The Michigan Senate approved bills Thursday to offer up millions of dollars in tax breaks for developers to build affordable housing.
The bills would add a state-level tax credit to an existing federal tax incentive.
“There are probably a hundred different things we should be doing in this Legislature to address this housing crisis and this right here is one of the more important ones,” said state Senator Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor), who chairs the Senate Housing and Human Services Committee. He said the tax credit is a flexible policy that can fit local circumstances.
“The housing crisis looks different in different parts of our state. It looks different in rural areas than it does in urban areas,” he said in a floor speech. “But every one of our districts is struggling with a lack of supply in housing that is driving up prices and making it difficult for regular people to be able to have a roof over their head.”
Irwin said there are 200,000 low-income households in Michigan that do not have access to affordable housing.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer called for an affordable housing tax credit in February in her State of the State address that is very similar to the Senate proposal.
The bills were adopted on mostly party-line votes. Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt (R-Lawton Township) said the bills are a tax giveaway that would not do much to address housing costs if enacted into law.
“The governor said in her last State of the State that she wanted to work on housing costs, yet she and Senate Democrats haven’t put forward any serious plan to address this crisis,” he said in an e-mailed statement. “Giving away more government handouts without addressing root causes will do nothing to actually lower costs.”
Nesbitt, who is running for the GOP gubernatorial nomination, said “we need to take a blow torch to out-of-control regulations and bureaucratic red tape” to bring down housing costs.
The bills now go to the state House, which is controlled by Republicans.
