We are reconvening state. This is our Tuesday, March 31st, 2026 special meeting of the city of Madison Commission. We completed our roll call. Our meeting is being recorded. Um, and so if your microphone has a green light, it's live and being recorded. Um, but I'm not sure if the live is working or not. We do have the ability to display materials as we go to the agenda. So, we live. So, we will just kind of go through the agenda as as contemplated just a little late. Thanks everybody for your patience. Um, let's start with um we did complete our roll call. Ug it is time for public comment on items not on the agenda that we don't regionals disclosure refusal for the commissioners. We usually have time for a reminder for our schedule of meetings on April is tomorrow and we have two April meetings on Monday the 13th and Monday the 27th of April and then we have a meeting on May 11th. Uh also all of those Monday afternoon at 5:30 asual and then we have our next special meeting on Thursday, June 11th at 5 p.m. um in this building and probably across all. So that is our preliminary agenda items and we will now get into our special items of business and we are going to stick with the order. So our first item is register 92430 which is our planning annual report and 236. This will also include a bit of a discussion at the end which is a new item for your discussion. Um, so I'm going to run through this presentation both as an opportunity to provide some highlights from our annual report that was published last week and also use it as a space to move forward. Um, in the agenda for this meeting, we provided a link to the annual report which I noted is for the first time this year provided as an online report. um visiting our website. We're excited about this. It's definitely a different way to experience an annual report, but we are happy to be able to provide a report this way, particularly to increase the accessibility of our annual report this year. Um, I also want to note that of the things that we'll talk about tonight within the both the work plan and the look back on last year's activities is that this will just touch on a small portion of the plan uh the planning division's work and is most relevant to the work that the plan commission does. Um so the highlights that I'll share tonight touch on five of the eight services that the planning division is responsible for and even within those services there are many more activities that we do. So starting with some of the kind of breadandbut work that we do um in 2025 the annual report noted that we had just over a hundred meetings and engagements that were associated with the three area plans that were underway last year. Um, there were lots of different ways that those meetings took place, be it formal presentations and conversations or more informal opportunities for engagement, such as out in neighborhood parks or um other activities within the community. Our staff attended 31 meetings about development proposals. So, these are uh meetings that the council office helps schedule with alders and applicant teams and our staff attends those meetings to help provide additional information and context. As community members are learning about projects before they come before you. These are optional meetings that do not occur for every project, but when requested, the staff try to attend and support those. And then the planning division supports six boards, committees, and commissions. Um, obviously the plan commission, the landmarks commission and urban design commission, which you hear about a lot. Uh, we also staff the the joint campus area committee, the Madison Arts Commission, and uh the joint campus area committee. Did I say that twice? There's another one in there that I'm forgetting. >> Downtown Coordinating Committee. Thank you. Um, so we staffed 88 meetings for those six boards, committees, and commissions last year. As the team was doing our work, um a big focus of the um kind of written material that we were producing last year was to increase the accessibility of our documents. I think for those of you that are on the plan commission, you know that a lot of times there can be jargon and very specific terms that we use when we're talking about the um approvals that we're considering, the activities that are underway. We've been trying to focus on uh using more plain language in our work. So trying to use terms and phrases that more people would be familiar with to help increase the accessibility of our work itself. So there's been a focus on that kind of across the board, especially in really important what we would call key documents. Um, and one of the things that we did this year was actually re we updated our um, application for our art grant program um, with an eye towards plain language to make that uh, application more accessible. We also worked on creating an actual accessible like a um, reader accessible version of our plan commission submitted schedule. Um, so that is now available as an alternative format to the schedule that applicants use to bring items before the plan commission. We've worked on updating our website um and other documents as well and are trying to find other ways that we can incorporate plain language into the work that we do. So, as we look ahead to 2026, um one of the big things that we will be focused on is the transition in our PL principal planner role for the neighborhood preservation planning and design section. Um at the end of 2025, Bill Fring retired after 25 plus years with the city and so we will be um look we look forward to welcoming a new principal planner into that position. I mentioned already that we launched our annual report as a digital annual report this year and that coincided with the launch of our new website. Um I don't know if any of you had an opportunity to take a look at our new website. It's something we're really excited about. Um it's a much more accessible format just across the board um and allows us to present our work to the community in much more um engaging ways. So, this is something that's been a long time coming for the planning division. Uh, we were one of the last city agencies to actually get um our new website and we're very happy to see it. So, we'll be working on working out a few kinks that we've discovered already um through launching that as well as building on a few additional upgrades that are um coming as we get a little more settled in with that website. Related to that, we will also be working on um continuing to make our documents more accessible specifically around PDFs. Um as all of you know, a lot of PDFs are produced in our office. Um and so we have a mandate and an interest in making sure that those documents are more accessible from an ADA accessibility perspective. So we are going to be working on prioritizing again those key documents that need to be accessible and working with our IT department to do that but also thinking about new ways that we can present our information um so that we are not uploading 200page PDFs to the website for everything we do. So the annual report was one way that we're trying to test alternative ways that we can provide our information in a digital first format and we look forward to thinking about other ways we can do that as we move forward. And then we'll also be doing an annual update to our results Madison which are some of our key metrics that we use to uh measure both our progress and our performance in all of our service areas. So this will be something that especially for the alders that are on the commission, you will see when we get into the budget process. So the next service that I want to provide some highlights in is for our plan creation service. So this is something that the commission sees a lot of. Um I think you know a lot about our area planning work in particular, our comprehensive planning work as well. Um so in 2025 we made substantial progress on the southeast and southwest area plans and we kicked off at the end of the year the downtown area plan. You may remember that we also um talked about an update to the area plan framework for the order and timing of a couple of those plans kind of in the center part of the um overall um schedule. So, in 2026, we are actually going to be working on parts of five different area plans, which is a lot of work for us. Um, it will be a lot of work for you. Um, we look forward to bringing you the final drafts of the southeast and southwest area plans in the very near future and moving those towards adoption this spring. Uh, we will also be making substantial progress on the downtown area plan as well this year. And as we get towards the end of this year, we will be kicking off the north and near west area plans as well. We are currently talking um with several agencies that we collaborate with closely on these area plans about additional process improvements that we can make to the planning process before we start the next two plans uh to make sure that we have good coordination around what types of recommendations and at what level go into those area plans. All right. So for the next service to highlight um this is our plan implementation and design section. So uh this is a really wide ranging service. Um covers all kinds of implementation activities that might come after we prepare a plan. Um and so you saw a lot of this work last year particularly around uh ordinance development and and amending our zoning code. Um so this work is in collaboration with many of the folks from the zoning team that are in this room tonight. um and many of you as um elected officials and and plan commissioners. Um but we updated the building demolition review and approval process. Um, we also, um, worked on, I think it was 14, I said 14 distinct changes to our zoning code, um, over the course of 2025 that were aimed at trying to support our housing forward goals, particularly around residential infill and, um, continuing to rightsize our transit oriented development overlay standards. In this uh body of work, we also were coordinating with a number of our neighboring communities on regional growth issues specifically related to incorporation and intergovernmental agreements. I mentioned at our last meeting that um we have been working for some time on a potential intergovernmental agreement with the village of McFarland as we prepare for the final attachment of the town of Blooming Grove to Madison in 2027. Um we are working on the final attachment for the town of Blooming Grove in 2027 and we were working with a number of our uh neighbors to the north as um uh the town of Westport is pursuing incorporation. So that um cooperative plan was on one of your recent agendas as well. Um, and then another item that I think some of you may know about, but um, we have been working with a number of downtown partners around the redesign of the Mifflin and Carol Plazas at the top of State Street as the Wisconsin History Center redevelops and making a plan for the future of what that space will look like, how it will function, and how it will operate. So, as we look ahead to 2026, we will be building on a lot of that work that I just mentioned from last year. Um, specifically as it relates to code updates, there are two big ones. Um, we will be bringing forward recommendations for changes to the UDC, the Urban Design Commission, I'm sorry, and the Urban Design Code, um, the process and the code itself. Um, we also will be talking with you at some point this summer about some uh early recommendations that we have for how to develop an ordinance specifically related to data centers. Uh, you may remember we passed an ordinance uh issuing a moratorum on new data centers. So we will be bringing that um policy some discussion of that policy to you this summer and then ultimately the um ordinance itself will come to you through the referral process. Um and then believe it or not we are getting ready to uh prepare our next comprehensive plan implementation update. Um we have switched to doing this every two years. Um, so we will be working with all city agencies to figure out what else we um have been able to move forward from the last comp plan um and pulling that together in a report to share with you. And with this one, we are specifically looking at how to create linkages to the recently adopted area plans. Um, we don't think, we're not entirely sure, but we don't think that we're going to issue separate implementation reports for the comp plan and each of the area plans, but we're still kind of working through exactly what that will look like. So, moving into development review. Um, this is obviously a huge part of what the plan commission does at all of your meetings. Um, so just want to summarize these activities here for you. Um, in the far right column you can see the total by each of these four application types that the plan commission reviewed in 2025. Um, there were just over 150 applications that came to the plan commission in 2025. You can see the breakdown of them there. For some projects, they might have included multiple um applications. You know, they might have included a conditional use and a zoning change, for example. Um but this is the total number that you reviewed. Um and I wanted to note here that uh this is lower than in previous years. One of the ways this is lower is specifically in the demolitions category. Um the commission saw about 35 fewer demolitions last year than it did in 2024. And we think that a big part of that is as a result of the change to the ordinance for how demolitions are reviewed by the city. You'll remember that the commission now only reviews demolitions that have been determined by the landmark commission to have historic value. Um that said, we did have fewer demolition applications across the board in 2025 as well. So that number is lower there. This is the summary then of the residential and commercial either number of units, lots or square footage that was created um as or was included in the applications that the plan commission reviewed. And I will say this doesn't represent all of the new um residential or commercial space that was permitted by the city in 2025. This just represents what the plan commission saw in 2025. Um, so you will note that there were just over 2500 new multif family units that were approved as part of the land use applications that the plan commission saw in 2025. Um, this is the second year that that number of units has decreased from the peak in 20 uh well has decreased. Um we definitely have seen that that number is lower than the peak in 2020. Um we're closer to the numbers that we saw