Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties

Ironwood EDC considers solutions to housing shortage

By ZACHARY MARANO

[email protected]

Ironwood — The Ironwood Economic Development Corporation hear a presentation from Lisa McKenzie, an assistant regional planner with the Western Upper Peninsula Planning and Development Region office, about the results of WUPPDR’s housing study at their meeting on Wednesday.

McKenzie said that the study was funded by the Economic Development Administration as part of the Pandemic Response and Resilience Plan of 2021. The study covered Gogebic, Baraga, Houghton, Iron, Keweenaw and Ontonagon counties.

The PRRP committee chose three areas to focus on: tourism, workforces and housing. McKenzie said that housing shortages are a problem in the western Upper Peninsula just like the in rest of the country, but recent news about a Canadian company planning to re-open copper mines in the region means they will need to help address it to sustain economic growth.

“(Housing) is a huge problem, especially for Gogebic County, with the news last week that we received about Highland Copper and the new Copperwood mine and the construction that’s going on. They’re planning on hundreds of jobs. We’re going to have to house them. We need this economic development in Gogebic County as well as western Ontonagon County,” McKenzie said.

According to a May 25 announcement from the Longueil, Quebec-based company, Highland Copper Company is aiming to initiate construction activities at its Copperwood Project north of Wakefield in early 2023, depending in part on the results of a feasibility study that is “on track” to be completed this month.

Highland Copper Company also plans to initiate baseline environmental studies over the coming months at White Pine North in Ontonagon County, consider a conversion drilling program over the 2022-2023 winter season and begin a feasibility study on that project in 2023.

McKenzie said that the committee used the information learned from the housing study to create a regional strategy to address the shortage. This strategy includes four possible solutions: a community land trust, housing cooperatives, a community development corporation and a region-wide housing collaborative.

Of these four items, McKenzie said that a region-wide housing collaborate is the initiative that WUPPDR feels is the best fit. She said that new housing units are already being built across the six counties — maybe not to the extent needed, but they are out there.

“There are an awful lot of resources that need just a little bit of a kickstart, a little bit of help. Local governments need the capacity to be able to leverage that because a lot of the funding has to come through the local government and it’s a lot of work to coordinate different initiatives across every county. That’s something we feel needs to happen across the region,” McKenzie said.

McKenzie said that a community land trust would help keep homes affordable so cities and towns would not have to continue investing in new housing developments in the future to keep homes affordable. Housing cooperatives could be individual housing units or entire communities. A community development corporation would be a nonprofit organization leveraging grants and other funding opportunities.

Mayor Kim Corcoran, who sits on the corporation, asked McKenzie what their next step should be. McKenzie said they should work with local developers, coordinating their efforts if possible. She also said that some of Ironwood’s assets could be revitalized through Michigan Economic Development Corporation programs, such as the recently approved “Build MI Communities” initiative.

This prompted Director of Community Development Tom Bergman to explain to the corporation that the initiative should lower the cost of redeveloping mixed-use, residential and commercial buildings. He said that some local developers have already shown interest in the program and they will meet with them, as well as officials from the MEDC and InvestUP, in the next two weeks to start the process.

Corcoran suggested that the EDC should invite the owners of the Copperwood Project to the table to see if they can assist with housing in some way. She also suggested meeting with the Gogebic County Board of Commissioners and the Bessemer and Wakefield local governments to see if they are acting on this problem independently.

Glen Ackerman-Behr, a faculty member from Gogebic Community College on the EDC, said it would take at least three years for the solutions presented by WUPPDR to have an impact and they should search for things that will have more immediate effects. Ackerman-Behr also said the EDC should also address the root causes of the housing shortage — why developers have not already come to the region.

For a more short-term solution, McKenzie suggested including a notice with their summer newsletter asking people if they are interested in selling their part-time homes for long-term use or renting them. Bergman said it was a good idea to include this notice with their tax forms.

 
 
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