Zoning & Land Regulation Committee - Regular Meeting

being the time is 534, I'd like to call the joint meeting of zoning and land regulation committee to order. And if interim director or if interim zoning administrator Hans Holbert could call the roll, please.

Sure, I'm not looking for another promotion at this point, but.

Yeah, I know.

Sorry. Supervisor Peterson.

Peterson here.

Supervisor Postler.

Postler here.

Supervisor Cronin. Supervisor Ritt.

Ritt here.

And Chair Doolin.

Doolin here.

Or present. Cronin absent.

Okay, I am just, I'm looking at our agenda, Chair Doolin, and I do see a couple items that I think the HHN committee might be able to dispense with quickly to allow our staff to be able to move on with their days and not sit here all evening if there's any objection. If perhaps we could move... Our 2026 Human Services Contract Addendum 003 to the top of the agenda at this point. Director Schluter, are you available? Yes, I am. Is that work for you to take that item up? So I think Division Administrator Campbell doesn't need to stick around through all of the presentations and everything?

Madam Chair, if you need a motion to move that, I'll make that entertaining for you.

Thank you. Supervisor Dantzler, is there any objection to that? Okay, we'll move up item E, HISCA 003. Amanda, are there any registrants on that item?

No, Chair.

Okay. Then, Dr. Suter, can you provide an overview, please, for the committee?

Yes. All right. So, HISCA 003, Addendum to Catholic Charities, five-door contract. This contract is being increased by $30,000 to add capacity for residential substance use disorder treatment at five-door. Five-door is operated by Catholic Charities. As a general overview, Five Door is a Medicaid provider, and they received reimbursement for the treatment that they provided. But Medicaid does not cover room and board expenses for the residents that are in treatment. We have a number of contracts like this where we fund room and board only for Dane County residents going through Medicaid-funded treatment. Division Administrator Campbell's app call as well.

Great. Thank you. Are there any questions for Director Schluter or Division Administrator Todd Campbell? Not seeing any hands. Is there a motion to approve the contract addendum?

So moved, Supervisor Dantzler.

Thank you. Any discussion on the motion? Not seeing any hands. Is there any objection to unanimous approval of the motion? Seeing no objection, the motion is approved. And we're taking care of that one. I believe that was the only one that doesn't relate to a presentation or the housing division, Director Schroeder, is that right?

I think so. Can you hear me better now?

That is much better. Yes. Okay.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I had the wrong, I was, anyway, I've sorted it out. Yeah, I think, I think, I think that's the only one.

Okay. Well, then we have taken care of that. And then I think, don't let me forget about the minutes, but I think then it would be appropriate to move to the report from the NENA collective since we have so many people here. Is there any objection to moving to item G posted for the quorum of ZLR as well? All right. Then we will do that. And we have... a number of folks here with us. And Director Schluter, do you want to introduce this item? And I believe Casey Becker and Ashley Ballweg is here from the Housing Access and Affordability Division. And they can also provide us some context. We did hear from the NENA Collective and their consulting partners on this a few months ago. So we're excited to have you back. But just a little refresher, especially considering we do have some new committee members, new board members on the Health and Human Needs Committee. So a little background would be appreciated.

I'm going to kick it right to Division Administrator Becker as long she was, I think she had a power outage. So I think she's at Northboard. So let me try to queue her up here.

While he's looking for Casey, Ashley, am I missing anybody on the panelists? Sorry, if I'm moving to virtual and we have a couple of presentations, we have a couple of guests. I want to make sure I have everybody moved over to panelists right now.

Amanda, everyone that's going to be presenting is on the panelists that I can see. Thank you for confirming.

I should ask, Amanda, did anybody register for public comment on this item?

No, not on this item. Okay, thank you.

I am live from Northport. Can everybody see me and hear me okay? Yeah. All right. It is very exciting. Hi, everybody. We're equally excited to be welcoming our partners from NENA Collective back to share the latest on the Farmworker Housing Initiative that they are partnering with us on. Just to provide a little bit of background in the Dane county budget I would have been maybe a couple of years ago now, there was a capital amendment that provided $8 million total that to support the exploration and establishment of housing for farm workers and. Before we get to the housing part, we thought it would be a good idea to talk with consultants and other knowledgeable folks in the community about what exactly would be the best fit for Dane County and for its farm workers and acknowledging, you know, the uniqueness of our area and what we need. So as a result of a procurement, Nina Collective was the partner that came forward, that we moved forward and established a contract with, and they've been working with us ever since and have been doing a great job going out there, engaging with all kinds of stakeholders who touch this issue. And they're going to share a little bit about the latest phase of their work with all of us tonight. And I just want to acknowledge Ashley Ballweg from our team is here and has been our lead staff person working really closely with Nina Collective on this item. We really appreciate Ashley's work. She's done a fantastic job. Ashley, is there anything that I've forgotten to mention that I should say that's really important?

No, I think you covered it. I was just going to say that tonight we have the partners with Nina from SIFT Consulting and from the UW School of Workers, but I'm sure they will introduce themselves.

All right.

Thank you. Take it away, everybody.

Good evening. Are we controlling our own presentations, PowerPoint presentations?

Yes, you should be able to.

Okay, thank you. Well, I was voluntold that I would be first. So here I am. Can you all see my presentation?

Yes.