in 2019 for new multif family units in particular. Um one reason for this decrease again could be related to changes in city policy that have been made in the last several years. Um as we have pursued zoning code changes under housing forward. um have reszoned property, have more proactively planned, particularly for where we want to see more housing. There are more projects that have been able to come to the city as what we call a permitted use, which means that they can proceed to the zoning team um to pursue permits without needing to come to the plan commission first for a conditional use request. So, we are seeing some of that. Um, for example, this year we did see a 241 unit multif family building proposed at 2150 Commercial Avenue. Uh, bless you. Um, this is in an area of the city that was reszoned to the RMX zoning district, which allows for most uh multifamily housing developments to be a permitted use. Uh so the plan commission only saw that project because it involved a certified survey map or a land combination. Uh but the multif family development itself was reviewed by the urban design commission but ultimately is a permitted use that will proceed through um an administrative approval process. So there's some of that certainly in this number. Um, and we are working to improve our data pipelines to make sure that we have a a clearer picture of the gap between the units and the commercial space that's represented by the plan commission's approval process and then what we see on our housing dashboard when projects start construction and are actually counted in that way. So we know this isn't a holistic picture of everything. Um, but it is also a number we're watching closely to see if there are any real trends in our market in terms of how many new homes or other commercial space are actually being um, uh, brought to the city for approval as well. All right. And then I think this is the last category here that I'll highlight uh, data and mapping. In 2025, we updated the neighborhood indicators project, um, which is a collaboration that the planning office has with the UW's applied population lab. So, this is a screenshot of the neighborhood indicators dashboard here on the left. Um, this pulls in a number of data from the census, from the city, from area partners, and displays it in a publicly available resource. um at a number of different geographic levels so that we can you know make information about our community available for people to use for a number of purposes. Um this is a partnership we've had with them for a number of years and we update this data holistically every two years. So we updated the data in 2025 and relaunched it. And as part of that we also created um we synthesized the data at the area plan level so that we can use that better in our area plan process and we also made a dashboard available um with that area plan data. This is now on our area plan web pages um or on our area plan web page I should say. So um this is a screenshot again on the left of how we have provided that data um in a dashboard at the area plan geography level. In 2026 we are going to be working on actually breaking this dashboard out and having a standalone dashboard for each area um each area plan I guess I should say directly on that area plan page so that folks can see just the data available for that part of the city. We are also working on um some collaborations with the metropolitan planning organization which is part of the planning division to provide development projection development and projection data for them to use in an update to the regional plan and the regional transportation model. Um and we're trying to make some other tools available on our website to help with um things like zoning data and other um kind of planning related data on an online map as well. So, those are some updates that will be coming next year. So, I'm going to transition into talking a little bit about the plan commission's work plan for 2026, but I'll pause there and just see if there were any questions about the planning division's highlights. >> Question. I just I should remember this but the neighborhood indicators project is always I mean I know there are new types of data but it's always limited by just being from the previous census right >> do you know about that for census related data um I think we do have a mix of the previous census we might use some ACS data um and then Some of the data points are not actually from the census. They may come from other data sources as well. So they could be updated more frequently than the census. >> Yeah, >> thank you. Yeah, the school district. Some are from the city. There are other sources as well. >> One other question. I I realize this fantastic resource on the web. It's so much easier to look at serves a purpose. Have you also thought about tracking >> uh denied applications as a function of time? >> Um >> or or analogous quantities. >> Have we? Um well, denials are rare. I'll say we don't have that number. Um but they do happen very infrequently. Um I'm looking to the staff to see if we've ever talked about that. >> Yes, >> fairly easy. Yeah, >> might be interesting. >> Yeah, come up to the microphone. Yeah, >> we do track the information. It's just it's not published, but you know, that would be a very easy number to track. We just have historic put that >> for example, I think last year we could probably count on one hand the number of denials that we actually had. >> I would think it may not have even been one hand. Yeah. >> Curious if it's changed over time, though. Yeah, that's a great question. Yep. >> Thanks. >> Um, I'm assuming that we're also coordinating with Madison Metropolitan School District because they're looking at restructuring boundaries and things like that, which we're probably vitally interested in, too. >> Yeah, great question, Alder. Um, we did, this is not one of the things that I highlighted, but we did talk about in our annual report, um, that we're really glad to be restarting our coordination with the school district. We're happy to have, um, Scott here as the school district's new representative on the commission. Um, this past year, the staff from the district and our office, as well as leaders from the school board, the plan commission and the council, we attended two tours of recent developments or developments that we anticipate in the near future um across the city to try to coordinate around the growth issues that we're that we're seeing here in Madison and the relationship to the school districts. Um it was a great opportunity also for us all to hear and learn about the different ways that the school district is experiencing growth in the city. It's definitely not even. Um and we also um had a presentation at your one of your special meetings last year from the district representatives about the boundary work that they're going to be doing that they are doing. So yeah, >> if I can add to that to the potentially a special session here at this yet this year, one of the sessions we'll come and present again kind of where building for the future and how we're looking at the boundaries and how the city is growing and like I said partnering and trying to understand where we need to to shift our boundaries because we have some pressure points and what is also the future, right? What does the far west look like? The far east because we've got some property and we don't want to keep pressuring some of the schools that we currently have pressure on the far east side. There's got to be an outlet, right? And so we've got to be smarter about what we do and and not feel the pressure first. Like we've got to be planning to keep pressure off. That's all keep people in our district and our city. So we're being very conscious about that. Do do we ever do models of 2040 2050 where we think the like for some of these where do we think people will live and what the housing will be? >> Go ahead if you want to speak to that Scott. Yeah. >> Uh yeah we so we have got a consulting group working with us right now MGT. Uh we've taken data and kind of the the pattern of the data that's been shown over time. So we're doing studies now it looks like in 2030 2035 and 2040. >> Okay. and kind of modeling through that. We're showing a little bit recessions of students just because modern data is telling it's it's really degressing, but look in our city and it it doesn't never fit the model, right? So, you look at every model, it tells us we're losing students, but we should have been down a lot of students, but we're holding. So, it's it's kind of offsetting. So, we're actually thinking like if it does grow, it's only going to expand certain problems. So, how do we get ahead of that and and keep using that model as part of our boundary studies? It may not look like it now, but we know if this then that, right? So, we're building those scenarios forward. So, we can go to the public and say we've had X, Y, and Z. And also, we looked at if this happens, too. So, we're really trying to be very forward about the information, and what we see is only the crystal ball. But when we do have to make choices to the public and ask for certain things or or talk about it, we we we really want to be open about it and then get the feedback like that's never going to happen. Okay, great. what if it does or okay it didn't now we're going to pivot and do certain ways right >> and on the city side we do um look at our overall population and household projections by decade um but actually it's still up here on the slide one of the things that we do in coordination with the MO is actually bring those projections down to very small geographic levels um they have a really technical term for them called TAZ's which they use for developing a model of our transportation system in the region. And so we work with them around that, but we're also talking about how some of that information is the same information that's being requested to help the school with planning um some of the city's utilities with planning and thinking about where they need to make infrastructure investments. And so we're actually working through some ways that we can develop that information into a tool that we can share with more um agencies for the purposes of planning. >> Thanks. Yeah. >> All right. So, we'll move then into the plan commission's work plan. Um, so new in 2026, the all BCC's are asked to consider their annual work plan. Um, this is part of the overall effort to help improve the experience of being part of a BCC and to help make sure that the boards, committees, and commissions are well supported. So, um, we've been asked to talk with you about a work plan. This doesn't have any specific format or requirement that needs to be met, but really is an opportunity for us to talk about what our purpose and goal is as a commission. Um, talk about some of the activities that we expect to undertake in 2026 and then to just think about how any of those special activities that you may want to do as a commission align with the resources that are available to support you. specifically, you know, how they align with staff work plans and and our staffing resources. Um, so as we think about the commission specifically, you are one of the boards that is um we call a referral heavy board, which means that a lot of your agendas is set by the development activity that's happening within our community and the specific application types that you need to consider. You're also a referral heavy board in the sense that you have statutory obligations to review things like zoning code changes and to make recommendations on our long range plans before they're adopted by the council. So, there's a lot that happens on a day-to-day basis within your purview that's not really in your control. Um, I'll say um other than to be good stewards of those decisions. uh but we do have this forum of our special meetings which presents an opportunity for us to think about what are the broader topics and this is something that you've been doing for a long time and I think have been doing really well. So what a work plan could look like for the commission is something like what's here on the screen. um a recognition that your core work that your review and approval or recommendation on all of those referrals are the main items that you're going to continue to work on primarily. Um we can put on paper some of the things that we think that we're going to talk about in your special meetings for the year. Um, and then we can use this as an opportunity to talk about other trainings or refreshers that we might want to do on an annual or some kind of reoccurring basis or maybe as a one-off. So, what's on the screen right now is something that Emily and I put together based on our just a discussion that we had about kind of planning for the year ahead, specifically here in the section about special meetings and other trainings and refreshers. So you see the items that are on our agenda for tonight that are already in that list. We've started to talk about what your summer and fall meeting agendas will look like as well. Um I mentioned that the data cent's uh topic will come to you here um this summer. Uh we've also talked about requesting some presentation or some updates from the city's department of transportation about transportation plans that they're working on and uh specific opportunity to talk about the linkages between those transportation planning activities and our land use and development activities that you often see. Uh we've also identified an opportunity to take a deeper dive into regional growth issues. So, how does Madison fit into the regional housing strategy, for example? Maybe taking an opportunity to dive in a little bit deeper on some of those intergovernmental agreements and and um intermunicipal discussions that I mentioned earlier. Uh we also identified um reaching out to engineering to request an update on the city's watershed studies and a discussion about the city's storm water ordinance. This is something that comes up a lot when you're being asked to make findings and recommendations on conditional uses. And so we thought that getting a primer on that and an opportunity to discuss what happens after you look at a project could be really helpful. Um and then we saw Alderfield actually submitted a really helpful comment and request to get a little bit of a deeper dive tutorial into the neighborhood indicators project so that we know how to use it um for other purposes. So, those are some topics that we are thinking about for your June and September meetings um to schedule for later