There has been a fair amount of talk in and around the city of Marquette this week since the Marquette City Commission Monday OK’d a motion directing the city manager to pursue residential uses for the site where the Michigan Veteran Homes D.J. Jacobetti currently stands.

The site will be vacant by the end of next year with veterans and their relatives transferred to the new Jacobetti facility being constructed in Marquette Township.

Mining Journal reporting on the city’s meeting earlier this week revealed Mayor Pro Tem Jeremy Ottaway referring to the site as “potentially the best opportunity the city of Marquette may have to really expand upon its housing stock,” and said that “it’s imperative that we do everything we can to obtain that piece of property to move us in that direction.”

Mayor Paul Schloegel made a more measured statement, saying that the Jacobetti home would be a “great opportunity for the city of Marquette to expand housing possibilities, but at the same time it’s a good chunk of land over there and I hope that any good and reasonable proposal will be considered.”

While both officials make valid points, we believe Ottaway was spot on with his assessment. The greater Marquette area is literally starved of decent affordable housing, units that young families just getting started can afford or Northern Michigan University students seeking respite from campus, would be able to live in.

Let’s be clear. We see nothing wrong with building high-end housing. Developers should be able to spend their money as they will and clearly the profit margins are increasingly attractive as the price tags go up. The problem is for this exact reason, most of the housing built in and around the city of Marquette in recent years has been of the higher-end variety, unreachable by many people who want to live and work here.

And let’s be clear about something else. The city is up to its proverbial hip pockets in sub-standard housing that costs too much. Just ask most any NMU student living off campus and you’re likely to get an ear full.

The city needs to demonstrate leadership on this and steer the conversation in a way that whatever housing options take place there — apartment buildings, separate units or some combination — are in the affordable class, whatever that ends up being.

As Mayor Pro Tem Ottaway opined, there’s an opportunity here. We trust city decision makers won’t let it slip by.