MUSKEGON, Mich. — Middle-income families in Muskegon will soon have new housing options available for rent thanks to a new program recently approved by the city.
"It's a difficult problem," says Jake Eckholm, Muskegon's director of development services.
But it's a problem Muskegon feels it's able to handle now with the approval of the PILOT program, or "Payment in Lieu of Taxes".
"Historically, there hasn't been any available assistance or subsidy to those middle-income folks," says Eckholm.
The program provides financial incentives to the renter, where the city foregoes collecting property taxes and, instead, the renter pays a set fee based on the rental cost.
Through PILOT, Muskegon approved 36 homes to be built by developer Allen Edwin, each one catering to middle-income, working-class families.
"Which then provides less demand on the lower rent, existing structures that are there because those people will not be competing for these," explains Eckholm.
Helping create housing availability affordable to all levels of income.
The program is in partnership with the Muskegon County Land Bank, which will sell vacant lots to the city to build the homes.
"We always want to make sure that whoever purchases it is going to follow through," says Tim Burgess, the Land Bank's director. "And we know that, obviously, with the backing of the city, that Allen Edwin has the capacity to make sure that these things actually get filled."
The city is excited about the new opportunity to provide residents of all income levels with places they can comfortably call home.
"This is a new tool in our in our toolkit, so to speak, to try to serve that middle-income market to keep those houses attainable for them and therefore preserve units at lower price points, says Eckholm.
The four-bedroom, two-bathroom homes will only be available to rent and are expected to be around $1,500 per month. The city says the homes will be built in waves over the next few years, with the first hopefully on the market by the end of this year.
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