this year. You uh Scott mentioned maybe having another conversation with the school district about the boundary review. Um we can put that on our radar. I don't know if there are any other specific requests for topics that we could put here as well >> just because it's um just because it's such a frequent uh thing that comes up in neighborhood meetings and so forth is if I could summarize the question you're always talking about getting more missing middle housing, but it's obviously very hard. What are the obstacles and what are we doing about the obstacles? >> Okay. Y >> um I sort of even committed to district 19 that at at some point I do a a public information meeting on specifically those topics but putting the information together on where that is and and some of the things we're thinking about some mundane maybe somewhere a little out there on the fringe to be able to do that. Uh something I'd like to hit at some point in time. >> Okay. implementing missing middle housing. It's a good that is a good topic. Alder, >> I've got something off the top of my head. Uh maybe just a oneoff of I I think it's good for plan commissioners to have the opportunity to talk to assistant city attorneys about things like uh affordability and how that should or should not come into our decision making. And that that's what I'm thinking of right now. But other things too uh that that are part of the standards of approval make sure we uh understand where subjectivity lies and where it doesn't. And I just off the top of my head. >> Okay. >> And I wouldn't want to >> ask uh Kate Smith to you know give an hourong presentation maybe just some questions from us. I don't know. >> An opportunity for a conversation. >> Yeah. >> Okay. And along those lines, we um Emily thought that it would be helpful to have maybe an annual refresher on our parliamentary procedures. So things like Robert's rules, how to make motions, as well as open meetings law. Um are there any other things that you feel like as a commissioner would be helpful to have refreshers on or specific training around? maybe not as a not as a compliance tool, but as something to kind of help us feel more confident as we're moving through the plan commission's business about um you know, sometimes you're kind of like, how much detail do I want to put in my motion and and to the comments surrounding it? What are what are the findings of fact? And I think those I think those are muscles that you build over time through practice and not something that you learn and then you know it forever. So >> Okay. >> Okay. >> So motions and finding effect. Yep. Okay. All right. I'll do >> um you mentioned the relationship between our planning work and transportation plans and policies. Um does that include curb management yet or is curb management still quite forthcoming such that we couldn't count on that yet? >> It's still nent, but um we could ask for the Department of Transportation to touch on whatever is new since the last time they talked to you. >> Sure. whenever enough information is available, I think that would help all of us with some of the more tricky >> parts of your development review. >> Yeah. Sites. Thank you. >> Okay. Sounds good. >> All right. Well, we'll update this then and share um the revised version of it with you at your next meeting and we'll use this as the guide for our work plan for the rest of the year for the commission then. So, thank you for that. Are there any other questions about this topic in general before we move on? >> All right. I just have one >> one last comment and then we can move on, which is if things come up, just send a email like maybe don't copy the whole commission, but send an email to me or Megan or both of us because we can certainly work things into the agenda ahead of time um as ideas come to mind. So thanks. >> All right. Thank you. >> That's concluding. >> Okay. >> All right. So that concludes uh our discussion on item two. Item three is legisar 92440. And that's our discussion of our or that's our update on housing forward. And Matt is here with Megan to um help along. And Matt, I'm not gonna say your last name right. So if Walker So Matt Wner, thank you. >> Yeah. So, um, Matt and I will co-present this one. Um, Matt Walker is the Department of I'm sorry. Yeah. The Department of Planning, Community, and Economic Development Director. Um, we just say PCED here. It's easier. Um, and so we've asked Matt to come and talk specifically about some of the city-led development activities. And I'll quickly just recap. Um, a little bit about housing forward. Um, I think most of you know that housing forward was is a city initiative to support our overall housing needs. As part of an update in 2025, we established a goal to create 15,000 new homes by 2030 using a multi-pronged approach to supporting that housing growth. Um, this includes a number of strategies related to increasing housing choice, creating affordable housing, combating displacement and segregation, and working to end homelessness. So, we're not going to go into all parts of this tonight, but we can follow up with any of the topics that you might want to hear more on. And, um, we're going to focus tonight on increasing housing choice and creating affordable housing. Um, so these are some of the highlights that you as a commission worked on in the last uh year in particular. I'm just going to move this. Um, some of the specific strategies under increasing how housing choice were about making lot division and subdivision processes simpler to create more new lots for homes, pursuing code changes in support of that missing middle that alder mentioned, and overall continuing to simplify our zoning standards to support infill. So, um, I noted earlier the number of code updates that were made in 2025. These generally fell within a couple of buckets. Um the first is to update the zoning and subdivision codes to support that residential scale infill. Um so you saw zoning code changes related to allowing two units in all residential districts across the city. Um continuing to adjust our allowances for accessory dwelling units. Creating this new cottage court um housing type and allowing it in most residential districts. and then allowing three and four unit residential um housing types in residential areas in the to overlay. Um some things that you also saw related to how land is divided. Um we changed the standards for um deep residential lots. So essentially allowing more backyard lots for homes to be created on, reducing some of the lot size standards for residential property across our residential zoning districts. Um and then dealing with how new development in um higher intensity zoning districts kind of fits in next to those residential areas. Um and we also addressed one of the underlying drivers of density which was the um open space standard and we eliminated that requirement uh for usable open space separate from um just our our general lot coverage limits. Uh, the next group of code changes dealt with um residential development forms. So, I'm not going to get too far in the weeds on this. We did make a a zoning code change that dealt with a lot of these things that we see as frequent barriers when people are trying to build or remodel their homes. So, just in general trying to make it a little bit easier to build and maintain a home in the city. Um, and then we also had this bucket that I mentioned earlier about updates to the transit oriented development overlay standard. So, we tackled some of the development types that were making it a little bit harder for us to realize the more intensive development pattern that was really intended by that district and we also prohibited a few autooriented land uses as new standalone principal uses within that district. Um and then finally some of these ordinances were also related to the development review process that is used. Uh we already mentioned the demolition process and the code changes for that earlier. Uh we also made a code change that increased the threshold for the size of a project within our downtown zoning districts that would be considered a conditional use. So allowing more of those smaller multif family and mixeduse developments in downtown to be um a permitted use that could proceed to permitting. Um and we also reszoned a select number of properties within the TOD overlay into zoning districts that are more consistent with our future land use recommendations um based on some of the recommendations of the west and northeast area plans. So all those are to try to help streamline the process for um development and creation of new homes. One thing I don't think we talked about with the commission too much about last year uh is that our 2026 operating budget also created funding for an additional position within the engineering mapping team. Um, and this was specifically about kind of identifying a place where projects can sometimes get stuck just due to staff capacity as they go through the technical review that our engineering team is is involved in. Um, this affects people who are looking at um, CSMS resoning sometimes um, a lot of the work involved with the technical review of these projects. Um, so at some point this year, they will hopefully be bringing on some additional capacity to support that development review team. So that was just a very quick summary of where we've been on the kind of increasing housing choice side, mostly through policy changes and in some cases through process changes. So I'll let Matt talk more about what we've been doing to increase um, affordable housing throughout the city. >> Sure. So on the affordable housing side, it's really a lot about making it happen through funding tools and then through more active uh development role for the for the city. Um and so the where we do a lot of this oh myself >> yeah you can just click >> uh where we do a lot of our affordable housing development is through money through tax criminal financing um and the affordable housing fund. Um so these primarily fund large tax credit developments that you see um but also smaller things that we do. Um and then land banking uh it's tool where we buy land to sort of set it aside for affordable housing development. And then um the CDA is the housing authority and the redevelopment authority and they are part of this department. Um so they own operate and develop housing. Um, and oftentimes when we do something really hard, it requires that we use all of these tools stacked on top of each other. Um, so a lot of my examples today though, I just click here, um, are going to focus on the land banking and CDA side of things, um, which we do less of, but, um, important projects. So uh just to start off with when we make the decision to sort of play more of the role of developer we don't do this lightly um and that's that's partially because it is very resource intensive. Um these projects take multiple years. It's usually a staff team that has uh real estate buying land. It has the housing authority bringing on developers. It has uh planning doing test fits and community outreach. uh community development division is bringing in money. So we'll have, you know, four, five, six staff dedicated for years to make one of these developments go forward. Um we also, if it was an easy project, we wouldn't do it. So we only take on usually harder, more complicated u and oftentimes more expensive projects. Um and so we try to do things that are very strategic where um we're trying to, you know, solve not one problem but four, five, six problems at a time when we when we do these. Um and so I'll go through um sort of where we've been focused recently. So for the last probably five years, most of our uh uh land banking efforts have been focused on South Madison. And that's because uh a bunch of things aligned. We had the town of Madison attaching. So there was new land available, but also a lot of need that was uh we saw. We had the South Madison plan telling us sort of where we needed to have uh redevelopment happening. We put a new TIFF district in place that had a lot of money available to do things. Um and then in South Madison, the CDA was already a large uh landlord and had holdings. So, it made sense for us to really focus our attention for a number of years to find strategic sites to buy in South Madison. Um, and now in the last year or so, we've broadened our search scope a bit more. Um, we're always looking along transit sites. So, BRT, uh, 30-minute bus service areas are where we and that's where the policy that guides us tells us to look. Um, but we're also looking at opportunities to um acquire sites that are set up for missing middle housing. Um, and we also have an emphasis on where can we um add ownership where there might not be ownership um opportunities right now. So, um an example of a recent project where the city um sort of played that the in this case the CDA played the role of developer um was at Terresa Terrace. So, the CDA um owned two duplexes that um had been deemed obsolete and they were developed as public housing. We moved the public housing designation to another site. Um and so we for sort of we owned the site. Um we had restrictions from HUD that said when you redevelop it, it should really have um an affordable rental component um as part of it. Um, and we knew that we wanted to learn more about missing middle housing and sort of why are we not seeing um this scale of development happening in infill sites. Um, and some of the things that we learned is that it's hard. Uh, building six units is as much brain damage as building 50 in a lot of ways. Um it's it's difficult too because it's a scale of housing where there's not a large obvious pool of contractors who want to do this. It's it's a it's bigger than a single family home contractor would do, but it's not sort of worth it for someone who's used to doing 50unit buildings all day. Um so that's a difficulty. uh the building code, you're not in the one and two unit, you're in a more commercial side of the building code, which means you have to do things like sprinkle the buildings, but again, it's a small sort of not very common sprinkler system you have to put into these things. So, there's a lot of those sort of lessons that we learned. Um, also, this was sort of under this was before some of the zoning code changes that we talked about. So, if we did it today, it probably have more flexibility in how we developed it. But these are open um as of the end of the year. They have we have six uh families who are uh who are a lower income and they are affordable to them. Um so it was successful project but