Candidates support preservation, but to differing degrees

If a property in a local historic district is at risk of “demolition by neglect,” Lansing’s code of ordinances allows the Historic District Commission to require owners to repair it or foot the bill for repairs ordered by the Commission.

But local historic districts in Lansing are few and far between. Old Town, arguably Lansing’s best-known historic district, has no such designation. That means derelict properties in Old Town are subject to the city’s usual “make safe or demolish” process, in which owners are given a timeline to repair the property — or demolish it. If they do neither, the city will bill them the cost of demolition.

Old Town’s historic Preuss Building is one such case of “demolition by neglect,” and now finds itself on the “make safe or demolish list.” Given extensive structural damage, its demolition is more likely. When University of Michigan Health-Sparrow demolished old Eastern High School, it claimed the building would cost $100 million to fix.

City Pulse asked mayoral and City Council candidates about the city’s role in historic preservation, including whether they would support a public/private fund to help maintain historic buildings.

Mayor Andy Schor said he would like to create “a committee of some sort that can get together and look at, what buildings and structures do we have that we can work with the owners before they get into such disrepair.”

While he touted successful adaptive reuse projects, he also acknowledged their cost. Rehabbing the old Walter French public school into 76 affordable housing units cost around $40 million, including public and private funds. Schor said “outside entities” are necessary to successful preservation.

“We don’t have $10 million to fix a building,” he said, “but there are resources that I think the historic preservation community can be able to help out with.”

Asked about establishing a fund, Schor said he had two concerns: One, that taxes were already increasing rapidly due to inflation; and two, that giving money to neglectful owners is an unjust reward. He said he would support putting a millage on the ballot to fund such a project if there were strong community support, but that he would prefer to see preservation treated as “a tri-county issue” with collaboration across counties.

Schor’s opponent, Kelsea Hector, similarly supports a proactive approach. She did not offer a specific policy plan, but she said she would work to foster conversations between all parties when preservation or development projects were considered, so that owners looking to preserve their properties could be more easily connected with grant funds. She added ensuring community support and benefit from new developments, including community benefits agreements, would be a priority.

At-large candidate Julie Vandenboom said the city “can and should have a means of identifying which buildings have historical significance, and there should be community input to help determine which those are, and there should be some way to plan ahead.” She offered J. W. Sexton High School as an example.

She called public assistance for historic property upkeep “an excellent idea” but said she would want to have the right people in the room to determine who would qualify.” She also said a preservation ethic could be encouraged by making the city more walkable, increasing residents’ attachment to historic neighborhoods.

Clara Martinez, also running at-large, said elected officials should empower preservationists and other experts in the field, putting them “in a position where they can influence or have direct agency to ensure that these buildings are saved.” She said she would focus on being “a bridge” between different sides of the issue.

Jeremy Garza is running for an at-large seat after serving on the Council for eight years in the 2nd Ward. He said he supports policy to preserve historic buildings and had supported the resolution to study making old Eastern a historic site.

That resolution fell off the rails after union representatives spoke against it at the City Council, worried UM-Sparrow would build the hospital elsewhere. Garza, the vice president of UA Local 333, was absent that day. He claimed he did not know about unions’ opposition.

At-large candidate Aurelius Christian did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.

2nd Ward candidate Erik Almquist said he would support preservation assistance, prioritizing “good developers.” He said he moved to Lansing in part because of its history, and that he was frustrated to see a lack of preservation ethic among residents.

“I love our history, I’m a huge history buff and it frustrates me that there is just this malaise about taking care of that,” he said.

His opponent, Deyanira Nevarez Martinez, supports a proactive approach. She called herself “passionate about preservation” as an urban planning professor and said she would support assistance when preservation is cost prohibitive.

In the 4th Ward, current at-large Council member Peter Spadafore is facing off against Heath Lowry. Spadafore opposed efforts to designate old Eastern as a local historic district in 2024, writing an op-ed in the Lansing State Journal that he chose “the well-being of our community over bricks and mortar.” His reference was to the psychiatric facility UM-Sparrow has proposed building where old Eastern was.

Spadafore told City Pulse he would like to see the community be more proactive with code enforcement and invest more in its facilities. Having been on the school board in 2016 when Eastern was sold to Sparrow, he said a lack of investment starting in the 1980s led to the building’s disrepair.

But Spadafore said preservation “is not something we’re hearing at the doors.”

“If we can be proactive about making sure facilities don’t fall into disrepair so that they don’t end up being more expensive to repair than rebuild, that’s one thing the city can do,” he said. “Other than that, we have to be focused on making sure people have safe places to live, our roads are clean, trash collected, those kinds of things.”

Lowry said he supports preservation and believes that, while “some of the services that are being mentioned going into these places are important,” “we have to be creative with how we maintain our city because creating these sanitized and unremarkable buildings really does harm the overall appreciation of the city.”

He said vacancy was a leading cause of deteriorating properties, and that policies that disincentivize vacancies, including a vacancy registration system that requires owners of vacant properties to register them as such with the city, would keep the city aware of vacant properties and curb demolition by neglect.