In the fall of 1999, Melissa Affholter received her first and only assignment in an urban planning class.

The semester-long project called upon urban and regional planning students like Affholter to examine the land use and social make-up of the Cedar Village area.

After 15 weeks of gathering information, interviewing and planning, she presented her findings to local officials, completed the course and continued with her urban planning education.

Five years later, Affholter said she is surprised that pieces of her vision are being considered for a possible revamp of the area.

"We never thought it would become a reality," she said.

City officials are proposing a $16.3 million plan to replace the existing 35 acres of land - which are bounded on the west and east by Bogue Street and Hagadorn Road, and on the north and south by Grand River Avenue and the Red Cedar River - with new housing and retail facilities. The property currently has more than 2,000 residents.

The East Village Master Plan Team, made up of property owners, and East Lansing and MSU officials is expected to send a draft plan to the city's Planning Commission in January.

In the aftermath of a riot that smeared the Cedar Village area's reputation in 1999, university and city officials began examining the neighborhood in search of an explanation for past disturbances.

"It was kind of a controversial thing for us to be doing at the time," Affholter said of the project that began six months after the riot.

Professor emeritus Miriam Rutz said Steve Webster, MSU's vice president of governmental affairs, sought out the expertise of her class because he thought there might be a connection between the land design and behavior of residents.

"We created a defensible space in an area that now is considered blighted," Affholter said. "It was a tough project and we started off with zero."

Webster said he wanted input and analysis of Cedar Village from students who weren't connected to the area.

"You really needed fresh ideas coming from different perspectives," he said.

Rutz said her students were asked to visualize the area as if nothing existed. She said a clean slate gave them a chance to be creative and show the possibility of a major redevelopment.

"If you don't have a big dream, you don't get anywhere," she said.

Wasted space

After studying the environment, social factors and land design, the class concluded that a major artery into the university wasn't utilized to its potential.

"Visually, it doesn't fit in with the rest of the university and the downtown East Lansing," Rutz said. "Cedar (Village) was always a dumpy area."

The class said a lack of recreational facilities and the amount of people crammed into a confined space encouraged the party mentality.

"It was just a homogeneous group of students of a young, immature age with nothing to do," Rutz said.

She said many students housed in the apartment complexes were too young to go to bars, and they stayed in the vicinity and drank.

But the design also affected the quality of the environment, Rutz said.

Documents from the project stated run-off from rain that poured onto the "sea of parking spaces" sent pollutants into the Red Cedar River.

"From an environmental stand point, it's a train wreck," Webster said.

Students suggested making the river more of an attraction, rather than a hidden dumping site.

East Village planners hope to expand a section of the river into a boat basin to create a housing and recreational attraction.

Students included an amphitheater, fast food courts, athletic fields and movie theaters, and repositioned parking lots and buildings. They also mixed commercial space with housing.

"I really encouraged them to go the different ways," Rutz said. "I made them believe."

Presenting the plan

On April 14, 2000, the planning class introduced their findings to the MSU Board of Trustees, along with East Lansing and university administrators.

"They were certainly interesting pieces of work," East Lansing City Manager Ted Staton said. "I thought they all gave us a different way to look at the neighborhood."

Suggestions that the city is using in their plans include creating open spaces, attracting a greater diversity of businesses and people and finding ways to create university entrances that are more aesthetically pleasing.

"Some of (the students) might be surprised that it's taken this long," Webster said. "It's taken five years to get the momentum of the community."

But Rutz said she was told to keep the general public in the dark about the project.

"It was so controversial they didn't want the press to know about it," she said, adding that officials said people would misunderstand the motives for the project.

But university and city officials denied that the issue was intentionally kept from the public.

Staton said the East Lansing City Council spoke publicly about a possible redevelopment of the village and that there was no attempt to keep it out of the news.

Regardless of the controversy surrounding the project, Rutz said she knew that her class' results would eventually have an impact.

"Students are so enthusiastic and think things can change, it ignites people to say 'yeah, things really could change,'" she said.

Affholter said it's a matter of altering perceptions and creating a positive environment.

"There's such a turnover of students ... that eventually the social history can be overcome."