It's just a plan. It doesn't make anything happen. There will be no bulldozers massing on the outskirts of Cedar Village next week.

Hoping to reassure property owners worried about potential redevelopment in the East Village, city officials have repeated that mantra for months.

It's just a plan.

But when the East Lansing Planning Commission unanimously adopted the East Village Master Plan on Wednesday night, they took the first in a series of steps that could reshape 35 acres of some of East Lansing's most valuable land — and most notorious student housing — in the next 10-20 years.

"I'm relieved," Commissioner Richard Hill-Rowley said afterward. "It's been a long and intense process for lots of people.

"In the end, I think we've got a pretty good plan."

The commission's action Wednesday concludes what has been a nearly two-year formal process, stemming from discussions that began after the 1999 Cedar Village riots.

At times the planning process was tumultuous, as commissioners heard hours of concerns from the public and worked out dozens of revisions and amendments during marathon meetings.

Even with the outline completed, concrete changes to East Village properties are still a ways off.

Moving the process forward now falls to the East Lansing City Council, which must modify the area's zoning to allow for the taller, more tightly-packed buildings called for in the plan. City Manager Ted Staton said the council could introduce the issue at its next regular meeting.

"We're really only halfway there," Hill-Rowley said. "We'll go through the zoning code with the same detail as we have with the plan."

No new construction will begin in the East Village before May, because of a City Council freeze on building in the area, but Staton guessed officials could begin considering site plans by summer.

"There's certainly some pent-up demand for projects and a lot of interest," he said.

The city has already had "all kinds of exploratory conversations" with both local and outside developers, said Jim van Ravensway, the city's planning and community development director.

Joe Goodsir, who owns seven properties in the East Village, said he and other current landowners are interested in tackling projects themselves.

"I don't think our plan was to purchase the property and turn around and sell it," Goodsir said. "It's a long-term project, it's a long-term gain."

Goodsir said he expects conversations between developers, the city and the university will begin "heating up."

The university's role will be primarily to make "a very powerful marketing effort," said Steve Webster, MSU's vice president for governmental affairs.

Attempts to attract alumni developers and hotel owners have already begun, Webster said.

Evolving strategy

When the first draft of the plan was released in April 2005, its cover was graced by an attractive artist's concept of an elaborate development, complete with high-rise apartments and a boat basin — what city officials said is one design that fits the "vision" outlined in the plan.

The cover of the latest draft is less forward, opting to show a utilitarian aerial photo of the 35-acre area and burying conceptual drawings in an appendix.

That small adjustment is indicative of the changes the plan has undergone in the last 10 months, maintaining its original direction but retreating in places to less aggressive, more generalized goals.

"A vision cannot be too objective, because goodness knows what's going to happen by the time developers come forward with proposals," Commissioner Dale Springer said. "You want to leave it open to individual imagination and initiative."

City officials backed off on the plan's language partly to reassure leery landowners, van Ravensway said.

"It sounded to certain people that it was a given, and that was never the intent," he said.

Nancy Kurdziel, who owns apartment buildings in the East Village and has repeatedly spoken out against the plan, said the revisions address a number of the "red flags" in the original.

"They're really spending the time that needs to be spent," Kurdziel said. "Everything seems to be logical."

Springer said that although much of the public testimony concerned issues outside the scope of the plan, the input was valuable in shaping the commission's direction.

"It's been tested — and scrutinized by a lot of different people," he said. "Having gone through that process, the plan is better."

The most common concerns were addressed in a resolution the commission passed on Jan. 25 — stating for the record that the plan has no impact on the city's power to take property under eminent domain, on the East Village's blighted status and, most significantly for Kurdziel, does not require owners to alter their existing properties.

In one of the broader changes made Wednesday, commissioners removed all but a handful of conceptual drawings from the plan, striking any that showed a road running through the property of FarmHouse fraternity.

"It's a step in the right direction," said Ryan McBride, who lives in FarmHouse. "I believe our effort in our campaign had an impact in that."

Several other sources also credited the protests of FarmHouse brothers — which included "Save FarmHouse" yard signs — with influencing the direction the plan took.

Despite undergoing ten months of revisions, the final master plan sticks closely to its original goals of creating more urban housing, establishing a riverfront park, encouraging pedestrian traffic and improving the environmental quality of the area — which is located north of the Red Cedar River between Bogue Street and Hagadorn Road.

It's unlikely the city will be directly involved in purchasing land for redevelopment, Staton said.

"We don't have any money," he said. "Our objective is going to be able to help private property owners go in and redevelop their properties."