Valley Court Park Is Coming Before City Council Tuesday for Some Kind of Decision

East Lansing’s City Council is set to make a major decision Tuesday night, March 14, about plans for what could be $2.5 million in renovations to Valley Court Park.

Council will decide specifically whether to proceed with a controversial plan for a new pavilion that would involve paving over existing greenspace in the park. The pavilion would add public bathrooms and storage space. The plan also calls for a new, accessible playground and special landscaping to deal with flooding in the park, along with the planting of new trees and creation of more paved walkways.

The issue is coming to Council under stressed circumstances. The Planning Department is in charge of the project because that department obtained the grant. But the current head of the Planning Department, Peter Menser, is leaving the city next week, and three other staff members in Menser’s department have also recently quit.

There’s not a lot of wiggle room time-wise. ELi has discovered using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the $1 million Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) grant for the project requires “a fully executed grant agreement” by Wednesday, March 15 – the day after Council’s meeting.

Additionally, the $1 million MEDC grant requires that the city provide approximately $1.5 million in matching funds. That’s going to mean having to find those funds while the city faces many financial challenges.

What ELi obtained via FOIA also indicates Menser’s predecessor made some curious claims in the grant application, including in terms of how he described the project, public buy-in, the state of the old brick-faced BWL building in the park, and East Lansing residents’ ability to access fresh food.

ELi obtained the grant application – but not through the city.

The grant application to the MEDC was submitted by Tom Fehrenbach, then East Lansing’s Director of Planning, on June 2, 2022. After planning commissioners asked what was in the grant and got no clear answers, ELi sought the application by requesting it from the city under FOIA.

As it turns out, the city didn’t keep a copy of the $1 million grant application. So, ELi had to obtain it from the MEDC using FOIA.

The materials show the funding from MEDC is coming through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). That means the project is required to address ARPA’s goals, including such goals as involving the building of new infrastructure, addressing urban blight and helping people disproportionately impacted by COVID. ARPA’s deadlines are also tight, so projects funded by them have to move relatively quickly.

All this helps to explain Fehrenbach’s arguments.

“The project scope has been finalized,” Fehrenbach wrote in the grant application last June, suggesting that, if funded, the project would not be delayed by a protracted public approval process.

“It was discussed at public meetings with ample public input including the Parks & Recreation Advisory Committee, East Lansing Downtown Development Authority, and the City Council,” he wrote.

But at that point, the project had only been vaguely described in public meetings. The first time the city made a rendering of the pavilion available was in September when it announced it had received the grant. The more detailed plans developed since then have been drawing a lot of controversy, particularly with regard to the plan to pave over greenspace for a pavilion that would provide two more vendor spots than the current tent-style farmers’ market area.

The grant application also took advantage of the fact that East Lansing’s economy was hit hard by the pandemic shut-down to suggest residents were living in a food-challenged area.

“This project will make it possible for the market to expand both its footprint as well as its ability to serve its customers throughout the year,” Fehrenbach wrote. “This will tremendously improve access to healthy, fresh food, and other farm products, especially to those people who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.”

The application used the fact that Valley Court Park is surrounded by student rentals to suggest the people who will be served by the project include many economically disadvantaged people. Students’ incomes are typically low, and the federal government consequently looks at the data and reads neighborhoods like the one north of Valley Court Park as “disadvantaged.”

While it is true some people who come to the market utilize food assistance programs, the great majority of students who live in the nearby neighborhoods are able to pay high rents and are not poor. Owner-occupied houses in the area typically go for $200,000 and up. (Disclosure: This reporter lives in this neighborhood.)

The area is also not lacking for fresh food, as Target provides a grocery store about three blocks away and Campbell’s Market Basket is less than a mile distant. (Both businesses are on Grand River Avenue.) The Kroger at Frandor is also less than a mile away. The city’s planning staff helped bring the Center City District project with the Target store to fruition, arguing that one of the reasons to provide public subsidies to the project was it would bring fresh produce, meats and eggs (which it has).

Despite what was offered in the grant application, the current plan does not call for a 12-month market space. It does suggest the pavilion could have many more uses than just the farmers’ market, providing space similar to the pavilion at Patriarche Park on Alton Road.

Fehrenbach’s grant application also promised the project would address urban blight. Here, Fehrenbach was talking about the old brick-faced BWL substation that stands in the park.

“A blighted historic property located at the park will be renovated for current reuse to support events and other park activation,” he wrote,  “and to maintain its integrity for future rehabilitation.”

It’s unclear why Fehrenbach described the building as “blighted.” Its roof and windows are intact, the building is free of graffiti and it is generally considered an attractive structure. That’s why people commenting on the park’s future want to see the building kept rather than demolished.

Regardless, there are no plans in the current proposal to do anything more than water-seal the structure.

Even critics of the current plan don’t want to walk away from $1 million from the MEDC.

In all the meetings held on the proposed project, even the sharpest critics of the designs have never suggested the city simply abandon the possible funding. But whether there will be a way to salvage the funding opportunity at this point – particularly with the city’s planning department suffering from so many vacancies – remains to be seen.

The project is really not at the stage where Council would be expected to provide formal approval. The planning commission has not had a chance to make a formal recommendation on the proposal because it has remained in flux.

The East Lansing Historic District Commission, too, has made no determination on the project. That commission has substantial power over the project because the entire park is in the Oakwood Historic District. Members of that commission have indicated they cannot officially weigh in on the plans when the plans lack so many details.

As for what to expect Tuesday, Menser told ELi by email on March 8, “Council may authorize the City Manager to sign the grant agreement (or decide not to move ahead on the grant) at the 3/14 meeting, so we will be noticing/designating that meeting accordingly so they can take action, should they choose to do so.”

The meeting notice has been changed from a “discussion only meeting” to a “special regular meeting,” which suggests a vote.

Council’s meeting will begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 14, in the Hannah Community Center. There will be an opportunity for public comment near the start of the meeting. Find the latest renderings of the proposed project here, the grant application here and the MEDC approval level here.

Update, 5 p.m.: The Council agenda has now been posted and shows a grant agreement with the current plan attached. Council is being asked to take action on the matter.