it was it was definitely hard. We we learned a lot from it. Um another project would be here on Park Street. So the city landbaked this site in 2017 thinking that we were going to develop it. the development didn't happen. Um, a number of years went by. We saw a need for um, affordable housing for youth who are aging out of the foster system and we had special money from HUD um, set aside to do this. So, we had a we had a site that we owned on great transportation. We had this sort of special housing needed need that we wanted to fulfill. So we in this case decided well let's uh partner with the developer and uh so we brought in a developer who this was their sort of first groundup development. Um so one of the things by us owning the land we could be really patient with them. So while they went and got tax credits, figured out all of their funding, uh those sorts of things, we could just wait and hold the land until they were ready to do the project. Um and so we're under construction now. Um I think it opens late 26. Um so this is just a case where we decided we didn't have to be the developer to do it. Um and that is how some of these land bank deals will happen is where we'll turn around and through requests for proposal find a developer who is the right fit for the type of project that we want to see happen there. Um and then this is another one that's sort of interesting. Uh so it's the Voit farm. So in this case a developer bought the site um and decided to go and develop it and uh as they were sort of going through it they realized that they had uh a financial gap and so they came to the city looking at how can we help fill this. So, um, as they were putting it together, um, they were meeting a lot of the objectives that the city put forward in the plan to have a wide variety of uses, housing types. Um, they wanted to have a wide variety of affordability levels, and a mixture of ownership and rental. Um, and as we underwrote it, what we found was that some of these lots were a bit more of a drag on the economics and they tended to be the the ones that were set aside for affordable um, uh, ownership and for missing middle type housing. That's partially because it's a lot of infrastructure for the amount of housing you get on some of those lots. So, one of these large lots, you get 150 apartments on it, you know, and you have, you know, the same amount possibly of street and sewer as these lots where you're only putting in a dozen town homes. Um, so they, so what we decided was those made sense for the city to land bankank. Um, and what that let us do is by buying these sites, we could hold on to them while uh the land trust got ready to build, while um Habitat for Humanity got ready to build because there's it takes time. They've got to put their money together, do a lot of things, and again, they need a a patient land owner who can sit there and wait while they get things ready. So, we solved that problem. we got money into the hands of the developer earlier because we sort of were pre- buying these sites. So, we filled some of their financial gap um and we got to hold on to these sites that made sense for missing middle housing. So, we can make sure that that's what gets built there. Um but we can then control is it home ownership, is it um you know what the income level is? Um all of that. So, we we get to ensure that that happens as part of the development. So again, we're trying to solve multiple problems with this tool of land banking. Um, and so the developer could go ahead and build the regular market rate housing right there on this on this the site as the first project. It's under construction and we are working through um our deals with those nonprofits waiting for the last of the streets to be put in um you know in the next couple of months. And that's happening over here. We have lots of maps of the same thing. And then do you want to cover this or >> Yeah, I that we'll just wrap up here by saying um this is just a a highlight of some of the things that are in housing forward and even of some of the work that's being done. So happy to answer any other questions that you might have about these two topics of housing choice and affordability. Um, wanted to end here with just a quick reminder that last year we also launched this housing tracker which is available on the Department of Planning, Community, and Economic Development's website. So, the community can see how we're tracking towards that goal of 15,000 new homes by 2030. Um, since January 1 of 2025, uh, 2800 new homes have been completed and there are another 4,739 under construction. So, with those projects that are in the pipeline right now, we're about halfway to that goal. So, we still need to continue doing that work. Um, but we're about halfway to that goal as of right now. Um, and you can see in the bottom right just a map of where the completed and under construction projects are, which are really across the city. Um, there's not any one neighborhood per se where this development is happening, but we're seeing this across the city. And then the last one here is just a snapshot. We also have a page on that housing tracker to track the uh bless you the affordable housing creation. So within the goal of 15,000 new homes, we also set a goal that 25% of them would be affordable, would have some component of permanent affordability. And so this helps us track our progress towards that goal as well. This is lagging a bit behind the overall goal towards housing creation. Um we're just under halfway to that goal with what's under construction right now. Um you can also see here just a breakdown of recent development in terms of how um what affordability level the the graph here in the bottom left um helps us see of the new homes that have been created since uh the beginning of 24 at what affordability level were they market rate um or did they have some level of subsidy in terms of their affordability? Um, I also wanted to note, I appreciate that Colin helped us look up, um, earlier we mentioned, you know, the plan commission's development review activity for 2025. I think Emily had asked a question a couple weeks ago just about how many of the projects that you've seen in recent years included affordable housing. Um, this is often a question that comes up about, you know, what is our role in terms of um, thinking about affordability. It's really at the planning and sort of policy level and thinking about the linkages to implementation that Matt and his um some of the work he mentioned really is about. But you did see a lot of affordable housing come through your approval process in the last two years. Um so since 2024 the plan commission approved 23 projects which totaled almost 2700 new homes. Um so that was out of uh 48 projects that included mixeduse or multifamily. So a little over half of the projects that you saw in the last two years alone were helping us add to the um affordable housing stock that we have coming online within our community and helping us achieve that goal. Um so I just thought that that was a really important helpful thing to end on to let you know kind of how your work fits into that overall. happy to answer any questions that you might have about this. >> Um I I think you touched on this a little bit that uh working at smaller scale projects um involves a lot of effort and a fair amount of expense. And so, and I think I've heard this multiple times in a variety of meetings, that our dollars that we have available to us go farther for some big projects than not. And yet, we try to find some of those. Could you just talk a little bit about that difficult decision about how we choose uh some of the smaller scale projects that just so we can uh continue to focus on that scale as well as the super scale? >> Sure. So on the larger scale rental housing usually the city is filling a gap and most of the co most of the cost of the project is covered by bank debt and tax credits. So the federal government is providing the large amount of subsidy for those. So we're putting in something like, you know, 20 $30,000 per unit to sort of fill that last remaining gap for for that. Um when we get down to the smaller scale, there isn't a big federal tool usually that is paying it. So we're filling the entire financial gap to bring it down from market rate to 50% of median income. Um, so that's that's the big thing is just we're not leveraging outside subsidy from other levels of government is the big is the big part of it. Um, and then home ownership is is similar where if you want to make home ownership available to someone at 60% 50% of median income, you know, you've got to fill an awful lot of gap because the size of their mortgage is really limited by their incomes. And we have a goal to try to solve all of these problems. But uh that is a limiting factor. The other limiting factor is when we try to use tiff to fill the gap, the project needs to create a lot of new tax increment. And these small projects that are 100% affordable, they're just not generating a lot of new taxes. Um, so when we do a 200 odd unit apartment building that is rental, that has tax credits in it, it's oftentimes generating millions of dollars of new taxes over the life of that tiff district that we can then invest into the project. That's just not an option for a forplex. um the data on number of affordable housing units, does that include the student affordable housing units? Because I know that income's kind of tricky to be different than 60% AMI. >> Um >> I don't think it does because our definition of affordable here is usually that it's got all tied to 60% AMI. Our student housing isn't tied to AMI. it's tied to are they receiving financial aid and are qualified through the UW. So the affordab affordability definition is different. So I don't think we're putting that in here. >> It's a really good question though, especially as we've seen more developments in the past couple of years take advantage of that process that maybe there's a way we could think about capturing that. Yeah. >> Matt, just a question about land banking. I just want to make sure I understand it. You mentioned that uh buying those lots at Starkweather provided money to the developer and that's because they are also the land owner, right? Uh so yeah, I should it's it's a little more complicated because there's the the the land developer is two developers who partnered on it. They won't necessarily be the developer of each of the lots. So they'll develop some of those individually. they could sell off some. Um, and yeah, if I use them interchangeably and I shouldn't, >> but in but in the in the greater scheme of things, they're also the land they those developers are the land owners or will be if they're not already, right? >> Uh, and that's why the money is advantageous, >> right? So, so, so with raw land development, you know, they're fronting millions and millions of dollars to buy, put in the infrastructure, those sorts of things before they build a building. So by pre-bying those lots it it helps soften that. Got it a little. Yeah. Thanks >> Oak. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Um I did want to ask are you tracking vacancy rates by AMI across projects that the city is funding? I I just I heard a comment from a developer that like where we have you know it's not just where we put the housing physically it's how much investment we put in to set the AMI and I've heard that maybe we have too much 80% not 60 or vice versa >> I don't think we are actively tracking in city funded properties what the vacancy is by AMI okay and bedroom size I don't think we're getting anywhere near that granular Is there any way to track vacancy by AMI? >> Do is there stuff in the CoStar report about >> So yeah, so our sources of vacancy um we used to get data from MG where they'd be able to tell if a meter was turned on and off and it was nice because it was updated quarterly. Um they don't provide that anymore. Um so one of our main sources of data that Megan was talking about is Co-Star Reports. They're grading buildings in a different way and it doesn't really tie to AMI. It's it's number of stars which is like a kind of quality metric. Um and it is not nearly that fine. >> So we don't get when we are funding URA we don't get reports on how many units are filled or anything like that. >> Uh no no we're not actively tracking that. I mean, in our own units, we know um because, you know, we've got 1,200 units plus our vouchered units, so we get data that way. Um, our units are full for the most part. I think that could be challenging, too, because the AMIs can move between unit types. So, it would be really hard to track um even if you had consistent reporting over time. All right. Any any more questions on uh on our housing forward update? Thank Thank you, Matt. Megan, that's good. All right. Thank you. All right. Our next item is legisar 92445 and that's our overview of single and two family plan development reszoning. >> Yeah, >> never mind. I will Good evening, >> Matt and Katie. Would you would you mind introducing yourselves as you get started since I didn't get it like I don't know without the Zoom windows to call on you by name it's a little harder. So, thanks. >> Sure. Thank you. Um, good evening. I'm uh zoning administrator Katie Vanna. >> Uh, Matt Tucker. from the director of the building inspection division. >> I've got a couple zoning team members here too. I just wanted to give a shout out to um Esmeralda Tovar who's a zoning and sign code specialist with the city and Jacob Mascowitz who's an assistant zoning administrator with the city and they're part of the project team for this project. So you may be seeing more of them. Welcome. Um so we're here tonight to present about a project to look at reszoning single and two family plan developments or PDS um into what we call conventional zoning districts. So zoning districts that are exist within the zoning code can be used without throughout the city. Um this project is really focused on single and two family plan developments that are located on individual fee simple lots. So we're not looking at condominium development at this time. We could consider additional uh PDS in the future. I know that's been a question we've had already. Um but we want to start with these PDs because they affect many individual property owners and are the simplest to reszone into these conventional zoning districts. Maybe I'll do it. Okay. I don't have that many slides, so I guess I could have you do it, Megan. Thank you. or director Tuttle, sorry. Um, but taking a step back, um, what we're really