The City of Kalamazoo's ideas for creating a pocket neighborhood of new homes at 322 Stockbridge Avenue has the Edison Neighborhood Association excited, intrigued and hopeful.

And they want to be involved in shaping the plan.

Now in its early stages, the conceptual plan aims to put 143 to 200 homes on the nearly 15-acre lot that was once a home to a bingo hall and the former Health and Human Services building. 

Right now, abandoned acres of crumbling pavement channel water to the flood-prone areas around it -- Google satellite view shows what looks to be a channel through the parking lot created by runoff and erosion, as if nature has begun reclaiming the land.

Mark WedelEdison Neighborhood Association Executive Director Stephen Dubuie and ENA board member and realtor Juliet Altman look forward to getting a closer look at what the city has proposed for housing development in the neighborhood.New housing would be much, much better than what's there now, ENA executive director Stephen Dupuie and board member Juliet Altman say. But they have questions and concerns. One thing they know for sure is, they want to have a say in the development, they want to be involved, and they want to be able to "own it."

Not "own it" literally, Dupuie says. "We want residents to own it," he says.

"I think it's really important, especially from a development perspective, to really think about this as an opportunity to do this from a homegrown perspective. It feels kind of top-down right now," Dupuie says.

Courtesy of the City of KalamazooAn overview of the property on Stockbridge where housing development has been proposed.The City has put together the first draft of a plan for the neighborhood. "Now's the time to say thank you, yes, and now we'll take it from here," Dupuie says.

Dupuie says he sees three to five years before the plan is final and building actually starts, so there will be plenty of time for community engagement, discussions, and revisions.

Community engagement is set to begin with a presentation of the plans to the Edison Neighborhood Association in October. 

Option A, Option B

Deputy City Manager Rebecca Kik unveiled the Stockbridge plan to the Kalamazoo City Commission July 7. 

The City purchased the site three years ago with funding from the Foundation for Excellence, she says. "How often do you get nearly 15 acres of property in a neighborhood, to think about how you bring that housing back? How do you knit that neighborhood back together?" Kik says. "I'm excited about what we can do."
Courtesy of the City of KalamazooTwo possible options are among the plans being considered for the land owned by the city on Stockbridge, the former site of the Health and Human Services building.
The new neighborhood will be designed with greenspace areas, and will be walkable/bikeable with trails. It will involve the construction of new streets that connect with Stockbridge, Burdick, and Reed. It will also be designed to match the surrounding neighborhood's character, Kik says. She cites area employers, local grocery, park, and health amenities that are close enough to be reached without driving as draws to living in the new homes,

Kik says, "Our process started by first studying the site and the opportunities. We created some development goals, environmental goals, wanted to know what the buildable area was, what the constraints and considerations were -- as we know, this has also been part of a major flood plain. We did housing plans and studies. What types of housing? What are the building uses? How do they look? What's the density that we want to put back on this space? What is the mix recommendations?"

The housing would be a mix of multi-family and multi-use apartment buildings, standard houses, duplexes, quadplexes, and a variety of mini, narrow, and carriage houses.

The site would use the City's pre-approved housing plans, which, Kik reminds the commission, won a CNU (Congress for the New Urbanism) award in May. 

As CNU writes, pre-approved design programs "greatly streamline approvals for a select slate of plans that are publicly approved ahead of time. They typically still require site plan approval and some level of review, but the process is faster and more predictable." 

There will be multiple styles of homes in the new development, because there are a variety of households, she says. 

Through the latest Imagine Kalamazoo studies, the City has been hearing, "'I want to age in place. I don't want to have to leave my neighborhood just because I don't need my three-bedroom house anymore. I want something smaller, but I still want to live in Edison,'" Kik says. 

"So, how can we offer people multiple choices as they move through life and want to downsize, want to upsize? How can we make sure that we're getting a big mix of housing types?"
Courtesy of the City of Kalamazoo
The City looked at the housing market analysis of the area. "So, 28% of households are with children, 30% of households with single people, 10% of them are single people 65 and older. 72% of households do not have children yet, or maybe not ever, right? The pre-approved plans offer a variety of one and two-bed units," she says.

The two conceptual plans for 322 Stockbridge look similar. Both options A and B have streets that connect with Stockbridge and Reed, plus continuations of Richard Avenue and E. Emerson St., which now dead-end at the property. Both A and B have a drainage easement topped with greenspace through the center, and large areas reserved for flood storage on the east side along railroad tracks and Portage Creek. Both have apartment units at Stockbridge, with lower-density homes south of Richard.

