By Kevin Boneske
Staff Writer
SUAMICO – Anticipated demand for housing was discussed Monday, Feb. 1, when the village board went over a report of affordable housing in Suamico prepared by the Brown County Planning Commission.
Board members heard from Suamico Planning and Zoning Commission member Mark Thomson, who reviewed the report’s findings.
In his approximately 15 years on the commission, Thomson said he has seen growth in the village.
“As we do all the different surveys with the community over time, we always look at rural character as being one of the predominant things that’s happening,” he said. “As a planning and zoning commission, what we typically do is we take rural character in consideration. We have larger lots, look at subdivisions – go down that path – and also recognizing that we do want some urbanized growth to happen. We need that as a community. We need that as a village. We have a lot of infrastructure that we have to pay for as it relates to services and sewer and those types of things.”
Thomson said some of things in the affordable housing report “struck me a little bit.”
“At the end of the day, roughly 50 percent of our (vacant residential) land is undevelopable, because of environmental (limitations such as wetlands),” he said.
Based on projected housing demand, the report estimated the village would need an additional 1,829 homes to meet the 2040 household and population projections.
With the current minimum residential lot size of 20,000 square feet, the report also projected by 2040 the village would need an additional 840 acres of residential land zoned RS-Residential Sewer.
“Why that struck me a little bit is because we continue to go down a path of saying, ‘We’re a rural community,’ which we are, I don’t dispute that,” Thomson said. “I think at some point in time, though, we may have to change our thinking a little bit… As we move forward, there’s going to have to be a little bit more urbanization that takes place within this.”
For Suamico to continue to grow and be a vibrant community, he said village officials may have to “think a little bit differently on how we approach some things.”
Thomson said Suamico is changing rapidly as a community.
To support the infrastructure of a growing community, he said the village may have to change its housing regulations, or it might find itself in an unpleasant situation.
“It might be unpleasant, because maybe we’re going to have big lots and big homes out there,” he said. “And guess what? Nobody can afford them anymore, so the property values are going to go down.”
Trustee Sky Van Rossum, who is also on the Planning and Zoning Commission, pointed out another finding in the report about slightly more than 57 percent of the 4,428 acres identified for future residential growth is undevelopable because of natural resource features.
Van Rossum said the village currently faces high costs for sewer and water service, while its current sewer service areas are “significantly constrained.”
“They’re either already developed, or they’re bordered by areas that currently have their own sewer and septic and water systems,” he said. “There’s some pretty significant constraint there, so how do you build those out?”
Van Rossum said a possible solution included in the report related to the high cost of sewer and water service is allowing smaller lot sizes in the sewer service areas, thereby increasing the number of homes with the same amount of property.
The report on housing demand was on the board’s agenda for informational purposes with no action taken.