The City of St Clair Shores, Michigan is a northern suburb of the Detroit Metropolitan area bordering on the easterly coastline of Lake St. Clair. It has been generally defined as a bedroom community with 60 percent of the City's total land area being single family residential.
St. Clair Shores is an entitlement community and has annually submitted applications for funding under the Community Development Block Grant Program since its inception back in 1975. This past year's grant allocation totaled $1,075,000 and was approved for a variety of eligible projects which are listed and described herein in further detail.
Citizen participation was fulfilled in accordance with the federal regulations. More specifically a public hearing was held to obtain the views and comments of the citizens regarding housing and non-housing concerns. The hearing was published in a local newspaper indicating the date and time.
A draft copy of the Consolidated plan was then prepared for review and
recommendation by the Planning Commission. A notice was placed in the local
newspaper indicating the availability of the document at City Hall and the
public library. Comments were invited for a 30 day period prior to submitting
the application to HUD for final processing.
The City's total housing stock consists of 27,218 occupied units; 4,162 renter, and 23,056 owner. In addition, 168 rental units are vacant and 255 "owner" are for sale showing a vacancy rate of 3.87% for rental housing and approximately 1 percent for homes for sale.
Sixty nine (69) percent of the occupied units are of 3 or more bedrooms while 23% have 2 bedrooms and 8% are 0-1 bedroom in size. These numbers confirm that the City of St. Clair Shores was built as a predominantly family oriented community although the population appears to be growing older with many senior citizens occupying units with 2 or more bedrooms.
The values of homes in the community are diverse ranging from $39,000 on the low end to a high of $1,000,000+. The median value of a home is approximately $69,700.
Rental units represent 16% of all year round housing units available in St Clair Shores. Rental rates start at an average of $350 including heat and increasing depending on size and location. A vacancy rate of almost 4 percent appears to offer an adequate selection of units to those persons desiring rental accommodations.
An area of racial/ethnic minority concentration is defined as a geographical area having at least 51 percent of its total residents being classified as a minority.
The attached map labeled "Areas of Minority Concentration" depicts the areas meeting the above defined minority concentration. As one can see, there is only one area of concentration of minorities in St. Clair Shores.
Rental complexes, due to State barrier free laws since 1972, offer units suitable for the handicapped.
The City of St. Clair Shores is predominantly built up offering an insignificant amount of land available for new construction. A few parcels are periodically being built upon only because homeowners can split their parcels into buildable lots meeting Zoning Ordinance requirements. Most new homes built on these "created" new lots are generally 3 bedroom homes with detached garages with a price range between $75,000 and $85,000.
New rental units have also "slowed down" during the past few years
due to unavailability of land. Land assemblage is extremely difficult due to
the necessity to acquire parcels that are small and expensive.
The majority of housing is 35 to 40 years old with the fast growing pains occurring in the mid 1950's. Ninety-nine percent of the community is developed. New construction has therefore been on the decline over the past several years and will continue with exception of small sporadic parcels brought by acquisition of several parcels and land assemblage.
Along with the aging conditions of the residential and commercial structures, the City's infrastructure is decaying, thereby, necessitating repairs and in some cases complete replacement.
The City of St Clair Shores has a low vacancy rate for rental housing; 3.87%. Only 1% of the owner occupied units are vacant. Most of the rental units rent between $250 to $499 with a median home value totaling approximately $69,700.
Affordable Housing Needs
Census data indicates that 5% of the total number of owner households and 19% of the total number of renter households are categorized as "Extremely Low Income". This represents 1130 homeowners and 547 renters. (Extremely low income is defined as income between 0 and 30 percent of median income)
The data also shows that there are 3279 owner households and 1,286 renter households who fall in the "low income" category. (Low income is defined as income not exceeding 50 percent of median income)
The median family income for St. Clair Shores is $42,926.
Based on the analysis of data, it has been concluded that the elderly category in the extremely low, low, and moderate income categories have the most burden in the homeowner and renter categories. The older the households, the greater the burden to secure and/or maintain "affordable housing."
