City Council Tackles Long List of Issues From Full Agenda

With all five members present at this week’s meeting (April 18), the East Lansing City Council approved the extension of a development on the city’s north side, discussed plans to improve employee retention and manage small cell tower installation requests, and granted amnesty to students returning stolen street signs – including all those Spartan Avenue signs. Council also put off the question of whether to grant a rental license for a tiny house with a controversial history.

Here’s your run-down from ELi:

East Lansing now has a Street Sign Amnesty Program.

East Lansing’s University Student Commission (USC) – an advisory body comprised of Michigan State University students – asked Council to create the amnesty program “for the last two weeks of the [MSU] school year [to] encourage students to bring back stolen street signs, construction cones, and police barriers that might have fallen into their possession during the school year.”

“We realize that students are moving back home at the end of the school year,” the USC wrote to Council, “and won’t want to log [sic] street signs and traffic cones back to mom and dad. To avoid these signs and cones being abandoned, thrown away, or have them end up in the Red Cedar [River], the University Student Commission hopes to encourage and incentivize students to return them back to city hall.”

Council unanimously passed a resolution on the matter, creating an amnesty period from May 1-13, 2023. Under the resolution, the city can still prosecute active theft occurring during that period.

Answering questions from Council, Acting Director of Public Works Ron Lacasse said a sign with the name of a street costs around $50. But, typically, thieves take down the whole post, which increases the cost of reinstallation to upwards of four times that cost. Bigger signs cost more to replace and install.

Council’s approval of more rental housing at Falcon Pointe didn’t engage the question of housing insecurity.

As ELi reported Tuesday, owners of manufactured homes in the Falcon Pointe subdivision have faced eviction threats as their homes sit on land for which they had no leases until recently. The developers who own the project, FP Investors, granted the homeowners one-year land leases only after the owners pressured the Planning Commission while that body was considering the developers’ request to construct four more three-unit rental houses.

Introducing the matter to Council at Tuesday’s meeting, Interim Director of Planning, Building and Development Tim Dempsey made no mention of the owners’ land-lease worries. Running through the timeline of the Planning Commission’s review of the matter, Dempsey opted not to explain that the commission specifically delayed approval until the developer would come forward and answer questions about the owners’ concerns.

Falcon Pointe homeowners got up to express concerns to Council – but they also didn’t talk about the land-lease worries. Instead, they told Council they wanted a clearer understanding of how parking will work next to a mailbox bank and want traffic slowed down on Thoroughbred Lane.

Bacon let owners Kathy Bratsch and Mark James come to the microphone and make substantial remarks before he finally called “Order, order!” on them. The agenda item was not a public hearing, meaning the owners were supposed to only give remarks during the public comment period at the start of the meeting, not during this period.

“This is not really a town hall,” Mayor Pro Tem Jessy Gregg told them, explaining it was the time for Council to negotiate with the developers.

Despite Falcon Pointe owners openly challenging the developers during the meeting, Bratsch told Council she’s happy FP Investors now own and operate the project because “this company is the only one that has finished what they said they would do.” She said she was “really pleased” and praised the developers for “working hard and well” with the owners.

Prior to approval of the site plan to build the new additional rental units, Councilmember George Brookover made a motion to require the addition of speed bumps on Thoroughbred Lane.

Council then debated what to do about the speeding concerns, with Bacon saying sympathetically he lives next-door in Hawk Nest and is probably one of those people speeding through Falcon Pointe.

Answering questions, Dempsey said he couldn’t recall a case of speed bumps being added as a site plan approval condition, particularly in a case where the streets are private as in Falcon Pointe.

Council finally settled on an amendment from Gregg that the developer “work with the residents and under the advice of the East Lansing Transportation Commission or the Planning Department’s staff to find a satisfactory traffic-calming system.”

Brookover voted against this amendment because he found the phrase “work with” a legally nonsensical condition of approval for a site plan. Councilmember Noel Garcia also voted against the amendment saying he didn’t think traffic control requirements belonged in a site plan approval.

Brad Friedman of FP Investors told Council his team agrees speeding traffic is a problem and they are willing to work on the problem, hopefully with a solution that also “beautifies” the area.

Bacon nearly forgot to take a vote on the main motion of approving the plan itself. But once reminded, he took the vote and it was unanimously approved.

“The big motion carries,” Bacon concluded.

