EAU CLAIRE — New residential housing construction reached new heights for Eau Claire in 2023. The number of new housing units about doubled the average total number of units built over the last ten years.
This trend was primarily driven by the number of multi-family homes.
“For the past three to four years, particularly post COVID, (there’s been) strong interest in (the) development for multi-family housing like apartment complexes,” said Aaron White, the community development director for the City of Eau Claire. “Commonweal Development does an annual report on vacancies across the community, and for the 2023 year, their numbers show that there was a 1.7 percent vacancy rate for multi-family housing, which is extremely low.”
He said that a healthy vacancy rate for rentals would be between five and eight percent.
“So we are very tight on housing,” he continued. “There’s continued interest in development of that type of housing.”
With 944 new residential units built last year, 822 were multi-family units, 80 were two-family homes, while only 42 were single family homes. 2023 actually saw a decrease in the number of single family homes built, down from 75.
White said that “single family homes are probably the ones we aren’t seeing a lot of. They’re the toughest to build inexpensively (and) the hardest to find financing for because of higher interest rates and high construction costs.”
Kim Lynum, who lives on 9 Mile Creek Rd in Eau Claire, expressed his concerns about the dramatic increase of multi-family homes in rural areas.
“It’s gotten to be almost overwhelming. Too much,” he said. “My wife and I live on four acres of land. The biggest issue that we have even in our neighborhood is the density of the housing.”
His wife, Charlene Lyn, said, “There was an environmental corridor through here and they are coming in and taking out all the trees. They’re filling in some of the wetland area. So they’re really changing the face of the neighborhood out here a lot to put in this high density development.”
City of Eau Claire Finance Director Kitzie Winters said, “This started around the time of the pandemic, with the three largest drivers of the construction materials being increased upwards of 40 percent. So the cost to build has been expensive. Those prices are stabilizing but yet still high. In addition to the interest rates being high, it’s really a challenge to build affordable housing.”
White said that when it comes to the housing market, it’s harder to find something in the price range of a starter home or even a mid-priced home. New construction doesn’t solve this need.
“A person shouldn’t spend more than 30 percent of their gross income on housing related expenses and we have a portion of our population that (is) spending over 50 percent,” he said.
Nonetheless, the population of Eau Claire keeps growing.
“Eau Claire is a very desirable community,” said White. “We’re growing at a very fast pace. We’re one of the fastest growing communities in the state of Wisconsin.”
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