A Ribbon Cutting In The Cloud

Getting ready for the cut are Council Members Herm Becker and Lori Shears, Brian Farkas of Allen Edwin Homes, City Manager April Storms, Mayor Brian Miller and Council members Amy Barnhard and Damon Anuci

Collaborative effort bringing 8 new houses to the city

Story and photos by Charles Chandler
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Smiles, handshakes, coffee and donuts, dignitaries and big yellow dirt diggers. My goodness what was going on at the corners of South Lester and Pine Hill streets in White Cloud? Progress for sure and soon maybe new White Cloud residents. Around 10:00 AM on Wednesday, December 6th at 17 South Lester Avenue a bunch of folks gathered in White Cloud to celebrate a ribbon cutting and ground breaking for eight new single-family homes.
 
A celebration indeed. White Cloud, like many rural cities and villages in Michigan, has limited and dated housing inventories. This lack of housing is a concrete limitation for attracting new business, as well as professional and skilled workers to our area.  These eight houses are special because they fall in that “Workforce Housing" category.

The generally accepted definition of workforce housing is housing that is affordable for those earning between 80% and 120% of area median income, or AMI. Households in workforce housing typically earn too much to qualify for programs under HUD. This means these eight new homes will be available for lease to those professional and skilled workers that we need to attract new or grow existing area businesses. 

The local officials, important participants, and community members that attended the ribbon cutting event  included White Cloud Municipal government, City Manager, April Storms, Clerk Kelli Arnold, and White Cloud Fellow Andrew Stafford. Also on hand were City Council members including Amy Barnhard, Lori Shears, Herm Becker, Damon Aunci and Current Mayor Brian Miller. Representing the Fremont Area Community Foundation were CEO and President Shelly Kasprzycki and Community Investment Officer Greg Pocher. Mr. Brian Farkas represented Allen Edwin Homes. Among the other participants and coffee drinkers were local contractor Tim Looy, members from the River Country Chamber of Commerce and a couple of guys from the local press. 

These new homes were made possible by Michigan’s Workforce Housing Laws enacted last year and a generous grant from the Fremont Area Community Foundation. Allen Edwin Homes from Portage, MI will build these eight homes. They will be of modern design, energies efficient, featuring 4 bedroom, 2.5-to-3- baths and 2 or 3 car attached garages.   They are expected to be move-in ready by late summer of 2024. 

After the celebration and back in her City Hall office Manager April Storms provided some additional details about the project. Manager Storms is calm, soft spoken and not given to a lot of hyperbole or melodrama. This demeanor can often shade her quite competent ability to get things done in the messy world of City Governance. The backstory for this successful event begins early in 2022. Manager Storms saw an opportunity for the City and began working as an advocate for and participating in the discussions about Senate Bill 432 governing Workforce Housing.  

This Senate Bill would facilitate pilot agreements that would allow municipalities to work directly with housing developers. A representative from Allen Edwin Homes, also an advocate of the Bill had also signed in on the discussion. Later the representative contacted April and they began pre project discussions. In the interim the White Cloud City Council enacted a WorkForce Housing Pilot Ordinance that would support the project, the first city in the State of Michigan to do so.  Once Senate Bill 432 passed, the City and Allen Edwin Homes developers had a project to build three homes ready to go.  

Next, the Fremont Area Community Foundation came forward and made a $150,000 contribution to offset infrastructure costs.  This generous assistance helped the City and Developer grow the scope of the project from three homes to eight. 
Community collaboration at its best.

This is a great two-million-dollar local development project with an aggressive timeline. You too can follow the progress with a build site drive by or on-line in almost real time. City Manager April Storms mentioned they would post time lapse project photos on the following site. https://www.cityofwhitecloud.org/

A big shout out to the City of White Cloud, The Fremont Area Community Foundation and Allen Edwin Homes for a job well done in meeting the housing needs of our community.

The start

The finish.