Charter Amendment on Land Sales Could Significantly Alter System

The City has now made available four draft alternatives for an amendment to the City Charter to change how decisions are made about the sale of City-owned lands. Some Council members expressed an interest in changing this provision in East Lansing’s Charter to be more in line with Lansing’s, but the decision parameters being suggested for East Lansing are different from Lansing’s in an important respect.

First, some background: The four alternative East Lansing charter amendments, drafted by City Attorney Tom Yeadon at Council’s request, are available through the City website (here, here, here, and here). All are meant to make it easier to sell public land, because the City has been repeatedly stymied in trying to move various sales forward. This occurred most recently last November when the City Manager and four Council members wanted voters to approve the sale of three parking lots for a project proposed by the developer DTN for the Valley Court/Park District area. That voter-approval fell short by less than a couple hundred votes; about 57% of those citizens voting wanted the lots sold.

Currently, here’s what our City Charter requires with regard to land sales:

• Most land valued at more than $4 per capita—about $194,000—requires approval by a vote of the citizens.
• The measure passes only if 60% or more of voters approve.
• The sale of park lands, cemeteries, and waterfront land requires approval by 60% of the voting public.
• Council has no way to override the public’s decision.

The four proposed alternatives consider these possibilities:

• Most land valued at less than $25 per capita—right now about $1.2 million—will be decided by a vote of Council (not the voting public).
• Most land valued above $25 per capita—about $1.2 million—would be decided either by a simple majority vote of the people (50%) or by a supermajority of Council (4 of 5 Council members).
• The sale of park lands, cemeteries, and waterfront land would still be determined by the public but would now require only a 50% approval instead of a 60% approval.

By contrast, here’s what Lansing’s City Charter says about lands sales:

• The sale of land valued at more than $50,000 requires either (a) approval by 50% or more of voters, or (b) approval by 2/3 of the City Council.
• The sale of park land, cemeteries, and waterfront land requires approval by 50% or more of voters.

What the threshold difference—$50,000 in Lansing, $1.2 million in East Lansing—would mean in practice is that a much greater proportion of publicly-owned lands in Lansing are subject to special approval (majority of voters or supermajority of Lansing’s Council) than would be the proportion of publicly-owned lands in East Lansing (most of which could be put up for sale just by a majority vote of East Lansing’s Council under several of the amendment proposals).

ELi has obtained a list of City-owned properties, but it does not include valuations, so it does not tell us how particular properties would be affected by a change to the Charter language.

The significance of changing the threshold is being discussed among citizens. About the proposals on the table for East Lansing, Bailey Neighborhood Association president Konrad Hittner has written in that neighborhood’s most recent newsletter, “Since few [East Lansing] City-owned properties would exceed that value [of $1.2 million], most non-park City property sales could be approved, under a charter amendment of that kind, by a simple majority vote of the City Council, without a vote of the electorate.”

Two examples help illustrate how key votes might shift from voter-decided to majority-Council-decided if the threshold changes from $194,000 to $1.2 million.

First, the two parking lots on Abbot Road that were on the ballot for sale in November have been appraised together at $960,000. If a Charter amendment were adopted with the $25 per capita threshold, the Council could decide to sell these parking lots by a simple majority vote (i.e., an affirmative vote by only three Council members).

According to City Planning staff, only these two lots need to be sold in order to move forward with the DTN Park District proposal that the developer withdrew following the vote in November that failed to gain 60% approval of the public. City staff told the City Council at its January 13 meeting that they want to see a Charter amendment passed soon so that they can revisit the parking lots sale to move forward with this redevelopment proposal.

Another public property that could be impacted by a threshold change from $194,000 to $1.2 million is the Bailey Community Center. Council decided in January to enter into a consultative process about the future of this building, while city staff also have the property on a “redevelopment ready” list. The value of the property has not been discussed in the recent debate, but if part of the property (e.g., the part with the building) were appraised at less than the $1.2 million, a simple majority of Council (3/5) might effect a sale if amending the Charter in this fashion is agreed to by the voting public.

The City Council will consider the Charter Amendment issue at its Tuesday, February 3 meeting. If this Charter Amendment is going to be decided by the public on May 5, East Lansing’s Council must finalize their decision on the amendment proposal before February 10 at 4:00 pm, because that is when language must be sent to the Ingham County Clerk for any question to be placed on the May 5 ballot.

Putting a Charter Amendment proposal on the ballot requires that a majority of Council vote for it. Approval of a Charter Amendment requires a majority affirmative vote by citizens voting on it.

Citizens wishing to weigh in on a possible amendment to the City Charter or any other matter before the Council can speak during the Public Comment period at the start of the meeting or write to council@cityofeastlansing.com.