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Madison reports progress toward 15,000-home goal; city highlights land banking and strategic subsidy use
Summary
PCED Director Matt Walker and staff told the Plan Commission the city is about halfway to its 15,000-home-by-2030 goal (2,800 completed; 4,739 under construction), described code changes to allow more housing types, and detailed land-banking and city-development examples used to support affordable and missing-middle housing.
City planning leaders briefed the Plan Commission on March 31 on "Housing Forward," the city's multi-pronged housing strategy, reporting progress toward the 15,000-new-homes-by-2030 goal and outlining tools the city uses to deliver affordable housing.
PCED Director Matt Walker said the 2030 target and subsidiary strategies guide the city's code and financing work. "As part of an update in 2025, we established a goal to create 15,000 new homes by 2030 using a multi-pronged approach to supporting that housing growth," Walker told commissioners.
What the city is doing: staff described three types of interventions. First, zoning and code changes in 2025 expanded allowable housing types (two-unit allowances across residential districts, expanded accessory dwelling unit rules, a new cottage-court housing type and adjusted transit-oriented development standards). Second, the city uses financing tools such as tax-increment financing (TIF), an affordable housing fund and low-income housing tax credits to support larger affordable apartment projects. Third, the city deploys land banking and, when appropriate, plays an active developer role (often via the Community Development Authority) to assemble sites and reduce barriers for nonprofit and mission-driven builders.
Case studies and examples: Walker and colleagues gave recent examples. Terresa Terrace (a CDA redevelopment) provided lessons about building six—unit "missing middle" projects and their costs. A Park Street site was land-banked and parceled to support a developer delivering housing for youth aging out of foster care; that project is under construction and expected to open in late 2026. At Voit Farm developers built market-rate housing first while the city land-banked lots intended for missing-middle ownership and nonprofit builders so financing and timing constraints could be resolved.
Funding and progress: staff said the 2026 operating budget funded an additional mapping position to reduce technical-review bottlenecks and speed permitting. On cumulative metrics, staff reported that since Jan. 1, 2025 the city recorded 2,800 completed homes and 4,739 under construction—meaning the city is roughly halfway to the 15,000-home goal when those pipelines are counted.
Affordable-housing target: the Housing Forward goal includes an affordability objective: 25% of new homes should carry some degree of permanent affordability. Staff said the city is "just under halfway" to that affordable-unit target based on units currently under construction and recently completed projects.
Commission questions focused on why small-scale missing-middle projects remain difficult (construction scale and financing gaps), vacancy tracking by AMI and how land-banking prioritizes sites near transit. Staff said smaller projects can be expensive to subsidize because they rarely qualify for large federal tools and therefore require deeper city subsidy per unit, while land banking helps hold lots for patient nonprofit builders.
Next steps: officials said staff will continue to use the housing tracker online to report pipeline progress and will return with additional details on programs and any follow-up commissioner requests.
