AB 455 Would Provide Up To $10 Million for Underutilized Affordable Housing Model
MADISON, Wis. – Today, in a bipartisan vote of the Wisconsin Assembly’s Committee on Housing and Real Estate, legislators approved an amendment proposed by Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-19) to allow housing cooperatives to have access to a proposed $10 million grant program for renovations, legal and startup costs. According to the National Association of Housing Cooperatives, a housing cooperative is, “a form of homeownership collectively owned and controlled by its residents.” Wisconsin has several established housing coops, but no dedicated state funding towards their development.
The amended bill expands the potential uses for an existing, funded but underutilized program into a means for developers to convert rented apartments into either condominiums or cooperative housing. A successful amendment from Rep. Lori Palmeri (D-54) also assures that tenants will also have priority in purchasing their own converted units. Rep. Clancy voted for AB 455, as amended, and was joined by four Republican colleagues: Rep. Scott Allen (R-82), Rep. Jim Piwowarczyk (R-98), Rep. Rob Kreibich (R-28), and Rep. Armstrong (R-67).
Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-19) issued the following statement:
“I am excited and proud to have bipartisan support for AB 455, as amended, which would provide much-needed funding for the development of housing cooperatives in Wisconsin. Housing coops are an important alternative for households in our communities that lack the means to individually purchase and maintain stable housing. They provide the assurance of predictable costs, create the potential for innovative forms of cost sharing and cost reduction, and help strengthen the communities that embrace this well-proven model.
This change to an existing, underused program could free up $10 million in already appropriated funding for housing coops. That would make hundreds of projects possible that are now just ideas, or partly made plans. This is a significant, smart investment in Wisconsin’s future and a real way to alleviate our housing crisis.
I have been critical about this legislature’s nearly exclusive focus on handouts to for-profit developers. AB 455, though, is the type of policy we can and should be developing together. There is nothing inherently conservative, liberal, or socialist about housing coops as an alternative to traditional, for-profit single family housing and renting. It’s simply a means to housing security, affordability and equity for people who face spiraling rent costs and profound barriers to home ownership, profound problems in my district and statewide.
I want to thank Rep. Scott Allen, Rep. Jim Piwowarczyk, Rep. David Armstrong and Rep. Rob Kreibich for supporting this bold idea and am hopeful their colleagues in the Republican Party will likewise consider this idea in good faith on Tuesday. I am also grateful to Chair Robert Brooks for giving my proposed amendment to AB 455 a fair hearing. I look forward to future collaboration and additional efforts to end Wisconsin’s housing crisis.”
