Karin Kay talks River Hills pilot program in Newaygo in Grand Rapids Chamber’s Back to Business podcast

Sable Homes Sales Manager Karin Kay recently sat down with the Grand Rapids Chamber’s Back to Business podcast host Connor Smithee, and Josh Lunger, senior director of government affairs, to discuss the need for more affordable housing in West Michigan.

“At Sable Homes, we pride ourselves on being able to provide workforce housing or that ‘missing middle’ housing,” Kay said during her podcast interview. “We are there for the police officers and the school teachers – we’re building for your average America and try to be able to provide the best house possible in their price range in the location they can afford. That is why the project in Newaygo was so important for us.”

Referring to the River Hills Estates community in Newaygo, Kay explained how that TIF project for housing came to fruition and how it became a pilot program for the state.

“All the community partners said, ‘we want this housing, we want to be able to prosper so we’re going to make this happen’,” Kay said in the podcast. “So, after getting everyone on board, we were able to reduce the costs for the end customer to allow them to be able to have housing in the pricing they can afford.

“We had a really great team on our side to pursue this project and make it happen. It’s really going to be a great benefit for the community.”

Since the recent success of the River Hills neighborhood, it has given Sable Homes the opportunity to view vacant properties in a new light, Kay explained.

There’s a lot of these outer rural communities that need housing, but before we just couldn’t get the lot prices to where they need to be,” she said. “Now, with being able to do this, we’re going to be able to get the lot prices to where they need to be to get to the price point where people who want to live in those communities can afford.”

In addition to Sable Homes’ River Hills development, Kay and Lunger each discussed how the shortages in labor and materials are causing higher prices in residential building not only in West Michigan, but nationwide.

Listen to the full podcast, here.

Related: Sable Homes, state and local entities officially welcome pilot program home development in Newaygo