Glencairn Overlay Proposal Dominates Housing Meeting
East Lansing community members gathered at the Housing Commission meeting Dec. 7 to discuss the proposed Glencairn R-O-1 overlay district as well as a number of rental license applications.
Following the Tuesday (Dec. 5) City Council meeting, which included discussion of the Glencairn R-O-1 overlay district, many members of the neighborhood turned out at the Housing Commission meeting to express their support for the overlay and, as a result, their opposition to rental applications in their neighborhoods.
“We’re asking the commission to consider the good of the neighborhood over the personal needs of a few,” Glencairn resident Kim Kovalchick said, expressing her opposition to rentals.
Majority of the speakers supported approval of the overlay district.
Of the 20 public comments, 15 community members shared Kovalchick’s viewpoint of wishing to implement the overlay and keep rental properties out of the Glencairn neighborhood. A multitude of written letters were also submitted to the commission expressing both support and opposition.
Robin Dickson, a Glencairn neighborhood resident for 17 years, spoke to the commission expressing her support for the overlay.
“Without an overlay, we leave ourselves wide open,” Dickson said. “Without the protection of an R-O-1 overlay, we would see our neighborhood [Glencairn] transformed into high-turnover rentals.”
In light of the discussion at Council, many residents said they were confused about the parameters of the overlay as well as the city’s definitions of “family,” “renter” and “domestic unit,” and were seeking clarity.
“The problem we all have is the zoning law definition of a ‘renter,’” said Partick Rose, who expressed his support for an overlay district but also was one of the people seeking a rental permit in order to have somebody stay with his daughter over the summer.
Rose told ELi in a Zoom call that he and his wife will be at their other home for much of the summer and want their daughter’s friend to be able to stay at the East Lansing residence. They applied for a Class 3 license (two unrelated people) because, he said, his adult son may also be moving back with his adult partner.
In the R-O-1 residential restriction overlay district, “permitted uses are all uses in the underlying zoning district except the use or occupancy of a one-family dwelling unit so as to require a rental housing license pursuant to section 6-175 (Article 10) of the Code of the City of East Lansing.”
With the discussion of review of the five initial conditional class III rental licenses, there was confusion as to how this overlay would affect three of those rentals which fall in the Glencairn neighborhood.
Outside the three rental licenses in the proposed overlay zone, two others were unanimously recommended for approval. Licenses within the proposed zone could not be approved after City Council introduced an ordinance to adopt the overlay district at the Dec. 5 meeting. While the overlay is being considered, there is a moratorium on rental licenses in the proposed area. (Here is ELi’s Dec. 14 story on the overlay district controversy.)
Three of the six rental license requests took up majority of the meeting.
However, discussion of the three requests in the Glencairn neighborhood filled up majority of the three-hour-long meeting.
Many of the members of the Glencairn neighborhood opposed all three of these proposals, fearing that once one rental license was approved, their quiet and close-knit community would be ruined.
“The approval of this is detrimental to the safety and desirability of our neighborhood,” Carole Hetherington, who has lived in Glencairn for 15 years, said.
Speakers expressed concerns about safety of children and noisy student neighbors, as well as the motives of the community members applying for rental licenses.
“I have two young kids and I don’t like the idea of having to be on alert because I don’t know who’s living next door,” Eric Fulton said.
Although the majority of the public hearing consisted of people speaking out in opposition to rental licenses in Glencairn, a handful of community members spoke in support. Majority of those speakers were requesting licenses that day.
“I look forward to coming to this commission here in the next decade for a rental license so I can rent to my niece and nephew who are interested in coming to Michigan State,” Jeff Gobe-Smith said. “Having these rental restrictions seriously would inhibit my ability to do that.”
The commission will return to discuss the rental license applications in the Glencairn neighborhood if the overlay is rejected by Council.
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