Community members had the opportunity to hear from experts of different facets of the housing crisis at the Sun Prairie Public Library on Thursday, March 7. The panel explained causes and effects of the current housing situation in Dane County and the City of Sun Prairie in addition to answering audience questions.
The conversation was hosted by the Sun Prairie Action Resource Coalition with former Wisconsin Public Radio host Terry Bell moderating the event. Those interested in viewing the discussion for themselves can do so on the Sun Prairie Media Center’s website .
Panelists included:
Kurt Paulsen, a Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at UW-Madison.Becky Binz, a Housing & Equitable Development Planner with the city of Sun Prairie.Leticia Hockenberry, a Housing Navigation Specialist at Sunshine Place.Sean O’Brien, an affordable housing developer with Northepoint Development.
Each panelist shared their expertise regarding challenges when it comes to the housing crisis.
“It used to be that it was just low income families that were coming in, especially at the shelter I would see that a lot,” Hockenberry said. “But now I’m seeing assistant teachers. I’m seeing people who work in community schools. I’m seeing people who work as city staff who are struggling in general to pay rent.”
At Sun Prairie’s Sunshine Place, Hockenberry assists those in need of help finding housing and traversing the process. She said that during her time with the organization, she has seen things become more and more challenging for residents.
Binz offered city-specific statistics that helped quantify the increasingly tough situation for many Sun Prairie residents.
“If you look at the numbers between, I picked 2010-2022, incomes have increased 38% while home values have increased 47% and rents have increased an astonishing 116% during that time,” Binz said.
The planner expanded by saying that roughly 4,000 Sun Prairie households spend more than 30% of their income on housing, or are “cost burdened.” She said 67% of Hispanic or Latino households in the city fit this criteria as do 51% of Black households.
Hockenberry gave examples she has seen of landlords using predatory business tactics on non-English speaking tenants, $400 per month year-over-year rent hikes, and elderly community members living out of their cars.
These increasingly concerning scenarios exist in the city even in spite of its continued emphasis on housing development.
Binz stated that between 2006-2021 Sun Prairie has issued the second most single-family permits and the third most multi-family permits out of all Dane County municipalities.
Meanwhile, Paulsen set the stage for the audience to understand why the housing squeeze grows in severity despite the best efforts of cities everywhere.
“Here’s the story: jobs are growing faster than households, and households are growing faster than housing units,” Paulsen said.
The researcher explained that even in spite of Dane County’s economic growth, more and more workers are being priced out of living in the county they are employed in.
Paulsen explained that much of the phenomenon boils down to supply and demand.
Millennials and Gen Z are approaching peak home-buying age. Meanwhile, homeowners of older populations are being priced out of downsizing and thus aging in place. While this is a good thing, it also means that the housing stock will stagnate in the hands of current homeowners unless more stock is created, which would reduce the overall price of renting and owning.
Paulsen also mentioned that the already boiling-hot demand for single-family homes in the area will continue to pump home values up. As a result, even 10-20% down payment mortgages will continue to become harder to attain than they already are.
Paulsen explained that in reality, communities nationwide need to ramp up housing development of all varieties — affordable, market rate, multi-family, single-family, etc. — to beat the ongoing trend.
However, municipalities can only incentivize this type of private development. There is no way for local governments to undertake these projects on their own.
The professor continued by saying that skyrocketing construction costs, inflation and construction delays are contributing to the uphill battle that developers are facing.
Northepoint’s Sean O’Brien put the reality of this situation into perspective for the Sun Prairie community.
“Right now in general, I think the industry is facing some extreme headwinds,” he said.
The developer stated that the company’s first Dane County project that was completed in Fitchburg cost roughly $175,000 per housing unit to construct.
Post-pandemic construction costs continually came in much higher than expected due to inflation. This led to projects ending up $1 million over budget to $2.5 million over budget within the span of six months.
Currently, his team plans for a construction cost of $240,000 per unit on new projects, which O’Brien said has stabilized somewhat in recent months.
O’Brien said that this trend, coupled with persistent supply chain hurdles since 2021, have challenged the ability to keep housing projects on time and cost-effective.
“We had a project that opened in Verona last year, and we were supposed to get our switchgear. We’re talking a $20,000 piece of equipment for a $14 million building and you can’t turn your building on or have anybody me in unless you get this piece of equipment,” O’Brien said, “It was supposed to come in March, then the date of expected delivery got moved to July and then it was October, then it moved back up to August.”
Eventually, the team simply opted to purchase a switchgear on eBay for much more than market price in July so tenants could move in on time.
At the end of the panelists’ presentations, the challenges facing renters, prospective homebuyers, homeowners and developers in Sun Prairie were evident. Nonetheless, the community members and experts still brainstormed ideas although some were not viable.
“That’s a recurring theme tonight. There are a lot of great ideas on the surface. But when you scratch the surface, you realize just how complicated it is to get to those solution that sound really good when you first hear them,” said moderator Bell.
One resident asked about the effect of remote work on housing stock. Paulsen and Binz downplayed any positive impact of remote work though the idea that unused office could be redeveloped into apartment spaces was floated as being possible and cost effective.
Another resident asked if rent control could be implemented in the city to prevent abrupt and expensive monthly payment hikes. Paulsen explained that the state of Wisconsin does not allow municipalities to implement rent control of any sort.
However, O’Brien pointed out that the state and federal tax credits that Northepoint applies for then sell to investors come with affordable housing stipulations based on different income ranges. He also gave examples of Dane County and the city of Madison leveraging their own financial incentives for development to coax developers into agreeing to similar terms.
Other questions approached the possibilities for different sorts of development, such as tiny home villages, for Sun Prairie.
In response, Binz said that the city is currently working on updating its zoning code to provide more flexibility for prospective housing developments. In the future, city leadership hopes to be even more intentional in encouraging certain types of housing and enabling innovative solutions.
Ultimately, Paulsen explained that any and all solutions will undoubtedly benefit from community buy-in across the board.
“I think it means all of us have to look in the mirror. Those of us who are very well housed, we’re doing fine, right? We can’t just bury our head in the sand... Maybe we all need to be talking to our neighbors and saying, ‘What can we do to get more housing?’” he said.
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