Folks, we have more bad numbers . . . this time, It is those big stacks of paper that Judy Compton has been waiving around while she was claiming that we have enough affordable housing. Thanks to Alder Webber, who took Judy up on her offer to give us the numbers, we have the information and . . . drum roll please . . . .
Uh, the data isn’t so great.
First of all, and I’m not done looking at it yet, but first of all, she didn’t look at the size of the units and the price limits for families at various AMIs. Of the units she says are under $185,000 many of them are still out of range for families due to the number of bedrooms. I eliminated hundreds of units due to this.
Second of all, the data includes info from at least the Town of Madison and Westport. Maybe other areas as well, I’m still looking. So several more units are being eliminated.
Third, when looking at the available condos, she doesn’t add the condo fee to the price of the unit. The ordinance requires that you only pay 30% of your income towards your monthly housing payment, which included the condo fee. I haven’t quite figured out how to address this, but likely the condo fee will bump many of the units out of the affordable range.
Fourth, while Judy Compton, and Phil Salkin from the Realtor’s Association of Southcentral Wisconsin try to show that the units are spread throughout town, you will find clumps of 20 or so units in various areas that are essentially the only option for buying units. I’m working on more data for folks in this area.
I’ll let you know more, as I figure it out a little bit more, but clearly, as Robbie Webber suspected, the picture isn’t as rosy as she may have led us to believe. Go figure, more bad data from the business community folks. This is growing tiresome.
