GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — As Grand Rapids and the surrounding areas continue to grow, one organization is looking to add more housing to accommodate it.
Brooke Oosterman is the executive director of Housing Next, a local organization dedicated to advocating for housing opportunities in Kent and Ottawa County.
"We really looked at vacant land or underutilized land," said Oosterman.
Recently, Housing Next came up with the Kent County Corridor Strategy, which was to take unused or underutilized space within Kent County to build more housing units.
According to Oosterman, Kent County will need to build more than 35,000 units by 2027 to keep up with the area's growth.
"There's a lot of that that exists on our corridors, as well as very large parking lots and things that are just going underutilized," said Oosterman. "And so for us, we saw that is an opportunity to really look at what types of housing, what types of things fit in those areas, to make better use of that space."
Right now, the organization is in the planning phase.
However, Oosterman said soon they'll be working with city and township governments as well as investors and developers to see what types of housing will fit in specified areas.
"Going forward with this corridor work, it is going to take all of those folks to really focus on key areas. And so we essentially will share the map that identifies all of those parcels for those partners and then we will ask them, 'What is a spot that would mean something to this community?'" said Oosterman.