First Battle Won, But The Fight’s Not Over
Good work everyone at the Planning Commission! But the developer is back with the Township Board, and has expedited it to this week’s meeting. We need lots of people to show up in support for defeating this developer and the sabotage of our master plan in favor of high-density housing that the area can’t support. Please join us at the Township Board meeting on Monday, June 27 at 5:30pm.
Major Issues with the Proposed High-density Rental Complex – Opening the Door for Unrestricted Development Anywhere in the Township
This project is an unmitigated disaster from many perspectives – urban planning, infrastructure, education, city services, and even social responsibility. Breaking the Master Plan sets a precedent for uncontrolled high-density development anywhere else in the Township, which Byron Center residents will have to pick up the tab for through increased taxes. There are other municipalities around here, such as Grandville and Kentwood, which have allowed uncontrolled and unplanned non-owner-occupied development which has increased crime rates, drugs in the schools, and caused many other social, economic, and infrastructure problems. We want to learn from their mistakes and not repeat them here. Below is a summary of just a few of the issues.
Breaking the Master Plan
The Master Plan is quite well thought-out and very thoroughly studied. It intends for the area of this development to be a mix of commercial near the road and mixed use behind it, which could be residential or extensions of the commercial spaces. None of that space is envisioned to be multi-family residential. There are plenty of other places within the township that are already designed and intended for multi-family residential. If we allow the Planning Commission to disregard the Master Plan for this, we set a precedent for this to be done anywhere else in the Township, and the Master Plan becomes irrelevant. The developer of this project even agreed with us at the initial meeting that this opens the Township up to uncontrolled development.
School system
There is only one school on the north end of town - Marshall Elementary School, and it is already overburdened. The increased density of this project would add even more to that small school. Additionally, we have no middle school, junior high, or high school on the north side, so any kids in those age brackets would need to be bussed to the other end of town.
Mismatch with surrounding area
The property is currently zoned Rural Residential, as is the surrounding area. The proposed density of this rental complex is roughly 5x the density of the residential areas around it. The folks in the Sunflower neighborhood just to the west of the property have not even been allowed to subdivide their single-family lots. Why are we allowing an exception for this right next door to them? Additionally, the entire area surrounding this project is owner-occupied and does not fit with the aims of this property.
Traffic
Due to the nature of Byron Center being a major arterial road, the terrain, and M6 being so close to 64th St, the Township cannot add an additional driveway or traffic light to Byron Center for this project. Which means all of the traffic from this development would dump out onto 64th St - cross traffic for an arterial road. Much of this traffic is anticipated to need to turn north on Byron Center to access M6. This results in needing to choose from one of two options – (1) choking the traffic from this development and all of the residents already on 64th St, or (2) retiming the traffic light for more throughput on the cross street at the expense of stopping traffic on Byron Center for longer periods of time. According to traffic counts, this is one of the busiest intesections in Byron Township, so this change cannot be considered lightly.
Tax structure for rental properties
There is a concept for rental properties called depreciation where, in short, landlords have a large tax incentive to sell their properties every 7 years. So the typical operating mode of many landlords is to acquire a property, depreciate it for 7 years, and then sell it, all the while putting as little into upkeep of the property as possible because they don’t intend to hold onto it long-term and the problems are passed off to the next sucker who buys the property. At the initial meeting, when the developer was asked what their longest-held property was, they answered 6 years. But then they tried to tell us that they were taking out 30 year mortgages. The length of the mortgage doesn’t matter – it can be paid off when they sell at 7 years. So the fact that they have not even held a property through one whole depreciation cycle is rather indicative of their upkeep plans.
Section 8 government-assisted housing
At the initial meeting with the developer, the question was asked whether they would be taking Section 8 tenants, and the property manager replied that yes they would. However, they asserted that would not happen because the rents would be too high. There are several problems with this. First off, participation in the Section 8 certification program is voluntary and optional, so the fact that their plan includes accepting Section 8 tenants before even being built is telling. But the other problem is that while their primary target market right now may be for higher-rent tenants, as the property loses its “shiny penny” newness, what started as high rents will fall, and Section 8 comes onto the scene. The fact that they’re already, by their own admission, planning for this is alarming. Additionally, rents are set by market value, not just unilaterally dictated by the landlord. So they cannot guarantee that rents will be whatever they claim they will be set at – when vacancies pile up, rents have to lower to fill them.
