Turning Blight Into Affordable, Accessible Housing

This time on the BC CIty Connection housing focus, Darcy Schmitt and Krista Trout-Edwards share how the city and the Calhoun County Land Bank align land, zoning, and neighborhood input to turn vacant parcels into infill homes. 

The discussion maps the shift in acquisitions, highlights early wins in Washington Heights, and invites builders into a growing local pipeline.

Episode Resources
City of Battle Creek Housing Strategy
Calhoun County Land Bank Authority

Watch the video of this discussion here or see the episodes on Access Vision in Battle Creek Tuesdays at 6:30 PM on channel 17/917.

BC CIty Connection Podcast is produced by Livemic Communications.

Transcript

Setting The Housing Focus

Richard Piet 0:04

I'm Richard Piet. Welcome back to the BC City Connection podcast, right from City Hall in Battle Creek, Michigan. If you've been with us over a number of episodes, you're familiar with these. I would point out, though, this is the second in a special sub-series of episodes focused on housing and efforts therein. Darcy Schmitt's back with us, supervisor of planning in the city of Battle Creek, and Krista Trout-Edwards oversees the Calhoun County Land Bank. We're going to talk about how we all work together. Welcome to you both.

Darcy Schmitt 0:39

Thank you. Thank you.

What A Land Bank Does

Richard Piet 0:41

Thanks for being here. Let's talk first, Krista, if you don't mind. Just give us sort of an overview of what the land bank is. When you think of the name, it makes sense when you think about banks. Okay, there's money in banks. This is a land bank. There's land in the bank, and you're managing that.

Krista Trout-Edwards 1:00

That's correct. We don't have the money. We have the land. Um so we do uh management of vacant and underutilized properties across all of Calhoun County. Much of that came through the tax foreclosure process at different times. The majority of our property is located in the city of Battle Creek, um, with another concentration located in the city of Alley. And we do have some out county properties, but the majority of our work does happen in those two cities.

Richard Piet 1:29

Well, this makes sense, Darcy, because if the city is trying to sort out challenges as it relates to housing and not enough of it, you can't ignore this, can you? Look at there's a bunch of land bank property that has to be part of the equation, doesn't it?

Darcy Schmitt 1:44

Exactly. Um, so we're we're actually working on this very closely, um, what the land bank is doing and what we're doing. Um, we have to partner. I mean, that's how we're gonna get this done.

Richard Piet 1:57

Yeah. And so you talked just briefly there, Krista, about how you end up with a property in the land bank. But if if you were to just summarize the process of how this happens, what's the typical path?

Why Acquisitions Changed

Krista Trout-Edwards 2:11

Well, that path has changed over the years. So it it used to be a property would go through the foreclosure process, go to auction, maybe not sell, sell, and then come into the land bank by default. Um, that process has changed over time. Um, you see the market, you know, for a while there, the market was pretty hot. There wasn't a lot of properties available. So more properties were selling at auction. There are also fewer foreclosures as the treasurer's team does a lot of foreclosure prevention and really tries to get assistance to folks who need it to avoid tax foreclosure. And so there've been a significant uh drop in the number of foreclosures over the years. And so a lot of times now we may acquire a property if it's blighted. Um, there may be donation, or we may acquire a property from the county treasurer for the taxes taxable value. So it used to be we received a lot of properties through that tax foreclosure process. Now we don't hardly receive any through that process. And so we made you an active acquisition if it makes sense, if it's supported in that area. Um, so a lot of the properties in our inventory, we have just over 600 to give you a metric to measure that by. We used to have 1300. So we've done a really good job of you know selling and disposing of properties where it makes sense over the years. A lot of those properties are ones that we received previously through that process. Um, and our acquisitions have gone down significantly over time.

Richard Piet 3:39

So, Darcy, when you think about the properties the land bank owns in the city limits, what are some of the thoughts you have about how you can work together?

Darcy Schmitt 3:50

Yeah, the city of uh Babel Creek has uh a number of vacant properties as well that they own in the same neighborhoods that the the county has. And I think just in the small uh window that we have been working with the Calhoun County Land Bank for the post plan, um, there's been opportunities or potential opportunities where a combination of land bank and city property could provide a much better robust development right on the edge or in a uh zoning that could do like a multiple family, like a row of town homes or something like that, um, and market it to a developer. Um, the town homes are usually going to be cheaper to build and uh, you know, with the limitations on what you can uh build and market a single family house for a new build, it's just a little bit better opportunity for someone to not have such a large gap in what it costs and what it assesses at. So we're we're hoping that this can be a tool that we can use going forward.

Richard Piet 5:03

So it makes sense, Krista. If the land bank owns a property on a street in the city of Battle Creek and next door is another property that the city owns, boy, it sure makes sense to try and work together to try and make something more out of all of that.

