Council Holds Three Public Hearings, Defers Decisions

The East Lansing City Council held three short public hearings at its Jan. 9 meeting to address proposed construction and rezoning projects in the city. 

Mayor George Brookover, possibly foreseeing the near five-hour meeting, was quick to move along testimony from the audience and discussion among Council members, making clear during each hearing he was not prepared to make a decision that night.

The City Council will reconsider the three proposals during its regular meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday (Jan. 23) at the Hannah Community Center. Here is a rundown on the three hearings. 

New car wash proposed opposite Costco.

The first proposed plan is the construction of an approximately 6,500-square-foot car wash facility at 2100 Merritt Road. The structure would sit across from the Park Lake Road Costco gas station and was unanimously recommended for approval by the Planning Commission. 

The car wash would be one of 26 Mister Car Wash establishments throughout the United States, a subscription-based service that also accepts non-subscription customers.

“I’m not going to be prepared to vote on this tonight,” Brookover said. “If someone’s thinking about moving it ahead, because the [absence of building] renderings [before the meeting]. Just so you know, I’m very concerned about the intersection [at Park Lake and Merritt]. 

“There’s traffic continuously coming out of Costco [in and] out of Costco. Due respect to you guys,” Brookover said, “I don’t know what your volumes are, but you’re just going to add that I’d like to see more work done by maybe our traffic people.”

Brookover appeared wary of a traffic study conducted by Mister Car Wash.

Councilmember Erik Altmann added his own desire to see the construction use no-mow landscaping.

“There’s an interest in the city to try to reduce the amount of mowing that we do because mowing is a source of air pollution and noise pollution,” he said. “And I hope you would be amenable to using a ground cover that requires infrequent or no-mowing. Our staff can point you to reasonable alternatives and then I would be interested in adding that as a condition to when the time comes.”

Nicole Kastern, the representative from Mister Car Wash, affirmed the business would be willing to adapt landscaping and look into more traffic studies.

Bed and breakfast plans on Grove Street are opposed by some neighbors.

Michael Zawacki wants to convert his duplex at 730 Grove Street, a student rental property, into a bed and breakfast, requesting the rezoning of the property from R-2 medium density single-family residential to RM-32 city center multiple family residential. The proposed bed and breakfast would make it a class B rental.

Dan Lewis from VK Civil represented Zawacki in front of the Council.

“Mike’s got really cool dreams for the property,” Lewis said. “He is not planning on tearing down buildings. It is his plan to remodel this and keep the architecture of the building and the best way to point that out is what’s in your packet. We are partway through the process of doing the historical preservation on this and getting it designated as an architectural building. I think it’d be a great improvement from a student rental to this bed and breakfast.”

Brookover, Altmann and Councilmember Mark Meadows each asked clarifying questions to East Lansing Principal Planner Landon Bartley, expressing uncertainty about the class B rental and how the potential rezoning could affect future properties.

“If staff could answer those questions in writing before this comes back before us,” Brookover said, “and the other thing I’d be interested in as long as we’re talking about this is I’m concerned that apparently, based on your staff report, there’s no definition of a bed and breakfast in East Lansing.”

ELi reached out to Bartley to better understand the possible classification.

“​​We define various types of rental licenses or dwelling types that encompass a B&B-type use,” Bartley said via email. “Specifically, Class B dwellings are ‘occupied by individuals who are lodged, with or without meals, and in which as a rule the rooms are occupied singly and without any provision therein or therewith for cooking or kitchen accommodations for the individual occupants. This class includes fraternities, sororities, hotels, lodging houses, boarding houses, rooming houses, and all other dwellings similarly occupied, whether specifically enumerated herein or not.”

“If the owner of a Class B dwelling unit wants to have occupants of that dwelling,” Bartley continued, “it must be licensed as a rental, specifically with a Class VI-type rental license, which is allowed only in specific districts and with approval by the Planning Commission and City Council.”

Council concerned about the “pretty” factor of a proposed new gas station.

When Bartley introduced the third hearing of the night, he said the applicant was hopeful the Council would take action that night.

Jason Berris of American Oil & Gas likely left the meeting disappointed after Council did not take action.

Berris and his company are hoping to raze the gas station, convenience store and car wash at 100 East Saginaw St., and replace it with new gas pumps and a newly-built convenience store.

Berris described the current structures as “beyond repair” and faced pushback from Council members and the public concerning their plans.

“I always kind of thought that was a weird gas station right there,” Brookover said. “But over 30 some, 40 some years, I’ve sort of gotten so I kind of like it because it’s disguised, it’s hidden, it doesn’t stick out. That’s just me, OK, and so I’m a little concerned about the layout you’ve got…I’m assuming you want it to be very visible from those roads. And maybe I don’t have any control over this, but I kind of think I don’t really want it to be that visible. It’d be nice to have some nature in there at some point.”

Bartley clarified that two trees would be removed from the site but four trees would be planted in addition to several bushes.

Diane Wing, chair of the East Lansing Historic District Commission, spoke about her personal feelings surrounding the proposed construction.

“It’s my understanding that the applicant proposes sort of leveling that site,” she said. “It’s got a bit of a depression in it right now, so he’s going to try to level the site so that he can build more easily and as the applicant, we’re going to lose that slight berming [a mound of earth] that exists today. 

“As Mayor Brookover mentioned, the reason that gas station is so appealing and attractive right now is because it’s disguised. You really don’t know it’s a gas station if you are sitting at that main corner of Saginaw and Abbot Road,” Wing said. “You sort of have to drive beside it to know what’s going on. What’s being proposed right now is the convenience store is now going to be at the back of the property towards the post office and the gas pumps are going to be in the front once the berming [is] removed. And if there’s very young landscaped trees and shrubs, you are going to see all of the gas station activity. It’s going to be front and center. You will see everybody pumping their gas. You’ll see all the cars, you’ll see all of the movement, everything that we don’t see today in that very busy corner is going to become very evident. 

“I feel that the residents and the passers-by at what is probably the busiest intersection in the City of East Lansing, I think they’re going to be extremely appalled when all of a sudden they see this hubbub of, very frankly, who wants to see a bunch of people pumping gas if we don’t have to,” she said.