A rendering of the 10-story apartment building proposed to be built at the site of the Bailey Street Parking Lot that the City Council rejected. (From agenda packet)

Developer Sues East Lansing After Apartment Rejection

A developer is suing East Lansing after the City Council rejected its 10-story apartment complex proposal last month. 

According to records reviewed by East Lansing Info at the Ingham County Circuit Court in Lansing, Minnesota-based Tareen Development Partners, or TDP, has issued a summons to the City of East Lansing. 

The filing is dated Aug. 12 and does not include details about the scope of the suit. The City Council denied the apartment proposal in July following a lengthy process that included concerns about unclear expectations from the city and two different apartment complex proposals. 

Last year, TDP announced plans to build an apartment complex where the Bailey Street Parking Lot currently sits in the city’s downtown. Initially, developers pitched a 13-story apartment that included two levels of public parking to replace the spaces that would be lost. 

However, the height of the proposed building required developers to obtain a special use permit, which stipulated that developers must dedicate 25% of units to affordable housing or another category that diversifies the downtown housing stock. Developers said it was too expensive to build the parking and meet the requirement, asking the City Council to grant a tax break or lower the diverse housing requirement. 

At a meeting in March, the City Council delayed voting on the 13-story proposal and some members of the council balked at the idea of a tax break. Later in the spring, developers returned with the 10-story proposal that eliminated public parking and did not trigger the diverse housing requirement. 

At a March meeting, before the proposal was redesigned, TDP Vice President of Development Cody Dietrich said TDP had spent about $500,000 pursuing the project. 

The revised proposal was unanimously recommended by the city’s Planning Commission, but some commissioners said they preferred the previous plan that included public parking. 

At the July 21 City Council meeting, the council denied the proposal, with Mayor Erik Altmann citing concerns about the complex’s compatibility with nearby properties, parking and traffic congestion as the reasons for denial. At the same meeting, the council granted approval for a different developer to build a 12-story apartment complex downtown. 

The city did not respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit. 

It’s unclear why TDP is suing the city, as the company did not respond to a media request and their attorney, Kevin Roragen of Foster, Swift, Collins and Smith P.C., declined to comment. However, legal concerns were raised at a Planning Commission meeting leading up to the vote. 

During the June 24 Planning Commission meeting, Commissioner Josh Ramirez-Roberts said he preferred the version of the apartment with parking, but that he worried about litigation if the city denied the revised proposal. 

“This is essentially the fourth iteration of development that we’ve seen in the past few years on this site…,” Ramirez-Roberts said at the June 24 meeting. “The city has said no to the project without parking, they’ve said no to the project with parking, and we’re getting into a cycle here where essentially to vote no on this project puts us into a very legally questionable area of discriminatory zoning.” 

Bob Metzger, whose family owns the majority of the Bailey Street Parking Lot, previously told ELi that city officials told his family in 2022 that the city was not interested in renewing its agreement for the parking lot long-term and the family was encouraged to have the land developed.

However, three developers have kicked the tires on different projects to be built at the space without any luck, Metzger told ELi in July. Metzger declined to comment when asked last week about the litigation.