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.
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While many barriers to affordable housing exist, local experts are certain that a change in mindset is where solving the shortage begins.
Every community has different issues that affect their particular iteration of the national housing crisis. In Door County, peninsular geography, limited infrastructure, a seasonal tourism economy, and market pressure from vacation homes and rentals are some of the forces affecting its lack of affordable housing. These factors are largely outside of any agency or individual’s control.
Of the factors that can be manipulated, affordable housing development faces structural barriers—zoning codes, funding restrictions and state regulations. Getting around these specific roadblocks demands legislative changes, and there is some movement in Wisconsin to that end.
There are also cultural barriers to developing affordable housing, according to housing experts.
Society is in a place where everyone thinks housing is too expensive and there is not enough of it, but does not want new housing built near them, according to Kurt Paulsen, a professor of urban planning in the Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Paulsen’s focus is on housing, affordable housing and policy, land use and municipal finance.
“I think part of the larger conversation are the people who already are well-housed, who want to resist any housing being built, or at least subsidized affordable housing,” Paulsen said.
This attitude, often called NIMBY-ism, an acronym for “not in my backyard,” risk aversion, and fear of change are roadblocks that must be overcome, according to housing and economic development experts, and changing minds along with policies is key.
Turning resistance to support
Part of it is changing the narrative of what affordable and low-income housing is and what it is not, according to Kristin Runge, the Community Economic Development Program Manager for UW-Extension. Runge is also president of the Village of Waunakee.
Sometimes people think affordable and low-cost housing is “cookie cutter,” or is going to clash with the community and historical character of an area. But affordability does not have to mean sacrificing aesthetics or design, Runge said. It is not an “either/or” proposition. Municipalities can institute urban and regional planning policies to maintain community character, she said.
The real cost savings for affordable and low income housing is in how the project is financed, not in the choice of building materials or architecture, Runge said. Big cost savings in most housing development projects is not found in the choice of building materials or architecture.
“We shouldn’t limit good looking architecture, pleasing houses and parks and landscaping. We shouldn’t say that those are only for people who are well to do. Every person deserves a home they like, a tree and a park, sidewalk access,” she said.
Door County single-family housing is mostly custom construction rather than subdivisions, Steve Jenkins said. Jenkins was the director of the Door County Economic Development Corporation from March 2020 until January 2022, when he resigned.
Most of the people who come out against affordable housing developments here–usually subdivision-style projects where home styles are similar–argue they “destroy what they perceive to be the character of Door County,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins said he would like to see more open-mindedness about what can be done with design and innovative construction materials, but he conceded the use of new materials and construction methods like 3-D printing do not necessarily fall under existing building codes. And those take a while to alter, he added.
Resistant voices can be loud, drowning out the bigger picture, according to Jenkins.
“Sometimes something is proposed that receives an outcry from the community,” he said. “Politicians fold instead of looking at what’s best for the whole community.”
Runge has led several community housing studies, where she has used data from the studies themselves to counter this particular mindset. To gather data, Runge compiled a questionnaire for community members where participants were asked whether a young person who has grown up in the community should be able to live and work in that community after they have completed their education or job training. Almost 95 percent said yes.
The second question Runge asked survey participants is whether they thought people who work in the community should be able to afford to live there, and about 85 percent said yes.
“So we know this is a community value,” she said. “We use that as a springboard.”
Using Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Housing and Urban Development and census information, Runge and her staff then put together annual average incomes for recent college graduates, entry-level workers, and workforce members like hairdressers, carpenters, teachers, nurses and public safety officers.
Runge’s team then uses the HUD standard that affordable means no more than 30 percent of one’s income should go toward housing, to find what is available to rent or own for these workers in their respective communities. All except the most resistant “curmudgeons” support affordable housing after this exercise, she said.
“It becomes really difficult after that for anyone to say I don’t want to help my community,” Runge said. “Because what they have just found out is that their neighbors overwhelmingly support teachers, firefighters, machinists living in their community and the current prices of housing in the community don’t allow for that.”
Modular home factory
According to Jenkins, it’s not just neighbors that need to open their minds.
“If you’re not a risk taker you’re going to be left behind. That’s what I’ve come up against: too many risk-averse people in the power structure that don’t want to try something different,” Jenkins said in a phone conversation in early October.
Jenkins is referring to an idea he and another former DCEDC director, Julie Schmelzer, spearheaded in 2022.
Jenkins and Schmelzer were part of an effort to bring a modular home factory to Sturgeon Bay. In partnership with the Door County Homebuilders Association, Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, DoGood Door County, the City of Sturgeon Bay and others, the plan was to construct a modular home factory in Sturgeon Bay.
Modular homes are constructed in “modules” and delivered about 90 percent completed to the house site. Panelized homes are similarly prefabricated, but in roof, wall and floor panels which are then shipped and assembled on-site. Both methods of prefabricated construction are done in a factory and can be built faster and more efficiently than traditional homes built on-site.
The factory being located within Door County would have been a multi-pronged solution to a couple of problems, according to Schmelzer. Workers in the construction trades are harder to find, especially in Door County, for all the same reasons workers in all industries are at a premium here.
In partnership with NWTC, students would apprentice in the factory, gaining construction trades skills and earning wages, Schmelzer said, and would also be able to use their work as credit toward a modular home of their own. The modular homes would be sold at an affordable price point–at the time–of $99,000 to $159,000, and they would remain in Door County. The first year in operation, Schmelzer anticipated at least 14 houses would be constructed.