Brookover delayed action on a little house with a big history.

Antonio Mastromonaco asked for a conditional Class III rental license for the house at 854 Touraine Ave., which would allow rental of the property to up to two unrelated persons or a family.

The house includes fewer than 600 square feet of living space with what the staff memo called “a unique open floor plan with a sleeping area, one bathroom and no basement.” It also has a two-car garage tall enough to park a tall vehicle, camper or boat. (You can see photos of it on Zillow.)

The house was built just a couple years ago after Council voted, over some neighbors’ objections, to allow a split of the lot at 846 Touraine Ave. to create the separate property now called 854 Touraine Ave.

After that, there was an attempt by the owner of 846 to sell both lots, but then the small house was built at 854. The house at 854 was subsequently illegally offered for short-term rental on Airbnb, branded as “La Piccola Villa East Lansing.” (Airbnb-style short-term residential rentals are illegal in the city of East Lansing.) Then the house went up for sale, listed over $300,000.

Now Mastromonaco wants a rental license to rent La Piccola Villa for a minimum of 12-months (with the tenant’s lease potentially going month-to-month after that). That kind of lease is legally permissible in East Lansing, with Council’s approval. Neighbors have written in for and against the plan.

The matter was originally on Council’s consent agenda, which suggested an expectation of approval without discussion. But Brookover pulled it off the consent agenda, saying he considered the property “an unfortunate development” in terms of the lot split and saying he found himself “dubious” about some of the claims being made in the application.

Brookover said he wanted to see the lease that would be used and recommended Council table the matter until they have more information. All council members supported the motion to table. It’s not clear when the matter will come back for consideration.

That rental license was the only item pulled off a long consent agenda.

Everything else on the consent agenda was approved without further discussion. The actions that were taken included these:

• Council approved a resolution recognizing Remembrance Day of the Armenian genocide and a resolution recognizing Arbor Day.
• Council approved a $97,480 contract with Hundred Acre Woods for upkeep of the soccer fields at the East Lansing Soccer Complex and Hannah Community Center.
• Council approved a conditional Class III rental license for 501 Spartan Ave.
• Pinecrest Neighborhood President Abbie Tykocki and city staff member Matt Apostle were named to the Local Development Finance Authority; Mike Krueger, current chair of the Downtown Development Authority and the Brownfield Redevelopment Authority, was renamed to those boards; and Patrick Beatty was named to the Zoning Board of Appeals.
• Laurence Rosen was granted a four-month leave of absence from the Housing Commission, which he presently chairs.
• A public hearing was set for May 9 on the Community Development Block Grant budget.
• A plan was put in place for Council to approve an increase in the downtown tax known as the Principal Shopping District Project Special Assessment. The tax supports the work of the Downtown Management Board.

In addition…

Bacon reminded everyone that community members are invited to attend an event entitled “Community Connections: Navigating the Community Mental Health System” at the Hannah Community Center from 6-8 p.m. Thursday (April 20). Bacon called the rate of mental illness “staggering” and said, ‘It’s an absolute crisis.”

The City Council is forming a new Youth Commission to engage East Lansing High School students in city government.

“We are trying to form this in a way that will have the best chance for meaningful work coming out of that commission,” Gregg said, saying the goal is “to bridge” the school district and the city government.

The last planned focus group for teens on this matter will take place Saturday (April 22) at 11 a.m. at the Hannah Community Center. (Read more.)

Interim City Manager Randy Talifarro indicated he’s been all around town as head of the city’s operations, including attending an MSU innovation celebration and a groundbreaking at the Lansing airport for a new cargo ramp.

Talifarro also encouraged young people to take summer jobs with the city and encouraged folks to attend the Books, Bites & Bids fundraiser at the East Lansing Public Library on April 28.

City Attorney Tony Chubb informed Council about the city’s win in the case over BWL franchise fees. ELi will be bringing a separate report on that when we obtain related information requested of Chubb.

ELi will be bringing separate reports on the small cell tower installation issue, the discussion of employee retention, and resolution of the lawsuit Hagan Realty vs. City of East Lansing.

Correction, April 21, 2023: This article originally incorrectly referred to Antonio Mastromonaco as the person who lived in, owned, and asked for the lot split at 846 Touraine Ave. (He was correctly identified as the person who owns and is asking for the rental license on 854 Touraine Ave.) This has been corrected.