Workforce Housing and Regulatory Reform Bill Package

HBA: Wisconsin BA

Category: Government Affairs

Location: Madison, Wis.

Size: State Association

Year: 2023

The Wisconsin BA helped pass a package of bipartisan bills to strengthen investments in workforce housing projects and enact regulatory reform. The BA created multiple loan programs to provide low or zero interest loans to remodel and build more single family and multifamily workforce housing. For a developer to receive a loan, the municipality they are working in must also show what type of regulatory reforms (smaller lot sizes, reducing impact fees, etc.) they approved to bring down the cost of the workforce housing development. The state budget funded the loan programs with $525 million in budget surplus revenues.

Initial meetings included a diverse group of supporters (WBA, Wisconsin Realtors Association, League of Municipalities, Counties Association, and the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (the state agency in charge of administrating the loan programs). During this process, the association also worked with the chairs of each housing committee in the state assembly and state senate.

Each bill was introduced and received bipartisan support during the legislative process and signed into law Governor Tony Evers. The projected covered housing infrastructure, remodeling for existing downtown multifamily, remodeling for single family homes, demolition, or remodeling of former commercial buildings along with regulatory reform. The head of the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority called this effort “the biggest investment in housing in Wisconsin history.”