East Lansing planning commission reviews 2025 comprehensive plan update emphasizing housing, equity and resilience

Landon Bartley, planning staff, presented a detailed review of the draft 2025 Comprehensive Plan to the East Lansing Planning Commission on Nov. 19, emphasizing social equity as the document’s guiding lens and highlighting housing, public health and climate resilience as priority focus areas.

Bartley said social equity emerged as the top priority from early community engagement: “Social equity was the number 1 priority of folks,” and he urged commissioners to consider equity explicitly in implementation choices. He said the plan is an update, not a replacement of the 2018 plan, and that implementation — not the document itself — will determine whether equity goals are met.

The presentation combined demographic data and community input. Bartley cited 2022 census-derived indicators for East Lansing, including a median age of about 21.4 years, a historic job-to-housing ratio near 1.39 and a median family income of roughly…