looking at here is moving kind of from some of the things you've really seen a lot as a group over the past two years in 2024 and 2025, which were these zoning code text amendments where we're changing these rules that apply to various districts or to the um, transitoriented development overlay district um, all those kind of things to um, support additional housing. We're moving into kind of this next phase this year to really think about process improvements um and uh technology changes. We know time in the development and permitting process is a big part of housing costs. Time is money for sure. Um so anything we can do to decrease that time ultimately um decreases the cost of providing housing in Madison. So um with that goal in mind, not moving, sorry, not moving on. I talk a lot on this slide. um you know I really went to the team and asked like what are what's what are the things we can do that will speed up um the approvals you do and this was the number one thing um that they put put forward this would improve our customer service and speed up our overall response um times from the team so to give you an idea of the things we do um we do a lot of things we're really customer serviceoriented uh team uh we help people at the zoning counter that have questions or want to get a permit we answer zoning phone calls and emails. Um we do site plan reviews and building permits. All of those need to be reviewed um by the zoning team. So that's the things that come to plan commission as well as the things that don't. Um we review sign permits, short-term rental permits. So speeding up one thing that the team identifies takes a really long time, speeds up all of those other reviews we have to do for every time a new business opens, they need a zoning approval. every time new housing is created, they need a zoning approval. So, PDS are these custom zoning districts, and you probably all a little bit familiar with them through your work on the plan commission um that were really created specific to a single development. They were a common tool in the 1970s, 1980s. They allowed the developers some additional flexibility. They also allowed the city some additional level of control at that initial stage. But most of these were pre 2013 zoning code that we're working under today. What we found over time is that this is kind of set in stone the zoning code that applies to these properties or what we often call zoning text. And um that's been a problem in a lot of ways because it hasn't adapted um as we change our zoning code. We still have the same zoning text created for this area of land that hasn't changed. Uh it's created barriers for homeowners being able to adapt their housing over time. leads to a more confusing and prot pro protracted review and approval process for owners of properties within these areas. So that's why uh we're coming forward with this project today and this next slide. Thank you. I don't expect you to be able to read this just so you know. I wouldn't put this on a slide if I expect you to be able to actually read this. Um it is posted on the web page um that we'll share in a later slide if you really want to dig into the details later. Um but really what this slide looking at conveying is there's there's a very different process if you're an owner of a property and a plan development who wants to do um an improvement on their property or improvement on their house. So uh the left hand side I'll just say for example someone wants to add a deck on their property. The process is they can come into our zoning and plan review counter. They can bring their plans. We look at the zoning code the building code. if it meets the code, they can walk out with a permit right that day, start on your deck tomorrow. Um, so that's kind of that lefth hand side where we're really just looking to the codes that exist. They're available online on Municode. We have a deck web page that would give you all the information about what what's required to build a deck in Madison. on the right hand side is you make that appointment at the plan review and zoning counter just the the same as any other single family owner. Oo, uh you're in a plan development. So, uh can you give me your contact information? We'll have to get back to you about what what applies here. Um so, it's a very different experience um when you're a plan development property owner. So, we're going to have to go through the sometimes hundreds of pages and there's a lot of variations in these PDs. So, some are relatively straightforward and others are really complex. So, in some cases, you may need to go to a private architecture review board to get their approval. And the zoning text says city cannot approve any improvements until this private architecture review board um approves the project. The homeowner will often be like, well, who's that? I can't tell you. Maybe check with your homeowners association. maybe they know. We don't necessarily even know who to put them in contact with. Sometimes we're doing some internet soouththing to try to help them through the process. Um, so that's not great. Um, we have times that there's a minor alteration required. So they need to reach out to their alder, reach out to the planning director. Sometimes they need to reach out only to the planning director. Sometimes they need to go before this group. Sometimes a combination of multiple things. It varies quite a bit. sometimes there aren't standards in the zoning tech so they have to come to the plan commission because we don't have any setbacks. I don't I can't help you. Um so just a really frustrating process for the customer. Um and uh yeah, that's really why uh we're looking at a change here. Um one question we've had is you know how would reszoning these single and two family PDs change um for example how um a homeowner association can enforce private covenants. It really doesn't. So, private covenants, the city's not a party in those. We don't know what's in those private covenants. Um, in some cases where we have the zoning text where it says, "Yeah, you have to check with the arch review board and get their approval before the city can make an improvement." We expect probably some of those architectural review boards, what they're doing is looking at those private covenants. So, it's kind of been a de facto way historically that in some areas perhaps the city is kind of saying, "Well, talk to them first and making sure the private covenants are met." However, we do know we have a number of um homeowner associations that aren't um plan developments that still enforce their private covenants and that is something that's can still be done. >> Yeah, >> we actually have a few. It's really interesting when we did the study to kind of find all these and look at them. We found a few uh of these plan development single family subdivisions that were in homeowners associations that were kind of half in conventional zoning and half in plan development zoning. Boy, that's really challenging where your neighbor right next door uh has a straight line path to something and you have a sequence path to the right side which we can't emphasize how how crazy it is really to be perfectly honest and how much of a surprise and and it is to go down through that process. So, um, we've been been when we've been looking at these, one of the things that we're trying to emphasize is that the ability to levy fees, the ability to, uh, have whatever reviews might be in place under covenants are not going to be changed with this, uh, project. Um, private covenants are uh, not anything that the city's a party of. Uh, they change at the um, decision of the members that are party to the covenants. Um, we just don't carry any water for them. The zoning code specifically excludes them, but uh this project is not going to negatively affect them in any way. They can continue to operate as they wish. >> Can't remember. Are you going to do the next slide or am I >> uh this one? >> Yeah. Do you want to hand it off or should I >> go for it? You're doing great. I mean, none of these goals will be a surprise if you're kind of hearing my story here of why we're we're thinking about this being a really good process improvement um that we should take on. Um how do we make opportunities for people to make the changes to their properties? Have clear, objective, easily accessible rules, consistent standards, easier building permit process evolving, allowing neighborhoods to evolve beyond what was best practice in 1982. Um, but the last one here too, I think is is really important is that we've been doing all these zoning code changes and a lot of these areas, well, they're stuck in time. They haven't been able to take advantage of these things where we've been trying to provide more housing, more infill, more housing choices. Two-unit homes, no, your zoning text says only single family homes here, accessory dwelling units. We didn't even think about that back then, but it's not a listed use. So, um, it's not allowed. So, this would allow more equity in the city to take advantage of adding more housing in new ways. >> Yeah. The um we talked a little bit about it. You know, these plan development residential zones were basically all created under our old zoning code. Uh some of you may have heard me say this before, but our old zoning code was originally written in 1966. 1966 was uh I wasn't live. Uh and I feel like I'm old. um the city has changed so much and those places are effectively frozen in time and aren't able to take advantage of any of the code reforms that have come through. Now, let's let's be honest, though, like it's not like these places are dying on the vine, right? They're fine. These are some of our strongest neighborhoods, but they have a much more convoluted and difficult process in order to get to some of the same places that buy right zoning. You just come in and walk out the door. Um, and there can be some other kind of odd things that happen. Um, uh, besides just, uh, you know, the challenges. I mean, you know, things that we've learned about, uh, uh, homeowners associations struggling with people and like there being some conflict and this is not a place for that. And we zoning needs to stay outside of it. It's the city's zoning ordinance. It needs to be free and clear uh as being a tool of leverage on on properties at least we think and setting that standard baseline of common rules for these properties will help them evolve over time. >> Yeah. And you can definitely see, you know, there's a geography of like where our growth in the city was happening at that time where this was kind of a best practice cool new tool. Um but you know, as you've seen, we don't really use this tool too often anymore. Our new zoning code really discourages it. It's really only supposed to be used if there's no zoning district that would otherwise allow this kind of development to happen in this location. So, um there's definitely certain alder districts that have quite a few more bigger, larger suburban subdivisions. Um but 16 of 20 alder districts have at least one PD that has the single family to um houses in a PD on fe simple lots where it's like, well, this seems like um it could be a go. So, we've identified approximately 4,000 properties so far. Um, we're kind of doing a really looking deeply to make sure we don't miss any. Um, as we kind of think about what what could be easily included into a conventional zoning district. >> I can keep going. >> Yeah, you're doing great. >> I made the slides. So, uh, but we've done many of presentations with authors about this. So, um, you know, just as we're thinking about, we really want to make it easier for homeowners to make just common changes to their homes. So, the idea is that we're going to match a conventional district that has the most similar setbacks on lot area to these areas. Um, some of these PDs, they do have different areas which do have different setbacks and lot areas. We expect some might be split into multiple districts, but really our overall goal is create the fewest nonconformities so people are going to be able to make these changes to their homes. And non-conformity means when the zoning rules don't match what's on the ground. So the thing that's on the ground becomes non-conforming to our laws. >> Thank you, Director Tuttle. Yeah, talk about uh not having plain language. We get buried in the zoning stuff. >> You know, just to add a little bit to that, like when we establish these rules, we know some of these things aren't going to fit perfectly. Um the city has experience in making some changes to uh uh the rules as they apply wholesale to conventional districts. We changed the way we measured the rear yard setback in 2016 and people were really concerned. Oh no, you're going to change the rear yard setback. We're going to create all this scenario of non-compliance with existing properties. We're going to we're going to have a a ground swell of zoning variances. Gosh, I think we might have had a handful or so since then. Very few. But we do have the ability with the zoning variance tool which takes a look at like what was in place at the time these properties were developed and what is common for the way this property develops uh uh over time and how it is to be used. Uh um u commissioner heck I believe you spent a little time with me and the zoning board of appeals and have been through that. uh it's a very effective tool to navigate uh the uh uniqueness of properties and to get them uh modernized if we even end up in that situation. We're looking at we think we might be in pretty good shape. We have found a couple of little things that we think might need uh tweaks to the zoning code. There's just some rules about lot frontage and things like that on streets that uh some of the plan developments might not um meet. And as we kind of flush those out, discover them, we're going to have a small grouping of tax amendments that we think will come forward that will be necessary to to work with these properties, too. >> Yeah. And we we know we have many properties today that have these non-conforming setbacks, and we have very few, I don't know, 12 to 15 variances a year. Um, but those are the the situations where it can be appropriate. All right. Um, the public process. So, um, we have a PD reszoning web page that I mentioned earlier, city ofmadison.com/pdreszoning. Um, we'll be, you know, continuing to add information to that web page as the project moves forward. We've been having individual meetings with alders who have PDs in their districts and we'll be continuing to to have those meetings and