Veridea development proposal Veridea, who recently backed out of plans to redevelop Houghton’s parking decka nd waterfront area was proposing replacing the parking that currently exists between Huron Street and Isle Royale Street with a small park.

oughton City Council meeting since the Veridea Group withdrew from negotiations over the big parking deck property on Lakeshore Drive, council members and the public weighed in on the next steps.

Houghton had been in talks with Veridea since 2019, when it responded to the city’s request for qualifications for developers along with two competing firms. The city voted to enter into negotiations with Veridea, which in December unveiled a plan for a $40 million mixed-use development on the site of the deck.

In withdrawing, Veridea cited the lack of a defined path for the project going forward. It had also been the subject of public criticism, including a non-binding measure in August in which nearly 80% of voters called for more public input.

Wednesday, the council voted to have the Planning Commission review the year-and-a-half process from the start of the city’s request for qualifications for a developer to Veridea’s withdrawal and make recommendations for a procedure to follow going forward.

“We absolutely have had some (public engagement), but it hasn’t satisfied everybody,” said Councilor Mike Needham, who also sits on the Planning Commission. “So we need to figure out how to better satisfy the city at large and come up with a plan.”

Needham said he would like to see the commission take it up at its next meeting, but did not call for a hard end date to its analysis. While there had been talks of bringing in an outside consultant to lead the process, Needham said he trusted the planning commission and City Manager Eric Waara to determine if that was necessary.

“I want the Planning Commission to discuss this in two weeks, and make decisions on their own about how they proceed because that is what they’ve been doing successfully for a long time,” he said. “I think they understand the gravity of these decisions.”

The council voted 6-1 for Needham’s motion. The no vote came from Jan Cole, who presented her own idea for a process created by a reconstituted Lakeshore Drive Redevelopment Committee, including additional residents. It would include a process for identifying and financing development options, establishing a budget and funding and setting up a third-party process for gathering public input. Similar processes have been used for projects such as WinterCity strategy of Edmonton, Cole said. A developer would be selected within six to 12 months, with the goal of starting construction in 2022.

“I think we all agree that we want to move on,” she said. “We want to be in the process of looking at what our options are as soon as possible. We don’t want the deck to languish.”

Councilor Dan Salo criticized Cole for showing the proposal beforehand to council members Brian Irizarry and Joan Suits, who were elected to the council along with Cole in November after calling for the city to step back and allow more public input on the future of the 42-year-old deck.

“Our city council was accused of backstreet deals, being uncooperative, not sharing information, by a large group of people — which we didn’t do,” Salo said. “Now we have a group of people that are doing the exact same thing we were accused of doing. And it’s wrong.”

During public comments, Jennifer and Jon Julien of BraveWorks asked the council to schedule a public work session to hear their proposal to use brownfield funds to finance most of the redevelopment of the deck property. They called for a Tax Increment Financing district that would allow them to leverage brownfield funding from their other downtown projects, including the conversion of the Franklin Square Inn to a Hampton inn by Hilton and a new Marriott hotel adjacent to it.

The plan would involve a smaller private development footprint than Veridea’s plan, and could be leveraged with city and business financing for additional public amenities, such as improved space for the downtown farmer’s market, Jon Julien said. Because of impending meetings in Lansing regarding the brownfield application, the Juliens asked for a hearing within 30 days.

“If it’s something you want to hear about, then we can shift our alignment, or development toward that,” Jennifer Julien said.

Mayor Pro Tem Robert Megowen said after the tumult of the Veridea project, the city would need to take 60 days before coming out with any plan.

“I think we need a calming-off period for the city council and our members to think about this, to start working together as a team,” he said.

At the end of the meeting, Megowen said the new council members brought positive traits to the council, while they could also learn more about the background from people who had been involved before.

“Once we start to work together as a team, we’ll understand you better, and you’ll understand us better,” he said. “I think one cup of coffee for an hour might do it.”