Northport Village Council To Continue Attainable Housing Conversations
Housing is staying in the spotlight in the Village of Northport. Following a joint public workshop with Leelanau Township last month to explore potential housing options, Northport’s Village Council will discuss next steps at their meeting Thursday evening, including the possible creation of a new housing task force and development of an inventory of all publicly owned property in the village.
Speaking to the Leelanau Ticker ahead of last month’s housing workshop, Northport Village Council President Chris McCann explained that municipal property is the “low-hanging fruit” when it comes to bringing more affordable housing projects to communities like Northport. “[Public land] can be sold at little to no cost, which can help with affordability of housing, and there are tools like Payment In Lieu Of Taxes (PILOT) and Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) available to municipalities like ours,” McCann told The Ticker.
While much of the attention around the April housing workshop focused on Buster Dame Park, a potential spot for housing development that Northport residents have quickly rallied to save, public officials have yet to make any formal decisions about where and when to convert village and/or township-owned land into development property. Instead, both municipalities are continuing to explore steps to bring more housing stock online.
That pursuit will be front and center at tomorrow night’s meeting of the Northport Village Council. Notably, Thursday’s meeting marks both the first regular council meeting since last month’s housing workshop and the first with new village manager Jered Ottenwess in his role. (Ottenwess officially started on April 21.) Among other business, tomorrow’s agenda calls for discussion on a “joint housing task force” and a “publicly owned property inventory.”
“I understand that the Village Council has indicated its support for creating a Joint Housing Task Force with Leelanau Township, although the specific set of tasks and composition of the group is not yet determined,” Ottenwess wrote in his report to the village council ahead of tomorrow’s board meeting. Those details could be nailed down at tomorrow's meeting.
“At their meeting last week the Planning Commission suggested moving forward with an inventory of all publicly owned property in the Village (and possibly Township) to evaluate its suitability for development of attainable housing,” Ottenwess continued. “This inventory could be an excellent resource to help guide future decisions about specific properties, for example, by developing a ranked list. I think it would be helpful to hear feedback and discuss (1) initiating this process now and (2) whether or not and to what extent to involve the Township and Joint Task Force.”
The suggestion for a municipal property inventory came from Tracy Cavendish, who is both a planning commission member and a village council trustee. According to minutes from the planning commission’s April 30 meeting, Cavendish believes creating a “master database of publicly owned property” and then evaluating each parcel “against standard criteria” could help “determine suitability for attainable housing development.”
“The Commission will request direction from the Village Council on 1. Whether to proceed with such an undertaking and 2. Who best to carry out the work - the Village PC, the Council or the joint Village Township Housing Task Force agreed to by both entities but not yet established,” last month’s planning commission minutes say of the property database.
Beyond talks about the task force and the inventory, tomorrow’s meeting also calls for the village council to discuss potentially using a village-owned property on West Street (pictured, right) for housing development.
“The Village owns a 1.1-acre vacant parcel on West Street that could be an ideal spot to consider the development of attainable housing in partnership with nonprofit developers,” Ottenwess wrote in his report. “The property is currently zoned R-2 Village Residential and utility infrastructure is accessible. The Village President and I discussed the prospect of moving forward with specific concept and development plans and bring this issue forward for discussion regarding next steps.”
An email correspondence included in tomorrow’s meeting packet indicates that village leaders have already had conversations with a pair of players at local housing nonprofits – Larry Mawby of Peninsula Housing and Jon Stimson of Homestretch – about the West Street parcel.
“Peninsula Housing would be interested in working on the West Street site, with the hope that the zoning could be changed to permit greater density on that site,” Mawby wrote in an email to McCann and Stimson. “We could look at small single family or duplexes for sale under our model where we retain the land, giving the home-owner a 89 year ground lease that controls the re-sale of the home, maintaining affordability and prohibiting STRs, among other things.”
Regarding the future of Buster Dame, Eric Potes, one of the local residents who has led the charge to save the park from development, claims the property actually can’t be developed. In a Facebook post published Tuesday, Potes argued that “there are two distinct, legally binding sets of restrictions placed on the land known as Buster Dame Park…that prohibit the park’s use for housing or land swaps unless extremely rare and complex conditions are met.” Those restrictions have to do with a Michigan DNR grant that funded improvements at the park in the 1990s; and with an easement agreement between the township and the village that stipulates public recreation uses for the land.
“These legal protections were put in place deliberately, to preserve parkland for our children and their children,” Potes wrote, urging fellow Northport residents to “stay informed, speak up, and hold our officials accountable to the legal documents that protect our shared spaces.”
Tomorrow’s meeting is scheduled to begin at 7pm at the Northport Village Office. The agenda and other meeting materials can be viewed here.