Porta Potty Rental in East Lansing, MI 48823

A unit on private ground in East Lansing, a driveway, a yard, a fenced job site, needs no city approval. Public ground is where East Lansing is better than most cities, because it publishes several routes instead of leaving you guessing.

The street rule reaches a placed object, and its scope is broad. The city's street article bars placing any article, thing, or obstruction in a street except as the article permits, with the only exception covering temporary obstructions incidental to moving things to and from the premises next door. Crucially, the permit limb that follows is not written only for builders. It requires a permit to occupy any street with materials or machinery incidental to constructing, demolishing, or repairing an adjacent building, or for any other purpose, including block parties. Those five words put an event restroom and a construction restroom inside one instrument, which is unusual. Plenty of Michigan cities write that clause for construction alone and leave an event organizer outside it.

Who issues it: the building official or the city engineer, on the forms that office prescribes, with a cash deposit where one is required and any required insurance policy filed first. The permit is valid only for the period written on it and is revocable.

Three more named routes, all published by the City Clerk. Alongside the street obstruction permit the Clerk's licensing and permits roster lists a Temporary Use of Right of Way application, a Street Closure Request for businesses holding special events, a Facility Use license for community parks, downtown parking, and urban plazas, a Run and Walk application for events on streets and trails, and a Block Party approval. Pick the one that matches your footprint, and ask the Clerk on 517-319-6914 if two could apply.

Fees are set annually rather than fixed in the ordinance, by council resolution through the budget, so get the current figure from the city when you file rather than from any published table.

If an obstruction is left in place, the city can remove it and charge the cost to the abutting landowner where that owner made it, permitted it, or let it stay, with collection under the city charter.

Ingham County Health Department publishes its environmental health permit roster in full: body art, food establishments including temporary and mobile units, pollution prevention, pools, tobacco, well and septic, point of sale inspections, campgrounds, foster care, and child care. No portable toilet, chemical toilet, or mass gathering class appears on it. The nearest instrument is a temporary campground site inspection, which is scoped to campgrounds rather than to events. The health department is at 5303 South Cedar Street in Lansing on 517-887-4311.