Okay. Uh, just do this. Let me get it to presenter mode here. Ooh. So good evening, everybody. And I just wanted to say that it's really an honor to be here with you all this evening to present on some of the work that we have been doing in collaboration with Nina and SIFT these last several months. a project that's near and dear to my heart and my expertise. And I will go ahead and get started with the few slides that we put together for our part. So my name is Armando Ibarra. I am a professor in what's known as the School for Workers at UW-Madison. I'm also a member of the faculty in Chicanx and Latinx Studies on campus. I've been at the UW going on 16 years and this is by far one of the the funnest and hardest applied research projects that I have been a part of in a while. And there's many reasons for that. And one of them really is the current context that many of these workers face today that is much different than in any, well, in any other time in recent history. So what I am going to present on these preliminary findings from our enumeration stage, and I do want to share that today, June 11th, was the final date for our team to come up with the final suggestions. And so those are still pending for me to review and to move them forward onto our central folks here on campus and then off to Nina being the lead on this particular project. First, I want to give a big shout out to our research team on our end, right? This wasn't an easy task by any means, and it really required this buffet of experts that really started to ask these deeper questions about enumeration, census, worker counts, and so forth. And so I put together what are called a team that has data huddles, right? These teams of experts that come together and talk through what the puzzle is that we're putting together here, what data sources are out there, and whether we can produce some sort of methodological approach to give an enumeration that can be used by the county where we're comfortable in being as accurate as we can have given the constraints that we have here. As you see, there's folks that are in urban planning. There's folks that are labor experts. There are folks that are immigration experts. There's folks that are agricultural economists. We have people that are applied demographers, folks that do housing in rural Wisconsin specifically. And from these, we've met five or six times to discuss this project and to actually draft the report that we will be submitting as our deliverable, hopefully sooner than later. I also want to give a big shout out to our partners in this project, SIFT and NENA, who also have been very instrumental in asking those hard questions about the process of coming up with these numbers that I've got, these preliminary numbers that I'm gonna present to you in a bit.

Hey Armando, can I interrupt you for one second? I think in the upper left corner, if you click use slideshow, we'll be able to see your full slide. Right now it's hard to see it. Do you see where it says use slideshow on your screen?

Yes, sorry about that. Is that better?

Perfect, yes, thank you.

Thank you, I didn't even know what that was. But, okay. So what we did is we use various data sources to really tell this story about, you know, how many workers are in the agricultural industry here in Dane County. And it might sound like an easy task to do, but it's quite complicated. In a sense, there is no contemporary count of farm workers in Dane. in Dane County or any type of national enumeration at this time. I think that the last time we had a census of agriculture was back in 2022, and I don't see one happening in the foreseeable future. But we do have indicators out there of workers and of workers by not just industry, but by occupation within this industry. And we were able to collect data, for example, different types of NAIC data for different types of workers in different sectors of the agricultural industry, both those that are employed on farms, those that are employed in some types of food processing or manufacturing facilities, and also other workers that are associated with agricultural production. That was one part of the puzzle. The other one was to estimate the number also of dairy workers and dairy workers as an anchor to this enumeration or this estimation that we are able to provide. And without getting into that, the actual process of how we came out with these numbers, which it's all detailed in the report. This is the actual workforce scenarios that we came up with. So, and the workforce scenarios are, they're ranged. and they're bounded by the data sources, but also by the dairy industry, because that is a central number here that we use. If you'll see, we have a low workforce estimate of about 1,440 workers in the County of Dane that are a part of this enumeration, a high number of about around 3,000 2962 workers. And then the moderate estimate, the one right in the middle, that is the one that we think should be used by the county to do the work. Sorry, I've got a two year old trying to jump in. That moderate estimate that is the one that we're going to recommend for usage was just 2,348 workers that are spread across Dane County. We did produce a fairly inclusive definition of farm workers, which is also within the report. And it was something that was discussed in length. within our data huddle teams, but also with the bigger NENA collective research team as well. So there is a very inclusive definition of farm workers. I mentioned earlier this count that the Census of Agriculture has, and they estimate somewhere between 3,300 and 3,400 workers in Thane County back in 2022. So that's a higher end. And what that is is self-reporting by the actual owners of these different types of employment sites. So we're fairly comfortable using that 2348 number as a good point of a moderate workforce in this industry here. So now that we have this estimate of workers around 2,300, we have to see what it looks like in terms of housing needs. We know that within this population, we have everything from H2A workers, which are contracted laborers that are brought from other places, other countries to work temporary jobs in agriculture. We know that there's migrant and seasonal agricultural workers. Some of those migrant and seasonal agricultural workers are Wisconsin-based, but many of them are also migrating from places outside of the state and places outside of the county within Wisconsin. We also know that there's year-round farm workers that currently live here and are established, have families, and so forth. And we also know that industries such as the dairy industry are bound by the herd's biological needs. So they need tending and caring 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. And so what this is telling us is there's a mixture of different types of family structures or people that are here alone within that 2,300 plus estimate that we have. What we did is we created a formula to be able to give a full count account that includes not just the workforce, but also their family members based on other data that we're drawing on of what we know of these populations. And for that, obviously we used more of the up-to-date data from places like the American Community Survey, but we also right now have a survey that we're undertaking where we've been able to collect about 300 plus surveys of farm workers in Wisconsin that we can hope to draw a much more accurate marker of these family units within agriculture, the agricultural worker population itself. But given what we have right now, We find that, you know, these again are bounded estimates. And we find that there's within the agricultural worker community, this means the worker plus families and loved ones, we see that we estimate that there's about 5,000 people or 4,935 people that are part of of this working population or part of this working community in Dane County. And what that produces is really this need, this envelope of housing that we are comfortable in presenting I'm hoping that's still the case after I see the reviews from the members, but at 1,644 housing units that are needed to be able to house this working population. We also know that housing demands follow corridors, right? There's different quarters where people live. People don't necessarily live where they work or maybe not even nearby, like immediately by where they work. but they live close to access, to transportation access. They live closest to other folks, which is something that we really dug into with the Applied Pop Lab. And they put together a series of maps that highlight these corridors of where we see movement happening and movement of people. And they're also pretty detailed, and they're a part of this of this report. Importantly here is that people don't necessarily live by where they work. They live where it's affordable to live. And that could mean that they drive to work. Some of them live on site, but the vast majority are pretty mobile. So these are just a sum of what I just presented here in this last few slides. I know I've only got about eight minutes and I'm gonna probably take in every bit of it. So we have our planning baseline of 2,348 workers. We estimate that to house, be able to house all these workers along with their family and loved ones. We need about 1,644 housing units. We have to treat these types of initiatives as economic infrastructure and social infrastructure more than anything else. And I think That is my time. And I want to thank you. And I am open to any questions. The full report will be in your hands via Nina here in the next month or so. So please, any questions or any comments, I welcome. If not, I pass it on to Sarah and Jill.