The differences are: Option A will have 200 units, arranged into four different "character zones." Option B has 143 units, including cottage courts and ADUs; its greenspace areas will be smaller and more dispersed among more single-family homes, with no duplexes or quadplexes. Option A would have 20 units in duplexes, 44 in fourplexes. 

(See the City's PDF files on the plans, from July 7)

Next steps: Community engagement, finding developers, soil cleanup, flood mitigation, etc. 

Kik acknowledges that this is just the start of the project. "I don't want you to think that just because we have a great plan and a great framework and an awesome idea that somehow we snap our fingers and it just gets built, because it just doesn't work that way, right?"

Courtesy of the City of KalamazooDepending on what's under the pavement, there likely will be soil cleanup. "There are metal concentrations…. If we want to do residential here, we're going to need to remove those soils and bring in clean. That will also give us the opportunity to reshape the site once we have the demolition of the asphalt and the building done," Kik says.

Soil remediation will also include raising the topography to avoid flooding. The area is prone to floods, so greenspace and a flood zone will be designed to protect residents, including residents who currently live in the path of rainwater that flows away from the site -- Kik points out that now the site is "ten acres of parking lot, an impermeable surface," plus the "huge roof of a 30,000 square foot building." 

Further steps include a "development proposal process to identify developers and facilitate getting parcels into the hands of the community, potentially with partnerships with neighborhood associations, down payment assistance, and development assistance for first-time developers," according to notes sent by the City. 

Kik has a lot of questions that'll need answers: "Who develops this site? Who does the multi-family (apartment buildings)? ... Our community can do the single family and the duplexes and the quads, but how do we sell those lots? How would we begin to get these parcels into the hands of our community? And so, we really want to talk about what does that process look like. 

Courtesy of the City of KalamazooIn addition to asking what's preferred, Option A, B, a combination of the two, or other ideas, Kik says that a big part of the community engagement will be asking who builds these homes and how they're sold and rented. 

"I'll definitely be bringing back the recommendations from the community engagement," she told the commissioners, "and talk to you a lot about what we heard from the community about how they would like the development process to be held, so that together we can make the decision for the next steps of the community development process."

ENA response: DINKS and seniors are looking for smaller homes

ENA executive director Dupuie has spoken to Kik about the development, he says, and board members have studied the details.

In their opinions, will this project fulfill Edison's housing needs?

Altman, a realtor, says, "We definitely need more (housing). If we look at the market, there are so many buyers and not enough houses, which is why it's driving up the price, right? Which is great for sellers, not so great for first-time home buyers."

She says, "It's the type of housing" that should be a focus of any new project.

Mark Wedelhe last time a development went up in the Edison, A coalition came together to acquire the land and build 23 homes that were sold to low-to-moderate income families.Dupuie says, "There's a lot of bi-level, three-bedroom, two-bath houses in Edison. I think that's the prevalent housing that we have.... There's a need for more one- and two-bedroom homes in the neighborhood. "

He adds that, when he was looking for a place in Edison, he found homes "for a single person with a dog" are rare. "Or somebody who is aging and looking to downsize, or first-time home buyers. We also see people having less and less children."

"The three-bedroom, two-bath might still be the thing," he says, but Dupuie doesn't see a future demand for large family homes.

Altman says, "We have a lot of great, beautiful homes in Edison, but to Stephen's point, they're so big and they're so massive that it can be intimidating to a first-time home buyer, because the typical first-time home buyer is usually young, single -- or right now, there's the DINKs, double-income, no kids. That's super trendy."

Dupuie notes that the plan for Stockbridge has "a variety of options that meet those growing needs." He points out the ADUs in the plans -- accessory dwelling units, small homes on a plot which could be rented out to singles or be a near-to-family home for a senior family member -- "that's pretty progressive thinking."

In Kalamazoo's past, ADUs and other options that weren't the traditional family home were discouraged, Altman says. "It would be interesting if the city's facilitating this, if they're actually going to be willing to work with it." She has noticed the City has been making zoning adjustments to try new housing ideas. "I'm hopeful that that means they will be a little bit more lenient."
Mark WedelThe last time a housing development went up in Edison it had a bit of suburban look to it.
Option A or B?

Dupuie says he's leaning toward Option A. "You can fit more houses.... The layout is better. It's more accessible for people in it and using it," he says.

But he'd like to "see what everyone else in the neighborhood thinks."

