We were talked down to: How the developers and City Officials treated the overwhelming opposition to the DeVos/Van Andel development project

Yesterday, there were so many people who showed up to oppose the DeVos/Van Andel development project, that many had to wait in the hall way or downstairs before they could even speaking during the public hearing that was held during the Grand Rapids City Commission meeting at 2pm.

However, before the Public Hearing began, the City’s economic development director presented the scope of the project, with numerous slides, which began around 21:35 in the video linked here. The economic development director didn’t just provide an overview, in reality she made a pitch on why this development project would be a good thing for the city. You can see in the image below, which is from the slide presentation, that there is a timeline, including a an estimate fall 2025 date for when construction would begin for this project. This information was presented as if it was a done deal.

The City’s economic development director was followed by Brad from Progressive Companies, who spoke for about 3 minutes. He was followed by Joe from Michigan Growth Advisors, which which has been taking the lead on efforts to secure federal, state and municipal financial incentives – tax breaks, subsidies, etc. Joe keep repeating this phrase – “This project simply won’t work without the incentives.” He later insults the crowd by saying we don’t understand how the contributions to the Affordable Housing Fund works. All total, the three people who were championing the development project put forth by the billionaire families DeVos and Van Andel, spoke for about 30 minutes.

Unfortunately, the public still had to wait several more minutes, since a few City Commissioners had comments, comments that were initiated by Jon O’Connor. O’Conner, in is standard contempt of the public, also spoke down to people, suggesting that we did not understand how the tax incentives worked. The back and forth with City Commissioners and the developer lasted an additional 13 minutes, which means that before the public got to speak, we had to sit through 44 minutes of people talking about how great this project would be for the city and how the rest of us are just stupid. 

When it finally became time for the public comment portion, the number of those that spoke in opposition to this project was 32, while only 5 spoke in favor. Those who opposed this development project spoke about issues like – not giving $565 million in tax incentives to the two billionaire families behind the project, the ridiculously high rent costs of the 595 “market rate” apartments, the City’s failure to address the real housing crisis, the further criminalization of the unhoused, the massive parking problems in the downtown that impact residents on the westside, how the City always supports funding for these kinds of projects that primarily benefit those with deep pockets, but not projects that would be transformational for working class families and BIPOC communities, along with general moral outrage that people expressed.

It is also important to point out who the 5 people were that supported this project, since they certainly did not represent the general population. There was an employee of Rockford Construction, someone with Downtown GR Inc., someone from the Right Place Inc., the General Manager of the Convention Center, and the head of governmental affairs with the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce. 

It is also important to point out that most of the other people in the room were there in opposition, because at one point, those speaking from Together West Michigan, asked people who were with that group to stand up. There was almost half of the room that stood up. There were also people who were downstairs or who had to leave early that never got a chance to speak out against the project. 

Now, according to the timeline listed above, the Grand Rapids City Commission will vote on whether or not to approve the $565 million tax incentives to the DeVos/Van Andel development project on December 3rd. This does provide people with time to send the Action Alert created by the Grand Rapids Area Tenant Union, which emphatically opposes this $565 million give away. As of this writing there are close to 800 letters that have been sent to Grand Rapids City officials. We can make it over 1,000 by signing it and sharing it on social media.

Red and Yellow images used here were created by @prettyininkpress.