CITY OF EAST LANSING Quality Services for a Quality Community MEMBERS James Secor, Chairperson Davia Downey, Vice Chair Leo Sell Jennifer Ferguson Kacie Kefgen Nakia Barr Ed Wagner Lindsay Gray Carrie Freeman HOUSING COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES June 15, 2017-7:00 pm 54-B DISTRICT COURT, COURTROOM #2 101 LINDEN STREET City Council Liaison Ruth Beier Staff Liaison Annette Irwin (517) 319-6801 1) OPENING A) Roll Call Meeting called to order by Chairperson Secor at approximately 7:05 p.m. Present: Sell, Barr, Secor, Kefgen, Wagner, Ferguson, Gray, Freeman, Downey Absent: none City Staff Present: Annette Irwin, Desserie Ledesma City of East Lansing PLANNING, BUILDING AND DEVELOPMENT 410 Abbot Road East Lansing, MI 48823 (517) 319-6857 www.cityofeastlansing.com B) Approval of Agenda Motion: Chairperson Secor moved to approve the agenda. Commissioner Sell supported the motion. All present voted in favor of the motion. Motion passed. C) Approval of Minutes of March 16, 2017 Motion: Chairperson Secor moved to approve the minutes. Vice Chair Downey supported the motion. All present voted in favor of the motion. Motion passed. D) Commissioner Concerns - none 2) WRITTEN COMMUNICATION - none 3) PUBLIC COMMENT none 4) NEW BUSINESS A) Tim Dempsey, Director Planning, Building and Development-Update on current developments and potential future developments in East Lansing. Tim Dempsey shared some current insight of ongoing and proposed development in the City of East Lansing. Further information can be found on the City of East Lansing s website https://www.cityofeastlansing.com/ 1. MSUFCU - located on Coolidge Rd. and off of State Rd., which is the biggest square footage project going on right now. This is their second building and the headquarters facility. The projected timing for occupancy is August 2017 and just under 180,000 square feet and will eventually house 400 new employees for MSUFCU over the next 3-5 years; there is currently 550 employees in the existing building west of the new build. This is currently the single highest values property.
2. Falcon Point located off of State Rd. The project is a rental base project. The units includes duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes and are similar constructed; one story and two and three bedrooms primarily and have been under construction for the past couple of years and have completed a number of buildings on the east side of the land and will continue to build on the west side of the land. This land was originally suppose to be manufactured homes and about 20-25 of the homes were developed and when the recession hit that market never really recovered so the original developers sold it to Mayberry homes. There are 120 units in the current phase and 120 units of owner occupied houses proposed and approved of the Westside and on their way of negotiating with the local builders to take over the project as well. This area is not East Lansing School District; they are potentially Dewitt and Lansing boundary split. 3. Cottages of East Lansing located on Coolidge Rd., close to the corner of Lake Lansing Rd. and under construction for the past year. There are 24 duplex style units. The units are now completed but there is still landscaping, parking and paving to be finished for the project to be completed. These units are obvious student oriented and housing development. Out of the 14 units being developed 13 of them are the duplexes and 1 one is a single family home. This development isn t a very high occupancy, with total occupancy around 100 tenants and plans to occupy tenants this coming fall 2017. These units are a little bit in the market and the first time developed in the City of East Lansing. There are similar styled ones just outside of East Lansing, off of Coolidge, north of the shopping center, owned by Mayberry Homes, a cottage style neighborhood development built about a year ago. 4. Bailey Community Center currently under construction and scheduled to be completed in October 2017. This is a conversion of the old school building, the original 2 ½ story building into a senior housing development, with 30 units and 25 of those units will be income qualified. Original portions of the building remain off to the left and everything to the right is new build. The design is to use the brick and mimicking some of the original brick patterns and the middle section will be a kind of metal, flat panel. This property is in the historic district and under secretary of interior standards for the historic district you can have an addition come in fit, but it can t mimic everything, there has to be some distinguishing element on the addition from the original structure to differentiate the two. This development is being done by Capital Area Housing Partnership. The City of East Lansing continues to own the building but there is a 99 years lease agreement for CAHP to do the project. They are currently marketing the rental condos. The income qualified will be based on the median base of the community income. 5. 