Affordable Housing in Glen Arbor

Oxymoron forever, or can we find solutions?

By Linda Alice Dewey
Sun contributor

Glen Arbor needs help — hired help, the kind that works for wages. Although the community turned itself inside out to help one another after the recent superstorm, the devastation left in its wake after the tree and power line pros left highlights a pre-existing problem. We who are of a certain age (and I do speak for myself) need young, able-bodied workers — desperately.

Local handymen are few and far between. So are good housekeepers, gardeners, plumbers, electricians — you name it. And if you are lucky enough to find one, chances are s/he doesn’t live in town. As a result, residents — whose ages average 63 — and local business owners find ourselves on waiting lists for workers from afar to come in and help clean up our properties, fix our roofs, replant our trees, rebuild our homes. Employers are short of reliable workers whose salaries might range up to $80,000.

The plain fact is, the folks who work for these wages can’t afford to buy homes here. “We have a perfect storm in Leelanau County,” warns past Leelanau County Commissioner and former Glen Arbor Zoning Coordinator Bob Hawley, “because we have a real need for affordable housing, and yet we have some of the highest property values in the state.” For this reason, a new push for creating affordable housing in the county — and in Glen Arbor itself — is gaining momentum.

Some business owners don’t see affordable housing coming to our town — at least not the kind that is subsidized—“because the values are too high,” reasons LVR Realty owner Ranae Ihme. “We have sold more real estate this year,” she comments, “than we did [all of] last year. The market in Glen Arbor is unbelievable.” The prices, she adds, are enormous. In fact, on the day she spoke with the Sun, Ihme’s company received three offers.

John Peppler, of Schmidt Coldwell Banker Realtors, agrees. “Why would anybody sell for less, when the price just goes up?” he asks. Bob Hawley describes the situation for a potential investor or developer. “From an economic standpoint,” he says, “it’s a lot more financially [rewarding] to build seasonal housing. You could build apartments or units,” which Hawley believes might solve the affordable housing problem, “but you can make more money renting them for three months in the summertime than [renting them] year round.”

“Prices in the county are $70-80,000 more than in Traverse City,” Hawley points out. As a result, he says, people drive longer distances to work. Teaches are a good example. “Probably two-thirds of the staff at Glen Lake [School] live in Traverse City; that’s where the housing is that they can afford to buy and live in,” he explains. “Those people are shut out of the county.”

“As far as the land to building ratio goes,” says Peppler of Glen Arbor real estate costs, “land is very expensive.” However, he counters, “If you want something affordable, right now you can buy a lot in Maple City for $7,000 and a modular home for $68,000. That’s the definition of affordable housing. But people don’t want to live in Maple City.”

So how can Glen Arbor employers draw the additional workers necessary to keep their businesses viable? “The only way we’re going to do it,” says Ihme, “is to pay more money and by bringing people in.” Ihme’s second company, Leelanau Vacation Rentals, manages cottage rentals for individual owners. She notes that The Homestead brings in housekeepers from Jamaica, as does the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island; they live on the premises and drive golf carts to work locations within the resort. But Ihme’s clientele is spread over a large area; furnishing housing and the transportation they would need to travel between sites is not as feasible. Nevertheless, she and her management staff are thinking creatively. Instead of furnishing housing, they are considering charging her customers a cleaning fee that will go directly to her housekeepers as an incentive to take the job and stay with it.

Katy Wiesen, co-owner of Crystal River Outfitters, The M-22 Store and The Cyclery, says that her companies haven’t come up short of employees…yet. “We’re pretty lucky,” she admits. Her employees, who are mostly seasonal college students, have stuck there for five to seven years. But, she says, “College internships are really taking away from our staff. Every year it’s getting harder. We do get to the season and get a little nervous.” Looking ahead, the Wiesens are doing some creative thinking of their own and are considering offering college internships for their staff. They have also contemplated recruiting at Michigan colleges. “The problem is, where are they going to live?” she asks. “We haven’t tried to solve that question. We haven’t gone that far.”

Cherry Republic’s management has gone that far in its search for creative solutions. This past spring, the company bought a house in Maple City where six of their employees now reside. That’s not all. “We also started a program where we match kids’ college savings $1 for every hour worked the first year,” Sutherland explains, “and for every dollar the student will save the second year, we put in $2. Then, $3 to $1. The program is going well.”

On a large scale, Sutherland has even thought about swapping employees with another seasonal community — possibly one located in a sunny area like Florida or in a ski area such as Vail. In such a program, two cities with reverse seasons might exchange seasonal workers. “The positive, too, for the community, if we have this seasonal housing, is that they come, they work, they go away, and they’re not competing for the few jobs that are left for the other nine months…. [They would] get to be where the action is without starving in the off-season… It opens the door for more consistent income for residents who want to be here year round. A lot of people don’t want to be here in the winter,” he concludes, “so it presents an opportunity. Glen Arbor is the summer place,” he states, then qualifies that statement. “Cherry Republic might be [a] longer [season].”

This kind of project, says Sutherland, would require community cooperation, government involvement and city planning.

Except for the latter idea, all of these solutions appear to be short-term. That’s just not going to be enough, according to IGA owner Brad Anderson, Hawley and Sutherland. “[T]o really make some headway,” Sutherland, who has just been appointed to a new nine-person, county-wide affordable housing commission, says, it’s gonna take the help of the community as well as the county and the state — which really means, county programs, state programs, even the township and the village.”

“It’s going to take people with a commitment to it that isn’t driven by the profit motive,” affirms Hawley. “It’s going to take creativity and some sort of quasi government — some effort beyond just the citizens and developers. We have to try to get the stake holders in the county to come up with a solution — especially the employers who employ on a seasonal basis.” He notes that few employers have attended township and county meetings on the subject. “Certainly the public schools have been noticeably absent from the table. All [the schools are] crying for kids,” he adds. “Young families can’t afford [to live here].”

“You know that saying, ‘It takes a village?’” Hawley asks. “It’s gonna take the whole county to solve it.”

Check out the next edition of the Sun for new thoughts on how affordable housing might look in Glen Arbor.