Madison wants to build

We had an election two months ago to figure this out

The yellow represents where duplexes would be allowed by right, if passed. Credit - City of Madison Mayor’s Office - 2025 Housing Forward Proposals

Last Wednesday brought a smile to my face for nearly the entire day. Our mayor, Satya Rhodes-Conway, announced along with 11 alder co-sponsors and pro-housing community groups three ordinance changes to increase housing options in Madison. These are the first 2025 Housing Forward Proposals; all three Legistar items have at least 12 alders co-sponsoring them. This is exciting! I have been waiting several years to see common sense, incremental housing policies be considered for adoption with serious backing.

Don’t get me wrong, the ADU reforms passed since 2021 are inspiring. Madison rallied behind several zoning changes last June, including the recently rescinded and reapproved Old Sauk Road rezoning that passed 15-4 among alders and 91-64 among public registrants. The Madison landscape has transformed into a pro-housing environment as seen by the election of 10 pro-housing candidates in 13 competitive races this past April and the reelection of a pro-housing mayor in 2023 by over 10 points. Madison wants to build housing and it has the political will to pass the laws that allow it to happen.

Which is why I’m confused about the latest Paul Fanlund “housing density edict” opinion post. Granted, it’s an opinion, but it would have been nice to see him argue against the merits of the policies rather than the process by which the policies were proposed. I promise I’ll provide my own thoughts on the policies (I’m a big fan, it moves us closer to being a Housing-Ready City) but I do want to engage the thesis of his post.

Are elections community input?

The post focuses on a “uniparty” in Madison that “intimidates” people into silence and attempts to pass laws without debate.

There has been no genuine effort to solicit communitywide opinion on how best to balance the demand for more housing against those concerned about preserving neighborhood character.

I take issue with this stance because we engaged in community debate in our election process. Most candidates took pro-housing stances because they understand Madisonians want lower home prices and lower rent. The status quo is not working, the vacancy rate is too low, and something needs to change to get us out of the housing shortage. Just because residents aren’t shouting at City Staff doesn’t mean people aren’t communicating their preferences to candidates. Most candidates stated something like “expand affordable housing” or “lower the cost of housing”. Some candidates explicitly mentioned zoning (emphasis mine)

From Will Ochowicz:

I will also work to update Madison’s zoning code to make it easier to build dense, walkable neighborhoods

From Mike Verveer:

I will continue to defend renters rights, remove artificial zoning barriers, and advocate for family and student friendly housing to fix Madison’s staggering housing shortage

And people then voted for these candidates and they are now able to pass legislation. We solicited community wide opinion, had a “referendum on the referendum”, and decided that the demand for housing outweighs preserving neighborhood character. It’s unfortunate that your favored candidates didn’t win, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t have a healthy debate. “Many thousands of traditional left-of-center¹ Madisonians [are] on the outside looking in”, but many more thousands of Madisonians across the political spectrum are now in after being outside for decades. And they want housing.

What do preservationists offer Madisonians?

If Fanlund and others who disagree with the Mayor do not want to see these ordinances passed, they could have offered better policies to persuade voters to vote for them. But I don’t believe they have policies that can win elections. As the City grows (because we have an incredible university, great employment prospects, low crime rates, and desirable neighborhoods), you can build out, up, or not build at all. I’m in the contingent who wants to build up, I think it’s fair to say Fanlund is in the out or not at all group. If he disagrees, he’s free to explain.

Setting the City in amber and freezing development benefits existing homeowners by artificially reducing the supply. Home prices go up because the demand doesn’t disappear. New entrants (college students, young workers, families, children of Madisonians who don’t own homes) end up “holding the bag” for the incumbents when they purchase the more expensive real estate. Or they don’t buy in at all because it’s too expensive. This is how you preserve neighborhood character; you just don’t change anything. It’s the easiest policy if your voting base is majority home owners, but Madison is not. The City has been majority renter since 2011 and between 2011-2021 the renter household population grew 27.0% compared to 9.3% for owner household population.

