Stormwater Utility, Stricter Development Rules Floated to Address Flooding in East Lansing

After a pair of rain storms hit the city in 2024 that caused widespread basement and street flooding, the city assembled a Green Code Study Committee to address the city’s stormwater problem and recommend other changes to make the city’s code more environmentally friendly.

At last night’s City Council meeting, city staff members presented findings and recommendations from the committee. It was a discussion-only meeting, so council did not take action on any of the recommendations. 

There are short and long-term solutions to improve stormwater management. But even with improvements, some storms may still be too large to prevent flooding, the city’s Environmental Sustainability and Resiliency Manager Cliff Walls said. 

“I’m not an engineer, but an engineer would say it’s hard to engineer your way out of a 9-inch rain event in a sub-12 hour span,” he said.

The storms that have caused widespread flooding in recent years were so large they should only occur once every few hundred, or even thousand years, according to outdated standards. Climate change is making these large storms more and more common, and East Lansing residents are suffering the consequences. 

To address the growing problem, the city began developing a comprehensive Wet Weather Resiliency Plan in early 2024. The plan is nearly completed and should be presented to the community in February 2026. The plan will give the city insight on the weak points in its stormwater management system, Walls said. 

“Through modeling of the entire drainage network, [we’re] identifying our biggest vulnerabilities today and in the future,” he said. 

“What our consultant’s doing is identifying different capital improvement projects that we could implement that could address these largest concern areas,” he continued. 

Walls again reminded council that even after improvements the largest storms could still overwhelm the system, and the community should have conversations about where excess water should be directed during severe events. One example he gave was directing water to block some streets for short periods of time. 

“Leaving it in the road means that you don’t have to spend millions of dollars on conveyance,” Walls said. “We can’t stop water from coming, but we can put it where it’s least harmful.”

The biggest infrastructure fixes will require large capital improvement projects that are expensive and take time to complete. To pay for these projects, the committee recommended the city consider creating a stormwater utility, Walls said.

Right now, projects to address stormwater are an “unfunded mandate” that rely on the city’s strained general fund. A stormwater utility would charge homeowners and commercial property owners based on how much burden their property causes the system, Walls said. 

If the city does establish a stormwater utility, it could give it access to low-or no-interest state loans. A few years ago, Michigan expanded its State Revolving Fund loan program to include stormwater projects. However, there have been very few applicants for the funding. 

“As an unfunded mandate, stormwater, [communities] don’t have project plans, which we will have soon because [of] the Wet Weather Resiliency Plan,” Walls said. “What we and many others lack… is a dedicated repayment mechanism. [The] general fund doesn’t count, you have to have something like we do in the sewer world where you have your sewer rates.”

Along with long term plans, Walls presented policy changes the Green Code Study Committee recommended that could be put in place quickly. 

Requiring developers to build infrastructure that can handle 20% more water is one recommendation to keep pace with climate change. The additional cost this would put on developers will vary based on the project, Walls said. 

“If you’re on the north end of town and it’s green space, this means digging another foot in your detention pond, it’s pretty minimal cost and there’s not much engineering that goes into that,” he said. “If you’re downtown, it’s going to be a little bit more because you’re going to have to engineer a way to capture 20% more [water] in a space that’s fairly limited.”

The committee also recommended implementing policies that would put new stormwater management requirements on small projects and require developers that open businesses at locations with existing stormwater problems make changes to reduce the amount of runoff from the site, Walls said. 

Expanded recycling options, guidelines for beekeepers and more recommendations from the Green Code Study Committee. 

Along with the recommendations around stormwater, the Green Code Study Committee suggested other policy changes to make the city’s code more environmentally friendly. 

While the city has a strong curbside recycling program to collect recycling from single-family homes, many who live in multi-family complexes, like apartments, don’t have on-site recycling options, Walls explained. 

In 2007, East Lansing implemented an ordinance that requires new multi-family complexes have on-site recycling. Many of the city’s apartments, however, predate the requirement. The committee recommended the city launch a pilot program with some multi-family complexes to find out what the costs and barriers to adding on-site recycling are, Walls said.

The pilot program could pave the way to eventually requiring on-site recycling at all multi-family complexes. 

Additionally, the committee recommended the city update its code to address the rapid increase in electric vehicle use. 

The committee suggested the number of electric vehicle charging stations required at businesses be dependent on the business type.

“When you have places that have a quicker parking turnover, there’s not as much of a need for an EV space because people aren’t spending as much time there,” Associate Planner Grace Whitney explained. “At places like a grocery store or a movie theater where people are anticipating spending a longer period of time, you would want a higher ratio of chargers.”

The committee also recommended allowing businesses to install fewer EV chargers overall, if they install a type of charger that charges cars more quickly. Councilmember Kerry Ebersole Singh endorsed this recommendation, saying there aren’t enough fast chargers in the city. 

“I want fast chargers everywhere,” she said, adding she recently became an EV driver. “The market hasn’t really caught up… You drive out of your way to find fast charging.”

The committee also made several recommendations around beekeeping. 

“This is a question that I get more often than I ever would have guessed,” Whitney said. “I have gotten quite a few calls from people with questions about beekeeping.”

The recommendations include allowing beekeeping as a permitted use, similar to how the city regulates chickens. The committee also recommended installing minimum lot sizes based on how many hives a beekeeper has, and guidelines on how hives must be managed. 

“Honeybees are typically very friendly, I guess,” Whitney said. “I know that’s a concern that people voice a lot about having bees, but honey bees in general are pretty docile as long as they are being managed correctly.”