Locked Out: Door County’s affordable housing shortage
Door County Knock is reporting an in-depth series on Door County’s affordable housing shortage, addressing questions such as why the county lacks affordable housing, how market trends have contributed to its decreased availability and what roadblocks exist to building more. Click here to read more.
If there are questions you’d like answers to or people you would recommend we talk with as part of our reporting, please email us at [email protected].
In October, Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature introduced several bills aimed at creating more housing, and they all have been approved in committee or passed the state Assembly. Most of them are now waiting to go before the state Senate for approval. The Republicans have been the leaders on the legislation, but Democrats have shown limited bipartisan support amid criticism the bills do not go far enough.
Gov. Evers has not signed any of the bills yet, and it is unclear whether he will sign, veto or attempt to make changes to the bills if they pass the Senate.
The legislation is a start, according to state representatives, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the housing crisis, as the problem is complex.
There are several reasons behind Door County’s affordable housing crisis that are shared by other Wisconsin communities: record-setting real estate prices, higher interest rates, higher cost of building supplies and a lack of workers.
Public attitudes are also involved. An overall paradigm shift in how communities look at housing is necessary, according to some housing experts, and risk-taking and innovation is crucial to making more housing available that is actually affordable.
There are also considerations unique to a tourism-based economy, like Door County’s, that make it hard for workforce members and low-income individuals and families to rent or own here–a seasonal economy and population, vacation homes and rentals that drive home prices up, lack of public infrastructure like sewer and water, and less buildable land.
The current raft of bills goes farther than previous legislation, according to District 82 state Assembly Rep. Scott Allen, a Republican representing Waukesha. He co-authored two of the bills. But “change is slow and change is hard,” especially at the state level, he said, and balance between state and local control must always be considered.
The bills
AB 182 would change the way the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority allocates low income tax credits. Under the changes, WHEDA would have to designate 35 percent of its tax credit allocation to projects in rural areas of the state.
AB 454 allows for WHEDA to offer workforce home loans, capped at $60,000 or 25 percent of the home’s purchase price. There would be no interest on the loans and repayment rules would be subject to income levels.
AB 455 would create a WHEDA reimbursement grant program for owners of apartment buildings to convert them to condominiums and gives occupants the first opportunity to purchase their unit.
AB 452 streamlines the process for developers when creating affordable housing. Some of the changes mean developers can submit preliminary plans and local governments no longer can require installation of public improvements like roads or utilities before project approval.
AB 450 refers to new commercial building codes implemented by the federal government. Residential building projects that have already been started would be able to continue without having to comply with the new codes.
AB 449 would create mandatory rezoning for some residential building requests and allow for construction of accessory dwelling units on the property of current single family homes.
AB 451 and AB 453 allow the creation of residential tax incremental districts and increase property tax collection to pay for infrastructure improvement.
Representatives speak
Rep. Allen’s background makes him a good source for comment about the latest housing bills, some of which he co-authored, according to Door County’s state Assembly representative, Joel Kitchens. Allen has worked for over 30 years in real estate and has a master’s degree in urban planning.
There are no goals, such as a number of new units or timeline for impact, attached to any of the housing bills and that is unfortunate, according to Allen. He would have liked to see measurable outcomes for municipalities to reach, he said.
Any change at the state level is slow, Allen added, and almost always has to do with negotiating a balance between state and local control. The particulars of housing are usually regulated by local governments, he said, and he would default to local control except when “the locals have gotten too restrictive, or not enough.”
Kitchens also supports mostly local control of housing, but sometimes control goes too far, he said. When an attitude of “I’ve got mine and want to keep everyone else out” starts rearing its head, then the state needs to step in and set reasonable limits on municipal control, Kitchens said.
He gave some examples, such as in Door County, there is an acknowledged need for workforce housing for summer workers.
“Everyone loves the idea, unless it’s located right next to them,” Kitchens said.
He also said the recent bills are pushing back on “unnecessary but expensive add-ons, and we have to make sure codes are realistic and don’t push prices out of range.”
Allen concurred and described one bill in particular as easing some of the red tape around creating affordable housing. The “subdivision bill,” AB 452, minimizes developers’ financial risk, as they would need less capital invested up front. It also improves communication between municipalities and developers before projects are pursued, according to Allen.
“It gets them talking earlier in the process,” he said.
“A lot of people like to pick on developers, but they take huge risks,” Allen said. The theory is that streamlining the development process when planning subdivisions, where many housing units can be built in a relatively short period of time, will create more developments and get more developers interested in building affordable housing, he said.
Critics of the bills say they do not go far enough and the focus on “workforce housing” helps moderate-income earners but overlooks low-income people.
When there is a shortage, all housing supply is good, Allen said.
There are a few factors that particularly impact Door County’s housing market, and none of the recent bills address them, Kitchens said, but they are things he is trying to promote as the county’s state representative.