You can move to the sprawl-model, which is what most cities advocate for. This is the default policy and tends to leave existing neighborhoods in their current state while adding homes on the periphery. We love cars in the United States, we can build endless roads for people to drive in for work and play. The roads and infrastructure cost a lot of money, but that’s debt that can be passed onto the next generation. Maintenance isn’t an issue if it’s 30 years down the road, incumbents can pay artificially low property taxes that won’t cover the bill and the City either builds a new subdivision until we run out of money again or just ask new home owners to pay higher taxes in the future. The problem is, that generation can now vote, is aware of the future maintenance, and they don’t want to take on that burden.

Madison preservationists are asking me, a 26 year old renter, to pay a premium for a home that will face serious tax hikes within the existing system. We see it around the country, cities are on the path to bankruptcy because they sprawled and didn’t save. We used to have housing that could support itself. It was typically built before single family zoning. Despite being one of the best generators of revenue per acre of land, we abandoned these kinds of homes for a zoning system of sprawling large lot single family homes outside of the city center. We stopped building on the existing core of small multifamily units and now call it “Missing Middle” housing because you can’t legally build it in most communities. These are the kinds of homes that young families can buy into on the inexpensive side of housing; starter homes like duplexes, triplexes, row houses, and condos. You see these on the Isthmus and the near East and West sides of Madison. I’ll point out that we didn't preserve this type of development as we moved into the 50’s; cities change and that's a part of life. I’m happy we are moving back towards more kinds of homes.

Do single family homeowners have rights?

Fanlund wants to balance single family homeowners’ rights and their ability to reject other people’s desire to build different style homes on their property.

I want multifamily homeowners to have schools, restaurants, gyms, and soccer stadiums nearby². Not all multifamily buildings get to have these amenities because of local zoning ordinances. Is that wrong? Do we need to balance the rights of multifamily building owners to have local amenities (so they can charge more for rent)?

This isn’t a question about “homeowner rights” beyond what’s on your own property, it’s a discussion of preferences. I don’t decide what color car or model you drive. I don’t decide how you commute to work. I don’t decide what food you eat. You should not be able to dictate what kind of home I build as long as I follow the rules and build it safely. If I want to buy a lot, build a duplex, and sell or rent the other half to a friend I should be able to. If my parents want to build an ADU so they can stay in the neighborhood when they are ready to downsize and give my sibling the family home so it stays in the family, they should be able to. If you and I are going to be neighbors, I should probably at least talk to you and work out any differences we have, but you should not be able to force me to sell hundreds of thousands of dollars below the value of my property for the sake of the kind of home you prefer³.

I understand that hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions in the neighborhoods where housing opposition is fiercest, are “on the line” in the minds of these homeowners. They invested into a home and expected to preserve that environments for 30+ years. I think that’s a problematic way to approach life, and because we don’t treat anything else like this I am able to type this post on a large monitor while you read it on your smartphone. Because the investment in the home is so large, owners gain this warped sense of entitlement that the neighborhood is also theirs, despite it containing many people that aren't them. It’s the same process as claiming the public street in front of your home as “your parking spot” or the view of some body of water or building as “your view” that can't be interrupted. “Single family homeowner rights” is the attempt to overreach and manufacture legality out of voluntary, costly preferences associated with large lot detached homes that only help the incumbents and tax the finances and well being of everyone else. A majority of Madisonians have decided those costs aren't worth supporting compared to the benefits of expanding housing.

People, families, communities, and cities change. The best thing we can do is try to promote good change, bottom-up change that makes our neighborhoods better. I will stand for making productive and safe streets where future kids can play without fear of reckless cars and a local business can be supported by their neighbors. I’ll stand for cities that are financially resilient and who can pay their bills without sacrificing the future. I'll stand for incremental development and making every neighborhood a more invigorating place to call home. And I’ll stand tall for parking not being free and for recognizing that it’s something we have to pay for (and I’d rather pay for other things). I know people would like to push me down for that last one, but I’m standing tall!

