Editor’s note: A previous version of this article stated that kitchens in Chadbourne and Leopold were being converted into bedrooms when in fact study lounges are being converted.
For renters, the housing story in Madison has been a tragedy in recent years. You don’t have to look far to find this story. It has been covered, at length, by every paper in the city. There is, however, one small segment of the housing market that has been underreported that has, in many ways, defied the odds — housing cooperatives.
According to Spectrum News, Madison has over two dozen co-ops. The non-profit collective Madison Community Cooperative owns and operates 11 of them. MCC co-ops have the most publicly available information, are frequently used by students (or only by students, in the case of Zoe Bayliss), and their larger-scale non-profit model offers particularly valuable insights.
Co-ops are inexpensive, shockingly so. The average monthly rent among MCC’s 11 co-ops works out to about $500, given a rough average of the rent price ranges on their website. Even more surprising, the average number of occupants per room is 1 person. Paying less than $500 a month for your own room in downtown Madison seems too good to be true, yet it is possible.
After freshman year, students have esesntially two options for housing — continue living in the dorms or sign a lease for an off-campus apartment. For the 2024-2025 school year, monthly rent in the dorms can range from anywhere between $1,129 (Lowell/Smith single with bath) per month to $811 (Adams/Bradley/Cole/Sullivan/Tripp quad), excluding the $500 winter break fee and meal plan cost, according University Housing. The average rent for a double occupancy dorm room on campus is $862, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.
The university had high enrollment numbers again this fall and has now had to take further remedial measures like converting the study lounges in Chadbourne and Leopold into bedrooms. In this way, students are stuck in somewhat overcrowded, truncated facilities – worse than what they bargained for when signing UW housing contracts.
Meanwhile, students report paying an average of $903 (excluding utilities) for off-campus housing, according to a recent housing report undertaken by UW and the city of Madison. The report also noted 27% of students reported sharing a bedroom to minimize rent, as compared to 10% of student tenants at similarly sized institutions.
Freshman don’t have much time to weigh their housing options after starting at UW. By October, most freshmen are already thinking about whether or not to sign a pricey off-campus lease or remain in the dorms, relatively cramped and somewhat inexpensive in comparison. Most students split from the dorms after their freshman year, according to the report.
There are a little under 200 people in MCC’s 11 houses, and perhaps their small size allows them to be a housing anomaly in Madison, but the virtues of co-ops should not be overlooked by the city or university as they forge ahead in trying to address the housing crisis.
MCC is a non-profit. As stated on their home page, MCC’s chief aim is to provide low-cost not-for-profit housing for very low to moderate-income people. Beyond this, MCC also aims to educate its members about the principles of cooperative housing, strives to include underrepresented and marginalized members of the community, reduce the carbon footprint of its cooperative houses and maintain relationships with other community organizations. The goal of every for-profit housing company in Madison? Make money.
This is not to say co-ops have been immune to the inflation and cost of living increases that have affected rent prices across Madison, but their rent hikes have been relatively gradual, especially considering the already low co-op rent. MCC has increased its rent by 5% each year over the past few years in order to keep up with inflation and higher maintenance costs, according to MCC coordinating director John Parsons. Considering, though, that in 2023, year-over-year rent growth in Madison was 14.1%, MCC rent growth has been small in comparison.
Life in a co-op comes with a set of peculiarities unique to the system, such as mandatory work duties (typically 2-5 hours per week), house meetings and participation in various shared governance tasks. This helps bring down the cost of living, but also creates a strong sense of community in the houses, according to Parsons.
After several years of significant renovations and housing difficulties, MCC has only recently brought all of their properties fully online and is not currently in a position to purchase more houses, though more independent co-ops have begun to spring up in Madison, Parsons said.
This is where the university should step in. UW wields enormous influence on the housing market in Madison, and by purchasing local real estate before developers do, UW could set up a system of co-ops similar to MCC’s.
In 2024, UW tore down the Zoe Bayliss Housing Co-Op to make room for the new Irving & Dorothy Levy Hall humanities building. MCC swooped in to offer the Zoe Bayliss tenants a new house on Langdon Street, but people should not forget that UW used to lease property on campus to a student cooperative.
Many students are at a point in their lives where low-cost, communal living works well. A system of UW co-ops could represent a kind of intermediate zone between dorm life and apartment life, both in lifestyle and expense. It would also enable the university to purchase existing houses in the city rather than create new residences. The fact that the old Zoe Bayliss system worked for 67 years is a testament to the viability of this system, and it is one that UW and the City of Madison should not ignore as they search for housing solutions.
