Traverse City Neighborhoods

Too late for Traverse City …

The Uglification of Michigan Lake Towns - Front Porch Republic America is known for its English-Protestant roots, for the pilgrims who settled the Eastern seaboard and the Anglos who descended from them. But America has a French-Catholic history, too, and Northern Michigan is a central location in that history.

ICYMI, The Ticker mentioned my little hobby website (it's a weird hobby, I know) in one of their stories yesterday.

And to be clear, until ​recently, I supported extending TIF97.

​In fact, when I created Live TC (a community that advocates for abundant housing on Traverse City’s 8 square miles) in January of 2022, extending TIF97 to build the west-side parking deck to redevelop surface lots into housing was a goal.

Why did I change​ my mind?

4 reasons:​

1. The DDA forced the nonprofit builder, HomeStretch, to build a tunnel for cars through its workforce housing project on Lot O (giving up precious 1st-floor square footage makes the whole project harder – impossible? – to finance)

2. The DDA aggressively lobbied with several private nonprofits for MDOT’s wider, car-first Parkway redesign

3. The DDA report that the Old Town parking deck only averages 21% occupancy (meaning 412 of its 522 parking spots or roughly 80%, on average, go empty)

4. The DDA’s decision to allocate $0 of its ~$8M 2023/24 budget was allocated for housing despite the DDA’s guiding principle (value) to “champion the development of attainable and workforce housing”

I now believe the ~15,600 people who live in Traverse City will be better served if we ​return the massive TIF97 tax growth (~$2.7M/year) to the City.

These unrestricted dollars could be invested in anything we want.

Things like:

• a new housing fund to help with what’s going on in the Pines

• neighborhood improvements identified in the masterplan listening sessions

• a new youth center (we’re about to build a $11M new senior center – let’s do something similar for our kids)

• maintaining our existing infrastructure, including our sidewalks, trails, streets, and sewer and stormwater systems

• creating a new ambulance service without raising property taxes

• doubling the number of trees we plant every year

• or whatever else we think will improve the health, wellbeing, safety, and prosperity of those who live in Traverse City.



If the people of Traverse City decide to end TIF97 by either:

• electing City Commission candidates that support returning massive tax growth to the City

•a referendum petition

and then want to create a new TIF with a new name and new projects; we can certainly do that.


If we want to.

Citizenship (showing up) required.

~ Ty