Thank you so much. Are there any questions for Armando? I'm not seeing any hands. That was very helpful. It's really good to see some real numbers to help define the scope of this initiative. Even though resources are limited, I think it's nice for us to know what the needs are. So really appreciate you pulling that together.

Heidi, shall we proceed, Sarah and myself? I don't see any other questions, so go for it.

Yes, thank you.

Excellent. I'm just going to get my screen sharing up. Well, good evening, everybody. Sarah and I really appreciate being with you here all today and appreciate your time and attention. My name is Jill Gruendijk and I'll be presenting this evening along with my colleague, Sarah Elliott. We are the two person team that is SIFT Consulting and our work centers very much on building resilient food systems in all the different ways you could define resilience. So we're really we really are thrilled to be a part of this project and contributing to this initiative. So yeah, we're the third main team as a part of this team of consultants who are developing the farmworker housing plan for Dane County. This evening, we're going to share what we've learned through two housing opportunities labs. We'll be sharing how those findings are very much shaping our thinking and how we're beginning to approach the next phase of developing recommendations. We are not going to be presenting any recommendations tonight, but we are starting to see clear patterns emerge regarding what is feasible, what is desirable, and kind of where those two things don't always perfectly align. So as we've moved through this project, we've shifted from the information gathering of phase two toward really testing concrete housing plan elements. And so tonight's presentation really reflects that transition. So we'll be briefly revisiting the engagement process. sharing what emerged from the Housing Opportunities Labs, discussing some of those tensions that repeatedly surfaced, and then walking through how we will evaluate housing models moving forward. We provided in advance our phase three interim summary report, which includes more details regarding the key findings from those housing labs. We encourage you to read that document in full. And during this presentation, we'll be kind of highlighting some of those key ideas. So it's important to remember that the Housing Opportunities Labs did not happen in isolation. The labs were very much designed to build upon everything that came before them. The in-depth interviews, focus groups, surveys, and lots and lots of conversations with stakeholders that were across the housing, agricultural, planning, and advocacy sectors. Throughout the process, we've intentionally sought out diverse and varied perspectives. And just a little kind of reminder note that very much SIFT kind of handled the constellation of other stakeholders that were really important to this project while the School for Workers and NENA collective led the in-depth farmworker engagement. So while these engagement numbers are important, what matters more is the range of perspectives represented. So we heard from people responsible for housing policy, people responsible for land use decisions, people who work with and advocate for farm workers. And then we engage with farm owners who are trying to operate viable businesses while housing their workforce. It was clear that no single stakeholder group sees the entire picture. They see their portion, and all those perspectives are necessary when examining the very complex problems related to the lack of safe and adequate farmworker housing in Dane County. The Housing Opportunities Labs and especially the second lab were intended to begin to put some of these different perspectives in conversation with one another. So the first housing lab. So the first lab was intentionally exploratory. And I will note both labs were in-person participatory workshops. So for the first lab, rather than kind of creating or sort of offering up initial like potential solutions, we began by engaging in a very valuable premortem exercise, asking what might prevent this project from succeeding. And then participants stress tested early housing concepts and identified barriers to implementation. So most of the conversation at the first housing lab focused on zoning, permitting, governance, and community and political feasibility. The second housing lab built upon those earlier conversations from the first lab by introducing more concrete housing concepts and giving participants something specific to react to. This was really a key to the second housing lab. So participants examined actual prototype models, discussed ownership and management structures, and debated issues such as tenant eligibility and protections. The goal wasn't to reach consensus, it was very much to understand where different stakeholders aligned, where they diverged, and what themes repeatedly surfaced. We also began to understand the specific pros and cons of different housing models. So at its core, this project really sits at the intersection of these three realities. First, there are the needs and preferences expressed by farm workers themselves. Second, there are the practical realities of developing and operating housing. And then third, there are the legal, political, and community realities that shape what can actually move forward in the incredibly complicated and challenging housing landscape that is Dane County. The labs were designed to test whether or where those three realities could be brought into alignment and begin to uncover some of the specific tensions that emerge when they cannot. So we will now walk through several findings that emerged consistently from both of the Housing Opportunities Labs. What is noteworthy is that not all participants agreed on every detail, of course, but what's noteworthy is that many of the same themes surfaced repeatedly across different conversations, different activities and exercises we facilitated, and different stakeholders. So perhaps the strongest finding from both labs is that zoning and regulatory barriers are not simply just one challenge among many, but really they are often the factor that determines whether a housing concept is even possible. Several participants observed that relatively modest housing solutions become difficult when development rights, infrastructure requirements, parcel configurations, or approval processes create barriers. Perhaps most notably, some farm owners indicated that if zoning pathways were more straightforward, they would pursue housing improvements without necessarily requiring county subsidy. So that raises important questions about the relationship between regulatory reform and direct investment and which is more likely to spur more long term opportunities for farm worker housing. The second major finding relates to program participation. Across multiple conversations, participants expressed concern that well-intentioned programs can become so complex that they inadvertently discourage participation. And I will note that this applies to farm workers, but also to farm owners and other stakeholders that would make the program as impactful as we want it to be. So public funding requires accountability, but every additional requirement introduces friction. So the challenge, really a key challenge with this work moving forward, will be designing programs and housing options that provide appropriate oversight and accountability while remaining accessible and practical for the people they are intended to serve. One of the clearest areas of alignment was around the idea that no single housing model is likely to meet the full range of needs present across state and county. Different farms operate at different scales. Workers have different family structures, different housing preferences. And as a result, participants generally gravitated toward the idea of a portfolio approach that includes multiple housing pathways rather than a single large investment strategy. And with that, I'm going to pass it to Sarah to continue sharing out some of our key findings. Thank you, Jill.

