By MICHELE DERUS
mderus@journalsentinel.comPosted: Dec. 16, 2006
Hartford - Lesson from a high-growth blue-collar city: upscaling beautifies, but inclusion stabilizes.
This Washington County outpost 39 miles northwest of Milwaukee has 13,000 people; 8,000-plus jobs that pay an average of $16 hourly; and zero unemployment, city officials say.
About 40% of city residents work within city borders, and property taxes have fallen for four years straight.
The secret of its development success: housing choices priced for everyday folks.
"We're a small, self-contained, inclusionary community . . . that provides cradle-to-grave housing, all in everyone's price range," said City Administrator Gary Koppelberger.
"In Hartford, you can still find a new home/lot package under $200,000 - far below anyplace else in the area," Koppelberger said. "We have condos and apartments, and when it comes time that you don't work anymore, we have senior housing. We also have a hospital, a hospice, and when that's done, two cemeteries."
Hartford's housing prices range from about $100,000 to $400,000, according to Mayor Scott M. Henke.
That low end is rare in metro Milwaukee, where average resale prices are mostly in the $200,000-to-$350,000 range and the average new-home price was $334,972 last month, Multiple Listing Service and MTD Marketing Service records show.
Cut-rate housing has proven a magnet for young workers and house hunters.
"I bought my house in 1999, when I was 25 and single," said Gina Wendt, a publication coordinator at Quad / Graphics' Hartford printing plant. "Brookstone Homes was offering land-and-house packages for $129,000 - a two-bedroom, one-bath place on a city lot. I think I got a very good deal - my payments were very close to my rent at the time, and the house has probably appreciated by $20,000."
Plus, there is the value of living near work: priceless.
Wendt once commuted more than an hour daily between Waukesha and Hartford.
"Way too far for me, especially working nights," she said. "Now I'm three minutes from work, especially nice in inclement weather. I see the news in the morning, with all the traffic backups and alerts, and think, 'I avoided that.' "
Homes in all ranges
Keeping prices affordable for its working-class residents in a region bent on upscaling to bigger houses on more land "took a lot of hard work over the last decade," Koppelberger said.
It took unyielding resolve, too, Henke said.
"We made a significant push, private and public, to have people live, work and play here. We wanted to grow, but keep our sense of community - not just be a place where people got in their cars and drove off to somewhere else."
Koppelberger added, "To do that, you have to provide housing for your work force."
Hartford's housing philosophy is this: Let the market provide, with minimal interference, what the people want. There are no architectural controls, no development impact fees and just a few consistent rules.
The city's chief requirement is that the development house entry-level workers and executives alike.
"We never wanted to isolate people by economic standing. The idea is, they're all neighbors," Koppelberger said.
Most newer Hartford subdivisions mix in modest houses, small lots and/or multi-unit buildings among single-family homes.
Some subdivisions have narrow streets and sidewalks or shallow setbacks.
It all curbs development costs and, in turn, purchase prices, Koppelberger said.
Hartford has been widely lauded for finding a fair and reasonable way to grow.
Phil Evenson, executive director of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, called Hartford "my favorite example of a community trying its very best to provide a range of housing appropriate to wages and salaries there."
Mike Kaerek, president of West Allis-based Kaerek Homes Inc., which has developed about 400 lots in Hartford, said, "What they ask is never that drastic. On our first subdivision five years ago, they required that 15% be priced at $130,000. Our average price at the time was $160,000 or $170,000, so putting in a few at less wasn't much of a problem. Normally, a piece of land has a section where you'd have narrower lots anyway."
Kevin Dittmar, president of Dittmar Realty Inc. in Menomonee Falls, which has developed 260 lots in Hartford, said lower house prices are due to city policies, not city mandates.
"Their engineering department is efficient, responsible and reasonable. Their guidelines are clear and they don't make endless changes and alterations, like some places do. That has a big effect on the costs of roads, sewer and water, which represent 75% to 80% of costs in a full-service urbanized area," Dittmar said. "Plus, they permit and maintain a good supply of buildable lots, and that holds prices down."
Scaled for all
Those practices stand in stark contrast to what Koppelberger called metro Milwaukee's "ever-increasing penchant for exclusionary zoning."
He agrees with builders and developers who say too many suburbs only want the wealthy.
"Our gold-plated standard" is how Mike Ruzicka, president of the Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors, puts this region's emphasis on high-end development.
For Hartford, however, Ruzicka has only kudos.
