KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – It appears an effort to create a pod community in Kalamazoo, which has been on hold for two years, may face several other problems.
Kalamazoo County Health and Community Services Department Health Director Jim Rutherford says the county’s sanitary code may not permit the pods. He says they could revise the code, but that could take months and costs for legal fees.
Rutherford says a 50 pod community would be the first in Michigan. It would need a communal bathroom, because the pods have no plumbing. He says it doesn’t match anything that’s covered by their code, including campgrounds.
He says the location under consideration is a Superfund site, which presents a completely different set of problems, agencies, and permits, and it might not even be safe to put housing on the contaminated soil.
Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners Chairman John Taylor has asked Administrator Kevin Catlin to get some cost estimates and come back with a plan and a possible timetable.
The disassembled pod homes, purchased with private funding by Housing Resources Inc. for $1.5 million, have been in storage at an undisclosed location for nearly two years.
Rutherford says in all that time, no one has bothered to ask his department if they met the sanitary code.
reporting from John McNeill
This was from the very beginning an idea to prov the homeless with housing without ant thoughts whatsoever of the issues involved with placing the pods, as they don’t meet any building codes or zoning requirements, let alone health requirements.
A direct result of city officials allowing the illegal encampment to continue as long as they did.