Schmelzer was applying for grants on behalf of DCEDC, she said, including federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, and a grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation for workforce development. In order to apply, the project needed the land in place. In February 2022, the Sturgeon Bay city council approved the donation of two lots within its industrial park for the factory.
The DCEDC board ultimately decided not to pursue the modular home option, and did not approve the grant applications, effectively killing the project, Schmelzer said.
When various entities in one area are vying for the same pot of grant money, leaders need to prioritize projects, according to Schmelzer.
Robert Cornell had just joined the DCEDC board around the time the modular home factory was being discussed, he said, and he still serves on the board today. As he remembers it, competition for grants and organizational politics played a part in the decision not to pursue the modular home factory idea, he said. Cornell also agreed with Jenkins’ assessment that some members of the board were concerned about the project being too risky.
According to Paulsen, the UWM housing professor, investors reach out to him regularly about the economics of building modular or manufactured housing production facilities. It is a risk, he said, and you are not going to spend potentially millions of dollars to build a factory unless there is a reasonable guarantee that you would be able to deliver a couple hundred units a year to recoup that investment.
“Your investment is in the factory, but downstream, you need a place to put those units, and that also requires communities to be more open to manufactured housing,” Paulsen said.
SROs and house-sharing
Single room occupancy, or SRO, housing was widespread in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States. SRO housing was also known as boarding houses or guest houses. Occupants rented a bedroom and had use of communal kitchens and bathrooms.
This form of housing represented the lowest cost housing available at the time, and accounted for up to 10 percent of rentals in the country at one point. In the 1950s there was a backlash against SROs, and state and municipal governments began shutting them down and making it difficult to impossible to develop new ones.
Concerns about health and safety–some SROs were poorly maintained and provided substandard living conditions–drove much of the policy decisions that decimated SROs, but with the current shortage, some housing experts think it’s time to bring them back.
Historically, Door County had a number of SRO-style houses, most of them built for lumber mill workers. Mentions of this kind of housing abound in late 19th and early 20th century newspaper articles. The Door County Advocate, published on Dec. 27, 1906, refers to a boarding house used by the Ives Bros. Machine Shop and Foundry near Sturgeon Bay, and the Bradley Sawmill on Washington Island. A history column published in the Advocate in 1962 describes the Hibbard Boarding House in Jacksonport and one at Whitefish Bay Pier that was destroyed in 1890 by a fire.
As SROs shut down or morphed into other forms of housing, homelessness rose across the United States, according to a report by the Pew Research Center.
Currently, Door County is not only experiencing a housing shortage, but an employee shortage as well, with one shortage feeding the other. One of the reasons often cited by those seeking employees is that they can find candidates, but candidates cannot find affordable housing here.
SROs would be ideal for seasonal workers or young singles starting out in life, according to Jenkins, whose career in economic development has spanned decades. They would also be ideal as a transitional housing for those who are currently unhoused or have an unstable living situation, he added.
Door County’s Comprehensive Zoning Code does not regulate SROs in particular, but according to Karyn Behling, the Door County Land Use Services director, “SROs could fall under any of the principal use categories … depending on form, function and layout.”
Those categories include single family residences, duplex, boarding house or multiple occupancy development, and they are permitted in various zoning districts. Depending on the principal use, the occupants may have to define themselves as a single housekeeping or dwelling unit.
Additionally, there is no limit to how many unrelated people can live together within a unit. The definition of “family” in the zoning code does not make reference to the relationship of tenants, as long as tenants are living together as a single housekeeping unit.
The Door County code does not specifically define what constitutes a “single housekeeping unit.” According to a 2020 report from Cornell University in the Indiana Law Journal, “the concept of the household unit varies but generally requires sharing meals and a household budget.”
Sister Bay leading the way?
Julie Schmelzer is currently the village administrator for Sister Bay. Under her leadership, the Village has formed a housing committee and performed a housing study in 2024.
The Village’s focus on housing has resulted in some affordable developments – The Shoals is one – and some creative ideas for getting more people housed, according to Schmelzer.
One plan will have the Village using tax and grant money to install infrastructure and purchase the lots in a subdivision. The lots will be given to qualified homeowners, and deed restrictions would ensure the home stays affordable.
The developer will reduce overall costs by building “very basic starter homes” in bulk, Schmelzer said. The homes would be around 800 to 1,200 square feet. Homebuyers can then use the lot itself as collateral on a mortgage, she explained.
Sister Bay’s housing committee is working on partnering with a developer to build townhomes and apartments in the same neighborhood as the Door County Housing Partnership’s homes near Ava Hope Trail.
“The neighborhood needs a park,” Schmelzer said. “But it’s hard to justify another park when we need housing.” The developer will design the park as part of the housing development, transfer park ownership to the Village, but continue to maintain the property. In exchange, the developer will get property to build housing on, given to them by the Village.
“Twenty percent of the units will remain affordable, and the Village will get a neighborhood park in an area where it’s needed,” Schmelzer said.
Affordable workforce homes have been taken up by short term rentals locally, she said. And Door County has low-paying jobs coupled with high-cost rent. “We have to come up with solutions for availability and help people make the downpayment on a home,” she said.
While none of the most recent ideas has fully gotten off the ground yet, Schmelzer is optimistic.
“There’s so much promise,” she said.
It takes risk-takers and innovators to solve housing problems, according to Jenkins, who worked with Schmelzer at DCEDC.
“You can solve any of these problems with risk takers, in public and private sectors,” he said. “We’ve got to get rid of (saying) ‘we’ve never done that before.’ Innovation used to be the driving force in America.”
“It takes one person who is passionate,” Schmelzer said. “You need someone to champion the projects.”