MUSKEGON, Mich. — Muskegon's Scattered Site Infill Housing Program has earned national recognition, placing in the top three for the Regulation and Policy category of the National Housing Innovation Award and ranking as a top 10 finalist overall for the Ivory Prize for Housing Innovation.
WATCH: Muskegon housing initiative gets national recognition, transforms hundreds of vacant lots into homes
"The panel decided that we deserve to be a top 10 finalist in the United States because of our innovative use of brownfield tax increment financing to subsidize low to moderate income owner occupied housing with market rate occupied housing," said Jake Eckholm, Director of Development Services for the City of Muskegon.
The recognition comes from the program's creative use of financing to make homeownership accessible to low and moderate-income residents while encouraging market-rate development.
"Our mission really is to build the community back to what it's designed to be, so that these neighborhoods can be as vibrant as they possibly can," Eckholm said.
When the program began, Muskegon had 435 vacant lots identified in their original brownfield plan, according to Eckholm. Today, only 58 remain vacant.
"All of those lots being in the same brownfield plan allows us to subsidize the houses that the city builds and sells for under market value to low to moderate income owners, but the for sale product that private builders build on our lots, they sell for whatever the market will bear, and the difference in tax value helps us recover our losses on those houses that we sell to low to moderate buyers," Eckholm said.
A recent door-to-door survey created by the city reveals the program's impact extends beyond housing affordability. Eckholm says some residents reported they wouldn't have been able to afford homeownership without these options.
The city plans to expand the program with another round of construction.
"Our hope is to achieve buy-in from the commission in Spring of 2026 to do another round of city builds where we're acting as the owner and hiring contractors to build housing units for us and then sell those as, like, naturally occurring, deeply affordable, owner occupied housing," Eckholm said.
Residents interested in receiving a housing unit or builders interested in constructing units for the city can contact the Development Services Division with the City of Muskegon.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