565 E Grand River (old Taco Bell building off of Grand River) is a 5 story mixed use building, with retail on the first floor and upper story mixed apartments; 1, 2, and 3 bedroom units. The constructions been underway for the past year and hoping to be finished by August 2017. There is no word yet who the retail tenants will be and will continue to negotiate different prospects. 6. Costco located off of Park Lake Rd., near the M78. The warehouse, retailer is under way and intends to be open for business in the fall 2017. This retailer compensates at the very high end for their associated, in terms of retailer; they top retailers regarding wages and benefits to their associates which was a big appeal to the City of East Lansing. The site plan approval from the City /Meridian Township also agree to the project because the property was originally annexed to the City of East Lansing from Meridian Township under an Act 108 Agreement in 2002 which applied certain conditions to the Agreement that would limit the City s ability to develop the property for commercial uses beyond that for office development. (Meridian Township and the City of East Lansing share control over the conditions under the Agreement) It is currently zoned RM8, Planned Unit Development District (PUD) and R1, Low Density Single-Family Residential District; East Lansing s zoning designations, where a PUD only allows a small amount of office use and
no retail use. On July 5, 2016, the Meridian Township s Board and on July 12, 2016 the East Lansing s City Council each approved a resolution amending the conditions of annexation in a way that will allow the property to be considered for rezoning, site plan, and special use permit for the Costco development plan. The amendments apply to this application only and shall be void and revert to the original provisions if the Costco application should fail to be approved by a date certain. The overall site consists of 64.48 acres with 35 of the acres for green space and Costco has a fair amount of landscaping to do as well. The 26.27 acres, rezoned to the City of East Lansing s B2, Business Sale Staff Report 5800 Park Road October 20, 2016. The proposed building is one-story and 156,170 square feet including an attached accessory tire center. East Lansing will get a portion of the taxes and meridian Township will receive portion of the taxes, and for the first 10 years some of the revenue will go to Costco do to address some of the site issues; a fair amount of mucky oils found on the site and is the result why other retailers in the past never developed there. There will be an entrance off of Park Lake Rd and an entrance off of M78/Saginaw. 7. 1100 Trowbridge (former Howard Johnson Hotel) north side of Trowbridge, east of Arbor Forest Apartments. The former hotel was vacant for the past couple of years and is a building the neighborhood will be happy to see gone. East Lansing City Council has approved the plans for a redevelopment of the Howard Johnson hotel site at 1100 Trowbridge. The project will be moving forward and will include a four-story, extended-stay hotel with 88 suites, to be operated by Springhill Suites by Marriott, and a single-level retail building. Total investment in the site is estimated at $10 million. The developers are the Boji Group spent a lot of time working with the Red Cedar Neighborhood making some modifications and changes to relieve some of the questions and concerns. Building permits have been submitted recently and they are under review and the builders hope to start demolition really soon; there is a fair amount of asepsis to be removed. 8. Park District Project located on the corner of Abbot Rd. and Grand River, next to People s Church. Albert Avenue will be relines to the south for better travel. Parking lot 4 will remain and be reconfigured, the entranceway will be off of Albert Ave and Dublin Square will remain. The Park District Planning Area is a redevelopment-ready site located in downtown East Lansing that includes properties that are publicly and privately owned. The privately owned properties were acquired by WGR Finance LLC in 2016. WGR Finance LLC is working with DRW Holdings LLC to develop the privately owned properties. Plans were revised and 314 Evergreen will remain, the next 4 houses owned by the Downtown Development are rentals and will be demolished around May 2018. The developer plans to demolish the properties at 100-140 W. Grand River Ave. and build a new, 11-story mixed-used building with two levels of parking. The L space building consists of 197 mixed-market rental units and a rooftop terrace and some amenities for residential. The developer also plans to build a new five-story building at 341-345 Evergreen Ave., featuring 66 residential condos and two levels of parking. The project also includes extensive infrastructure improvements, including the realignment of Albert Avenue, closing of a portion of Evergreen Avenue, extensive sewer and water upgrades, reconstruction and reconfiguration of two existing parking lots along Albert Avenue and the addition of a third surface parking lot where the rental properties at 328-340/344 Evergreen Ave. are currently located and a service parking lot will be put there instead of a parking structure. The parking lot across from People s Church will be reconfigured as well.