What are the contentious housing policies?

1. Allow duplexes in all zoning districts that currently allow single family homes

2. Make it possible to split deep lots and add homes in a “flag post” style manner

3. Make it easier for medium density buildings to be approved by right in the Downtown area and other high density zoning districts

The edict that Fanlund is worried about it makes it possible to build a duplex where you can build a single family house. I still think Madison should go for more, we could make it legal to build triplexes and row houses everywhere, but this is the next increment of development on the zoning chart. If Fanlund and opponents can't support this development, and can't support the “cookie-cutter, high-rise apartments” that pop up on the Transit Oriented Development overlay district, what kind of housing policy can they support?

This reform does not mandate homeowners to convert their home into a duplex. It does not mandate demolishing the home when it’s sold to convert it into a duplex. It only gives the homeowner the right to have a duplex if they want. They don’t need to be seek approval from neighbors, Plan Commission, or Common Council. They can build as long as their permits are in order and City Staff signs off. Streamlining this process is great, but even the City is hedging on portraying this as a “silver bullet” to the housing shortage in Madison—because it's not. From the FAQs section of the Housing Forward proposals:

It is a way to facilitate more small-scale, sensible housing options over time… By making 2 attached homes allowed in all residential zones (other than lots in Planned Development zones), approximately 32,000 more properties in the City of Madison would be allowed up to two attached homes. If even just 5% of those eligible property owners took the opportunity to add a second home, that would equate to 1,500 newly available homes.

The third ordinance is specifically catered for high density areas that are not Fanlund’s neighborhood. Even if Fanlund doesn't want to admit it, these are smart policies that target barriers to building and focus on finding solutions for the right contexts. 6 stories is appropriate in dense areas, duplexes are appropriate everywhere, and there’s a distinction that is respected by supporters. Madisonians voted for alders who said they would work to solve housing in the City. The Mayor and over a dozen Alders are up to the task.

What else can Madison be doing?

I'm a huge proponent of the Housing-Ready City model from Strong Towns. Madison is becoming a larger city, it's not the 150,000 college town it once was. And there are many neighborhoods that would benefit from incremental development rather than the large apartments we see Downtown. We should make it possible to build these kinds of homes anywhere in the City and leave large dense developments to transit corridors.

Here are the six tests Madison needs to pass to be considered “housing-ready”. I've bolded the ones that we pass and italicized the ones we’ve made progress towards passing.

1. Allow single-family home conversion to duplex or triplex, by right.

2. Permit backyard cottages in all residential zones.

3. Legalize starter homes in all residential zones.

4. Eliminate minimum lot size requirements in existing neighborhoods.

5. Repeal parking mandates for housing.

6. Streamline the approval process.

I'm most interested in the fourth and fifth policies. We've seen some reform on minimum lot sizes in the past year to help allow home types in zoning districts that were allowed by law but functionally restricted because of physical size requirements. There's also a significant (in the statistical sense) number of homes that are out of compliance with current lot minimums. This means if someone were to demolish the existing home and rebuild it to the exact same specs, it would now be illegal and require a variance/conditional use permit. Rather than trying to make carve outs, we should legalize these homes by removing the lot size requirements. Land is valuable in Madison and many neighborhoods thrive under these technically illegal zoning standards; they probably shouldn't be illegal.

Parking minimums and mandates are misunderstood, costly, and one of the largest invisible barriers to housing. Cities that have undertaken housing reform that includes parking minimum reform (Minneapolis, Seattle, Buffalo) attribute the parking reform as the largest difference maker. If you want to understand why I think Madison should remove parking mandates from all areas of the City and not just specific districts, you can read more here.

1. I don’t think this true, but that’s my opinion

2. I do get this, but I pay a premium for it

3. One of the suggestions from an Old Sauk Road development opponent