When Tony Pharo started as the Executive Director of the Oneida County Economic Development Corporation last summer, there was one major need that was repeated by just about every business he spoke with: housing.
“Just about every place I went to they said, ‘Well, we can't hire anybody. We can't expand. We can't get a teacher to come here, because there's no place for them to live,” said Pharo.
While it might be widely known there’s a need for more affordable housing in Oneida County, there hasn’t been any official study showing that and the specific needs of the county.
Pharo says many of the developers he’s spoken with want a housing study before they’ll begin work.
“It basically validates the need for needing housing in our county. This is a tool that the developers and builders use to decide what type of housing to build, whether it's a multi-family, single family, how many bedrooms, that type of situation,” said Pharo. “The study is this proof that we have a housing problem in Oneida County.”
The Oneida County Economic Development Corporation is partnering with the North Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, Nicolet College, and the Oneida County Health Department for the study.
A large component of the study is getting people who live, work, or visit Oneida County to complete a survey. It’s 17 questions that takes less than five minutes.
“We're asking everyone that works here, drives here, lives here, has a second home here, anybody that's connected to Oneida County would go on and fill out this survey so that we can put the most accurate information together,” said Pharo.
The survey is open now through April 11th. You can fill out the survey here.
Pharo said the study is a “piece of the puzzle” to fix the housing issues.
Another part is figuring out how to make the county more attractive for developers to build here.
“I know that the county board is looking at their comprehensive plan. If there's a way in the plan that they could make it so that maybe the lot sizes could be smaller, or the fees for building permits and stuff could be less, that way, they would apply for WEDA tax credits. That's one of the ways to do it,” said Pharo.
Pharo said Minocqua and Rhinelander have already taken steps in this area by creating Tax Incremental Districts as financial incentives for developers.
Pharo hopes the housing study will be complete in June or July.
