That certificate is necessary because the site plan includes an addition to the property. If the council approves the plan, the Historic District Commission would then decide whether the addition to the building’s backside would be visible from the street and therefore in violation of historic district code.

“Council asked the historic commission to clarify issue,” said Tim Schmitt, East Lansing community development analyst. “The fraternity sufficiently brought forward evidence to make us look into that.”

The City Council deferred ruling on the site plan at its March 16 meeting when fraternity members supplied photos that might prove the site plan violates city ordinance. The council meets at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 410 Abbot Road.

Christopher Kulesza, vice chairman of the Historic District Commission, said the commission did not discuss the site plan’s integrity at its meeting. The Historic District Commission is the last step in the approval process and will handle the issue should it pass through the council.

“One of the big things at the meeting was to make sure nothing like that was done,” Kulesza said. “The last meeting was on procedural, not on whether it was an appropriate addition or not.”

Lambda Chi Alpha members have lived at 128 Collingwood Drive for 83 years, but its national housing corporation, Lambda Chi Alpha Properties Inc., or LCAP, actively shopped the property for several years, Schmitt said.

The local fraternity signed a lease March 29 at the former Sigma Alpha Epsilon house, 342 N. Harrison Road. So far, 32 members have signed leases in the 40-person house. Dan Shupe, Lambda Chi Alpha MSU chapter president and a history junior, said it is “pretty cozy” with 32 occupants, as 12 of the 18 rooms have two residents and one room has three roommates.

Shupe said the fraternity has continued to work with its local housing corporation to find ways to keep its original home. Lambda Chi Alpha’s new lease with Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s national fraternity gives it first chance to re-sign for up to two years following the 2010-2011 lease, but anything after that is uncertain.

Fraternity members said they have tried for months to purchase the home from LCAP, but Inman and Michael Smith, LCAP chairman of the board, said they have a binding purchasing agreement.

“The national housing corporation — they don’t really want to talk to us I think is about the size of it,” Shupe said. “They’ve offered the same old story in that there’s a purchasing agreement, and they can’t do anything about it.”