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You are on eastlansinginfo.org, ELi's old domain, which is now an archive of news (as of early April, 2020). If you are looking for the latest news, go to eastlansinginfo.news and update your bookmarks accordingly!
In response to our report, published yesterday, about reviews apparently missing on the Center City District project plans, we’ve gotten a lot of questions from readers, plus, this afternoon, a four-paragraph response from the City of East Lansing that helps answer some of those questions. We answer those questions and reproduce the City’s new answers below.
Was there really no fire marshal review for the buildings now under construction at the Center City District site?
Speaking to ELi via a newly hired spokesperson, the City told ELi this afternoon, “the Fire Marshall did review the initial plans submitted for site plan review, but did not provide any written response at that time. As such, there is no formal record of that review.”
The “initial plans submitted” for this project were substantially different from the project now actually being built. This would mean that the review by the fire marshal was for a different set of plans. And in any case, there is no written record of that “initial” review. If there was, they would have had to give it to us in response to our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
One quick comparison will show you how much the plan changed since “initial plans submitted for site plan review.” The first image, below, is an architect’s rendering of the originally submitted plan, from March 2017, looking northwest along Grand River Avenue. Note the way the front of the building comes all the way forward on the west (left) side.
The next image is an updated rendering from the developers on their rental ad page, showing something closer to what the building actually being built is shaped like along Grand River Avenue. Note how the building is stepped back on the west side.
Additionally, note the indented areas in the “deep” part of the façade. Here’s what the floor plan submitted in July 2017 (after Council’s June 2017 approval) shows for floors 3 and up. Red arrows have been added to show where those indentations appear in the design.
Here’s a close up of what that indentation on the east side will look like:
And here’s a photo, taken today, showing that indentation under construction, marked by ELi with an arrow:
These indentations in the design are what made me wonder if the fire marshal had reviewed the plans. It seemed to me it would seem to be difficult for a firefighter to reach a window in this kind of indentation, particularly if the design caused a chimney effect during a fire, so I was curious to see if the fire marshal had said anything about this.
As it turns out, there are no written records of the fire marshal’s review of the initially submitted plans, and in any case, the project being built is nothing like the initially submitted plans.
“Who from ELFD told ELi ‘there has been no Fire Marshall review of plans for the 12-story building now under construction on Grand River Avenue’? It can’t be the Fire Marshall because later in the article you claim Fire Marshal Don Carter has not answered your request for information. Why do you insist on publishing half truths and innuendo?” This question came verbatim from “Bob Pratt, Fire Marshal (Ret.)”
Jay Woods, FOIA administration for ELFD and Administrative Assistant to Chief Randy Talifarro, responded to our FOIA request which asked for “documentation showing the Fire Department’s or the Fire Department’s representative’s review of building plans now actually being used for construction of the building now called The Landmark…” and answered it by saying there was nothing to provide.
As noted in the article, a lot of research went into this story, and a lot of waiting for answers. On August 18, I asked City Manager George Lahanas why the fire marshal reviews were missing from the Planning Commission and Council agendas, and asked him to explain. He did not answer.
The same day, I asked Carter if he had had the opportunity to review the plans for what was actually being built. No answer.
On August 21, answering FOIA, the City Clerk’s office indicated there were no records to provide to us on fire marshal review of the project. On August 30, Woods indicated the same – no records found.
On August 21, I told City Council, with Lahanas (above) present, at their meeting, during public comment, that I could not find fire marshal review of the project. None of them responded.
Yesterday, I saw Lahanas when I attended the meeting of the Brownfield Redevelopment Authority. Lahanas offered no explanation in response to all my questions.
So, we reported what FOIA and the agenda records showed: there was no fire marshal review of the plans voted on by the Planning Commission and by City Council, and there has been no documented fire marshal review of the buildings now under construction.
Can ELFD’s trucks reach people in that building through windows if there is a fire?
Certainly not the upper floors, and with the set-back of the front of the building, we’re not sure which windows they could reach on lower floors. In various meetings, fire personnel have indicated that modern fire safety code heavily favors internal suppression systems to manage fires in tall buildings.
That’s one reason fire marshal review is important – to make sure internal suppression systems and internal stairwell access is up to code before a building is constructed. This is to protect firefighters as much as residents and visitors.
Is there no checklist used in Building and Planning in East Lansing to make sure these things aren’t missed?
It seems as if East Lansing sometimes struggles with communication and procedures in Building and Planning. This was supposed to be resolved after major problems during construction of St. Anne Lofts (the building with the big cross downtown). In that case, an entire fifth floor was built completely without permission.
The recent story we reported – of the City threatening to arrest a man over a driveway he built with a City permit – is another recent example of where it seems there was miscommunication and confusion over procedures. (We’ll be bringing you an update to that story next week. Spoiler alert: internal documentation shows lots of confusion, and the City has ended up offering money to the property owner they have also threatened to arrest.)
Won’t the State Fire Marshall step in and do something?
Apparently not. Their spokesperson, Jeannie Vogel, told me yesterday, “You would need to check with the City of East Lansing Building Dept, as the plan review of this project does not fall under State of Michigan jurisdiction. The only exception being the inspection of elevators (which I’m assuming the building will have). Elevator inspection does fall under state jurisdiction.”
Is it really the case that the contractors may be building something different than City Council approved?
Today, through its new spokesperson, the City says “the appropriate staff have reviewed and approved all of the plans.” We have not verified that, and if this is true, it’s unclear why City Manager George Lahanas did not respond to repeated written questions about whether City staff had matched up the plans with what Council approved.
