ModSquad

Saalfeld is absolutely wrong. Well he is wrong about a lot of things related to the KCLBA, but that’s another post. Cities can establish a land bank if they are a “qualified” City. The land bank definition of “qualified” is that they have a public school system of more than 100,000 students. When land bank legislation was passed only Detroit was qualified. Bingo on rushing it through for political reasons. I think Saalfeld wanted to preside over the vote while he was still County Board Chair as well. Viola’ Welcome to my new user name. Get it?

Hello everyone. I guess I need to change my name here on UP since there will be no more KCLBA. Let me address a couple issues. When the KCLBA was approved in 2009 there certainly was a lot of talk with commissioners about the need to use it to address blight. But Ken Parrish the County Treasurer was VERY clear that he thought that Kent County could use all of the tools a land bank brings. When you read the motion to authorize Ken to sign the legal docs to form the land bank there was NO specific charge to only deal with blight. In fact if you read the enabling legislation for land banks the paragraph that lays out the need for such legislation ties it to acquisition, clearing title, and selling real estate to spur the economy of the local units of government. The label "mission creep" is highly misleading. County Commissioner Jim Talen quoted this earlier today from the "interwebs" Mission creep is when your nonprofit organization expands its mission beyond the original goals that were set. There is a difference between mission creep and making strategic adaptations to a mission statement to evolve as needs change around us. The difference is that strategic adaptations should be weighed organization-wide and involve a critical thinking process before implementation. Mission creep usually occurs as a rash decision or during a crisis situation. I really like this distinction between making a rash decision or a decision based on strategic decision based on the conditions around you. It is important to note that one of the loudest criticisms heard today about the KCLBA's work was that the County felt blind sided about the move to modular homes and the brand change to InnovaLaB. These two decision came out of a long and detailed Strategic Planning session with our board, advisory committee, and stakeholders. We recognize that the County is a KEY stakeholder and had one of their Executive Staff at every single session when these decisions came to the surface. On top of that, the County Commissioners were all given copies of the Strategic Plan. The KCLBA never received a dime of money from the County, not even so much as a paper clip. We are completely self sustaining, in fact one of the only land banks in the country that is not a line item in a County budget and are touted as a State-wide and national model. We hired Michigan State Land Policy Institute to do a qualitative and quantitate analysis of our work. The results were that in 4 years the KCLBA created over 200 direct new jobs, over $40,000,000 in county-wide economic impact, and create $1.75 of value for every $1 we spent. Those are some pretty incredible stats. Ironically, just before the County voted to shut us down, they had to vote to (I believe) forgive a $400,000 debt from the West Michigan Sports Commission. It has been up and running for almost the same amount of time as the KCLBA, was given a $1M loan to begin, and is still not financially solvent. Yet this was touted as a huge success because they supposedly had an impact on tourism. At any rate, now we need to begin the work of figuring out how to wind down the company, and I will think up a new UP handle.

X99, I could go on and on and on in response to your comment. Instead I will respectfully disagree with you.

Walker, thanks for the encouragement. One important point of clarification. Any work done by the KCLBA/InnovaLaB out side of the County was/is being done by request of an in concert with the State Land Bank Authority and other County Land Banks on land they own. We are acting only as a modular consultant, never a developer. The KCLBA/InnovaLaB does not and will not own or be the sole developer on any project outside Kent County.

There really is no tax benefit to the developer. The only reason they have to do retail on the first floor is because of zoning regulations. Where incentive comes in, is that they have no incentive to build because it is so incredibly hard to make retail work in these locations. If the City would allow residential on these developments from the ground up, they would be finished and leased up quickly.

Correct, 20 Fulton, along with several other commercial spots on South Division are owned by Chew. Here is a little known piece of information as to why they can be left vacant for so long. Zoning in all of these developments requires commercial on the main floor with residential then allowed in the upper floors. Because this is a zoning requirement the structural aspects of the first floor retail, meaning the complete exterior, the foundation, the floors, etc are all included in what is called “eligible basis” of the tax credit portion of the project. The only cost Chew has to absorb to lease it out is basically from the drywall in. So, he literally has no $ in the game to maintain these units until he leases one to a commercial tenant. When we did the Uptown Village project on the corner of Wealthy and Diamond, it was structured the same way. However, leasing up commercial space on Wealthy is a heck of a lot easier than 20 Fulton or South Division.

