East Lansing housing proposal passes, but not settled
A contested proposal to change housing regulations in East Lansing passed Tuesday at the ballot box but in the end may be decided by the courts.
Proposal One bans the city from restricting "in any way relationships of persons living together as a household or residing in the home, or interfere with the rights of owners to live with persons of their choice, as long as such persons are not rent-paying tenants."
Supporters of the proposal had been concerned that the charter as it stood banned residents from having long-term guests or live-in medical assistants stay in their homes.
Community memberPatrick Levine Rose said passage of the measure was "a message of unity moving forward."
"The vote showed that East Lansing residents overwhelmingly want to have guests live in their home without potentially facing large retroactive fines," he said.
"Those for and against Proposal One agreed on those key points, that we want to have live-in child care, we want to age in place without any fines and have loved ones live with homeowners, so that they can be cared for."
However, East Lansing Councilmember Erik Altmann disagrees, saying the election results demonstrate division.
"We did what we needed to do, which was show that there was no support for Prop One amongst long-term residents. The passage occurred because of the on-campus vote. If you factor out the on-campus precincts, then the proposal would have failed. So, that's something that we needed to show to illustrate that this is not something that the long-term residents support," he said.
Councilmember Dana Watson said even if the measure was passed largely on student votes, that should not be a problem.
"They live here too, and this is a part of their right to be involved in a say," she said. "When you have a transient community, you have to alter your mindset of what representation looks like. And they deserve representation, whether they're here for four years, eight years, less or more, just as we deserve representation as people who live here, but we cannot block and we cannot misunderstood what it means to be in this community."
Altmann said he expects the newly approved rules to find their way to court.
"It will be litigated because the language is ambiguous. Mr. Rose is not a municipal attorney, and he wrote ambiguous language. And so we're going to the courts and will ultimately decide what it what it means," Altmann said.
Councilmember Mark Meadows said he agrees with Altmann that this issue will end up in a lawsuit, potentially by someone representing a landlord, due to what he said are specific concerns with the language.
"In that proposal, it talks about no, basically no, East Lansing citizens shall be regulated as to who they might live with. And then there's a comma, and it creates ambiguity with regard to the second part of it, which also talks about it regulating, but in regulating, specifically, with regard to those residences that don't charge rent," Meadows said. "And so, the proposers of the amendment have indicated they they wanted that to apply also to the first part of the phrasing in that particular section, but I don't think that everybody will agree with that. So, I expect us to have some kind of lawsuit filed against the city as we continue to regulate rental property."
Councilmember Altmann also expressed concerns with how Proposal One it might affect current housing rules in East Lansing.
"We are in uncharted territory, and there is a real concern amongst many people that the rental regulations that have stabilized our neighborhoods for the past 25 years will have been null and void as a function of the passage of this proposal. That's why so many people opposed it," he said.
But supporter Patrick Rose said Proposal One will not negatively affect any existing rental rules.
"Proposal One keeps in place all existing rent regulations, the overlay districts, the rental license requirements and the safety rules. Proposal One does not impact the regulation of short-term rentals or Airbnbs," he said. "This is the most important point, the city must enforce Proposal One as written to protect the basic right to have a guess while also enforcing the existing rental regulations. And so, people's rights are protected and their neighborhood is still subject to the same regulations, which means we get to have both things, the things that 'no' voters wanted, and the things that 'yes', voters wanted."
East Lansing councilmember Dana Watson told WKAR that she voted yes on Proposal One, and she backs the community supporters.
"This proposal shows us that citizens and people who live here have an opportunity to show democracy in a different way. I don't think the council, when we were approached, prior to the petition being approved and prior to this going on the proposal, we didn't respond in the way that they needed. And so, them showing democracy, and that it doesn't always have to be that your city council decides to take something up or doesn't, I think is beautiful, because as far as I'm concerned, city council and government had an opportunity to right a wrong. They approached us in more than one way, to ask us to address this, and we didn't."
