Weird, the March 6th Planning Board meeting has been cancelled, meaning we'll have to wait until April 3rd for new development news. I imagine that this was because of scheduled absences or something, but you can only guess.
I'm not sure they have it up yet, but someone brought up Mayor Andy talking about things happening on the riverfront in the coming months and years. Well, the City Pulse has a story on the plans, this week. It sounds like a lot of smaller upgrades that will have the effect of accumlating and making big change (more live music, food trucks, fishing, boat launches, improved parks, bandshell, boardwalk reconstruction, floating docks, etc...)
Every little bit helps I suppose. Still, it would be nice to get a lot more open bar/cafe space along the river... I think that the bar in the City Market has the only restaurant in REO town, downtown, or Old town that has a patio that is directly on the water...
I am very happy to hear that they are are making plans to improve the downtown riverfront.The public/private funding is not really encouraging, but it seems like some companies have already pledged funds so maybe it will work. I hope this is a chance to make the riverfront a real attraction downtown, and more natural looking.
Sir Pizza in Old Town has a river view and I think they might be the only restaurant in town that does. I think in the summer they could offer barges/floating piers that local bars and restaurants could lease for floating river cafes and "party" barges. There are a couple of buildings next to the river that could be renovated for a restaurant space but I don't see where else a river view cafe would go. REOtown might have a restaurant with a river view if the proposed hotel is built on S. Washington and M.X...
It was interesting to hear talk about the Eckart site.
I think it would be a great time to knock down the City Market and start over.
Can I ask a favor of you guys? I've been trying to push to get the passage of the Form-Based Code (FBC) passed, but have gotten little-to-no response back from the city council. I was wondering - for those that agree that this is important - if you guys could send an email to the city council calling for this to get an up-of-down vote?
As I've laid out before, this was supposed to go before the council in either November or December; this was the last step as the planning board had already approved it. I suspect mostly what has happened is that Virg really distracted from this with his push for the city hall redevelopment, and more than that, we got an all new administration and three new council members who are probably still trying to figure out how to turn on the lights in their offices, let alone get acquainted with the ins-and-out of the FBC proposal. I suspect a smaller part of this is that the new council leadership is probably pretty ambivalent about this, so they aren't going to push it unless someone else brings it up. I did write the new planning director, and I could tell by the response this whole FBC thing was news to him. lol
In either case, I'd like to let them know that we are watching and that this should still be a priority. We've come too far to just have this stalled out. Here are a few things you might want to include in your message:
This is the culmination of six on-going work on Lansing's master plan that began in 2012. It would be a shame to let all of that hard work go to waste. This is the last piece of the puzzle they need to implement from the Design Lansing plan.
East Lansing seems to be very close to passing their rezoning plan. The region is moving forward; Lansing needs to move forward with them, and quite frankly should be leading oin an issue like land-use planning.
The adoption of a Form-Based Code would figuratively and literally be transformative for the city. There was enough of a compromise, however, that it largely leaves single-family neighborhoods alone, but allows for much easier by-right mixed-use development along our commercial corridors and in our commercial nodes.
Singe this speeds up development, council would have to spend less time on development issues and could use that saved time for other pressing issues for the city. This is a time and headache saver for the council.
Lansing would be one of the smallest - if not the smallest - city proper in the state and country to switch over entirely to a FBC. This would be a huge progressive selling point for Lansing in the media. It'd get good headlines.
I'm sure you guys can think of other benefits and arguments, but those are some you can expand on in your messages. As to who to write to, well:
City Council President Carol Wood: carol.wood@lansingmi.gov
At-large Council members
Carol Wood
Kathie Dunbar: kathie.dunbar@lansingmi.gov
Pete Spadafore: peter.spadafore@lansingmi.gov
Patricia Spitzley: patricia.spitzley@lansingmi.gov
Planning & Development Committee members
Adam Hussein (Chair): adam.hussain@lansingmi.gov
Jody Washington: jody.washington@lansingmi.gov
Patricia Spitzley
For anyone who needs to refamiliarize themselves with the Form-Based Code, here is the page with all of the links to it:
Art's Bar on Kalamazoo is looking good with the new windows and doors on the building. Looks like they will have an outdoor patio with a big overhead door in front.