Building A will be 142 feet tall and the exterior of the building will consists of glass and brick. The first floor will be retail along Grand River and Abbot Rd. The Graduate Hotel will include 150 rooms and a patio space at the eastern end of the building. The hotel is a concept developed by Michigan State University graduates and are very unique based on their interior designs, which you can view on their websites. These types of hotels are spreading across America. The top floor of Building A will have a restaurant and patio space. The terrace area on the lower lever will have no access so to preserve the People s Church memorial garden. The developer will be seeking approval of state incentives this July 2017 and, pending the outcome, it is anticipated that demolition of the remaining properties within the project area will begin in summer 2017 and construction will begin in spring 2018. 9. Center City Parking, located off of Grand River and Albert Ave. The City of East Lansing has received an application for a mixed-use redevelopment project that proposes to include significant placemaking improvements to Albert Avenue and Grand River Avenue, the addition of both senior housing (93 rental units) and mixed market housing (271 rental units), street level retail and the addition of a national grocery and soft goods retailer. The project would be located along Grand River Avenue and Albert Avenue, including 125, 133, 135 and 201-209 E. Grand River Ave. and the City's Albert Avenue Parking Lot, 200 Albert Ave. The total project site is 2.02 acres. An estimated $132 million will be invested in the site. In addition to the placemaking improvements proposed, the project would also include a new 613-space parking structure and new utility infrastructure. The City would take on no debt associated with any of the improvements. Target would be the entire first floor of the building which would be an attractive addition to downtown East Lansing. The alley ways would be tact and widen all a long parking lot 1, Albert Manor along Abbot would remain in place. Parking lot 1 will be redeveloped into three components, the first floor along Albert Ave will be retail, and the entrance way to the parking will be on the west end and there will be four levels of parking will be above the retail and then five levels of housing development which includes 271 micro rental units, above the parking garage. The Albert Ave. building from Dan Street Plaza will be retail along Albert Ave., then the parking garage above Target and above parking there will be four levels or an effectively 2-3 level look, and five levels of the 55+ senior housing. Mr. Dempsey stated the 271 rental units along Grand River will be complimented by 92 rental units of the 55+ senior housing. The plan for the festivals is in discussion and may shift to the east side of Albert Ave and use parts of MAC. The Center City Parking project will be at City Council Tuesday June 20, 2017 for consideration; the site plan, special use permit, Brownfield plan and the development. City Council s been going back and forth for a number of months now. If all is approved, the developer would like to begin as early as August 2017 as they have already signed a lease with Target.
B) Update from staff regarding the number of rental property and types of rental licenses. Annette shared some rental housing license data information with the commissioners. Annette went over with the commissioners the six classes of housing rental licenses and presented to the commission data showing the larger rental property owners, per class of license in the City of East Lansing. ***attached are a couple of documents of this data information (CRMC Community Resource Management Company, RPM Renaissance Property Management) ***F in front of the organization name is a organized by men and S if organized by women Class I and class II are owner occupied Class III is for 2 unrelated or a family, which the Housing Commission sees most often. Class IV is for 3 or more unrelated or a family Class V are apartment buildings Class VI are group living (example Greek house and co-ops) Annette shared with commissioners by viewing these charts it appears that CRMC has the most numbers of rental properties, but, she states that this isn t the case because DTN has the more units being they own apartment building. She believes this data information will also be helpful in targeting communication, so if there is something that targets apartment buildings this data information will help with sharing communication with the majority of the rental property owners. Annette believes the increase of rental properties will be with Class V, apartment buildings. The other rental licenses a couple of class III could possibly come before the Housing Commission a month, class IV are super rare, and class IV will go before the site plan and go through that process because they are completely a different situation. Annette shared, by far the most populated area in the City of East Lansing with students is the Bailey Neighborhood, about 4, 000-5,000 students rent in this area. Annette hopes for some support off campus one day will be available, instead of just support on campus. List of properties that are all occupied by a student organization, they may be a Greek organization, Coop, religious organization but are all for MSU students and the majority of them are in a rental property with a class VI license and use this data with those who are in charge of the organizations to help pull resources for support. Annette also thinks this chart will keep track of what student organizations are maintaining housing off campus.
5. OLD BUSINES A) Committee Updates Downtown Housing Policy subcommittee - Commissioner Ferguson said the subcommittee is still looking at ways to attract nonstudents into the downtown and it is rather complex. Commissioner Ferguson states the subcommittee feels there needs to be jobs to attract people into the area and different leases, 3 month, 6 month leases because at the moment there are only 2 year lease agreements. 6. STAFF REPORTS A) City Council Update Councilperson Beier - none B) CENC Staff Irwin 1. Farmers Market and they are trying to do yoga before the farmers market begins 2. Kids programs starting up for the summer months Valley Court Park movies in the park starting July 6, 2017 https://www.cityofeastlansing.com/445/moonlight-film-festival 5. Music downtown Fridays and Saturdays 6. Summer Solstice Jazz next weekend - June 23-24, 2017 7) ADJOURNMENT Chairperson Secor asked for a motion to adjourn the meeting. Vice Chair Downey motioned to adjourn the meeting. Commissioner Ferguson supported the motion. All present in favor of the motion. Motion passed. Meeting adjourned at 8:45 p.m.