There are three items on the upcoming meeting of the Grand Rapids Planning Commission.

644 Chestnut St SW

Rezoning of an abandoned railroad right of way from SD-IT (Industrial) to TN-TCC. The property is currently owned by 655 Godfrey Land LLC. The adjacent warehouse, the east of the old railroad, was rezoned from SD-IT to TN-TCC in 2018. The expectation is the property will be incorporated into the redevelopment of the warehouse.

The parcel is immediately to the west of the Oxford Trail bike path.

Starting to see a few headlines like "Rents Slide by Largest Amount in at Least 7 Years"! So is it here? Despite all other indicators - low vacancy, high employment, etc... - is the zenith of rents behind us? Let's check the data.

UPDATE 2025-01-17: See The State of Intercity Transit in 2025

The level of inter-city service has declined in recent years. The direction has turned since the surprising promise of the late 2010s; recovery, and certainly expansion, seem very unlikely.

What is still available if you want to travel to a neighboring city? (Daily service)

The City's Strategic Plan sets a transportation mode shift goal of 55% by 2035; meaning that 55% of commuter trips would be made via a mode other than by a single occupant vehicle [aka: a car, or in the 21st Century, more accurately: "a massive SUV or pickup"].

Appointments

Planning Commission

The mayor's appointment of Salim Al-Shatel to the City Planning Commission for a term ending January 6, 2025. With this appointment there will be one remaining vacancy on the City Planning Commission.

Following the appointment the City Planning Commission has 2 residents from the 1st Ward, 4 residents from the 2nd Ward, and 2 residents from the 3rd Ward; 5 of the commission members are white, 2 are non-white, and 1 not responding.

Some maps flew around social media of housing costs by county. Those maps used the Median MLS Listing Price divided by the county's median income to calculate the years-to-buy metric. The years-to-buy metric is a common way to correlate housing prices to regional income. Unfortunately the low granularity of county level data hides a great deal of variability.

The ZORI

The ZORI is the Zillow Observed Rent Index. Zillow provides a variety of data at their Data page.