The Community and Economic Development Committee met 01/11/2023. The meeting was not particularly long, clocking in at a little over 20 minutes. Slightly more than half of that was taken up with discussion about the annual updates to the housing Affordability Report and the Housing Fee Report.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the full discussion as well as posted both of the reports for your downloading pleasure.
The reports were initially prepared back in 2019 in response to changes in state statute. The city contracted with the East Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission to prepare the first report but now does the updates in-house, the most recent being with numbers from 2021.
The numbers all looked good.
- 25 plats and certified survey maps were approved.
- 113 residential building permits were issued which was well above average.
- 229 new dwelling units were approved. This was because 2021 both saw a sizeable increase in single-family and two-family building permits and was also the second highest year for multi-family dwelling units being approved. The bulk of those single- and two-family homes were built on the north side of the city while the multi-family units were infill and redevelopment projects in downtown and along the riverfront.
- $249,848.96 in fees were collected which was well above average. Those fees included permit fees, stormwater management fees for new subdivisions, and also fee-in-lieu of dedication fees for new subdivisions. The larger than average amount of fees was partially the result of two mixed-use development projects (The Zuelke Building and the Park Central Building) having gone through the review process in 2021.
- There were 756 vacant lots available at the end of 2021, very close to the 766 at the end of 2020.
[Although not discussed during the meeting, it should be noted that at the end of 2021 the city actually had 100 more vacant parcels available than at the end of 2028 which, to me, really called into question all the handwringing that took place when the Apostolic Truth Church applied to build a church on their property.]
The committee’s questions regarding the report were, understandably, things like “is the community still short on housing?” and “what percentage of this development is affordable housing?” and just sort of generally wondering about the affordability of housing in our community. The odd thing was, despite being titled “The Housing Affordability Report,” the report didn’t really deal with any of those issues.
Principal Planner David Kress referenced the College North Neighborhood Plan and said, “a component of that plan had a market study and that study found that there was a need or demand for housing of about 300 units per year for the next 10 years. So as a community, there absolutely still is demand and a need there, but the basis of this report is really more looking back to collect data in terms of where we’ve been as opposed to forecasting future demand.”
Regarding the overall affordability of the new housing units referenced in the Housing Affordability Report, state statute did not task municipalities with looking at that so it was not evaluated as part of the report, although it was something that staff could try to identify going forward.
Alderperson Kristine Alfheim (District 11) suggested that the best the city could do to foster affordable housing was to make sure there was plenty of inventory so that people could move up and out to make room for more affordable housing.
Community and Economic Development Director Kara Homan said, “If you meet the demand, that’s one of the most critical pieces of affordability because if supply doesn’t catch up with demand, that also puts upward pressure on price out there in the marketplace.”
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1062684&GUID=D0460954-CB11-4102-B9EE-DB1D21D29D95
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