I heard on local radio news that the mayor is holding a news conference today about the City Hall project, the headline of the story was "Is the City Hall Project coming to a sketching stop"!... I wonder what's up?
I read on the Mayor's site that they are slowing down this process to put together a plan that includes the police courts and lock-up facilities. The Mayor thinks and I would agree that all of these issues should be planned before moving forward with the City Hall move. OK, I will not start to worry that none of this is going to happen, but there is a history of big plans ending up as big parking lots around here so I will keep my fingers crossed for a good do-able plan.
County-level estimates are out from the Census for 2017, and as predicted, it's good news for Lansing. The tri-county area's population sits at 477,656 in 2017, up +3,346 (+0.7) from 2016. This is about the same as was estimated between 2015-2016. Ingham County added 2,253 (+0.78%) new residents between 2016-2017. Ingham County's percentage growth was basically identical to Washtenaw's (+0.78%) and just a bit less than Kent's (+0.88%), so Lansing is finally consistently playing with the big-boys in terms of growth.
Extrapolating to the 2020 Census, Metro Lansing would end up with a population around 483,493 (+4.19%) by the end of the decade, or adding nearly 20,000 new residents since 2010. This would be the region's last growth since the 70's.
Most notably in the rest of the state, Wayne County in Detroit only lost 2,982 over this period, which is the smallest loss in two decades, which bodes really well for Detroit's estimates when the sub-county numbers come out in a few months.
I guess I missed this when it happen, and maybe it's not news, but when Mayor Andy was talking to the Lansing Economic Club on the 15th he predicted that the Lansing skyline would change "tremendously" in four years.
Might be wishful thinking, might just be that Lansing's growth is accelerating the the next natural step for the city is literally upwards, or maybe he knows some things we don't. We'll just have to wait and see, I guess. Apparently, he's been making a lot of statements like this in his short time as mayor.
Comments
Weird, the March 6th Planning Board meeting has been cancelled, meaning we'll have to wait until April 3rd for new development news. I imagine that this was because of scheduled absences or something, but you can only guess.
I'm not sure they have it up yet, but someone brought up Mayor Andy talking about things happening on the riverfront in the coming months and years. Well, the City Pulse has a story on the plans, this week. It sounds like a lot of smaller upgrades that will have the effect of accumlating and making big change (more live music, food trucks, fishing, boat launches, improved parks, bandshell, boardwalk reconstruction, floating docks, etc...)
Every little bit helps I suppose. Still, it would be nice to get a lot more open bar/cafe space along the river... I think that the bar in the City Market has the only restaurant in REO town, downtown, or Old town that has a patio that is directly on the water...
I am very happy to hear that they are are making plans to improve the downtown riverfront.The public/private funding is not really encouraging, but it seems like some companies have already pledged funds so maybe it will work. I hope this is a chance to make the riverfront a real attraction downtown, and more natural looking.
Sir Pizza in Old Town has a river view and I think they might be the only restaurant in town that does. I think in the summer they could offer barges/floating piers that local bars and restaurants could lease for floating river cafes and "party" barges. There are a couple of buildings next to the river that could be renovated for a restaurant space but I don't see where else a river view cafe would go. REOtown might have a restaurant with a river view if the proposed hotel is built on S. Washington and M.X...
It was interesting to hear talk about the Eckart site.
I think it would be a great time to knock down the City Market and start over.
Can I ask a favor of you guys? I've been trying to push to get the passage of the Form-Based Code (FBC) passed, but have gotten little-to-no response back from the city council. I was wondering - for those that agree that this is important - if you guys could send an email to the city council calling for this to get an up-of-down vote?
