As the nation faces a growing housing crisis, local communities and housing organization experts are turning their attention to a powerful tool for transformation: zoning reform. It's a timely, strategic move that they say could be a game-changer for all Michigan residents.
“Everybody needs to know about this. Housing is the base foundation of every other part of your life. At some point, this is going to affect you and your family,” says Joel Arnold, planning and advocacy manager for
Communities First, Inc. (CFI). "The housing crisis affects everyone – not just those seeking to buy their first home."
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Courtesy photo.Joel Arnold, planning and advocacy manager for Communities First, Inc. underscores the need for zoning reform across Michigan.
Since 2010, the mission of Arnold's Flint-based organization has been to build healthy, vibrant communities through economic development, affordable housing and innovative programming. They're important in solving the crisis locally alongside the Genesee-Lapeer-Shiawassee Regional Planning Commission, as the leads for Region H in the
Statewide Housing Plan.
Launched in 2022 by the
Michigan State Housing Development Authority, the plan's goal is to address housing challenges and increase safe, affordable, and sustainable housing options.
The partnership is a collaboration of key stakeholders across 15 regions, each working to implement the initiative. Region H spans seven counties comprising Shiawassee, Genesee, Lapeer, St Clair, Tuscola, Sanilac, and Huron County – essentially the I-69 International Trade Corridor and the state's Thumb Region.
"In this Region H work, we have been really keen on tearing down barriers," Arnold says. "How can we remove barriers from communities that want to address zoning and land use barriers that make it really hard, and expensive, to build housing?"
He explains that traditional zoning ordinances in many communities make it functionally illegal or extremely difficult to build anything other than detached, single-family homes. The restrictions drives up housing costs and limits the availability of more affordable options like duplexes, triplexes, and accessory dwelling units (ADUs) aka secondary suites and "granny flats."
"This is regardless of how much money you have, or financing or contractors," Arnold says. "And this is a barrier across so many communities in a lot of Michigan, and really in a lot of America."
Detached, single-family homes, he shares, are the most expensive when it comes down to building costs. Arnold illustrates, by vivid analogy, how communities can create an affordability crisis by only allowing this type of housing.
“Imagine if you had a law that said that people could only buy Cadillacs," he says. "You would have an affordable car crisis, right?"
Arnold is also a city planner with the
Michigan Association of Planning (MAP). This organization is dedicated to promoting sound community planning that benefits Michigan residents. For many years, MAP has been on the forefront of zoning reform efforts. Therefore, a Communities First and MAP partnership made good sense.
"The great thing about working with MAP is that they've put together a
guidebook already," Arnold says. "Our partnership with MAP here has been a no-brainer. If you’re a local government thinking, ‘What can I do to make it easier to build housing in my community?', MAP can help."
He explains that the collaboration has involved individual community workshops and a series of events. As a result, MAP has been able to conduct zoning code reviews for nine different municipalities, providing master plan recommendations and actionable steps for reform.
Tools for Transformation
Yarrow Brown, executive director of
Housing North, also underscores the barriers to anything but single-family housing.
”We want to create more of a balance within the whole region, where people can live closer to where they work," Brown says. “Zoning will allow that. It’s one of the ways to bring the cost down for housing, especially for those with lower incomes."
Unlike traditional housing organizations, Housing North doesn’t build homes or place people directly into housing. Instead, they act as a catalyst – coordinating local governments, advocating for policy change, and providing the technical know-how communities need to move forward. Their work, which encompasses 10 counties, is guided by a comprehensive housing needs assessment. Notably, they serve as the Region D lead for the Statewide Housing Plan.
“Each county kind of has its own personality and housing need, so we try to work with each," she says. "We’re on the cusp of some real opportunities, especially to help rural communities."
Several communities are already on the road to change, including East Bay Township. Brown considers them a good example.
"They followed what we would call zoning best practices, where when updating their master plan, they took the housing-related goals and then aligned their zoning ordinance with those housing goals," she says. "They took 10 of the 15 principles that the MAP Zoning Reform Toolkit recommended and implemented those."