So as Jill had mentioned in the beginning, there continue to be many different tensions and paradoxes that are coming up. And we wanted to spend a little time tonight highlighting three kind of recurring tensions that just keep showing up repeatedly. The first is the tension between employer control and worker independence and autonomy. And so farm owners, tend to view housing as a workforce tool and many of them want they many of them provide housing for their workers and they want that housing to be available when they need it and having it available is really a way to attract workers um they also want it to be close enough that to the farm and to them that they can kind of monitor and maintain it and they want it to be connected to employment, to serve as a benefit for being employed on your farm. And then simultaneously, we have farm workers, housing advocates, and others who are consistently raising the concerns about the vulnerability that is created when housing is tied to employment. The second tension that keeps coming up is this tension between proximity to farms and access to community services, resources, and other assets. Farm owners tend to want workers to be close to the farm. I think especially since split shifts are very common in the dairy industry. We also have a lot of farm workers who lack driver's licenses. So driving a distance to work can pose not only this time imposition because they may have to drive there multiple times, but it's also a safety risk. And so understandably, we're also hearing that farm workers want like transportation options and stores and social connections and like the normalcy that can come not living on the farm. And in some ways, this tension, I think, is common for almost anyone who lives in rural areas, but it's really exacerbated by a lot of the lived realities of a farm worker. And then the third tension that we want to highlight is this tension between what is actually feasible and what is aspirational. And so participants are often describing housing approaches that would be really highly desirable from a worker perspective, But like very difficult or maybe even impossible to implement because of zoning and infrastructure and political support or cost or the management complexities or just the realities of how development in Dane County works. And then kind of conversely. A lot of the most immediately feasible options, like options that are allowed in zoning and with our current political realities and community realities, don't actually solve the underlying concerns around farmworker autonomy or mobility or stability. And so Jill had mentioned this earlier, but one thing that we are really learning over and over again from the housing labs is that there is no one universally perfect solution for farmworker housing in Dane County. And participants really consistently surfaced tensions that require kind of balancing multiple legitimate priorities at the same time. And so as we move into the recommendations phase of this project, it's really not about finding a perfect solution. It's about making very thoughtful, intentional choices and then having conversations around mitigating the resulting trade-offs that come with each of those housing models. So one of the other themes that we want to highlight was that housing design and placement should prioritize privacy, flexibility, and the practical needs of farm workers. And this was actually one area that there was really strong alignment kind of around what are the characteristics of good housing. And participants consistently emphasized privacy, dignity, stability, flexibility, and also the functionality of the housing. And farm workers need housing that really supports their daily life and isn't just like a place to sleep. And so all sorts of really practical considerations were raised during the Housing Opportunities Lab, such as like cooking facilities or laundry capacity, internet access, like shared outdoor spaces. all sorts of like accommodations for different household types, just like very solid, tangible things. And it was heartening, I think, that the discussion like immediately moved past like what are the bare minimum standards, which I think is often what comes up in some of the like legal documentation around what is required for farm worker housing. It was like, that wasn't the conversation. The conversation immediately leapt to like what, how can housing really create the conditions for farm workers to thrive? So tenant eligibility and rights, I think was one of the most nuanced conversations that came out of the second housing opportunities lab, And it really continues to be one of the most nuanced conversations that we're having with various stakeholders. And so participants agree that housing should be stable and accessible to farm workers. There definitely are differing perspectives around how closely that housing should remain connected to employment and kind of the specifics of the tenant protections. And some of the nuance came from like very specific details around like what types of identification would actually make the program fail, like would be a deal breaker or what types of employment verification could be required. And I think the main takeaway from this conversation was that like eligibility and protection policies are not just these like trivial program details. They really are like very central design decisions that will influence who benefits, who is able to participate and really like how the housing functions over time. And so as we move towards the recommendations, we're really viewing this as a like decision making framework as opposed to this like quest for the perfect housing model. The question isn't like which housing model is best. different goals naturally point towards different housing options, different ownership options, different management structures. And really understanding these relationships between the goals and all of these different options is what's going to help us make more transparent and intentional recommendations. And so developing a housing strategy is really a process of balancing values that are sometimes competing, deciding which trade-offs are acceptable for whom under what conditions and with what like safeguards and no single housing model is going to solve all of the farm worker housing problems in Dane County and different housing models kind of optimized for different outcomes. And every strategy is going to involve trade-offs. And so this next slide kind of illustrates the framework that we've been using internally. And so instead of like starting with a housing type, it really starts by clarifying the problem that we're trying to solve. And then the problem shapes which models become like more or less appropriate. And from there we can identify likely trade-offs and really begin to think proactively about the safeguards that may help mitigate these trade-offs. And this approach really creates a more transparent path from the community priorities that we heard during phase one and phase two of the project to the eventual recommendations that are coming in phase four. And so just maybe like an oversimplified, not maybe, an absolutely oversimplified example, but just to help you kind of see how the framework might work. It's if reducing worker dependence on employer controlled housing is kind of the primary objective, then certain housing and ownership structures become more aligned with that goal. But also those choices might introduce other challenges, such as increased distance from the workplace or transportation challenges. So this, you know, again, the objective isn't to eliminate trade-offs, it's just to be more transparent around identifying them. And so this is an oversimplified example of kind of the path that we are taking as we start to begin to develop specific recommendations. We have learned a great deal. There is also still some important work ahead. And so across the team, we're continuing to gather targeted input completing some case studies and really refining the recommendations with practitioners and with stakeholders. And this last phase of the project is about moving from these more broad concepts towards recommendations that are really responsive to the community needs and also realistically implementable within Dane County. And so we want to close our presentation with this thought and reminder that there is no perfect housing model and that every approach is going to create benefits and limitations. It's going to create opportunities and also risks. And so the work ahead is really about making thoughtful choices and being transparent about this and then designing safeguards to help ensure that Dane County's investments are actually as effective and equitable and durable as possible. So I think with that, we would welcome any questions.

