8 new affordable housing developments coming soon to Oakland County

This story is part of a series that highlights the challenges and solutions around housing in Southeast Michigan and is made possible through underwriting support from the Oakland County (Region L) Regional Housing Partnership. 

Oakland County is in the midst of a housing crisis, as rents rise and available housing supply dwindles, but at least some relief is on the way. Numerous new housing developments that offer affordable prices for the county’s lower- and middle-income residents are currently underway. Here are eight such developments that will be coming online soon in Oakland County.

1. Unity Park: Pontiac’s nonprofit Unity Park affordable housing community has been active for over 20 years, but 15 new rental homes will open their doors to residents making 60% or less of the area median income (AMI) this fall. Those homes represent the sixth phase of Troy nonprofit Community Housing Network‘s (CHN) development activity on the property. CHN has built 111 houses in Unity Park since 2015, including 38 permanent supportive housing units that offer additional services to help formerly homeless residents stabilize and maintain housing. Al Martin, CHN’s vice president of real estate, says many lots in Unity Park had been left vacant after demolitions before CHN began development on the site. 

“A lot of our lots throughout the years have been lots that a normal builder wouldn’t have fought the fight to get it to work – building a house on a hill or dealing with weak foundation materials and other things,” Martin says. “So we’ve really concentrated on this neighborhood, trying to fill in the holes that needed to be filled.”

The project is primarily funded through Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC), as well as a low-interest loan from the Oakland Together Housing Trust Fund.

2. Auburn Place and Beacon Place: Pontiac nonprofit Lighthouse broke ground earlier this year on these adjacent developments in Pontiac. Auburn Place will be a new 54-unit apartment building at 454 Auburn Ave. Meanwhile, 28 apartments and 12 townhomes are now undergoing a $13 million renovation at the adjacent Beacon Square Apartments and Beacon Townhomes. Those properties, collectively known as Beacon Place, are located at 101 Mechanic St. Lighthouse President and CEO Ryan Hertz says both Auburn Place and Beacon Place will target “very low-income” residents, as well as those seeking permanent supportive housing. 

Both projects are funded by LIHTC, Oakland County Community Development Block Grant and HOME program funds, and gap financing from the Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA). Hertz says the projects are a product of Lighthouse’s 2019 merger with South Oakland Shelter.

“We came together with an appetite for redevelopment,” he says.

3. Casa Del Rey: In November, developer Coleman Allen LLC broke ground on a $15.5 million rehab of the Casa Del Rey Apartments building at 111 Oneida St. in Pontiac, which had sat vacant for 20 years before that. The project will reopen 50 apartments in 2026 for residents making 80-120% of the AMI.

“This is a real economic development catalyst for a project that was contributing to blight for quite some time,” says Kyle Hines, manager of the Oakland Together Housing Trust Fund, which gave Coleman Allen LLC a $3 million low-interest loan for the project.

Earlier this year, Ronita Coleman, cofounder of Coleman Allen LLC, told Metromode the project wouldn’t have been financially feasible if not for the trust fund loan.

“It made the numbers work,” Coleman said. “With a lot of these old projects, you can build a new structure and it’d be cheaper than revitalizing the existing structure, in some cases. And because the cost is so high to revitalize, you need that last piece of funding that will get you over the hump, if you will. So [the housing trust fund has] been very instrumental in making this project successful.”

4. Wellspring Recovery: Nonprofit developers MiSide and Southfield Non-Profit Housing Corporation will break ground Oct. 6 in Southfield on this development, which will dedicate 60 of its 72 affordable housing units to permanent supportive housing for people recovering from opioid addiction. Those units are supported by project-based vouchers and will target people making 30% of the AMI or less. Residents of the permanent supportive housing units will receive wrap-around supportive services. The remaining 12 units will be reserved for people making 60% of the AMI or less. 

The $33 million project is supported by funds from MSHDA’s HOME-ARP program, Michigan’s Opioid Settlement distribution, and Oakland County’s American Rescue Plan Act disbursement.

“We’re extremely proud of that,” says Hines, who calls the upcoming groundbreaking “a big event.”

5. Westwood South Apartments: This development at 833 Golf Dr. in Pontiac will reserve at least 18 of its 72 units for housing voucher-holders, with the remainder used for market-rate housing. Developer Cartessa Real Estate Company has already completed two of three buildings in the project, and the third will be finished soon. The project is supported by a $2.5 million loan from the Oakland Together Housing Trust Fund, which mandated that roughly 25% of the units be reserved for affordable housing. 

Hines says it’s “fantastic” that the trust fund was able to partner with Cartessa to ensure housing for low-income residents would be available at Westwood South. He also notes the high walkability of the project’s location, near the border of Pontiac and West Bloomfield Township.

“You could live there, work at Henry Ford Health, walk to Aldi on your way home, grab food, and then walk back to your apartment, and not technically have to have a car,” he says.

6. Royal Oak Cottages: Wellspring Recovery developer MiSide is also spearheading this development in Royal Oak Township, which will see the construction of 28 new rental homes reserved for families making 30% to 60% of the AMI. Eight houses will be completed this month, and the rest are scheduled to be completed by January. MSHDA provided $11.3 million for the $15.7 million project and the Oakland Together Housing Trust Fund provided a $2.5 million loan. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy gave a $410,000 grant for environmental remediation on the sites, which have been vacant since previous homes there were demolished between 1967 and 2019.

“Those are just sites that were … contributing to blight, costing the city money to maintain,” Hines says. “So being able to go in there and create housing is just a great opportunity to use housing as an economic development and neighborhood revitalization strategy.”

7. 810 Melrose St. and 956 Emerson Ave.: These two Pontiac homes, both reserved for residents earning 80% of the AMI or less, arose from a unique partnership between Oakland County and the Oakland Schools Technical Campuses. Hines says the county funded “most of the construction” of the two homes, which students and contractors built together at Oakland Schools Technical Campuses. The completed homes were then transported by truck to their final sites. The partnership will continue, and another house is now under construction for eventual installation at a site on Cameron Avenue in Pontiac.

“It’s pretty cool how [Oakland Schools Technical Campuses] just carved out a spot of the parking lot [for construction] and then they have a vocational training program for people to learn construction trades,” Hines says.

8. The first of “100 Homes for Pontiac”: The Pontiac Housing Commission is kicking off a new initiative called “100 Homes for Pontiac,” through which it aims to build 100 houses across the city reserved for homebuyers making 120% of the AMI or less. Yvette Transou, deputy executive director of the commission, says the commission is funding the first house to be constructed under the project at the corner of Motor Street and Wilson Avenue. She says the commission will forge public-private partnerships to fund future constructions.

The commission will provide homebuyer education classes for prospective residents, and offer them a variety of mortgage options from lenders who will provide down payment assistance under their federal Community Reinvestment Act requirements. Transou says the first home will be completed by next spring at the latest, and the housing commission is already working on acquiring sites for additional homes. She sees the program as an opportunity for people seeking to transition from Section 8 housing to home ownership, and for people who work in Pontiac but can’t afford a home there.

“They say, ‘Yes, I would love living in Pontiac, but I wasn’t able to find anything,'” she says. “That’s why it’s so important that we want to build Pontiac back up one neighborhood at a time.”