Housing North is moving toward the creation of a regional zoning atlas for all 10 counties, in partnership with the
National Zoning Atlas (NZA). Through their work, NZA is "digitizing, demystifying, and democratizing" information about zoning conditions in more than 33,000 jurisdictions in the country. Their online information is compiled into user-friendly, interactive maps showing allowed housing types, parking requirements and minimum lot sizes.
“Zoning is dense and tricky. It’s hard for people to wrap their minds around what’s allowed in their community,” Brown says. “The zoning atlas allows communities to visually see where the barriers are, and to understand the status quo. It's an opportunity to focus on where we can make zoning changes happen, in a more visual way.”
MAP's director of programs and communications, Leah DuMouchel, is proud of the work being done. MAP has partnered with NZA, resulting in five counties in Michigan's western and northwestern Lower Peninsula being added to the national atlas.
"The Zoning Atlas is one of those things that when you first hear about it, you wonder, 'How come nobody thought of that before?," she says. "There are all these laws, and we don't know how they work together."
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Photo by Doug Coombe.Leah DuMouchel, director of programs and communications, Michigan Association of Planning, says that the wider potential of zoning maps is worth exploring.In addition to the national-level project, MAP is part of a pilot project developing a
Michigan Zoning Atlas and a Michigan Zoning Map. The state atlas and map includes all the same housing data, however, the map is designed to allow for expansion beyond just housing.
"How can we combine zoning data with infrastructure, natural preservation, or other community planning data?," DuMouchel says. "We have seen, in the course of things, the possibility to use this data in ways that kind of go beyond what the national vision has done."
DuMouchel's work is layered with personal insight as she has a daughter who is of household formation age.
"It is as daunting as it could be to think about how she is going to remain close enough to her family and to her community where she grew up," DuMouchel says. "It is almost impossible to figure out how we’re going to make that work in the long-term."
A Historic Push for Housing Reform in Michigan
Andrea Brown, MAP's executive director, says that Michigan already made an important move in addressing its housing crisis. Last November, lawmakers passed
a bill requiring all municipalities to include housing as a core element in their master plans. It amends the state’s Planning Enabling Act, which previously required planning for transportation, utilities, and parks, but not housing.
“Most municipalities already plan for housing, but to have that explicitly included really was kind of a big step for housing in our state, and for planning for housing in our state," Brown says.
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Photo by Doug Coombe.Andrea Brown, executive director, Michigan Association of Planning, notes historic attention from lawmakers.The bill was introduced by State Rep. Kristian Grant, who is preparing to reintroduce a package of housing bills this fall. The proposed legislation includes capping minimum parking requirements for new developments, limiting redundant studies and reports during the development review process, allowing duplexes in single-family zones, and reforming protest petitions that can block rezonings for new housing.
“These are all coming up again, and they all failed, but the failing is part of the story,” Brown says. “It was a first pass, and it was a good first pass, because it really informed people about the importance of housing and the state’s role in legislating for housing.”
Brown, who has been MAP's lobbyist for 20 years, recalls this as the first time a housing bill package had been introduced in Lansing.
“Nobody has really taken on housing in that way, although, in our defense, the housing crisis only presented itself in the last decade," she says. "But, it has become acute now, right here, and across the nation.”
Brown points to Michigan’s changing demographics and the mismatch between the type of housing stock and the current population. She warns that as the population ages and household sizes shrink, the traditional focus on large, single-family homes is leaving many without suitable options. The state has more one- and two-person households than the four- and five-family households throughout the 50s-80s, when many of these houses were built.
“Many folks that are living in a lot of these three- and four-bedroom, single-family homes, for reasons beyond zoning, they’re precluded from moving out of them," Brown says. "There’s nothing to move into, right? The housing stock is severely limited.”
As efforts to solve the housing crisis continue to develop, it's DuMouchel's hope to create a wider range of housing options – so that every Michigan resident, from young professionals to seniors, can find a house they can call home.
"Don't we want our parents to be able to stay in the town where they, and maybe you grew up? Don't we want our kids to be able to buy, or even rent, a home in our municipality?" she says. "I hope that's compelling enough."