Thank you. I did have one, I think, for Dr. Ibarra. Sorry, I thought of it later, but I was wondering if you were able to... It wasn't on the slide, so I'm guessing maybe the answer is no. But if we have a sense of kind of like housing size, the number of farm worker families with children, you know, thinking about the total number of units we aspire to and are planning for, you know, be helpful to kind of get a sense of what size of units, housing units are we talking about?

Really good question. So when we do the actual, the count for the entirety of this population, it's a multiplier. So we use a multiplier effect, right? So we take what we know about similar populations and then multiply it. So for example, for this particular estimate, we have the number in that middle bound and then we multiply it by 50%, 0.5 of this population has a family, right? And with a family size averages about 3.2 people. I mean, that's the way they average out. And I, to be quite honest with you, I have not thought about the type of dwellings that these would be. I can tell you what we're learning about wants and desires from the one-on-one interviews that we're conducting with farm workers and dairy workers at the moment that we hope to complete here in the next couple of weeks. And it's interesting. It's a fairly straightforward answer always is, you know, I think the privacy is the topic of the list for folks with dignity and they want to have a room for themselves and the room for their children, right? For those that have children. But in terms of dwellings, it would, you know, with that type of, Family size three, right? Then that is the multiplier that I would say. So two and one, two and two in terms of size. But that's just me just... guessing right now. So I'll go back to that and tell you and come back with some sort of dwellings. What I can tell you is that we also have affordability measures that we analyze within the report itself. We actually look at at data that gives us the different ranges in affordability by type of agricultural worker, right? So we know that affordability is different if we base it on a 30% of income for housing number, right? So if you're working in, let's say, for example, in food manufacturing, your estimated income from the QCW numbers will tell us that it's about $4,500 a month in comparison to some of the works. For example, as a seasonal worker, or what have you, which is much less. So that affordability scale is also something that comes into play. And probably one of the biggest factors here is affordability in Dade County itself, right? Within the scales of affordability of these different types of workers occupations within the agricultural industry. So that gives us a much more multi-layered answer to what do these folks need or what is it that they want in terms of housing? But I can tell you that I've interviewed some workers where, you know, one of the final questions on our survey instrument is, what are your hopes and aspirations for housing? And one person that stands out is why should I have hopes and aspirations at this moment in my life, right? We're just trying to get through the day and make sure that our kids get to school and be able to get home the same day. So I mean, so we have those ranges, right, that we're finding out there as well. But yeah, I think that Sarah and Jill really bring something tangible forward in terms of, uh, in terms of, of, of the work they're doing with what can be done with what we got. Right. Everybody here knows that $8 million will get us so far. But if it is an aspirational type of report that shows the need and the size of the need, right, then, you know, quite honestly, what you can do with $8 million is probably provide some sort of housing for a fraction of the need at this moment. But it's a really good start. And I talked all the way around that, Heidi, to say that I don't know what precisely is square footage, but I know that there is numbers. But now that I think about it, I also serve on the Governor's Migrant Farmworker Committee thingy, and there is precise numbers that they use for migrant farmworkers for their boats as well. So I'm sure that there's numbers in there.

Thank you. I don't know what supervisor was next, but I'll call on Chair Doolin.

