Housing Next Lead Consultant Ryan Kilpatrick says one of the key takeaways from this assessment is the total housing need in Ottawa County has increased since 2021, from over 15,700 units to over 16,400 units. More than 5,700 new homes have been built.
“Ottawa County has actually done a great job at producing more middle- and upper-income rental supply. If we continue to build at a similar pace to the pace we’ve built at the last several years, we should be very much on track to provide an adequate supply for those households.”
Conversely, Kilpatrick says not enough low-income housing I being built within the county.
“There is a need for 2,300 additional housing units for households earning at or below $50,000 a year.”
To help address these shortages, experts are encouraging local governments to identify available infrastructure-ready land. Kilpatrick says Ottawa County also has a need for “For Sale” housing, saying not many starter homes have been built in the last decade.
“We’ve got to be ensuring that we’re continuing to really push on that middle- and upper-income housing so that we can get existing households who can afford it out of those older, more affordable homes and our low-income households into those homes.”
You can read assessments for both Ottawa and Kent Counties here.
