Sable Homes President John Bitely voices regulation concerns in front of state House Regulatory Reform Committee
On March 6, Sable Homes President John Bitely, the Home Builders Association of Michigan and others in the home building industry spoke in front of the state House Regulatory Reform Committee, sharing their concerns of imposed building regulations which are contributing to the housing crisis.
Dawn Crandell, HBA of Michigan executive vice president of government relations, explained to the committee there should be a six-month supply of home inventory. However, in nearly all districts throughout the state, there’s only a one- to-three- month supply.
“We truly have a supply and demand issue,” said Crandell. “The three issues that are impacting the cost of residential construction are: materials – and there’s not much we can do about that; labor costs, which is a supply and demand issue; and regulations at the local, state and federal levels.”
The national average of regulatory costs per home is $93,870, according to the HBA of Michigan. In 2024, the median cost of a new home in Michigan was $448,520 compared to $375,352 in 2023; and income needed to qualify for a home in 2024 was $143,493 compared to $119,817 in 2023.
“Every time you raise the cost of a home by $1,000, you basically price out 3,222 households –the bottom line is we cannot buy our way out of this crisis,” Crandell told the committee. “Incentives are great. We worked with republicans and democrats on incentives to hit that workforce housing, but we need to look at policy. We would ask you to consider, as you look at policy changes, that you look at it through the lens of housing.”
Bitely elaborated:
“Every $1,000 matters,” Bitely told the committee. “As a builder, we repeatedly hear it’s only $500 – it’s only $500 for this regulation, it’s only $500 for that regulation. If you look at the regulation costs of about $94,000 per home, that is over 25 percent of a new home. We can’t continue to build housing for anyone in a reasonable price range when we have to spend over $90,000 in fees and regulation.
“These numbers are real. We need to work on that. If we’re going to get housing to come together, we can’t incentivize our way out of this. We need to be released so we can build the property, and there’s a supply-and-demand problem – there is no supply of housing to fix the demand that is needed. And because we’re regulated to death, we can’t fully turn loose and do these things.”
Bitely encouraged the committee to help the home building industry reduce the regulation fees by half of what they are currently.
“If you can reduce a home across the board by $40,000, you go back to the $1,000 per household and that’s huge.
“We need to work together on these items,” he added. “Zoning and places to build is the next problem in the industry. I’m happy to work through supply-and-demand labor challenges. That’s my job as a business owner. Let me have that be my number one problem versus my number one problem being I can’t get enough lots put together for the number of homes people want.”
Additionally, Bitely encouraged committee members to reach out to their constituents about the current and proposed code enforcements, which are also contributing factors to higher priced and less energy-efficient homes.
“I’ve been in this industry for 40 years and the homes that were built 30-plus years ago are nowhere near where our homes are today,” he said. “Yet, we keep coming up with higher and higher requirements and pricing everyone out.”
“There clearly is a lot of work that needs to be done in all the spaces when we look at regulatory, lot availability, and education,” said Crandell. “The things we can work on, we need to work on together.”
Vice chair of the committee, Rep. Parker Fairbairn (District 107, Harbor Springs), shared that his family has been in the plumbing and heating business for 130 years in northern Michigan and housing is something he is passionate about.
“We’ve seen the regulations and we’ve seen it affect businesses across the state of Michigan,” Fairbairn said during the committee hearing. “What you’re seeing now is we’re pricing people out of the market and we’re pricing people out of the state of Michigan – and it has to stop. I don’t want to just be an advocate for you, I want to be a champion on this issue because I think it’s what’s going to drive Michigan to the top 10 in the nation in terms of people wanting to live here. Getting rid of these regulations is number one on my priority list.”
Watch the Home Builders Association of Michigan’s presentation in front of the House Regulatory Reform Committee at about the 48-minute mark, here.
