Altmann Pushes to Require EV Chargers in Private Parking Lots

City Council is set tonight to introduce a new draft ordinance that would require installation of electric vehicle charging stations for all new site plans with private parking lots for 50 cars or more. The cost would be incurred by the private property owners.

The idea comes from Mayor Pro Tem Erik Altmann who, with the unanimous support of Council, has been adding this requirement to approvals of recent site plans. Following a motion by Altmann, Council recently required this for the St. Thomas Aquinas School expansion, even though the applicants told Council that the cost would present a problem for the nonprofit school.

According to the agenda for tonight’s Council meeting, Council will vote to send draft Ordinance 1445 to Planning Commission for consideration. The ordinance, if eventually passed by City Council, will require any site plan for commercial and mixed used properties to include one charging station for electric vehicles (EVs) for every 50 parking spaces included on that property.

This requirement would be added to all new site plans brought before Council as well as to any amendments to existing site plans.

According to the way the law is drafted, these charging stations would need to have a “Level 2 or better charger.”

Below: A level 2 charger at the East Lansing Public Library

Level 2 chargers use a 240-volt power source, similar to what household appliances might be connected to, and are typical for most public charging sources. This allows for a quicker charging time of several hours, while a Level 1 charger, which uses a 120-volt power source like a standard household power outlet, may take an entire day to charge an electric vehicle.

Altmann first actively proposed this additional requirement at Council’s October 16 meeting, when Council was asked to approve a site plan for Maynard Office Park on Earl Avenue. For that plan, Altmann proposed an amendment, which was accepted by Council, to require “at least two electric car charging stations with level 2 or better chargers [to] be installed in the parking lot.”

East Lansing Director of Planning Tim Dempsey noted there will be 100 parking spaces at that location. Mayor Mark Meadows said in response that one charging station per 50 parking spaces seemed reasonable.

All members of Council seemed either amenable or at least unopposed to the requirement, and all voted in favor of the additional requirement to the site plan.

Altmann’s justification for this requirement was that City code (specifically, 50-38, paragraph 3) indicates that a site must be designed and developed to “provide safe and efficient access for all forms of travel.” He suggested that since people are now using EV cars, they need places to charge them.

Altmann made a similar proposal when St. Thomas Aquinas Church came to Council seeking approval for a site plan to expand their preschool. In this case, Altmann moved to require only one charging station, although the site has 411 parking spaces. (That means that the addition of eight charging stations would have been required under the proposed ordinance.)

The attorney representing St. Thomas Aquinas, Jared A. Roberts of Fraser Trebilcock, stressed the tight finances of an organization like St. Thomas Aquinas, saying that he himself was working for them pro bono.

Council Member Shanna Draheim expressed her sympathy for organizations with smaller budgets having to make such a requirement work, and suggested requiring only the electric infrastructure (not the actual charging apparatus) be added.

However, Altmann did not change his amendment and the site plan for St. Thomas Aquinas was approved with the requirement of one full charging station to be installed on-site.

One estimate for the installation of a Level 2 charger and its associated infrastructure at a home puts the cost between $1,700 to $2,700. Retrofitting a parking lot with an outdoor charger would likely cost more.

Council did not examine the cost before adding the requirement to the site plans. The proposed ordinance does allow for applications for exemption to the requirement if “the expense of complying with this requirement significantly outweighs the level of cost of the improvement so as to preclude the improvement if this requirement was imposed.”

An exemption can also be sought if “the anticipated parking duration due to the particular use of the property, or similar considerations, would not make the presence of charging stations reasonable due to the lack of the likelihood of use of the station or stations,” and if “the imposition of this requirement would constitute a governmental taking as defined by law.”

Below: a charging station at Peoples Church.

Altmann has said that the requirement of electric vehicle charging stations will promote the use of electric vehicles in East Lansing, which he says will provide environmental benefits. In reference to the site plan for Maynard Office Park, Altmann claimed these vehicles have a “positive effect on the environment” and that charging stations would offset the negative effect of increased traffic from development.

According to the City's website, there are currently four electric vehicle charging stations in the City of East Lansing: at the East Lansing Public Library, East Lansing City Hall, the Charles Street Parking Garage, and the M.A.C. Avenue Garage (under the Marriott Hotel).

Asked about how often those stations are used, East Lansing's Downtown Parking Administrator Caleb Sharrow tells ELi that the City only has a power monitor on the M.A.C. garage unit "and it shows that an average of 1 vehicle per day uses that particular unit." He says he has seen the others used "on a regular basis."

Nothing in the proposed ordinance requires that the EV stations required on private property be available for public use. It only requires installation and maintenance. So they may be restricted in use, or even locked.

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Note: The sentence about the four charging stations existing in East Lansing was amended to clarify that these are charging stations in the City of East Lansing according to the City's website, and to clarify for readers that the one in the M.A.C. garage is the one under the Marriott Hotel.