Around 150 people were hand for the first night of a housing summit organized by the Southwest Michigan Regional Chamber Thursday in St. Joseph.
The chamber and its partners welcomed author Chuck Marohn of the non-profit, Strong Towns, to talk about ways communities could help ease the housing shortage. Among those in attendance was Bridgman City Manager Juan Ganum. He told us there’s probably not a single town in Michigan that hasn’t made housing a priority. They’re certainly working on it in Bridgman.
“The market since the COVID era began has significantly shifted and there’s a tremendous demand and certainly not enough supply,” Ganum said.
Marohn, author of Escaping the Housing Trap, told us the trap many communities are in is that half of the market believes housing prices must go down, while the other half believes they must not be allowed to go down. This means municipal leaders, like those in attendance on Thursday, need to make their communities friendlier to the developers of entry level housing. He says they can do that by easing some zoning rules.
“Lot sizes, setbacks, the idea that a lot should just have a single family home that you couldn’t, for example, have a backyard cottage,” Marohn said. “Or if you’ve got someone who’s living and they’ve got three empty bedrooms, the idea that they couldn’t rent out one of those with an exterior door. We would call that a duplex, and that’s illegal in most places.”
Parking rules are another thing that could be eased. Marohn says all of this can be done without changing the current nature of communities.
The summit continues today Friday with more in-depth discussions about what local leaders can do to make their communities friendly to developers looking to build the kinds of starter homes that are needed.
