New Waves housing project finishes 13-home neighborhood in Grand Traverse County

The last two New Waves families crossed the threshold in Traverse City on June 3, turning a long-planned housing effort into a finished neighborhood of 13 single-family homes. Jaclyn and her daughters, along with Julie and Aidan and their two children, became the final Habitat homeowners in a project designed to give local families a more stable path to ownership.

The dedication at 13862 S. Justice Way marked more than a ceremonial finish. It closed out a development on a 20-acre parcel near M-72 and Bugai Road west of Traverse City, where each home was built with three bedrooms, one and a half baths and a garage. The final welcome included quilts, embroidery and Bibles, a sign that neighbors saw the project as both a housing milestone and a community event.

New Waves was built through a partnership between Habitat for Humanity Grand Traverse Region and New Waves United Church of Christ, with the Michigan Conference of the United Church of Christ holding the land for years before it became a housing site. Habitat dedicated the first two homes in June 2024, and by 2024 it had become the sole management entity for the project, allowing the buildout to move from planning into occupancy. Earlier plans had envisioned 14 homes, but the completed neighborhood ended at 13.

For Grand Traverse County, the significance reaches beyond one development. Housing costs continue to strain workers, schools and employers across the Traverse area, and New Waves shows both the promise and the limits of nonprofit-built supply. The project delivered concrete homes to families who had been working toward ownership, but it also underscored how slowly those units arrive in a market where demand remains high and land prices are a major hurdle.

Habitat for Humanity Grand Traverse Region is still pushing other affordable housing work, including eight new homes in downtown Kalkaska. That makes New Waves less a standalone success than a proof of concept, one that can be repeated only if land, funding and local partnerships line up again. In a county where housing pressure is now part of everyday life, 13 new homes matter because they are real, occupied and already changing the future for the families inside them.