Every time Lansing Township gets brought up it hurts my brain and brings on a bit of rage, It's pointless trying to critique or make sense of their actions. I emailed a township official when I made the last post and he got back to me simply to say that he couldn't share any documents and encouraged me to come to the meeting. He briefly described the project as such: "This is early in the process but the proposed development includes some mixed use including retail, apartments and climate controlled storage."
Of all the things the township is looking for changes on they seem unbothered by this land being used as a self storage facility, I just don't get it. This is why I do my best to just ignore what goes in the township.
I'm a broken record on this, but the city should have been actively look at commercial/industrial/vacant areas it wants to annex and finding a few favorable residential parcels to vote on to bring the land into the city like they did down at the northwest corner of Jolly & Waverly. Not sure what exactly you could sell them on being included in the annexation (maybe offer to buy their house at fair market value?), but it's definitely worth a try to smooth out the borders of the city. That's also something that can be done exactly for that reason through the State Boundary Commission process, too, and it's always been my contention the city has a great case since the area is already served by the BWL, city schools, CATA, etc.
The November 7th board meeting minutes give a little more info on the Howard & Michigan project: It will have 168 units of residential in a five floor building with the storage in a four floor building and parking in between the buildings. It's not clear if there will be any ground floor commercial space in either building or whether the parking will be in a structure or surface lots.
I'm not sure what Lansing Twp's approval process but they did approve this step. While a storage facility in that area is disappointing the added density on Michigan Ave is welcome, especially given the current state of that lot.
I'm still confused about this mix, but this would still be substantially better than the vacant lots at the location currently. That said, I'm still disappointed in som of the conditions placed on the development, which just seem totally arbitrary and done for no other reason than to send a message that they are still skeptical of urban development, even in their literal urban development overlay. For instances, at 6 stories, the apartment building likely wouldn't be much over 60 feet, but they are still sending a message that they don't like the height by setting a condition of 65 feet on it where 80 feet would be allowed (on the Michigan frontage). The second one that got me is the hoops they are making the developer jump through for parking reductions. The you have them questioning the developer about the dog park. It all just seems so petty and unnecessary micro-management of development of private property.
I guess one of these days, it'd be nice for urbanists to recruit some more forward-minded people to the township board. Actually, what you'd hope is that the township is eventually annexed. lol
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Of all the things the township is looking for changes on they seem unbothered by this land being used as a self storage facility, I just don't get it. This is why I do my best to just ignore what goes in the township.
I'm not sure what Lansing Twp's approval process but they did approve this step. While a storage facility in that area is disappointing the added density on Michigan Ave is welcome, especially given the current state of that lot.
I guess one of these days, it'd be nice for urbanists to recruit some more forward-minded people to the township board. Actually, what you'd hope is that the township is eventually annexed. lol