He also did not answer my public comments at the August 21 meeting of Council, in which I told Council that I believed there had been no checking to make sure (as required by law) the developer is building what Council approved.
Below: Rendering of the building now called The Landmark when City Council approved it.
We do know that City Council approved market rate rental housing for the Grand River Avenue property, and the developer is now advertising those apartments as “purpose-built student housing.” Mayor Mark Meadows has said he was “just as surprised as everyone” to see this. Council Member Ruth Beier has said on Public Response, “I don’t see the lie. I have always characterized that part of the development as a student apartment building.”
What about those three-bed units that have only two bedrooms? Did Council approve that?
The floor plans attached to the June 20, 2017, Council agenda marked “Center City: Floor Plans” appear to show on page 4 some 2-bedroom units that have a total of three beds (two in one bedroom). That was the day Council unanimously approved the project.
It’s possible that City Council members didn’t understand that some 2-bedroom units would have three beds, because the application form from the City assumes one person per bedroom, so the occupancy estimate provided to Council didn’t count three people for those 2-bedroom units.
I pointed out to Council several weeks ago that the form needs to be fixed, because there’s a problem with conflating these numbers. No one has responded to my suggestion, and the application form remains unchanged.
It’s worth noting that, in the case of The Hub (the 10-story, 132-foot-tall structure being built at Bogue Street and Grand River Avenue, rendered below), the developers made no bones about the fact that they were building student housing and also made sure the staff report made clear to Council that some bedrooms had two beds in them. In that case, the developers distinguished “bedroom” count from “bed” count to be clear about what they were doing.
Below: Rendering of The Hub.
Did The Hub undergo fire marshal review?
Yes. The Park District proposals have also had fire marshal reviews in the packets, as normal. I can’t find another project that didn’t have a statement from the fire marshal in the Planning Commission and City Council packets. What happened with Center City was truly unusual, but then a lot of what’s happened with this project is unusual, as we’ve documented.
Is anyone checking on the fire safety now at Center City?
Yes, apparently. This afternoon, through its spokesperson, the City wrote to ELi:
“After submission of the plans to Building for a building permit, Planning/Zoning reviewed the set for site plan compliance and then returned to Building. Due to a backlog in plan reviews, Building outsourced the building code review to a 3rd party contractor - Code Enforcement Specialists, a subsidiary of Carlisle Wortman Associates in Ann Arbor. All of the plans for plumbing, mechanical and electrical were reviewed by our own internal trades inspectors.”
The statement continues:
“Fire Department reviews for fire alarm and suppression are done by our Fire Marshall. Those reviews are done from shop drawings that are detailed systems drawings that typically follow after overall building plans. The fire alarm review has been completed and the suppression review has been underway on a preliminary basis for several months and final review is pending. The timing of these systems review is on track and appropriate with where construction stands. All of the work completed to date has also received various inspections by both our staff and special inspections by third-party reviewers when necessary (e.g., concrete, steel, etc).”
So, while the City acknowledges that there is no record of the fire marshal’s review of the initially submitted plans, nor of the revised plans voted on by Planning Commission, nor of the further-revised plans voted on by City Council, the City says reviews are happening appropriately now.
In summary, here's what we know:
The City says the Fire Marshal reviewed the "initial plans" for Center City, but no records were kept of it. So, it appears sometimes there are fire reviews for which no records are kept in East Lansing, even for $132 million projects.
Those initial plans were very different from the plans approved by Council and very different from the buildings now being constructed.
When Planning Commission and Council voted on various versions of the plan, there was no fire marshal review presented to them, as is normal. That appears to be because there had been no written fire marshal review of those plans. By contrast, all other large projects have had fire marshal reviews in the agenda packets when voting has occurred.
The City says the proper reviews are now occurring for Center City. If that's the case, it isn't clear why the City Manager and Fire Marshal would not answer questions from ELi with straightforward assurances that, while fire marshal review may have been missing earlier, proper fire safety monitoring is going on now. They would answer no questions until our report was published. There has been no documentation provided to show any fire marshal review of what's being constructed, and we were told through FOIA there isn't any documentation of this.
The City now says, through a spokesperson, that someone in the City has checked to make sure the buildings being built are what City Council approved. There has been no explanation of why that line of questioning was not addressed until our report was published. There has been no documentation provided to show anyone in the city has done the required comparison of the plans and Council's approval, and we were told via FOIA there isn't any documentation of this.
We get that you want to know more:
We understand readers will want us to check to see what the City is saying now is true, particularly with regard to safety reviews.
We should be able to check this easily, by asking for the various documentation at the Building Department. Much of this material is supposed to be publicly available, on demand, at the Building Department. In our experience, we are often not provided what we are legally allowed to see. That’s why we often use FOIA, email questions to the City Manager, show up at City Council to ask questions, and hope someone will answer.
As a practice, we wait until we are sure of a story before we report it. We are not interested in providing wrong information. If we do, we run a correction. We rarely have to run corrections, because we take the trust of our readers – trust that we do our research and check our facts – very seriously.
If you think we do a good job, donate today. I don’t get paid by ELi – I donate labor and funds to this public service news organization – but we do pay most of our team to bring you this work. And FOIA sometimes results in charges by the City.
The summary paragraph in this article was added at 7 a.m. the day after publication. On Sept. 3, at 6:45 p.m., we corrected the following sentence: "We do know that City Council approved 'mixed market rental' housing.." to read "We do know that City Council approved market rate rental housing...." The term "mixed market rental" has a specific meaning in East Lansing's code, and that was not the type of housing approved. We thank the reader who pointed out this error. This article was amended on Sept. 24 to correct the number of stories in The Hub (10, not 12) and add the height (132 feet).
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