Educator housing project clears first step

BY KATHRYN DePAUW

KDePauw@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — An affordable housing project for primary and secondary teachers and staff is one step closer to reality.

The Traverse City Area Public Schools Board of Education voted unanimously Monday to create the interlocal agreement required to facilitate a housing project next to Blair Elementary.

TCAPS, Grand Traverse Area Catholic Schools, Interlochen Center for the Arts and Northwest Education Services offi cially banded together to work toward affordable rental housing for educators and education support staff in the area.

Housing will be for pre-K to 12th-grade workers and available for this purpose, per the agreement, for a minimum of 30 years — but details of a contract have yet to be finalized.

This is “literally our first step,” said TCAPS Superintendent Dr. John VanWagoner.

North Ed and TCAPS are considered primary stakeholders, with Interlochen Center for the Arts and Grand Traverse Area Catholic Schools as secondary partners. This is because of their financial involvement — North Ed was awarded $5 million from the state for the project and TCAPS will be selling the land to be used for the project.

“We have a financial stake in it. We would be selling the property that’s there. I think the last time we talked, it was around 9 acres,” VanWagoner said.

Participating institutions will work

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to ensure the developer’s compliance, split the cost of fees, make recommendations, apply for grants and tax credits, market the housing when it’s available, and meet annually to assess the agreement and the status of the project’s requirements.

The interlocal agreement approved Monday says housing “cannot be restricted to employees from any specific school and that available slots for housing units are not decided by any individual party” to the agreement.

“So it can be anybody across the region. So really to an extent, we are just stewards of the region, although we think our TCAPS folks and the other entities will have a great shot at some of the units,” Van-Wagoner said.

The document also states that the schools will not be managing the property themselves.

“This is a unique, the first ever, state project that we have figured out, we believe working with Cinnaire (a nonprofit community development financial organization working on the project), the legal language to make it eligible only to educators and education support staff K-12,” Van-Wagoner said.

The education partners have been working together for two years to find employee housing solutions, he said.

They approached Betsy Coffia, D-Traverse City, for help in November 2023, and she, and state Sen. John Damoose, R-Harbor Springs, secured bipartisan legislative support for the $5 million Office of Rural Prosperity grant.

Plans for the project were announced on Aug. 6, with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer attending the event. Then, it was disclosed that there will be two phases, with two sets of income requirements.

One set of renters for the project will be considered if their income is at, or below, 80 percent of the area median income. The AMI is calculated annually by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (and published online) and reflects the midpoint of the area’s income range. A family of four in Grand Traverse County would qualify for an 80 percent AMI if the household makes an income of $79,050 or less.

Other renters will need household incomes up to 120 percent of AMI. Some of these details are still undetermined and VanWagoner mentioned in the board meeting that funding is part of the issue.

“The 80 percent AMI money is much harder to come by from the state, and we’re facing right now the ability, probably pretty quickly we think, a chance at getting the 120,” Van-Wagoner said.

He called households in the 80 to 120 percent of AMI, the “missing middle,” a term also used during the announcement of the project.

“People in that entire range (of incomes) are genuinely struggling and they are not actually able to find and afford housing in this region,” said Coffia at the announcement event, quoting average home prices between $400,000 and $500,000 and $1,800 for average monthly rent.

“For me, that rings alarm bells for the sustainability of some of our most important institutions, like our schools,” Coffia said.

“Teachers and first responders have simply been priced out of communities like Traverse City,” Whitmer said at the August event.

Currently, 60 percent of workers spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing, Whitmer said, adding that the low housing supply contributes to higher costs, and the area needs 1,400 new rentals and 1,800 new homes in the next five years.

The construction plan is to build up to 72 one- and two- bedroom units near Blair Elementary. One-bedroom units are planned to be 650 square feet minimum and the two bedroom units will be 850 square feet minimum, with the project utilizing city water and septic systems, Ed Potas, real estate development manager at Cinnaire, said at the event.

Kathryn DePauw reports in partnership with Report for America.

Plans for a TCAPS employee housing program next to Blair Elementary School, which could begin construction this summer.

Record-Eagle file photo/Jan-Michael Stump