As I've laid out before, this was supposed to go before the council in either November or December; this was the last step as the planning board had already approved it. I suspect mostly what has happened is that Virg really distracted from this with his push for the city hall redevelopment, and more than that, we got an all new administration and three new council members who are probably still trying to figure out how to turn on the lights in their offices, let alone get acquainted with the ins-and-out of the FBC proposal. I suspect a smaller part of this is that the new council leadership is probably pretty ambivalent about this, so they aren't going to push it unless someone else brings it up. I did write the new planning director, and I could tell by the response this whole FBC thing was news to him. lol
In either case, I'd like to let them know that we are watching and that this should still be a priority. We've come too far to just have this stalled out. Here are a few things you might want to include in your message:
This is the culmination of six on-going work on Lansing's master plan that began in 2012. It would be a shame to let all of that hard work go to waste. This is the last piece of the puzzle they need to implement from the Design Lansing plan.
East Lansing seems to be very close to passing their rezoning plan. The region is moving forward; Lansing needs to move forward with them, and quite frankly should be leading oin an issue like land-use planning.
The adoption of a Form-Based Code would figuratively and literally be transformative for the city. There was enough of a compromise, however, that it largely leaves single-family neighborhoods alone, but allows for much easier by-right mixed-use development along our commercial corridors and in our commercial nodes.
Singe this speeds up development, council would have to spend less time on development issues and could use that saved time for other pressing issues for the city. This is a time and headache saver for the council.
Lansing would be one of the smallest - if not the smallest - city proper in the state and country to switch over entirely to a FBC. This would be a huge progressive selling point for Lansing in the media. It'd get good headlines.
I'm sure you guys can think of other benefits and arguments, but those are some you can expand on in your messages. As to who to write to, well:
City Council President Carol Wood: carol.wood@lansingmi.gov
At-large Council members
Carol Wood
Kathie Dunbar: kathie.dunbar@lansingmi.gov
Pete Spadafore: peter.spadafore@lansingmi.gov
Patricia Spitzley: patricia.spitzley@lansingmi.gov
Planning & Development Committee members
Adam Hussein (Chair): adam.hussain@lansingmi.gov
Jody Washington: jody.washington@lansingmi.gov
Patricia Spitzley
For anyone who needs to refamiliarize themselves with the Form-Based Code, here is the page with all of the links to it:
https://lansingmi.gov/271/DRAFT-Form-Based-Code-FBC
Thanks!
Art's Bar on Kalamazoo is looking good with the new windows and doors on the building. Looks like they will have an outdoor patio with a big overhead door in front.
I heard on local radio news that the mayor is holding a news conference today about the City Hall project, the headline of the story was "Is the City Hall Project coming to a sketching stop"!... I wonder what's up?
I read on the Mayor's site that they are slowing down this process to put together a plan that includes the police courts and lock-up facilities. The Mayor thinks and I would agree that all of these issues should be planned before moving forward with the City Hall move. OK, I will not start to worry that none of this is going to happen, but there is a history of big plans ending up as big parking lots around here so I will keep my fingers crossed for a good do-able plan.
County-level estimates are out from the Census for 2017, and as predicted, it's good news for Lansing. The tri-county area's population sits at 477,656 in 2017, up +3,346 (+0.7) from 2016. This is about the same as was estimated between 2015-2016. Ingham County added 2,253 (+0.78%) new residents between 2016-2017. Ingham County's percentage growth was basically identical to Washtenaw's (+0.78%) and just a bit less than Kent's (+0.88%), so Lansing is finally consistently playing with the big-boys in terms of growth.
Extrapolating to the 2020 Census, Metro Lansing would end up with a population around 483,493 (+4.19%) by the end of the decade, or adding nearly 20,000 new residents since 2010. This would be the region's last growth since the 70's.
Most notably in the rest of the state, Wayne County in Detroit only lost 2,982 over this period, which is the smallest loss in two decades, which bodes really well for Detroit's estimates when the sub-county numbers come out in a few months.
I guess I missed this when it happen, and maybe it's not news, but when Mayor Andy was talking to the Lansing Economic Club on the 15th he predicted that the Lansing skyline would change "tremendously" in four years.
Might be wishful thinking, might just be that Lansing's growth is accelerating the the next natural step for the city is literally upwards, or maybe he knows some things we don't. We'll just have to wait and see, I guess. Apparently, he's been making a lot of statements like this in his short time as mayor.