The KCLBA assembled all the parcels over 2.5 years in partnership with Dwelling Place. We also were able to garner significant help from the DEQ to remove the leaky gas tanks from the ground and clean the site. Dwelling Place has taken ownership of the land and broken ground on this mixed use affordable housing development. Much needed for this neighborhood as the target for renters is families whose kids attend Harrison School and are being priced out of the neighborhood. Some of that is due to the Challenge Scholars program which guarantees that kids who graduate from Harrison and then Union High get a college education paid for at any State College. That made and already got rental market white hot.

Drove by there this AM and was wondering the same. This project has a MASSIVE footprint!

For what it is worth, I was told by a highly reputable source that among many other reasons related to software changes etc, that all pay-by-cell parking systems are phasing out the use of start and stop parking for credit card compliance rules and were limiting even more the amount of customization that can be done to make it more City specific. The move to MOTU was kind of inevitable. They knew there would be bugs but by designing and running their own platform they can make changes over time as needs/issues change. There really is no cost or income savings by moving to MOTU. The problem is they did not BETA test it before launching it, so instead of "testers" working through the bugs, the general public is by default working through the bugs. I can tell you that every time someone at our offices has had a problem with a ticket being wrongly issued, the City has responded quickly to rectify the situation.

Those homes/condos on Look Out Hill in Belknap really stand out. You can see em clearly as you come into town from the north. I heard they are selling fast too.

Joe, the walls are not only drywalled and finished they are also primed with a special type of primer, cabinets on the walls, lights installed, pretty much 90% done. We have some drywall patches to do where the two walls come together. On these first three we got them without flooring installed, but moving forward, we will have flooring done as well.

Jeff, reading MLive comments is about as constructive as watching grass grow. The key to it all is having a home that has a State stamped approval. Michigan is WAY behind the times on this issue. LARA has to approve the drawings. We got one approved in two weeks, another took 90 days, no rhymn or reason to it. We will soon have 13 different house designs approved, and several of those can have 4 or 5 variations. With an approved plan, one we order a home it is no more than 4 weeks and the home is built and ready for delivery. Our first 3 were done on two weeks. All of our homes meet all local zoning and building codes. We are provided with a full set of stamped fully engineered specs. A local architect did our foundation plans. These plans detail loads for the foundation and how the house connects. These drawings are done for all of our homes. We then pay the architect to do a site plan for the home and the lot. Going forward, that’s our only cost on architectural. With building and site plan approval we are good to go do excavate and prepare the site for the house. I would say 90 days start to finish is the maximum length of time to have the house done and ready to move in, if pre ordered or hit the MLS is it’s spec.

We did three houses in 3 days, here are the photos of each one before we start finishing the exteriors and button up the inside. On Thursday we ordered 6 more and will be doing these all in one week later this summer. With proper planning and site work completed, InnovaLaB (formerly Kent County Land Bank) has built the capacity with Champion Modular Homes to put in several homes a week going forward. As long as the home meets current zoning requirements with set backs, transparency, etc these can be installed by pulling a building permit. These first three were very specifically closen as I believe it exhibits how modular can be done to fit any neighborhoods design aesthetic. Herrick is in a cul-de-sac with all ranch homes, Sigsbee is on a block with several talk narrow homes that look kind of like a farmhouse, and Cooper is a traditional neighborhood. We will very soon have a show room set up in our offices on Division where buyers can come in, choose one of our lots, a home design, and then pick their interior finishes. Once they order their home, we can have it ready to install in 6-8 weeks depending on scheduling .

