Study offers a plan to spur new housing

Hamtramck has long been home to newly-arrived immigrants.
For decades, Hamtramck has been identified as a Polish enclave. But in recent years, the city’s ethnic makeup has greatly changed. Now, we have more immigrants from Bangladesh and Yemen.
We are about to get a new influx. Thanks to $1.2 million in federal funding, the city will become home for six refugee families.
The funds are paying for the construction of three brand-new two-family houses on Faber St.
Not only does Hamtramck get to continue to be home to immigrants, we get a boost in new housing.
That development dovetails with a recent market study of the city’s housing.
The upshot is, there is a huge demand for more rental dwellings. It was said that the city can sustain the building of 10 houses a year for five years.
The only trick is to get the owners of the city’s numerous empty lots to make this investment. It’s been a mystery to us why people purchase an empty lot and then just sit on it forever.
Yes, we know there are speculators waiting to cash in on some future development project. And they wait, and wait forever. In the meantime, a whole lot of empty land remains just that: Empty.
We now have a road map on how to proceed with housing development. The study cost nothing to the city, but its conclusions are priceless.
Now it’s the city’s turn to take action, and find ways to motivate these folks who don’t want to take the initiative and invest in the community.
October 11, 2019