The Glen Lake Community Schools (GLCS) have been given a rare opportunity to facilitate the development of both rental and homeownership opportunities for a diverse group of workforce families and households, such as teachers, firefighters, law enforcement, road commission, and other public sector employees.
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has proposed a process that would allow the GLCS to use 40 acres of a 180-acre parcel for attainable housing.
The proposed use of the property would allow the development of a high-quality, diverse housing community. To view the site map and a conceptual development plan, click here, and click here to view the GLCS Presentation.
Sustainable Site Development
Unlike traditional community development projects that sprawl across the site landscape, the compact nature of our housing clustering strategy maximizes conserved land, carefully balancing responsible forestry practices (tree removal minimized for development) and public access to recreational landscapes with sustainable community housing.
The housing cluster prototype brings together a mix of housing types to reflect the diverse needs of the local workforce population in terms of income levels, family sizes and types, and other household demographics. The diverse mix of housing and community space has the important and additional benefit of creating a socially sustainable condition with a careful balance of privacy and shared resources.
This development model holds great potential for housing development in clusters of 30 units, making it flexible for application across small or large sites. If this prototype were to be applied to the Glen Lake Schools site, it would yield 180 units across 6 housing clusters. This would require the development of only 40 acres of the total site, leaving the remaining 140 acres untouched.
How Can You Help?
There are several things you can do now to help SBGC in our efforts to mitigate the crisis in workforce housing in our gateway communities:
1. Click here to forward this signed support letter (or one of your own) to Jason Misner, Superintendent of Glen Lake Community Schools. Please don’t forget to sign your name to the bottom of the letter!
To the Board of Trustees,
I want to express my support for the innovative workforce housing concept on a small portion of the school’s forest property developed in conjunction with The Harvard University Graduate School of Design and the Sleeping Bear Gateways Council. I also understand that the school district does not desire to be the developer. Considering this, I believe a community and school district oversight committee should be established to investigate the viability of this opportunity.
I would appreciate your positive support in endorsing this important initiative to preserve the charm and character of our community.
Signed,
(Please type your name here)
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