Despite Higher Census Count, Dexter Township Sees Decline in Home Building

While some municipalities in Michigan are welcoming their population boom, officials in others, such as Dexter Township, are skeptical about the benefits of growth.

The township recorded a 15 percent increase in population during the past decade, jumping from 5,248 residents to 6,042, according to the U.S. census.

“Unfortunately, increasing growth eventually decreases the very atmosphere that was attractive in the first place,” township Clerk Harley Rider wrote in an email response. “. . . In surveys of our residents, the overwhelming response has been a desire to minimize residential growth, while discouraging commercial development.”

Patrick Sloan, director of building and zoning, said the census mainly reflects the building boom of the early part of the decade and that applications for new houses in the past year have been virtually nonexistent.

Sloan said permits for housing construction fell from as many as 72 in 2004 to four consecutive years of single-digit totals from 2007-2010.

"It was the economy,” Sloan said about the lack of housing applications in the latter half of the decade. “We had a lot of site plan projects that were approved in the middle part of the decade that haven’t been built out yet.”

One subdivision, Essex Homes’ Copper Meadows, has just one occupied home and about 50 empty lots, according to Sloan. Another, Fox Ridge, is only roughly half-built and has struggled to find buyers. However, Sloan said he has already had three applications this year to build at Copper Meadows and believes the expansion of those two neighborhoods could lead to a strong beginning for the next census in 2020.

As far as commercial development, Sloan said he has seen residential support for local businesses near the area of North Territorial and Dexter-Pinckney roads currently occupied by the Bearclaw Coffee Co. and Dexter Dental Center.

“We actually have a lot of commercial property right now, relative to normal for us,” he said. “We’ll see if any new proposals come our way. It’s certainly possible you could see expansion in that area.”

The township had the smallest growth among its neighbors, Lima Township (up 31 percent in 2010), Scio Township (up 22.7 percent) and Webster Township (up 21 percent in 2010).

Although no major changes occurred in the racial makeup of the township from the 2000 census (98.2 percent of residents identified themselves as non-Hispanic white), there was minor growth in all measured races:

• 106 residents identified themselves as Hispanic, up from 54 in 2000.
• 95 residents identified themselves as multiracial, an increase from 43.
• The Asian population increased from 32 to 44, and the black population increased from 20 to 28.