Available lots with water, sewer, streets, and other utilities already in place are in short supply in Oneida County, especially in the Rhinelander area.
Putting those in can cost anywhere from $850 to $1,000 a square foot.
Oneida County Economic Development Corporation Executive Director Tony Pharo says if a developer was to take on those costs, it would price out buyers before they even build the house.
The Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority, or WHEDA, has low interest loans for housing infrastructure, but that still has to be paid back.
“That doesn't help us, unfortunately. I'm being very respectful, I'm glad they have stuff available, but if you borrow $3 million from them for infrastructure every time you have to sell a house, and let's say there was 30 lots and you own $3 million, you would have to give WHEDA back $100,000,” said Pharo. “The buyer of that house would have to pay that additional $100,000 to that house, and again, it prices the houses out of people's range, so that's where the frustration is.”
Keeping the costs down to buyers and renters is critical as, according to Pharo, “affordable housing” is more expensive post-COVID.
“All these developers have to deal with the cost of supplies and goods, the tariffs, everything else that's in place,” said Pharo. “Affordable before COVID and after COVID is a different word in my world, because you could buy something a lot cheaper before and now everything that's happened, prices are just double or triple what they used to be.”
Pharo has searched high and low trying to find grants to meet the county’s need. He’s reached out to state and federal lawmakers for answers, but so far no one has found a grant option that would work.
“If I'm missing something, if someone knows a way to get infrastructure in Oneida County, I'm all ears,” said Pharo. I'll partner with anybody.”
Of particular concern with water infrastructure is the county’s PFAS problems. The City of Rhinelander is working on a solution to bring back two of its wells that were shut down in 2019 due to PFAS contamination.
Private wells in the Stella area have some of the highest concentrations of PFAS in the country. Expanded testing because of Stella shows PFAS is also being found in privates wells in Crescent, Newbold, Pine Lake, and Sugar Camp.
“There's some concern about where the PFAS goes and how that works, so infrastructure for healthy drinking water is important,” said Pharo. “Whatever it takes to get the political figures to maybe consider helping us out when it comes to infrastructure would be very helpful.”
Pharo says Oneida County is hardly the only place in Wisconsin, let alone the country, to be dealing with this issue. He hopes as lawmakers become more aware of this issue, changes will come to how housing funds are distributed in the state.
“Hopefully, they look at ways to make the money that they have available easier and more accessible to struggling communities where housing is such a problem,” said Pharo.
In lieu of assistance from any level of government, Pharo is turning towards the private sector.
He pointed to successful initiatives like the one in Sheboygan County where businesses like Johnsonville and Kohler have put millions of dollars into a fund to build housing.
“To move housing forward, right now, I think you have to be creative. You have to look out of the box,” said Pharo. “No matter if it's in manufacturing or healthcare or teaching area, and you offer people jobs, and they come here, and then they turn the job down because there's no place to live. It becomes a problem for all of us to work on.”
A 2025 study found Oneida County needs a total of up to 217 rental units and more than a thousand owner occupied units by 2030.
