Middleton intern outlines roadmap for municipal affordable housing fund; committee re-elects leadership

Jake, Middleton's 2025 planning intern, presented research to the Workforce Housing Committee on municipal affordable housing funds and recommended structuring programs to “stack finance sources” so municipal dollars pair with federal and tax-credit resources to close persistent financing gaps.

Jake summarized his findings as “roughly five buckets” — initial community engagement and small pilot programs, focused program selection, support for affordable rental development, strategies for owner-occupied affordability (land trusts and Habitat-style models), and long-term fund maintenance. He told the committee that Madison and Dane County have used similar approaches to create thousands of income-restricted units and that the low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) remains the dominant source of financing for rental development.

Why it matters: Jake said local funds are typically too small to build entire affordable developments and therefore are most effective when they cover residual gap financing for LIHTC or bond-funded projects. He also warned that local costs are rising: construction costs “have increased by 77% since 2015” and land costs “have gone up by 65%,” which increases the size of municipal gap contributions.

Scott Peacock, the city's associate planner and staff to the committee, described operational steps Middleton can take if it adopts a fund, including aligning the city's RFPs with the state scoring (WEDA/QAP) so local applicants are competitive. “The housing plan itself supports the idea of aligning with the WEDA scoring as closely as possible,” Peacock said, urging that the committee track location-based scoring changes and keep developers informed.

Committee members pressed on sequencing and risk: several asked whether cities must commit funding before state decisions and how to avoid tying up local dollars for proposals that ultimately fail to secure state awards. Jake and staff explained applicants typically must demonstrate they have applied to WEDA; city commitments can improve an application's score, but municipal funding still faces timing and award uncertainty.

Members discussed trade-offs between rental and homeownership programs. Jake said rentals typically produce more affordable units per municipal dollar, while owner-occupied options (land trusts, Habitat models) advance wealth building for individual households but are less scalable. He also reviewed land-banking approaches, noting Madison's model—acquire parcels and offer them to developers with subsidies—can produce deeply affordable outcomes but is time-consuming and legally complex (for example, dealing with tenant protections and deed restrictions).

On outreach and implementation, the committee agreed the workforce housing group should play a lead role in socializing the program to developers, elected officials and community partners. Members suggested partnering with the Chamber of Commerce, local nonprofits and independent housing advocacy groups; they also recommended ongoing storytelling at council meetings and targeted developer briefings to reduce transaction costs that can kill deals.

Next steps: the committee re-elected its leadership by voice vote (Ben Rhoden was congratulated after the vote), asked members to send staff suggested outreach targets and story leads, and planned to discuss hiring a housing planner/coordinator and a draft first-year budget with the Community Development Authority at their next joint meeting in July. Staff said the hiring update and the draft budget will be on the July agenda for further direction.

The meeting ended with members agreeing to compile outreach leads and to return with follow-ups at the next joint CDA meeting.