Thank you, Chair Wagner. In terms of, I have so many questions, so trying to isolate it to a couple of things until I get to see the reports. Was there any In terms of seeing barriers as far as land regulation, zoning and planning, I know that some, for example, farmland preservation grants and things like that are based on that piece and preserve it. Federal funding or different funding sources from different levels of government um required certain regulations and zoning that are not within our purview always at the state or federal level um is there a plan or have we been separating what can be done say at the county level as opposed to what would Can we isolate some of the things that we could actually do at the county level and what we might need to do to leverage more support higher up the food chain? Just to kind of narrow our scope.

I mean, the short answer is yes, that the final report will have both some of the things that are more overarching issues policy that comes at a state level, et cetera, and also things that are specific recommendations within the Dane County zoning code that would be able to bolster more farm worker housing.

Excellent. And if I may follow up with one more question related to that a little bit, when it comes to farm workers and food production, which are very much hand in hand, my day job's at DATCP, so I get it. Is there, did you, have you been able to like interview people from family farms or we're talking factory farms or we're talking all of the above? Because we know, you know, the smaller the entity, the less they have to work with. um, the less profit there is. And, you know, there's different playing fields, different scales. It's, it's like those of us who, you know, it's, it's like workers throughout. So is there going to be kind of some differentiation and, um, between that to see how we could, because we're solving more than one problem then at that point. I mean, we're solving more than one problem anyways, but I guess who they're working for would be a big factor in finding solutions as well. So is there any note, like when you're getting your information, is there any, are we identifying some of those different differences?

Yeah, I think that maybe you and actually the NENA, our partners at NENA may be the best ways to speak at that. But just from the farm owner perspective, we've been trying to kind of cater our outreach to be representative of the agriculture in Dane County. So we certainly have included like much smaller scale or veg CSA farms, but we also have engaged with them at a lesser level than dairy because dairy is really the predominant agriculture in Dane County that has a lot of farm workers. And so we've tried to be proportional. And I think we've been leaning more into identifying cross-cutting themes than trying to like parse apart the different needs.

Thank you very much.

From the point of view of putting together the data itself from what we have, we do have a clear definition that we are using to be able to guide our counts or our estimates of farm workers. And I can tell you that it's employees, it's people that get a paycheck, it folks that that work in different types of occupations within agriculture or dairy or some sort of production. And this includes everything from year-round workers, dairy workers, seasonal crop workers, H-2A workers, livestock workers, support workers, contracted Floyd workers, people that are in food processing, and so forth. And these distinctions are made clearly as to the numbers within the report itself.

Thank you so much.

Okay, Supervisor Peterson.

Thank you, Chair. I think I have two questions, folks. The report recommends, I think it's at 1,644 housing units. We're planning for that. I wasn't clear how many of those units already exist today, or is that the gap?

That's the totality. We don't know how many there is out there, but it's minimal. We do know that there is, for example, some migrant and seasonal farm worker that's operated on the periphery. of Dane County, right? And not necessarily in Dane County, because one of the real big questions that we had when we were putting this puzzle together was what if they live in an adjacent county, but the labor, their work is in Dane County, right? Would they be counted for something like this? And for us, the answer was yes. So for example, these seasonal farm work, or there's a, A year-round farm labor community that's operated by UMOS at one of the adjacent counties where most of these workers work at Seneca. And then we have another one in the Waterloo area where folks work on both sides in some of these greenhouses, both in Dane County and right outside of Dane County as well. So those are kind of difficult. We know that there are some H2A, you know, places where people work. uh and where we have we do have data of of the uh the places where people stay while they're here or actually were here in the previous year and we also know that there is you know uh housing um that is provided by many of the dairy uh owners on site that it that uh houses some of uh some of the workers. Most recently, I went to a dairy housing area and it was, you know, an old home that was converted into multiple apartments. And I would say there was probably eight workers with family and extended family members that were living there. And this is all just to say is that we wish we could have that count. But, you know, it's difficult to get that count from when because folks aren't really collecting that. What we collect is what we got, right? And these different pockets of data that's validated data, but in terms of housing, it would be very difficult to say, you know, maybe we can say that most CAFOs, and this is just talking, right? Most CAFOs that are based in dairy or in dairy herds provide some sort of housing, right? And then But yeah, that's a really good question.

Thank you. I just want to add really quickly to David for your second question, just to extra emphasize what Armando was saying that in our phase two engagement, we heard over and over again about the lack of supply of affordable housing near the farms and that current housing is aging in disrepair. So we very much saw qualitatively that gap just to add that.

Maybe also to piggyback, it's like a patchwork. Like there is like, and we know that from farm owners, they're like farm owners may be able to provide housing onsite for some of their workers and some of their workers might be you know, bunking with family and friends and some of their workers might be driving in from a nearby community. And it's like this kind of hodgepodge. And because so many of the farm workers are kind of living this shadow existence, it's like very difficult to have any sort of like definitive answer.

