David Michael Miller
Longtime Madison landlord Ray Peterson is selling off the vast majority of his rental properties. It’s not exactly by choice — the city of Madison sued him, and Dane County Circuit Judge Julie Genovese has given him a court order.
Getting Peterson out of the rental market is a good thing. He’s built up a chain of property violations over the years, and a number of his buildings have so many violations that they are considered “no occupancy.” Take a look at the map The Capital Times put together over the summer. If there’s a rundown rental in your neighborhood, there’s a good chance it is owned by Peterson.
At the same time, Peterson provided a service. His units were unsafe, but they were affordable, and he was willing to rent to people with shaky rental histories. People who might have otherwise been homeless had a place to live because of Ray Peterson. I’m not putting Peterson up for some humanitarian of the year award; you can argue that these folks were the only people Peterson could find who were willing to live in a house where you can’t use the shower.
Now that Peterson is gone, the challenge to find workable housing solutions falls upon all of us in the Madison metro area. Our rental market is tight, and low vacancy rates make it is easy for people on the margins to get pushed out. That means we need to accept the fact that more apartment buildings are going to go up.
While negotiations between the city, neighborhood associations and developers are a good thing, some neighborhoods are going to have to accept a little more density than they would like. Some of the neighborhood development plans are a decade old; the city has changed since then, and the plans might need to as well. Developers, what I really want from you is a little more architectural diversity in this city.
I’m encouraged by the new proposals for affordable housing that have come before the city. The one that particularly excites me is the project called Madison on Broadway. My parents live in that general neighborhood, and I’ve thought for years that it is a part of town that is oddly underdeveloped. Plus, it is going to be partially run by Movin’ Out, a wonderful local nonprofit that has been working on housing issues for more than 20 years.
It’s felt like affordable housing projects around Madison have stalled over the last several years. I don’t know whether it was the downturn in the national housing market or fallout from Madison’s well-intentioned but flawed inclusionary zoning work. Either way, there is finally some progress now.
Ray Peterson is on his way out, but I hope his former tenants will have nicer places to move into.
