Citizen Wausau

Affordable Housing on the Riverfront Makes Sense

by John H. Fischer on January 15th, 2009

[The name might not be familiar, but the writing will be. This is our own Dr Rent, Wausau's answer to any question dealing with landlord-tenant issues. John is also a wellspring of knowledge regarding many aspects of civic life, and we look forward to many more posts from him in the future with an aim to enlighten us of the behind-the-scenes decisions and machinations of the city.]

A few blog posts ago, I had talked about the potential development of “affordable,” multi-family housing on the Wausau river front. The Wausau City Council decided to provide nearly a half-million dollars in development incentives. I disagreed with this action by the City because this development, if it proceeds, will already be getting a great deal of federal and state monies. I found it hard to believe that this development would not go through if the City didn’t throw in a big chunk of funds as well.

One thing that did bother me though, was that some of the council members were voting against this development for reasons that made very little sense to me.

I had made the statement at the City Council meeting that right now, the market for multi-family housing units was saturated. A couple of council members stated that there were also a large number of “affordable” housing units available. Based on my knowledge of “affordable” housing availabilities in Wausau, that is simply not the case.

When the term “Affordable Housing” is used, what it really means is subsidized housing, or housing where the amount of rent paid directly by the tenant is a set percentage of income. One form of subsidized housing, Section 8, has a waiting list of nearly two years. Other subsidized housing units also have a healthy waiting list. The vast majority of this housing in the Wausau area is actually owned and operated by the City of Wausau, through the Housing Authority. (The City of Wausau is Wausau’s largest residential landlord.)

Another statement that was made a number of times was the concern about the crime that will be brought in by having these low-income renters in this area. Really? A six-million-dollar housing development will generate more crime than a blighted riverfront that is a haven for god knows what?

People probably have images in their mind of rundown housing projects in large cities that they have seen on the news or in episodes of COPS. However, these type of “projects” are mostly things of the past. New affordable housing developments tend to be mixed housing. These are not luxury units, but are decent, mid-range market units. Some of the housing units have market rents with normal income tenants, and some of the housing units are subsidized. But the units all are of the same quality. So you mix low income with moderate income. You treat low income people like real people giving them decent quality housing. You treat them like real people, not second class citizens, and in return, you tend to get real people, people who take pride in their housing, their neighborhood, their community.

The final thing that council members were pointing out was how this was not the best use of this parcel of land, and they would prefer to wait for some type of commercial development. In my opinion, commercial development for the immediate downtown area makes sense. But the farther you get from downtown, the less sense commercial development makes. It is not easy to navigate those streets, which is a primary issue for commercial development. Plus, parking ratios will kill you. Commercial properties require much more parking, which means you either need more parking garages, or a large amount of this nice riverfront land gets turned into a parking lot. I have always thought that area was a great place for multi-family housing. (I thought it would be more of a condo development because I didn’t think you would be able to get multi-family to cash flow.)

Whether or not City funds should be thrown at this development I think is something worth a good, informed discussion. However, claims that there is plenty of subsidized housing available for those who need it is wrong. Accusations that apartments will bring in more crime simply because of the income level of the tenants is simply an insult. Crime related to multi-family housing has more to do with property ownership/management than the income level of the tenants. Finally, once you get away from “downtown,” residential development makes a great deal of sense on the river, and the higher the density, the better the potential tax base.