Land Deals And School Buses: Proceed With Caution

Sept. 2, 2016

Traverse City’s Downtown Development Authority (DDA) would like to consider getting into the land development business. Such ventures are much easier when using other people’s money.

What the group is talking about is buying land and selling it at a discount to developers who will then build something to help alleviate an allegedly critical housing shortage.

The basis of this is a “housing target market analysis” LandUseUSA completed in 2014 for Networks Northwest, an organization representing 10 counties in the northwestern lower peninsula. (It used to be called the Northwest Michigan Council of Governments.) The report included some startling numbers regarding housing, especially in Grand Traverse County and Traverse City. The DDA and others that support the idea Traverse City is desperate for housing refer often to the report as justification for their obsession.

The analysis said Traverse City has the potential for an additional 240 owner-occupied housing units and a whopping 1,302 renter-occupied housing units, annually. That’s right: 1,542 new housing units every year.

Note the use of the word potential. Not need or demand but potential. If that annual potential was realized, Traverse City’ population would double in a decade. If we don’t realize this potential, we were warned, we could lose new residents to Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids and Detroit.

As if.

Traverse City’s population from the 2010 census was 14,674. It is estimated at about 15,100 now. That’s 100 new residents a year, not 1,500. And if you visit a homes-for-sale site online, you’ll find lots and lots of houses for sale in the region, at all price points.

But what if we had a lot more affordable housing and apartments? Wouldn’t people be flocking here to live? Maybe, but most of the local job openings offer entry level pay, and even cheap housing isn’t much of a draw for low pay.

Every study we’ve seen acknowledges the need for additional affordable rental units; that’s not the debate. But our fixation with putting them downtown ignores the rest of the city and close county areas as viable options. That impedes progress instead of furthering it.

The DDA would like to solve this challenge itself, or at least consider it. Let’s follow the bouncing tax dollars.

First, to buy land, the organization will use money it has “captured” from its tax incremental financing (TIF) districts. That’s tax money that, absent the TIF district, would have gone directly to Traverse City, Grand Traverse County, and Northwestern Michigan College.

Next, the DDA will discount the land to developers who will, presumably, build something the DDA likes. Now we’re using what would have been tax revenue to subsidize land developers. There aren’t many who need the help less than millionaire dirt merchants, but no one can blame them for asking for and accepting the gift.

Then, the developers can get on the real gravy train by requesting brownfield redevelopment money — the payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) program that saves them a small fortune in taxes from which we citizens won’t benefit — and grants aplenty.

Then, finally, we’ll subsidize the resultant housing to make it affordable.

Four steps — and all of them involving money that taxpayers have either paid or that somebody else won’t pay. It is very nearly surreal.

Downtown Development Authorities were created to save and revitalize failing Main Streets, USA. Traverse City’s DDA did excellent work fulfilling that charter in the ’80s. But it’s safe to say our downtown has been revitalized, and the DDA appears interested in empire building well beyond its intended purpose.

It’s time the City Commission reins in the DDA, lest we forget who’s actually running the city.

Those big yellow buses are out and about once again, so it’s time for us to start paying very close attention.

Flashing red lights on a school bus mean you have to stop, whether you’re behind the bus or approaching it. This is not a suggestion; it’s the law.

Yes, it can be aggravating getting stuck behind one of these children transporters.

That’s nowhere near a good enough reason to zoom around them. School bus drivers, the unsung heroes of the public school systems, will move to the side of the road to let you pass as soon as they safely can.

If you don’t really care about the safety of the children getting on and off those buses, consider this: The buses have cameras. They will record your foolish impatience, and your friends in law enforcement will come calling.

You can be liable for up to $100 in costs, fines ranging from $100 to $500, plus up to 100 hours of community service. As a bonus, you’ll likely receive an unpleasant note from your auto insurer, not to mention the scorn of anyone who ever had a child ride a school bus.

Flashing red lights mean stop. Please.