A two-year-old state law that created new housing development incentives is leading to more than 3,000 new or rehabbed units statewide, spanning vacant offices in downtown Grand Rapids to rural communities that haven’t seen new housing projects in years.
The law, which expanded brownfield incentives to create a housing tax increment financing program, has yielded a total commitment from developers to build or rehab 3,149 units statewide across 42 projects. About half of the units are planned in West Michigan, and several more projects are in the pipeline.
“It’s just taken right off,” Amy Hovey, executive director and CEO of the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, recently told Crain’s Grand Rapids Business. “What I love about it, too, is it’s bringing developers who have never used government resources to the table, because our market just isn’t working. What it costs to build a house is just not close to what the average Michigan family can afford to pay.”…