"They're about the only community to truly take work force housing seriously over the last 10, 15 years," he said. "They've done a great job."
New homeowners Tara Thomas, 29, and Jason Anderson, 36, agreed.
The two, who work in Menomonee Falls, just bought into Hartford's low-$200,000s Spaeth Farms development.
"We found we could get more for our money in Hartford, and price was an important consideration," said Thomas, who had lived in Milwaukee.
"Our home rests against farm fields," Anderson said. "It's a very nice, quiet place, and the commute is about equal to what I had before" when living in West Bend.
Affordable magnet
Breaking out of the metropolitan pack has reaped economic rewards for Hartford too, officials said. Among them:
• Hartford's 60 industries provide more than 8,200 jobs, making it the largest employment center in the Washington-Ozaukee county area, according to Werner X. Wolpert, executive director of Hartford Area Development Corp.
"Three thousand people live and work here. That means 5,000 come from other locations," Wolpert said.
• With full employment, Hartford's average hourly wage is $16, Wolpert said.
"Even minimum-wage jobs are paying more like $8 or $9," Koppelberger said. "They have to. Look around; you'll see 'help wanted' signs everywhere."
• Property tax bills are dropping citywide for the fourth straight year - "taxes due, not just tax rates," Koppelberger said.
"We haven't raised sewer or water rates for the last four years either," said Mayor Scott M. Henke.
The city has broadened its tax base, due mostly to residential and industrial growth, he said.
Lately, the city's commercial sector seems poised for healthy growth too, he said.
• The city's bond rate has been upgraded twice in the last 24 months from A-3 to A-1.
Meanwhile, businesspeople are as close to contentment as businesspeople ever get.
A case in point is the Wendorff brothers, born and raised in the area, now running businesses and active in civic affairs here.
"Our work force is very stable," said Gary Wendorff, president of Hartford Finishing Inc., a powder-paint facility with about 180 employees, and the group holding company, Wendorff Brothers Co. Inc.
"This is a good community to do business in. The housing system seems to work fine."
His brother, Terry, president of the Hartford Area Chamber of Commerce and head of Sno-way International Inc., a snow and ice removal equipment manufacturer that employs up to 80 workers, said: "The political powers have had enough foresight and vision to keep up with the needs of the businesses and people who live here. For housing, they made sure they blended in enough at the affordable level, yet provided executive housing too. We can all live, work and play in one community."
The upshot, said Terry Wendorff: "People really have roots here."
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Related:
Right housing mix hard work, not magic
By MICHELE DERUS
mderus@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Dec. 16, 2006
Hartford City Administrator Gary Koppelberger's advice on providing affordable housing: "Try everything - density credits, smaller lots, narrower streets. I can't give you a formula. There isn't any magic potion."
If local leaders balk at trying new things, the city administrator said, "don't be afraid to take the fight to the boardrooms and lunchrooms in your community."
With developers, "don't legislate - negotiate," he said. "And be flexible."
Also, prepare to fail sometimes. That's what happened with Hartford's first try, at Settlement Ridge, where city officials required narrow streets, sidewalks and parkways and a group of small lots. "The people who bought the smallest lot put in the biggest house," Koppelberger said.
"With our narrow streets and three-foot curbs, we wound up with sidewalks full of snow when we plowed," added Mayor Scott Henke. "But we learned."
Some examples of what city officials say they've done over the last decade to provide housing at nearly all price points:
• Kissel Ridge: A single-family development that required six home-lot packages at $127,500 or less and six home-lot packages at $145,000 or more. Values are now in the $182,900-to-$235,000 range.
• Rettler Farm Estates: A single-family development in which 17% of homes had to be priced at no more than $120,000, adjusted for inflation since 2000.
• Red Oak Subdivision: A large-lot, single-family development offering two home-lot packages to first-time home buyers at less than $200,000. The developer agreed to build a three-story condo complex on adjacent property.
• Settlement Ridge: A 1990s one- and two-family housing subdivision featuring narrow streets and sidewalks and smaller lots with shallow setback requirements. Homes have appreciated substantially - they're now valued at $180,000 to $275,000.
• Gateway Estates: A mixed-use development that includes high-end apartments, duplex condos and single-family homes priced from around $281,500 to $375,000.
• North View Highlands: A one- and two-family housing development initially priced in the $150,000-to-$190,000 range, which required that eight home-lot packages be offered at $130,000 or less (in 2002). Values are now in the $210,000-to-$265,000 range.
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