BATTLE CREEK, Mich. — At a public housing kickoff hosted by Battle Creek City, Ryan Kilpatrick, owner of Flywheel Community Development Services, told residents and officials that the city's housing market faces a structural mismatch between what most households want and the housing that is permitted and built.

"We don't just build housing for the sake of housing," Kilpatrick said. "We build it for the sake of creating community." He described demographic shifts, financing constraints and land-use rules that he said limit smaller, lower-cost housing options in Battle Creek.

Kilpatrick said roughly two-thirds of Battle Creek households are single adults or two adults with no children at home, while about 70% of the city's housing stock is single-family houses. He said local data show the median monthly payment for a home in Battle Creek at a 6.5% mortgage rate is about $1,400, which makes homeownership potentially affordable for some professions such as teachers but places pressure on lower-paid workers. "You still have a big opportunity to maintain affordability for these middle income households," he said, while noting retail and restaurant workers often earn less than the local affordable rental rate.

Why it matters: Kilpatrick framed the problem as a supply-and-demand mismatch driven by retiring baby boomers who may remain in larger homes, younger adults delaying household formation, and new demand for smaller, walkable housing types. He said simply relying on subsidies is not realistic: using his example costs, a new standard two-bedroom apartment priced for a low-rent tenant would require approximately $100,000 in up-front subsidy, and subsidizing one-third of the city's 3,500 renters who pay more than 30% of income on rent would cost on the order of $100 million.

Proposed and discussed solutions included zoning and regulatory changes to allow greater housing variety (accessory dwelling units, duplexes, backyard cottages), smaller lot subdivisions, cottage courtyards, conversion of existing houses into two units, single-room-occupancy and small rental units in the 400' to 900-square-foot range. Kilpatrick said modular construction and 3-D printing can reduce construction time but face high equipment or shipping costs and regulatory hurdles. He also flagged the financial incentive problem: typical returns on apartments (he used an example of earning 5% on apartments versus 8% in stock-market investments) make some housing investments less attractive to capital without incentives.

Kilpatrick corrected and discussed property-tax dynamics and limits, referencing the Michigan Headlee Amendment while explaining that longstanding owners may have lower effective tax bills than new buyers because of property-tax caps and assessment rules. He emphasized the need to pair regulatory change with targeted incentives and local financing to reduce costs without relying solely on philanthropy or federal transfers.

Linnea Wells of Aligned Planning, who followed Kilpatrick, said the event is the kickoff for the housing element of the city's master plan update. She announced upcoming opportunities for public input, including stakeholder sessions in October and a public meeting on November 20, and described in-room activities for attendees (a four-quadrant map to mark preferred housing types, a small "investment" exercise with tokens for policy priorities, and a PET preserve/enhance/transform tagging exercise for the future land-use plan).

Community comment and Q&A touched on practical points: costs for manufactured and modular homes, the role of small-site infill, single-room-occupancy as a transitional option, and the limits of tiny homes under 200 square feet for long-term housing. Brandon Bobbitt identified himself during Q&A and highlighted that people living on Social Security are especially constrained by low monthly incomes.

The presentation closed with Kilpatrick urging the city to "pick a place and really, really commit to it" to generate catalytic, walkable investments and to pair zoning changes with lender engagement and modest incentives to make small housing economically viable.

Next steps: Aligned Planning will follow up with a survey and mailing-list contact; the team invited residents to two sessions later the same day and announced more public workshops and stakeholder meetings in October and on Nov. 20 to gather neighborhood-level feedback.