“Some people will wait until a property becomes available,” reads a line from a recent critique of myself and the planning commission.
It’s a concise way to summarize the housing issues we face – not only as a city or county, but as a nation. The very fact that some people are forced to wait until a property becomes available, in the city they wish to live in, is why I advocate for more housing.
The problem is exacerbated when those wait times are surpassed by price. As we wait, prices rise because the demand is high but the supply remains stagnant. No amount of equity can suffice. No amount of dollars saved by living outside the city can suffice. No amount of time spent working multiple jobs can suffice.
I would never deny a person’s hard work to obtain the housing they choose, but I also cannot deny that, for generations, we’ve bought into and protected the single-family housing experiment – to our own detriment.
Traverse City has been on a high for a long time now, but as we’ve ridden that high we’ve told ourselves, “Everything is OK.” Unfortunately, it hasn’t been OK. Underlying every decision, we’ve been seeding the issue of housing supply.
The high has been long and the fall will be just as long.
Housing isn’t just the structure, it’s the people who live within the structure. And right now we see the issue impacting important people like nurses, doctors, educators, elderly and child care workers. In short, people you don’t want to wait for, lest they move somewhere else.
Many of us are hard at work while simultaneously working hard to gain access to housing in Traverse City. It’s gotten so bad that employers are offering hiring bonuses specifically for housing.
There’s always a simple answer for why someone can’t afford to buy in the city: Employers should pay more; the city needs to do tax incentives for long-term rentals; we need more PILOT projects; ban short-term rentals – and they’re all part of the solution.
Housing issues require a multi-pronged approach. But they’re nothing if we don’t also address exclusive zoning.
“No neighborhood should be subject to radical change, but no neighborhood should be exempt from change,” reads a quote from the recent Housing Summit.
I don’t believe any single neighborhood should be razed to build mutli-family housing, but I firmly believe every neighborhood has a role to play by inviting incremental additions of duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes and Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) to help reduce our wait times.
And I also believe denser buildings on the fringes of all neighborhoods are an important way to add density and economic opportunities to neighborhoods.
Many neighbors have told themselves this would be bad for – or the end of – our city. But how can we decide we don’t like something if we haven’t had it?
Yes, problems will arise, but nothing can outweigh the positive impact of adding more and varied housing opportunities for everyone waiting to live in Traverse City.