The City of St. Clair Shores relies on the many services provided by Macomb County which has a multitude of sub-agencies dealing with the homeless, severely mentally ill, alcohol, and drug addicts, etc. Actual numbers for St. Clair Shores were not available. Estimates were derived from data supplied by the State of Michigan and Macomb County.
The St Clair Shores Housing Commission manages 250 units of public housing and 72 units of Section 8 housing. Of the 250 units of public housing, 211 are senior citizen, handicapped/disabled.
The City of St. Clair Shores utilizes the 1993 National BOCA Codes for all new construction as well as for all of the housing rehabilitation work. All construction work including plumbing, heating, and electrical must meet these codes to assure the safety and welfare of the occupants and the adjoining neighborhood. It also assures a lasting quality of workmanship thereby ameliorating continuous blighting conditions.
All ordinances, codes, and policies are continuously reviewed with respect to their affect on the provision of affordable housing and further to assure that there are no excessive, exclusionary, discriminatory aspects that may constitute barriers to "affordability."
There are no present or past policies including tax policies, and use controls, zoning ordinances, building codes, fees and charges, growth limits, return on residential investment that affect the cost of housing or the incentives to develop, maintain, or improve affordable housing. The Zoning Ordinance in fact allows residential development on lot sizes less than the minimum requirements if the property was originally platted and separately taxed which substantially reduces the cost of the land for new development.
The City of St. Clair Shores currently has a "Fair Housing Ordinance" offering a mechanism for housing discrimination complaints and remedies. Local realtors are periodically sent copies of the Ordinance. No complaints were received during the last program year.
Discussions have been held with the Macomb County Director of Health who has indicated that there have been no recent cases of lead poisoning reported in the City of St Clair Shores.
The majority of the City's housing stock most likely was originally painted with lead base paint. Said paints were banned in 1978 due to its potential health hazards and 26,459 owner and renter occupied units were constructed prior to said year.
One can assume that the majority of those household units have been repainted. The potential danger, however, may still exist if the lead base paint was not properly removed.
The Consolidated Plan does not include any need for community development needs such as youth centers, parks, sewer and/or water extensions.
The City has and will continue to have an open
door policy with other public agencies such as governmental health, mental
health, and social services. Meetings are periodically held with county
commissioners and their staff personnel to discuss the issues.
With the City of St Clair Shores being 99 percent developed the overall strategy will primarily consist of rehabilitation of existing structures. New construction of affordable housing units is included as funding sources become available.
The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) is the City's major funding source to achieve the goals stated above.
The five year plan will provide continuing funding for the Rehabilitation program at 250,000 per year. A total of 800,000 is estimated to aid qualified renters should funding sources become available.
It is estimated that $2,370,000 will be needed for non-housing projects including accessibility needs, economic development public facilities (Senior Center expansion), public service, senior center, and senior chore, health courtesy card programs, and planning studies.
A "Listing of Priority Needs" is included in this summary.
"A Listing of Priority Needs" is included in this summary.
The City currently has no program on goals for reducing the number of households with incomes below the poverty line. Its policy, however, is to assist such households by reference to appropriate county agencies and also to various civic groups such as the Kiwanis, Goodfellows, and Cops for Kids. In its efforts to preserve the existing housing stock, it is also the City's policy to coordinate efforts with the appropriate agencies when necessary to assist persons needing other services.
The only funding source expected to become available during the next five years is through the Housing And Community Development Block Grant Program. Other sources will be utilized as they become available to the City of St. Clair Shores.
A good line of communication has also been established with various Macomb County agencies as well as other adjoining communities. Periodic meetings have been held and attended as well as those hosted by SEMCOG and HUD.
Notices regarding housing issues and reports are continuously being received
from SEMCOG and the Michigan State Housing Authority. It is expected that this
will continue.
The City will use its Community Development Block Grant funds for activities such as :
MAP 2 depicts points of interest and low-moderate income areas.
MAP 3 depicts points of interest, low-moderate income areas, and minority concentration levels.
MAP 4 depicts points of interest, low-moderate income areas, and unemployment levels.
MAP 5 depicts points of interest, low-moderate income areas, unemployment levels, and proposed HUD funded projects.
MAP 6 depicts points of interest, low-moderate income areas, unemployment levels, and proposed HUD funded projects at street level for the East Central area.
