Mequon affordable housing

In Mequon, they're talking about affordable housing, with many in the community seeing a need for affordable housing because of a perceived lack of young families moving into the community.

Gielow and the council also discussed housing in the city. Gielow said there is a growing segment of the community that believes the zoning in the city should allow for the construction of affordable homes that would attract young families.

Usually the way to create more affordable (without any kind of subsidies) housing is through increased density, whether it is smaller lots for homes or multi-family housing.  This can be a barrier in areas with limited sewer service, such as Mequon.  Their sewer service is available* in only approximately half of the city, much of which is already developed.

"Sewers are a big issue for higher density housing," Zader said.

Port Washington Road north of Highland is limited to 5-acre residential lots for the most part because it is out of the sewer service area.

 
But how much of the barrier to affordable housing is sewer service, and how much is zoning policies that communities have implemented?  Looking at the maps from the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (SEWRPC), you can see the white areas which indicate sewer service that can support higher-density housing.   Below is Map V-12 looking at sewer service and ordinances for single-family homes.


Source: SEWRPC.  Click to open in new window.

   
But there's a catch; just because you have sewer service doesn't mean that you can build higher-density housing in that community.  SEWRPC recommends zoning that allows lots of 10,000 square feet or smaller, and home floor area of 1,100 square feet or smaller. There are red diagonal lines, which indicates that the community has some kind of zoning barrier.  Diagonal red lines leading upward to the right indicates that it does not allow lots of 10,000 feet square feet or smaller as principal use, which leads to a pretty large lots for homes.  Diagonal red lines leading downward to the right indicate that the community does not permit a home floor area of less than 1,100 square feet.   As you can see, there are many communities that have both requirements, including Mequon.  In Mequon, the smallest new single-family residential possible is a 1,400 sq ft floor area home on a 21,780 sq ft lot.

Now let's look at the sewer service map and ordinances restricting multi-family housing below. 

Source: SEWRPC.  Click to open in new window.


SEWRPC suggests permitting a minimum density of at least 10 units per acre and a minimum 2-bedroom floor area of 600 800 sq ft or less. The red diagonal lines upward to right shows communities that do not allow 10 units or more per acre, and the downward right lines show requirements for larger units, using 2-bedrooms as an example. Mequon requires 6,000 sq ft lots for 1-bedroom (which I guess translates to 7 units per acre?) up to 10,000 sq ft for 3-bedroom housing (4 units?). Mequon also requires a minimum of 1,200 sq ft floor plan for 2-bedroom units. That leads to multi-family housing that is relatively low-density, such as one-to-two floor condo/townhouse units in buildings of four units.


Zoning ordinances like that are a conscious decision on the part of community to exclude housing that does not fit their vision of what the community should be, "to retain our values".  Very often this is an artificial view of yester-year.  Go to any town, any city, any community, and in the older part, you'll see family homes on smaller lots that our parents and grandparents grew up in, but somehow those type of homes are now unacceptable. 

*Yes, I'm aware the Mequon sewer service map linked is smaller than what is represented in the SEWRPC maps here.  I believe it's because SEWRPC is trying to identify which communities have sewer service (even if limited) AND ordinances impacting housing.  To actually add sewer service boundaries would clutter the map.