Above, from left: Planning and Building Director Tim Dempsey, City Manager George Lahanas, the ELFD Administration building, Fire Marshal Don Carter.

Continued investigation by ELi on the issue of fire safety review of development projects shows that, because it has not updated its laws, the City of East Lansing legally requires use of significantly outdated fire safety codes. In practice, the Fire Marshal is using something other than those outdated codes – which means he's not following the law.

Additionally, City Manager George Lahanas misrepresented the City’s laws when he recently announced that City staff are not required to conduct fire safety reviews of proposed projects or to keep records of such reviews.

But wait, there's more: This morning, the City of East Lansing informed ELi that it wants ELi to pay $1,244.14 to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking all documentation on fire reviews for the Center City District project. Despite weeks of controversy, the City has yet to release a single document evidencing fire marshal review of the Center City District project, and it appears ELi will have to pay the sum to see what really happened in this case.

The $132 million, public-private Center City District project is set to house over 500 people, including specifically MSU students and senior citizens. It is one of the largest projects ever undertaken in East Lansing's history, and will include retail space and a parking garage for about 600 vehicles.

The law calls for the use of an outdated code, and the Fire Marshal doesn't follow the law:

East Lansing’s City Council has not updated the City’s Code of Ordinances on the Fire Prevention Code since 2001. As a consequence, the City must by law still use the 2000 editions of the National Fire Prevention Association (NFPA) codes.

There have been six newer editions of the NFPA codes published since 2000. But because City staff have apparently not moved to have City Council vote to update the City’s Code on this, East Lansing law calls for use of fire prevention codes that are 18 years old.

Documents provided to ELi by people who have managed recent projects in East Lansing show that – to the frustration of architects, engineers, developers, and contractors working on projects here – in practice, ELFD Fire Marshal Don Carter sometimes employs later editions of the NFPA codes than East Lansing law specifies must be used for projects. Carter also sometimes uses a different code entirely, namely the International Fire Code.

Carter has not responded to questions from ELi about which code(s) he is using for reviews and on what legal basis. City Manager George Lahanas has also not responded to questions about the disjuncture between the City’s laws and the ELFD staff’s practices.

The City Manager is misrepresenting what East Lansing law requires on fire safety reviews:

In a recent letter to ELi posted on the City of East Lansing’s website and Facebook page and sent to ELi’s Board of Directors, City Manager George Lahanas claimed that ELi’s reporting on fire review for the Center City District project has been “misleading.” He went on to say “no such physical ‘fire marshal review’ exists, or is required, for this project or any other project.”

A careful review of records shows Lahanas is wrong.

According to the City’s laws on site plan approval, review by the fire marshal is required before an initial site plan proposal comes to Planning Commission, and further review is required when floor plans change substantially, as happened at least twice with the Center City District proposal.

Contrary to what Lahanas suggests, in practice, other projects have received fire safety review by Fire Marshal Don Carter, including the two other site plans involving 10- and 12-story buildings, namely The Hub and DRW/Convexity’s plan for the Park District. In both of those cases, Carter’s reviews were provided to Planning Commission.

The City’s own flowchart captures what the law says in regard to fire review of development proposals, showing, for example, that fire review must happen before a project goes to Planning Commission. Yet, as we originally reported, nowhere in Planning Commission’s or City Council’s records are there records of fire marshal review of any of the plans for the Center City District project.

As noted, Lahanas has erroneously said that’s because fire review isn’t required. He has also said that recording of fire reviews is not required. Here again, Lahanas is in error.

The NFPA code adopted by the City of East Lansing’s Council in fact requires that records be kept of all fire official reviews on projects. The NFPA code goes further, requiring that such records be made readily available to anyone who asks:

“A record of examinations, approvals, equivalencies, and alternatives shall be maintained by the AHJ [Authority Having Jurisdiction, i.e., the fire marshal] and shall be available for public inspection during business hours in accordance with applicable laws.”

Documents that are supposed to be public, but aren't:

In practice, when ELi reporters ask for public documents that are supposed to be available upon demand, we are often told that such documents cannot be readily found. This happened, for example, when we asked at the Building Department to see the plans for the Center City District project as referenced in the Development Agreement made between the City and the developers.

The agreement said the plans were on file with the Building Department, and design plans on file at the Building Department are supposed to be provided on demand. Yet we were forced to use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain those design documents, in the process being told the City needed three full weeks to locate the design plans for a project already six months underway.

Lahanas won't answer questions, and won't provide documents without a $1244 payment:

Lahanas has not responded to questions about why his widely-broadcast claim, that fire reviews and records are not required, seems to be in direct contradiction with what East Lansing law requires. He has not explained why East Lansing is using a fire code that is eighteen years and six editions older than the current one. He has also not responded to questions about where fire official review of site plans are available to the public during normal business hours.

A spokesperson for the City recently told ELi, “The team is about to fulfill your FOIA [request] and I believe you’ll get many of these questions answered once the documents are made available.” The City has taken the maximum extension allowed by law to answer that ELi FOIA request on fire reviews for the Center City District project.

Now the City says ELi will have to pay $1,244.14 to see its FOIA request answered. This is the most the City has ever asked to respond to a FOIA request from ELi. Unless we pay this sum, it appears the City will not release any documentation on the alleged fire safety reviews of the Center City District project.

ELi is a nonprofit, public service local news organization that relies on reader donations to do its work. (To contribute, click here.)

See the sources for this article here.

Note: This article was amended on Sept. 24 to correct the number of stories in The Hub (10, not 12).