Ypsilanti OKs agreements for 2 affordable housing projects, bringing 354 new units

A computer rendering shows several apartment buildings next to the Huron River in Ypsilanti.

A rendering from developer Lincoln Avenue Capital and DJR Architecture shows a proposed 308-unit housing development at 845 and 945 West Clark Road in Ypsilanti, with apartments for individuals, seniors and families.Lincoln Avenue Capital/DJR Architecture, captured from Ypsilanti City Council meeting documents

YPSILANTI, MI - Ypsilanti has undergone an experiment of sorts for months.

What would new projects made possible by millions in public support in the form of tax breaks and other incentives look like if developers had to sit across the table from residents and hammer out what the they would get in return?

A full picture likely won’t be clear for months, if not years, but Ypsilanti got the beginnings of an answer on Tuesday, June 21, with the approval of two community benefits agreements, contracts associated with a pair of planned new developments slated to bring a combined 354 new housing units to a city officials say faces a crisis of housing accessibility.

While city leaders acknowledged the documents aren’t perfect, still grappling with what some called substantive flaws minutes before they were approved, the agreements represent a largely smooth trial run of the city’s 2018 community benefits ordinance.

Read more: Public gets more say in Ypsilanti developments under new ordinance

Citizens groups fought for those rules, meant to give residents more say in new projects getting public support, in the aftermath of the controversial International Village development proposal that galvanized activists and prompted a state police probe.

Now, two major housing development proposals have been shaped through the process.

They are the 308-unit senior and family apartment complexes planned for 845 and 945 Clark Road, across the Huron River from Eastern Michigan University, and the 46-unit for-sale housing community slated for city land at 220 North Park Street, blocks from Depot Town — each slated to benefit from a form of city tax relief.

In both cases, residents’ committees assigned to work with developers on what “community benefits” the projects would bring the city arrived at arrangements that upped affordability levels while reducing some of the revenue the city would have generated from the developments in the form of taxes and other payments.

At Park Street — the land between the Gilbert Mansion and the train tracks that once housed the Ypsilanti Boys and Girls Club — the new development will see half of its for-sale units deed-restricted to maintain affordability, bringing home costs as low as $105,000 for a handful of the cottages and duplexes, targeted a current renters and new homeowners, according to a June 7 presentation on the development.

Read more: Opportunity or handicap? Ypsilanti leaders debate affordability of Depot Town project

On Tuesday, Council Member Brian Jones-Chance, Ward 1, continued to lodge criticism over how the arrangement could limit potential residents’ ability to build wealth through their investment, since home sales prices would continue to be restricted if they ever chose to sell the units — a provision he said would further a long-standing pattern of marginalizing Black residents in homeownership programs.

“We are taking equity from people who have historically been segregated out of the real estate market and using it to subsidize affordability for them and other people who come after that. This is the least worst option,” he said on Tuesday, while adding he would still support the agreement with the understanding that more work had to be done to reach an “equitable solution.”

220 North Park Street affordable development in Ypsilanti

Renderings from Barry J. Polzin Architects and Renovare Development show plans for a 46-unit housing development at 220 North Park Street near Ypsilanti's Depot Town, as presented in Ypsilanti Planning Commission documents for the body's Wednesday, May 18, 2022 meeting.Renovare Development/Barry J. Polzin Architects, Captured from Ypsilanti Planning Commission documents

The agreement with Detroit-based Renovare Development, the developer behind the project, passed unanimously.

It will also bring requirements that all of the eventual homeowners occupy the units as their principal residence, as well as measures targeting the development at current Ypsilanti residents and restrictions on homeowners association fees for the affordable units.

When City Council’s attention turned across town to the Clark Road development, a project of California-based housing developer Lincoln Avenue Capital, one council member grappled with the environmental effects of the project.

The development will be divided into two sections, one reserved for older adults and another for individuals and families, with varying levels of affordability requirements built into rents for the entire complex.

Read more: More affordable apartments, food pantry part of agreement with developer in Ypsilanti

But the development will also effectively destroy an old-growth oak forest, whose carbon sequestration capacity far exceeds even the emissions offsets if hypothetically the maximum number of solar panels were installed on the development, according to calculations from Council Member Steve Wilcoxen, Ward 2. (The agreement for the development currently does not require solar.)

“Now this pits two things against each other. We all agree that affordable housing is necessary, and we have a master plan and climate action plan that says we need to pay attention to our carbon footprint,” he said, adding the decision was a “horrible tradeoff” that left him torn between the two obligations.

Fellow council members acknowledged the conundrum but also said the effects of climate change would continue to drive a crisis in housing. “We cannot develop enough housing fast enough at this point. I can appreciate saving trees, but people will die from lack of housing accessibility,” said Council Member Annie Somerville, Ward 3.

Jones-Chance also pointed out that even if the city rejected the development, they couldn’t control what happened on the land, which is privately owned. “If this development were to fall through, someone else could develop on it, and we wouldn’t have any input at all,” he said.

Wilcoxen, who said the tax arrangement supporting the development didn’t provide the city with adequate yearly funding to cover the estimated cost of emergency services it generated, ended up as the sole no vote on the agreement for the development, which passed 5-1. Officials made just one change, requiring the developer to pave Clark Road to its western end point near the Huron River.

Read more Ypsilanti news here.

For each development, further measures will come before City Council, according to city Director of Economic Development Joe Meyers, but the remaining steps are more technical and a framework is now in place for the projects to become a reality.

The start of construction on each will depend on final engineering details and outside financing, he said.

Still, city leaders recognized the gravity of the moment on Tuesday.

“Being the second city in the nation to have a (community benefits ordinance) process, I believe that we can be proud of ourselves that these are our two first pilot runs,” said Ypsilanti Mayor Lois Allen-Richardson, referring to the fact the city’s rules were implemented following similar requirements in Detroit, heralded as the first in the country.

The mayor cautioned she didn’t mean to say the two agreements didn’t have aspects that could be improved.

“Each one has something that could be called a flaw, but I think they were successful as a whole, and the flaws that are there, I hope we can work to try to learn from those when we have the next round,” she said.

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