An article in
Tuesday's Journal Sentinel had this to say about our population levels.
"Four [municipalities] - Wauwatosa, Whitefish Bay, Brown Deer and Shorewood - ranked among the five worst municipalities statewide in the percentage of population decline, among communities of at least 5,000 people."According to
the table presented in the article, we have lost 571 people from the year 2000 to the year 2005. The article points to smaller household sizes as the key driver of the population decline. It also mentions changing housing preferences toward large houses in the exurbs as a reason for lower demand for suburban homes. The article goes on to say,
”In Shorewood, village officials are attempting to redevelop the core area along Oakland Ave., the community's main commercial strip, to include housing. The community development authority has purchased three buildings in the 4500 block of Oakland Ave. and intends to construct a large, condominium development or housing for seniors.
"We saw this trend coming," said Chris Swartz, village manager. "We're working on it."”I have no doubt that these measures will go part of the way toward solving the problem. I fully support the bold initiatives being drafted by the Village Board at this very moment. However, there is one piece of the Shorewood missing from this analysis: rental properties. Of the 6,696 housing units available in Shorewood, 3,429 of them (52%) are rental units. Although I have not been able to find hard data stating our precise vacancy rate, anecdotally, the rate seems very high these days. In my previous two runs for trustee, many landlords mentioned a drastic up-tick in rental vacancy rates. On the two blocks near my house, there a total of eight units for rent. The house next door to me has been for rent at least since I moved in, back in August 2005. Driving around on Oakland, Capitol, and Wilson, it seems that nearly every building has had a for rent sign in front of it for most of the last year.
I will have much more to say about renters in the future. But for now, I would strongly encourage Village officials not to ignore rental vacancies when assessing the causes of population decline.
