PORTAGE, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – City of Portage officials may know a lot more than they were willing to discuss when they were faced with a room full of angry residents who want to shut down plans for two new housing projects proposed for the Austin Lake Area.
A few hours earlier, Kalamazoo County Housing Director Mary Balkema was recommending housing millage money be spent on one of the projects, which is on property owned by the city. She is proposing down payment assistance for buyers on those 60 homes.
The plans are for $300,000 homes that Balkema says will be nicer than the others in the neighborhood. She says those will be workforce housing, not section 8 homes, as has been rumored.
Portage Mayor Patricia Randall proposed a moratorium on the projects while a task force does some fact-finding and gathers community input.
But City Attorney Catherine Kaufman says the city must move “in a timely fashion” to approve a private developer’s plans to build as many as 600 new homes just north of Austin Lake.
City Manager Pat McGinnis confirms that paperwork on that project has already been submitted to city staff.
reporting from John McNeill
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