City Commission Holds Doubleheader Monday on Strategic Action Plan, Housing

Traverse City commissioners have a rare doubleheader Monday with two meetings planned for the full board, including a 3:30pm study session at the Traverse City Senior Center on next steps for the city’s strategic action plan and a 7pm joint meeting with planning commissioners at the Governmental Center to hear from local experts on tools to address housing availability and affordability.

Strategic Action Plan
City commissioners will kick off the day Monday with an afternoon study session on the city’s new strategic action plan, which was adopted in June. The plan – created after multiple community surveys, think tanks, visioning sessions, stakeholder meetings, and focus groups – lists six strategic “pillars” or focus areas. Each of those areas supports a vision of an “equitable and sustainable” Traverse City. The pillars include “proactively manage urban design,” “strengthening placemaking and neighborhood character,” “building thriving year-round economy,” “supporting environmental sustainability,” “fostering a regional collaborative approach,” and “creating a complete community.”

Monday’s meeting will be the first focused session on implementing the plan, according to Interim City Manager Benjamin Marentette. David Beurle of Future iQ – the consulting firm that assisted in the plan’s creation – will lead commissioners through a public process to develop objectives and key results, or OKRs. OKRs are a common goal-setting framework used by many corporations, nonprofits, and government groups. Objectives are the aspirational goals an organization wants to achieve, while key results are measurable outcomes that track progress toward those goals.

Marentette says the city’s OKRs will reflect “both community priorities and organizational needs” and serve as the city’s north star. “My hope is that the OKRs will guide allocation of city resources in terms of funding and human capital,” he wrote to commissioners. “My intention is for the OKRs to assist my co-creation, along with each department director, of their department-level work plans and criteria around which future performance evaluations will be centered.” The process will take the strategic action plan and translate it into “clear, measurable outcomes to guide the city’s work,” Marentette says.

Marentette outlined a schedule for the OKRs process. Taking input from Monday’s meeting and commission questionnaires, an implementation framework will be developed through the fall. The OKRs will be finalized in December-January, with a public meeting planned to share the results. The final OKRs will be “integrated into the city’s long-term strategy, accountability systems, and budget process,” Marentette says.

Housing
City commissioners and planning commissioners will come together for a rare joint meeting Monday evening to hear from a range of local housing experts on tools and policies the city can consider using to address housing availability and affordability.

The guest speakers will present on multiple topics related to housing. Liz Keegan of Fair Housing Center of West Michigan will discuss the federal Fair Housing Act, which Traverse City is required to be trained on since it now receives Community Development Block Grant funds. The presentation will include “an overview of the act, how communities may violate the law in their decision making, the historical abuses necessitating the act, and how the city can take steps to make sure they remain compliant,” according to a memo from City Planning Director Shawn Winter.

Tony Lentych of the Michigan State Housing Development Authority – who previously served as executive director of the Traverse City Housing Commission – will discuss the “statewide housing plan, programs and resources to help achieve the goals and objectives of the plan, and data sources to help better understand the housing ecosystem,” according to Winter. Sarah Lucas of the Office of Rural Prosperity will discuss the role of her organization in serving as an “advocate for the needs of our rural communities” and assisting communities with data, visioning, and planning, Winter says.

Susan Leithauser-Yee of Housing North will discuss neighborhood enterprise zones, which provide tax incentives for developing and rehabilitating residential housing. The presentation “will provide an overview of the act's objectives and how the city can utilize this tool to address their housing needs,” Winter states.

Finally, City Attorney Lauren Trible-Laucht will discuss the Attainable Housing Facilities Act (AHFA) and Residential Housing Facilities Act (RHFA), two pieces of 2022 legislation that “intended to address housing availability and affordability by creating a tax incentive program local units of government can enact to support their own goals,” Winter says. The primary difference between the two is that AHFA applies to projects of four or fewer dwelling units, while RHFA applies to projects with five or more units. Both acts require establishing geographic districts where the incentives would apply.

Acknowledging that addressing housing availability and affordability is a “complex issue,” Winter says the goal of Monday’s meeting is to “develop an agreed upon direction of which, if any, programs and incentives the city commission, planning commission, administration, and staff would support moving forward.”