City Staff Approves New Apartment Balconies without Council's Approval, Creating Controversy

Above: The Garten Haus complex under construction, as seen yesterday.

Controversy is brewing over the addition of balconies to a rental complex now being built in the Bailey neighborhood. When the site plan was approved by City Council in May 2014, there were no balconies. But East Lansing’s Planning and Zoning Administrator Darcy Schmitt subsequently decided to give the developer DTN permission to add the balconies without checking back with Council.

The project, known as the Garten Haus apartments, is located the southeast corner of Gunson and Beech Streets in East Lansing. It replaces what was a series of older, very small, cottage-style rental buildings. The approval called for a total of 21 one- and two-bedroom apartments in five three-story buildings, and the site plan proposed that the apartments look like this:

DTN, The developer of Garten Haus, is a major landlord and developer in the area. DTN is also currently building a large apartment complex at 300 Grand River Avenue, on Valley Court just west of the original Biggby Coffee and Peoples Church. When that project was under review, West Village Condo neighbors complained about plans for balconies, and DTN changed its balcony plans for that project in response. I contacted DTN Vice President and co-owner Colin Cronin for a comment on the issue of Garten Haus’s balconies, but he has not yet responded.

Balconies on East Lansing rental properties are often controversial because of concerns about the potential for loud parties, accidental falls, and people throwing things at passers-by. When the White Oak Place project was recently approval, a majority of Council voted to remove all balconies from the plan after Police Chief Jeff Murphy told Council that balconies can lead to falls and rowdy behavior, including keg parties.

Controversy in the case of Garten Haus lies partly over whether Schmitt overstepped her bounds in approving the balconies. In February of 2014, under the advice of Schmitt, Council updated an ordinance to allow “administrative approval for minor changes” without checking with Council.

The ordinance change specifically limited Schmitt and other City administrators to approving changes only if “the modification would not materially alter the approved architectural style, façade materials to be used, window size or overall window area more than five percent, or other architectural features and adornments.”

Bailey resident and long-time neighborhood leader Sally Silver says she is not sure whether the neighborhood specifically asked that there not be balconies at Garten Haus, but, she notes, “the neighborhood association has opposed balconies in some cases, because they have sometimes been associated with behavioral issues and are not considered only a decorative facade treatment.”

Silver said she finds the ordinance’s language “somewhat ambiguous” but added, “I personally would regard a balcony as an ‘architectural feature and adornment.’ For that reason, I would have expected this alteration to require approval by a public body and not the administrator.”

In question is not only whether the addition of balconies constitutes an "architectural feature" change, but also whether the change from windows to glass doors results in a "window size" change that requires Council's approval. It appears that in some apartments, what was planned as a series of four windows has been eliminated in favor of two glass doors.

When the last City Council made the changes to the relevant ordinance in 2014, it did so in part as a reaction to developers building something other than what had been shown to Council in site plans.

Contacted for comment, Councilmember Erik Altmann, who lives in Bailey and previously served on Planning Commission, told me, “On its face it looks like adding balconies is the kind of architectural change that requires Council approval under [the ordinance at issue]. But maybe there's more to the story, and I'm looking forward to a full accounting.”

Mayor Mark Meadows as well as Councilmembers Shanna Draheim and Ruth Beier told me they need to learn more before making statements on this matter. Meadows indicated he is looking into the matter. Councilmember Susan Woods (who lives in Bailey) and City Manager George Lahanas have not yet responded to requests for comment.

Besides adding balconies and changing windows to glass doors, the project also appears to differ from the site plan in that a passage between two of the buildings was proposed to be an open-air pass-through but now has two floors of building above it, essentially connecting two large buildings so that they appear to be one much wider building. It's unclear whether Schmitt or another City staff person gave approval for that change.

UPDATE, June 20, 11 a.m.: DTN's Colin Cronin got back to us to say that he is "not up to speed on the ordinance you referenced" and to confirm that "yes, we applied for balconies (we believe renters like balconies), and they were approved."