ASK ELi: City-Owned Land Sales?

Image: The Avondale Square development, where the City continues to own many parcels; courtesy City of East Lansing

At next Tuesday’s City Council work session, City staff is planning to ask Council to put a City Charter amendment on the ballot for May 5 that would change how City land is sold. (Like all “work sessions,” this public meeting of City Council will not be broadcast or video recorded for accessible public viewing.)

City Manager George Lahanas is favoring pulling major land-sale decisions out of the hands of voters and putting them in the hands of Council. Under Lahanas’ preferred revision of the City Charter, a simple majority vote of Council would be all that is needed to sell major pieces of public land.

Today’s ASK ELi provides some key background information.

What does the City Charter say now? Right now, the City Charter says this:

The Council shall not have the power to sell any real property of a value in excess of four dollars ($4.00) per capita according to the last preceding U.S. Census, or any parkland, or a cemetery, or any property bordering on water, or vacate any street or public place leading to a waterfront, or engage in any business enterprise requiring an investment of money in excess of ten cents (10 [cents]) per capita, unless approved by three fifths (3/5) of the electors voting at any general or special election.

How can the Charter be changed?  A change to the City Charter happens when a simple majority (more than 50%) of the registered East Lansing voters casting a ballot vote in favor of the amendment.

From reading what the Charter now says about the sale of city-owned land (above), one can see there are a number of ways the Charter’s requirement in this area could be changed. For example:

• The minimum land value requiring a public vote could be raised or lowered.
• What types of land require a public vote could be changed.
• The approval threshold could be changed (lowered from 60%, for example).
• The power to decide could be transferred over to Council, with a majority or supermajority of Council required to approve a sale

What is motivating talk of a charter amendment? City staff and some members of City Council are feeling stymied by the current Charter requirement. They feel the way the Charter reads is outdated and prevents positive redevelopment.

Why does City staff want to get this on the May ballot? They want to move the Park District redevelopment plans forward as quickly as possible.

What land does the City own? The City assessor's office has provided ELi a list of what it says are City-owned properties and another list of what it says are properties owned by the East Lansing Downtown Development Authority (DDA). See the City-owned properties list here, and the DDA-owned properties list here.

But be careful when reading these, as it looks like there may be some misplaced data. For example, on the “DDA-owned” list, we find City Hall (410 Abbot Road), which I do not believe is DDA-owned. (If you look in the left-side column on that PDF, you will find that it lists the City as the owner of City Hall.)

What we see from these documents is that there are parcels all over the City that could potentially be at issue in a Charter amendment.

Who gets to decide sales of DDA-owned properties? The members of the DDA decide, not the voting public. As we noted in our report on the annual financial audit, earlier this week, East Lansing taxpayers are on the hook for DDA debt, so decisions made by the DDA impact all us taxpayers even though we have no say in decisions made by the DDA with regard to when, to whom, and for how much to sell a DDA-owned property.

ELi will continue to track this developing story, and we encourage you to submit your questions on this or any other subject to ELi by using our contact form. (If we use your question, we won’t print your name.)

ELi is a reader-supported, nonprofit, noncommercial, nonpartisan news source for the people of East Lansing. If you want us to keep bringing you news like this, contribute now! Donate online or donate by check. Your contributions are tax deductible!