By Shereen Siewert | Wausau Pilot & Review
Wausau residents will have one less option to control zoning amendments in their neighborhoods after a bill that aims to expand access to affordable housing passed earlier this year.
Assembly Bill 266, which limits local governments’ ability to impose a supermajority on zoning amendment votes, was introduced by a bipartisan coalition that included Republican State Rep. Patrick Snyder, of Schofield. The bill establishes more “certainty and predictability” in the approval process for developments before local governments and will limit the ability of “NIMBYs” or “Not in My Backyard” to delay or terminate the approval process for housing development, according to a joint statement from a group of state legislators.
This week, the ramifications of that bill came to light in a Wausau Plan Commission meeting where officials mulled modifications to the city’s zoning ordinances. Under the terms of the bill, signed in June by Gov. Tony Evers, local governments will be required to approve permits aligned with local standards.
That’s a change from the way Wausau handles such changes now. Today, the city publishes a “Protest Guide” that details the way residents can push back against unwanted zoning changes, such as requests to rezone a lot to build an apartment complex instead of a single-family home. In Wausau, concerned property owners who submit petitions for at least 20 percent or more of the area of the land included can trigger a supermajority vote requirement, or 75%, for a proposed change to pass. Community advocates say that protects residents from poor or predatory zoning decisions that can adversely impact diverse, working-class neighborhoods.
That will end in January 2025. Because of the new legislation, the supermajority requirement will be effectively erased. Snyder, in an email to Wausau Pilot & Review, said the bill changes a “burdensome requirement that has hampered much needed development across the state.”
On Tuesday, the Plan Commission removed language from a zoning ordinance update that would have pulled the supermajority vote provision one year early. That happened after Dist. 3 Alder Tom Kilian urged the group to delay the change until state law made doing so a requirement.
Kilian on Tuesday called the new rule a “bad bill” that slipped under the radar and is of significant importance to people in communities throughout the state. In a year, Kilian said, Wausau will be forced to comply, but he objected to an earlier timeline.
“This is often one of the only resources city residents have to require more scrutiny or rigor by bodies passing these changes,” he said. Pulling the supermajority rule a year early, he said, would send a “clear signal we are undercutting citizen protections and citizen voices.”
Multiple times over the past few years residents have successfully petitioned against proposed zoning changes in their neighborhoods, stopping development plans from moving forward. One example happened in January, when an effort to rezone 1427 Lake St. and two parcels on Chellis Street from single family residential to townhome residential failed amid resident opposition.
At the time, Dist. 10 Alder Lou Larson, who represents the neighborhood, had harsh criticism for the Plan Commission and council itself and asked when the city would stop forcing its will on the people.
The new rules will have a major impact not just in Wausau, but in communities throughout Wisconsin, where residents have often taken steps to prevent unwanted zoning changes. Earlier this year, for example, Madison residents mounted a campaign against a zoning change to allow higher density apartments near future stops on the Bus Rapid Transit line. Another effort in Madison aimed to stop a developer’s proposal for a new apartment complex by attempting to get a historical landmark designation for a former credit union building. In March, Stevens Point residents fought against a neighbor’s efforts to build an extension to their garage so their ailing in-laws have a place to move in. And in Wauwatosa, local opposition led to the death of a proposed high rise apartment tower that would have included more than 300 units.
Snyder, who said he had not heard from any Wausau official on the bill, said the new legislation is important to him because it includes several important measures to increase access to affordable housing. He pointed to a 2019 study by University of Wisconsin Urban Planning Professor Kurt Paulsen that showed Wisconsin has one of the worst affordable housing shortages in the nation.
“Since 2011, Wisconsin has produced ten thousand fewer single-family homes every year than the previous decade,” Snyder wrote. “Additionally, Wisconsin’s housing stock is older than many other states, 57% of Wisconsin’s existing housing stock was built prior to 1980, and 43% was built prior to 1960. This is combined with a 35% rise in the cost of building new housing since 2020.”
The bill was part of a broader bipartisan legislative package that aims to create next-generation workforce housing, rehabilitate main street housing, upgrade aging housing, convert vacant commercial developments to residential and increase the low-income housing tax credit from $42 million to $100 million, Snyder said.
“AB 266 was an important of the effort to reduce the regulatory burden on new developments,” Snyder said. “Making the development process more certain and predictable statewide is an important part of the housing reforms. A 2021 study, found that federal, state, and local regulation can add up to $93,000 in regulatory costs with an additional delay of 14 months. These delays and expenses are not just theoretical – they are real housing supply delays that increase the cost of existing housing, prevent new people from moving to our community, and leave employers unable to fill vacant jobs in our community.”
But advocates for Environmental Justice say community-based advocacy is crucial to avoid pitting low-income communities and communities of color against polluting industries and the agencies that permit them. Wausau can look no further than to the fight for rezoning on city-owned 1300 Cleveland Avenue, a city-owned property in a diverse working-class area, for an example.
There, local environmental advocates and residents have long pushed for residential zoning to ensure the property’s demonstrated contamination would be remediated to the most stringent standards.
Kilian said he understands Wausau needs more affordable housing, but told Wausau Pilot & Review that city officials should work with residents to find middle ground when seeking solutions rather than forcing changes upon them.
“I would say if we have to heed bad legislation that flows down from the state, and start on January 1st of 2025 then so be it,” Kilian said. “But we shouldn’t get a head start…I don’t know where it came from at the state, be it elephant, donkey, elephonkey, it doesn’t matter. It’s a bad bill and let’s not emulate it a year early in Wausau.”
Plan Commission members said they will add the rule change to an agenda a year from now, when required by the state.