I mean, I agree with all of that. Right. And again, some of this, you know, I think I knew the answer. But I had to ask it all the same, right? And I think we all know, right, like housing is a big issue across the county, regardless of suburban, urban, or rural. But it's typically, you know, in my district, right, when I'm talking to more rural folks, like, especially from a farm perspective or farming perspective, like, hey, we need more housing. Well, I don't. you know, it changes the character. And again, there's all the things that we've, we've heard, right. And it's like, but you have people that work here, you know, and they have, they need to go somewhere. Right. So I typically try to meet that with a data point or two. Right. But again, this is not, and I want to be very clear. This is not easy data to get. Right. So I'm not asking, I work in data myself. So I understand how hard that is to you, but like, there has to be something we can do. I mean, longer term or something we could try or something. And again, there's probably something we can do is just, I don't know what that is off the top of my head. I think the only other question I had, and again, thank you for all the work here. You identify zoning and regulatory barriers as constraints here. Just from your perspective, and again, I won't hold you to anything, but if the county could only pursue maybe two or three policy changes, which changes would produce the greatest increase in feasible housing? And again, that's a tough question. So I don't know what's a perfectly good answer to.

I think we're going to defer to our final report. I definitely don't know which ones I think would be the most yet, the most impactful yet. So I would say stay tuned.

And if I may add, I think that there's a, you know, when we've had the opportunity to have these deep discussions in our full research teams, right, with SIFT and all of us at the UW and very aspirational. And sometimes I ask questions that really get... these hard answers, well, you can't do that because it's part of the zoning, right? One of the things that I think that would have immediate impacts on housing would be some sort of, well, you know, if the funds that are available right now if somehow they could be made for rental assistance and or and or a deposit assistance. I think that's one of the biggest barriers that folks have into getting into apartments is having that first that first month rent the the deposit and then still being able to make that the month to for your basic needs as well.

Yeah, we're going to have to ask the state or something to give us some money for that. Unfortunately, these are capital borrowing dollars, which is where most of our, I mean, the huge super majority of our housing money is, is in capital borrowing. We have really kind of limited ability to raise revenue in our operating budget to fund something like rent assistance. But I think it's okay. I mean, I think saying move-in costs and rent assistance supports are needed, even if it doesn't match the current funding we have, is still useful information. And it won't be a surprise probably to anyone because it's a need across the board. So I wish it was that easy. Unfortunately, it's not. But we can, you know, support creation. And with that support, we can restrict rent limits to require affordability. But that's not the same as providing move-in costs. However, there's things that developers can do to... lower barriers to entry or, you know, waive certain types of, you know, moving costs for that matter, security deposits, things like that. You know, those are... maybe some barriers that could be required in a grant agreement or a loan agreement or something like that, too. So identifying those barriers, I think, is helpful in thinking about how a program is structured to best meet needs. But it might be that there's some other funding out there that's going to need to be found or secured or a different partner that brings that part of the puzzle together so um and i see supervisor welsh has been patiently waiting thank you uh supervisor go ahead uh thank you and thank you for all of the hard work on this i think most of my question was actually answered through other questions um the one that

The one remaining component of a question, um, I had was in regards to the zoning regulation, uh, zoning and regulation barriers that were mentioned. Um, obviously we can control what we can control here at the county level, but I'm, I'm wondering to what extent. The barriers, um, were seen more at the, the very local level at the municipal level. Um, or were they really all more at the county level that you were seeing?

I think I would say both because we had, you know, the balance between opt out towns and the folks that were in unincorporated areas of Dane County that are under county zoning and both were having some shared barriers. Because of the fact that this report is for Dane County and because we really needed to kind of like focus somewhere, our emphasis was more on the county zoning and looking less into like opt-out towns and things, different zoning codes. So some of them are certainly, some of the things that are barriers are certainly barriers across both.

Thank you. The reason why I ask is I think there's an opportunity with the regional planning that's going on in the county level, throughout the county, I should say, that if there are barriers that are also seen at the more municipal level, I think the now is a good time to address those as well. So I just don't want to lose that as a bigger picture if we're looking at really focusing on corridors that might intersect with municipal zoning regulations.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Supervisor Doolin.

Thank you again. Every time there's a question answered, I get another one. One of the things I remember from interviews with the realtors association etc was that whenever developers would come through with things and they would get funding for certain fees and stuff occasionally like at the municipal level they would raise their fees in order to because again townships don't have you know the the type the level of funding that you know a county does or whatever and so you know they're trying to recoup costs by raising fees and some of that is preventative So I know that, you know, whatever we can do, if we're going to change things, if there's any kind of regulatory oversight that would make funding available, like how could Dane County cooperate with those municipalities to prevent that? prevent that. You know, when you have an agreement for a higher funding source, oh, we can charge more now and we'll get the money. And that was preventative in some cases when it came to developers. The other one, so if we could, you know, keep that in mind, the other issue that I ran into when I was, you know, in my last election, I was without a I'd won the race, and then my landlady didn't renew my lease out here in rural Dane County, so I had to scramble to find a house. And so we were looking at all kinds of funding sources for ourselves personally, but a lot of funding sources at the federal level, like VA loans, don't cover manufactured housing. Like, you know, or they're loath to do that. So... if they're you know when we're exploring types affordability and things perhaps you know those become barriers that you have to work harder to get through to make those work so if there's anything that you could identify that would help us help streamline those processes to make different funding available without making the individual make people individuals have to try to work so hard that makes that a barrier um that would be helpful as well so um did you have a question in there yeah i do have a question about with that um I mean, when it came to terms of barriers and feasibility and things like that, were you able to identify some of those things? I mean, apart from just down payment, et cetera, but like barriers maybe for the farms themselves to provide housing that made those things restrictive.

