Several bills meant to create more affordable housing became Michigan law Tuesday.
One of those policies offers incentives to developers to build more low-income housing. It creates a state match to the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit.
State Representative Kristian Grant (D-Grand Rapids) cosponsored that policy. She said it would also help fix up the less expensive housing units that are already out there.
“Older buildings that everyone knows are affordable, but no one wants to live there. We’ve got the dark hallways that kind of got the old smell. We can begin refreshing those, and people can be excited about living there again,” Grant said after a bill-signing event in Grand Rapids.
Michigan is still about 97,000 units short of its affordable housing goals, according to Michigan State Housing Development Authority Director Amy Hovey. She said the new credits would build on momentum the state has made toward addressing that shortage.
The non-partisan House Fiscal Agency estimates the credits could cost Michigan up to $252 million within the first six years of implementation.
Hovey said the benefits could balance that out.
“If we get housing developed that meets the needs of employers and families, that will drive up families’ incomes and will allow for more funding to be generated for the state budget,” Hovey told reporters.
The governor also signed a ban on big companies buying up more single-family homes, with some exceptions, into law on Tuesday. That’s after President Donald Trump signed similar restrictions into federal law earlier this month.
The federal ban applies to companies that own more than 350 single family homes. Michigan’s applies to companies that own at least 100 homes in Michigan and are worth at least $375 million.
Hovey said it’s a worthwhile policy. Even if it’s not a really "a problem" in the state.
“We don’t have a lot of large institutional owners of housing. But these bills and what happened at the federal level with the ROAD to Housing bill will help prevent that happening in our state long term,” Hovey told reporters.
The policy has garnered bipartisan support, although research has questioned whether banning institutional investors, like private equity firms, from buying single family homes will make much of a difference in home affordability.
Cutting red tape made up a third focus of Tuesday’s housing bills that were signed into law. They ease safety requirements for some multi-family buildings.
While bill sponsors celebrated the signings as a win, many other bills in a more ambitious housing package still haven’t made it to the governor’s desk. That bipartisan legislation would set statewide zoning standards in hopes of making it easier to build duplexes, carriage houses, and other types of smaller housing.
Grant, who coleads that package, said she’s still carrying that banner.
“It is what makes sense and when you look at the data, when you look at the proof all around the country about what is really going to move the needle for affordable housing, and affordable home ownership, it is zoning reform,” Grant said.
Those bills have faced pushback from local governments that fear the state pre-empting their own policies.
When asked her thoughts on the prospects of the bills Tuesday, Governor Gretchen Whitmer said she was willing to keep working on housing policies. Though she noted lawmakers might not spend a lot of time in Lansing in the months approaching the election.
“At the end of the day, it’s always going to be about what’s possible, what can get done. We’ve got less than six months less in the year, I know the Legislature’s probably not going to be around a whole lot. But I remain eager to do more to help people get into affordable housing,” Whitmer told reporters.
Whitmer called the bills she signed Tuesday, “a big step forward.”
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