The City of Madison Housing Strategy Committee has constructed a report over the last year focusing on student housing, home ownership and affordable rental units, according to the City of Madison housing strategy report.
Madison has one of the lowest vacancy rates in the U.S., with living costs continuously rising, according to the report. This lack of supply exacerbated by Madison being one of the fastest-growing cities in Madison makes for a difficult and expensive housing market.
District 8 Alder MGR Govindarajan provided context on the Housing Strategy Committee and the feedback the city got from students regarding housing.
The city received 300 emails in three days concerning the student housing crisis in Madison and over 1,700 Google Form responses expressing concern, MGR said. Consequently, the city council realized its obligation to students to alleviate the pressure of the housing market.
The Housing Strategy Committee was tasked to focus on housing issues by researching problems and potential solutions to the three previously mentioned subgroups, student housing, affordable home ownership and an affordable rental market, MGR said.
Two subgroups — one for home ownership and one for the rental market — were set up, while Alder Juliana Bennett and MGR worked separately to set up the Affordable Housing Student Work Group. This group, hosted by Downtown Madison Inc., collaborates with the University of Wisconsin and private developers to efficiently gather information on student needs, MGR said.
The two city committees have been meeting from last winter to this summer and the Affordable Housing Student Work Group has been meeting from January to October, MGR said.
The Affordable Housing Student Work Group made recommendations to ensure more affordable housing for students in the future, MGR said. One of these recommendations is to change zoning and the comprehensive plan to eliminate any height limits more restrictive than the Wisconsin State Capitol view preservation, according to the report.
Additionally, the workgroup encourages UW to educate students on the housing market.
“What we learned through a study is that the students who know how to find cheaper housing tend to be seniors and the people who pay the most for housing are freshmen or sophomores,” MGR said.
These findings indicate education and experience within the housing market directly correlate with the ability to find affordable housing, MGR said.
Furthermore, the work group recommends developers be allowed to pay for outside consultants rather than using the city directly, according to the report. This ability will make it easier for developers to go through the development process quicker, due to the limited number of city staff members and the large number of projects throughout Madison, MGR said.
The work group also recommended the implementation of “flexible housing” or housing that is accessible to both students and non-students, MGR said.
MGR also discussed how the city will ensure ample new housing developments will be considered affordable. For example, Madison has a creative and inventive program called the Height Bonus Affordability Program that incentivizes developers to build affordable housing in exchange for a change in the zoning code.
“The city can basically become a partner in the development by saying ‘we will change the zoning code to allow you to build an extra two stories if you give 10% of your beds at a 40% discount,” MGR said.
The UW Office of Student Financial Aid advertises the program toward low- and moderate-income students, MGR said. Additionally, eligibility for these discounted beds comes from student financial information from the FAFSA, but the developers do not have access to the information to ensure there is no threat of retaliation, MGR said.
From fall 2024 to fall 2026, the City of Madison has approved 5,300 beds to be built, with around 500 of those beds at a 40% discount, MGR said.
“There is no binding element to [the city] accepting the report, but we have the information out, and it’s up to us as alders to go through the report and bring up these policy recommendations as actual policy implementations,” MGR said.
