Three Ottawa County projects will build 182 new housing units: Here’s where
HUDSONVILLE, Mich. (WOOD) — Three developments are bringing more much-needed income-qualified housing to Ottawa County.
Ottawa County, like several other local communities throughout Michigan , is facing a housing shortage. A found Ottawa County needs 15,500 more housing units in a mix of rental and for-sale.
The county is taking advantage of the Housing Tax Increment Financing program for three housing projectsa program created by the state last year . The program allows tax revenues from the redevelopment of brownfield sites — properties that are blighted or dilapidated — to fund affordable housing costs.
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The three Ottawa County projects address the community's need for more rental units and the need for more workforce housing; the housing needs assessment found the county needs around 1,600 affordable workforce rental units.
"If we can bring more inventory online, even at market rate, it alleviates some of the demand issue," Becky Huttenga, the economic development coordinator for Ottawa County, told News 8. "But if we can bring more housing units online and have some held for workforce folks to be able to afford, those are two big benefits that come from these housing projects we have. So we're bringing on more inventory generally and then income qualified units specifically."
Terra Station, planned at off of Chicago Drive, will be a 12-building project will a total of 131 new rental units in downtown Hudsonville. Of those, 35 will be income-qualified.
There will also be 4,600 square of retail space on the 4.5 acre site. Project leaders hope to have it done by July 2026.
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In that same area of Hudsonville, Prospect Flats along 32nd Street and Prospect Street is set to bring 41 new apartments across two three-story buildings. The project has already broken ground and is expected to be done by May. It will include five income-qualified units.
Finally, Winsor Place at near US-31 in Spring Lake is a three-story project that will have 41 units, five of which will be income-qualified. There will also be 2,700 square feet of retail space.
That project is expected to take a year to 15 months to complete.
The developments are focused on walkable areas. The Spring Lake development, for example, is within walking distance of the city's downtown and a farmer's market, Huttenga said.
"It's creating these more vibrant core communities that provide a lot of amenities and benefits from living in a complex versus green fields that are out on the edge of town that really aren't near things that people need and where they want to go," she said. "It's a creating some nice density as well as creating community."
Huttenga expects Ottawa County will to see more multiunit projects using the TIF incentive as communities work to address the housing shortage. She said approving the use of TIF for the projects was a fairly straightforward process that included a lot of dialogue with the community.
The "tricky part" was the financing gap, she said. Alongside the Housing TIF program, the state also created the Pilot Housing TIF Gap Lending program, which offers funding to projects to income-restricted housing projects. It helps address the potential rent loss a developer faces by offering units at income-qualified rates instead of market rate, Huttenga explained.
"It's that loss, 'I'm going to only charge this much rent, which means I'm not going to have enough money to make this a solvent, financially feasible project,' that's where that financing gap comes in," she said. "So incentivize developers to build the type of housing that we need at the rates that people can afford, so we can alleviate some of the housing shortage faster."