discussions. Here we are today, plan commission work session. Um, so it was really important to bring it to this group because we'd like your feedback and questions and things like that. Ultimately, these are going to be like those TOD um transit oriented development overlay proactive resonings that you all saw late last year where we're trying to implement the plan. These like any other reasonzoning will come before this group for recommendation and ultimately council action. But I think what's most important to note here is I mean this is a resoning. So, we have a legal requirement ultimately towards the end that we're going to send postcards to these property owners and adjacent property owners within 200 ft. We don't want that to be ideally the first time most of these homeowners are hearing about this because it's scary. What are you doing to my property? So, I think a really important part of this that we would love your feedback about is, you know, how do we get the word out so people are hearing about this early, getting their questions answered, fully understand so it's not a surprise at the end. Um so a couple things we we are thinking about here is you know making sure to be available for ad hoc meetings by request. We know we have some homeowners associations um that overlap fully or uh very closely with some of these plan developments. So they might be good groups to meet with. Um we think a big part you know I mentioned just that process of like oo let me look at our files and get back to you. There may be some individual questions that we really want to make sure we have staff available on the zoning team to answer those individual questions of what would this mean specifically for my property? What are the setbacks today? What would be they be in the future? Um so really being available to do that kind of one-on-one outreach. Um talking to the media, getting the word out. And a really big thing, um, I think this was maybe Matt's idea, is, you know, let's do a proactive postcard to property owners early in the process before we're doing any public hearings to get the word out about the website, about public meetings coming out, who to to reach out to for more information. Um, so we're looking at doing those coming up here in April and then having some public meetings in May. Um, then June, uh, those legal postcards I mentioned, plan commission and council action. So, kind of being a little bit flexible there about those exact dates at this time because we do want to get some feedback about that and just kind of see what some of the reaction and questions are that we need to answer for uh homeowners so they understand what this is all about. >> And the idea is to bring this forward basically as like one ordinance. It's going to be kind of like one big map amendment if you will uh with recommendations of existing zoning to proposed zoning very similar to how we've done the zonings on the attachments uh to the city over time. If you recall some of those, we town of Madison, we just adopted maps that said this is what the property would be zoned. >> So that's the end of kind of our overview, but any questions or comments from the group? >> I I have a question. I I don't really understand how the variance process fits into this. If you create nonconforming properties, they don't need to get a variance for that. that it's only if they want to do something after that, right? >> Great question. Yeah. So, it's it's not a problem if someone has a non-conforming, for example, side setback. I feel like that's the most common non-conforming thing that we have with existing single and two family homes today. You can exist like that forever. No problem. You're not getting a notice of violation. It's not a zoning code violation. It's only when you want to put an addition on with maybe that same setback. So the most common variance I would say um or exception to the zoning code that we see is a single story house. Someone wants to build a second story on it while the first story is in the sidest setback. Those are pretty easily granted. I would say they typically meet the standards very easily for a variance. Like this is why we have an exception process to the zoning code to be able to put that second story on. Um but yeah, it's only when you're adding to that non-conformity existing non-conformities that are lawful can just continue on. Okay. >> You know, just keep in mind too, those of you that are familiar with our 1966 code, entire neighborhoods like the the Dutch Monroe neighborhood in Tenny Lapam neighborhood, much of it was non-conforming because the lots were smaller than 50 ft wide. And those neighborhoods are some of our strongest neighborhoods through time. Our our 2013 code made many of those lots conforming. So having a non-conforming zoning hanging over your property is not a um terrible impossible situation. We'll have those variances for if and when uh you know something um comes up that is not um and is not possible is totally reasonable and is outside of the control necessarily the property owner that is trying to do the project and they're trying to develop and and modify their house in a way that's similar to others. That's probably the best way to describe it. That's how we describe it when we talk to customers when they come to the counter wanting to get variances is, you know, to try and help them find a way to commonality and similarity um with their home compared to similar properties. >> And and with the zoning code, we have been able to, I think, build in things to really minimize variances too of like, okay, you know, the if you have a lot width that's less than 50 feet, 10% of lot width, can you be your side set back? Um, we changed the zoning code last year so you have the same side setback if you're a one-story house or a two-story house. Just a lot of those little pieces. You can replace a garage with non-conforming setbacks at those same setbacks as long as you're not making the garage substantially larger and there's certain dimensions of that. So, you know, the nice thing about putting a conventional zoning district is they can take advantage of those things that as we discover and continue to refine and improve our zoning code, they will apply to these areas, too. But really our our goal is to find zoning districts that work for these properties. We're not really trying to make it a different rules. >> Right. That that kind of helps me understand why you're choosing the targets you're choosing in terms of single family homes essentially. And it will be so much more complicated uh for properties that got conditional use approvals and all these other things in the mix. That sounds very complicated now that I think about it. >> Yeah. Though I do think, you know, often we have a development proposal that comes in or it's an existing PD and there's often opportunities, huh, you know, we have a newer zoning code now and we have a zoning district that works perfectly for this. Let's reszone it into that district and often makes it an easier process for that property owner in the short term and long term. So, we do still do those things. >> We do try to ask that question when projects come in that we see are in a PD. if you know the work that's being proposed or if that zoning district would fit well in a um to use that as an opportunity to convert them to a conventional district. So I can think of a handful of projects that have been in front of the commission recently where we did have the opportunity to do that. It doesn't always work for certain reasons, but um we do try to ask that question. And I think this is the presentation that Katie gave you tonight where we're focused on the single family lots is a much different scale than an individual kind of multif family mixeduse kind of dense development for example downtown. However, I think it does illustrate the complication of approving these individual plan developments and their sight specific zoning codes as one-offs because there's not predictability. So the same some of the same concerns that Katie highlighted can be the reality for properties in the future as well in those contexts. Um so we're trying to be much more disciplined about not approving new PDs if it can be avoided. And we have you know we have to first make sure a new PD could even meet the standards for a PD. But we try to work really hard to see if there's a solution through a conventional district first before approving new ones. So, um, full disclosure first, uh, if you want to know, one of the districts that has a large number of PDs, it's District 19. And, uh, if you want to put a new deck on in Waxford Village, if you want to call up your alder, that's me. And if you need the uh architectural approval, I'm half of the architectural approval committee and I'm vice president of the uh homeowners board and we'll be presenting to the homeowners board uh shortly. Um but just because this would be a typical question, this kind of practice for the three of us. So you mentioned that uh the reasonzoning process for these PDS really does not disturb the uh does not disturb the covenants that are in place. So, so as an example because this would be a typical question this at least from the homeowners board is currently we don't allow any of those nasty uh ADUs and we don't allow uh any of those uh terrible looking shacks and you know pertinances like that. Um, what's going to happen to those, you know, is my neighbor going to be able to put some some terrible person in the backyard in an ADU, which is prohibited by covenant. >> Terrible person. I don't know we can do anything about that. Uh but if the um if the homeowners association subdivision has a covenant that prohibits the whatever the construction may be that that is otherwise law by the city ordinance, it'll be to the parties of that covenant to enforce it. Um so u if if they continue to meet uh super citizenal yugare with his multiple roles in that uh will will will be involved in that. Um, and I think also through time maybe people will think about what their covenants allow or don't allow and they may choose to modify them. May they may not go all the way, but they may. Uh, we don't know. We'll just wait and see. But we do know that that the so the obstacle that is the plan development zoning will be which is the city's zoning, you know, city zoning, not not the property private properties zoning will be um not the obstacle per se. >> Thank you. I I'm I'm on the covenants enforcement committee, too. I think I probably going to resign relatively quickly. >> Painful, >> but thank you for that clarification. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Well, we're pretty excited about this. You know, this is not really part of Housing Forward. This is kind of its own thing, just so you know. like it's a these map amendments are are going to come on their own. Um different than text amendments which apply to everybody. These map amendments apply individually to property. So it's going to be quite an interesting thing. Very similar to TOD as you mentioned to some of the other uh proactive resonings we did. But a lot of property owners that we we interact with unfort and sometimes we interact with have a extremely painful process. We're going to talk a little bit about the people that it took nine months to get a pergola or the guy that had to find the well the one guy was dead and they had to find the other guy to build the shed to get that approved. It was a nightmare and >> and then he didn't decline to make a make a decision. So that's if you remember that code change we had to make I think was that late last year of like okay if you have a non-responsible architectural review board the city can move forward at some point because he he was just >> completely stuck. >> Yeah this is a problem they come and go. >> Well and just to chime in sometimes those folks email their alder too about how the experience went and so that's also why I see this as a tremendous opportunity for residents who have PDS. >> Yeah. Another question about covenants. Uh Katie, I think I heard you say that sometimes hypothetically somebody comes uh to zoning and you you might know that there are covenants in place or you might even say you'll bet you should check this. >> But that's the extent of your role, right? >> Yeah. Just from a customer service perspective, we do try to let people know when we know. Um but yeah, it's it's really um >> covenants, easements. I mean, if we know, but it's it's tricky. I mean, we we want to be careful because we don't want to be responsible for not letting people know, you know, like if you it's sort of like it's a very it's a it's a tricky conversation to have, but we do try and we don't want to see people get caught up and have problems. We and so we try and lay out as many of these things and we'll say, well, make sure you check uh and that that's a very general statement that we we offer to people. So some of what might be kind of happening is in the interimm as we talk with some of these homeowners association is making sure they have websites that have this information readily available so people do know what their covenants are, who to get in contact with, what the process is for that that private piece that they also, you know, will need to do if they have covenants being enforced. Th this this may not be for you, could be for others in the room, but uh is what happens typically is if it's and you know an active homeowners association, uh the discussion happens and uh but if it's not particularly active, I think which is often the case, people don't even know they have covenants. uh a an applicant could uh build that ADU or whatever it is and eventually the only penalty would be is the homeowners association gets active or somebody complains and then that's a lawsuit potentially or whatever between those parties without the city being involved. Isn't that how it works? >> Yes. >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's the part we don't really know because sometimes they've expired. Is there some kind of statute of limitations? Expirations. Yeah. So covenants often expire after a certain period of time >> if you don't take proactive action. This is my like a little bit of understanding and I know Kate can't speak to it either because it's you know specific. >> These are private. >> Yeah. Um so >> thank you. So a covenant is essentially a contract and so only the parties that are the original signitories of the covenant are actually in control of anything. Um, and a lot of times what happens is like a when the h you know your