6 Surprising Things About 2022 From a Traverse City Housing Advocate Newbie
December 26, 2022
Persuading people with homes in Traverse City to spend time advocating for people who work in Traverse City and would also like to live on TC’s 8 square miles is harder than I thought - way harder than advocating for sidewalks/bike lanes. Homes on Beitner (land across from the library) takes a step forward in…
- Persuading people with homes in Traverse City to spend time advocating for people who work in Traverse City and would also like to live on TC’s 8 square miles is harder than I thought – way harder than advocating for sidewalks/bike lanes.
- Homes on Beitner (land across from the library) takes a step forward in 2022 but homes on Lot O (parking lot at State/Cass) – despite selecting HomeStretch for the project a year and a half ago – does not.
- The Referendum on five stories of homes on Hall Street wasn’t even close.
- The Zoning reform goals by the Planning Commission that would legalize more duplexes and ADUs aren’t discussed at a single Planning Commission meeting all year.
- Explaining what we voted on in 2016 (60 ft building height charter amendment) isn’t what we got using the values of fairness and inclusion was ineffective when attempting to gather signatures to repeal Prop 3.
- Despite being our #1 priority in 2022, anything housing related was voted on just 4x by the City Commission and half of those motions failed (Beitner in Nov and Lot O in Dec) – PILOT for East Front homes passed, as did Beitner in Dec.
What was surprising to you?
BECOME A LIVE TC LEAD WITH YIMBY ACTION
I attended my first National YIMBY Action meeting last week and it was fantastic. Learned so much.
If you’re interested in becoming a Lead for Live TC, please let me know.
It’ll be well worth your time and $ (about 1hr/week + min $35 annual membership) if you want to become a better advocate for abundant housing.
EMAIL ME AT TY@GOODWORKSLAB.ORG TO LEARN MORE ABOUT BECOMING A LIVE TC LEAD
FINAL VERY UNOFFICIAL 2022 TRAVERSE CITY HOUSING DASHBOARDS
Good news: Last week, we approved issuing an RFP (request for proposals) to build workforce homes on the Beitner properties (city-owned land across from the library). 6-1 vote (Lewis opposed).
A step in the right direction for sure but unfortunately, as we enter 2023, it’s still illegal to:
- build a duplex on >80% of our 8 square miles
- build an ADU (granny flat) behind a duplex
- build 5 stories of homes in the downtown of northern Michigan’s capital
