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Resident urges Sawyer County focus on affordable, aging-in-place housing
Summary
At a Sawyer County Health and Human Services meeting, Edgewater property owner Linda Zilmer urged county leaders to prioritize housing that residents can afford and maintain and to consider demographic trends showing an aging population.
Linda Zilmer, an Edgewater property owner, told the Sawyer County Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) committee that the county’s demographic trends and recent housing analyses show an urgent need for policies that support affordable housing and aging-in-place options. “If you’re gonna move here from a city… everything but housing was more expensive than if you lived in a city. And now housing is, as you know, very expensive and, out of the reach of most people who are residents here,” Zilmer said.
Zilmer referenced a January 2024 housing study conducted through Extension and a more recent report from Forward Analytics and said the county’s broadband planning materials suggest more vacant units than occupied dwellings in some areas. She noted that Sawyer County has had an older population than the state average for decades and said that much of the county’s future housing supply will come from existing homes freed up as older residents move out of the housing stock or die.
Zilmer recommended the HHS committee play a stronger coordinating role in housing decisions and warned against having county housing policy made only in other committees without HHS input. “I really do think that this committee holds the key as to providing some guidance on housing,” she said.
The committee did not take a formal vote on housing policy at the meeting. Committee members discussed whether housing should be reviewed across multiple committees and noted similar findings presented recently to the county’s finance and economic development groups that rising housing costs have outpaced income gains in other Wisconsin counties, though Zilmer said local figures were not included in that study.
No specific programs, zoning changes, or funding commitments were proposed during Zilmer’s remarks; she urged more cross-committee coordination and attention to housing affordability, maintenance costs and contractor shortages as the county plans for demographic change.