Here are some photos of today’s installation on Sigsbee, We staged on Madison in a large lot north of Dickinson. And hauled the home over to Sigsbee. We started at 8 AM with the first of 4 boxes and by noon all 4 were up. The roof is hinged and is lifted in place before lifting the box. We had a developer walk through who is interested in working with us on these in another area. He builds and is known for Million Dollar homes. He was blown away at the quality of materials and construction. In his words, these are built better than stick built. We will not finish installing the siding, put on a porch, button up the inside, flat work, and landscape. Should be ready to be listed on the MLS in about 3 weeks,

Joe, we are doing a configuration something like this on Bates West of Eastern in the South Hill Neighborhood. Not quite as dense, but several in a row.

Thanks, when we have our full line up completed, I will upload some renderings. In the mean time, here is a preview.

Creston Brewery Opens Its Event Space Check out the photos in this blog about Creston Brewery opening its new event space upstairs. It looks killer. Methinks this place will be rented out a lot! Great addition to the Creston neighborhood.

Smaritas has received a tax credit allocation to do senior housing on the large older part of the building, their plans are do a design charrette for the rest of the property to get it developed into single family and multi-family homes.

I totally agree with you in that we need to place as much emphasis on finding solutions to the economics as it relates to finding reasonable ways for folks to earn more. I also agree that the solution needs to be multifaceted. At the same time when one considers economics we cannot ignore the economics of development as well. As has been well discussed in this forum it costs about $250,000 to build a 1,300 square foot reasonably designed home. If that home is not worth $250,000 then we cannot build, in the traditional sense, our way out of this housing crisis. What I appreciated about this article is it really touched on all aspects of the problem.

After June 12th, I will be able to post and comment a lot more on this site on issues related to zoning, planning, housing, and development. To get the ball rolling, I encourage you Grand Rapidian UP'rs to read this great article about a group in Seattle looking to flip the script on their housing woes: A Must Read Housing Article - Politico.com To whet your appetite for these discussions here are a couple of money quotes from the article: "But that tech-fueled demand has tended to overshadow the other driver: insufficient supply. Since the end of the financial crisis, Lubarsky says, Seattle has added roughly 100,000 jobs, but barely 32,000 new homes and apartment units. “We’ve underbuilt every year since 2010,” he adds. And a big part of that deficit, Lubarsky says, is due to neighborhoods like Wallingford, where zoning laws make it almost impossible to build anything other than a single-family house." "Predictably, the campaign has provoked a fierce backlash from homeowners, many of them Baby Boomers who arrived in the 60s and 70s. They’ve sued to block the proposed “up-zones” to their neighborhoods, which, they warn, will kill the very “character” that makes Seattle’s housing so charming to newcomers in the first place. But to Lubarsky, that cherished neighborhood character was always false advertising, given how few people can actually afford it. “My generation is never going to have that,” he says, gesturing to a tricked-out Craftsman with a tidy yard and paved driveway. “There are too many of us to live like that.” "When homeowners say they’re fighting to protect neighborhood character, Lubarsky says, “it really feels to me like they just don’t want young people in their neighborhood.” "Known variously as urbanism, practivism and YIMBYism (Yes In My Backyard), the movement argues that the urban housing crisis has grown so severe that traditional approaches to affordability, such as rent control or state-subsidized housing, are wholly inadequate. "

Here are some numbers to blow everyone's hair back: As of 15 min ago on the GRAR site: Only 94 single family homes for sale at any price point in Grand Rapids. Cheapest is $58,900 most expensive is $1.4 M for a home to be built in the Belknap neighborhood. Since this is an affordable housing discussion I am looking at the $159K to $189K price range. There are only 9 homes for sale. In all of Kent County there are only 676 homes for sale at any price point. Back to affordable home ownership, I chose the same price range as above and there are only 38 homes for sale. This is a full blown crisis.

It was awarded LIHTC's. The project is located on the site with the abandoned church on the corner of Burton just East of Division.

The good news in all of this is now that it is on the National Historic Registry, that stays on the building no matter what. I can't imagine the option the developers that had on this building is still alive. Most likely the historic designation might open the door for another development to make sense on this site.