07/28/2026
We are disappointed that the proposed 4% PILOT did not pass.
What makes this particularly disappointing is where this conversation began and what we believed this proposal could help make possible in Lansing.
Over the past year, conversations within the Lansing Empowerment Network’s Housing and Economic Development Tables have focused on identifying real solutions to some of the challenges our community continues to face: a lack of affordable housing, limited housing stock, vacant and underutilized properties, barriers to development, and neighborhoods that have gone too long without meaningful investment.
These tables were created to do more than talk about problems. They were created to bring residents, developers, nonprofit organizations, government, and other partners together to identify solutions and move them toward action.
One of the models that has helped shape our thinking is the work we have seen in Omaha, where nonprofit and community-focused developers have played an important role in building and rehabilitating housing and investing in neighborhoods that the traditional market has too often overlooked.
That matters because nonprofit developers are often willing to take on projects where the goal is not simply maximizing profit, but creating affordable housing, rebuilding neighborhoods, stabilizing families, and generating long-term community impact.
The 4% PILOT represented a tool that could have helped make more of that type of development financially possible in Lansing.
And this is exactly why we have continued to say that housing, economic development, and gun violence prevention are connected.
In our violence intervention work, we spend a tremendous amount of time responding to what happens downstream. But if we are serious about reducing violence long-term, we also have to invest upstream.
Stable housing. Strong neighborhoods. Employment. Economic opportunity. Community ownership. Development in neighborhoods that have experienced decades of disinvestment.
These are violence-prevention strategies too.
When families are constantly moving, when affordable housing is scarce, when properties sit vacant, when neighborhoods lack investment, and when people cannot see a pathway toward economic stability, those conditions have consequences far beyond housing.
Our work with Omaha has shown us the value of approaching community violence and neighborhood development as interconnected issues. You cannot rebuild people without rebuilding places, and you cannot create safer neighborhoods without creating neighborhoods where people have something to build toward.
That is why this vote is disappointing.
The 4% PILOT was never presented through our tables as the solution to every housing problem Lansing faces. It was one tool in a larger toolbox—a tool that could have helped nonprofit and mission-driven developers create projects that otherwise may not be financially feasible.
The vote may be over, but the problem is not.
Lansing still needs housing.
We still need nonprofit and community-focused developers at the table.
We still need investment in neighborhoods that have historically been overlooked.
And we still need to recognize that our housing strategy, economic development strategy, and public safety strategy cannot operate in separate rooms.
The conversations that started at our Housing and Economic Development Tables will continue. We will continue studying what is working in communities like Omaha, bringing partners together, and pushing for solutions that address the conditions our residents have told us matter most.
Because ultimately, this work is about more than building houses.
It is about building stronger neighborhoods, creating opportunity, and giving people a reason to believe in the future of their community.
