As Dawn Crandall notes in her legislative update, legislators in Lansing are hearing loud indignant cries from local government officials about proposed zoning reform legislation your state association supports. They are suggesting these measures would remove them from building plan approval and zoning processes altogether and that they have a responsibility to protect property values, among other specious arguments. The housing reforms we support would not eliminate locally controlled building and development approvals. And when it comes to our opponents’ “preserving property values” argument, let’s call a spade a spade. Preserving values is another way of saying: we don’t want your kind in our community. Work here. Serve us in restaurants here. Teach our kids here. Protect us from crime and fires here. But don’t live here. 

There is no one silver bullet that will solve our state’s housing crisis, but these measures are an important part of a mix of actions that will help boost more attainable housing investment across the state. Many communities have created rules that essentially limit housing investment to large home developments. This kind of “local control” prevents the construction of homes most Michiganders can afford. Large lot size requirements, unpredictable plan review processes and timelines, restrictive parking and other measures all discourage and prevent the construction of lower-cost housing. These things push investment toward the high end of the market – since carrying costs and unpredictable delays often make it impossible to plan for tighter margin, lower-cost, housing projects. The bills we support would make the rules more predictable and common across the state. Local governments haven’t objected to our statewide uniform building codes, understanding that it makes good business and investment sense to have a common set of rules for the actual construction of homes. These measures are really no different. These bills do NOT take local control out of the process for building plan and development approval. They would create a more predictable process and set of parameters that are fair and will encourage a diverse mix of needed housing investment. 

The rhetoric coming from local officials right now is a vestige of our adversarial past that we need to move beyond. In reality, local governments need to be partners with builders and developers. It’s about making processes more predictable and helping to make the math work on the type of housing their communities need. Unfortunately, too many communities have chosen to preserve the status quo not-in-mybackyard (NIMBY) mindset in how they look at the building industry. Michigan, as a state, needs to collectively move forward and address housing. To not do so and to continue to allow thousands of local jurisdictions to each have their own varying rules and development processes will mean we that will keep getting what we’ve got as a state: low economic and population growth, stymied by not having enough attainable housing. Talk to your local legislators that will soon be voting on these measures. If the state truly wants to help boost the production of more entry-level housing, they need to pass these bills!