This was the 13th meeting in which the ordinance has had some public discussion, Councilmember Nathan Triplett said.

“My personal opinion is that we (owed) it to the neighbors who have had concerns and to the developer to come to a decision so they have an answer … about what’s going to be happening to this parcel,” he said.

The amount of time the issue took was appropriate, however, because it was the city’s first encounter with conditional rezoning, Triplett said.

“It (was) not to be taken lightly, it deserved serious consideration,” he said.

The hotel will be the last piece of the West Village project, said Darcy Schmitt, planning and zoning administrator for East Lansing. The other two pieces are townhomes and flats.

Councilmember Roger Peters voted against the ordinance.

“In my mind … I’m not comfortable using conditional rezoning in this particular context,” he said. “In this particular location, a five-story hotel will be a jarring transition to the neighborhoods to the west.”

The council also received a presentation on how the city’s Community Development Block Grant money was used from July 2007 to June 2008.

Fifteen percent of the money was used to help fund public services, such as the Haven House homeless shelter, said Stephanie Gingerich, community development analyst for East Lansing.

“We don’t usually present it to council, but they requested it this year,” she said.

“But at the beginning of (every) year we have to say what we’re going to do with money, and at the end of the year we have to say how we spent it.”

The amount of grant money varies yearly because of budget allocations, with $591,000 this year and $615,000 in 2007, she said.