Flint, MI — Genesee County Land Bank Authority Executive Director Michael Freeman recently announced an all-new Gatehouse Condominium housing development in the historic Carriage Town District.
“I was talking to people directly or seeing people interviewed, and they’re talking about all the new housing in Flint which is being created that is serving the rental market, which is needed and necessary, but people want to see more opportunities for purchase for homeownership,” Freeman told Flint Beat regarding the new undertaking.
The $6 million project, which has been in predevelopment for nearly a year and a half, will comprise six buildings with 16 units. Four units will be two-bedroom condominiums, and the remaining 12 will be three-bedrooms. Half of these units will be wheelchair accessible.
Land Bank partnered with the City of Flint and the Michigan State Housing Development Authority for the new development, located on the south side of Fifth Avenue between Mason St. and Garland St.
The first units were put in place on June 7, 2024.
Freeman said the Mott Foundation provided a grant to start the building process. As a requirement, the Land Bank had to complete development in either the Durant-Tuuri Mott neighborhood or Carriage Town.
Following approval from the Carriage Town Neighborhood Association, Freeman said a staff member worked with the community to decide what housing types are needed in Flint. From there, they realized there weren’t many condominium developments available, citing them as a good option for “low-maintenance living.”
“We’re really looking at this as workforce housing,” Freeman stated. “So it’s something where if you work at Hurley, U-M Flint, Kettering, or even Mott College, you would have housing opportunities in the city. I think it’s really a bonus for employers to have people living close to where they work.”
Four units will be categorized as affordable housing and made available to residents at 60% of the area median income or lower. After adjusting the sales price to what the household cannot afford, Freeman estimates the two bedrooms could be sold for $119,000, with three bedrooms sitting at $139,000.
“There are people who voiced concerns that everything is done with low-income housing,” Freeman explained. “They wanted mixed-income, where you can’t differentiate between the low-income household and the market rate household.
“I think that that’s been a mistake in the past. The more affordable units you put in, the more subsidy you get, which makes it cheaper, but then you’re [facilitating] a concentration of poverty. What we need to do is diversify and ensure that our developments are mixed income.”
The City of Flint labeled the Gatehouse Condominium development as a “test case” for future projects spearheaded by Freeman and the Land Bank.
“My goal is I’d love to continue moving north of Downtown because we have so much vacant land there, a lot of land just north of Hurley hospital,” Freeman said. “We currently own Smith Village, and we still have lots that we’re positioning for redevelopment and infill housing. We’re [also] working with the city right now to, even in that neighborhood, make buildable lots.”
While this project seems positive and is gentrification at its finest, there are many things that don’t make sense to me.
What is being done to help the poverty? Pushing it out to Grand Blanc and Swartz Creek doesn’t improve it. Ask those neighboring school districts what’s been happening since the gentrification of Flint has begun. It simply creates a county wide issue instead of a citywide issue.