A great plenty of existing multi-family residential in the Township
Byron Township already has abundant multi-family residential and multi-family residential PUD areas to serve residents who choose to rent rather than own. To say otherwise is a gross misrepresentation of even our current zoning map, let alone the Master Plan. However, they are in areas with suitable infrastructure for them. This is not one of those areas.
Electrical grid
The electrical grid this project would be placed in (which covers a roughly 1 mile radius from the M6/Byron Center interchange), runs separately from the rest of the township. Instead, it’s linked with the Metro hospital complex on the other side of M6. The north end grid is already strained and experiences not infrequent blackouts and brownouts, particularly at times when the residential demand is high. By sticking with the master plan and balancing the time-of-day demands of commercial and residential, the load on the grid can be better balanced. Additionally, as the demand for electricity increases with more and more electric cars coming online, concentrating all of the demand into a high-density residential area, the demand spikes at the same time of day, risking further collapse of that section of the grid.
Water system
Byron Township’s water system is already running into capacity problems and has already been pursuing needing to add a second large water main connection to the Wyoming water system to meet current demands. Large projects like this strain the water system further than the area was planned for.
Public recreational facilities
The north end of town does not have any parks or public recreational facilities, which means that these new residents will generally have to travel nearly two miles to access a park. This seems rather paradoxical to put a rental complex for people who may not be able to afford to buy a house and put it so far away from any of the wonderful (and free) parks, playgrounds, etc. that the residents of Byron Center are able to enjoy, especially when there are no connecting walking paths or sidewalks.
Walkable neighborhoods
The concept of “walkable neighborhoods” has been gaining quite a bit of traction in the urban planning space as current and historical neighborhoods and traffic patterns have been studied. The idea is that most of the things that residents would most frequently want to access are available within a short walk, without having to use a car. In the age of high fuel costs, this is even more important. But to do that requires that people have places to work, shop, and live within walking distance. By breaking the master plan and putting exclusively residential at the expense of commercial where residents could work or shop, it breaks the entire concept and requires that residents drive to nearly everything.
Lack of access
The developer of this project has said they will be paying for expansion of 64th St from Byron Center to the entrance to the development. But this is only part of the story. Access to Kent Trails is down 64th St to the west, around a blind corner of the road, and there are no sidewalks. This becomes a major safety issue - the road would need to be expanded not just from Byron Center to the development, but all the way to Kent Trails, complete with sidewalks. The expense of this would fall on the other area residents. Plus, the only “public access” connection is to go around the corner to the south where Kent Trails crosses 64th St. Even if sidewalks are built that far, the more likely option is for people to tresspass across private property to avoid the out-of-the-way walking distance. Additionally, looking to the east, the sidewalks do not connect from the Byron Center core to this area, and the only walking path across M6 is via the Kent Trails tunnel. Meaning we’re again requiring people who are likely choosing to rent rather than buy due to financial constraints to use a car to get to anything.
No public transportation
There are no public transportation links serving the north end of the Township, and due to the low density of the residential areas surrounding this property, it is unlikely there ever will be. While means that, again, we’re requiring the residents to own and maintain cars to access even basic services.
Inspections staff
Although Byron Township does require periodic inspections for rentals, it’s only every few years. Other municipalities which have geared themselves more for rental property, such as downtown Grand Rapids, have a large staff of inspectors and code enforcement personnel. Byron Township does not have this kind of supervision of our rental properties. Which means we will either need to raise taxes to hire more enforcement staff or run these new rental properties with minimal supervision to ensure they comply with the Township codes and ordinances, along with the increase in crime which comes with high-density housing and low enforcement.
Lutheran Church/Samaritas involvement
Lutheran Church/Samaritas is the current owner and plans to retain ownership of a portion of this parcel. We leave this as an exercise to the reader to look up Samaritas and the problems associated with their involvement with government-funded refugee resettlement.
Sincerely,
Byron Center Speaks
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