One factor is the labor shortage in the building trades. This is especially problematic for Door County, Kitchens said, because its geology means there are fewer labor markets to draw from. Fewer contractors means higher costs to bring workers in from farther away.
In his role as chair of the Assembly Committee on Education, he said he is working on opening up more possibilities of trade jobs for students and exposing them to those possibilities.
“Now, with college being so expensive, and the payoffs not necessarily being that great, and the trades with such a shortage of workers, that can be a really good career for people,” he said.
Kitchens pointed to the Luxemburg-Casco’s apprenticeship program as an example of the kind of programs he would like to see more of. Participating high school students attend only a few classes a day and spend the rest of the day receiving hands-on training in a skilled trade with a local employer.
Door County’s housing market also faces unique pressures from seasonal demand and short-term rentals (STRs). Kitchens has been at the forefront of bringing the issue to state attention, he said, as Door County was “the first in the state to feel the problem.”
Realtors have consistently been opposed to STR regulation, he added.
“You have a powerful lobby like that and most of the state doesn’t even see it as a problem. It’s pretty challenging to do anything about it,” Kitchens said. He is seeing more awareness about STR issues the last few years though, he said, as more of them are being created and communities are feeling the pressure.
The Wisconsin Realtors Association supports the reasonable regulation of STRs, according to an email from Tom Larson, president and CEO. The organization supported Wisconsin’s only short term rental law, he said, and local governments have authority to regulate all short term rentals. They can ban short term rentals of less than 7 consecutive days.
“Most communities that complain about insufficient state short-term rental laws have failed to exercise their authority to regulate short-term rentals in the manner allowed under state law,” he added.
The Door County Tourism Zone Commission does a good job of monitoring STRs here through necessary lodging permit data, and by requiring quarterly room tax reports, Kitchens said. Local governments should use the tools at their disposal before asking the Legislature to regulate STRs or allow them to be “zoned out” of residential areas, he said.
For example a seven-night minimum requirement is a powerful tool that “very few” municipalities have taken up, according to Kitchens. Sevastopol has implemented some regulation, he added, and “they are seeing rentals going elsewhere.”
Kitchens advised municipalities concerned about the impact of STRs on their available housing stock to look at the kinds of regulation available to them before going to the state.
“Making sure that the septic systems can handle the number of people that they’re advertising for, making sure they have enough parking, those are the kinds of things you can do (at the municipal level),” he said.
On the flip side, he said, the state government needs to get involved in local zoning requirements when regulations are unrealistic. Sturgeon Bay is an example of “forward-thinking leadership,” Kitchens said, where lots of building is going on, and local regulation is easing the way for housing developers, rather than hindering it.
“I have a love/hate relationship with zoning,” Rep. Allen said. Zoning was designed to be restrictive and prohibitive, he added.
“We’ve defined a cube in which you can build, with setbacks and height requirements…once you’ve defined the cube, that’s all you have,” he said. “You’ve limited the supply by those cubes you’ve designed, and it cripples the housing supply.”
Comprehensive de-regulation of housing will get the growth and affordability necessary, Allen said.
“Until that happens it’s not going to happen,” he said.
Local control eased in Door County
Mariah Goode was the Land Use Services Department director for 20 years, before leaving the department in 2024. About 15 years ago, under Goode’s leadership, Door County amended the county’s comprehensive zoning code to remove regulatory roadblocks to affordable housing.
Door County was way ahead of the state on at least one of those amendments. It is currently “super easy,” according to Goode, for homeowners to get building permits for Accessory Dwelling Units in the municipalities that are under county zoning. Those include the towns of Baileys Harbor, Clay Banks, Forestville, Gibraltar, Jacksonport, Liberty Grove, Sevastopol, Sturgeon Bay and Washington Island.
The towns of Brussels and Union have their own zoning codes, and Egg Harbor, Gardner and Nasewaupee have no zoning.
Despite it being easier than ever to build an ADU in Door County, Goode said there have not been many homeowners taking advantage of the idea.
“It goes back to incomes,” she said. “Its not inexpensive to build one, and you can still only charge so much rent reasonably.”
The next step might be to provide financial incentive to the property owner to build ADUs so they can rent them affordably, she added.
Other amendments made to the county zoning code include smaller minimums for lot size and housing unit square footage, allowing manufactured and “tiny” homes in more zoning districts, and allowing for higher density building overall.
With zoning not being a huge roadblock in Door County, it is clear that easing local regulation is not the only thing to be done to get more affordable housing stock on the market. In future reporting, Knock will examine programs and projects that are working in other states but cannot be done in Wisconsin due to current policy.
For now, the current package of housing bills at the state level is a good start, according to Kitchens, but there is not one particular thing that will fix things on its own.
“We have to keep trying. Keep property taxes down, remove regulations where we can without compromising safety, control overzealous local governments that want to keep everyone out, get more people into the trades workforce pipeline,” he said. “All those things together work holistically to improve the situation.”
“It’s tied to the American Dream, home ownership,” he said. “It’s such a big part of our heritage, emotional as well as practical.”