MONROE — When it comes to the issue of the lack of available housing in Monroe, local economic development officials are teaming up with students to build new homes on a city-donated, vacant piece of property in town.
The houses are slated for the old Farmer’s Market property south of Monroe Middle School. Rather than keep the land off the tax rolls, the city is hoping four new houses there will not only lessen the overall tax burden but provide some rarely available units.
“We really want to make sure we are good stewards of the land that you guys are donating,” said Green County Development Corporation (GCDC) Executive Director Olivia Otte, who is helping coordinate the effort with the Home Construction Cooperative and the student partners.
The price of the modest-sized homes is estimated in the $250,000 range. According to Realtor.com, the median listing price for a home in Monroe is now up to about $312,000, with the median sold price at $268,000.
Several initiatives have already been launched to address the lingering housing issue in Monroe, including new single and multi-family dwellings on the city’s far northwest edge by Walmart. Those include the Alice Place senior apartments and the Haven Hills subdivision. Farther down the road, the city is expecting potentially hundreds of new houses to be build both adjacent to the new high school site; and on the old site after the school completes its move.
On the Farmer’s Market land, GCDC is working to finalize design work completed by a group of students from The University of Wisconsin-Platteville. The building of the homes will include high school students interested in learning about the building trades from Monroe High School.
“It’s good to see the collaboration,” between the groups, said City Administrator Brittney Rindy.
The Monroe Common Council was briefed by GCDC Director Olivia Otte and a group of UW-Platteville senior students at its May 6 regular meeting. They were briefed on various layout options of the houses, potential costs, and a completion schedule that has the first one of the units built and ready for occupancy in 2025.
The houses include two bedrooms with simple layouts and unfinished basements with egress windows providing the option to finish the basements up to city code in the future. Several parking options were presented, including concrete pad configurations and even potential for a covered parking structure. But Otte said the designs are far from finalized.
“They (the UW-Platteville students) have been putting in a lot of leg work and put in a lot of hours to give us a good cost estimate to give us what’s the most cost effective…,” said Otte. “That does not mean these are the exact kind of builds that are going on these units… it’s really to give us at GCDC an idea of what types of houses could go on these sites that would be most cost effective and what the price range is in order to be planning for the future.”
After their presentation to the council, Mayor Donna Douglas posed for pictures with the students and praised their work on behalf of the city.
“I think it is awesome that Green County Development, the high school, the city, all of us collaborating and communicating … and moving forward to 2025.”