Krista Trout-Edwards 5:20

I would say sometimes, yes, that definitely makes sense. You know, a lot goes into whether or not we acquire a property. As Darcy mentioned, there are some sites where the city and the land bank own the majority of a block. And it definitely makes sense there to assemble that property and package it as a development site and then try to attract a developer to that. Together, we can clear some development hurdles for a new developer or a local developer to work on that site. We can work with a neighborhood to get approval for a project in that area, and that just makes a more friendly site for a developer. In some other areas, you might have a neighbor who wants that, like if there's a shared driveway or there's an encroachment of a building. And so those are the things that we consider. So it's not a slam dunk that we would say, yes, we want that. When we did our land reuse strategy with the Washington Heights neighborhood, we actually considered all publicly owned properties in that pro in that process. And the neighborhood helped us decide which publicly owned sites from the city we wanted to acquire to package and land assembly. So that was a very open process where we looked at each site and we said, does it make sense for the land bank to acquire this? Because once we acquire it, we also acquire maintenance and other, you know, other things that we have to start taking care of on that piece of property. So we want to be thoughtful about it. And then we also want to make sure that it's not going to serve a purpose for a neighbor.

City And Land Bank Alignment

Richard Piet 6:49

Well, that part of home ownership happens no matter who owns it. That's the point, right? You have some responsibilities, even if uh it's a property that needs uh TLC going forward. Nevertheless, if you're holding it, you're having to uh to maintain it on some level. So, Darcy, when when you envisioned how to make this work, there was input from the neighborhoods, as Krista just alluded, right? So, how did that all happen?

Darcy Schmitt 7:17

Well, Krista's uh team has has been setting this process up for quite some time. And uh when did you start working, Krista, with uh the post-development or the post-uh neighborhood planning council?

Krista Trout-Edwards 7:31

We actually first started working with the Washington Heights Neighborhood Advisory Committee back in 2021-2022. Um, that was our first neighborhood that we sat down and did a land re-year strategy with. Um, and we did that through an advisory committee in part because the neighborhood planning councils weren't meeting at the time because it was COVID. And we had a grant to do that work through the Calog Foundation. And that was our neighborhood where we owned the most properties. So we had 250 properties within that planning council. And we wanted to create a disposition strategy that was guided by residents and not by our team. And so we worked through that process. And as we did that with the post-Franklin Neighborhood Planning Council, they were interested in doing something similar. They wanted to run it through the planning council, which made sense because at that time planning councils were up and running again and they already had that body. Um, they were already meeting. So we started that process in 2024. And tonight we're taking the final draft to that planning council for their approval, and that will go to our board for its approval later this month at our board of directors meeting. So it was a faster process in Neighborhood Planning Council one, in part because we had fewer properties. We had 101 properties.

Darcy Schmitt 8:46

Yeah, and and the role that we played, Richard, was um very small for this one. We were there to act as information for, you know, as the uh NPC went through each of the properties that the Calhoun County Land Bank owned. We just provided uh input. Like if there was a lot that um they thought might not be buildable, um, we had the opportunity to look at it and give them an idea of what size footprint could be built on that lot. So they could make their determination whether they wanted it to be a side lot or marketed for development. Um sometimes there's maybe a property right on the edge of something that's a higher density uh single or higher density uh residential zoning. And we would just uh let them know what the likelihood of rezoning that if they wanted that, and what, you know, basically the city would take the initiative so that the land bank wouldn't be acquiring any costs for that.

Assembling Sites For Developers

Richard Piet 9:50

I see. This is a collaboration for sure. And by the way, I should mention neighborhood planning councils were the focus of our uh immediately previous uh conversation. So if you're not familiar with those or about, uh go back and have a look and a listen at that discussion. Uh Chrissa, you were about to make a point, I think.

Krista Trout-Edwards 10:08

To add on what Darcy was saying about their uh help in the post-Franklin neighborhood, one of the main issues in that neighborhood is that it was platted a long time ago around the post-serial factory by CW Post, and the lots are much narrower. So 33 feet wide, um, lots of shared driveways, which makes it very different from Washington Heights neighborhood or some other uh neighborhoods in the core area of the city of Battle Creek. And so a lot of those lots were non-conforming, as she mentioned. You know, where is the buildable area? What can we build? So the city staff being part of that discussion was super helpful to not only our team, but also the residents because it helped us make decisions about dispositions or where lots should be combined to make a developable site and how to use resources to help the community build infill housing. I mean, they had they had a desire to see some new development in their neighborhood. And so with our organizations working together, we were helped, we were able to identify those sites that would make sense to have development.

Richard Piet 11:14

So when you look at uh how this has eventuated, uh the the open line of communication between the city and the land bank, the possibilities that you've looked at in these neighborhoods where uh the issue is most prominent, the neighborhood planning council back and forth and that involvement. When you look back at all of this, what's the progress you can say? Look, here's how this has moved forward.