former the person that you bought the house from or the person who bought the house from them a while back was actually the person who agreed to the covenant but it carries along with the piece of property. Um, and so when you buy a house, you do get informed usually that there is a covenant, but you might not know the details or um, I mean, I think anecdotally, like oftentimes when people are in the home buying process, there's also just so much information in front of them, something that was mentioned to you that, oh, there was a covenant that is attached to your property. Like oftentimes I think people don't realize it until they come to zoning to try to do something and then realize that there's all of these other steps to to jump through. Unfortunately, in terms of what the city can do about covenants, it's really quite limited because we've never been a party to them to begin with. Um there are certain time periods where they expire. Some are invalidated because they have a racial component that's been deemed unconstitutional at this point, but other than that um we really um don't play a role. We can't give guidance on what might happen. But you're correct that the avenue that may the risk you might take is at some point the homeowners association might sue you to undo what you've done. But we we have no role in that and no way of knowing how often that happens. Um my guess is kind of rarely but I you know that's pure speculation. >> Yeah. Okay. Thanks. I I could just add to that justformationally that uh what we've seen over the last decade is that in more and more cases the realtor or whatever party is handling the closing fails to provide any information on the applicable covenants. And so the number of surprises with that we're seeing uh from I wouldn't have bought it if I had known that for instance um we're just seeing more of that and so there's some more awkward conversations. The the other real truth is is you know for the most part we're dealing with single family homeowners associations and the economic fact is that uh they may be collecting sufficient funds to do their regular activities but they're uh and to the extent that they're accumulating any reserves it's for you know as we have uh in in my district we're saving to rework uh walking paths and lighting and things like that. There is no spare money uh hanging on trees to actually uh get deeply involved in the kind of litigation it takes to overturn someone to uh who's violated a covenant. And so we'll see what happens as this go forward as more and more people may want to take issue with that. >> Thank you. Um, yeah, I I didn't really expect this to go here, but um this is something I've been meaning to talk with you about for a while. So not to give you more work, but um there is a provision in MGO28.147 negative use restrictions prohibited as against public policy that does actually restrict the usage of restrictive covenants for things like it's specifically meant to prevent people from putting restrictive covenants that ban grocery stores um or drugstore purposes. um after termination. Um it's very specific, but it does actually make the city party to a restrictive covenant. And so I guess I'd be interested to know if you know the history of that at all and if the city could do similar ordinances for um non grocery stores, residential restrictive covenants. C >> can I ask you guys to take that one offline because I think it's kind of out of scope of our agenda. Very very respectfully. Fair enough. I will. >> Yeah, they I want to priority. >> I don't know the history, so I would hunt anyways. >> Yeah. I mean, maybe that's a follow-up item, a parking lot item for the meeting. So, I appreciate it. No, it's a good discussion. And I my one comment is, you know, in my limited experience, the builder is a builder who's developing a project for a homeowner is going to say, "Do you have an architectural review committee? Do we need to go talk to John and make sure that we're allowed to do all these things that you want to do to your house?" Um, and so I mean hopefully to me that's where the real enforcement is if assuming that the builder knows that they should do that >> for a new >> well or a remodel or addition or something like that. >> We we even find some builders shy away when they learn a property is in plant development zoning because of the red taping bureaucracy and delays to construction. >> Yeah. I mean some of the Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. the quality of the ARC probably has a pretty wide bell curve um >> from good to bad. So anyway, just an observation. Um can I ask I do have one other question and that's just a nibble around the edges. So this is planned developments for single family and two family household lots. Is there a is there a next phase that talks about plan developments for other kinds of properties? >> Not at this point in time. Um I mean this will be we'd like to see how this goes. Um, you know, there are some projects that we know that are out there that probably would fit into conventional zonings and there may be a proactive opportunity in the future or we may also have the when they come to our our front door uh option that we always offer them, hey, you could do this or you could choose to zone out if you want into conventional district. We always have that conversation. >> We generally have that conversation. And if I could just speak for the zoning team too, I think one of the reasons why this is a focus is because the amount of city resources involved in providing the support to the individual property owner compared to the work that they're asking to do is it's not proportional. And so where I mentioned earlier sometimes we have the opportunity to move other types of projects into conventional districts when say a property is being redeveloped or significantly altered. um a mixed juice or multif family, you know, development, for example. So, we still look for those opportunities, but maybe just not as widespread because those properties either can be a little bit more stable in terms of the long history of what they're developed and used for right now. Um, or just because they're of a scale where, you know, maybe we can more easily navigate some of the questions that we get about them. But at this level, it's just it's not sustainable for the customer or the staff. kind of an 8020 rule. Yeah. >> Great. Any other follow-up questions for Katie and Matt? Thank you very much. All right. We will that'll take us to um our last uh special item which is um number five legisar 92435 and that's our housing snapshot report. All right. All right. >> You are Somehow we lost Did you uh We lost the video. Oh, you're pulling it up. Oh, got it. Okay. Yes. All right. Planner Punt is Um yeah, that all right. Um so Colin soloing. >> Okay. All right. Thanks, Planner Pun. >> All right. Thank you, chair. It's good to see you. >> Thank you. Uh so I will uh be talking about the housing snapshot. I'm actually going to be able to make this a little bit uh quicker because um Megan and and Matt uh talked a lot about the policy side and and this is more the data side. The housing snapshot is intended um to be exactly that, a snapshot of of the city's housing situation at this time. Um, so, uh, the we just put out, um, very late last year or early this year, um, the 2025, uh, version of the housing snapshot report. It is available online. I I think everyone has a a copy here. Um, and and I just want to kind of give a a pretty brief overview. Um, but it is very full of data, so may get bogged down in a few places. Um going to start back with a little bit of the policy things. Um some of the things the housing snapshot is looking at are the the things that are are impactful on um the housing market, but then also things that we as the city have control over. Um and and so this isn't in the snapshot, but um kind of interesting to to kind of set the stage for. Um so some of the things that we we have no control over or very little control are um interest rates or the cost of labor, the cost of construction. Um we have a little bit of control over our growth rate um but not really a lot uh on on that. Um, you know, we we have little control over the paint colors of houses, but that also has, you know, no uh no to little impact on on those costs. Um, some of the things that we do have control over are zoning. Um, and and we've talked a lot about uh changes to the the zoning code that we have made through housing forward. um that has an impact uh on land costs and all of these things are are then interconnected um and zoning and land costs thus impact um property owner decisions um timing on on building and improving housing. So all these things are are interconnected. And then there are the things that um that director Wter talked about um city funding for affordable housing um city-led development often through the CDA um and those have a very high impact especially on um the provision of affordable housing in the city. So getting to uh some of the data that is in the housing snapshot. Um you know we we cover a number of uh of a number of data points on households. First of all we are a majority renter um community. Um it's pretty close to 50/50 but um we we are we do have more renters households than owner households. Um, you know, one of the other thing is that is touched on over and over again in the snapshot is is affordability. Um, the graph on the left shows uh cost burden uh amongst both uh renters and uh homeowner households. Um about a third of of all households in the city are uh costburdened. Um and the you know the the definition that we use for affordability um and cost burden is is if you spend less than 30% of your um household income on on your housing uh that would be you that would be affordable. Um if you're spending more than 30% you are what we would refer to as cost burdened. If you are paying more than 50% of your household income, um we would call you uh severely uh cost burdened. So about half of renters are costburdened. About a quarter are severely costburdened. Um less so for for uh for owner households. It's about one in eight um owner house owner households are are costburdened. Um in the snapshot, this is something um different that we have done this year. We've tried to humanize some of this data. We've we've put together these um example households. These are based on um real life examples. Uh so, you know, this is one um a hotel clerk with two kids making $35,000 a year. uh the 30% of that um income equates to aboutund I mean 80 $875 uh in rent a month but even with a um deeply subsidized uh three-bedroom apartment they're still paying more than that and and our and our cost burdened and these are you know real rents from from real buildings in in the city you know a single um person who's a dietician making $70,000 about 80% AMI um could afford 1750 um you know they choose somewhere with good access to transit maybe there there's trade-offs there they're spending more than than that 30% on a um on a market rate unit but that's you know that's a choice that they are are making um with with tradeoffs there um you know a family that is right at 100% AMI um can afford about 3,000 a month uh and and they you know they buy a condo and and that's their their mortgage payment. So, um tried to include a couple different uh options or examples um so people really understand because very often um the the idea of of what is actually affordable to different types of people is something that people that perhaps bought their house 20 or 30 years ago just don't understand or or um so it's it's important for us to have that information out there. Um this is a uh a graph that that we've included in one form or another um throughout the the years that we've had the housing snapshot. Um it shows uh it shows that the number of renter households and the number of rental home options um at a cost affordable to that income group. Um, so, uh, from left to right, you've got the the most the the the lowest income households and the the housing units that are available to them. On the on the far right, you have 80% AMI or higher. Um, and the the households that are there and the the homes that are available to them. So, on both the lower and higher ends, there are more households than homes. Um, and so, uh, both of those groups then kind of squeeze into the middle where there are more homes available. And so you have the higher income uh households, you know, renting down for for lack of a better term um toward two more affordable units where you have the lowest income households needing to rent more expensive units than than they would otherwise be able to uh to afford. Um this is a similar pattern to other Midwest cities um of our size. We we did look at um census data from from other cities. Uh but it is a more pronounced pattern in Madison than it is elsewhere. >> Sorry, Colin. Is UW are U W students in this data? >> Yes. Um there are UW students in in that 30%. Um we we figure there are about five to 6,000 households that that would be counted in there. Um so that you know that does have some effect there. Um so you know the things that the city is doing um for these these very low-income households um we we have the the CDA administers section 8 um program to support low-income households with uh with with the voucher system. um for for 30 to to 60. Um we're we're pretty aggressively supporting um subsidized incomerestricted, rent restricted housing um through the affordable housing fund um through use of TIFF. Um, over the past decade, the city has has put almost $47 million um toward uh creation of of new uh rent subsidized uh units uh including about 300 some that are um at 30% or lower and um about 1,400 units for for 60% AMI households. Um the the map here uh shows uh new affordable housing in the city, similar to what we've got in the um the housing tracker. Uh the purple is is uh are new units um that were built with city financial support. Um the yellow are are buildings that were built without financial city financial support but may have got tax credits or or some other funding source. Um on the other end at the the upper end of the the market um the the market rate rental uh side um it's it's far less common for the city to directly subsidize that market rate housing. Um very narrow situations that you know tiff might be used for certain uh in certain situations. Um but a lot of those zoning changes that have been made in in recent years are um one of the purposes is to make that multif family residential construction easier um and and more