Madison Common Council OKs zoning overhaul designed to encourage ‘missing middle’ housing

Madison’s Common Council has appproved a series of zoning changes designed to encourage more housing development amid a housing affordability crisis.

Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway introduced the package of changes in January. She says it’s intended to facilitate the growth of “missing middle” housing. That can include housing options such as duplexes and coach houses, which add more density than detached single-family homes but less than large apartment buildings.

“This latest round of commonsense, pro-housing initiatives is a step towards creating more affordability and more options for current and future Madison residents,” the mayor said in a statement Tuesday night.

Among other changes, the package gets rid of a rule requiring housing developments to have a minimum amount of private backyard space. Existing requirements related to landscaping and stormwater drainage will remain in place, city zoning officials said.

The legislation also gets rid of some restrictions on what are often referred to as coach houses or granny flats.

Officially classified as accessory dwelling units, those smaller homes are typically located on the same lot as a larger, single-family house.

The amendments include nixing a limit that allowed accessory dwelling units to have no more than two bedrooms. It also increases the potential size of many ADUs by allowing an accessory dwelling unit to have up to 1,000 square feet of living space.

And the recently-approved package allows more design options for housing developments with two or three units in a building.

The changes, which only apply where duplexes or triplexes are already allowed, will allow units to be arranged in additional configurations, such as having units built back-to-back or with a single housing unit that spans two floors.

District 2 Alder Julianna Bennett was a sponsor of the zoning changes package, which got unanimous approval from the Council Tuesday night.

She said, while the amendments are welcome, more sweeping changes are needed going forward.

“We talk about how we’re pro-housing, but we make it so hard to build in Madison,” she said. “It’s death by a thousand paper cuts, and these are some of the paper cuts.”

Council also approves changes to speed up tear-downs of some buildings

Also on Tuesday, the Common Council approved changes to demolition procedures for some buildings.

Backers say those changes will streamline the tear-down process, making it easier and faster to clear the way for new housing to be built.

After someone seeks permission to demolish a building, Madison’s Landmarks Commission will continue to review whether or not the building has historic value.

Buildings with historic value will still have to have their demolition reviewed by another city board, known as the Planning Commission. But under the changes approved this week, buildings without historic value will skip the Planning Commission step of the process before the city’s administration decides whether or not the building can be demolished.

“(The amended ordinance) significantly cuts down on the timeline for an overall project if there’s no known historic value,” Madison’s Preservation Planner Heather Bailey told the Council.

Madison housing in high demand

Madison is Wisconsin’s fastest-growing city and has more than 280,000 residents. The city projects that population will grow by over 18,000 people in the next five years, and housing is in high demand

Less than 4 percent of rentals in the city are vacant, according to a 2023 report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. That’s below what’s considered to be a “healthy” vacancy rate of between 5 percent and 7 percent, according to the HUD report.

A “Housing Forward” plan from the city calls for the creation of 15,000 new housing units by 2030. Under that goal, at least a quarter of those homes would be considered affordable for renters making no more than 60 percent of the area’s median income or for homeowners making no more than 80 percent of the median income.