And although I do see a need to improve delivery and pick-up/drop-off options for the Hub complex, I firmly believe that area is prime real estate for a limited parking lifestyle. It is adjacent to campus, on several bus routes, and is an easy walk or bike ride to downtown. I'd like to see other solutions for solving the parking issues in this area, like perhaps a shuttle service to the (underutilized) downtown ramps, or a remote lot/ramp further east. Another possibility would be to shut Albert street down to regular traffic from ~Bouge st to Abbot or evergreen, and allow only busses, delivery vehicles, and bikes. This would provide a safe and easy to use corridor for visitors/bike deliveries and so forth to move between downtown and the growing east/cedar village area.
I do not think that non-students or families are ever going to want to live in this 'Cedar Village" area between the river and Grand River Ave., so why would a developer want to build anything but profitable students housing there?. Of anywhere in central East Lansing this would be the best place to build more student housing because that area is and probably always will be packed with student housing already. Maybe a new measure of types of housing could include non-vehicle households, with a no cars allowed-clause in their lease.
I think there has been some confusion. There is not a new project in downtown or East Village that has been built - or is planning to be built - with a 1:1 unit/parking ratio; that is to say that that not every unit has a matching parking space. These zoning districts don't require this precisely because it's the center of the city. Parking requirements in the B-3 (downtown) and B-2 districts are reduced by a full 50%, can use the city's public parking system to count towards the requirement, etc... The city council can also waive parking requirements in these districts factoring in the proximity to a bus line, the types of uses of a development, etc...
The problem has been two-fold: the city councils of this era have been big on not waiving any of the parking requirments, and developers want to include some amount of on-site parking. In fact, in the downtown zoning district, developers have to show the city that on-site parking is necessary (that the city parking garages can't handle it) in order to get it.
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The problem has been two-fold: the city councils of this era have been big on not waiving any of the parking requirments, and developers want to include some amount of on-site parking. In fact, in the downtown zoning district, developers have to show the city that on-site parking is necessary (that the city parking garages can't handle it) in order to get it.