housing

On November 1st and 4th of 2023 the Heritage Hill neighborhood association hosted two (2) hour sessions related to the Housing "Crisis" and the current round of proposed Zoning reforms. Roughly the first hour of the session was a presentation, by a Heritage Hill resident, on zoning, Heritage Hills' current density, and the current housing market. The second hour was Q&A and the type of table based work-shopping typical of these events.

UPDATE 2023-09-29: The conversation was interesting. 👉The meeting can be viewed on Youtube.👈. Text corresponding to these proposals are expected to come back to the Planning Commission in November. If the Planning Commissions supports that edition of the change text then the texts will go to the City Commission. The City Commission will hear them ... in December? ... then schedule a public hearing in ~30 days after hearing them.

Time to check the data again.

Rents

ZORI (Observed Rents)

A 12 month increase (July 2022 - 2023), for Grand Rapids, of $91/mo (+6.24%). The observed rent for Grand Rapids in July 2023 was $1460/mo.

UPDATE 2023-09-19: Any proposed zoning reforms are now not expected to be heard until January, 2024. 🙄

On the August 23rd (2023) edition of GRTVaccess' "City Connection" the mayor discussed the issue of housing. This part of the conversation begins at the 47 minute mark.

On 2023-08-10 the Kent County Board of Commissioners officially created the Kent Country Affordable Housing loan fund with a balance of $17.5 Million. In collaboration with IFF which will provide a ~230% match of the county's dollars to operational balance of the fund is $58.3 Million.

UPDATE 2023-09-19: Any proposed zoning reforms are now not expected to be heard until January, 2024. 🙄

UPDATE 2023-09-19: Any proposed zoning reforms are now not expected to be heard until January, 2024. 🙄

UPDATE 2023-07-26: In comments related to the adoption of two city ordinances related to the unhoused population 2nd Ward Commissioner Knight made positive references to the zoning reforms; specifically to the number of unrelated persons allowed to live at a single address as well as more people being able to build accessory dwelling units.