Attainable housing in New Buffalo addressed at joint meeting

Apotential development that could provide attainable housing in the area was presented to members of the New Buffalo Area Schools Board of Education, New Buffalo City Council and New Buffalo Township Board in the New Buffalo Performing Arts Center Thursday, Feb. 2.

New Buffalo Area Schools Interim Superintendent Dr. Michael Lindley presented on some recent bills that were passed by the Michigan State Legislature in December that “allows for some better community participation in working together to resolve the attainable housing issues:” Senate Bills 362, 364, 422 and 432.

He drew attention to Senate Bill 362, “Attainable Housing Facilities Act,” which allows for creating an attainable housing district and for property owners there to apply for partial tax exemption on their real property taxes up to 50%.

A key component of it is that you have to set aside 30% of the units for people to make 120% or less of the countywide median income threshold, which Lindley said is now $32,000 to 33,000.

Senate Bill 422, “Residential Facilities Exemption Act,” has a tax abatement on qualified new housing developments in districts with local governments, also with the 120% threshold. Lindley said that “this is used for units with more than four units” and would apply if there’s an apartment complex in a development.

The density the property would support would need to be determined, as well as who would be the project’s partners and if the township board would be interested in giving tax abatements to attract people.

BY FRANCESCA SAGALA

“As we make some progress, we would hopefully be able to identify if any of this is applicable to us and help us to create some attainable housing,” Lindley said.

Eric Neagu, managing principal for Antero Group, said that the project was driven by the 30-acre parcel, which students would use to continue to build houses for potential residents on for the Building and Trades program once a year, located across from the elementary school that’s owned by the school district.

The school system had run out of property to build houses on and was hoping the property would work; however, the area is predominantly wetland.

The district was able to buy the former Conway property and a couple other parcels, which provided it with enough property to “have a legitimate development,” Neagu said.

The goal is to have around 15 to 16 units reserved for students for their Building Trades program. Neagu said that the “balance of that would be developed targeting attainable housing for the workforce” in the area.

The property contains a creek as well as a trail system through it, which Neagu said they feel they can preserve a lot of and make into an amenity for those who’d live there “because the wetland area can never be developed.”

It was also noted that the utilities are already there, as the property is located across from the school.

Vita Khosti, senior planner at Antero Group, presented conceptual plans of potential housing developments. Concept One concerns R-1 low density residential, with single family units, large lots and ensuring access to the trails not only to residents but the public.

Concept Two includes 15 single family lots, which would be used for the Building Trades program, with 30 townhomes “dotted around” and two multi-family buildings.

The concept differs from the first one in that it includes a different mix of units as well as respects the creek and wetlands, with a 25-foot riparian setback from the creek.

A public parking lot with 18 spaces is tucked in behind some of those singlefamily homes, with the access to the trails in addition to a potential environmental learning center to the north.

Neagu said that he hopes that any potential development will address the “missing middle.”

“There’s a whole style of housing –duplexes to fourplexes and beyond and these smaller apartment complexes that we call them middle housing…It’s not low-income housing, it’s not high-income housing, it’s something in the middle,” he said.

City councilmember Mark Robertson said he was concerned about the traffic volume that’s going to go down Detroit Street and residential neighborhoods “going down to that development.”

Neagu said that a formal traffic study hasn’t been done yet; however, one is required when going through the Planned Unit Development (PUD) process and that it’s also required the development has two entry points.

For the purpose of budgeting, Ed Gausselin, principal of Progressus Development Group, said that, without plans or any bidding, they’re estimating $200 per square foot of a construction cost all in.

A rough number of a 1,500 square foot home would be built for approximately $300,000, he said.

Having someone buying one of the homes and turning into an Airbnb or a second home is “not the target here,” Neagu said, adding that there are “ways of constraining that so that there are controls built into that limit the interest in the ability of people to do that.”

“There could be some kind of homeowners association has restrictions on it, there could be deed restrictions limiting the sale price so someone can’t buy it for $280,000 or $300,000 and flip it for $500,000,” he said.

Going forward, Gausselin said that some decisions need to be made to give he and Neagu direction, such as if there’s a preference of having homes for sale or rental units and whether the road located there should be private or public and if it’s private, what municipal or township services that are out there with regards to maintenance.

New Buffalo Township Supervisor Michelle Heit said that the project would probably be done as a PUD, as it would allow for smaller lot sizes or maybe even homes that are smaller and other things that the township’s zoning ordinance wouldn’t normally allow to “make things more inexpensive.”

New Buffalo Mayor John Humphrey said affordability was an important discussion.

“You need to get the price point down to where it can attract people to be the homes that we have this shortfall in in the New Buffalo area, which is generally teachers, public safety workers, new families, people that want to come to our school system that the $400,000-500,000 home entry price is too high for them to get them into the market,” he said, and added that they could get duplexes and single-family homes “for cheaper.”

Neagu said they may need a future extended workshop to “really hammer out” the details of the project.