predictable and and ease the um ease those regulations and and increase supply. Um as far as that that new housing Thank you. Um for the uh so so as I as I mentioned, you know, we're the zoning changes are making it easier to to build um different housing types. Um about a third of the the new homes completed in the past decade were in um buildings of a hundred or more units. But um that that is now uh kind of increasing. I'm sure many of you have maybe seen the the trends um as they're coming across this commission. Um a lot of much larger homes um are are being built. Um and this, you know, is a quick snapshot from the the housing tracker showing that again a lot of that um development is is being spread across the city, but a lot of it is also infill um and in the TOD overlay downtown. Um 45% um of the the new development in the past 10 years has been in the TOD overlay. um 17% in downtown alone and and you know in the past couple years that those proportions have have really increased um you know kind of continuing that um that market rate uh rental um support policy support um talking about the uh the vacancy rates for rental um the healthy vacancy rate where where renters and and the um and landlords are are kind of balanced out is in that 5 to 7% range. Um we are sneaking up that way. Have not been there for many many many years. Um but are are trending in that direction. Um uh in in the you know it's it's important to note that the the rental uh and home ownership markets are very closely connected. Um there there are many rental households, renter households that that could or would transition to to ownership. Um you know, at some points in in their uh in their life, many many ownership households would would transfer back to uh transition back to to renter. Um so there is a lot of back and forth. Again, um our um our uh uh vacancy rates for ownership um units is is also quite low uh lower than what what would be expected from a a healthy market which is around 2%. Um, so encouraging, you know, new housing types suitable for home ownership is a is another polish policy um issue that the the city is is wrestling with. Um, you know, one of those things is uh the zoning changes allowing uh um condos, uh cottage courts, uh more missing middle town home style uh development. And hopefully as we continue to make those those policy changes, those code changes um and and use of of other uh programs um you know we support more home ownership choices um you know uh additional partners um that provide affordable home ownership options, Habitat, things like that. Um, there's programs like down payment assistance, um, education for first-time home buyers. Um, because the the home ownership market for first-time home buyers is is extremely tough. Um, at the moment, there are high interest rates, much higher than they have been in the past couple years. Um, there is a serious lack of of inventory. Um, construction costs and labor costs are are continuing to increase very fast. Um, and then if you're a first-time home buyer, it's you're you're also getting crunched because there is competition um from uh other buyers that are maybe making cash offers or they're they already have a home and they have equity. Um, so it's very difficult for for first home buyers right now. Um, this is a this is a kind of a difficult graph to to read, but I'm going to break it down here. Um this the the red and the blue lines uh show the average value for uh a two-bedroom home kind of you know a starter home um or a a typical condo in the city. Um in 2015 they were around $1560,000. Um now a two-bedroom home um averages over $300,000. uh the the green line um or I guess I'll I'll say the gray line first is the average interest rate for a 30-year mortgage over time as you can see starting in 2022 that has increased tremendously and then that hasn't has impacted the green line which is the price um that is affordable to the median income household um led by a 25 to 44 year old uh person in Madison. So that's kind of what you would expect your your firsttime home buyer to be. And that um change in the interest rates really impacts the actual purchasing power that that those households have. Um, one of the interesting things about this is that um, the cohort of households under 35 years old is our our fastest growing household uh, uh, age group. Um, in the past 10 years, we've added about 9,500 households um, under 35. Uh during that same time, uh we've added about a hundred households under 35 that are homeowners. So less than 2% of that almost 10,000 households are are able to um purchase homes in Madison in that that past 10 years. So just you know further evidence that it is very difficult at this time. Um, one of, you know, there are many other things that are happening, um, in the home home ownership market that are affecting those costs. Um, over the last decade, land costs in Madison and and the construction cost index for the upper Midwest have both increased twice as fast as inflation. Um, owner costs have gone up at about the same rate of inflation, but renter costs outpace it. Um, you know, even if we get to a healthy vacancy rate, 5 to 7% for rentals, two to three for ownership, there are so many other costs um that that kind of prohibit creation of new housing below a certain limit. Um, just I'm going to touch on this one very quickly. This was a a data point that was that um was asked to be added a couple years ago um about the transition of of single unit homes um from ownership to rental or vice versa. Um it's been very stable since 2021. Um the the couple of purple areas that you see there are um are actually pretty easily explained. Um the the one on the northeast near Riner Road, um there's actually a company that is is buying lots and building uh new rental units on single uh family units on there. um the something similar is happening in the southeast, but um those areas have so few uh single family homes that it's it's actually a almost a um a scale issue that I think there are probably less than a hundred single family homes in in that whole big purple blotch on the uh on the southeast side. Um but something that you know we can continue to monitor, but but we have not seen a lot of uh movement here. Um regarding uh homelessness uh the uh this is the point in time count um for that that happens every year in January. We are continuing to stay pretty steady between you know 600 and 800 um total individuals um that are homeless during that that point in time count. um you know where most of those are just individual adults, very very few unaccompanied minors um and individuals and families. Um and then you know as we are continuing to create policy and and look for solutions here um you know the city and others are working to provide um support for the housing. Um and it's not necessarily just to to continue to increase um shelter capacity though you know we are are doing that. um you know it's important to um to provide that that support and stability and move people into more permanent housing. But um you know we do have have a number of shelters that are are at least uh providing some uh shelter for for these individuals. Uh and that is the end of my slides right now but I am happy to take any questions. Not so much a question, but it was um really great cuz as an alder, you hear all your building is low income or all your building is not affordable. Um and so to see it on there and to have this housing snapshot out there and that it's been pretty there's a large chunk of both that's happening. Yes. >> Um was great to see the one question I have is can you and maybe this isn't you clearly describe when you talk about section 8 versus 60 80 40 AMI because they're too different. One is 30% of your income. The other is 40 60 80% of median income. >> Yes. So, um the the section 8 is a is a program that is um administered through our CDA um and provides housing vouchers um that that those households can use um to pay rent in in various um units throughout the city. um when we are providing financial support for um affordable housing and leveraging some of those low-income housing tax credits. um when we're using TIFF, the the affordable housing fund, um you know, we are helping to create uh homes that um we then have a uh uh there's a restrictive covenant on the that's placed on there that um identifies a number of units for a certain uh income level. Um and that is typically 30% of area median income, 60% of area median income. Um a lot of the tax incre tax uh credit buildings that don't get um support from the city will will have 80% income um units. Uh but those are you know that separate uh program from from the section 8. So, just one thing I would add about the um the vouchers that you asked about. Um the voucher allows someone to rent an apartment or a home at whatever the rate is that that is being offered. There are some limits, but it they are not required to rent a unit that is restricted that the rent is restricted. Um, and the purpose of the voucher is for them to pay whatever is 30% of their income. And then the person who they're paying rent to is made whole for the balance of that rent by that voucher. Um, so that's the federal money that flows through the CDA to pay that rent, which is different from actually capping the rent and saying it needs to be held at a level that is affordable to a person that was earning this much money. >> And just Oh, D. >> Sorry, we had a meeting in here all day long today and so all the microphones are on their last. >> But we also have CDA housing that isn't a voucher that can't be moved and that would be thinking true or um >> some the triangle >> triangle. I was trying to I didn't want to say triangle. I was trying to think of a street. But so those are ones that then your voucher doesn't move and you move out and you don't take it with correctly. >> Right. Those are the city's own affordable housing units that they maintain. Yep. >> I think it's helpful to just as we're talking about the differences between those that the section 8 as you're talking about is purely based on that household's income. But um when we're talking about 60% AMI units, you know, section 42 LITC, those rent standards are based on a number of assumptions including the assume the assumption that there's 1.5 people per bedroom. So you can actually have a rent that you know someone is at a 55% AMI income level. They're renting a 60% AMI unit, but you know they're a household of one and the rent is sized based on one and a half people. So it can it is still there's a mismatch there where even if they are in a subsidized unit, it can it will be a little unaffordable to them. And you could you could see that in some of the profiles that Colin highlighted where sometimes the person who's actually living in that unit is still paying more than what would be considered affordable to them. That's part of the reason for that. Yeah, that's I yeah, I just wanted you all to explain it for those listening because we of I get that all the time and I've explained it many of times but it's also good to um the the the other part would be so when our median income B thinking WEDA and tax credits and um that is the 80 what is the what is our AMI for here? I think for a family of four it's about 110 or 120,000. >> Okay. And then for a single is it still 78 or something? >> I think it's around 80. >> Around 80. Okay. >> Thank you. All right. There are no other questions for Colin. We'll let him go and uh go to the end of our Thank you. Yeah. >> All right. We have time on our agenda for member announcements, communications, or business items. I don't know if folks, anybody has any um anything they want to share. Um and seeing none, we'll move to the secretar's report and give Megan the floor. All right, you've heard from me a lot tonight, so I'll close it out, I guess. Um, just thank you for all of your attention. Thanks to all the staff who came and shared um important updates with the commission tonight. Um, the main item that I wanted to flag that was not printed on your agenda is that we did receive an appeal uh late last week for a conditional use approval that was on your last agenda. Um, so the conditional use approval that the plan commission granted for 555 Odana Road and 5534 Medical Circle has been appealed. Um, that appeal will go to the common council for their review uh under our our ordinances. So, just wanted to make you aware of that. Um, that will likely be heard by the council at one of their meetings in May. We're working to schedule that right now. Um, otherwise we will keep you updated on other items. We did share a note with you. Um, last week I believe that we also received an appeal of the denial for the outdoor amplified sound uh request for Manakqua Brewing on East Washington Avenue. Um, we do expect that to be heard by the common council at their April 21st meeting. Um, otherwise the agenda includes a number of updates about items that will be before you at your meetings in April and into May. Um, so we look forward to pretty robust agendas at your upcoming meetings. And uh, as always, feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions about any of those items or um, the appeals that I mentioned tonight. Thanks. So there's yeah there's a swearing in date but I don't know what it is. >> Great question. Um so uh this I apologize uh we should have talked about this earlier. Um so this is actually one of your last meetings as a body before the alder elections and then um many of the terms will be resetting. So we have several plan commissioners who are at the end of their terms and um we expect that the mayor's office will be contacting folks about interest in reappoint and potential reappoints if you haven't already been um in the near future. Uh I don't have a specific date yet for when the non-aldder appointments will happen. Um but we do know that there are a number of you whose terms end in April of this year. Um if we do not have appointments made before that, we will ask those um plan commissioners to continue for 90 days. That's allowed in the ordinance so that we can move through those uh appointment process. Um, for alder appointments, um, I believe those will happen pretty quickly after the alder election and then the swearing in in April. >> Thanks. Any other questions for Megan? All right, I think maybe we're ready for a motion to adjourn. >> I think Alder Field and Alder Glenn got those in. just uh I yeah so it was a it was neck and neck so yes um any objection to adjourning seeing none will stand adjourned thanks everybody for getting it