The East Lansing City Council will meet Tuesday to discuss ways to spread out rental properties in the city.

Jean Golden, deputy city manager and chief of operations for East Lansing, said the city wants to begin working more with MSU, neighborhoods in the city and the school district.

“We want to have a real diversity of housing for families and individuals at all income levels,” she said. “We want to promote community reinvestment, neighborhood stability and historic preservation.”

Golden said the city wants to disperse rental properties more, having neighborhoods that consist of both renters and homeowners.

“We don’t want there to be ghettos anywhere,” she said. “For some neighborhoods the balance is way off; we have entire streets that are all rental and that is not good.

“The most stable neighborhoods are the ones where people of all ages and cultural backgrounds live together in harmony.”

Fred Bauries, an East Lansing landlord and vice chairman of the East Lansing Planning Commission, said neighborhoods with renters and homeowners can be beneficial to the residents, but difficult at the same time.

“I live in such a situation and I think it is sometimes difficult to be a homeowner surrounded by rentals,” he said. “I was awoke at 3 a.m. (Sunday) morning by drunken revelry from renters, but I suspect many of the student tenants around me didn’t appreciate it either.”

Bauries said these types of neighborhoods are able to monitor and reduce such nuisances.

He also said the neighborhoods would reduce student ghettos.

“It sounds like an ambitious proposal, but I think it is a right-minded proposal,” he said.

Councilmember Sam Singh said he hopes the council will be able to move forward with the recommendations it is given at the council work session Tuesday.

“I think what it is for us is an opportunity to take a look at the city’s housing needs and be a little more comprehensive,” he said.

Singh said the city will create a nonprofit organization that will help it revitalize certain areas.

Golden said the nonprofit organization will be able to get federal and state funding, as well as other grants and gifts.

“Rentals are not bad for a community,” she said. “It is when whole neighborhoods become rentals that problems develop and that is what we are trying to correct.

“If anything it promotes stability in neighborhoods and makes them better to live in.”