get my word right uh less impervious and more landscaping around that spot because that's a priority for our community. This is important to us and we want to make sure that those in front of us hear that. So, I'm sort of inclined to use it in that in that way, but I don't want to I don't want to get away from what the thinking here of my my fellow commissioners are. So, I just put that out there. Yeah, I I think it's a good good point and I've always used the city's comprehensive master plan as my guiding principle and in making policy decisions and I think that's that example you cited is potentially a good example of where a couple different values and objectives come into conflict and how do you um deliberate those and determine what's best I think is just on a case by case basis but there's often times where I'll go back and look at what the future land use recommendation was for an area and and some of the changes that are outlined here. And that's what it's for. It's just a resource to help guide you in your decision making and

and hopefully steer the planning commission towards some of these objectives. At the same time, I think this is written in such a way that if we're going to have a commission public hearings, we're going to have to use our judgment at some level. So, we incorporate this into uh a broader thought process that uh will help us get to reasonable decisions that reflect the values of the city of East Lancing as as p pulled together here. I'm just sort of speaking out loud uh trying to connect with the commission here. All right. Good. Hey, great job. I think you did a really nice

job. It was good to spend some time with it this afternoon and hear you and so on. So, good job. Yeah. Thank you. I don't think any of us want to be replaced by AI. So, [laughter] say that's why that's why we're here. So, true that. Okay. Any other comments or questions before we wrap up tonight? Landon, need any other guidance from us? No, I don't think so. Okay. Well, I'm sure we'll stay in touch. We will.

All right. Seeing as there's no comments, that takes us on to item number nine, commissioner concerns. Any concerns from commissioners? Seeing none, is there a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Moved by Commissioner Putts. Second. Seconded by Commissioner Subileski. Uh seeing no discussion, all those in favor vote I. I. I. Oppos. Nay. Motion carries. We're adjourned at 8:25 p.m. Okay. Exactly 26 minutes later than we said we would be. I was thinking 8:30 all along. Man, that was surprising.