Zoning Amendments Give Nudge to Affordable Housing

The Door County Board of Supervisors has approved several changes to the county’s comprehensive zoning ordinance recommended by the Resource Planning Committee that could make it slightly easier to build affordable housing. 

“I don’t have grand hopes that we’re going to have a slew of people clamoring to build affordable housing,” said Mariah Goode, head of the Department of Land Use Services, which developed the recommendations. “But it will make it easier and more affordable for those that do want to pursue projects.”

Goode said the changes reflect ideas that have come forward during affordable-housing discussions since a study in 2019 revealed a massive shortage of affordable housing in the county. The changes will affect all townships that fall under Door County comprehensive zoning. 

The changes decrease the minimum home size in many areas of the county to 750 feet for a two-bedroom dwelling and 1,000 feet for one with three or more bedrooms. In a conservation subdivision, you could now build a home as small as 500 square feet, down from 750 square feet. 

“One of the key things we’re trying to do is to make zoning less cumbersome for people who want to develop affordable housing,” Goode said. “But the caveat is that when we change the rules, we can’t do them to apply only to affordable housing.”

In addition to reducing minimum home sizes, the update also eliminates the requirement for public hearings for multiple-occupancy developments of 12 bedrooms or fewer, or 24 bedrooms or fewer where all occupancy units are rented for 30 consecutive days or longer. 

The changes also include an adjustment to the regulation of accessory dwelling units. 

Secondary dwelling units were always intended to be for nontransient housing when they were put in place 12 years ago, Goode said, but in response to state legislative changes a few years ago, the department allowed those to be used for transient lodging. Goode said that after consulting further with the county’s corporation counsel, Grant Thomas, they could put the minimum stay in an accessory dwelling unit back to 30 days. 

Those property owners who are currently renting their secondary dwellings as transient rentals are grandfathered in. 

Goode said her department increasingly fields questions from prospective home buyers about Airbnb rentals for properties. 

“We are getting droves of phone calls in the past two years, and I swear they’ve picked up since that Wall Street Journal article. Their first question is, ‘Is there any restriction about putting this on Airbnb?’ When they find out they can put a secondary dwelling and rent it, they’re just ecstatic.”

Goode was referring to an August 2021 article in the Wall Street Journal titled, “Door County Lives Up to its Nickname as the Midwest’s Cape Cod.”