The Bernero administration will try again for Lansing City Council approval of a ballot initiative to permit the sale of golf course parkland.
Posted
Andy Balaskovitz
Thursday, Aug. 4 — The Bernero administration will try again this month to get approval of putting the sale of Red Cedar and Waverly golf course land on the ballot, this time in the Nov. 8 General Election.
The proposals ask voters if they support selling off nearly 13 acres of the former Red Cedar Golf Course on Lansing’s east side and all of the Waverly Golf Course and Waverly Golf Course and adjacent Michigan Avenue Park in Lansing Township. Both courses were closed for budgetary reasons.
The administration intended to have the questions on Tuesday’s City Council primary election ballot, but the proposals failed to make it out of the Council’s Committee of the Whole on May 23, the day before the deadline to have ballot language approved.
The administration is giving the proposals another go, though it’s unclear if the proposals will change at all. City Clerk Chris Swope said today that Aug. 30 is the deadline for Council to approve ballot proposals.
Randy Hannan, executive assistant to the mayor, said today in an e-mail “we are aiming” for a final Council vote at its Aug. 22 meeting. Further questions can be answered after Council is briefed, he wrote.
The City Charter requires voter approval of selling parkland.
The city has proposed selling off nearly 13 acres of the north side of Red Cedar Park along Michigan Avenue for private, mixed-use development and devoting the other 48 acres of the former golf course to a multi-use park. Ingham County Drain Commissioner Pat Lindemann has had plans for several years to turn the former golf course into a large-scale rainwater retention area that would serve large environmental benefits by preventing storm water from Frandor Shopping Center from directly entering the Red Cedar River. Voter approval would kick off a request for bids process run by the Lansing Economic Development Corp.
The proposed Waverly and Michigan Avenue Park sale had no plans for redevelopment tied to it.
At-Large Council members Derrick Quinney, Carol Wood and Brian Jeffries voted against the proposals at the May 23 Committee of the Whole meeting. Five votes were needed for approval, 1st Ward Councilman Eric Hewitt was absent.
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