Lansing weighs 15-year tax breaks for four Simtob ‘Flatz’ apartment complexes with 440 units

LANSING — Lansing City Council is weighing 15-year property tax breaks for four apartment complexes run by Simtob Management, the landlord the city sued in 2023 over red-tagged units, under Michigan’s workforce-housing payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, or PILOT, program.

The four properties — Baltic Flatz on W. Cavanaugh Road (84 units), Carolina Flatz on Risdale Avenue and Pleasant Grove Road (116), Ventnor Flatz on Dorchester Circle and S. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard (137) and Pacific Flatz on E. Kalamazoo Street (103) — total 440 units, according to the packet for the council’s Nov. 2 Committee on Development and Planning meeting.

Under a PILOT, the owner pays a set share of rent collections instead of regular property taxes. The packet lists 4% PILOTs for Baltic, Ventnor and Pacific and 6% for Carolina, running 15 years if approved by the end of this year.

What taxpayers would give up

The company’s own presentation in the packet puts the four properties’ combined 2027 property taxes at $713,085, up from $357,837 in 2021, and says the PILOTs would reduce 2027 payments by $517,360 — what the company calls a city “investment” of about $1,175 per unit per year. Nonprofit newsroom Rhinoceros Media estimated the city and other taxing units such as schools, the library and county would forgo about $445,000 a year, or roughly $6.7 million over 15 years.

In exchange, the company commits that at three of the properties, 51% of units will rent at levels affordable to households at or below 80% of area median income, with the rest at or below 120%. All Carolina Flatz units would be at or below 120%.

The landlord’s pitch

Managing partner Bradley Simtob told WLNS the company has spent $9 million on repairs and plans $11 million more over five years. “We’re simply asking the city for their help to fund the next five years of renovations of $11 million. It equates to about $100 per unit per month to avoid equivalent rent increases for residents,” he said.

The company says it has about 600 units in Lansing with base rents starting around $675 a month, and that emergency calls at the four complexes fell from 1,290 in 2021 to 252 in 2025. Simtob said all properties were brought into compliance by November 2024, after the city’s 2023 lawsuit over 29 red-tagged apartments at another Simtob complex on W. Holmes Road. Rhinoceros Media reported that the compliance account leaves out a settlement deadline the company missed in 2023, and that the emergency-call and rent claims are the company’s own.

Lansing has spent years fighting conditions at other troubled complexes, as in its push to put Sycamore Townhomes back under a receiver.

Where it stands

Mayor Andy Schor’s office and the Department of Economic Development and Planning “strongly support” the requests, WLNS reported. When council members asked what happens if the company falls short, a city attorney said it would file annual financial reports and “if at any point they stop delivering … they go back to paying taxes.”

Council held a public hearing Oct. 26 and sent the deals back to committee without a final vote, Rhinoceros Media reported. The same committee packet also includes a separate 4% PILOT request for Brightwood Crossing, a planned 124-unit, roughly $36.5 million affordable development at 5141 S. MLK Jr. Boulevard by Woda Cooper.

Sources:
City of Lansing, Committee on Development and Planning agenda packet, Nov. 2, 2026 (Flatz PILOT applications, company presentation, unit counts, tax table, affordability terms, emergency-call figures, Brightwood Crossing), https://lansingmi.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=16065,plainText=false)
WLNS, “Lansing property company seeks tax breaks after past housing violations,” Nov. 4, 2026 (Simtob, mayor’s office and city attorney quotes), https://www.wlns.com/lansing/lansing-property-company-seeks-tax-breaks-after-past-housing-violations/
Rhinoceros Media, “Lansing Weighs $445,000 a Year in Tax Breaks for Four Flatz Buildings,” Oct. 27, 2026, CC BY 4.0 (forgone-tax estimate, Oct. 26 hearing and referral to committee, missed 2023 settlement deadline), https://rhinocerosmedia.org/simtob-flatz-hearing
Photo: Tim Kiser, “Pen Wood East Apartments, Lansing, Michigan, 2019-05-05-6363.jpg,” May 5, 2019, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), cropped and resized; derivative shared under the same license, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pen_Wood_East_Apartments,_Lansing,_Michigan,_2019-05-05-6363.jpg

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Tags: Lansing · Simtob Management · PILOT · Workforce housing · Lansing City Council · Property taxes