"I always opt for less houses, because I see people favoring land more," Altman says. Once the plans are presented to the community, they may hear, "'Hey, we need more green space. We need more walkability. We need more of that,'" she says. 

"A lot of my clients buy houses because they have dogs.... No children, but they always have pets. So you need that green space for their four-legged children. But that's just something that I normally see."
 
They both note that people in apartments always crave a lawn of their own. And many would also like to not have to climb stairs to reach their homes.

"Single-level, main floor laundry, who knew that would be my favorite thing these days?" Dupuie says with a laugh.

Altman points out that people with disabilities, and the growing population of seniors, would love the smaller single-level homes of the plan. "I can see them moving into here and still maintaining their independence."

People want a bit of a yard, and don't want to feel elbow-to-elbow with their neighbors. But urban areas can't be like suburbia -- they require density for a larger tax base to pay for infrastructure and services, and simply to provide housing for a large population.

Does this plan hit that sweet spot in the middle?

Dupuie points out the multifamily buildings on the Stockbridge side of the plans. Option A has 91, 450-square-foot units planned, B has 103.

That's offset by the variety of houses south of the buildings, Altman says. "My personal appeal to it is that they're focusing on making it look like houses, and they're smaller," she says. "It still keeps the community vibe and the neighborhood." She expects that there'll be no "skyrises" towering over Stockbridge as there are in Downtown Kalamazoo

The appeal of the plans is that they keep "that little vibe of a little neighborhood," she says.

Stability wanted

Altman is "super optimistic" about the effort to create new housing on what's now a paved lot and abandoned building. 

"But I also have concerns about how it will turn out and the long-term success of it. I want it to be a success, not something 20 years from now we're saying, 'Oh my gosh, remember that one time...' and then it's a train wreck and just dilapidated and ignored." 

If the community is invested fully in the success of 322 Stockbridge, the project should last.  Altman emphasizes that it should be built by local developers, owned by local people. 

Some of the residents will be renting, however.

In her presentation to the Commission, Kik describes the "power of the duplex." If one owned a duplex in the Stockbridge plan and rented out the other side, then with FHA loan eligibility and rental income, one could live "mortgage-free," she says.

Dupuie and Altman say any rentals that are owner-occupied would be much better than those owned by an off-site or non-local landlord.

There will be rented units -- will they be locally owned? "Historically, we just see outside investors come in, gobble up a house, and they don't live here and they don't maintain the property," Dupuie says.

They both suggest that bylaws will be needed that will prevent the future sale of any of the properties to an outside owner. 

Altman wonders if there could be tax incentives for people to live and stay in the new development. 

She looks to Marketplace, where she lives, as an example the City could emulate for Stockbridge.

Marketplace is a still-new-looking pocket neighborhood near the Farmers Market. Before 2010, it used to be seven acres of vacant land in Edison, until a collaboration of the City of Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo County Land Bank, and Home Builders Association of Greater Kalamazoo built 23 homes there to be sold to low-to-moderate income families. 

Marketplace is how she became an Edison resident, Altman says. 

"That was our first time home buying," she says. Tax incentives and other programs helped her get a home. "The process was so confusing," so she became a realtor to help other first-time buyers.

At Marketplace, there was "a ten-year incentive of lower taxes. That was the incentive to move there, and it was really helpful for a first-time homeowner to not have to pay such an outrageous tax hike right away."

Also, in the terms of sale, owners had to stay with the home for 10 years. "Then you had stability for at least 10 years, right?" Marketplace "still continues to be stable even after 10 years, now."

"You have to incentivize stability," Altman continues. "And longevity. That stability is what keeps the neighborhood just going and running smoothly. It avoids trouble, and it just helps people live a better life."

Edison is a very dense, very diverse neighborhood. The Stockbridge development could bring in hundreds of new residents, they emphasize. Some may be current Edison residents looking for a new place to live, others could be seeking a new life in the City. Stability and long-term success is what will be needed, along with the housing.

"Edison is a great neighborhood to live in," Altman says. "As a realtor, I do struggle with educating clients (about the positives of Edison), but once they move in here, it is a great place."

She continues, "We have a lot going for it, but we also need people here to make the moving pieces work. So if we are able to get over 100 and some odd people, fresh blood, young residents, or older residents--it's going to be a great opportunity for them."

Dupuie hopes "the diversity of the development matches the diversity of the neighborhood. Those two things really go together well -- and also indicate that the current people here should be informing what it looks like."