Bay Bridge supports efforts to make housing more affordable in Whitefish Bay, as it’s a key barrier to diversity in the Village. A new development on Hampton and Santa Monica has revealed numerous issues of proactive and cooperative planning. Bay Bridge urges you to learn about the issue, and take a few actions outlined below.
Learn About the Development and Our History
- Journal Sentinel: This affluent suburb might get its first publicly funded affordable housing project
- Journal Sentinel: Whitefish Bay commission says no to proposed affordable housing proposal
- Urban Milwaukee: Whitefish Bay’s History of Segregated Housing
Traffic and Street Safety
Read what WFB: Safe has written on the topic. It covers the backstory of the issue, and addresses some of the street safety issues. Join their mailing list if street safety is something you’d like to work on or learn more about. Remember, transportation and the ability to get places safely is impacted by the same systemic problems that racism has created in so many other areas of life.
Upcoming Actions
Appear at the upcoming Board of Appeals meeting on February 13th, at 6:15pm. We will be showing our support for this and many projects like it. The developer is appealing some of the questionably arbitrary reasons for declining this project. We want the Village to know that undoing the damage of racism will require a significant focus on the racial policies that led us to this point. You’ll recall in our past explorations of racial covenants that Whitefish Bay also had these abhorrent agreements that prevented Black folks from purchasing homes in parts of our area. Our work is not done here.
Lastly, consider attending any of the Architectural Review Committee or Plan Commission meetings with a goal of simply listening and learning. In these meetings, you will see the sometimes vast overhead required to develop affordable housing, or open a small business in Whitefish Bay. These convoluted processes and zoning practices have roots in exclusionary land practices, and we need to be aware of how they continue to implicitly keep many folks out of our Village. You can find the schedules and documents for these meetings on the Village website.
Contact the Village Board
Send a letter to the Village Board indicating your desire to more proactively plan how we will make WFB more affordable. Like our efforts to break down other elements of structural racism, we need more than words if we hope to actually improve the current system. Your request could be something as simple as asking for more affordable and diverse housing, beginning community conversations about affordability, or something more specific such as reforming our zoning code to make more dense housing possible. In your letter, please ask that it be forwarded to the ARC and BOA so that these committees understand that their neighbors want better.
Use this link to email everyone at once, or if that doesn’t work, here are all the emails which you can always find on the Village Website.
- Kevin Buckley, Village President – Term Expires: 2026 – PresidentBuckley@wfbvillage.gov
- Raisa Koltun, Trustee – Term Expires: 2024 – trusteekoltun@wfbvillage.gov
- Jacob Haller, Trustee – Term Expires: 2024 – trusteehaller@wfbvillage.gov
- Jay Balachandran, Trustee – Term Expires: 2025 – trusteebalachandran@wfbvillage.gov
- Anna Kasper, Trustee – Term Expires: 2025 – trusteekasper@wfbvillage.gov
- Tara Serebin, Trustee – Term Expires: 2026 – trusteeserebin@wfbvillage.gov
- Jay Saunders, Trustee – Term Expires: 2026 – trusteesaunders@wfbvillage.gov
- Paul Boening, Village Manager – p.boening@wfbvillage.gov
Sample Letter
Here is an example letter you can use if you’d prefer:
I am writing to express my support for the development of workforce housing in our community. The need for affordable housing options for our local workforce is crucial, and I believe that the project, The Hampton, will contribute positively to our community’s growth and sustainability.
Workforce housing plays a vital role in ensuring that our teachers, healthcare professionals, first responders, and other essential workers have access to affordable homes. By providing a stable and affordable living environment, we not only support the well-being of our workforce but also strengthen the fabric of our community.
I understand that this project aligns with our community’s goals of promoting inclusivity, diversity, and economic vitality. As we work towards creating a more equitable living environment, the development of workforce housing is a significant step in the right direction.
I urge you to consider the long-term benefits that workforce housing can bring to our community, fostering a sense of stability and belonging for those who contribute so much to our daily lives. Your support for this initiative will undoubtedly have a lasting positive impact on the well-being of our community members.
Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to witnessing the positive changes that the development of workforce housing can bring to our community. Please forward this communication to the members of the Whitefish Bay Board of Appeals for review in advance of the February 13, 2024 meeting.
Talking Points
Review the talking points we’ve prepared. These cover some high-level reasons to support developments in Whitefish Bay that have the possibility of improving housing equity and affordability. Feel free to use the ones that resonate with you – these issues always have many ways to be examined.
- Aesthetics: This proposed development sits at a gateway to our community, and could be an attractive addition. Currently the area is primarily defined by parking lots and a decades old, deteriorating vacant building. Comparable designs can already be found in the Village & in the plans for the upcoming development on the site of the former Woman’s Club. View one of the proposed designs here, or view a much more comprehensive proposal here.
- Affordability : Workforce housing focuses on providing affordable housing options for individuals and families with moderate incomes, ensuring that essential workers (people who work for the village, police and fire departments, schools in WFB and businesses within the village) can live comfortably and contribute to the community. There is a scarcity of midlevel housing in our region, and Whitefish Bay has yet to formally address rising costs that make it more & more cost prohibitive for people to move to the village.
- Economic Impact: The assessed value of the proposed complex would likely add significant increases in tax revenue per year.
- Social Equity: Workforce housing addresses social equity concerns, ensuring that individuals across different income levels have equal opportunities for stable housing and can increase community diversity as outlined in the 2019 Comprehensive Village Plan.
- Safety, Parking & Traffic Calming: The proposed project has highlighted the need for more traffic calming in the community. There is a need and an opportunity for the Village to formally address the pre-existing traffic issues regardless of the project. The new building – while adding approximately 20 vehicles – raises questions about the Village’s current required parking minimums which limit the number of residential units on the site because of how much parking is required. Parking minimums, pedestrian safety & traffic calming have yet to be formally & comprehensively addressed by the Village. The site is adjacent to a bus line and bike trail which would make it a great place to live without a car.
