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.

Related:

• Where rent is most, least affordable in Michigan, MLIVE 2023-06-24

  Kent: With an average rent of $1,326, a renter would need to make at least $25.50 per hour or $53,040 annually. 
  

What is affordable housing? What is "A"ffordable housing?

UPDATE: The developer has pulled out, this project is dead.

The McConnell is a conceptual proposal for a market rate 10 story mixed-use development at the McConnell Silver Line BRT station. The principle structure would be seated behind the fueling station at Wealth & Division. If constructed the McConnell would be Grand Rapids' first Transit Oriented Development (TOD).

The candidates for City Commission in 2022.

Shelterforce recently developed a six part series on ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units). While there is currently no hope of meaningful zoning reform in Grand Rapids, MI I believe this remains a critical topic to track as ADUs should be the clearest path for residents to invest in their own neighborhoods - right on their own property.