Detroit City Council weighs in on Brewster Wheeler affordable housing debate
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Renderings of MHT Housing's plans for the Brewster Wheeler site. Courtesy: MHT Housing via a public presentation
Detroit City Council is urging an affordable housing developer to consider adding market-rate apartments to its plan for redeveloping the Brewster Wheeler Recreation Center site.
Why it matters: Low-income options are needed, especially around greater downtown, in the city with a critical affordable housing shortage.
- But resident associations in the Brush Park area are concerned that "the plan would create a concentration of poverty as opposed to a preferable mixed-income development" for the "benefit of all residents," per the City Council resolution proposed by President Mary Sheffield that passed without opposition last week.
State of play: The developer, MHT Housing, is seeking state financing to help fund its project.
- Plans include three residential buildings designated as "affordable," plus a fourth supporting youth transitioning from foster care. MHT is also renovating Brewster Wheeler to reopen the rec center.
- Council's resolution asks MHT to do more community engagement and try to change its state tax credit application to include some market-rate units.
- MHT said in the resolution that it'll work with city officials to "explore potential options" for adding units not designated as affordable.
- The resolution states council's position and MHT's intentions without binding parties to a specific outcome.
What they're saying: Donavan Davis, a Brush Park CDC board member who wrote a letter to council opposing the project's income limits, emphasized the site is an important gateway to Eastern Market and to Brush Park continuing its "economic and cultural diversity."
- "I have been a homeowner in Brush Park since 2012," Davis wrote. "Since then the City has promoted a model of Mixed Income/Mixed Use that has led the neighborhood out of poverty while creating a lasting change accessible to all."
Between the lines: Linda Campbell, director of activist group Detroit People's Platform, tells Axios all Detroiters "deserve to live in vibrant and vital, health-sustaining communities" created across neighborhoods.
- She says MHT's planned income limits ranging from 30%-80% of our region's median income sounds like mixed income, which is "what we want" — a neighborhood offering amenities across class and generation.
Of note: Last week, City Council also approved amending an agreement to transfer the site and its responsibilities from a past developer — whose Brewster Wheeler project never materialized — to MHT.
- MHT didn't respond to our request for comment.