Neighborhood-Led Reuse Strategy

Krista Trout-Edwards 11:44

In the Washington Heights neighborhood, we did a phase one infill housing strategy. We used that strategy to apply for dollars for MISTA. We have four new homes going up this year. We use that to apply for some other funding to help support that. There is a gap between what you can build a house for and what you can sell a house for. We know that that's a problem. But by having that neighborhood support, by helping decide where those houses should go, what type of design should be there, it's so important when you're seeking dollars, when you are able to say, look, this is what the neighbors would like to see there. And those are actually going to be um income-qualified sales. So, you know, it's gonna be an opportunity for folks who live in the neighborhood to buy those properties if they want. Um, some of them are all gonna be all one level, they're gonna be barrier free entry. So no stairs. If somebody wants to downsize from their two-story home and stay in the neighborhood, we hear that a lot. You know, what we're trying to do is create some opportunity for new housing, different styles of housing, and and create some assets on these lots that were vacant or had some blight on them. And, you know, we're trying to create that. And the only way we can really do that is to work collaboratively.

Richard Piet 13:01

And I presume, too, that if you have examples like you've cited of how this has moved forward, then that's attractive to other builders, true? Right. Or even the ones you know.

Darcy Schmitt 13:15

Right. And we're hoping too, because this is uh the whole process that Calhoun County Land Bank went through for the post and for Washington Heights really helped us have a jumpstart when we talked about the housing strategy that we're working at right now. And it's given us uh, you know, some ideas and direction to go to even make it more appealing to market to builders. We don't have a lot of builders in the state of Michigan. Um, we've lost a lot of them over the years, and you know, there's there's processes in place. Um, Krista's part of a really big one to get recruit more people and get them trained and to be part of the the builders around this area. And and it gives us an opportunity to put together um, you know, opportunities for marketing to these builders um and getting rid of some of the obstacles. Um, like Krista said, the neighborhood has buy-ins. So um we're talking about different types of housing that may not have been uh welcomed before, that I think every neighborhood is different through this process.

Richard Piet 14:29

So, Krista, if a builder is listening to this, what would you say to them about being more active in this potential opportunity?

Narrow Lots And Zoning Hurdles

Krista Trout-Edwards 14:42

I would say the County Builders Connection meets every fourth Friday at the link at eight o'clock. They can come on down, have breakfast, meet our team, meet other builders. Um we will we do outreach engagement around how to build on county projects, but at those fourth Friday coffee meetings, breakfast meetings, they can get information on projects we're building or we're bidding. They can get information on city projects and other projects going on around the community. Um, they can also meet our team who does outreach. We just adopted a or uploaded a new bidding process here at the county, a new vendor. So we're going to be doing a webinar on how to bid on that site, how to get registered. We try and make sure everybody knows how to do what we're looking for so that they can be successful in their bidding process. And we would just say get involved, get engaged. Um, and if you don't have a license yet, but you're working under someone, still come out, still talk to folks because that's what that group is there for. It's for networking, it's for learning, it's for finding resources.

Richard Piet 15:44

And you don't know who you might meet there who could help you along in that process, too.

Krista Trout-Edwards 15:49

Like we've got an insurance guy who comes and talks to them, uh a lawyer. I mean, you know, and if you need something, you talk to the team and we'll try to get somebody to come and speak on it or find a resource. You know, it's it's it's hard, it's important, and you know, we're still kind of developing what it's gonna look like or what type of resources. You know, we we hear from the builders a lot about mentoring and apprenticeships and and you know, how can we help with that? So there's more work to do, but you know, we want the folks who build in our community to live in our community, to spend money in our community. And having a healthy housing ecosystem means having a healthy construction ecosystem too.

Richard Piet 16:31

Yeah. Darcy, anything you want to add to that comment?

Darcy Schmitt 16:35

No, I think this whole conversation is important because we do have so many partners in this community that are working very hard and being very creative to work together as a team and find ways, creative ways to make this happen. It's it's not an easy thing to resolve. Um, housing is a big issue. The cost of materials, the cost of, you know, even the construction costs, because we do have such a small uh team of billers to work with, it's going to cost a little more.

Richard Piet 17:12

Well, congratulations on the progress you've been able to make on all of this. And if folks have questions, check the show notes for this episode because there'll be a number of links there you can click through and ask those questions. And maybe if you're a builder and you want more info, attend the coffee session that happens once a month and uh uh get some of those answered. Krista, before we go, say it again. When and where?

Krista Trout-Edwards 17:34

Fourth Friday of every month, except around the holidays at the link uh 311 West Michigan in Battle Creek. Can't miss it, eight o'clock.

Richard Piet 17:44

All right. Thanks to you both for the update. We'll be checking in again on all of this, too, and learn a little bit more, maybe specifics, about some of the examples that you've been working on. So thank you. Thank you. Subscribe to the BC City Connection and be alerted when these episodes come available. We're back soon.