Crews have broken ground on Emerald Glen, a 30-home subdivision rising off Galloway Drive behind Carr Park in Manchester, marking the small Washtenaw County city's first-ever brownfield housing project. The development will include 24 homes for sale alongside six rent-restricted homes set aside for families earning up to 100% of the area median income, with those affordability terms locked in for 15 years.
The subdivision broke ground last month, according to The Manchester Mirror, which reported that the project is being built on land behind the park and will eventually bring 30 new homes to the city. Of those, 24 will be sold at market rate while six will carry rent restrictions tied to the area median income standard for a decade and a half. The Washtenaw County Office of Community and Economic Development is developing Emerald Glen in partnership with the City of Manchester, according to WEMU, which confirmed that development has begun at the Galloway Drive site.
The project is notable in Manchester not just for its size but for how it's being financed. A brownfield redevelopment plan approved through the County Board of Commissioners provides $4 million in brownfield tax increment financing to help cover roads, utilities and other infrastructure costs, the Mirror's report noted. Of that total, $120,000 is earmarked specifically for sidewalks connecting the new subdivision to Manchester's downtown — a detail the outlet's reporting emphasized as part of the broader push to knit Emerald Glen into the existing town rather than isolate it on the city's edge.
City Banks On New Families And School Enrollment
Local officials are framing Emerald Glen as more than just new rooftops. The city is excited for the development and expects it to spur commerce, increase school enrollment and welcome more families to the community, the Mirror reported, citing Manchester's own expectations for the project. The subdivision's marketing materials, meanwhile, describe Emerald Glen as a new-construction community within the Manchester Community Schools district, according to Allen Edwin Homes.
That optimism is tied to a wider affordability squeeze that has been building across western Washtenaw County. The area encompassing Chelsea, Manchester and Dexter has a need for affordable housing that has gone underaddressed, per the same WEMU report. It's a theme that stretches beyond the county line, too: Michigan simply doesn't have enough housing units for its current population, according to Michigan Public.
How The Brownfield Financing Works
Brownfield tax increment financing, the tool underpinning Emerald Glen's infrastructure budget, generally works by letting a taxing authority capture increased property tax revenue generated by a redevelopment and use it to reimburse a developer for the cost of addressing brownfield conditions during construction, according to a factsheet from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. Separately, the state's Housing TIF program allows tax revenues captured through local brownfield redevelopment authorities to fund affordable housing costs, and gives the Michigan State Housing Development Authority oversight when a project includes housing rented or sold below market rate, per the agency's own announcement.
Construction on Emerald Glen is expected to take several years to complete, the Manchester Mirror reported, without specifying a firm finish date. As first reported by MLive, the project also represents the first residential development in Washtenaw County to secure this kind of tax increment financing arrangement, per the county economic development office.
