East Lansing Principal Planner Landon Bartley (left) sits next to Senior Planner Alycia Reiten at the Jan. 20, 2026 City Council meeting. (Brian Wells for ELi)

East Lansing Continues to Hammer Out Vision for Future Land Use

As East Lansing looks ahead at the future of development and community in the city, officials are considering adjusting the guiding land use map in order to accommodate emerging or overlooked needs of residents and visitors.

In 2018, when the East Lansing Planning Commission adopted the city’s Master Plan, it included a future land use map that was aspirational and left room for the city to develop in a manner that matched residents’ values, East Lansing Principal Planner Landon Bartley told members of the city’s Planning Commission Wednesday during their meeting.

However, eight years later, Bartley recommends making changes to the categories in the map that he says will help zero-in on what the East Lansing community wants to achieve.

In his written report to the Planning Commission, Bartley outlined how the 2018 future land use plan has 15 categorized sections based largely on density, including five categories of land for residential use differentiated by number of units per acre. The plan also includes three categories for commercial use.

East Lansing’s current land use categories.

By narrowing the classifications to nine categories that include titles such as “City Center” “Neighborhood Residential” and “Mixed Density Residential,” Bartley said the city can pursue developments and policies that cater to the aspirations that were outlined in the 2018 Master Plan, also known as the comprehensive plan.

Initial recommendations from staff for future land use categories.

Government has a responsibility to ensure residents have access to basic, life-sustaining resources such as clean water and adequate housing. But for residents to truly thrive, the city must also plan for systems that foster a sense of identity and belonging, Bartley told members of the city’s Planning Commission.

That sense of identity, in a community context, can come from access to one’s workplace, opportunities to have status in community, ability to maintain routines and attain stable housing, Bartley said, all things that can be supported by a land use map that keeps those fundamental issues in mind.

“The comprehensive plan and its maps and all its illustrations are meant to be guidance and so this is a guidance document that we’re eventually going to come to … a future land use map saying, ‘yes, down the road over the next 10, 15, 20 years, this is where we want to see our city going’. And then we change zoning rules after that to try to implement that vision,” Bartley said.

Back in 2018, with public input, Bartley said the city landed on several main goals in the Master Plan that were held by the city, which included a fostering a strong sense of East Lansing traditions, accommodating a vast array of transportation modes, creating a strong variety of housing options and encouraging environmentally conscious developments and policies.

Since then, city officials have updated the Master Plan and looking at the updates from 2025, Bartley said the city has evolved from focusing on what East Lansing has historically represented to what it can become, namely an area that prioritizes inclusion and adaptability. That shift includes focusing on areas like housing affordability and consideration of climate resiliency in future developments

A screenshot of a graphic shared at the Sept. 9 Planning Commission meeting that compares the 2018 master plan to the 2025 updates.

When considering the kinds of people East Lansing residents say they want to move to the area, Bartley said there is a desire for a range of neighbors including graduate students, public school employees and Michigan State University employees.

However, those individuals would have vastly different incomes and therefore demand different types of housing, Bartley pointed out.

This deserves consideration in the future land use map, as the average annual income estimate for a tenured member of MSU’s academic staff is $137,500 and the average annual income for an employee of East Lansing Public Schools is less than half of that at $60,000. The average annual income Bartley presented for a graduate assistant at MSU was $22,000, which would make their monthly housing budget, about 30% of their income, $550 per month, whereas their State of Michigan employee neighbors, with a $72,000 average annual salary, would have a monthly budget of $1,800.

East Lansing, as well as most American cities, is a victim of “missing middle housing” where a range of traditionally affordable housing options like duplexes and townhomes are uncommon, Bartley said. East Lansing has housing options on other parts of the spectrum, such as single-family houses and apartment units, but modern zoning ordinances have ensured “middle housing” developments are largely not built anymore and existing units are aging.

Consolidating future land use maps categories seems to be a step in the right direction, Planning Commissioner Dave Chapin said, noting that he looks forward to solidifying a final draft of how the map should be altered.

While East Lansing officials should lead conversations about housing affordability and other policies that residents feel may enrich their quality of life, Chapin said, a regional approach may be needed to tackle the monumental issue of housing affordability.

“I think we have to be careful about trying to be all things to all people, because we are kind of a small square mileage, and in the midst of this conversation, maybe it lends itself to some regional conversation about these issues and how we’re treating that public school employee, that state government employee, that tenured faculty member, which is our clientele in the greater region,” Chapin said.