Annexation from township to a city is pretty tricky and can be accomplished in a few ways:
1. A vote by both a city/village council and a township board cna transfer land without residents' consent.
2. Absent that, and since this is so uncommon, the other way it to petition the State Boundary Commission, and there are four ways to go about this petitioning:
a. A city council can make their case.
b. Owner(s) of at least 75% of the land seeking to be annexed.
c. At least 20% of registered voters of the land to be annexed.
d. 1% of property owners of the land to be annexed.
This part of the township - south of Michigan (though, including the whole street, I believe), east of Mifflin, west of Clippert, and north of the Red Cedar - is mostly the township half of the Urbandale neighborhood (other half is in Lansing). I'm not sure how many residents are left, but I was surprised to find that the entire section is zoned some level of commercial despite this section being largely residential, though, I'm not sure that means there is some mass owner of these homes; I'd have to look that up seperately. If not, it would seem options C and D would be the best bets to go. If the land is owned en mass, then option B would be the way to go. Option A is basically impossible as it's hard for the city council to agree on even lesser things, let alone annexation, and when the topic of even merging has been broached, Carol Wood has been fairly uncomfortable with the idea.
Not only is employment in the region better than pre-recession times, he said, but it's nearly as high as its peak in 2000. As of October, 239,100 people were employed in the tri-county area, according to data from the Department of Technology, Management and Budget. In November of 2000, the peak employment for the region was 245,000.
A lot of areas in the state haven't even recovered all of their pre-recession employment, I believe, let alone their peaks. I think we're going to be really surprised what the 2020 Census finds in terms of population growth.
The tide is really flowing in the right direction. It will be sad if it changes in the weeks ahead. I think Lansing at least has shaken off the name Rust Belt. People still think the whole state looks like the pictures of Detroit in 2007.
There is an a news story about the end of the downtown hotel building restrictions agreement with Raddison in the LSJ. I think it is interesting that they could have built a new hotel all along had someone wanted to build one without tax incentives. It seems like offering tax incentives is the only way to get things built here.
I think it is not as simple as that. If a hotel developer wants to build their hotel without incentives, it might cost them $5 million for example. But if the hotel developer knew that they could wait two years and it would only cost them $1 million, their return on investment would be much greater. That seems like a no-brainer to the investor.
I think the activity and demand is increasing enough in Detroit that we are getting close to the point that incentives aren't necessary for some of the smaller projects. Many of the young people in this generation that are graduating college are wanting to live in urban areas. If the trend continues, we should see enough increased demand in Lansing that incentives aren't worth the hassle for smaller projects.
Other cities have their fair share of incentives, it's one of the tools that governments are using to fight against sprawl and level the playing field. It's more expensive to build in an urban environment where the site might need cleanup, parking lots may need to be rented and reserved for construction vehicles etc. However, I think all of us on this board can agree that exclusive non-compete incentives like the one that the Radisson got are terrible for cities.
I noticed what seems to be demolition work starting at The Lansing State Journal building downtown. I was beginning to wonder if this project was really going to happen, it is really great to see it get started.
I took a walk on the River Trail toward Potter Park, I wanted to get a look at the rehab. of the old Knapps warehouse. While the building looks very nice, they have cut down at least 100 trees on the southern bank of the Red Cedar River. It looks really awful. Are they planning to build a river walk or re-landscape the river bank? I am hoping that there is some good reason to cut down 100 or more trees most of which were at least fifty years old. Do they own the river bank? I guess it is a preview of what Scott Park will look like in a few months. What's the deal with cutting down trees in Lansing there seems to be no effort at conservation, is the river bank going to the site of their parking lot?
The Colonial Bar & Grill at the southeast corner of MLK and Holmes is closing down after 51 years. While I do sympathize with long-time customers who will lose their watering hole, I've always thought this was one of the more egregious examples of a misuse of a major intersection of the city. There are no trees on the perimeter and the tiny little building is recessed all the way to the southeast corner of the lot.
Hopefully, whoever buys this land at this prominent corner improves the site.
Comments
1. A vote by both a city/village council and a township board cna transfer land without residents' consent.
2. Absent that, and since this is so uncommon, the other way it to petition the State Boundary Commission, and there are four ways to go about this petitioning:
a. A city council can make their case.
b. Owner(s) of at least 75% of the land seeking to be annexed.
c. At least 20% of registered voters of the land to be annexed.
d. 1% of property owners of the land to be annexed.
This part of the township - south of Michigan (though, including the whole street, I believe), east of Mifflin, west of Clippert, and north of the Red Cedar - is mostly the township half of the Urbandale neighborhood (other half is in Lansing). I'm not sure how many residents are left, but I was surprised to find that the entire section is zoned some level of commercial despite this section being largely residential, though, I'm not sure that means there is some mass owner of these homes; I'd have to look that up seperately. If not, it would seem options C and D would be the best bets to go. If the land is owned en mass, then option B would be the way to go. Option A is basically impossible as it's hard for the city council to agree on even lesser things, let alone annexation, and when the topic of even merging has been broached, Carol Wood has been fairly uncomfortable with the idea.
A lot of areas in the state haven't even recovered all of their pre-recession employment, I believe, let alone their peaks. I think we're going to be really surprised what the 2020 Census finds in terms of population growth.
I think the activity and demand is increasing enough in Detroit that we are getting close to the point that incentives aren't necessary for some of the smaller projects. Many of the young people in this generation that are graduating college are wanting to live in urban areas. If the trend continues, we should see enough increased demand in Lansing that incentives aren't worth the hassle for smaller projects.
Other cities have their fair share of incentives, it's one of the tools that governments are using to fight against sprawl and level the playing field. It's more expensive to build in an urban environment where the site might need cleanup, parking lots may need to be rented and reserved for construction vehicles etc. However, I think all of us on this board can agree that exclusive non-compete incentives like the one that the Radisson got are terrible for cities.
I noticed what seems to be demolition work starting at The Lansing State Journal building downtown. I was beginning to wonder if this project was really going to happen, it is really great to see it get started.
I took a walk on the River Trail toward Potter Park, I wanted to get a look at the rehab. of the old Knapps warehouse. While the building looks very nice, they have cut down at least 100 trees on the southern bank of the Red Cedar River. It looks really awful. Are they planning to build a river walk or re-landscape the river bank? I am hoping that there is some good reason to cut down 100 or more trees most of which were at least fifty years old. Do they own the river bank? I guess it is a preview of what Scott Park will look like in a few months. What's the deal with cutting down trees in Lansing there seems to be no effort at conservation, is the river bank going to the site of their parking lot?
I had forgotten what the LSJ building redevelopment plans were. I suppose we should start a thread specific to that now that work is getting started. Are there any specs or designs published? This article was all that I could find: http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/11/24/lansing-state-journal-moving/76305326/.
The Colonial Bar & Grill at the southeast corner of MLK and Holmes is closing down after 51 years. While I do sympathize with long-time customers who will lose their watering hole, I've always thought this was one of the more egregious examples of a misuse of a major intersection of the city. There are no trees on the perimeter and the tiny little building is recessed all the way to the southeast corner of the lot.
Hopefully, whoever buys this land at this prominent corner improves the site.
I had to go look at this on Google Street View to see what you were talking about. Jeepers, that's terrible.