Legacy Regional Housing Plan

After several years of intensive work effort, SEWRPC adopted a regional housing plan on June 5, 1975. The plan resulted from a study conducted by SEWRPC staff with the assistance of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. It was guided by an advisory committee of individuals who were particularly knowledgeable about housing in the region at that time. The plan is set forth in SEWRPC Planning Report No. 20, A Regional Housing Plan for Southeastern Wisconsin, February 1975.

After identifying the extent of housing need in the region—expressed both in terms of: 1) the number of households at that time that were unable to secure decent, safe, and sanitary housing at a cost consistent with their household income; and 2) those households precluded from obtaining decent, safe, and sanitary housing owing to noneconomic factors resulting in substandard and overcrowded living conditions—the regional housing study resulted in a plan having two major elements. The first element of the plan involved a series of non-subsidy recommendations to reduce the constraints on the availability of low cost housing in an effort to make such housing more readily and widely available to the households that were largely in economic need. The second element constituted a housing allocation strategy to geographically distribute throughout the region additional publicly subsidized housing units to address substandard and overcrowded living conditions recognizing that in some cases the housing need of households experiencing economic constraints could only be effectively reduced through the provision of public financial assistance. Of particular importance in the former aspect were those recommendations that addressed the changes in local land use controls aimed at helping to ensure that all urban communities in the region accommodate within their regulatory structure a full range of residential structure types—single family, two family, and multi-family, all at substantially increased densities and without unreasonable building size requirements.

The plan further recommended that SEWRPC maintain a continuing housing outreach program to be supported by Federal funding. This program was intended to provide guidance and advice to the producers, providers, and facilitators of housing who focus in particular on the problems of the households in substantial housing need. The continuing SEWRPC effort was also intended to monitor progress toward implementation of the recommendations set forth in the plan, and provide a basis for updating that plan from time-to-time in light of changing situations. SEWRPC continued the regional housing planning and outreach program through 1981. At that time the Federal government eliminated the metropolitan planning funds that supported the regional housing planning effort. The withdrawal of the Federal funds caused SEWRPC to downsize its staff and terminate the continuing housing program. In so doing, SEWRPC indicated that it would consider re-instating the housing planning program should at some future date Federal funding support again became available. That contingency was not fulfilled until the midpoint of the first decade of the 21st century.