Sure. I think that, sorry, Jill, I see you also hopped off mute. No, go for it, Sarah. From the farm owner perspective, The biggest barrier that we were seeing really was zoning and the inability to, you know, and it's the same things that I'm sure you all are very familiar with because it prevents all types of housing development in rural Dane County. And we weren't hearing from farm owners about financial barriers. I think from the farm worker perspective, there were a whole host of things that kind of fall in a similar bucket to what you were talking about, about various programs not being accessible, whether that's because of modular housing or because of lack of documentation status or whatever it is. I mean, over and over again, it was kind of like the devil will be in the details of whatever program the county implements and making sure that those like very specific details are thought through so that there aren't these like unintentional things that are hurdles that are keeping people, whether it's farm owners or farm workers from participating.

Was there any... Contacts, connections, data from USDA, Farmer's Home Rural Development Agency related to any Dane County Rural Development Farmworker Housing. And would those programs be part of sort of a matrix in thinking about this issue, kind of who those programs serve, who they don't serve, when they work, when they don't work, or if they are a piece in any way. I have to say I don't I've represented a number of renters and program participants in that type of housing. Don't think I have in Dane County, but it might be here. I'm not sure. And I'm not sure if there's a reason for that. But I just wanted to flag that because I hadn't heard anything about it. And I was wondering if anyone had looked into that or there'd be any reference to that. Okay.

To some degree. So one of the case studies that we will share is on the Meadows, which is the farmworker housing in Darlington, one of the only examples of public funding for farmworker housing. And they really... struggled because with their capital stack, they layered on different funding sources and whatever funding source comes a different set of requirements and regulations. And I mean, I'm spoiler alert, but like this is all in the case study and they would say the same that in many ways, like it's a failed development. It has really high vacancy rates because when you start layering these fundings and layering all the different requirements, It's like at each time you need to go back to what's our goal? Who is our target audience? And like, is this prohibitive? And so the USDA Royal Development specific required documentation status. And so in general, we have been looking more at programs that do not require legal documentation status.

Thank you. And I appreciate that. I just I think it is important to kind of acknowledge that why. And so, you know, we can match solutions that best meet the needs of the people here, particularly the most vulnerable workers.

And I think that's part of the big conversation in terms of just the biggest barrier that most of the folks or the workers in this population face is that of status. And it needs to be a part of this conversation. I know it's a hard conversation to have because most of the folks that I've talked to or that we interview are in what are known as mixed status families, right? Where somebody, an adult, might not have a... a proper or up-to-date immigration status and there's different types of statuses within the families all the way up to US born citizens. So, you know, in previous studies that we've done on, for example, the dairy industry is that we estimate upwards to 70% of dairy farm workers that are on farm, dairy farm workers don't have a proper immigration status. And so that in itself becomes the barrier of how do you discuss housing and how do you discuss social integration and how do you discuss aspirations in these times with some of these folks when you're out there as well. And we see similar numbers in the seasonal and year-round workers in agriculture itself, those field hands or those people that work in the greenhouses. maybe not as high as in the dairy. I think that there's something about dairy because it's so isolated that it attracts certain types of workers. But we're talking 40 or 50% of workers in those other occupations that also have questionable immigration statuses.

I'll just add really quickly that we conducted a literature review during phases one and two. And so there is a lot of existing literature and research about the success of rural housing, the USDA rural housing programs that showcase a lot of the themes that Sarah alluded to that are in our case study. And I feel like when we were doing in-depth interviews and focus groups, we were based on what was surfaced to us about current programs used or not at all, like very much like kind of from the ground up farm owner, farm worker solutions, like we kind of then directed much of our research on what that they're currently trying to leverage or not. And it didn't come up through any of those farm owner interviews or interviews with ag support orgs as well.

I also just wanted to mention in like some of the work that I do and some of the things that I attend and meetings that I go to that Just like the HUD NOFO, the USDA funding grant and requirements are drastically changing. So I've been attending webinars as like things are becoming available just to kind of have an idea if it does become something that would be like a capital stack or like another funding option with a proposed product that would come up. And so once I have more information, I haven't published the whole thing in total yet. So once I have that, I will make sure that like county staff, we have an understanding of what that is like and if someone does intend on using it. The other funding option could be WIDA, but WIDA does not include Dane County as a rural area. So their rural funds don't apply to Dane County, sadly.

Thanks for that, Ashley. Any other questions from committee members? Well, if not, this was a wonderful presentation. Again, we really look forward to the final report. And yeah. Go Mexico. Big win earlier today, right? From the first game of the World Cup.

I wanted to add that the contract is being extended through the end of September. It was supposed to end in July, but because of the thing, because of the climate and things that were happening, it was harder for all of the entities to get people to come to programming and to complete surveys. So now that the migrant workers are back for spring and summer, we have extended the contract. There's no budget change, but just to give them more time to really harness those other voices that they were unable to gather through the last 10-ish months or so. So the work is still being completed. It's just going to be, we will get the final report in September.

Okay. Thank you for that update. Appreciate it. All right, well, I think we will move on to the rest of our agenda. I don't know if you want to adjourn your meeting, Chair Doolin.

I think that, yeah, we can do that.

Thanks again, presenters. We really appreciate your work.

Thank you very much for all the work. And thank you, HHN, for having us and inviting us. So I appreciate that. So we'll move on to adjournment. Do I have a motion by a member of ZLR to adjourn?

Motion made by Peterson.

All right. Peterson moves to adjourn. And if there's no objections, I'd like to have that pass as being voted as unanimous.